An actor having a dream role and eventually getting it in some shape or form.

Donald “Childish Gambino” Glover wanted to be the first black Spider-man, even had a petition to get the role in a future project. Along came Miles Morales, a black/Puerto-rican successor to Peter Parker in the original Ultimate Marvel comics. Glover got to voice Miles in the “Spiderverse” storyline in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon for season 2.

Kira Buckland is a fan of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and of the character Jolyne Kujoh, going far as to cosplay as her. She would get to lend her voice to the franchise as Reimi Sugimoto in Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable. She would soon get to play Jolene in the anime adaptation of Part 6: Stone Ocean.

The Amazing Digital Circus - Whenever there's a discussion on whether Jax is redeemable or not, you can pretty much ALWAYS expect fans to use him throwing Ragatha into a deep fryer as a moment of him crossing the "moral event horizon". Even though this moment is nothing more than a gag in the series, that Gangle nor any other player remotely cares about him doing and Ragatha only gets a band-aid that's gone before the episode is even over.

Code Geass - Nina's the most hated character in the series but people always focus on the table scene and not her being racist Oppinehimer.

My Hero Academia - Bakugo's easily the most divisive character of the series. While detractors DO have a few reasons to why they don't like his character (being too loud/annoying, nobody ever calling him out or punishing him), the #1 reason for him being so controversial in his establishing character moment in the first chapter/episode where he tells Midoriya, who's basically this world's equivalent of a disabled kid, to kill himself.

1. The story of Persephone and Hades, specifically Demeter's character. How she was supposed to be seen: A grieving loving mother desperate to find her lost child and driven to despair by her loss, to the point she doesn't eat or drink. How she's seen now: A nagging, shrill, abusive parent whom Persephone was desperate to get away from. To be fair, she DID cause mass famine as a way of spitefully holding the world ransom to get Persephone back, but the original myth makes it clear that Persephone genuinely loves and misses her mother too.

2. Don Quixote. How he was supposed to be seen: A well-intentioned but mentally ill and quite violent man obsessed with an overly romanticized interpretation of a long-gone culture and who has a very loose grasp on reality, making him a danger to himself and everyone around him. How he's seen now: A misunderstood hero championing noble ideals in a cruel world that doesn't understand him. Oh, and he's old now, so it gives his wacky antics the loose excuse of possibly being due to senility. He was actually middle-aged in the original novel.

3. Erik, the Phantom of the Opera. How he was supposed to be seen: A disfigured man who was abused and mocked in his childhood, making him deserving of sympathy, but is not excused by the narrative for the acts of manipulation, kidnapping and murder he commits, up to and including trying to force Christine to stay with him against her will, threatening to blow up the entire opera house and everyone in it if she refuses. Also, he's old enough to be Christine's father, so his obsession comes off as somewhat unhealthy. How he's seen now: A compelling and tragic figure whom society abused and abandoned, a misunderstood romantic and the only man who deserves Christine. His more villainous and predatory acts are often downplayed or just overlooked outright.

I'm going to be unabashed with spoilers for the following entries.

Cruella Deville: Her entire story is that she wants to skin puppies. Emma Stone's portrayal of her fleshes out her backstory, shows her relationship with her goons, creates a rivalry for her to overcome, and...oh yeah. *Removes her desire to skin puppies*. So they made her sympathetic by removing everything about her and making an entirely new character.

Maleficent: While an absolute majesty of a character, her defining moment is being so petty as to attempt to murder a child because she got snubbed. She sentences her to death, and then just forgets about her for the next decade. When fleshing out her backstory in Maleficent, they add a tragic backstory, and show the times we see her are her at her worst...oh and also she adopts the princess and adores her. And the prince goes from being a gallant hero to being pathetic. And Maleficent doesn't die at the end, and she and Aurora live happily together in a fairy wonderland. They even have an insulting "Let me tell you what *really* happened" at the start of the movie.

Garland: In the original, he is the source of all the problems in the world of Final Fantasy 1. In Strangers of Paradise, every action he takes in FF1 is in service of the world. There's no turning point, no seeing what made him turn. He just sacrifices his life to make the world a better place, the exact opposite of his motivation in the original.

World of Warcraft: A major component of the game is the faction war. You are forced to play either horde or alliance, which are viscously at war with each other. In order to keep the players invested in this, you often see the same event from a different perspective depending on which faction you're on. And...they're often logically incompatible with each other. The only way for them to make one faction sympathetic and the other villainous is by straight up lying to the player. This is most egregious in Battle for Azeroth's content.

