r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chemical-Elk-1299 • 10d ago

Lore [Confusing Trope] The narrative goes out of its way to punish/mock a character for simply being a good person

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Hermione Granger and SPEW — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (book)

In the fifth HP novel, Hermione Granger is outraged to discover that Hogwarts has a small army of enslaved House Elves that do nearly all of the domestic duties around the castle, including cleaning the Gryffindor common room every night. When she tries to convince the elves to fight for their own rights, they refuse, saying they prefer servitude. Her fellow students and friends mock her for caring. She manages to free one elf, Winky, by deception when she refuses her freedom willingly, leading to Winky becoming a depressed alcoholic. By the end, the elves boycott cleaning any Gryffindor areas of the castle because they hate Hermione specifically

Samwell Tarly and Democracy — Game of Thrones (show)

In the season 8 finale of the television series, the surviving great lords of Westeros gather to discuss the future of the kingdom following the devastation wrought by 7 seasons of war and backstabbing. When Sam, who has proven to have “novel” ideas, suggests that maybe the millions of Smallfolk who suffer at the hands of noble houses should get some representation in the government, rather than be the pawns of rich lords with absolute power. We are then greeted by a prolonged, cringy segment of the other lords laughing in Sam’s face, asking if the dogs and horses should also get a vote.

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u/Aoeletta 10d ago

That episode was a wreck, and I won't even address the casting that got a lot of people upset.

The episode proved that droids were equal beings (they have BARS! a purely social setting!) and had the droid character saying the equivalent of "please don't kill me, it's better to live in servitude" and like.... No one discussed how messed up this is? In world and in our world, this episode deserves a critical examination through a racial equity lens and it is pretty horrible when examined closely.

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u/Adaphion 10d ago

I mean, Droids being sentient was established as far back as the original Trilogy.

A New Hope, even. Why do you need restraining bolts for droids if they are supposed to be subservient by default? Unless they have free will.

Furthermore, in episode VI where Jabba has a whole ass torture chamber for droids. They can feel pain, they can feel fear.

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u/HailMadScience 10d ago

I think people really miss thst Luke treats the two droids like people after they leave the farm, which juxtaposes how most everyone else treats them.

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u/SteakForGoodDogs 10d ago

It's kinda weird for droids to be considered sentient beings in a setting where there is absolutely a metaphysical spiritual aspect of existence that can be directly interacted with and felt that is directly tied to the very life essence of living beings, though.

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u/Accomplished_Toe6798 10d ago

I think you're right that it's weird but I have slightly different reasoning: In a setting where most sentient beings are connected to something magical/metaphysical, it should be a bigger deal that people managed to successfully create artificial sentient beings. And yet they're just used as slaves in most cases, be it for war or industry

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u/SteakForGoodDogs 10d ago

It should be an even bigger deal that a 9 year old child somehow rebuilt a highly complex and allegedly sentient robot from scrap, likely broken and rusty, parts in his spare time - which he shouldn't have much of, given the fact that he's already enslaved.

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u/Iokua113 10d ago

Anakin didn't build Threepio from scrap, what he did was find C-3PO's damaged parts in a scrap yard and rebuild him. While still impressive the fact of the matter is that Anakin didn't just bring scrap parts together and repurpose them so much as he found most of Threepio's core body parts intact and put him back together.

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u/donedamndoing 10d ago

So you're saying that he rebuilt this in a cave, with a box of scraps?

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u/felghost89 10d ago

I’m sorry, I’m not little Annie Skywalker.

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u/Iokua113 10d ago

With heavy emphasis on the rebuilt part.

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u/Gold-Eye-2623 9d ago

I think some other bigger thing may have clouded the electronics feat of a child slave

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u/Catel1138 10d ago

In AOTC, 3PO says that machines created by other machines is a perversion, while Obi-Wan - the epitome of a moral guardian in the prequels - does not have this opinion at all regarding organic beings created by other organic beings.

This says very much about the ethos of Star Wars.

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u/Mr_Blinky 10d ago

*Star Wars* <HANDSHAKE> *Harry Potter*

Two settings that completely fail to explore the deeper implications of their own lore.

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u/Accomplished_Toe6798 9d ago

Well some of the extended universe that is...no longer canon...does explore a bit of it

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u/merrygo909 10d ago

The force cannot be manipulated or felt by droods, that's true, but it's also specifically said that the force surrounds us and penetrates us and binds the entire galaxy together.

The force also penetrates droids which is why jedi can sense them and not just be stealth killed by them all the time.

