Draco in Leather Pants/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Film - Animation

  • Frollo in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. There are people who think he should have ended up with Esmeralda instead of Phoebus. It doesn't help that he's WAY more sympathetic in the book. He and the Archdeacon are the same person in the book--he took Quasimodo in out of pity, rather than because he was forced to, but he was still a Jerkass borderline on Complete Monster later on. Disney split him into two characters because they didn't want religious backlash for portraying a clergyman as a total monster, hence the good Archdeacon and the evil Frollo, who is a judge rather than a priest.
  • A quick look down the page for the Beauty and the Beast Headscratchers page reveals a disturbing tendency for Gaston fangirls to consider him a misunderstood fellow who didn't deserve that bitch Belle. Somehow, the fact that he's an arrogant murderous sociopath doesn't seem to matter.
    • Similar for the The Princess and the Frog Headscratchers page. Apparently there are people who think Facilier and Lawrence were just poor, misguided folks who never would have tried to swindle an innocent girl of money and murder her father and let a pack of demons loose to prey on New Orleans if they had only gotten Mama Odie's message. Oh, and opening Naveen's jar a little so he could breathe apparently redeems Lawrence.
  • Both Scar from The Lion King and Steele from Balto have received this treatment in the Furry Fandom; many, many fanfics depict them getting the girl or dominating the protagonists sexually...
    • And their sequel counterparts Zira from The Lion King II and Niju from Balto II have had their share as well.
  • Randall Boggs from Monsters, Inc. has an enormous Scaly Fandom rivalling Kaa from Disney's The Jungle Book and Preed from Titan A.E.. Then there's Hopper from A Bugs Life, Scroop from Treasure Planet, and the ultimate head scratcher of Chick Hicks from Cars; all of them have been given the Leather Pants treatment at least once.
  • From The Jungle Book, Kaa's DILP fanbase could be justified because in the original book he wasn't a villain. The true reasons, however, lie elsewhere. Cartoon Kaa is an Affably Evil being, an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, and a Chew Toy. Even when he is doing something that by all rights should be horrendous -- namely, constricting Mowgli in preparation to eat him during "Trust in Me" -- the potential for horror is underplayed. Disney made its snake a villain, wanted him for comic relief and so minimized the sense of villainy, but did manage to show Kaa had some charisma, lots of skill at hypnotism, and moments of competence.
    • Shere Khan is almost a canonical entry into this. While a bloodthirsty predator intent on killing a small child solely out of hatred for mankind, he has a highly affable and whimsical charm akin to Kaa (only twice as fearsome). This was downplayed in the sequel, that made him more ruthless and void of comical traits, The Disney Afternoon series Tale Spin on the other hand, anthropomorphized Khan into a highly suave and calculating business man with a strict moral code, even assisting the good guys on occasion. This depiction came to be even more popular than the original Jungle Book interpretation.
  • Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda, with the vast majority of Fan Fics based on redeeming him. Fans apparently ignore that he's an entitled, self-centered Spoiled Brat who was willing to take his frustration out on a valley of innocent people just because he didn't get his way. Fans try to pin blame on Shifu for making Tai-Lung want the Dragon Scroll, despite the fact that Shifu never said Tai-Lung was destined to be the Dragon Warrior. All Shifu said was that he was destined for greatness. Fans also overlook his repulsive mannerisms (his Smug Snake attitude; his taking pleasure in scaring an innocent bird; his mock-friendly small talk with his enemies,* when they all know he's planning to either hurt people or steal things, etc.).
    • In the director's commentary it was pointed out that, in trying to make sure Tai Lung would not be a flat, one-note villain, they went too far in humanizing him and making him sympathetic, to the point that many viewers felt so sorry for him they forgot he was the villain. End result: the flashback sequence of his rampage was added in expressly to remind people why he was in prison in the first place. Yet the fact the backstory (complete with cute cuddly baby Tai Lung) was still included, as well as the emotional confrontation between him and Shifu, suggests the makers aren't completely averse to a Sympathy for the Devil tendency in fans.
      • Director's commentary on DVD literally stated that they didn't want to make Tai Lung completely sympathetic. Him being sympathetic to an extent was wholly intentional.
