It's not fair!

I think we may have had a thread recently about this but I can't find it so here's a new one...

You know who I feel sorry for? Rumplestiltskin! HE was the one who spun the **** straw into the **** gold and what thanks does he get? He gets cheated out of his pay and is so upset that he stamps himself to death... and guess what, everyone cheers and says "Hurray, the nasty little man is DEAD!"

What other fictional characters do you feel have a raw deal?
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Comments

  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Mrs Joe in Great Expectations. Yes, she was a termagant but did she deserve to be murdered?
  • AnselminaAnselmina Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Mrs Joe in Great Expectations. Yes, she was a termagant but did she deserve to be murdered?

    Not to be murdered, perhaps. But she was a ruthless child-beater! And battered her husband, if memory serves?
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    The cats in the "Mighty Mouse" cartoons. They're just doing what Nature intended them to do, catch mice. And here's a surreal mouse beating up on them. Unnatural! Unfair!
  • HedgehogHedgehog Shipmate
    Oh, gosh, this thread reminds me of so many gags from "The Addams Family":
    Morticia: What was the name of that mean little girl who was so beastly to those three lovely bears?

    Lurch: Goldilocks.

    Morticia: Ah, yes, Goldilocks. Trust a blonde to bring on trouble.
    Morticia: [reading from her first finished work, "Cinderella, the Teenaged Delinquent"] "As the clock struck twelve, the police, summoned by the kindly step-mother, found Cinderella cowering in the ashes with the stolen glass slipper and yanked her off to the pokey."
    Wednesday: Oh father, it was terrible, they killed him!

    Gomez: Mr. Hilliard?

    Wednesday: The dragon!

    Gomez [shocked]: What dragon, who killed a dragon?

    Wednesday: A knight in shining armor, he killed the dragon.

    Gomez: I can't believe anyone would kill a dragon.

    Morticia: Poor, defenseless dragon!
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Anselmina wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Mrs Joe in Great Expectations. Yes, she was a termagant but did she deserve to be murdered?

    Not to be murdered, perhaps. But she was a ruthless child-beater! And battered her husband, if memory serves?

    Don’t recall her battering Joe and wonder whether Pip was thrashed any more than any other child of the time

    Wackford Squeers she wasn’t
  • But I don't think it's implied that she deserved to be murdered. Her presumed murderer was an evil character.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Well she WAS conveniently put out of the way to allow Joe a second bite at the cherry.. wishful thinking on the part of the author, perhaps?
  • I nominate Wile E Coyote. So determined; so creative; so tragic.

    Couldn't they have allowed him just once to have caught that annoying roadrunner and bitten its bloody head off?
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Amen. Or given him a lifetime unlimited gift certificate to the Acme catalog.

    Coyotes have to be Nature's most undeservedly bullied creature.
  • I nominate Wile E Coyote. So determined; so creative; so tragic.

    Couldn't they have allowed him just once to have caught that annoying roadrunner and bitten its bloody head off?

    YES
  • The non-prodigal son.

    The people who showed up late to the vineyard for work and got the same pay.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    And those wise virgins: selfish bitches
  • The Seven Dwarves.
    Barnaby Fitzpatrick, the original whipping boy.
    Lady Mary Grey. Bad enough to have tudor blood in the reign of Elizabeth I, worse still to be a dwarf as well.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    There are much worse afflictions than short stature

    Getting on the bad side of Bald Lizzie ( or any of her dreadful family) would have been far worse
  • NicoleMRNicoleMR Shipmate
    Two from US commercials:

    Lucky, the Lucky Charms leprechaun who's always getting his cereal stolen. And the Trix rabbit, who's never allowed to have any cereal at all.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Stepmothers in general.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Eternia is in the grip of an outdated absolute monarchy, which claims to derive its mandate from strange women distributing swords in a farcical avian ceremony. Does Skeletor get any credit for trying to modernise the system? No, he does not.
  • My late mother-in-law would have nominated Hyacinth Bucket. She watched an episode once and couldn't understand why people were laughing at HB. "She just wants everything to be right. What's so funny about that?"

