Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
Register
Advertisement
WikEd fancyquotesQuotesBug-silkHeadscratchersIcons-mini-icon extensionPlaying WithUseful NotesMagnifierAnalysisPhoto linkImage LinksHaiku-wide-iconHaikuLaconic


There are certain characters who receive a lot of hatred from the fanbase for one reason or another. Most often, when their creators pick up on the hate, it's ignored, Rescued From the Scrappy Heap, or even played into. Sometimes, however, the creator(s) become so attached to this character that they spend increasing amounts of time focusing on him, magnifying the importance of his role, and having the other characters talk about how awesome he is, in painful ignorance of—or sometimes in spite of—the fans' hatred.

That's the Creator's Pet in a nutshell.

The main characteristic of the Creator's Pet is that the writers' focus on him is detrimental to the show. It's not that the parts featuring this character necessarily suck more than the rest, but that so much effort is being directed to him that it detracts from the quality of the series as a whole. It's as if the writers think that there's nothing more important than browbeating the viewers into falling in love with this one character. And it never works. In fact, shilling a character excessively can cause other characters to be drawn into the hatred.

Keep in mind that this isn't "The Scrappy with a big role", nor is it the Canon Sue, although there's a lot of overlap in both cases. The Creator's Pet is a combination of being:

Unless it meets all of these criteria, then it doesn't fit.

Compare Spotlight-Stealing Squad, which happens when Character Focus pushes a lot of the other characters out of the limelight for an extended period of time; Americans Hate Tingle, when this kind of character is hated by people outside his home country; Periphery Hatedom, when this kind of character is hated by people he's not even targeted at; the Canon Sue, which is frequently also this trope by default; and the GMPC, which is often this in a Role Playing Game.

Compare Character Shilling, which is unwarranted praise for one character by one or more other characters, regardless of fan reaction. Contrast Shoo Out the New Guy, whom the creators get rid of as quickly as possible, the Unpopular Popular Character and the Designated Monkey, who's adored by fans despite being loathed in-universe. Finally contrast Ensemble Darkhorse, a character who receives relatively little Character Focus but is adored by fans. On the flip side, take note of Creator Breakdown and Artist Disillusionment, which can happen when the author vehemently disagrees with the fans and takes it out on the show.

Note: Although this is subjective, only blatantly obvious or creator-acknowledged examples should be listed in the pages below.

Examples of Creator's Pet include:


Advertisement