    • Conversely, while there's no problem feeling for him - they succeeded quite well in making Tai Lung a much more three-dimensional character than most villains - the problem sets in when people gloss over the fact that Tai Lung has long since stopped being the "Well Done, Son" Guy who won't take "no" for an answer and is now entirely willing to, at the very least, beat up the rest of China, including his foster parent, if they stand between him and his goal. Worse, some people vilify Oogway or Shifu because of the Dragon Scroll incident, despite the fact that Tai Lung's reaction to it indicates that Oogway's belief there was darkness in his heart was completely right.
      • Putting Tai Lung's tragic backstory aside for a second the main reason why people feel sorry for him is very much a case of Disproportionate Retribution: the poor bastard tries to steal all of one scroll (that was blank to begin), goes on one rampage (and as far as the audience knows doesn't actually 'end' anyone) and his punishment for this is spending YEARS inside what's essentially a steel casket, barely able to move and (if he were any weaker) would've easily succumbed to sensory deprivation at worst and severe insanity/depression AT BEST. Hell, even America's most heinous criminals were given better living conditions than Tai Lung. Not to mention the fact that the rhinos at the prison, for what little we see of them, are complete jerkasses to him. Really, if you were in Tai Lung's position do you honestly think a single apology from your father (who never came to visit you anyway) would be enough?
    • Lord Shen, Big Bad of the sequel, seems to be well on the way to his pair of leather pants as well, even though he, albeit not a flat villain, is a genocidal murderer, with a fraying grip on sanity and a Freudian Excuse that the creators deliberately made very weak in the final version of the script.
  • Syndrome from The Incredibles. There are some who think he had a point in accusing Mr. Incredible of being biased against non-supers. And it doesn't bother them that he murdered dozens of other superheroes to get back at Mr. Incredible, or gleefully shoots down a plane with children aboard. And though he did intend to sell his inventions to the public, the publicity campaign for the launch would kill thousands while he played hero. And when that plot fails, his Plan B is to kidnap an infant and raise him as a murderous villain, like himself. And yet some people want to frame this as a Pet the Dog moment for him on the "logic" that he can't really be bad because he didn't kill the baby instead.
  • Charles Muntz from Up, while not as extreme as the above examples (well... not very often anyway), is often painted as a young-at-heart adventurer who was simply doing what he enjoyed and pursuing a life's dream, and Carl and Russell were trouble-makers who had no business sticking their noses in, never mind the fact that he tries to kill them and is implied to have killed people who come within 100 miles of his prize.
  • There are a rare few who give Lotso from Toy Story 3 this treatment due to his tragic backstory. In "The Art of Toy Story 3" book, the movie's creative staff note that members of an early test audience reacted this way, wanting Lotso to pull a Heel Face Turn and become good. In response, they went back and amped up his cruelty by adding a plotline between him and Big Baby, in which he lies to Big Baby about their owner not loving him anymore, and when the lie comes out later on and brings Big Baby to tears, Lotso responds by smashing his locket and then striking him with his cane. As the film director put it, the audience had to realize that Lotso was way too far gone now and deserved what he got in the end.
  • Oogie Boogie of The Nightmare Before Christmas tends to get this a lot, often making Jack into a bully to do so. Also, Jack is probably one of the rare, if not the only, hero who gets this. Fans bash the military for shooting Jack down, despite the fact that they were justified in doing so.
  • Mother Gothel from Tangled is starting to get this treatment. Fans have debated back and forth on whether or not she truly loved Rapunzel, but by the way some put it, it makes it seem like the kingdom using the flower (that she found, not grew, and selfishly hoarded and kept to herself for centuries) to heal the dying pregnant queen was some horrible sin against her, and that her kidnapping, scare tactics, and stabbing Flynn were just because she LOVED Rapunzel so much. Not to mention that it's pretty clear that her style of mothering was, at the very least, rather emotionally manipulative, if not actually abusive.
  • There are genuinely a minority of people who romanticise Hal from Megamind as a Woobie who just needed a chance, and likewise interpret Roxanne as a superficial and shallow bitch. Granted, the moment when he invites her to his "party" is awkward to watch, but this is more Hal's fault than Roxanne's. It was bad enough that he hired a DJ and a bouncy house for a party that was just meant for the two of them, in the vague hope that she would attend, but the wedding photographer took it to a whole other level. Not to mention his unsubtly rude behaviour around Bernard/Megamind, and of course his actions later on speak for themselves. It's also noteworthy that Roxanne, while clearly (and rightly) creeped out by Hal's actions and attentions, nevertheless consistently makes a clear effort to be nice to him or at least let him gently, and that Hal's rant that she never took the time to get to know to him is yet another example of how deluded and entitled he is.
