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There are several fantasy TV shows that have wasted characters with a lot of potential. Many fantasy TV shows have a wide variety of characters because of the genre's versatility. Several fantasy TV shows have perfect villains, while others have complex and morally gray protagonists. Some fantasy TV characters deserve their own spinoff because they are so compelling. Other fantasy characters exist merely as plot devices. However, it does not have to be a bad thing—if it makes sense for the storyline, then some characters' only role involves existing for something bigger than themselves.
Unfortunately, with all the great characters fantasy television has introduced, several fantasy TV characters have wasted potential. Fantasy shows fail these characters for several reasons, whether because the narrative ignored an excellent storytelling opportunity or because the show treated said characters terribly. Sometimes, a character's wasted potential leads to unwanted scenarios, such as fantasy TV scenes that are so controversial that they make viewers quit their shows. At other times, a character is wasted so badly that it affects the actor portraying them. Regardless of the reason, several fantasy TV shows have wasted characters.
10 Belle French - Once Upon A Time
Once Upon A Time Reduced Belle To A Plot Device
In Once Upon a Time season 1, Belle was primarily a plot device for Rumpelstiltskin's arc. However, when her actress, Emilie de Ravin, became a series regular starting with season 2, Belle actually got the chance to shine in episodes that focus on her, such as season 2, episode 11, "The Outsider," season 3, episode 7, "Dark Hollow," and season 4, episode 6, "Family Business." However, as time passed, Belle's storylines became more about Rumpelstiltskin's character development than herself.
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Once Upon a Time features various fairy tale characters with unique spins to their backstories. However, some are better than others.
Of course, Once Upon a Time has a large cast of characters, so it is impossible for everyone to get more than a few centric episodes. However, it does not change that in later seasons, Belle's episodes became about Rumpelstiltskin and their romance rather than about her own dreams, aspirations, and goals. She lost all agency because her purpose became about Rumpelstiltskin. It got to the point where Emilie de Ravin left Once Upon a Time after season 6 because the writers felt that Belle had no purpose outside of needing to die for Rumpelstiltskin's season 7 arc.
9 Princess Bess - My Lady Jane
Bess Never Got A Chance To Shine Before My Lady Jane Was Canceled
Princess Bess is based on Queen Elizabeth I, but the show takes place before her reign. Bess does not have a particularly big role in My Lady Jane season 1—she is often by her sister's side, too afraid to speak up about Mary's tyranny. However, Bess notably becomes a much more interesting character when the narrative reveals that she is an Ethian—a person who can transform into an animal. Unfortunately, Amazon Prime Video canceled My Lady Jane instead of renewing the show for season 2.
Of course, the writers of My Lady Jane had no way of knowing that Bess would not get the opportunity to have her own arc. However, it does not change the fact that the show wasted Bess' character, becoming one of several storylines that My Lady Jane will never address because of its cancelation. Bess deserved a better opportunity to explore how she reconciles her Ethian identity under the anti-Ethian wrath of her elder half-sister, Mary.
8 Caitlyn Kiramman - Arcane
Caitlyn Regressed In Arcane Season 2
Caitlyn Kiramman was born into a world of privilege. She grew up wealthy and eventually became an Enforcer of the Piltover Police Department. Her season 1 arc involves learning the dark truths about Piltover and their oppression of Zaun's people. However, when Arcane season 1 ends with Jinx's fatal attack on the Piltover Council, it marks the beginning of the end of Caitlyn's potential. In Arcane season 2, Caitlyn becomes obsessed with getting revenge for her mother's death. Arcane portrays Caitlyn assembling an assault team to take down Jinx once and for all.
Arcane
9/10
Release Date 2021 - 2023
Showrunner Christian Linke, Alex Yee
Directors Pascal Charrue, Arnaud Delord
Writers Christian Linke, Alex Yee
Naturally, Caitlyn would grieve for her mother. However, her mother's death changes the direction of Caitlyn's arc. Instead of fulfilling Caitlyn's potential, her arc goes in the opposite direction. She supports Ambessa Medarda's extremist plans to suppress Zaun once and for all. Caitlyn eventually realizes her mistake and works to create a better future for Piltover. However, her season 2 arc could have been about reconciling Jinx's responsibility for her mother's death while taking down Piltover's corrupt and oppressive system. Instead, Caitlyn regresses, and she ends back where she started, wasting the perfect opportunity for character development.
7 Hama & Jet - Avatar: The Last Airbender
Hama & Jet Were Victims Of The Fire Nation
Avatar: The Last Airbender has many great characters, from Zuko to Katara to Toph. However, the show has made mistakes with minor characters that serve a particular purpose for an episode or two before leaving altogether. Two characters that come to mind include Jet, the leader of the Freedom Fighters, and Hama, an elderly waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe. Jet's initial appearance in season 1, episode 10, "Jet," is not wasteful. Although Jet and his Freedom Fighters do good work, they are also careless about innocent civilians.
