#inconsistent characterization comp poll

Shadow the Hedgehog

Why the FUCK does Shadow work for GUN when his whole origin story is that he hated everything because GUN invaded his home and killed everyone including his 12yo sister. And also made his dad? go insane. What. Why do we have both a game where Shadow learns the power of friendship and relying on his friends is strenght and a game in later timeline where he says “fuck friends they don’t do nothing be strong = lone wolf.” He Would Not Fucking Say That

[See essay at the link]

André Harris

The only thing consistent about him is that he plays piano. Is he anxious? Is he a confident dick? Does he want to get stung by a bee? Does he REALLY like ketchup? Like he has no constitent personality he's just generic piano guy

Quinn Fabray

Out of all the Glee characters her characterisation was the most erratic which is really saying something

Though probably every single character in Glee would qualify, I went with Quinn is because she's probably the most notable example of this. Because of petty vengance reasons she's consistently given plotlines that are meant to paint her in a terrible light, despite the fact that it doesn't make any sense for her character to be doing any of it. From making her be absent from both her supposed best best friends' wedding, and high school boyfriend's funeral, to making her try to steal back her baby with barely any explenation given, she's always made to do the most out of pocket and personality-wise inconsistent stuff. Perhaps one of the most grevious offenses is when she starts dating Puck again, calling him the love of her life. This is the same Puck who took advantage of her and impregnated her when she was drunk, and whom she previously has shown literally zero interest in. Everytime she shows an ounce of character growth, the writers are like, haha, what if we made her backtrack on all that, and instead subjected her to more bullshit, wouldn't that be funn, WOULDN'T IT. Also: the fact that her friendship with Mercedes completely dissipated after season one is an easy forgottan crime compared to some of the other stuff the writers put her up to, but it still hurts an awful lot. They could have been,,, so much,,,,

Princess Audrey

First movie: after being the mean girl who hates on the main character throughout the entire movie, the MC does one good deed after doing a lot of bad things and suddenly they're both cool with each other, willing to do a music number together too. Book series: she's a nice but dumb/unskilled airhead apparently Animated series: she is no longer mentally ill. has no bad beef with the main characters. they're good friends now - no explanation. Third movie: OKAY ACTUALLY SHE'S THE MAIN VILLAIN NOW. SHE'S SO UPSET (after not seeming to care for the entire second movie), SHE'S GOING TO (somehow successfully) STEAL A WEAPON AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD. wait nvm the MC just gave her a friendship speech.

Jaime Lannister

Before the events of the show Jamie was the right hand man of a king who ordered mass killings of civilians; Jamie violated his code of honor and assassinated the king in order to defend the innocent civilians. Most of the early seasons involve Jamie’s conflict between his morality and the code of honor he’s mandated to obey, with his decision to kill the king for the greater good of the kingdom being a massive Thing . Until the last season, when Jamie proudly says he never cared about the people of the kingdom or whether they all died? It’s very odd- a very blatant explicit contradiction at the core of the writing, which is kinda how every GOT character gets treated by the last season :P.

Apollo Justice

He was an extremely emotional person when he was introduced in 4, going as far as to punch Phoenix in the face when he got angry and crying multiple times when people he'd just met were in danger. But in 5 and 6 (neither of which had the creator and head director/writer for the previous games, Shu Takumi, involved in the production) he seemed extremely emotionally closed-off and pretended like it was just another set of court cases when his best friend and his dad were murdered, and didn't spend any time mourning them. He felt less like his own unique character and more like he was just there to be a plot point.

I can't even go into any of the tags for 5 and 6 (which I still enjoyed despite their flaws) without having to scroll past a million complaints about the inconsistent writing. As much as I agree with them, I think that's actually more annoying than anything the games did. So here's to hoping Apollo (or anyone else from Ace Attorney tbh) gets in and the fandom can get it all out of their system in the reblogs and finally stop clogging up the tags. (although that's mostly tumblr's fault for changing the search function from tags to keywords. Most of the fandom is polite enough not to directly tag the game/characters in their complaints to try and avoid that, but now it still shows up whether they mean it to or not)