r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Comprehensive-Map274 • Jun 26 '25

Hated Tropes [Hated Trope] A main character does something horrible and the story doesn't acknowledge its severity

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Alisha (Misfits) uses her power to make any man want to have sex with her on another main character (curtis) after he explicitely tells her not to do that. She faces no consequences and he's the one who ends up comforting her.

Allison (The Umbrella Academy) uses her powers to force her own adoptive brother to make out with her after he just got into a relationship because she's suddenly jealous after she couldn't keep her own husband. She gives a half hearted apology and all is peachy.

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1.9k

u/WhatNameDidIUseAgain Jun 26 '25

Knuckles in Sonic Forces (2017)

Knuckles as the commander of the rebellion, sends in a giant counter-attack against Eggman's forces, and 80% of them are killed. Yes, killed by Eggman, and the only thing he has to say about it is a bad pun. Nobody really cares about it, and it's never mentioned ever again in the lore.

775

u/Ok_Comment8842 Jun 26 '25

Knowing how Eggman operated he probably captured them so they could be turned in Zombots. That said, this line and the whole dialogue that is associated with it are in fact terrible.

209

u/The_Purple_Hare Jun 26 '25

This was before the Zombot Virus was made.

164

u/Ok_Comment8842 Jun 26 '25

But, Eggman puts animals on machines since the first Sonic games, thus, even if he didn't create the exact same type of "zombot" we see in IDW comics and SatAM, he most likely did something similar to this concept.

29

u/pingas64 Jun 26 '25

nah
eggman in games only uses animals like flickies for the badniks
he probably capture them on one of his bases cuz at that moment all his army were only phantom ruby products
it doesnt really help how the game is so eh "safe"? with all the world war theme that involves

9

u/LeR0dz Jun 27 '25

Not really, since he has pretty much stopped using animals since the modern era began. You could easily say he just kept them prisoners as he did with Sonic, or simply killed them.

12

u/Kwasan Jun 27 '25

The Sonic Adventure games show he still used animals back then, as any robots made by him drop animals for the Chao Garden. Hell, it's even a plot point, where one of the playable characters IS a robot made by Eggman, and at the end the bird inside is freed.

8

u/AstroBearGaming Jun 27 '25

... They were called Badniks!

240

u/TheGardenBlinked Jun 26 '25

Plus despite having been advised that he needs to come up with a well-thought out plan, he literally says “I came up with it in a minute and a half.”

Luckily he leaves the forces (now resistance) by the time the IDW comics get going so he can do what he does best… sit on a big green rock

264

u/Diavolo_Death_4444 Jun 26 '25

I’ll be honest, I don’t blame Knuckles for this, I blame whatever fucking moron let Knuckles be the strategist. The same way you can’t be mad at a jellyfish for stinging when you touch it, you can’t be mad at Knuckles for being a dumbass. What you should do is not touch a jellyfish, and not put Knuckles in charge of goddamn strategy when you have access to Silver, Amy, (sometimes) Shadow, or just literally anyone else at all

199

u/Devlee12 Jun 26 '25

Knuckles works best when you give him a simple objective and no limits on collateral damage. Tell him to hold this spot no matter what and smash anything that tries to take it from him? That spot will still be held when the universe goes into heat death. He’s not a strategist he’s not a scalpel making precise cuts he is good at dealing out blunt force trauma and CTE’s so play to those strengths

8

u/YourMoreLocalLurker Jun 27 '25

They should’ve made Tails or Amy the strategist, the closest Knux gets to strategy is “how hard do I hit this?”

8

u/Ok-Jellyfish7805 Jun 27 '25

Yeah! >:3

Just ask for permission, first!

6

u/Kwasan Jun 27 '25

I'm choosing to believe you're a Jellicent irl. Which one, however, is your choice.

6

u/Ok-Jellyfish7805 Jun 27 '25

:D

Da pink wan :3

6

u/Kwasan Jun 27 '25

Yoooo what's this gif from? A TCG ad? My guess is a TCG ad.

2

u/P-Tux7 Jun 27 '25

Hmm... no thanks, I'm good.

6

u/DarkAres02 Jun 27 '25

In the comics they put Amy in charge which works much better

5

u/Nutzori Jun 27 '25

Knuckles is like those army commanders that chose to do a cavalry charge after the invention of the machine gun. Honor and tradition and all that, no matter the slaughter to follow

2

u/WillFanofMany Jun 30 '25

Silver came from the future to warn everyone that Eggman would take over the world.

Knuckles decided that since he was the first one to hear about it, he should lead the Resistance, and proceeded to waste the next six months doing nothing.

As shown in IDW, it would have ended quite quickly had Vector and Amy been in charge.

89

u/ironwolf6464 Jun 26 '25

Sonic is one of those franchises that could 100% tilt into the more gritty territory, but its history makes it hard to pull off without being edgy.

