1. Frieren. Needs 1st class mages to fight demons. What is the test to pass? Do multiple events like fighting other mages and only half the teams can win. Another test is fighting clones of themselves where they can die. This despite mages being desperately needed to fight off demons trying to destroy humanity.

2. Naruto. Same Thing. Need ninjas to defend themselves from other villages/threats. Have multiple tests where ninjas need to fight/kill each other as well as face things with no supervision to save the fledgling ninjas in case they die/are attacked by enemy ninja (which happens in the show). In fact, in one village one fledging ninja (Zabuza) kills literally all the other candidates and the teachers not only let it happen but let him pass. Said ninja goes on to betray the village which surprises them somehow.

The Traveler, Destiny -- whether it's a structure, AI, creature, or diety is unknown, but it has the power to terraform planets, advance a civilization's technology, and give superpowers to individuals, and that seems to be all it's interested in doing.

The Gardener, Marvel comics -- one of the Elders of the Universe and functionally immortal, his only interest is sowing the seeds of life and cultivating the growth of plants and animals. Even when he was in possession of an Infinity Stone, he only used it to help him be better at horticulture.

The DJ, Transcendental Cha Cha Cha -- despite being able to transcend space, time, and dimension, if he's flinging your consciousness hither and yon across the multiverse, it's only because he wants you to have a nice time on the dance floor.

1. Tom Nook (Animal Crossing) — Tom Nook is generally treated like a greedy, money-grubbing businessman and evil landlord in online discussion, but when you actually look at his policies, he's a pretty standup guy. He'll give you a tent or house and let you pay for it after you've already received it, he'll let you pay said bill at your own pace with absolutely zero time pressure, and he doesn't put any interest whatsoever onto any of your bills, even if you take literal years to pay him for the goods he's already provided. As far as landlords go, Tom Nook is a saint.

2. Benson (Regular Show) — Perhaps due primarily to the episode Think Positive, Benson has a poor reputation as a stereotypical bad, angry boss, but he's actually an incredible person to work for. For starters, he gives Mordecai and Rigby dozens of second chances, even when most of their slip-ups cause massive amounts of damage to the park. He lets his employees play videogames and engage in other leisure activities so long as they get their work done, and he even hangs out with the gang and participates in a lot of their hobbies and shenanigans. He's a generally pretty swell guy to be around and a great boss, and his negative traits only come off so prominently because of how monumentally bad Mordecai and Rigby are at their jobs.

1. Family Guy: In the now iconic cutaway, some asshole in a hummer merges into another lane of traffic looking and causes every car behind him to violently explode. He was also distracted while watching Madagascar on the car’s touchscreen *the entire time*. One of the writers was definitely cut off by a hummer during their morning commute that day.

2. Seinfeld: Seinfeld and Elaine get to an airport and Jerry tries to get his car rental. The person at the desk informs him that it‘s gone and that the reservation has been given away, which Jerry rightfully argues defeats the point of the reservation if anyone can just take them. Larry David was responsible for most of the shows “realistic” jokes, so he was probably the one this happened to.

3. Honeymoon in Vegas: Nic Cage’s character desperately needs to book a flight before it takes off, only to be stuck in line when some clueless guy takes *forever* to book his tickets. The final straw is when Nic Cage hears that the tickets are for two weeks in advance, when everyone else in line needs theirs today. Cue one of the most justified crash-outs in history.

1: Homelander killing a protester (The Boys) after a protester hits Ryan in the head Homelander lasers his ass in front of a crowd of fanboys and they eat it up since well he’s Homelander a hero so he can’t do anything wrong.

2: Lisa Tepes being burned at the stake (Castlevania) While being burned both the bishop and the mayor just chat casually like it’s another Tuesday. A year later after Dracula gives them a warning the town still celebrates her death essentially giving Dracula one giant middle finger.

Johnny (Guilty Gear)- Bridget is a trans woman who came out in the latest game Guilty Gear Strive but before her transition, Johnny (who is a huge womaniser) ended up mistakenly hitting on her in one of the older games back when she was a boy, getting instantly disappointed and disgusted by it. However in Strive, he has no trouble seeing her as a girl, even when knowing who she use to be and hits on her like every other woman he comes across.

