Redditor AmOdd asked:
"What did a fictional character say that stuck with you?"
"The love Molly. You take it with you." - Sam Wheat/Patrick Swayze (Ghost)
I still weep.
POV
"Many of the truths we cling to depend largely on your point of view. - Ben Kenobi"
taloncard815
Ewan Mcgregor Hello GIF by Disney+GiphyAcceptance
"'We accept the love we think we deserve.'"
“'I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.'”
"(Perks of Being a Wallflower, I Don't Know if i'm a cliche)"
itsacalamity
steeped in blood...
"A boy who idealizes war is perplexed why a war hero wants to retire to become a farmer. He asks the wise warrior why he seems to despise war and this is his response:"
"There is more honor in a field well plowed than one steeped in blood."
oWatchdog
"Lloyd Alexander the Black Cauldron. Read it in elementary school and that has always stuck with me. Good thing too, because the indoctrination and glorification of the military is very strong in my country and starts at an early age."
oWatchdog
Sober
"When Vimes says about his alcoholism, 'One is too many, two's not enough.' That's when I knew that cutting down wouldn't work, I would have to completely stop. Been sober nearly five years now."
ahhtibor
"I always tell people 'Drinking-wise, you are like a car; you have an accelerator and a brake. You can start and stop or go fast or slow. I'm the space shuttle; I can only light the rocket or not light the rocket, that's it, those are the choices I have."'
"I haven't lit the rocket in a decade."
picksandchooses
Burning
“'I survived because the fire inside burned brighter than the fire around me.' -Joshua Graham, Fallout New Vegas"
Wrayo
Summer Burn GIF by NETFLIXGiphyGreat words from great characters will haunt you forever.
Picard
"'It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.' - Jean-Luc Picard"
martinsonsean1
Star Trek Drinking GIF by HULUGiphy'tomorrow never comes'
"Tomorrow's the day you'll pay the bills! Tomorrow's the day you'll grow up and start acting responsible. But tomorrow never comes for you, because it's always so conveniently a day away.' Suzie, Hey Arnold. Had to copy and paste because I forgot the original quote verbatim but the 'tomorrow never comes' part always stuck with me despite me being a massive procrastinator."
fernadoreddit
Sacrifice
"'The hero decides to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after. But the hero never gets to see that ending. They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end they just have to have faith. Ain't that a *itch? - Epsilon from red vs blue.'"
Marston
"'Be loyal to what matters.' - Arthur Morgan"
MemeMachine2468
"Roger Clark killed that role. It’s not often that a video game voice actor gives a genuinely Oscar-worthy performance."
"I remember thinking before the game was launched 'Huh, this guy seems like a total *ick, there’s no way R* can make him a more likable character than Marston'; now that I’ve had a few months to stew on it I honestly think he may be my favorite video game character of all time, probably top 5 protagonists in all fiction."
Hypergolic_Golem
Help
"'Some people will always need help. That doesn't mean they're not worth helping.' -Meera Reed from Game of Thrones"
Nachodoo
Come At Me Bring It GIF by Game of ThronesGiphyI do love good dialogue. It's the key to everything.
This all started with Tony Soprano. That is the show that taught us about the anti-hero. And that lead us to investigating our favorite protagonists.
Damn Jack
Giphy"Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. He breaks into the giants house, steals his treasure, then kills him when the giant tries to get his gold back..."
Bad Directions
"The Map from Dora. Say what you want buy that lil mf is working with Swiper. How does he always know where Dora is or where she's going???"
"I hate the freaking map. I'm the map, I'm the map. We GET it! You're doing your job! Get over yourself! I'd use the map as toilet paper!"
Greg
"Greg Heffley from Diary of A Wimpy Kid."
"Greg literally broke his best friend's hand and never apologized. And just when you think he was getting nicer he does something even worst."
Blank Checks
"People who post in r/MadeMeSmile about their own good deeds, which are actually just basic acts of human decency. Saw one recently, "Found this blank check. I really needed the money, but I found the owner and gave it back." Great congrats dude, you didn't STEAL, which is something people are capable of avoiding everyday."'
The Runner
beycreative GIFGiphy"The Road Runner, that arrogant little MFer."
"At least the Roadrunner minded his own business most of the time, and didn't try to inflict pain on the Coyote, unlike other characters in chase cartoons (like craps like Tweety and Jerry)."