    What MiL didn't know was that the family lovingly referred to her as Hyacinth, precisely because she was so like the TV character.
  • Fawkes CatFawkes Cat Shipmate
    My late mother-in-law would have nominated Hyacinth Bucket. She watched an episode once and couldn't understand why people were laughing at HB. "She just wants everything to be right. What's so funny about that?"

    What MiL didn't know was that the family lovingly referred to her as Hyacinth, precisely because she was so like the TV character.

    By the same count, the Leadbetters in the Good Life. Living next door to Tom and Barbara would be a nightmare: in particular, Tom is a sexist bully.
  • I always wondered about Rumplestiltskin too, it does seem so unfair.

    Those on the side of the dragon might enjoy U A Fanthorpe's Not My Best Side (link). It's also about the Uccello painting, found in the National Gallery, which is shown in the link

    Or there's The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (slow loading pdf facsimile) where the poor wolf just had this really bad cold.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    Eternia is in the grip of an outdated absolute monarchy, which claims to derive its mandate from strange women distributing swords in a farcical avian ceremony. Does Skeletor get any credit for trying to modernise the system? No, he does not.

    :smiley: My brother said to me: "Why does He-Man always get to deliver the moral at the end? Surely Skeletor should get a chance too?"

    E.g.

    "This week, I placed the responsibility for my plan's success in the hands of Beast-Man and Evil-Lynn. They seemed so competent and efficient, I was sure they would succeed! But no, they messed up again. The moral is, kids, you can't rely on your friends! The only person you can really rely on is... yourself!!!"

    (Roll credits)
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    I always wondered about Rumplestiltskin too, it does seem so unfair.

    Those on the side of the dragon might enjoy U A Fanthorpe's Not My Best Side (link). It's also about the Uccello painting, found in the National Gallery, which is shown in the link

    Or there's The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (slow loading pdf facsimile) where the poor wolf just had this really bad cold.

    Thanks for the link to the U A Fanthorpe, I really only know her Christmas poems.

  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    I wrote the true story of the Billy Goats Gruff, in which the trolls were actually bridge-builders, agreeing to charge tolls until the bridge was paid off (in lieu of a one-time payment which was stolen by the former mayor), and the goatherds refused to pay the toll.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    I wrote the true story of the Billy Goats Gruff, in which the trolls were actually bridge-builders, agreeing to charge tolls until the bridge was paid off (in lieu of a one-time payment which was stolen by the former mayor), and the goatherds refused to pay the toll.

    Have you read "Troll Bridge" by Terry Pratchett, a Discworld short story which gives a different slant on the troll under the bridge cliche? It comes in a book of his short stories.
  • AnselminaAnselmina Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Anselmina wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Mrs Joe in Great Expectations. Yes, she was a termagant but did she deserve to be murdered?

    Not to be murdered, perhaps. But she was a ruthless child-beater! And battered her husband, if memory serves?

    Don’t recall her battering Joe and wonder whether Pip was thrashed any more than any other child of the time

    Wackford Squeers she wasn’t

    I would say that the author was clear in presenting her as unusually - almost irrationally - vicious, frequently beating a young child with a cane and verbally abusing him all his life - quite out of proportion to what would've been reasonable. So while corporal punishment was much more normal in those times, it seems that Pip certainly did get more contact with Tickler than would've been considered okay by normal standards.

    However, you're right to correct me on Joe. He was only verbally abused.

    As I said, I agree she didn't deserve to be murdered. Of course not. And perhaps she even had her own sadness. But Dickens quite obviously thought a child-abuser of her calibre was not worth very much sympathy by disposing of her in that fashion. Nasty things do sometimes seem to happen to the people who beat up or menace 'his' child characters!
  • AnselminaAnselmina Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Well she WAS conveniently put out of the way to allow Joe a second bite at the cherry.. wishful thinking on the part of the author, perhaps?