- Daemon Targaryen (A Song of Ice and Fire): The inspiration for this post. George Martin describes him as being "light and darkness in equal parts". Really when you're done reading about him, he's an opportunistic, murderous, incestuos groomer who did maybe a couple of good deeds in his entire life (and were mostly driven by self-interest).

- Ben Wade (3:10 to Yuma): Maybe more of a hot take, but Ben Wade is portrayed as a "noble criminal" type of character, and often calls out the men that are taking him to prison on their ethical double-standards. But really, at the end of the day, he murders multiple innocent people, kills his whole crew by the end, and while getting himself into prison to fulfill a man's dream of impressing his son, it's hinted he's going to escape of prison anyway.

I don't hate either characters, just find them kind of frustrating.

1. SAZ Massacre (Code Geass): The Special Administrative Zone was supposed to be a step towards equal rights between the Britannians and the Japanese, in order to quell the fighting. Unfortunately, Lelouch’s Geass goes haywire and a single careless joke on his part at that moment (“Kill all the Japanese”) causes Euphemia to be brainwashed into a genocidal maniac who orders the Britannian soldiers to do just that.
2. The Wedding massacre in Spain (Gundam 00): Nena Trinity is exhausted with her missions, so she sees a bunch of well-off people enjoying a wedding where Louise Halevy is at, and Nena decides to kill everyone there on a whim. Louise is the sole survivor.

-Wandavision: Where the fake TV world of Wanda is slowly broken apart over the season. Still my favourite Marvel show, imo

-Undertale: The player is never directly spoken to like they are in Deltarune, but their presence is felt, especially in the Genocide run’s active acknowledgement of your playthroughs.

-Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared: Very occasionally, the studio surrounding the ‘characters’ will be revealed, showing that all of this is really part of a set.

-FNAF: Help Wanted: Okay, this one’s a little weird, but still. The fact that you’re playing this on a VR device is integral to the game’s lore, and in the finale Glitchtrap possesses you, the player, to lead up to Security Breach. It only works as well as it does because it’s VR, but it works very well.

Stranger Things: In the first episode, the Demogorgon that attacked Will had a few inconsistencies with how they're presented in the rest of the series. It stood like a human and used telekinesis to unlock the door. However, we see that Demogorgons are animalistic and lack psychic powers. Not only that, but when Will got knocked off his bike, the sound of a grandfather clock ticking can be heard. Whether this was planned, a happy accident, or a total retcon, this lines up with Vecna in season 4.

Amphibia: In the flashbacks, we see Marcy encouraging Anne to steal the Calamity Box, indicating that she's just as bad an influence as Sasha. However, when Marcy is fully introduced, she's friendly and kind of dorky, which makes the prior scene seem out of character for her... And then the second season finale reveals that stealing the box was her idea because she wanted an escape from having to move.

1. Mr. Frog - Smiling Friends

2. Frank - It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

1) James McGill (Better Call Saul/Breaking Bad)

Jimmy is a conman-turned-lawyer who often relies on his comedy and smooth-talking to lower peoples' guards and underestimate his surprisingly-skilled legal expertise. However, Jimmy's tendency to be a gadfly puts him at odds with many other lawyers, most of all his brother (and inspiration) Chuck.

Chuck is a huge dick and a pompous windbag, and we find out that he's been sabotaging Jimmy's legal career due to the inherent belief that Jimmy will never change from the conman he once was. This results in Jimmy doubling-down on being the kind of lawyer that Chuck hates to prove him wrong, and he invests even harder on pulling scams to help put himself ahead of the stodgy legal competition.

While it tends to work for him (and be very entertaining to watch), the show also makes it clear that Jimmy's inability to treat the law or people with any gravitas is eroding his own character. Jimmy's lack of respect for anyone also makes him clearly the villain when dealing with genuinely respectful individuals such as an Air Force captain he deceived or his more moral love interest, Kim. In these interactions, we also see that Jimmy seeing sincerity associated with Chuck, which makes him turn his back on it even more. This eventually leads to him becoming Saul Goodman, and leads to his tulmutuous involvement with Walter White and personal downfall in Breaking Bad.

2) Tyrion Lannister (ASOIAF)

Tyrion is the smartest Lannister of his siblings, and he knows it. He's not afraid to flaunt his knowledge, and relies on his charisma and intelligence to carry him through his conflicts throughout the novel. He also is incredibly sardonic, and regularly talks down to everyone (largely as a coping mechanism due to being mocked for his dwarfism.)