  • Soto from the first Ice Age film. He can appear Unintentionally Sympathetic due to his family/pack being wiped out by the human hunters with some fans ignoring that he caused the death of Roshan's mother for the sake of revenge against Roshan's father and wanted to kill the baby Roshan, not stopping at anything to get his vengeance.
  • The Once-ler in The Lorax seems to be turning out this way; many fans are starting to portray him as a Jerkass Woobie who was doing his best to heed the Lorax's words, instead of a Corrupt Corporate Executive who realizes his errors just a little too late. The fact that he's surprisingly pretty as a youth has very little to do with it.
    • The original Once-ler has gotten hit with this too. Fanon often has him as near-identical to the young movie Once-ler, but wearing flamboyant green clothing. He's more greedy than the movie version even within fandom, but it's toned down a lot.

Film - Live Action

  • Tajōmaru in Rashomon; though it's true that he's less of a straight-out brute in the movie than in the story, still he gets an added increment of sympathy from being played by a sexy charismatic actor.
  • Hordes of fans of David Bowie (and his pants) change the antagonist of Labyrinth, Jareth the Goblin King, from a baby-napping, tantrum-throwing, drugged-peach-wielding, creepy guy interested in a teen girl into a misunderstood romantic whose one true love is Sarah.
  • People who worship Sarah Connor of Terminator 2 Judgment Day as a paragon of feminist virtue tend to be the ones who ignore the fact she is a cruel, violent, emotionally unstable bad-mother who is actually deconstructing militant feminism rather than celebrating it. Point in fact, according to Audio-Commentary of the 3-DVD Definitive Edition Director's Cut, Linda Hamilton (the actress who portrayed her) and James Cameron (Hamilton's then husband and the creator of the Sarah Connor characters) repeatedly stressed on multiple occasions that she is a messed up horror-of-a-human being rather than someone who is meant to be admired. Granted, her intentions are noble given the circumstances that she is facing, but fighting a war to stop humanity from being exterminated by evil robots is still not a justifiable excuse for being a cold-and-unfeeling mother who is for all intents and purposes emotionally non-existent in her son's life. It was even stressed in the running-subtitle-commentary that John was a better human being (and hence messianic savior) than she is because he valued the soul, emotions and heart that came with being a true human being; values that a messed-up wreck like her most certainly did not teach him.
      • Mostly people consider her a good feminist -character- though because she is complex, flawed and non-stereotypical (and cool) and goes through a compelling arc over the course of the two movies. Few would consider her to be an admirable person in the story itself. Feminists instead argue "People should write more female characters like Sarah Connor because she's interesting and not just a cookie-cutter love interest." Good character /= good person.
    • T-800 itself is a Draco in Leather Pants, with real leather pants, in the first movie. He was so popular with fans that the next T-800 is a heroic character in the second movie.
      • Surprisingly, the T-1000 gets this in fan fiction and on YouTube. You know, the murderous, borderline-sadistic killing machine who stabs people through the eye and occasionally kills them seemingly just for the hell of it. Rule 34 indeed.
  • Red Eye fanfic likes to apply this to Jackson Rippner, a murderous sociopath with no serious objection to killing children. He threatens to torture the heroine to death in front of her father. There is a certain amount of sexual tension between him and Rachel McAdams' character, but it's less Will They or Won't They? than fear that he's going to rape her. And yet there is Shipping in which he is presented as just misunderstood. It may have something to do with the seraphic countenance of Cillian Murphy.
    • Similar to what happens in mainstream Batman Begins fic. Androgynous sexiness must equal goodness, too. Cillian's portrayal of Jonathan Crane and Red Eye's Rippner would get along famously if it weren't for Crane's utter insanity. Some of the fans get around it with heavy medication. Some just ignore the portions of the film where Crane acts typically villainous and psychotic - most of his screen time, in fact - and make him a surly, slightly manipulative but otherwise well Deadpan Snarker.
    • And people have begun giving The Dark Knight-verse Joker this treatment... What the hell? Though he may have had a sympathetic origin, those origin stories he tells you are lies.
  • Lash, one of the school bullies who joins up with the Big Bad in Sky High, has a surprising amount of steamy fanfics written about him (usually involving him and Layla Draco-and-Hermione-style).
  • Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men, who is referred to by some as "Hannibal Lecter's evil twin," gets steamy fanfic.