    Great observation.
  • Anselmina wrote: »
    I would say that the author was clear in presenting her as unusually - almost irrationally - vicious, frequently beating a young child with a cane and verbally abusing him all his life - quite out of proportion to what would've been reasonable. So while corporal punishment was much more normal in those times, it seems that Pip certainly did get more contact with Tickler than would've been considered okay by normal standards.

    I'm not sure about this. I always remember Johnson's advice to Boswell, who was defending a schoolmaster against a charge of cruelty. Johnson - who is not normally considered a brute - said that there was obviously no case to answer, since the child had not been permanently maimed, and that even if he had been the teacher would have been well within his rights.
  • AnselminaAnselmina Shipmate
    Anselmina wrote: »
    I would say that the author was clear in presenting her as unusually - almost irrationally - vicious, frequently beating a young child with a cane and verbally abusing him all his life - quite out of proportion to what would've been reasonable. So while corporal punishment was much more normal in those times, it seems that Pip certainly did get more contact with Tickler than would've been considered okay by normal standards.

    I'm not sure about this. I always remember Johnson's advice to Boswell, who was defending a schoolmaster against a charge of cruelty. Johnson - who is not normally considered a brute - said that there was obviously no case to answer, since the child had not been permanently maimed, and that even if he had been the teacher would have been well within his rights.

    Dickens' writes Mrs Joe, clearly, as violent and abusive. There is nothing in his presentation of Mrs Joe's treatment of Pip that leads you to think 'oh, that's normal for the time, so I'm okay with that.' The reader was not meant to be okay with that. When she is badly injured by Orlick, she is left in a pitiable state, but Dickens has already made her sufficiently nasty enough for the reader not to pity her overmuch, even when she dies. In that way he's leaving the reader free to enjoy Joe's good fortune in having Biddy for a wife, without feeling guilty about Mrs Joe's demise. But that's just what I take from it!
  • Jerome the Giraffe. The Friendly Giant couldn't be friendly enough to actually invite him inside?
  • Jerome the Giraffe. The Friendly Giant couldn't be friendly enough to actually invite him inside?

    I just figured Jerome was too tall. Friendly and Rusty were waaay up high, weren't they?
  • So was Jerome, who managed to stand outside poking his head through a window for the entire show.
  • But Jerome was a really tall giraffe, so he was standing on the ground while the others were several storeys up. Surely Jerome's head would have gone through the ceiling if he had come inside? or have I been deluded about Jerome's amazing height all for all these decades?
  • Judging from the angle of his neck, I would say he was always standing up and wasnt oversized for the room. He wasn't oversized compared to Rusty the Rooster.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    One thing that's always kinda bugged me about The Friendly Giant is that it's supposed to take place in sort of a fairy-tale version of old Europe, but there's a giraffe living there.

    Granted, I guess that didn't bug me as a kid, because I didn't really think about it, but as an adult with a keen sense of nostalgia and a fetish for verisimilitude, it irks me as much as anything that's been off the air for forty years can.

    By the way, I wonder if anyone else has watched the YouTube clips of the original Friendly Giant from Wisconsin PBS. It's pretty similar to the Canadian version, except that Early One Morning sounds like it's being played for some low-budget local US kids show.

  • PatdysPatdys Shipmate
    edited March 19
    Sparrow wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    I wrote the true story of the Billy Goats Gruff, in which the trolls were actually bridge-builders, agreeing to charge tolls until the bridge was paid off (in lieu of a one-time payment which was stolen by the former mayor), and the goatherds refused to pay the toll.

    Have you read "Troll Bridge" by Terry Pratchett, a Discworld short story which gives a different slant on the troll under the bridge cliche? It comes in a book of his short stories.

    And Neil Gaiman does an immensely poignant version as well of troll bridge. https://talesofmytery.blogspot.com/2014/07/neil-gaiman-troll-bridge.html
    (Two of my three favourite authors in this post- send a link MT - I might complete the triad.)
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    edited March 19
    The non-prodigal son.

    The people who showed up late to the vineyard for work and got the same pay. ...

    ...And those wise virgins: selfish bitches

    Yes, the Non-Prodigal Son has gotten a lot of sympathy here over the years.

