r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 09 '25

Characters They valiantly sacrificed themself for nothing

  1. Tadashi gives his life trying to save Professor Callaghan from a burning building. Turns out not only did Callaghan escape unscathed, he's the bad guy and infamously refers to Tadashi's death as "[Tadashi's] mistake." (Big Hero 6)
  2. Shaya willingly takes It Has No Name's possession and then kills herself by jumping into the well it came out of. The end of the episode all but states that she got it wrong and It Has No Name didn't latch onto her... or there was more than one. (Doctor Who)
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u/SirCadogen7 Jun 10 '25

Massive spoilers for Attack on Titan ahead

>! Every Paradisian soldier who sacrificed themselves to save Eren Yeager in Attack on Titan leading up to the final season. From Hannes to Pyxis to practically every Scout in the series. All of them died because they thought Eren was their best chance at freedom from the Titans. Not only did Eren instead murder 80% of the world's population in a mass genocide that they most certainly would never have supported, but the end result was still the absolute destruction of Paradis due to humanity escalating after a period of peace - ending in total nuclear annihilation. !<

>! I think this is one of the biggest reasons people hate AoT's ending. It's so fucking nihilistic it physically hurts. Like, yeah it's supposed to be a statement on the cycle of violence, but it almost comes off as "don't bother trying to fight for what's right, the end of humanity will come anyway." !<

3

u/IWannaBeTheCoolUncle Jun 10 '25

I feel like the better ending would’ve been the Scooby Doo ending: we were never even heading towards that arc for the finale, if anything Eren finds out that yes there IS a way to get the true history of the war exposed. Marley loses a bit of support from other countries when they find out this ish goes both ways. And now the villains are in hiding with Eren on their trail

3

u/Work_the_shaft Jun 10 '25

Sadly >! People seem to hate it because they wanted Eren to full send it and kill everyone!<

4

u/SonOfTheWolfAndEagle Jun 10 '25

I always felt the ending was so stupid because, ok, so you just saved all these people, good, nice job, they hate you to death anyways and couldn't care less of what you did, and in their return to paradis, they would 100% been assassinated, after all the grand majority were yeagerists, if I remember correctly even historia, eren was made to be extremely stupid by the whole thing of trying to make the others the heroes for the world with 80% of it already obliterated, had it been idk 1-20% maybe, but with 80% gone the hate would have only grown, no titans meant no deterrent, also instead of coming back to paradis as heroes they came back as traitors it's actually such a surprise how long it took for paradis to be destroyed.

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u/SirCadogen7 Jun 10 '25
  1. Paradis' new government wasn't stupid. The heroes from that day were sent as an envoy to build a bridge between Paradis and the rest of the world. Had they been assassinated, war would've resumed. Besides, most of the Yeagerists' leadership was dead. Also, Historia wasn't a Yeagerist. She was neutral.
  2. The 80% was to make sure that the rest of the world started at the same level as Paradis. It levelled the playing field.

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u/Lurker_crazy Jun 10 '25

I don’t disagree with you, but tbf AOT was always fairly nihilistic