  • Natural Born Killers is basically a parody of this trope. Not surprising that too many who saw the film ended up seeing the protagonists as true badasses.
  • Col. Landa from Inglourious Basterds already seems to be developing this sort of following. Obviously intended to be a Magnificent Bastard, too many are admiring his politeness and cunning, ignoring the fact that he is a sadistic and sociopathic SS officer shown to even possibly have misogynistic tendencies and is extremely self-serving rather than simply doing what he does out of a manner of duty.
    • This has been augmented by actual neo-nazis and right-wing revisionists who fiercedly welcomed a non-negative portrayal of an SS officer (despite the fact that Landa is still far from a 'non-negative' portrayal of an SS officer) and exaggerated his virtues while overlooking his flaws, claiming the whole SS to have been like him.
    • The idea that Landa is a Magnificent Bastard actually has shades of this trope; he is more of a Smug Snake because his "plan" has so many flaws in it, and the most obvious one is the one that actually happens namely, trusting a group of sociopaths who call themselves the Basterds. That, and while his plan to sell out the German leadership did sort-of work, he failed to identify Shoshanna as the Jewish girl whose family he slaughtered, so even if he did turn the Basterds in they all still would have died, maybe himself included, and mostly due to his incompetence, not his scheming.
    • Everybody in Inglourious Basterds Fanfic gets this treatment, but Donny (the Bear Jew), Landa, and Stiglitz get the worst of it by far. And there was that one Mary Sue fic that made Donny speak fluent Finnish to communicate with the Mary Sue...
  • As Clive Barker, creator of the Hellraiser series, put it:

"You've got Pinhead, who hasn't done a single decent thing in eight movies, and still gets mail from women who want to have his children."

  • The Repo! The Genetic Opera fandom is terribly prone to this, but that may be because every single male character under the age of fifty is both played by someone incredibly sexy and seriously messed up in the head. Pavi, Luigi, and Graverobber seem to have the biggest followings, despite the fact that being involved with any of them would be seriously detrimental to their partner's health.
  • In the film version of Watchmen, the Comedian played by the talented Jeffrey Dean Morgan has gotten himself some disturbingly devoted fanbase who seem to forget stuff like trying to rape his teammate while laughing all the time, and gunning down a woman pregnant with his child in Vietnam. And many of them are women who think he's sexy (maybe it's the Porn Stache).
    • This has resulted from the story itself (both comic and movie) giving the Comedian this treatment. In the scene where he kills the aforementioned pregnant woman both he and the story place the blame on Doctor Manhattan for not intervening, the woman whom he tried to rape speaks of him fondly (and had at least one consensual encounter with him afterward), Nite Owl refers to him in reverent terms even in a flashback in which he's firing on unarmed protesters[1], and his killing by Ozymandias is treated as a combination Heroic Sacrifice and Redemption Equals Death. Of course, this being Watchmen it's entirely probable this was intentional as part of the deconstruction and was simply overwhelmed by Misaimed Fandom. Word of God for the movie said that it was indeed intentional, the goal being to create a character who is despicable but still in a way sympathetic.
    • Rorschach before the film: he had a Misaimed Fandom that viewed him as a total Badass, but never found him sexy. Then the movie came, along with a legion of fangirls who want to "make him better".
  • Freddy Krueger has a pretty strong female fanbase. Yes, that Freddy Krueger.
  • Just like the above Nightmare series, Friday the 13 th has a pretty weird fan base that for some reason thinks Jason Voorhees is not merely a hideously deformed Sympathetic Murderer, but also sexy enough for their Mary Sue to be attracted to. If this leads into an anime, it would send the number of such delusional fangirls through the roof.This has been played with and parodied in various F13 comics in recent years. One had him seemingly growing attracted, or at least fond, of a girl who was killing people as well and another where a crazy girl tries to use him as a means of revenge against one of her tormentors (slight spoiler: things don't quite work out for her).
  • Cesare. Not only is he a Brainwashed and Crazy Knife Nut Serial Killer, but ladies, he's like in a coma.
  • Dr. Frank N Furter, oh, where do we start? Let's see... he brutally murders Eddie out of sheer jealousy, tricks Brad and Janet into sleeping with him for no other reason than because he wants to, creates Rocky for the sole purpose of being a sex slave, and forces Brad, Janet, Rocky, and Columbia to do a floorshow/orgy with him after he has them turned to stone. Not to mention the fact that he's completely and utterly insane. And, yet, the fans practically throw themselves at his feet. Must have something to do with his charms and good looks.
