Characters who served no purpose.

[H-Virus]

Looking at all the other 'good character/bad character' threads we've been getting lately made me think of this: What are some examples of main/prominent characters who just didn't matter? Like you could remove them from the series completely and it wouldn't change hardly anything at all?

One of the first people that came to mind for me was Daphne from Scooby-Doo. I know she served a bigger role in the later spin-offs and movies after they expanded on her character a little, but in the original series she didn't do a damn thing! Fred was the leader and the driver, Velma did about 80% of the detective work, Shaggy and Scooby were the comedic foils for the villains, and Daphne... got kidnapped and fell into traps once in a while? I guess you could call her the fan-service, but most of the people I've ever asked all seemed to like Velma better anyway, so really, what role did she actually serve?


Another example would be Chris and Meg from Family Guy. Meg's one and only purpose for being on the show is to play butt-monkey to her abusive family, and Chris doesn't even have that. There's so much focus on Peter, Lois, Brian and Stewie that if Chris and Meg left for college one episode and never came back I doubt anyone would even notice.


Others?

[BorneAgain]

I've never been able to figure out why Mac from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was in the movie. He matters so little in terms of character and theme, that if you were to remove him, the film barely changes. Just change his betrayals of Indy to Soviets getting the drop on Jones (and thus the advantage) and the picture is more or less the same.

[Deleted]

Nicky Banks from Fresh Prince.

[Deleted]

Denny, Claudette, Michelle, Mike, Chris-R, Peter, Steven.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

Sun and Jin from Lost.

Tyra from Friday Night Lights.

[Hit Girl]

Counselor Troi

[Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill]

Sams college roommate in transformers 2 to quote Rifftrax "We already have one Shia Labouf."

[darthalexander]

The Phantom Menace could have been ok without Qui-Gon. I'm a Liam Neeson fan but he really wasn't needed all that much.

Mace Windu didn't add much to anything either.

The "bitchy/doofus" new love interest of the ex of a film's hero. Most of the time that new love interest is there to just add a stupid little stumbling block to the hero and the ex getting back together by the end of the story. Naturally this new love interest either dies, or simply walks away without too much of a fuss.

[juvijuiceisloose]

Aug 16, 2012 23:36:24 GMT -5 @jackiechan said:

Nicky Banks from Fresh Prince.

You could say that about all of the magically growing children from sitcoms.

Andy from Family Ties.

Nicky and Alex from Full House.

Any time there's a show where a kid is just a baby one season, and 5 years old the next, it's never a good thing.

[Cela]

Kat Dennings in Thor. Unless they needed someone to annoy.

[ibdude]

The stuttering dude from Do the Right Thing. Seriously what was his point?

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

Aug 16, 2012 23:45:09 GMT -5 ibdude said:

The stuttering dude from Do the Right Thing. Seriously what was his point?

1. Smiley's hardly a main or prominent character
2. He's keeping the politics of the film in the viewer's mind at all times. As we can't delve into said politics, we must leave it there.

[Deleted]

I never understood the purpose of Scooby Dum

[triplezs]

Jesse from Burn Notice. While I don't necessarily like or dislike the character, removing him from the script wouldn't mean much.

[Ryback on a Pole!]

Dawn from Buffy after Series 5. She might as well have not been there and contributed nothing except for annoying whining.

Inara from Firefly. The show would have been just as good without her since she served little purpose at all and contributed nothing to the crew or plot on the whole.

[Toxik916]

Maggie on The Newsroom is absolutely pointless and hasn't added anything to the show thus far.

[xCompackx]

Aug 17, 2012 0:17:01 GMT -5 triplezs said:

Jesse from Burn Notice. While I don't necessarily like or dislike the character, removing him from the script wouldn't mean much.

Eh, he's mild comic relief but his story was kinda done after Season 4 lol. Also, wasn't Nicky Banks introduced just because the actress who played the mom got pregnant?

[juvijuiceisloose]

Aug 17, 2012 0:51:17 GMT -5 xCompackx said:

Also, wasn't Nicky Banks introduced just because the actress who played the mom got pregnant?

Yeah, but they didn't have to turn him from being just a baby to being 5 years old the next season.

I know having babies and toddlers on sets is extremely frustrating, but they didn't have to make him the way they did.


Also, even though Janet Hubert Whitten got pregnant without givng the producers notice, they could have tried to hide it like they hid Phylicia Rashad's on the Cosby Show.

[Todd's crazy , Man.]

Aug 16, 2012 23:37:44 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

Counselor Troi

I never understood why people had such a hard time figuring out why she was important. She read peoples minds.

It's pretty useful to have someone who can read your opponent's minds in a battle since you can literally predict their moves.

[Deleted]

Aug 17, 2012 2:31:52 GMT -5 Todd's crazy , Man. said:

Aug 16, 2012 23:37:44 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

Counselor Troi

I never understood why people had such a hard time figuring out why she was important. She read peoples minds.

It's pretty useful to have someone who can read your opponent's minds in a battle since you can literally predict their moves.

She was close with Riker, was one of Picard's confidants, interacted well with Data and Worf, could be used for any number of plot devices involving mental powers, was another great example of metahumans/transhumanism in the show, etc. And she was hot. Works for me.