Badass Movie/Television Characters Who Did Not Live Up to Their Own Hype

The Blind Eternities forum

Posted on Dec. 15, 2016, 3:01 p.m. by DemonDragonJ

In the realm of fiction, there are often characters who may seem to be awesome, who are heavily implied to be complete badasses who are extremely competent, but who fail to actually display anything that is truly impressive. Therefore, this thread shall be to discuss those characters who were hyped to be awesome but failed to live up to that hype.

My first example is Sao Feng, the pirate lord of Singapore from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The previews and other promotional material for the movie heavily featured Sao Feng, and he also stated that he had a personal grudge against Jack Sparrow, so most viewers presumed that he would be a major character in the movie. However, he died halfway through the movie without having accomplished much and was scarcely even mentioned after that, and the details of his grudge against Jack were never revealed.

Another example is Boba Fett from Star Wars; in the expanded universe, he certainly is a major character who performs many badass deeds, but the original films are a different matter. Boba Fett is the only bounty hunter introduced in The Empire Strikes Back who appears beyond the initial scene, and he did not seem to be afraid of Darth Vader, as was nearly everyone else, so, while he obviously could not be as badass as Vader himself, he was still was very badass in his own right. However, he never had a major fight in the movies in which he appeared and, worst of all, Han Solo knocked him into the Sarlacc accidentally, which was such an undignified defeat for someone who was supposedly a ruthless bounty hunter. I really hope that the new Star Wars continuity retains the story of him escaping from the Sarlacc, because he needs to redeem himself after that humiliation.

For another Star Wars example, there is captain Phasma from The Force Awakens. She is the first female stormtrooper, the first female major antagonist in a Star Wars film, and one of the few stormtroopers to actually have their name revealed. She was featured heavily in promotional material for the film, so audiences were expecting her to play a major role. However, Han and Finn defeated her far too easily (to be fair, they did catch her off-guard, but someone of her status should not have been caught off-guard) and then threw her into a garbage chute. I was immensely displeased by that, so I hope that she returns and redeems herself in Episode VIII.

What does everyone else say about this? Who are some movie and television characters who were implied to be badasses, but failed to live up to their own hype?

Arvail says... #2

December 15, 2016 4:23 p.m.

Mortem says... #3

Arlinn Kord  ^Flip in the magic story. I didn't read all the MS stories, but it seemed to be she only had 1 or two articles referencing her. After her enigmatic appearance in the first SOI story, it seemed like she was not only knowledgeable about what was coming but the only one capable of stopping it.... until she gets brushed aside and the Gatewatch steal the spotlight.

December 15, 2016 6:15 p.m.

Gattison says... #4

Good question. =)

Remember Highlander: The Series? It was okay, I liked it a lot as a kid, but I remember in season one, they had this character, Darius, who was a 1000-year-old immortal priest. His origin was that he was once a highly-feared, highly violent conqueror, who killed a fellow immortal that was a holy man, and during the Quickening, the holy man's goodness, overpowered Darius' evilness. Darius then promptly gave up his way of violence and became a holy man himself.

He was extremely wise, level-headed, and was a reliable source of good advice at all times. Then he died. Killed by mortals, off-screen, so nobody even got his Quickening and absorbed his power. At least they made it look like he put up an epic fight before he died, but even that was disappointing because we didn't get to see it on-screen.

At least they made up for it by introducing 4000-year-old Methos 3 seasons later, and not killing him right away....

But anyway, Darius was a great character, total badass, who we never got to see actually be a badass. AND he was highly underused in the series. What a waste of a good idea.

December 15, 2016 6:31 p.m.

MollyMab says... #5

The War Doctor. They had built him up so much. A warrior. A doctor for the darkest daya of the time war. The implicstion was he had even aged in that form he fought so long and all we see is him stealing a magical nuke and...that is it.

December 15, 2016 6:57 p.m.

Aztraeuz says... #6

A character built up from people talking to me was Rick from The Walking Dead. I came to the show late, so I heard a lot about Rick and how awesome he was, and when I finally started watching, I had plenty of the show to get through.