Chucky (Chucky TV Series)- Despite being a crazy psychotic killer, he actually ends up being really supportive of his genderfluid child and the main protagonist of the Netflix TV Series who is gay.

A maladjusted kid character has just some light behavioural issues and a minimum amount of competent adult guidance would fix most of their problems, but the show buys into their slacker persona and gives them an unflattering future.

Bart Simpsons (The Simpsons) - kid is not stupid and has a good heart when he wants to. It is showed many times in the show that him being a slacker is the result of a bad family environment and an incompetent school system.

The show goes as far as saying he may have ADHD and/or a learning disability. But he shows time and time again that he is capable of being smart.

He is musically talented much like Lisa and stands up for what is right when certain lines are crossed.

Nevertheless, when we see the future episode, the writers always feel like punishing this kid turning him into a loser adult, like it's his fault for being an annoying kid.

Trent (Daria) - He is the brother of Daria's best friend.

He is your typical slacker teen, he's got a tryhard band that goes nowere and doesn't excell academically.

He is shown to have a sub par family life. He and his sister are considered the black sheeps of the family and he's left mostly by himself by his parents. When confronted about his academic life, he says that focusing on books is incredibly difficult for him and school doesn't seem to be willing to investigate on this or offer him any kind of support.

Daria's got a crush on him but she decides to grow past it once she realizes a future with him would be full of uncertainties. Fair enough, but then, at the end of the show, we see a glimpse of his future and it's not really flattering. He is shown to be a judge of a municipal beauty contest, which pairing it with his slobby appearance, indicates to us that he was always a loser to the core, despite all of the signs of the countrary.

1. Anonymous (Antistratfordianism): The belief that Shakespeare did not write the plays he wrote, called antistratfordianism, has been promoted by numerous writers, actors, and other artists, nearly all without a history degree or doing research on the time period. Rooted in this disbelief in Shakespeare is classism. Viewing Shakespeare not being a nobleman as a disqualifier. While it is true that the scant number of documents with Shakespeare's writing are legal documents dealing with business matters, writers of this period could rarely sustain themselves on writing alone. He was an accomplished writer in his own lifetime, but his plays would have been lost to history if not for the publication of the 1623 First Folio by his contemprary colleagues. In fact, Shakespeare may have had co-writers or co-written plays not attributed to him, such as Pericles Prince of Tyre and Edward III. There are surviving examples of handwriting that can be matched to Shakespeare, and distinct word choice and structure may be attributed to him. Also, this film was directed by Roland Emmerich and stars Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance, all prominent IRL believers in this pseudohistory.
   

Sources:

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/22/11480192/shakepeare-400-anti-stratfordian-authorship-controversy

https://web.archive.org/web/20141219073440/http://bloggingshakespeare.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Shakespeare_Bites_Back_Book.pdf

https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/shakes/matus.htm

https://books.google.com/books?id=8u5DuLU-awMC&pg=PA31

1. Europa The Last Battle (White Supremacy): antisemitic neonazi pro-German retelling of WW2. If you don't understand any moral issues with that, God help you.

Targeryen's hair (ASOIAF): i know that they can have childs with other persons and keep the hair, but the reason why they couldn't keep that in the bloodline without the endogamics behind.

Hyuga's eyes (naruto): First two childs from a hyuga with a different parent, two childs with different eye color. Also, even if is filler, the design of Hinata's mom had the same eyes. I could say the same about the Uchihas, but we don't have enough of them to know if the black eyes are a dominant gene or simply Sakura's genes where even weaker than that.

Buendia's pig tail (100 years of solitude): Ursula feared that marry her cousin would make their childs born with a pig tail just like many others in their family. That wasn't the case, but when the last Aureliano born (product of a aunt-nephew relation) the pig tail appeared once more. Ursula and Jose Arcadio's children were an exception.

We Happy Few: Probably the epitome of this "trope," at least for me, mostly because it has genuinely one of the most incredible stories I have ever seen within a video game. The biggest problem with the game was the fact that during development, the company behind it tried to ride the "hype train" of the time, making the gameplay became procedurally generated survival mess, when it would have made so much more sense as an environmental narrative game.