    I once started a Hell Thread titled "Jesus's Worst Parables" and the vineyard one was Exhibit A (though a surprising number of people defended it). I also mentioned the Wise and Foolish Virgins, but simply because I found the title unintentionally funny (bringing up an image of the Foolish Virgins giggling nonstop and banging their heads on things).
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    edited March 20
    The Onion once had a fake article of Wile E. Coyote successfully suing the Acme Company for years of selling defective equipment.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Mice gnaw holes, steal food, and foul what they don't eat. One doesn't want them in the house. Tom Cat is trying to do his job of keeping that mouse out, and persevering in the face of considerable hardship.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Hamilton Burger, the District Attorney on Perry Mason, won almost NO cases against Mason. I think he must have been screwed over by really poor police work, cops who couldn't find their rear-ends with both hands let alone the real culprits. :grimace:
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    As a Middle-Schooler, I saw the initial broadcast of It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown--there was enough audience outrage at Charlie being unjustly blamed for losing the Big Game that a revised version was broadcast (and eventually sold in the 1990s) going forward.
  • Ah well yes of course Charlie Brown.

    Although in his case I suppose "it's not fair" is almost the whole driver of the strip.
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Shipmate
    edited March 20
    I don't know whether anyone has come across a 1975 cartoon film called "Tubby the Tuba" voiced by Dick van Dyke.

    I found the ending one of the most unfair things EVER. I have since wondered whether "Shrek" was a deliberate attempt to efface its memory.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Lyda wrote: »
    Hamilton Burger, the District Attorney on Perry Mason, won almost NO cases against Mason.

    It always surprised me that the DA himself tried the cases -- not one of his underlings. In a county as large as Los Angeles County, even in those days, surely he had a staff at his disposal.

    And setting police work aside, what kind of trial preparation did that staff of his do? Law and Order, it seems to me, paints a much more realistic picture of what goes on in the office of the District Attorney of a large county.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Lyda wrote: »
    Hamilton Burger, the District Attorney on Perry Mason, won almost NO cases against Mason.

    It always surprised me that the DA himself tried the cases -- not one of his underlings. In a county as large as Los Angeles County, even in those days, surely he had a staff at his disposal.
    Of course Hamilton Berger had staff and underlings. They were busy handling all the other cases being defended by all the other criminal defense lawyers in LA. Apparently only the DA himself was qualified to go up against and lose to Perry Mason.

  • He was taking one for the team. He didn't want to wreck their careers. He was a hero.
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    I found the ending [of "Tubby the Tuba"] one of the most unfair things EVER.
    I tried YouTube and Wikipedia and found plot summaries, but need more details about the Ending. Did the Frog get the shaft?

    (So inquires a former Tubist.)

  • OK if I remember rightly Tubby rescues the melody ("Celeste?") from some peril and brings her back to the orchestra, which has always laughed at him for playing the boring OOMPAH bits.

    Now Tubby has always wanted a melody of his own but finds that he is expected to hand Celeste over to the strings section. So he protests that he wants to dance with her.

    And now this is the dreadful bit - one of the the senior instruments says: "Fine then Tubby! You dance with her right now!". And of course it is all ghastly and embarrassing. And Tubby has to say: "I'm sorry, I was a foolish tuba. Go to Prince Farquaad, I mean Prince Cello, you ought to dance with him!"

    The frog does eventually find a jolly little melody for Tubby to play, one more fitted to his station in life. KNOW YOUR PLACE LOW-CLASS TUBA.
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    Thanks--What text I found didn't specify those details; in hindsight, I should have listened to a purely musical performance instead of concentrating on finding of the Dick Van Dyke cartoon.

    By the 1970s, fortunately, KNOW YOUR PLACE LOW-CLASS TUBA was already outdated, at least among professional musicians. Vaughn-Williams wrote his famous Tuba Concerto
    (the Middle Movement is often transcribed for Cello) in the '50s, about a decade after Tubby was composed, and things snowballed from there.
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