Thought I would make a quick announcement due to recent problems with this wiki. I'm noticing a recurring theme on this wiki where pages list intended reasons that characters are disliked, when this wiki is supposed to be about criticizing characters from a writing standpoint and how they are perceived, not whether the character is meant to be likable or not.
Another thing I'm noticing is pages for characters who are simply complex, like villains who are extremely vile but have sympathetic qualities, which some people seem to think automatically means base breaking.
People seem to be stretching the criteria a bit so might be best to officially make a post here. Now let me give some examples of what does and doesn't count as reasons to "dislike" a character for this wiki:
| Valid Reasons | Invalid Reasons |
|---|---|
| A villain commits multiple horrid crimes and they have a stupid reason for it, that the narrative tries to make sympathetic, trying to make it seem like an excuse. | A villain commits multiple horrid crimes but is also a sympathetic character with a tragic background. The narrative explains how they became who they are, but it never tries to justify them. |
| A villain gets a redemption and is randomly forgiven by everyone (including people they hurt) after all of their horrible crimes, with hardly any effort or atonement, and their crimes are downplayed by both other people and the narrative. | A villain gets a redemption but the narrative still makes it clear their actions had impact and they can never be fully forgiven by everyone, and the creator might leave it up to the audience if they want to forgive the character or not, rather than try to force an opinion for everyone. |
| A villain commits deplorable crimes like r*pe, and the narrative tries to justify it or play it for laughs in an offensive manner. | A villain commits deplorable crimes like r*pe and the narrative treats it as disgusting and evil. |
| A morally grey "complex" character who was made to be divisive and the writers failed at making their complexity believable, to the point of coming off as inconsistent. (e.g. Riya) | An anti-hero who was made to be divisive and the fans don't like them for doing evil actions to accomplish their goals. (e.g. Cho Sang-woo) |
| A "disappointing" major character who is supposed to be integral to the plot and is expected to have a great part in the story but ends up hardly doing anything important and gets shafter to the sidelines. | A "pointless" minor character who doesn't do much for the story and doesn't have much personality. |
| TV protagonist gradually becomes less likable over the years and become way more jerkish for reasons that feel like shock value or come off as inconsistent to their original character (e.g. Peter Griffin) | TV protagonist is a jerk in some episodes and always has been. |
| Hero who is supposed to be rooted for and treated sympathetically, but have such a terrible unlikable personality the audience accidentally roots for the villain. They might even be "designated heroes". | Hero who is rude to people and comes off as selfish or uses extreme methods in their goals. |
That's not everything I think needs to be said, but hopefully that at least gives an idea of what should happen here. I intend to update this blog and make it bigger as time goes on and as more people ask questions here. Hopefully this can become treated as a guide for new users while also a reminder.
Please don't hesitate to ask any questions and me and/or other admins will answer as best we can. We want nothing more than to have an official discussion on this to finally bury some hatchets.