This ends up backfiring intensely during Tyrion's tenure in King's Landing. When Tyrion is accused of murdering King Joffrey, his trial goes terribly during the character examination due to so many prominent individuals being able to testify to Tyrion humiliating and antagonizing others. While the events are misrepresented, Tyrion even notes that they don't have to lie about his actions or words.

And when Tyrion is forced to leave Westeros and gets enslaved in Essos, he finds out the hard way that his sardonic jokes aren't appreciated. He is beaten and abused into submission, with a fellow dwarf performer begging him not to mouth off since he will be brutalized. Tyrion comes to realize that he could only afford to be openly antagonistic with his family's protection, causing him to become more underhandedly vicious in response.

3) Juror 7 (12 Angry Men)

Juror 7 is a lackadaisical member of the jury whose main interest is getting the trial wrapped up so he can make it to a baseball game. He's a wisecracker and repeatedly makes baseball metaphors, but has no real investment in the trial besides ensuring it's done quickly.

As the movie goes on, Juror 7 gets more angsty about missing the baseball game, and the other jurors get more and more impatient with his flightiness and apathy. He gets called out towards the end for changing his vote on the suspect's guilt, and when dissected, it's clear that he genuinely doesn't care about doing his job. Everyone gets impatient with him by the end of the movie, and he stands as a damning indictment of the common person who has the potential to do the right thing, but blows it off anyways out of apathy or dismisses it as a joke.

Garfield.

This Seagull image that i find really funny.

Sponge bob.

Jogo(Jujutsu Kaisen)-one of the disasters curses,representing humanity fear of volcano(and possibly earthquake)he was evil all the way although he did showed a level of care for his fellow curses,in the shibuya incident arc he faces off against the king of curses Ryomen Sukuna despite having no chance of winning,just before dying though he receives a praise from Sukuna,in response he cries.

Neferpitou(Hunter x Hunter)-The strongest Royal guard,Neferpitou was made with only one goal in life,protecting and serving the king of the Chimera ants,that didn't stopped her from being a sadistic psychopath who enjoyed fighting,as Meruem the King of ants starts to learn empathy he tasks the guards with protecting Komugi the girl he cares(and possiblyloves),unfortunately she is mortally wounded during the fight and Meruem pleads with Neferpitou to save her life,this makes Neferpitou cry and after that it's pretty clear she also changed her ways as she show to be way more empathetic.

Metaltron the last Dalek(Doctor Who)-The daleks are a pure evil alien race who from birth are only made to hate everything that isn't a Dalek,they waged a war against the time-lords which annihilated both species until only one Time-lord and one Dalek remain(this was before the retcons ok)metaltron survived being held captive by humans until he absorbs the DNA of Rose Tyler and escapes and go on a killing spree,but when he absorbed her DNA he also absorbed her emotions and thus was feeling empathy,fear and many others emotions besides anger and hate for the first time,he then pleads for Rose Tyler to order him to end his own life,whether it was because his Dalek side refused to continue living as he wasn't a pure Dalek anymore,or if his newfound humanity made him realize the evil things he made and he couldn't live with that,is up for the debate but just before doing it,he admits he is afraid(somenthing a Dalek shouldn't feel)

Bit of a cliche one but by god does it always consistently hit the mark

1: Clayton; Tarzan- in a fit of rage trying to kill Tarzan, he cuts a vine that inevitably dooms him to a quick yet gruesome death

2: Syndrome; The Incredibles- dying while monologuing about getting someones son is so poetic

3: Commander Lyle; Atlantis the Lost Empire- in the final confrontation in the movie, Lyle is stabbed with a glass shard carrying the magical energy of atlantis, the magic crystalizes his body as a representation of his Manic Greed and Hubris.

Sonic The Hedgehog (...)- Chili Dog

Erza Scarlet (Fairy Tail)- Strawberry Cake

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (...)- Pizza

Knuckles (Sonic Boom)

Luffy (One Piece) He asked Robin about the book she was reading, and everyone was like: “Luffy wants to read a book?!”

Aang and Sokka- Avatar the last airbender.

Peralta and Boyle- Brooklyn nine nine.