    • Likewise, Riff Raff has quite the fanbase as well. Never mind the fact that he killed Columbia, Frank, and Rocky out of pure spite. Fans tend to make him far more sympathetic than he really is.
    • Tim Curry in general inspires this in fans, making is somewhat of a bad idea to cast him as a villain since it means that fans will prefer him more than the protagonists.
    • As the Prince of Darkness in Legend, in spite of Hollywood makeup and latex's every attempt to make him look bestial and demonic he might as well have been wearing leather pants all over his body. And on his head.
  • Deliberately played with in William Castle's Mr.Sardonicus. The title character is quite similar to a Phantom of the Opera before becoming Progressively Prettier (driven insane by a disfigurement, searching for love, etc.). Reportedly, two endings were filmed: a Good Ending where Sardonicus is cured and redeemed, and a Bad Ending where he dies. This being a William Castle movie, audiences were allowed to vote on whether they thought the character deserved mercy. Every damn time, they killed him, and it looks like the mercy ending is lost forever, if it ever existed. Sounds harsh? It turns out that a guy who looks like this is easier to forgive than a guy who looks like this.
  • Tavington in The Patriot has no shortage of swoony fans. (The shaving scene!) Again, this is probably due to the Anvilicious presentation of Mel-Gibson-as-reluctant-messiah-again and Tavington as a ridiculously Evil Brit leading people to Root For The Empire (plus he's played by Jason Isaacs).
  • The Joker and the Scarecrow seem to get this a lot in Batman fanfiction. Leave it to crazed fangirls to pick two of the most evil characters in a series that actually has several sympathetic (or in the case of the ordinary mobsters, at least normal) villains to crush on. This is made even more bizarre by their neglect of Two-Face, who is actually sympathetic.
  • Pig, Cillian Murphy's character in Disco Pigs, is a nasty, controlling, antisocial jerk who terrifies his own mother, abuses his little brother, terrorizes random people, and who eventually murders a guy for dancing with his crush. He has hordes of fangirls who feel sorry for him (even though he brings every misfortune on his own head), say he's "sweet" and "sensitive", and think he is the best thing since sliced bread. You know, let's just rename this page, "Any character played by Cillian Murphy."
  • The new Alice in Wonderland movie has Stayne, the Knave of Hearts. He's the right hand of the Red Queen and, besides condoning and facilitating her actions, lies to Bayard about releasing his family and tries to get our heroine killed. Not to mention the fact that the attempt follows him cornering Alice against the wall and telling her "I like...largeness." When someone sees them - before Alice, understandably unimpressed and creeped out, flees - and reports to the Queen, he tells the Red Queen that Alice seduced him knowing full well what she'll command, and goes to carry out the murder himself. Suavest of the suave, right? Yet fandom is already repainting him as a dark, noble and romantically tragic figure.
  • Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs.
      • Hannibal's status as this got much more blatant when Thomas Harris himself developed a "man-crush" on him.
  • DARTH MAUL has a kriffing Mr. Fanservice.
    • Also Darth Vader and Boba Fett. Boba Fett never really did anything in the original trilogy to showcase any kind of softer side. He was a mercenary who worked for gangsters and the one of the most oppressive empires in history. And had to be reminded not to vaporize the targets, and sounded disappointed about such a restriction. And his father, while showcasing some tenderness towards Boba, was still an assassin who tried to kill Amidala because his employer was peeved she had the nerve not to let him try and conquer her planet with little justification, and killed his subordinate to keep her from spilling the beans. And let himself serve as a template for an army of clones, basically his brothers (or, given his relationship with Boba, his children), to serve as cannon fodder for a war that his contact helped start in the first place.
      • Boba Fett having a more sympathetic characterization is quite possibly a result of the Expanded Universe where he often wavers somewhere between Anti-Hero and Anti-Villain. Even when he's presented as an out-and-out antagonist, those works tend to portray him as an almost elemental force rather than someone doing something villainous out of greed or immorality. But even in the works where he slides all the way over to Anti-Hero, he's still an example of Good Is Not Nice, so the leather pantsing probably stands.
    • Grievous' leather pants come from two main factors: Number one, his incredible Badassitude from the Clone Wars cartoon earned him tons of fans. Number two, his pathetic demise--being bested by a mere blaster after more or less beating Obi-Wan somehow earned him some sympathy points.
