Turned off after ~5 minutes

jwabeasley 2025-08-18 23:00:49 UTC #1

Does this happen to you? I tried watching a new animated series this morning, "Dragon Age: Absolution." I like the franchise (really, I like what it used to be), I like fantasy animated series, and I like some of the associated voice actors, so I was all set to jump in on it - but I turned it off before the episode ended. I didn't keep exact count of the time, but it was definitely less than 10 minutes.

I just despised the main character so much that I couldn't stand to watch any more. This "awesome" character sabotages her rookie coworkers, acts like a frosty jerk to prospective clients, disrespects her boss, and is mean to her former lover, while flatly refusing to join the adventure.

At that point, my question was, why should I care? I don't want anything for this viper other than for her to get killed and have some other character be the surprise real protagonist. But no, they had to make a personal impassioned plea that somehow the adventure would be 'good for her' in some resolving-trauma sort of way. Like I care. I turned it off after that.

Look, protagonists don't have to all be shining paragons of virtue or anything, but they need to be people an audience actually wants to spend time with. If they're a jerk, they'd better be a darn interesting one, someone you can't help but watch. And writers need to show me a reason to care pretty quickly. Maybe the writer's room cares about their creation just because they created her, but I need something else.

Thanks for enduring my little rant. Have any of you seen media lately that had this effect? Any that dodged it successfully?

Ordinaryaverageguy 2025-08-18 23:48:02 UTC #2

Sounds like it needed a likable character whom the reader would recognize as a possible agent of change for that horrible person. Someone to "root for".

ShidoDraws 2025-08-19 00:02:52 UTC #3

The other week I tried giving "Rent A Girlfriend" a watch. Not really a show I expected to be great, but I did still have some expectation of it being watchable. However, I was completely wrong. It could be that I can't stand certain personality, whatever it is I just could not watch past the first episode. In fact, I didn't even make it to half that episode. Like, I thought the first episode of Tokyo Ghoul was unbearable, this one takes the cake because I at least finished that show. lmao

I do believe it's probably a great show for some people, so I will say that I do not think I am the audience for it.

kyupol 2025-08-19 00:08:28 UTC #4

Rarely happens. It needs to be super boring before I'm completely turned off.

IndigoShirtProd 2025-08-19 00:34:22 UTC #5

I tend to be very picky with the media a consume, so I rarely get into something that I'm not all in for. This is also why I'm bad at taking recommendations. Like, if the cover or the synopsis has something that's off to me, I'm likely not watching it or reading it.

Not to say it hasn't happened before. I watched Tokyo Ghoul as well and finished the first season, though I wish I hadn't. And I got half way through Akame Ga Kill! season one and cut my losses. I don't understand why other people like that show, but to each their own. Oh and Black Clover. I got 5 episodes in and decided it wasn't for me. But to be honest, I'll probably return to it one of these days.

DokiDokiTsuna 2025-08-19 01:44:52 UTC #6

Oof, I've seen that happen...although in my experiences it's not because a character is a unlikeable jerk, it's because they barely even qualify as a character. :T A hollow shell, a collection of basic tropes holding up a "Protagonist: Please Like Me" sign, that provokes me to hatred not because their behavior offends me, but because the writers offend me by implying that I'm stupid and tasteless enough to take an interest in a character simply because they tell me to.

It happens WAY more often than I'd like; at this point, I'd probably be genuinely intrigued by a character that was rude and mean and horrible, because at least they'd be something...

The first thing that comes to mind is actually kind of the exact opposite of your experience, where the character in question was so sweet and kind and nice and selfless and humble that I just could not give a damn.

I don't want to talk about the media...all I'll say is that it was an extra story DLC for a video game remaster I was really looking forward to, only to be mortified by the slow realization that they decided this new story didn't require actual writing. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Just boring lore dumps, and constant praise heaped onto this new character who feels like he came out of nowhere, telling us what a brave soldier he is, and how much he lost in the war and how sweet and cheerful he is despite it, and how talented and amazing he is...

...30 minutes in, I stopped watching the playthrough, and months later I haven't been able to make myself go back. =/ I'm 99.99% sure there is nothing they could do with that "character" that they haven't already done better with an actual character in the original story...someday I'll probably be bored/morbidly curious enough to find out, but I don't know when that day will come.

I think these strategies are just two sides of the same coin when it comes to misguided character writing...like, "wanna make the audience love this person? Either (a) make them a flawless angelic paragon that can never do anything wrong, or (b) make them such a rotten pit of selfishness that the audience is primed to "relate" to them, feel "subversive" and cool for liking them, and/or wait for the inevitable character arc to transform them into a flawless angelic paragon that can never do anything wrong!"

And for those who are used to characters with...well, depth, it's really frustrating to watch. :T

I feel like a lot of writers seem to struggle with the concept of engaging the audience; maybe it's due to modern media trends prioritizing audience members who are on their phones and only half-paying attention (gee, maybe they aren't paying attention because the media is uninteresting...ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy) but I've noticed an uptick in writers just 'advertising' what a character is supposed to be and do, and waiting to see who takes an interest...rather than presenting naturally interesting questions or obstacles for that character to involve themselves with.