He is a sissy. I don't particularly like him. I don't understand how/why people do like him.

December 16, 2016 1:04 a.m.

DemonDragonJ says... #7

TheDevicer, how did Aizen not live up to his own hype? He was an amazing villain, although I shall admit at times he seemed to be almost too powerful, and the final battle between him and Ichigo was epic, one of the best final battles that I have seen in Japanese manga and anime since Goku versus Freeza or Gohan versus Cell in Dragon Ball.

December 16, 2016 1:51 a.m.

DemonDragonJ says... #8

Mortem, yes, your mention of Arlinn Kord made me realize that she appeared in only a single story, and never played a significant role in the battle against Emrakul; where was she when all that was occurring? Will she ever been seen, again?

December 16, 2016 1:55 a.m.

Arvail says... #9

Why is Aizen shit? Aight, strap the fuck in becasue

Obvious Spoilers are Obvious Show

Aside from minor introductory fluff, Bleach's first major arc, the soul society arc, is largely recognized as one of the best the shonen action battle genre has to offer. What it lacks in ingenuity, it makes up for by being an absolutely stellar execution of tried and true principles.

The arc ends with Aizen being revealed to have manipulated the events of the entire arc to accomplish his own ends. He's made out to be cool, calculating, ruthless, and intelligent as fuck. At all times during his reveal, you easy see that no matter how the events play out, he's in command. Not only was his reveal completely unexpected, it made him out to be a completely abhorrent figure while maintaining such a collected air that you couldn't help liking him nonetheless.

Fans harped on him in an instant. The last time I remember a shonen villain getting a response like this was with Meruem in Hunter X Hunter (and bless his fucking soul). Ok, sure, maybe Aizen's slicked hair was a little silly, but damn did he have an awesome set up to use in the future.

The Hueco Mundo arc actually starts off quite strong and the showdowns with Grimmjow and Ulquiorra are built up exceptionally well and executed gorgeously. In addition, the plot point where Orihime is revealed to have the ability to manipulate time is fucking brilliant. It sets her out to be an insanely powerful character but it's limited by her state of mind. Given her reserved nature, it seemed like TK was legit setting her up to have a major character arc at the time where she'd overcome her shy nature.

But no, she's sidelined, the fights begin to feel drawn out, and the major climax of the arc is turned into a clusterfuck of characters that really have no reason to be there given the pacing needs of the series. All of this is done for the sake of delaying the inevitable confrontation between Ichigo an Aizen. We all want to see it but it's just not getting there.

And you know what? I'd actually be ok with excusing most of this shit. When you follow a serialized manga released on the timeline required by Jump, it's almost inevitable that your series will get sidetracked and muddled down as it progresses.

No, what kills me is that Aizen was initially set up to be an intelligent and manipulative character. That's the perfect foil for a hotheaded, single-minded character like Ichigo. However, as he uses Hougyoku, Aizen gets strong enough to where he has no purpose for trickery and schemes. Instead, he can just brute force everything and come out on top.

After something like a decade of being published, we finally see Aizen square off vs Ichigo. We can disagree over how great the confrontation was, but given that Ichigo loses his soul reaper powers during the fight and that Aizen is defeated in the end, this seemed like the perfect place to end the series. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, the cancerous being that Bleach had become was left to durdle on.

The reason Aizen doesn't live up to his hype is that his character experiences a major shift that betrays everything that made him cool. This coincides with tons of terrible developments in the series itself. His defeat coincides with a metric fuckton of readers dropping the manga because of how disappointed they had become with the series during the climax of the Hueco Mundo arc.

Thank God for Hunter X Hunter. That series avoids being bogged down by being largle driven by the unique scenarios it presents the readers with.

Oh, and Meruem is a fucking G. And why is that? Because his character arc is largely driven by the realization that the world doesn't revolve around brute strength and he changes according to his newly discovered principles.

That's something Aizen never did.

December 16, 2016 8:33 a.m.