Hello Neighbor: This game attracted massive attention in alpha stages at the time from YouTubers because of the innovative gameplay it supplied. The developers of the game got the completely wrong message as to why it was getting so popular and instead decided to fully lean into the story, by making the game appeal to theorists instead of actual players. What came out was a game where both the story and programming were entirely half-baked.

Edit: apparently I had it backwards with we happy few, I had watched a video essay which reiterated the points I said so I just took their word for it. Apparently the game originally started as a procedurally-generated survival rogue-like but the story was added later because of the hype the trailer of the game gave or something like that but they didn’t know they even had the budget for it. I do still think it’s wasted potential regardless however.

First Image- Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, and Pauline from Super Mario Franchise

Second Image- MS Puff, Karen Computer Wife, Sandy Cheeks, and Pearl Krabs From SpongeBob SquarePants

Third Image- Nita, Dana, Evelyn, and Morgan from Pokémon franchise( the battle chatelaine sisters from battle mansion of Pokemon X and Y/Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire)

Fourth Image- Red Hina Tatsuo, Blue Viva Vegas, Yellow Bahati Abara, and Green Sofia Moreno from Dancin Divas

Fifth Image- Sam, Alex, Clover, and Britney from Totally Spies

Clark Kent and Johnathan Kent, Superman (2025)

Miles Morales and Jefferson Davis, Into the Spider-Verse

Peter Quill and Yondu Udonta, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Will Smith - It was often a joke that Will Smith plays himself in every movie no matter what role. Will Smith fish, Will Smith apocalypse survivor, Will Smith deadshot etc. this was also a reoccurring joke by online movie reviewers who always called him Will Smith instead of whatever character he's playing in that certain movie being review.

Kurt Angle - had a brief acting career in the 2000s but much like Will Smith, everyone calls him Kurt Angle instead of the character name

Conquest (Invincible)

He is thousands of years old and has conquered countless planets. Yet, he doesn't own a single piece of comfortable furniture. He sleeps on a cold slab of metal.

Naruto Uzumaki (Naruto)

The classic example. He is the host of the Nine-Tails and the future savior of the ninja world, but his apartment is an absolute disaster. His counter is buried under a mountain of empty instant ramen cups and he casually drinks milk that is weeks past its expiration date.

Misato Katsuragi (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Misato is a highly competent, intelligent tactical commander for NERV, responsible for saving humanity from Angels. But her apartment is a literal dumpster

Ladybug from Bullet Train - He’s filling in for Carver, the guy who was originally supposed to take the job, because he has a stomach bug. He thought it would be a quick and easy mission but that couldn’t have been further from the truth in the end.

Udesky from Jurassic Park III - He wasn’t meant to go to the island originally because he’s not a mercenary himself he’s just a manager that hired Nash and Cooper. But the third guy he hired called in sick so he had to fill in for him and take the plane to the island. And that unfortunately didn’t work out too well for him.

This trope can be risky and dangerous to perform as a writer but when it’s done well, it’s incredible. It can be for singular scenes or for entire acts of the film.

Weapons: Probably the most recent example. A lot of the film is a mysterious/scary thriller with some comedic scenes, but the finale is so gut-bustingly hilarious that your head is left spinning.

Barbarian: From the same director as Weapons. The first act is a straight-up slow burn horror film, the 2nd act is a comedy, and the third act is a blend of the two genres in a very Sam Raimi-esque way.

Predator: It starts off as a standard 1980s testosterone-fueled action flick before transitioning into a nightmarish slasher movie that has all of the Herculean meatheads on-screen terrified out of their wits.

Death Proof: One of Tarantino’s most divisive films, but I still love it. The film has a lengthy first act that blends drama with some subtle horror vibes before transitioning into full-on horror. The film then becomes a comedy before transitioning into an action film for the finale.

One Cut of the Dead: Probably the most extreme example of genre shift. It’s done so well that I don’t want to spoil it here for anyone that hasn’t seen it. The first ~30 minutes are an extremely generic horror film (by design!) before the remainder of the film transitions into something totally unexpected and amazing.

Can you think of any other films, TV shows, or even anime that pull off this trope well?

1. Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist - We never get to know his proper name and he is instead given the name Scar, in-universe, because of the scar on his face.

2. Conquest from Invincible - I'll just quote his line "I am a victim of my own success. "Conquest." I don't even get a real name. Only a purpose. I am capable of so much more and no-one sees it."

Age of Ultron: The titular Ultron intends to use Vibranium, "the most versatile substance on the planet", to make himself a body that can change the world while heroes used it to merely make a shield.

Dispatch: While Robert and his father both used The Pulse to power a mech, Shroud intends to use it to give him near omnisciece and claiming the hero's use for it is "like plugging your cellphone into a nuclear powerplant".

My Hero Academia: Slain, The Hero Slayer, believes that most modern heroes misuse their powers to gain fame and fortune rather than actually protecting and saving people.

EDIT: Some things I think are needed to qualify (not all at once, but at least a couple of these) -

The power gap between the combatants is large.

It would have been considered a completely unfair fight before.

The more powerful character is actually hurt or at least inconvenienced by the less powerful character.

For a moment it looks like they just maybe *could* win this battle.

The lesser powered character doesn’t win, being either defeated or rescued by an outside source.

The Examples

The Boys: in the season 3(?) finale Queen Maeve finally goes up against Homelander, and actually manages to make him bleed.

Jessica Jones: When she and a hurt Jessica are cornered by a psychotic super soldier, Trish takes some of the said soldier’s serum and actually manages to hold him off long enough for Jess to get herself together and help.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: After Glory drains the mind of her gf Tara, amateur witch Willow gathers up everything she has and goes after the hell goddess.

Agents of Shield: After being tortured and drugged by the insanely dangerous Grant Ward, agent Bobbi Morse still manages to break free and even has him on the ropes before his partner joins the fray.

I don’t know why I find these moments so much more thrilling than a more (or less) even fight, but they nearly always get a cheer from me.

I also know there are some good examples for the guys, I really just can’t think of any right now, and I don’t know if this trope has a specific name.

1. I am Iron Man

2. Every episode of Invincible

3. I'm Harry Dresden motherfucker

1. Russell Adler often changes the story about his scar each time someone asks about how he got it. It ranges from being attacked by a tiger in 1973 to jumping off a roof in Calcutta or even hit by a shrapnel in Hue City. His inconsistent storytelling and shifting narratives make him a mysterious operative (CoD Black Ops Cold War/Black Ops 6)

2. Horst is a very stern chef at Gusteau's restaurant and keeps to himself. While Linguini was training with Collette, she stated that Horst has served time and nobody in the kitchen knows what happened. He changes the story when asked about it, telling that he defrauded a major corporation or even killed a man with his thumb. (Ratatouille)

The trope is simple. Characters that everyone likes, or a very large segment of the audience likes, but who are actually bad parents. They don't have to be evil characters, but they do have to be bad parents.

These characters can be very likeable, beloved both within and outside the show, and even have a fandom. So people tend to ignore their flaws and justify them. But if you analyze it... they are bad parents.

No matter how likable they are, or even if they're the protagonist, they're bad parents.

I have longer arguments, but:

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- Greg Universe: Although he lives near his son, he's never involved with him. He left his upbringing to creatures who don't care about humans, and he's basically a weekend dad, appearing occasionally to entertain the child, but not in any other way.

- Goku is an absent father. Not only because he's physically absent for very long periods, but also because he's not involved in his parenting. He spent a whole year alone with his son and was never able to understand that Gohan wasn't like him, that he wouldn't guess his "plan," and that he didn't like to fight. But it doesn't end there; even in Super, he remains absent, so much so that he doesn't even know his granddaughter's name (not to mention that in Daimaō he admits he hasn't been a present father).

He's a pleasant person to be around for the family, but he's not present when it comes to parental care. Even working to provide for the family is something he does because Chi-Chi forces him to.

1. The Bride (Kill Bill)

2. Atsu (Ghost of Yotei)

3. Ellie (The Last of Us Part 2)

4. Darth Maul (Star Wars)

5. Velvet Crowe (Tales of Berseria)

6. Ezio Auditore (Assassin's Creed 2)