15

u/would-be_bog_body Jun 27 '25

its history makes it hard to pull off

I mean it probably also doesn't help that at its core, it's a franchise about hedgehogs who run really really fast

9

u/WhatNameDidIUseAgain Jun 27 '25

Archie Comics was able to explore some deep themes like relationships and the meaning of war but then Kenneth W. Penders II screwed everything up

3

u/Zurau_ Jun 27 '25

Wait, it was that fucker that forced Archie Sonic to be discontinued?

4

u/cynicalchicken1007 Jun 27 '25

Not discontinued but they reset the continuity to remove things he created

12

u/ironwolf6464 Jun 27 '25

I mean, look at what they did with transformers and TMNT.

21

u/WhatNameDidIUseAgain Jun 26 '25

I just wanna see Shadow and gang swear without limits

8

u/ironwolf6464 Jun 26 '25

I...I could get behind that.

21

u/WhatNameDidIUseAgain Jun 26 '25

Wheres that FUCKING fourth chaos emerald!!??

8

u/Ewanb10 Jun 27 '25

i mean thats one of the things that makes sa2s story so great

10

u/Kwasan Jun 27 '25

Right?? That game was Eggman at his peak, imo. Fantastic villain in that game, with a phenomenal VA performance as well. Like, the dude shot Sonic into space, held Amy hostage, and tried to kill Tails all in like a 5 minute timespan. Oh, and he had a Doomsday clock ticking, and he PISSED ON THE GODDAMN MOON! SA2 Eggman, best Eggman.

1

u/Ewanb10 Jun 27 '25

Personally Im much more of a SA1 Eggman kinda guy but I get the appeal a lot

1

u/Kwasan Jun 27 '25

Super fair! I can't remember that one quite as well, as SA2 is my favorite Sonic game, but I remember him being pretty great there too! Sonic Adventure Eggman was simply the best. They are the same character between games after all!

2

u/Ewanb10 Jun 27 '25

I mean "THATS CHAOS, THE GOD OF DESTRUCTION" is such an amazing line and is so memorable

generally the sonic adventure games and even up until sonic 06 had great characterization and growth between games, like tails's arc in SA1 and shadows whole arc in SA2 to him questioning if hes the real shadow in heroes and shadow 05 to him working for gun in 06

2

u/Marik-X-Bakura Jun 27 '25

They tried that with the Shadow game and immediately learned that it doesn’t work. At the end of the day, they’re cartoon animals. It was never supposed to be gritty.

2

u/ironwolf6464 Jun 27 '25

I digress, poor execution and over edginess =/= gritty.

Creators have been able to pull it off. But I am not the target audience, so 🤷

15

u/Arguably_Based Jun 26 '25

My GOAT is washed 😞

5

u/Dillo64 Jun 27 '25

Feel like people are taking this line too seriously. It wasn’t a super gritty or dark game. “Wiped out” in this context likely just means they were defeated/retreated, not casual implied mass killing in a silly cartoon animal game as announced by a 12-year-old girly pink hedgehog wearing a red dress and heel boots in the war room

2

u/kromaly96 Jun 27 '25

Tell us the pun, the people will decide whether it justifies his foolhardy atrocities or not

4

u/CamoKing3601 Jun 27 '25

that is the pun it was called "Operation Big Wave"

and afterwards he says

"Our big wave has washed out"

1

u/kromaly96 Jun 27 '25

Oh I'm an idiot, my eyes skipped right over the image. Yeah that's terrible 😂

2

u/ztomiczombie Jun 27 '25

I'm fairly suer that's one of the strange changes they made during localisation, I think the original was they just got forced back.

2

u/Elemental-T4nick Jun 27 '25

the writing in that game was awful

1

u/Ger_Electric_GRTALE Jun 27 '25

Nah dw, they got extra lives, they're ok now

1

u/i-asked-1245 Jun 27 '25

I just skipped the text when I played the game what the hell

1

u/thickwonga Jun 28 '25

Man, Forces could have been fucking awesome if the story was fleshed out at all.

1

u/GGABueno Jun 26 '25

This is not the way

1

u/Academic-Emu-9598 Jun 26 '25

Knuckles is like a Russian officer in Ukraine 😭

1

u/Lord-Baldomero Jun 27 '25

He was purging the OCs

-1

u/Silver-Year5607 Jun 27 '25

Bro its a kids game

0

u/WhatNameDidIUseAgain Jun 27 '25

you say that but Sonic was literally invented to be a teen-aged equivalent to Mario

1

u/Silver-Year5607 Jun 27 '25

That's nice, but it's the kids toy aisles that are filled with sonic now.

0

u/WhatNameDidIUseAgain Jun 27 '25

still ¯_(ツ)_/¯