Mhmmm... Jack really should've left that beanstalk alone. And let's not get into Looney Toons characters, we'll be here all day.
Jurassic Fool
screaming bryce dallas howard GIF by Team CocoGiphy"Bryce Dallas Howard in Jurassic world, she was just an a**hole the whole movie."
Like character, like actor...
"Carrie Bradshaw is a horrible friend, a manipulative and flaky partner, and a deeply irresponsible person all around."
"That moment when Miranda throws out her neck and Carrie sends Aidan. Then she brings over the bullcrap bagels to cheer up Miranda but only so she can talk about herself. And Miranda calls her out because she didn't even bring cream cheese. Like it was all superficial. And this being AFTER she cheats on Aidan."
People Break Down The Best Purchases They've Ever Made | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Tragic Peter
"Peter Pan. Dude cut off a guy's hand for craps and giggles and fed it to a freaking CROCODILE."
"I read Peter Pan to my 5-year-old, and it's only through the novel that I saw Peter Pan as a tragic figure rather than a hero. It's actually a very deep story despite being for children. Peter Pan was based on the author's relationship with a young boy who died. He imagined him living in a kind of heaven for young boys, never growing up."
Not so "Good"
"Glinda the "good witch." She murdered the witch of the East, stole her shoes, and gave them to Dorothy. She then tells Dorothy that if she wants to get home, she should go see the Wizard. After the wizard is revealed as a fraud, Glinda shows up and is all like "You could've gone home any time you like by clicking your heels together."
Animated GIF"What kind of sociopathic invites 3x of her mother's ex-lovers to her mother's hotel on the eve of her wedding, without telling her, to try and force a situation where her real father will be revealed? Then she freaking bails on the whole wedding anyway to go traveling around the world. If I was a wedding guest having forked out thousands to get there for a non-wedding I'd be livid."
Watch 2 Instead...
"Just watched Jurassic Park 3. The parents... Kidnapping, promising money they didn't have, lying, responsible for the deaths of pretty much everyone in the film, and the mom is terribly annoying. They are portrayed as just super devoted parents, but their actions show no regard for anyone else."
Failure
"Jamie Foxx in the movie "Law Abiding Citizen."
"Gerard Butler's character absolutely should've won. It doesn't excuse what he did, but who could blame him after the system failed him and his family so spectacularly?"
"To me he did win, he had nothing left to live for after his family were taken away and 'justice' never came so he set out to prove the system doesn't work/is corrupt/a numbers game and he followed through with that. He'd rather give his life than roll over to the system but not without proving a point."
"Give this guy what he deserves"
"J. Edgar Hoover. Anything but a hero but FBI headquarters is named after him."
"A guy I used to work with years ago had previously worked at the FBI in DC and heard all kinds of stories about J. Edgar Hoover. For one, supposedly when you went in his office there was a hug FBI seal on the carpet, but it was sunken down in the floor, so when you were standing his office, his desk was up above you and you had too look up at him like he was some sort of deity or something."
"Also, one time two guys were called into his office to see him. Hoover mentioned one of the FBI agents who worked under them and said, "Give this guy what he deserves." It was unclear from Hoover's tone of voice whether he meant that they should reward the guy or punish the guy and they were afraid to ask what he meant. They decided to give the guy a promotion, but station him way out in the middle of nowhere so their @sses were covered either way."
Joe
Guy Grandpa GIFGiphy"Grandpa Joe. He sat in bed for years, never lifting a finger to help his starving family despite being perfectly able-bodied except when a day of chocolate and fun is involved."
Showman
"PT Barnum exploited marginalized people and was not the hero portrayed in "The Greatest Showman."
- jubybear
They villainized the only hero in that film. Jenny Lind was actually a great person and despised PT Barnum in real life. She earned 350,000 on the tours she took with him (10,887,000 in today's money) and donated all of the proceeds to charities. She was also married at the time."
Hero Nanny
"Mrs .Doubtfire. He was a deadbeat dad and Lost custody. He was given very fair terms to see his kids again. Get a stable job and stock being a passive aggressive deadbeat. Instead he decides to pretend to be an old lady to infiltrate his own house and use that knowledge to manipulate his family."
