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general media Wasted characters.


CastletonSnob

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(edited)

Who are some fictional characters who had the potential to be great,, but for some reason or another, the writers never did enough with them?

I'd have to say Spike from MLP: FiM. He could have been great if the writers explored his origins or gave him wings earlier in the show.

Edited by CastletonSnob
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(edited)

I have a laundry list of characters that deserved better, lots of characters getting second chances or getting some growth could have gone a long way, but evidently it would have cut into screen time for beloved icons like the Yaks, the Flim Flam Bros, Garble or Snips and Snails

But the biggest waste is Wonderbolts, both for Dash's whole character arc and the team in general, the least the writers could do was at least tell us they hated the damn characters. It speaks volumes when even goddamn IDW treats them a lot better, and they were blatantly open from the beginning that they didn't like RD

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EDIT: Didn't realize this wasn't just for FiM. Since I'm still here

Gohan from DBZ is one of the most egregious examples. And I'm not talking about the Great Saiyaman(in fact I thought that was hilarious), but rather the build up to him being the new hero only for the rug to be pulled under him and just do a humiliating job to Buu so that Goku could be the hero again. Apparently the reason for this was because Toriyama thought he wasn't fit to be the new hero so he decided to bring back Goku and, to be quite honest, it just sounds like he doesn't wantto write a more complex character to be the main hero, especially with how awful Goku is in Super compared to virtually every other character in that show. He could have easily been the Spiderman to Goku's Superman. And thanks to him changing his mind, the Buu Saga undoes about 3 Sagas worth of build up and development and throws it out the window. Things finally started to look up for Gohan with the Tournament of Power, but he's still a long ways off from the glory days of the Cell Games

Edited by Megas
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Marble Pie absolutely leaps to mind! She’s such a perfect fit to be the romantic interest for Big Mac, but by the time the writers got around to addressing Big Mac in that regard, the fifth-string writers apparently forgot all about Marble’s brief but memorable introduction and perfect chemistry with him. So they quickly whipped up the plug-and-play Sugar Belle which, in my opinion has no chemistry with him whatsoever. Marble should have been a far more frequent character. 

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36 minutes ago, Sithbiscuit said:

Marble Pie absolutely leaps to mind! She’s such a perfect fit to be the romantic interest for Big Mac, but by the time the writers got around to addressing Big Mac in that regard, the fifth-string writers apparently forgot all about Marble’s brief but memorable introduction and perfect chemistry with him. So they quickly whipped up the plug-and-play Sugar Belle which, in my opinion has no chemistry with him whatsoever. Marble should have been a far more frequent character. 

I'd say if it did come up it was probably shot down for the "they're probably related" thing, something I'm sure they wanted to stay away from.

Otherwise I'd say most "one time use" characters from MLP would fit here. (I'll be back to edit and add on to this later)

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For me it's Discord. The premises of his character is so great - a bored powerful god who isn't bad nor good, he just does what he feels like and doesn't care about anything else

Very unique character for a kids show. And his almost only purpose was to serve as a "friendship power target". And a drastic reduce of his powers in latest seasons are awful

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I would say the First Order Trios; Kylo Ren, General Hux, and Captain Plasma. The three could've been the next three big baddies of the galaxy if they haven't got wasted like a huge circus they turned out to be.  Kylo could've been the next sith lord, by taking the throne to himself and creating a new order of the dark side, it he wasn't so distracting with Rey :dry:. General Hux should have been made as Chancellor by now, since he did take over many planets, including the major ones under his command. But only to get wasted like that. Captain Plasma is one of the most fearful and the FO best "man" in leading the FO military. Her background story really show the depth of this character under that heavy armors. She's basically like Captain Rex but for the opposite side. It's shame they also wasted her in the second.  

I think the biggest wasted character is Grogar. I was really excited to see what they are going to do with this powerful enemy as the finale for MLP. But only to turned out to be the biggest disappointment and a joke of all time for MLP. 

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Finn is underutilized in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He was promoted like he'd be the next big male Jedi lead alongside Rey after The Force Awakens but then, in The Last Jedi, both Finn and Rose are sent away in one of the least entertaining side quest subplots of the series. And neither of them does much of importance in The Rise of Skywalker. 

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(edited)

There are just so many in FiM that are wasted, idk where to start. It may just be better to state the lack of reoccurring characters from different cities/villages could be a waste. Other than the princesses, we never really knew much about anyone in Canterlot. And even then, we only started to really understand them post-Starlight Glimmer when she was tasked with helping them. Due to the nature of FiM's writing it was unfortunate to see so many cool character designs get wasted.

Outside of FiM, here are some that come to mind. 

Guild Wars 2 - Zojja. The original VA for her left and for some reason, despite her being one of the most important characters in the story, they never reintroduced her. Other characters in the game's history have been voiced by multiple people, so I'm curious why the writers just left her to rot.

Nier: Automata - Adam. Literally no one remembers this guy, and I don't blame them. He only did like 2 things the entire story other than talk to his brother. He had almost no personality, and for being the entire reason his brother freaked out, you'd figure they would add some scenes of them actually bonding, but they just made Adam dismissive of all of Eve's wants. For no reason at all, too. It's not like Adam was doing anything, he could have actually been a good brother.

Borderlands 3 - Ava. I feel bad for putting this character on here, because she was done dirty. Her most important cutscene, laying the groundwork for her character, was cut out from the final release of the game, and that kinda destroyed her. So much of her character felt forced and out of place throughout the game, and the replacement in-game scene that took her original one, made her a worse character than if they had just done nothing. It really pisses me off seeing a character who not only had potential, but was actually written decently in the original script. When the game got rushed out for whatever reason, the game and all of us suffer the consequence of a character we don't like.

Edited by Dark Bun
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Saw Gerrara during the operation to free the Wookies on Kashyyk in Star Wars:  Jedi:  Fallen Order.  The limited battle scenes he has while helping the Partisans storm an Imperial refinery and free the Wookies the Galatic Empire enslaved to produce a powerful compound out of wroshyr tree sap on deadly levels:huh:  Gerrara has electronic hacking skills, a blaster pistol and a :arethosehands:grappling hook in his arsenal.  Given how Gerrara makes attempt to venture into the Shadowlands to help the Partisans and Wookies find Wookie Chieftain Tarfful, only to bail on them and Kashyyk:okiedokieloki: when, despite the Empire getting the upper hand in the pursuit, Tarfful’s location wasn’t really that far off.  So, the guy backed up with former :baconmane:Galactic Republic Gunships:confused: couldn’t take in the fear of unkillable plants that :mlp_wat:proved to really help in killing Imperial goons so that type of distraction would have helped guide the heavy number of Partisans and Wookies just a short distance to Tarfful?  Some resistance fighter he is:bea:  He could have even helped Cal Kestis in his battles against the :stressed:Ninth Sister of the Inquisitorius.  I would have given up a spleen to see Gerrara and Tarfful paired up together as buddies in an image. 

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(edited)
On 2021-05-05 at 4:01 AM, Dreambiscuit said:

Marble Pie absolutely leaps to mind! She’s such a perfect fit to be the romantic interest for Big Mac, but by the time the writers got around to addressing Big Mac in that regard, the fifth-string writers apparently forgot all about Marble’s brief but memorable introduction and perfect chemistry with him. So they quickly whipped up the plug-and-play Sugar Belle which, in my opinion has no chemistry with him whatsoever. Marble should have been a far more frequent character. 

Not just Marble, Limestone too. By supporting role standards, Maud got the lion's share of screen time compared to those two. That's not a bad thing, but the show definitely could've had more Limestone and Marble. 

Edited by Sasoriman
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