Upon discovering the truth about Jet, Aang, Katara, and Sokka realize what kind of people they want to be and how they want to defeat the Fire Nation. However, Jet's storyline in Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 wasted his character. Instead of understanding where Jet is coming from, the narrative villainizes him and makes Jet pay the price through the Dai Li kidnapping and torturing him. Jet does not get the chance to see a world free of the oppressive Fire Nation—he dies when Long Feng, the leader of the Dai Li, kills him under Lake Laogai.
Avatar: The Last Airbender utilizes Jet to portray the "right" and "wrong" way of resisting an oppressive regime, a poor message to send. Hama, another character, has a much worse fate. Hama appears in Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3, episode 8, "The Puppetmaster." Although she seems kind at first, it turns out that a series of cruel circumstances have hardened Hama. At a young age, the Fire Nation soldiers raided the Southern Water Tribe and imprisoned the waterbenders, including Hama. She sat in a Fire Nation prison for years before teaching herself how to bloodbend to escape her imprisonment.
However, Hama's traumatic experience has led her to seek retribution by imprisoning Fire Nation civilians. At the end of the episode, the Fire Nation imprisons Hama once again. While what Hama did was wrong, the show wasted her character by once again attempting to illustrate how oppressed people should resist. Instead of exiling Hama back to the Southern Water Tribe, the narrative forces her into a Fire Nation prison once more. Avatar: The Last Airbender treats Hama's actions as if she is just as bad as Ozai's regime—a horrible idea to suggest, given the extremely different circumstances.
6 Kira Yukimura - Teen Wolf
Teen Wolf Often Ignored Kira & Her Potential
Teen Wolf has several underappreciated characters, but no one is more dismissed than Kira Yukimura. The show introduces Kira in the second half of season 3—the awkward new girl at school who eventually discovers her Thunder Kitsune identity through her family history. However, the show treated Kira like a secondary character time and again. Although Thunder Kitsunes are one of the most fascinating supernatural beings Teen Wolf introduces, the show ignores Kira's supernatural identity until season 5, when the narrative only utilizes it to write her out of the show.
Arden Cho was asked to return for the Teen Wolf movie, but she declined due to being offered a significantly lower salary compared to her co-stars.
It is frustrating how Teen Wolf treated Kira Yukimura. She was so unlike any of the other main characters and had so much to offer because of her unique abilities and quirky personality. Kira was a valuable addition to Scott's pack, but the show did not treat her that way. Teen Wolf barely dives into Kira's backstory or elements that contribute to her storyline, such as the Skinwalkers. It is a wasted opportunity on what could have been one of Teen Wolf's most iconic characters.
5 Laena Velaryon - House of the Dragon
Laena Played A Much Bigger Role In Fire & Blood
House of the Dragon's treatment of Laena Velaryon is one of the most disappointing aspects of the show. Although she dies before the Dance of Dragons begins, Laena plays a central role in the narrative leading up to it. Laena and Rhaenyra were close growing up and supposed to be best friends. Laena was uninterested in men and preferred spending time with her dragon Vhagar until Daemon came along, and they fell in love. Fire & Blood depicts Laena as Daemon's love. She is the only woman he never betrays and stands out from his other love interests, including Rhaenyra.
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Laena Velaryon made a splash on House of the Dragon, but her character had a little more depth in Fire & Blood.
However, House of the Dragon treats Laena as a mere afterthought. She is not a grown woman with agency when she meets Daemon, but rather, a 14-year-old seduced by her adult cousin. When Laena gives birth to the twins, it mends the rift between Daemon and Viserys. Laena's marriage to Daemon and her close friendship with Rhaenyra also helps mend the soured bond between the Velaryons and Targaryens, possibly contributing to why they side with Rhaenyra in the conflict. Given Laena Velaryon's significance in Fire & Blood, it was repugnant of House of the Dragon to dismiss her character.