"Then when his wife dates a Pierce Brosnan, who seems like an good dude and genuinely liked her kids and was willing to be a father figure for them, what does he do. Vandalises his car and knowing gives him cayenne pepper that he knows he is deathly allergic to. The poor guy could have died. But it's okay cause Mrs. Doubtfire is the hero."
Tink
"Tinker Bell. She's so self entitled, inconsiderate, and a brat. She blames everything on everyone else when it's her fault . She's not some fairy hero, just someone who messes up crap, then has to clean up for it after blaming a series of people. I'm talking about in the tinker bell movies."
"I would like to think she was not just a kid as fairy time is different. I mean she was born, and starts working. I would think they were teenagers. In the first tinker bell movie I can see where you could say she didn't know any better, but in the continuous movies where we could infer that she's older, she still was self entitled and constantly blaming."
"In the movie tinker bell and the lost treasure, she definitely broke the moonstone on her own then blamed Terrence and in the end fixes it and they want us to applaud her? It was her fault. In the Peter Pan movies, Tink was definitely jealous of Wendy and is cruel. So in neither of the movies should she ever be seen as a hero."
Just Go!
"Elsa from Frozen. Almost kills her sister twice and is still heralded. Anna saves the day but Elsa gets all the hype."
- wongjbw
"I believe Elsa was originally supposed to be the villain, but "Let It Go" came out such a banger that they changed her character."
"The Duke of Weaseltown can stay a minor villain, though, but this idea actually *does* play out better."
Oh O!
If You Say So Shrug GIFGiphy"Oprah, she asked the Olsen twins their clothes size at the height of their eating disorder. She also had cult leaders featured on her show, John of god."
Hubris...
"Significant amounts of people think that Walter White was a hero who was willing to go to extremes to provide for his family, completely ignoring the countless outs he had and the fact that he literally admits it was all about his hubris in the finale."
"He was offered an out immediately, but his stupid pride and bitterness drove him to produce highly addictive and destructive drugs."
Gabby...
"Gabriella from High School Musical."
"Gabriella was a setback to Troy's potential basketball career. Sharpay was trying to advance it. But I think there is a point to be made, and it's that Gabriela was not as manipulative as Sharpay in her endeavors. Gabriela just wanted Troy, but Sharpay wanted Troy's potential. If you look at the movie now, Sharpay seems to be investing in Troy so she can continue to live a good life."
Under the Sea...
"Freaking Spongebob that ignorant fool just can't take a freaking hint like leave Squidward the hell alone."
"In the end Squidward is also extremely jealous of Spongebob, Squidward constantly is attempting to be an artist. He's very rigid in his attempts, and very by the book, Spongebob however is just tremendously care free, and succeeds at almost every artistic endeavour he attempts. Sculpting, the bubbles, the wrapper from the piece of gum, all examples of Squidward simply not understanding Spongebob has no method."
And Kelly?
sexy high school GIFGiphy"Zach Morris from Saved by the Bell!"
"Was anyone on that show not a piece of poop though?
- horsebag
Green is Bad!
"The Hulk. That idiot does more property damage to cities costing millions of dollars to fix than he actually helps out."
"To be fair, a lot of times, it's usually caused by other people messing with him (the military, Abomination, Leader, etc). He mostly just wants to be left alone and will go out of his way to be left alone. In the MCU, he literally fled the country until Ross hunted him down, then SHIELD hunted him down again."
Aloha...
"Maui from Moana. Straight up doomed the world for selfish reasons and attempts to murder a child on several occasions."
"Maui was definitely portrayed as a misguided fool who was trying to make up for his mistakes in his own foolish manner until Moana showed him the way. Kinda why the movie is called Moana and not Maui."
Murky Waters
harry potter what GIFGiphy"Snape. he had murky intentions at best, and although he sacrificed himself for harry the fact that harry named his child after him instead of someone like Hagrid is shameful."
HE'S NOT A GOOD GUY
"Jordan Belfort."
"In the same vein as this - the McDonald's guy from that movie "The Founder." It's crazy to me how many of my friends (admittedly a very bro-ish group, but I love them) watched that movie and thought he was a hero. A literal thief. Same thing with Belfort, HE'S NOT A GOOD GUY. I think it's a big indictment on the American mindset that people so easily see them as heroes."
- meowVL
with honest intentions...