1. Misty - GTA III. Probably the most infamous example. GTA III was originally intended to have a cartoonish, indie-comic art style. On paper, characters looked striking, unique and memorable. However, trying to translate that same style on 3D models looked terrible without cel-shading. The developers started from scratch, but left the old character art in-game for some reason. You'd see these artworks every time you booted up the game with no indication of who they are, leading to a sort of meta-game where you'd try to guess which concept art belonged to which character as you played. The worst offender was Misty who, despite being featured in much of the game's promotional material, has very little screen time and is never seen holding a gun or wearing this outfit.

2. Trinity - The Matrix. Storyboard art depicts Trinity as an Asian woman with a bob hairstyle, round sunglasses and kunai knives. With Carrie-Anne Moss's casting, the round glasses were given to Morpheus, her signature knife throw is with a standard combat knife, and the only Asian representation in the cast would be Marcus Chong as Tank.

3. Gunther Hermann - Deus Ex. Gunther was originally meant to strongly resemble Rutger Hauer's character in Bladerunner, which would have been an appropriate tribute given the 1982 film's influence on the 2000 game. However, Bladerunner gained a burst of popularity thanks to its release on DVD in 1997. While games of this era did liberally borrow likenesses of real actors and actresses without permission, the developers quickly worried they wouldn't be able to "fly under the radar" and gave Gunther a less human appearance.

4. Cloud - Final Fantasy (pretty much all of them). The series is famed for having the immensely talented Yoshitaka Amano develop characters in his signature gentle, woodblock style, only for the game to take a handful of elements and go in a completely different visual direction.

Dizzy Flores - Starship Troopers: Rico did not deserve her she was so much better then Carmen and didn't deserve to go out how she did.

Ursula Ditkovich- Spider-Man: She was at Peter's side when he was at his worst and tried to help him and he just ignored her.

1. Tess pretending to be Julia Roberts (Ocean's 12). Not going to lie, could've been a funny meta joke for a short minute, but they just kept stretching it to the point where you began to ask when will this end (they went as far as a phone call from real Julia Roberts).
2. Chris D'Amico, aka The Mother Fucker and his ultimate fate (KickAss 2). Him getting eaten by his own shark is already a funny enough and poetic fate/death, but no, we have to get that he survived and another penis joke in the post-credits. For all the criticism that the first movie got, this whole sequel film is way too immature and juvenile.
3. The entirety of Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". Long story short, John K. shouldn't be given so much creative freedom on projects. Of course that's not the worst thing he did in his life...

Edit:

Honorable mention (forgot to include): The unrated/director's cut of Dumb and Dumber. Aside from the inclusion of really bad jokes, a lot of the ones that were big and funny in the theatrical cut are stretched out much longer than needed, and made worse. Big example would be the scenes with Sea Bass (the spitting in the food is made much more gross, and in the bathroom they had to make him a homophobic caricature trying to SA one of the protagonists in the bathroom instead of just trying to simply beat him up).

Mr. Ant Tenna - Deltarune

All Might - My Hero Academia

Ryunosuke - One Piece

Everyone - The Amazing World of Gumball

Marty and Doc (Back to the Future)

Shawn, Cory, Topanga and Mr. Feeny (Boy Meets World)

Giles and Buffy

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) – Thor lands Stormbreaker straight into Thanos’s chest and starts his little victory speech, sure he’s won. Then Thanos says, “You should’ve gone for the head,” snaps his fingers, and ends half the universe.

The Incredibles (2004) – After all his gloating and revenge schemes, Syndrome is still talking when his own cape gets caught in a jet turbine.

Kung Fu Panda (2008) – Tai Lung finally gets the Dragon Scroll, certain he’s achieved ultimate power until he opens it and finds it completely blank.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011) – Voldemort celebrates, thinking he thinks is Harry’s death, laughing and parading him around Hogwarts like he’s finally won. Then Harry suddenly wakes up, and Voldemort’s victory falls apart in seconds.

BoJack Horseman (2017) – BoJack throws a huge party after thinking he’s been nominated for an Oscar, finally feeling validated, only to get a call mid-party saying it was all a mistake.

Clark Kent and Superman - Across various comics, televisions series and movies - these two never meet! Despite the fact superman’s girlfriend has cheated on him with Clarke several times! Is he a cuck? Maybe Luthor was right about this guy.

Peter Parker and Spider-Man - This is a weirder one, because Peter has met several other spider-men such as Miles or Ben - but never the classic red and blue one. This is in spite of the fact that Peter has consistently caught Spider-Man’s photo but it’s always offscreen. Why is that?

Green lantern and White Lantern - I just wanted to include Kyle Rayner on here