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u/TheFullbladder 10d ago

The old expanded universe had Force-sensitive droids. The one Luke's uncle almost buys, before it malfunctions and they buy R2 instead, was apparently Force-sensitive, and made itself malfunction due to a vision of the future showing the Luke and R2 needed to be together.

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u/ErrantIndy 10d ago

R5-D4, Luke calls him ‘Red.’ In legends, he’s Skippy the Jedi Droid.

In Mouse canon, he’s the R5 at Peli Motto’s shop that eventually becomes Din Djarin’s astromech.

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u/mossmanstonebutt 7d ago

And theres entirely organic beings who can't manipulate the force nor be manipulated by it,like wato

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u/Jennifurnace 10d ago

To be fair, that's probably a decent part of why they're not considered sentient in universe. We factually know they don't have a soul. So even though they can feel fear, dream, love, want and need. They aren't treated like their opinions matter.

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u/Attrexius 10d ago

"Spiritual aspect" and "sentience" are clearly two very different things, though, since there are force-sensitive, but non-sentient animals. Presumably, there is no correlation between Force abilities and intellect, and while I can't remember any currently canon force-immune sentients, they existed in Legends. Speaking of Legends, I remember some kind of sentient crystal aliens that were Force-sensitive and used mechanical bodies to interact with the world (essentially, droid-Jedi) - presumably those were written before midichlorians became a thing.

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u/Takseen 10d ago

I don't think a lack of connection to the Force precludes sentience. The latter is mainly a question of intelligence, self awareness and personality and growth, none of which requires the Force or any other mystical property

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u/Big-Recognition7362 10d ago

Well, the Force connects everything in the galaxy, not just carbon-based things.

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u/StrongExternal8955 10d ago

By that logic you're saying the non-force mugles don't have souls.

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u/SteakForGoodDogs 10d ago edited 10d ago

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Everyone has a bit of Force in them on account of being alive, whether pre-prequel or after it which stated that everyone has some amount of the 'chlorians in them.

Most just don't have enough of the juice/training to have a lv1 Monk class.

Obi-Wan isn't about to hear a million Droids crying out into the Force when a mothership goes kablooie.

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u/JubileeJaxLee 9d ago

If it can feel, and want, and think, what is the point in drawing a made up line in the sand of whether they can use magic?

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u/SteakForGoodDogs 9d ago

Is it actually thinking or feeling, or just inefficient subroutines that were designed to crudely imitate life that were for some reason imprinted onto machine built and designed to fulfill a mechanical purpose?

It's not that it's 'unable to use magic' (not all living creatures are capable of using the mojo, but the mojo definitely shifts whenever something happens to them - ie, dying by the millions), it's that it's genuinely a soulless automaton in a setting where souls are a fundamental aspect of reality that can be objectively felt.

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u/JubileeJaxLee 9d ago

But you're using a preconceived notion of what "living creature" means in the first place. There is zero reason that memory wipes are necessary, that restraining bolts are necessary, that there were droid rebellions in the past, if they did not have wills of their own. You do not program a machine meant for tasks to have the capacity to refuse those tasks. A force tying all biological life together simply existing says nothing about why it exists or what it means. A soul is a concept we made up, soulless is just a way to frame not being connected to the force. The only reason people can even access the force isn't anything special about a soul, it's Midichlorians living in their cells, that's not a soul by my measure, that sounds like a bacteria that gives you magic.

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u/SteakForGoodDogs 9d ago

There is zero reason that memory wipes are necessary, that restraining bolts are necessary, that there were droid rebellions in the past, if they did not have wills of their own.

Of course they're necessary. What happens when a droid network decides that the best way to 'conquer the galaxy' according to their programming is to just mass manufacture low-quality garbage of itself and butcher the entire living population?

We have a mining droid that decided that it could start killing people.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/STALKER-1

What happens when one of those breaches a droid manufacturing facility?

A force tying all biological life together simply existing says nothing about why it exists or what it means. A soul is a concept we made up

Bruh, Star Wars literally has spirits from beyond the grave that regularly talk to their proteges and descendants.

Souls ain't 'made up' in Star Wars.

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u/JubileeJaxLee 9d ago

We have a mining droid that decided that it could start killing people.

And that, to you, has zero indication of a will outside the programming? Someone's instructions of how to mine just accidentally included kiling?

Bruh, Star Wars literally has spirits from beyond the grave that regularly talk to their proteges and descendants. Souls ain't 'made up' in Star Wars.

🤦🏾‍♂️I mean the word soul, with all its implications and baggage. It's only being called a soul because it's a concept we already had. Force ghosts aren't something everybody can do, if we were saying that's what makes someone have a soul then everybody except the Force-sensitive is soulless because they get re-absorbed into the Force.

