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can a creator mis-characterise their own characters ? have you witnessed any ?

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Dec 10, 2024 8:55 PM
#1
★★★

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Apr 2021
1235
in easy words, when a character does something seems so out of character..it blurs the line between mischaracterizing and character-development. do you think a creator can do the former ?

i am not a creator so i am still on the fence but one the biggest OUT OF CHARACTER thing i witnessed is






✮ slumbering arc
Dec 10, 2024 8:58 PM
#2
Online
Oct 2019
2254
Except in this particular case it's not out of character for Joseph to do this especially when you look at his character in his own part. Joseph was made a man of his time with the good and the bad if you think it's out of character you misunderstood Joseph on the fundamental level.
Dec 11, 2024 2:13 AM
#3

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May 2019
8155
No, a character is whatever the author wants them to be even if it breaks your own pre-conceived notions.
Dec 11, 2024 3:05 AM
#4

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Jul 2024
2189
Creators have the power to make or break their characters. They can push them into new and exciting territory, or they can derail everything with a weirdly out-of-place twist. When it’s done right, it’s a masterpiece. When it’s not, it’s like, “What kind of alternate universe did I just step into?”

So yes, anime creators absolutely cross that line, intentionally or not. And as fans, we’re left to either applaud their genius or scratch our heads in confusion.
Dec 11, 2024 4:03 AM
#5

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Sep 2016
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ame said:
when a character does something seems so out of character..it blurs the line between mischaracterizing and character-development

That's called an inconsistency and it's fairly common for authors to be inconsistent.
DesuMaiden said:
Nobody resembles me physically because I don't even physically exist.
Dec 11, 2024 5:20 AM
#6

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Mar 2012
8196
Yes, Takabayashi Tomo is the master of it:
The first half of the LN focuses on how much Conrad truly cares for Yuuri and how he'd do anything to protect and support him, it also gives us a backstory about why and how Conrad decided to dedicate his life to protecting and helping Yuuri then all of a sudden he betrays him and the reason is not mentioned anywhere in the LN you'll only find out why that happened if you read the author's interview where she mentioned that she hated Conrad and wanted to get rid of him but her editor didn't allow her to kill him due to his popularity among the Japanese fans so she makes him the traitor instead. Conrad is like a completely different person at the end of Caloria arc and first half of Seisakoku arc. Bitch was super salty that a character she didn't like became more popular than her beloved abusive tsundere so she did a lot of shit without any explanation.

She basically did it to all the characters specially in the manga adaptation to show her beloved gay abuser to be the hero by degrading other characters and trying to put them on a level lower that that abusive piece of shit.

あんたの還る場所は何処だ
ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴛᴜʀɴ ᴛᴏ?

あなたの許です
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Dec 11, 2024 10:44 AM
#7

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Jul 2021
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I feel a lot of "ending controversies" have to do with this.

Of course, a lot of those unhappy people probably just wanted a different ending (where their own best girl wins, for example), but I'm sure there are some valid criticisms that characters acted "out of character" and wouldn't/shouldn't have acted that way.

The most glaring example I can think of is the final season of Game of Thrones, where almost every major character drove off a cliff (figuratively and for some, literally).

I can't think of a good example in anime, but maybe Sing Yesterday For Me. I was genuinely confused why the main character made that choice in the end.
perseiiDec 11, 2024 10:49 AM
Dec 11, 2024 12:46 PM
#8

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Oct 2010
21255
yes, last chapters of chainsaw man p1 and the entire p2 is just fujimoto forgetting how his characters behave. Can't blame him though, he doesn't care anymore.
Same thing about evangelion rebuilds, it's just a middle finger towards the fans
Dec 11, 2024 12:53 PM
#9

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Jun 2015
3931
Yeah lol, read the second half of JJK. Gege goes on a rampage tearing down everything and everyone cause he hated his fans and JJK itself.
Dec 12, 2024 10:41 AM

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Oct 2017
2703
I guess its debatable if this is solely on Toriyama, since his role on Dragon Ball Super was more of a supervisor who approved the stories based off of vague outlines he wrote (with the exception of the Super Hero movie which I believe he directly wrote), but Goku's character was INCREDIBLY flanderized in Super. Goku can be naive at times, but he isn't flat out stupid like Super portrays him. Even in content like the Super Hero movie, which Toriyama had a bigger hand in the writing of, Goku has actively shown regression in some aspects of his discipline compared to the original manga, wiht something as simple as him not understanding what meditation is, despite having done in a few times in the original run of the Dragon Ball manga. "Stupid Super Goku" is part of the reason I actively dislike Super, but the average person seems to either not notice or not care how much Goku regressed.
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Dec 15, 2024 3:59 AM

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Feb 2020
1311
Yes, it happens all the time. Even the best works sometimes have that one little moment when I'm just thinking : "Was this really the best decision for this character, given everything we know about them ?".
The line between character development and inconsistency is extremely thin, and it's no wonder that so many creators fall into this trap.

I can share a bit of my own experience as a writer (currently amateur, but still) myself : even when I feel like I know my characters by heart, I have from time to time that moment where I'm confused about where I'm trying to go with them, or where I read something I wrote the day prior and feel like this doesn't actually work for this character. It's hard, because you have to think about SO many things to make sure that even the out-of-character moments make sense for them. It's down to the tiniest details. But it's also why it's important to take the time to get to know your characters and explore them in depth, and why I am both patient with works that make this mistake (if it's a small one) and irritated if the mistakes keep appearing (if they're big enough to make the character appear as badly written).

There's also sometimes the problem with a creator having a bias towards a specific character and being unable to see their flaws, for example (usually referred to as "Creator's Pet"). It can range from the character being depicted as a good person when their actions are those of a toxic individual, to them going from being nice and sweet to selfish and uncaring from one scene to another, without it making much sense.

So, yes. It does happen, way more often than it should.

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