There are many fictional characters who audiences cannot stand. Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some fictional characters are intentionally made to be despised. Joffrey Baratheon, Dolores Umbridge, and Carter Burke are standout examples of this.
With that said, this thread isn't about those characters. This is about fictional characters who the creator didn't intend to be disliked, but still end up as a target of audience hatred. Oliver Brady, Wesley Crusher, and Jar-Jar Binks are some of the most notorious examples, but far from the only ones.
Your challenge today is to prevent characters who became objects of hatred despite authorial intent from being as hated as they were.
I'll get things started off with an idea of how to prevent this from happening to Scrappy-Doo. Believe it or not, he was actually a popular character when he first appeared, and was seen as breathing new life into a franchise that had grown stale; his introduction actually gave Scooby-Doo a much-needed ratings boost. Unfortunately, the showrunners had problems keeping the cast together, and used his initial popularity as an excuse to write Fred, Velma and Daphne out of the show, leading him to take their roles. Not helping matters is that he was pushed front-and-center at a time when the show was losing its way (most infamously having the group deal with real monsters, which was seen as a betrayal of one of the show's core principles), leading him to be accused of helping cause the unpopular drift.
My idea is this: find some way to keep the core of the show intact and its cast together. That way, even if the franchise goes dormant like it did IOTL, people are more likely to look back on the little ankle-biter with fondness than revulsion.
With that said, this thread isn't about those characters. This is about fictional characters who the creator didn't intend to be disliked, but still end up as a target of audience hatred. Oliver Brady, Wesley Crusher, and Jar-Jar Binks are some of the most notorious examples, but far from the only ones.
Your challenge today is to prevent characters who became objects of hatred despite authorial intent from being as hated as they were.
I'll get things started off with an idea of how to prevent this from happening to Scrappy-Doo. Believe it or not, he was actually a popular character when he first appeared, and was seen as breathing new life into a franchise that had grown stale; his introduction actually gave Scooby-Doo a much-needed ratings boost. Unfortunately, the showrunners had problems keeping the cast together, and used his initial popularity as an excuse to write Fred, Velma and Daphne out of the show, leading him to take their roles. Not helping matters is that he was pushed front-and-center at a time when the show was losing its way (most infamously having the group deal with real monsters, which was seen as a betrayal of one of the show's core principles), leading him to be accused of helping cause the unpopular drift.
My idea is this: find some way to keep the core of the show intact and its cast together. That way, even if the franchise goes dormant like it did IOTL, people are more likely to look back on the little ankle-biter with fondness than revulsion.
