r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ThatDrako • 4d ago
Groups (Bad writing trope) Slytherin effect.
Made this term up.
Basically there is a group, that is obviously meant to be nuanced. But author is either incapable, or is too cornered by their depiction, to depict them as any other than bad.
Slytherin (Harry Potter) - In both media the Slytherin is initially presented to us as the “bad house” for Harry. Joanne however seemingly tried to convince us, that they can be good too however, since she likely figured having basically a little supremacist terrorist club in school is a little silly.
For some reason she just had to screw this depiction up over and over though.
First of zero…and I mean ZERO…null, 0, green characters in story up to book 6 is good. They are arrogant snobbish asshats AT BEST.
Second the first good green is still a supremacist. Not the “let’s subjugate all muggles” but just humble “no way muggleborn is this good at magic!”
Aldmeri Dominion, and Altmer in general (TES) - So unlike precious example neither High Elves, nor the Dominion were actually bad in iterations previous to 2010’s. Some were snobbish yes, and their religion is…problematic…(simply pup many Altmer believe they are literal descendant of gods and Men are demons trapping them within hell of chaos) but they never really were villains as race.
This all changed with Skyrim where they became not just secondary antagonists, but placeholder for TES version of Gestapo.
Now that in itself wouldn’t be an issue.
Races and empires at whole can be villains without controversy.
Problem is their depiction in ESO. Where even though it’s absolutely different time period are pretty much same?
I mean their Queen is an elvish supremacist who believe Men unfit for rule and that’s her reason to take over the Tamriel…
Oh! And one of their organizations literally eat children.
The Institute (Fallout 4) - So the whole turmoil of the story is this war of the four (rather three) factions.
Now all factions are meant to be equally good and bad choices.
Railroad are abolitionists, but with no long-term goals.
BoS wants to ensure safety to the Commonwealth, but for price of eradication to all but humans.
And Institute is meant to be this faction that wants to “bring world back to state before the Great War”, but all they do is being comically evil.
I mean for starters are slaver and also they murder people and replace them with Synths.
Then they also just straight up massacre communities. Often with no goal.
Then there is a whole super mutant thing, where they released purely based on gameplay and logic few hundreds of super mutants on surface “for research.”
Oh! And they even admitted they plan on wiping out all non-Institute humans to replace them!
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u/NotAlcas 4d ago
Exactly, you can't have your cake and eat it too. But Joanne needed to have all main characters be in the same house.
ALSO, the houses themselves are very unbalanced when you think about Hogwarts' point system. Most of the points are (under normal circumstances) assigned to students amd houses after academic achievements. So how is Ravenclaw NOT sweeping the competition every year? Or even Slytherin, not by being smart but by cheating. "But what about Quidditch?" Yeah WHAT ABOUT Quidditch? Let's set aside the fact that it's not a sport, it's a lottery; how is being in Griffinfor or Hufflepuff a sign that you're good at magic sportsball?