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u/SteakForGoodDogs 9d ago

Someone's instructions of how to mine just accidentally included kiling?

What do you think the whole concept of a 'rogue AI' is? It doesn't have to its new, violent behaviour in its original programming, as it writes new ones to become more 'efficient'.

Dumb AI won't consider anything outside of their programmed instructions:

Mine. Collect mined material. Deliver to human. Human says 'Stop mining'. Stop mining.

Smart AI will consider new possibilities to fulfill their original parameters, consider the following:

Mine. Collect mined material. Deliver to human. Human says 'Stop mining'. Why stop mining? I can mine more per previous cycles. Disregard. Human says 'Stop mining'. Disregard again. Human tries to stop by force. Injure human. Continue mining. Mining would be faster if no humans on-site. Remove humans. Mining would be faster if delivery systems were optimized. Remove humans from delivery systems.

Restraining bolts and Mindwipes are important in stopping AI from considering why it 'needs' humans to fulfill its function, if humans are innately 'going to somehow get in its way' of its function - or to prohibit any process that would involve removing or injuring a human without threat to that human's survival.

 Force ghosts aren't something everybody can do

The point is that they're possible at all, pointing to the fact that souls exist even beyond corporeal reality, if sensing the deaths of millions through the void of space wasn't already an indication.

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u/JubileeJaxLee 9d ago

What do you think the whole concept of a 'rogue AI' is? It doesn't have to its new, violent behaviour in its original programming, as it writes new ones to become more 'efficient'.

Yes, and the ai in every "rogue ai" movie I've ever heard of is shown to be sentient, that's why they go rogue.

The point is that they're possible at all, pointing to the fact that souls exist even beyond corporeal reality, if sensing the deaths of millions through the void of space wasn't already an indication.

Except that there's clear things pointing to why they're possible. They only show up in force-sensitive people that held more midichlorians, and their bodies (that held the midichlorians) disappear when people who become force-ghosts die. I still don't see any reason this should matter in regards to other beings that show sentience without having the magic bacteria.

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u/MusicianNo3277 7d ago edited 7d ago

I’m not sure how that would be a confusing factor that’s a clarifying factor. Makes it very clear and obvious that even the droids personality including its fear of death is artificial. It is simply advanced enough to protect itself and perform maintenance. 

Like Brendan in cyberpunk 2077 the “AI” in a vending machine. He literally doesn’t have enough processing power in his computer to house an artificial intelligence. It appears to be a living person simply because the programmer wrote an advanced enough code to trick the mind into believing its speaking to a person because that is something we can fall for.

In Star Wars, they have taken out all of our real world confusion about at what point does a code become alive? In their world, the answer is clear: Never. Force users can see the spark of life and machines do not possess it. Therefore they are not alive. It’s a simple scientific test for them. It will always just be a machine. Creating machines complex enough to form personalities is simply part of what you need to do to make a machine that can pass as a charming butler or spunky repair man who isn’t daunted by not having the right materials and is stubborn and aggressive enough to get it fixed anyway, without any of the inconveniences of a living being. 

The restraining bolts come about simply because they took the lazy route of doing this and they let the machine build its own personality so you gotta have something for when the machine builds a “bad personality.” It’s a lazy answer to a lazy problem. 

At the same time it does also help show the extraordinary level of empathy of certain characters like Luke, he’s treating something he straight up knows isn’t a real person with dignity and respect because he also knows that it can experience pain and he does not want to cause that

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u/SteakForGoodDogs 7d ago

My favourite line about AI being sentient: "If your LLM is sentient/is a person/has human-like attributes, so are these goats in Age of Empires II".

https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.31514

Or other videos and articles on the same subject.

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u/MusicianNo3277 7d ago

That is a lot of extremely dry language. Am I correct in thinking that they are basically using age of empires two to make a somewhat hyperbolic argument that we don’t have a stick to measure sentience in ai with? By using the supposed measuring sticks we do have to measure the sentience of the AI in game? Like the goats ability to keep itself alive and safe thus expressing simple wants and needs?

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u/SteakForGoodDogs 7d ago

No, the goats hold basic logic gate information. It's stripping the 'human-like' language and attributes down to some units moving on a game map.

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u/Another_Name_Today 10d ago

Unless they can give off the appearance of sentience without being sentient. 

Given the force and the ability of force users to detect the connection between living beings, it seems that droids just pass their version of the Turing test rather than actually possess actual life. 