"Guy Fawkes. Sometimes referred to as "the last man to enter parliament with honest intentions" and ended up as the face of the anonymous movement. Yes, he was trying to blow up a government that was persecuting catholics but his goal was to replace it with a catholic government that would persecute protestants instead. Also, he wasn't even the ideologue behind it, that was Robert Catesby, Fawkes was the guy (wahey) they hired to detonate their explosives."
For the Unirverse
"Goku is a weird one for me since he is seen as a hero for protecting and saving the universe countless of times yet he always admits that it's never his intention to save the world. He only fights opponents to better himself and to enjoy himself which has almost killed him and endangered the Universe itself, he's a hero in he obviously isn't allowing people to die for his entertainment but he shouldn't be labeled as one because he isn't one."
Burglar
Happy Merry Christmas GIF by UniversalTVGiphy"Santa Claus. He breaks into people's houses, steals their food and only gives the rich kids the good crap."
Carrie Bradshaw is an issue, always has been. There, I said it. And I'm glad we're getting around to Glinda. She was triflin'.
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Reddit user ThePuzzler13 asked:
"What “hero" is more villainous than the actual villain?"
Aladdin
Aladdin.
Steals from honest merchants. Steals a magical artifact and uses it for entirely personal gain up until the very end. When the Sultan suggests rewriting laws so that they can marry, he doesn't even consider amending the law that has children getting their hands cut off that he experienced firsthand.
Ladybug
Ladybug from Miraculous, mostly every single person on that show gets akumatized as a result of Marinette being mean to them or her just doing something plain right dumb. But then she always saves the day as Ladybug and everything is all fine and dandy, like she didn't just cause all that stuff.
Troy Bolton
Troy Bolton in High School Musical. He gets everything handed to him, and whenever he has to give even the slightest in return, he squirms and squeals and breaks promises to people who are helping him. There's a Film Theory video about it.
God
Old Testament God is usually more capricious, bloodthirsty, warmongering than Satan.
Patch Adams
Patch Adams. I'm sorry, but the way that the fictional Patch Adams acted in that movie was not only unprofessional, but stupid, unfunny, illegal, and sometimes even dangerous. The "evil" school administration trying to stop him that the movie tries to paint as stuffy and uncaring ends up looking reasonable by comparison. No wonder the real Patch Adams hated how he was portrayed.
SpongeBob
SpongeBob SquarePants. Whenever something good happens to Squidward, he and Patrick always have to go and ruin it for him.
Jedi
Jedi are a group of religious zealot megalomaniacs.
If they had just let Anakin rescue his Mom from slavery. But no.
well Qui-Gon could have just bought the kid and the mother
But no pod is worth 2 slaves. To do what you propose one of the obscenely rich characters in the story with seemingly nothing to do all day but stare out windows would have had to go ALL the way back to purchase her. That's like...3 hours in hyperspace.. WHO HAS 3 HOURS TO WASTE ON THAT?!!?!
Goku
GiphyAnyone ever talked about Goku being inefficient as a hero, like reviving the most dangerous species in the known universe just to see hOw sTrOnG tHeY BeCoMe, although he himself doesn't have a guaranteed way of winning
Punisher
I always found the Daredevil-Punisher dynamic odd. Especially the Netflix version.
The Punisher kills people who hurt others. He's usually quick about it though, allowing them a mostly painless death. But still, murderer. Villain.
Meanwhile Matt freaking Murdock breaks peoples' spines, paralyzing them and doesn't give a flying crap. He won't kill anyone, but he has no problem making sure they suffer for the rest of their life. He's kind of terrifying for a hero.
Married King
The married king in the original sleeping beauty in case you didn't know it goes a little like this.
So basic first bit she gets primed by a spinning wheel and falls asleep but she isn't rescued by a prince she gets "rescued" by a married king. He comes in sees her and does unspeakable things to her and leaves. 9 months later she awakes and gives birth to twins. She find her way to a palace which just happens to be the same king. The king sees her and falls in love with her.
The Queen sees this and is jealous of sleeping beauty so she plots to kill her and give her twins to the cook so she can cook them up and serve them to the king. The plans fall through the kids are saved by the cook and the queen is killed and sleeping beauty and the king are married, The End.