I don't want a story about an "adventurer", I want a story about a character that goes on an adventure. Unfortunately, a lot of writers seem to think those are the same thing. =/

Humbug 2025-08-19 03:47:17 UTC #7

My husband and I thought Tokyo Ghoul was a bad anime too. It was overly edgy more for shock factor and had ittle substance. We joked that this is what a teenage Garth Ennis would have written as his first fiction.

jwabeasley 2025-08-19 04:28:39 UTC #8

For sure, if they're such a bundle of goodness that they don't even feel real, that's no good either. I've complained many times about the "Marvel hero template," which is how in many comic offerings of the past decade or so, most "hero" characters could be interchangeable, they all react the same way to any given scenario, they use roughly the same vocabulary, and they might as well be a 'hero'-shaped soap statue than a character. Batman and Green Arrow have similar powers and backgrounds, but their stories should be totally different from each other. Miles Morales and Kamala Khan are both quirky teens, but it should fundamentally change the story to have one or the other as the lead even if the setup is the same.

Setting up characters to have a character arc might be one of the big culprits here. Sure, the character might be a huge dastard in 12 different ways now, but just stick with us for 30 hours and you'll see how they become a huge dastard in only 11 and a half ways!

I saw great writing advice a while back that said that character arcs in longform storytelling are illusory. What's important is not how a character changes, but how they don't change. Their character traits are revealed and recontextualized by being put into new situations. They remain who they are at the core, perhaps with some reshaping but still themselves.

I agree. It's easier said than done, but we're out here doing our best anyhow. I know I don't count on people turning pages or returning to be frequent readers without giving them a reason to keep going, having some development on every page.

KevinReijnders 2025-08-19 08:01:58 UTC #9

I know I watched that show start to finish, but I cannot for the life of me tell you what happened in it or who the characters are.

All I remember is that it was a generic, mid-AF gantasy show.

So you didn't miss out on anything by turning it off haha

Lensing 2025-08-19 09:42:45 UTC #10

I really disliked the actors / main characters of the series Ozark. I disliked how the chacters
were written, but I still watched the series because I liked the overall story.

For me it´s like that, don´t bore me in the beginning, catch my attention, I want to know
what´s going on, what I´m dealing with. "Haikyu!!" is an anime example. I´m not interested
in Volleyball at all, I´m not the target audience in any way, I don´t watch much anime and
I think it´s for a younger audience but they got me right away, good beginning of the show,
and from that point on it didn´t matter much to me if I liked the main character or not.

DokiDokiTsuna 2025-08-19 11:34:47 UTC #11

I...need to write that down. o_o That's a really interesting way to think about it...

And it explains why "establishment" of characters like the one you described feels so artificial-- if it doesn't feel like there's any core motivation underneath all that behavior, just wanton destruction without any psychological context, then there's no real reason to wait for a character arc...because at best, the writer will just be making up a new character from the ground up.

You won't get to see a character change, and you sure as hell won't be able to see them "not change"...there won't be any revelation, no threads to follow from the beginning to the end; just random bad actions arbitrarily replaced by random good ones. Like a badguy from a show for preschoolers...

...Now that I think about it, although I haven't watched many MC arcs like this, I've definitely sat through plenty of villain arcs like this...

IndigoShirtProd 2025-08-19 16:21:44 UTC #12

What I think is funny is that I watched it in high school and even in the midst of my teenage angst I understood how poorly constructed the story was of season one.

jwabeasley 2025-08-19 23:32:54 UTC #13

I don't know how you did it but I'm glad to know my aversion was the correct response.

KevinReijnders 2025-08-20 00:01:48 UTC #14

Iirc I had a long commute at the time and it perfectly killed my boredom haha

ButterflyEmpress 2025-08-20 03:57:17 UTC #15

@ShidoDraws I think the series' popularity (at least in the US) is from the fanservice and how dumb the story can get. I don't think I've heard of anyone who genuinely likes the show. The only thing I like is that is has college aged characters. The main character is an ass, Mami makes no sense as a villain, and the series goes absolutely nowhere. I'm glad I dropped after 3 episodes

One of my biggest turn off is if an anime key visual features a bunch of girls and the synopsis mentions a male lead who isn't pictured.

ShidoDraws 2025-08-20 09:00:45 UTC #16

Oh, when the first thing she does when introduced in the show was breaking up with the main character, I knew immediately that she was going to come back. Like, it wasn't even subtle because, look, she's on the cover of the story with all the other "girlfriends". That was when I was like, nope, I do not want to witness the main character being, "oh no, I don't know who to pick! Someone, please help me make a choice!" Then you have multiple girls coming in like it's an airport checkpoint waiting to get on that main character's plane, just to U-turn back deciding that he wanted the female lead all along. Usually a conclusion that doesn't exist.

I did not want to watch the show because I knew it was a harem. But after avoiding it for a while, I wanted to try and watch it because I was thinking if I had finished watching and reading Nisekoi, and with how Date A Live is now with the new seasons. I was like, "what could be worst?" After watching the first 7 minutes of Rent A Girlfriend, I decided I would rather drink bleach than watch the rest of that show.

Oh, I do believe some people like that show. I wouldn't put it pass the actual people who acts like the main character. I mean, I grew up with a lot of them and I feel that show would definitely resonate with them a lot. Because that is just how they view women. Like, I truly believe every piece of trash is someone's treasure, ya know.

ButterflyEmpress 2025-08-21 02:47:35 UTC #17

I stupidly went into it blind. I thought it was about the 4 girls and their jobs as rental girlfriends.

I stay away from harems unless they're really funny and stupid about it, like Hametsu Flag or 100 Girlfriends. The genre is mostly pointless since there's only one love interest who matters or the main character can't decide.