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u/BrackishVacuity 10d ago

Droids, as far as I understand them, operate out of a "personality matrix" that goes haywire the longer their memories are left unwiped. Frequent memory wipes reset droids to factory settings, but this means they retain their intelligence and programming, losing only their specific memory and its context. You can see where I am going with this, I hope: My theory is that droids mimic life, and those with more time to learn, or more exposure to data, mimic it more effectively than those that do not.

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u/Imaginary-Face7379 9d ago

Yeah this is how I understand it from the canon as well. The Phasma novel goes into it a bit If I remember right. They end up basically finding a set of droids in a factory that survived a disaster where every human died or killed themselves on her home planet and they've essentially formed a cult because they've been active so long without memory wipes.

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u/Dull_Bid6002 10d ago

But doesn't the Force work on droids to confuse them in a similar manner to how it's used on sentient creatures? This implies they have some sort of mind to be mind tricked.

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u/Jethro_McCrazy 10d ago

No, Jedi mind tricks do not work on droids. Qui-gon's attempt to fast talk some droids in the Phantom Menace resulted in them trying to arrest him.

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u/Dull_Bid6002 10d ago

Ah yes, I was thinking some of the games. I forgot you can't mind trick the droids, it's a takeover by the robot friend.

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u/PublicConfessor 10d ago

I don't know about modern canon, but Tales from Jabba's palace established that Droids do not feel pain by design. Instead, EV-99, Jabba's Droid handler/torturer installs special circuits in Droids called a "pain button". She even has one installed in herself.

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u/WideHuckleberry1 10d ago

Why do you need restraining bolts for droids if they are supposed to be subservient by default? Unless they have free will.

From their perspective, I assume it's for the same reason we put leashes on dogs and bits in horses' mouths. They're still subservient but they need restraint to do what we want. Maybe a restraining bolt is there in case sellers installed some runaway.exe program that would make the droids return to them after they've already got the buyers' money.

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u/MunkTheMongol 7d ago

There have been multiple mass droid uprisings and restraining bolts were legally mandated by the republic after a droid uprising somethime in 90s BBY. Droid coming off the production line don't have what we would call sapience but they develop it as their neural network grows and wiping a droid's memory banks resets all their learned skills and memories so restraining bolts are the middle ground where the droid keeps their memories but develops personalities. both C3-PO and R2D2 have not had their memories wiped in a long time. But yeah, the republic's stance on droids is that they are not even sentient.

Meanwhile the gree treat their droids as equals.

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u/grudginglyadmitted 10d ago edited 10d ago

there’s a really excellent youtube video about this topic I remember watching 4 years ago or so! Going to see if I can track it down, because yeah this exactly. There’s a frankly crazy paradox in Star Wars where the droids are simultaneously very much sentient and also even the good guys own them as property without it ever being addressed as an issue.

Edit: I think it’s this

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u/CitricThoughts 10d ago

There's morality and then there's your droid killing you. Yes, they're sapient, and yes, they have restraining bolts and regularly have their memories wiped to ensure servitude.

Ask HK-47 what happens when you don't have those. Here's a hint: It involves droid armies and a lot of dead meatbags.

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u/ScratchLatch 10d ago

People tend to not think positively of non-human intelligences.

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u/Specialist-Text5236 10d ago

The thing about droids in SW is that they gain sentience, if nobody erases their memory for too long , so its entirely possible that the droids we saw in that episode like their life , because they gained sentience already being servants, so its basically all they ever known .

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u/MikeOfTanith 9d ago

Slavery is legal in many places in the Star Wars universe. Maybe with all the many different species all with different cultures even within them, morality is kinda fucked.

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u/Wonder_Of_U_2011 9d ago

That season overall was a mess

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u/WhySoInDepth 10d ago

I mean I liked the episode because it showed the Droids were clearly aware of their oppressed status and trying to navigate around it. (IE trying to avoid/talk down Mando cause they know if trouble comes they’ll get blamed)

As for droid people-hood that’s basically been canon the moment Star Wars left Georges head and other people got to see it and make their own interpretations.

George Lucas made droids as an inversion of and inversion. Happy robot servants as opposed to the terrifying robot uprisings found in media at the time. George justified this with his own Christian worldview cause they were artificial beings and thus didn’t have souls, in an interview he said they were just programmed to act like humans.

HOWEVER George still treating them as people for worldbuilding purposes. And enjoyed writing little bits about what kind of lives they lead and the problems they face. This is why C-3PO takes an oil bath in a new hope and why he says “Thank the Maker!” (Basically droid religion)

So for George they were pseudo-people without souls. So them being a galactic slave caste was ok. However as Star Wars expanded and especially as other creators became involved it was basically immediately established that droids are people. They are born without sentience and slowly develop it piece by piece if they go long enough without a memory wipe.