  • Captain Jones in Changeling seems to have quite a few female fans, despite being a corrupt, slimy bastard. Of course, he is played by the handsome Jeffrey Donovan.
  • Alex from A Clockwork Orange. True, he's the main character, his society and the adults in his life don't give a shit about him, he becomes a huge Woobie when his "rehabilitation" takes away his ability to defend himself, and Malcolm McDowell's performance is very compelling. He's still a teenage rapist psychopath, and Mary Sue fics where the author tries to redeem him with True Love miss the point.
  • Drake Stone, an arrogant Morganian from The Sorcerers Apprentice is beginning to get this, despite the fact that he helped Horvath release Morgana. To be fair, he is a Minion with an F In Evil who seemed uncomfortable when the full consequences of his actions were brought up.
  • The mass-murdering Michael Myers from the Halloween series. All of the fanfics have Michael Myers abducting and falling for a girl, or a "childhood friend", when the closest thing he showed to romantic intent is being forced to rape his niece in the Halloween 6 Producer's Cut.
  • Hard Candy has Haley, played by a pre-Juno Ellen Page. She has hordes of fangirls cheering her on and calling her a righteous angel. They ignore the fact that she's clearly a mentally disturbed and sociopathic girl who ties up a man and tortures him for hours on end, eventually making him believe she's castrated him and forcing him to commit suicide. Because said man is a child molester, Haley is held as a paragon of feminism and her fans ignore the obvious fact that she's using the child molester as an excuse to further her own twisted desires. When it comes down to it, Haley is just as bad as the man she tortures, but since she's a female she's OMG forgiven.
    • Part of this is likely due to the fact that she's presented very ambiguously. She's obviously sociopathic, but she gives out no true details about her life or past, making the viewer wonder why she's doing it and therefore invent a possibly sympathetic backstory.
    • It is also possible that the nature of the child molester's crimes contributes to this: Fans tend to ignore or excuse all sorts of horrible fates that are doled out to characters that are portrayed as having crossed some sort of line or as a Complete Monster
  • There are actually people out there who honestly give this treatment to Captain Vidal.
  • The title character in the film version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Granted, he does have a very sympathetic backstory. A judge lusted after Sweeney's wife Lucy. The judge fabricated a crime that resulted in Barker being exiled to Australia and then proceeded to rape Lucy (who poisoned herself afterwards because she was so traumatized) and then took in Lucy and Sweeney's daughter Johanna as his ward. However, the sympathy factor starts to wane when Todd loses sight of his original goal of avenging his wife and daughter. Instead, he slaughters tons of innocent people, including, by mistake, his own wife Lucy, who had become an insane beggar from the poison instead of dying. He is so deranged at this point that he cuts her down just because the judge is coming over and he might see this crazy lady running around the barber shop. He doesn't realize exactly what he's done until later. Still, fangirls swoon over how hot he is and ignore everything he does because his life is so sad. To be fair, this may mostly come from the fact that Johnny Depp plays him.
    • Same with Mrs Lovett. Interpertations of her range from anti-villain to woobie, despite the fact that she knows what she's doing and that it's wrong, but doesn't care.
  • Bullseye in Daredevil. Probably made even worse in that Colin Farrell actually wore leather pants for much of the movie.
  • John Bender of The Breakfast Club gets an almost disturbing amount of this from fangirls. They ignore the 95% of the film where he is a Jerkass bully who verbally taunts the others and reduces Claire to tears after she talks about her parents getting divorced. Instead they focus on the 5% of the film where he admits he has an abusive father and apparently he's some tragic Jerk with a Heart of Gold. He never apologises for his actions which makes it even more disturbing when Claire hooks up with him. <---("Disturbing" or "how attraction actually works" Apologies are not attractive)
    • It helps that he's totally hot.
    • Also helps that he's pretty harmless. Considering some of the examples on this page, falling for someone who just has a bad attitude seem like good judgement.
  • Thrax gets this treatment in a lot of Osmosis Jones fanfics, despite the fact that he is a ruthless Complete Monster who has absolutely no problem with killing people, and does it For the Evulz. There is even a series of fics where he marries a human (after being given human size, granted) and, to add insult to injury, is also a vampire.
    • A sparkly one?
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg, to some extent, but after the movie came out: RODRICK. Probably because of shots like this one.
