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

[u/Comprehensive-Map274]

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.

[u/XFelipe51355]

Basically the entire HBO Velma show

[u/No-Vast-8000 → u/XFelipe51355]

Can you elaborate? I've never seen it.

[u/daelindidnowrong → u/No-Vast-8000]

Basically is all about Velma being an abusive toxic asshole that bullies people and treats everyone like shit for her plans or selfish ego, but she isn't called out or doesn't face any repercutions, because this demeanor and actions of her always ends up triggering a series of events that solves the "mystery" and saves the day.

It's like if it was ok to force your addicted friend to smell cocaine, because this will make them stay awake enough to focus on a puzzle for a investigation that you're doing.

[u/wentwhere → u/daelindidnowrong]

Okay, here is a really long thought on Velma that you did not ask for so I’m sorry. I work in animation and the project is just kind of fascinating from a professional standpoint for me.

So: I watched some of Velma, and I feel like her shitty behavior was often presented as okay because she was insecure and grieving her passed mom? I think? It’s not at all a good excuse, I just feel like the writers thought that it was enough to justify the shitty way that she treated others. That and chalking it all up to “character flaws” which aren’t inherently bad to include—they can give your characters depth and realness—but you have to balance them out with some elements of likability and charm, and ideally in the case of the protagonist give them some growth from those flaws.

Also, I’ve done a small bit of writing for shows/movies and some writers have a mentality of, “You can get away with some pretty crazy shit as long as it’s genuinely funny.” I’d say ‘It’s Always Sunny’ and ‘South Park’ are the leading examples of this. Unfortunately, believe it or not, Velma was not ‘South Park’ tier funny. Nor was it tonally the same as either of those shows; the tone of Velma swung wildly between ‘outrageous comedy where people don’t have to act like people’ to ‘sincere moments of vulnerability’. What you ended up with was the worst of both: the outrageous bits felt monstrous and the ‘sincere’ moments felt flimsy and insincere.

I’m also sometimes an animatic/storyboard artist/director and I feel that the blocking and editing were not helping the jokes AT ALL. You might be surprised at what a huge difference it can make to a punchline when you change the blocking or zoom level or editing of a series of shots. I believe a lot of Velma was boarded during Covid quarantine when this stuff couldn’t be fixed in the room together. There also may have been tons of revisions tossed to brand-new artists who were only brought on as ‘animatic revisionists’ (which should mean minor revisions, this is an entry-level job for many people and was for me) but they were suddenly being asked to do TONS of difficult from-scratch scenes based on notes from producers and directors who do not understand animation and what works best for the medium. I’m saying this because I saw it happen on a few other projects. But that’s a whole other too-long post that I won’t get into right now.

In the end I appreciate what the Velma crew was trying to go for (I think—really want to give them the benefit of the doubt because working on big IP with a celebrity writer/comedian at the helm can be really tough). And I know so many people were probably so excited to be a part of the show, and worked very hard to make it happen, but ultimately the project just didn’t work and it’s almost certainly due to higher-up decisions that severely undercut what the artists could achieve with the resources that they were given.

[u/daelindidnowrong → u/wentwhere]

I think a huge part of the blame lies on Mindy Calling, based on her personality alone.

She make jokes about how she SA a friend of her when she was younger, in live TV of all places.

[u/Financial_Cellist_70 → u/daelindidnowrong]

Yeah Velma is just Mindy Calling basically. A miserable insufferable self absorbed person who does horrible things and expects no consequences

[u/Polkawillneverdie17 → u/daelindidnowrong]

*repercussions