r/TopCharacterTropes • u/MeepMan324 • 6d ago

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) Endings so awful they completely destroy the legacy of the media.

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. Two and a Half Men's final episode teased Charlie Sheen's character coming back and going to harm the other characters whilst also having insults to his character and Charlie Sheen himself. It's clear the director had a grudge and the ending where his character comes up to knock then get crushed by a piano before it cuts to the director before he says "winning" before getting crushed by another piano
  2. This was an upbeat animated show about a magical teen princess. The writers desperately wanted a romantic endgame for her and her best friend, but the way they got there was essentially multiversal omnicide. To stop a villain, the main character unilaterally decides magic is the root of all evil and destroys it entirely. By doing this, she casually commits mass genocide against every purely magical being in the multiverse. It also triggers a massive apocalyptic event that violently crashes different dimensions together into a chaotic hellscape. But the show frames this horrific, mass-extinction catastrophe as a sweet, triumphant ending just because two teenagers get to hold hands in the rubble (Star Vs The Forces Of Evil)
5.1k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.5k

u/tylerjehenna 6d ago

The fact that How I Met Your Mother isnt the immediate example proves it fits the trope insanely well

837

u/mojao21 6d ago edited 6d ago

I hate how the whole show is completely written off because the ending completely throws out all of the genuinely great character development throughout the show. I really wish the alternate ending was more well known.

ETA: link to the video since a lot of people are asking

127

u/tylerjehenna 6d ago

To this day I genuinely believe the only reason Big Bang Theory is as big as it is is entirely cause HIMYM shit the bed that bad with its finale

79

u/mojao21 6d ago

Say what you will about Big Bang Theory, it still had a great ending.

38

u/Kammander-Kim 6d ago

It stuck the landing and it didn't wrinkle the characters into destroying multiple seasons of character growth.

You can like and you can dislike TBBT, but you can't say the ending ruined the show.

8

u/yupyupyupyupyupy 6d ago

it did

the show to me was always about a yellow umbrella...not a blue french horn

7

u/Kammander-Kim 6d ago

Yeah, that relationship was shot down really early in the show.

The twist that the show was about getting the kids' approval to date "aunt Robin" was utter crap.

123

u/joelene1892 6d ago

Eh mostly. I’m still angry what they did to Penny. The trope of “this woman never wants kids, is very vocal about that, but oops she gets pregnant and has no problems with that at all, is super happy to become a mom” is a personal pet peeve of mine, because it implies that people that don’t want kids are just mistaken and 5 minutes after realizing they’re pregnant will know how stupid they were.

60

u/BadPunsIsHowEyeRoll 6d ago

I think the only version of this trope I actually liked was with Hunger Games, where Katniss continuously said she didn’t want to bring children into a world where the hunger games existed. Then she dismantles the entire system and has a family with Peeta

9

u/Frozen_4 6d ago

Also the fact that it took like 10 years for her to come around to the idea. It wasn’t some instant change of mind.

7

u/blitzbom 6d ago

10 years of living in an actual peaceful world for her to go "Maybe my kids won't be fed to a grinder."

4

u/97thJackle 6d ago

wakes up in District 12 to a pantry that is well stocked

".... I might actually want a child. Huh."

20

u/joelene1892 6d ago

I never got that far in the hunger games, but I can get behind that. If the reasons that you did not want kids change, then it follows that the not wanting kids might change too.

This however, was not that, and they did not even address her prior feelings at all. From my read it’s just so Sheldon could have a dramatic reveal of it in his Nobel speech….

16

u/BadPunsIsHowEyeRoll 6d ago

I agree, its also important that I mention she didn’t do anything BECAUSE she wanted kids, she fought for her own freedom and independence and eventually that lead to a peaceful world she felt she could bring a child into. The point of her having so much growth and development outside of being just “mom” is why I think it worked

10

u/mojao21 6d ago

I see your point but I would argue that people can change their minds about things. We see a lot of people-who-regret-having-kids represented in media, so I think this one goes both ways.

12

u/joelene1892 6d ago

Absolutely they can. I don’t have a problem with this troupe if they address it. But they ignored the fact that only a few episodes before she’d been staunchly against kids. There was no conversation about her changing her mind, no mention of hesitation. Just straight from “I never want kids” to “I’m pregnant, let’s celebrate!”. Not quite in those words but it was clear she was happy.

Just. Address it. Do it a few episodes earlier so she can spend time coming to terms, or talking about what changed. Don’t just sweep it under the rug.

3

u/mojao21 6d ago

Makes sense

3

u/Wild_Marker 6d ago

It's practically a TV trope. You can't be anti-natalist on TV.

1

u/goodnamestaken10 6d ago

I have two real family members who ended up like that. I'm just one person with an anecdote, but it's not that crazy for me given their their kids have pretty good lives today.

4

u/joelene1892 6d ago

Absolutely. As I mentioned to someone else it’s not the change of mind that’s the issue to me, it’s that they didn’t even acknowledge her previous opinions. It went from “I never want kids” to “I’m pregnant, let’s celebrate!” In the space of a few episodes with no transition or explanation. They didn’t even acknowledge her previous opinion. Even a question from her husband like “are we happy” and her like “yes! I know I did not want it previously but <two sentence explanation>” would have went a long way.

As it was it felt like a complete reversal of her opinion so Sheldon could have a dramatic reveal at the Nobel Ceremony.

9

u/tylerjehenna 6d ago

The last couple of seasons are absolutely fantastic, getting there is rough though

1

u/MadeOfPoison27 6d ago

Absolute dogshit for the rest of it tho