Jack
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
Hogfather, Sir Terry Pratchett
This is subverted by Fables too, because Jack is such an unrepentant a-hole who's backstory is full of him just doing horrible things for the sake of women, money and power.
Nick Jr.
Honestly any any protagonist from a Nick Jr cartoon. They always treat the "antagonist" like crap for doing only mildly bad things.
The Power Puff Girls were notorious for this.
Mojo Jojo would, like, be at the grocery store picking up juice and stuff and they'd fly in and kick his butt for no reason
Claire
Claire from Jurassic World. Her negligence and poor decision making is directly responsible for the injuries and deaths of many visitors and employees of the park.
Not just that, her characters response to events are supposed to be herioc but in reality she leaves the park managerless to go find her nephews that she couldn't be asked to look after earlier and finally hooks up with the park ranger in the rescue centre despite being the most seniour park manager left, who should be in charge of head counts and organising communication with the mainland extraction teams.
Then in the next film she dosent get punished and decides to push people to risk more human lives to save the assests that she never truly cared about in the first film.
Wedding Crashers
Wedding Crashers' Jeremy and John -- they lie their way into a family's wedding and eventually their home. Then John starts to peel a woman away from her fiance, even going so far as to poison him with Visine.
As a kid I thought he was the hero but now I have realised how he was awful to Tom. Tom just wanted to get laid in one episode but Jerry just kept on messing up his chances.
Odysseus
Odysseus in the Odyssey.
While the foreigners are portrayed as the bad guys, he goes around pillaging everyone and expecting tons of lavish gifts.
For us it looks pretty messed up, but for ancient Greeks, it's pretty on brand with their idea of heroism.
The Ruin
SPOILER: THE RUIN
The final girl for the The Ruin. You were supposed to root for the main characters to escape the vine infested pyramid surrounded by locals who have quarantined them because the vines are sentient, flesheating, and world-endingly dangerous. Something that the "protagonists" learn less than halfway through the film.
So essentially they know that they're going to die either way, but they don't care because forget the entire rest of KINGDOM ANIMALIA I'M A TOURIST AND I WANNA GO BACK TO MY HOTEL TO DIE.
I literally spent the last half of the movie rooting for the locals AND the vines because these a-holes were so hellbent on being "patient zero" of the apocalypse plant disease.
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny, I love the show, but that rabbit screws with people and other characters just for fun. Plus, if you're going to take your friend to the beach, get your directions right so you don't end up in the Himalayas, feeding him to an abominable snowman.
Neo
Neo, and most of the redpill hackers, are more evil than the machines in the Matrix.
The machines were built by humans. When the AI began to get too smart and some machines went haywire, what was humanity's response? Eradicate them. Total AI genocide. Was it evil for the machines to value and protect their own lives?
And after the war was won, after the machines had dominated mankind and had us on the edge of extinction, did they finish us? No. They preserved humanity. I know, the movie makes it seem like they need us, but some digging into the lore of the Matrix-verse shows that's not true. Even the Architect tells Neo, "There are levels of existence we are prepared to accept."
Knowing the humans would always try to eradicate machines, the machines devised the best way they could think to preserve us - in a prison that we could never see. They built us a cage infinitely more humane than the ones we keep animals in on Earth. The first Matrix was even designed as a paradise, to give us all we could ever want, and the only reason it didn't stay that way was because the human mind wouldn't accept that reality.
The machines don't kill a human unless they have to for self-defense. Humans who reject the Matrix are a threat to the machines, but they DON'T EVEN KILL THOSE until they become a direct threat. The Oracle herself shelters many children who show signs of rejecting the Matrix. She studies them, their minds, why they make the choices they do, so that the machines can continue to make better Matrices. Indeed, the machines do not view rejection as a fault of humans, they view it as a fault in the Matrix.
Meanwhile, redpill hackers crash into the Matrix on a regular basis and kill lots of innocent people. Think of all the security guards and cops who are killed by the hackers - innocent humans living their blissfully ignorant virtual lives. Sure, Agents could infiltrate those people, and the hackers are doing what they do for the greater good of humanity (or so they think,) but they still kill far more innocents than the machines ever do.
Mario
GiphyThat goomba-murdering, mushroom-addicted, dinosaur head-bashing psychopath MARIO. Just look at what he did to the homes of the Koopalings in SMW!
Perspective is everything when it comes to storytelling.
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