4 Lydia Branwell - Shadowhunters
Lydia Should Have Returned To New York
Shadowhunters changed a lot from Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter books, implementing both good and bad changes. One of the more positive decisions involved introducing an original character, Lydia Branwell. Shadowhunter readers recognize the Branwell name from Clary's ancestor, Henry Branwell, but the show also confirms Lydia is Clary's distant cousin. In Shadowhunters season 1, Lydia Branwell arrives as the Clave's envoy and eventually becomes the temporary leader of the New York Institute. The narrative briefly covers her backstory, explaining how she developed her no-nonsense, serious personality.
|
Season |
First Episode |
Last Episode |
|
1 |
The Mortal Cup (January 12, 2016) |
Morning Star (April 5, 2016) |
|
2A |
This Guilty Blood (January 2, 2017) |
By the Light of Dawn (March 6, 2017) |
|
2B |
Mea Maxima Culpa (June 5, 2017) |
Beside Still Water (August 14, 2017) |
|
3A |
On Infernal Ground (March 20, 2018) |
Erchomai (May 15, 2018) |
|
3B |
Lost Souls (February 26, 2019) |
All Good Things... (May 6, 2019) |
However, instead of contributing to the overall fight against Valentine Morgenstern, Lydia is used as a device for a storyline between Alec and Magnus before the show writes her off in the first episode of season 2. Of course, there were more opportunities for Lydia Branwell to return in the future, especially as the antagonist changed. However, one of the showrunners, Todd Slavkin, revealed on X that Lydia's actress was unavailable in later seasons. It is understandable that the actress could not return, but Lydia still had so much potential in Shadowhunters.
3 Matthias Helvar - Shadow & Bone
Matthias' Prison Storyline Hindered His Character
Matthias Helvar is one of the six crows in Kaz Brekker's crew in Shadow & Bone. However, he is not officially a member yet, given that he is imprisoned in Ketterdam and only knows Nina. Matthias would meet Kaz and the rest of the crew in the Six of Crows spinoff that was supposed to happen after Shadow & Bone season 2. Unfortunately, Netflix canceled Shadow & Bone after season 2, effectively ending the Six of Crows storyline before it properly begins. As a result, Matthias only appeared briefly in Shadow & Bone's first two seasons.
Unfortunately, Matthias' role in Shadow & Bone was wasted. While his storyline with Nina in the first season was important, his imprisonment in Shadow & Bone season 2 seemed like a waste of time more than anything. Matthias is now part of the main cast, but the narrative needs to do something with his character before the infamous heist in the Six of Crows spinoff. There is not much Shadow & Bone could do with Matthias other than bide time before the spinoff, which is what the show did. However, it resulted in Shadow & Bone wasting Matthias Helvar.
2 Pema - The Legend of Korra
Pema Has No Personality Outside Of Tenzin's Wife
Pema is one of the new characters The Legend of Korra introduces in the first episode. However, she does not have a personality outside of Tenzin's wife and the mother of his children. Pema gives Korra advice on how to approach Mako despite him being in a relationship with Asami, which ignited a disastrous love triangle between the three of them that spanned two seasons. The Legend of Korra is one of several TV shows that would have been infinitely better without a romance subplot, one of the many reasons why the latter half of the show is so much better.
Pema gains some agency in The Legend of Korra seasons 3 and 4, when she looks after the imprisoned airbenders and helps the people of Republic City to safety. These storylines illustrate that Pema had a lot of potential, but The Legend of Korra mostly wasted her character, using her as a means to ensure the survival of the Air Nation (before Harmonic Convergence). Pema's role serves deeply misogynistic purposes, and The Legend of Korra could have done so much more with her.
1 The Women of House Martell - Game of Thrones
Game Of Thrones Changed House Martell's Purpose
No character was wasted in fantasy TV more than the women of House Martell. Although Oberyn served his narrative purpose, the fallout of his death ignited a terrible storyline in Game of Thrones. After Oberyn dies in A Song of Ice & Fire, Ellaria's primary concern is for their daughters—in the Song of Ice & Fire books, Oberyn and Ellaria had four daughters between the ages of 7 and 14. Game of Thrones' Sand Snakes focused on Oberyn's other illegitimate daughters. Ellaria was never invested in revenge; she was just looking out for her children and Oberyn's other daughters.
However, flipping Ellaria's character wasted the women of House Martell (or related to House Martell), portraying them as two-dimensional, vengeful characters instead of complex personas.
Game of Thrones completely flipped this storyline. Instead of using it as an opportunity to portray authentic House Martell dynamics, the writers portrayed Ellaria as willing to do anything to avenge Oberyn—including murdering his brother. Ellaria's reckless actions eventually led to the deaths of the Sand Snakes in Game of Thrones. However, flipping Ellaria's character wasted the women of House Martell (or related to House Martell), portraying them as two-dimensional, vengeful characters instead of complex personas in this fantasy show.
Source: X
Game Of Thrones
10/10
Release Date 2011 - 2018
Showrunner David Benioff, D.B. Weiss
Directors David Nutter, Alan Taylor, D.B. Weiss, David Benioff
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Isaac Hempstead Wright
Brandon Bran Stark
English (US) ·