  • A Streetcar Named Desire: Stanley Kowalski, played by Marlon Brando in tight t-shirts and tight jeans... of course, he abuses his wife Stella and rapes his sister-in-law Blanche (yep, she is no angel herself, but nobody deserves rape, and 'sides the after-effects are pretty horrific). And yet the fans ignore it.
  • Samara Morgan from American remake of The Ring. Some interpert her dialogue with the doctor as her being an innocent victim of cruel, misunderstanding parents and a Blessed with Suck type of power that she can't control that causes her to implant evil in people's minds without wanting to. Even if we were to assume that far-fetched interpertation is true, it still doesn't justify her killing innocent people who just happened to watch her tape.
    • It's not ridiculously far-fetched. Just because Samara was evil doesn't make the heart-wrenching things she was put through good. Besides, the firm establishment of Samara as being really, truly evil rather than indeed being driven insane with misery until her powers went beyond her control even after she died only happens in the last five minutes of the movie... up until then even the main character thought that explanation was correct. It doesn't forgive people completely ignoring said last five minutes, but it does make it easier to understand where it comes from.
    • Sadako is given this as well, but by Ringu0 its much more justifiable.
  • Loki from the summer blockbuster Thor is getting quite a lot of leather pants treatment from Fandom. It helps that he was depicted quite sympathetically with a decent Freudian Excuse and was played by the smoking hot, yet melancholy Tom Hiddleston. And he does wear leather pants.
    • Continued recently in The Avengers to the point that fangirls are promising to cry when he is defeated by the actual heroes.
      • It's not just the fandom- Tom Hiddleston himself frequently speaks in interviews about how he believes Loki needs a hug and some self-esteem, and that he's doing everything he does in The Avengers because he needs someone to fix him with love.
        • This is almost certainly why Sigyn, Loki's wife in both mythology and the Marvel comics, has yet to appear in the films. She does love and support him unconditionally, and... it doesn't change him.
          • Though, in the mythology, he's not nearly as much of a bastard as he is in the comics, or other adaptations of Norse Mythology. The fact the film played up his sympathetic reasoning was, for some viewers, a good thing, since Loki has, basically, be Death Eatered by adaptations of the myths for centuries, and also fueled by his recent Heel Face Turn in the comics. However, its still quite amusing what happened after Thor. See below.
    • Averted a little in the Avengers film, actually. After it premiered, some fangirls jumped off from Loki worship because of his...actions. Namely, the fact he kills Agent Coulson, the film-original character who's been present since Iron Man and appeared in all but two of the films previously and got a bit more fleshing out in this film, and for the fact he brainwashes a lot of SHIELD personnel and sends them to fight their own comrades, including Hawkeye. Joss Whedon and Kevin Feige decided for the threat against SHIELD to be big enough for them to form the Avengers, it was necessary Loki Took a Level in Badass. Also they needed something "to avenge" and had him Kick the Dog(and a very well liked one at that). Hiddleston himself still believes he can be redeemed, as do many others and the film's heavy implications that Loki, while able to be plenty nasty on his own, was possibly tortured by the Chitauri and/or was himself a brainwashed puppet of Thanos.
      • Tumblr would disagree with any suggestion that the trope has been averted. The Loki love still seems pretty high. His getting the living crap beat out of him by the Hulk, while the funniest part of the movie probably enacted the Florence Nightingale Effect on many viewers.
  • The title character of the Godzilla films. He's a city destroying Kaiju beast who has killed millions of people, but the fans tend to think he's just a misunderstood good guy. Most of the time, he's an Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain, but this treatment is still baffling. This is most Egregious in GMK, where he was flat-out stated to be pure evil. The fans still rooted for him
  • Gunnery Sergeant Hartman of Full Metal Jacket was a substandard drill instructor who failed to notice the obviously deteriorating mental state of Private Pyle and ultimately his negligence caused both Private Pyle's death and his own. He still has legions of fans for his Crazy Awesome and hilarious one-liners.

GySgt. Hartman: Holy dogshit, Texas?! Only steers and queers come from Texas, Private Cowboy, and you don't look much like a steer to me so that kind of narrows it down! Do you suck dicks?
Pvt. Cowboy: Sir, no, sir!
Hartman: Are you a peter puffer?
Cowboy: Sir, no, sir!
Hartman: Bullshit! I bet you're the kind of guy who would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around!

  1. ↑ movie only; in the comic, he was using tear gas
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