In my opinion, Abby from TLOU 2. During the first part of the game, she is portrayed as the bad girl, but when she become the playable character, you understand that she isn’t:
-Her father and friends were unnecessarly killed.
-She became pariah from her clan when she saved a member of a rival clan.
-She have been harschly tortured.
-She spared Ellie despite having occasions to kill her for understandable reasons.
I don’t get why many players didn’t changed their minds at the second part of the game, it’s so obvious that the real bad people are Ellie and Joël. Theres no problem about having sympathy for bad guys, but you must keep your critical mind.
And what infuriates me is that people even harassed the voice actress because of what her character did. Come on, guys !
i’m only a couple of seasons in to breaking bad but i truly don’t understand why skylar is so hated. i think she’s reacting not only rationally but startlingly calmly considering the circumstances.
I feel like it’s because of really good writing. Walter is objectively a bad guy. He’s committing crimes, he’s making a dangerous and highly addictive drug, he’s killing people, just because he’s too proud to accept help from his former colleagues. But the writing is great, the acting is incredible, so we see Walter from his own perspective–as the hero of the story. Skylar’s not appreciating him as a hero, she’s upset with him for putting the family at risk. When Skylar reacts reasonably to Walt’s behavior, it makes us mad because it makes Walt mad.
Also, purely from a mechanical standpoint, her character’s goal is effectively to prevent the premise of the story from playing out, which is the exact opposite of what the viewers want.
i think it is easy to get caught up in this kind of thinking, i agree, but the show itself does an excellent job of showing contrast by really displaying the ripple effect that walter’s actions have
At the core it really is sexism. A male character criticizing the main male character’s shitty behavior would not get nearly the rage that Skylar got.
Honestly it is a testament to the writing and the actress on making the character being reasonable so anger inducing.
the writing really is fantastic but i think i really lost all sympathy for walter when he tried to assault skylar. i’d also like to add that, while not an excuse, the whirlwind of hormones a pregnant woman would be experiencing makes it nothing short of a miracle skylar managed to keep a lid on everything
The show is about a guy going down the crime route, and Skylar is an obstacle to that. From the viewer perspective, Walter is fun to watch, he’s doing something cool. Cooking Meth is cool. But then comes that boring character that nags him about “morality”. Boooringgggg, who the hell does this chick thinks she is? I came to watch a show about a guy going in a downward spiral, why is she nagging?
Pardon my “monkey brain” thought process description lol. My point is that from what I’ve seen, people tend to dislike characters that stand in the way of the protagonist doing the main thing that he’s supposed to be doing.
For example, Chichi from Dragon Ball, Goku’s wife, tends to be disliked because she “nags” Goku. Her “nagging” tends to be basically reminding him that he’s a father and has responsibilities, like helping out at home and financially. It’s a shounen so it was always overlooked, but technically Chichi is the only one managing finances, and they’ve been living off only from her father’s wealth. Wealth that eventually starts to run out at the end of the Z series iirc. Goku, for all intents and purposes, is a terrible family man.
But, it’s a fighting show. It’s about Goku and his friends fighting bad guys. So people don’t like when characters detract from that objective, so they hate those characters, even if they are actually being the reasonable ones.
i get the point you’re trying to make but goku and walter white are quite fundamentally different characters lol
Oh yeah of course, didn’t mean to imply they are similar lol. The only connection I’m making is about the similarity of side characters of their stories being hated by the viewers
Walter supposed to cook meth > people hate Skylar for standing in the way
Goku supposed to fight > people hate Chichi for standing in the way
Same reason people rooted for Nancy in Weeds. Fictional works don’t have the same logic and morality of real life applied to them, since audiences wish for things that they wouldn’t wish to happen in real life. Like who says my current life is too boring and these people I like are redundant need to be written out, and there needs to be something tragic that happens because everything is too happy right now.