The Turbotastic Asian Reviews: Top Ten Most Underrated Characters in the Media

Hi everyone! Turbotastic Asian here with another Top 10 List. This time, things are a little bit different; instead of movies, I’m going to be looking at characters, more specifically, the top 10 most underrated characters in the media. These are the characters who, in my personal opinion, deserve much more recognition than they are currently getting. Notice that I said “recognition”, I didn’t say “love”. Some of these characters on this list are characters that I do not necessarily love or even particularly like (at least not as much as I like their fellow characters in their show). In fact, I might even see a reason to hate a particular character. However, I do not think that they deserve to be forgotten and left to rot either, so to speak. I would rather have a character be regarded and hated than not be regarded at all. Lastly, I am kind of weird with my numbering. Most of these items go in the order of how much I admire the character rather than how underrated they are. This is to give me an excuse to rave about my favorite character(s).  If it were based on how underrated they were, a lot of these would be in reverse order.  So, with all that out of the way, this is my Top 10 Most Underrated Characters in the Media.

10)

The March Hare from Alice in Wonderland– The March Hare is the best friend of the Mad Hatter from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. The reason why I am putting him at the very bottom of this list is because I am not an especially big fan of his. I have a much bigger crush on his best friend (particularly in the Tim Burton rendition of the film). Here’s why: even though his friend is called the Mad Hatter, the March Hare seems to be the one that has the shorter temper. For instance, when Alice first shows up at their Unbirthday party (in Walt Disney’s 1951 rendition), the March Hare is the first of the two to start scolding her for barging in uninvited (which she honestly had very little control over) whereas all the Mad Hatter does is back his friend up, but then lets go of his anger a split second later. The March Hare just sort of dwells on it when he’s angry.  Though both of them are kind of rude, at least the Mad Hatter has more redeeming qualities than the March Hare does. He has to if he’s the more popular of the duo. Therefore, while I’m not defending this guy, and I do realize that these characters are fictional, I do think that it would suck if I were a character in a movie and my best friend raked in more fans than I did. If anything, I wish that Carrol had made the Mad Hatter and the March Hare equally likable characters.

Spoiler Warning!!!

9)

King Candy/Turbo from Wreck-it-Ralph– King Candy/Turbo is the main antagonist in Disney’s Wreck-it-Ralph. The reason why I’m calling him both King Candy and Turbo is because he has a split personality of some sort, if that’s what you want to call it. Turbo is his real name and King Candy is his disguise name. King Candy/Turbo is (in my opinion) both the very best Disney villain and the very worst Disney villain at the exact same time. He’s the best villain because he’s probably the smartest villain in any Disney movie, period, and could definitely compete with some of the more classic Disney villain. His disguise is just so clever, complete with a ridiculous costume and an even more ridiculous voice, you would never expect just from looking at/listening to him that he would turn out to be such an awful dude (besides his smug, condescending expressions). Disney seems to be making their villains a bit more handsome/cute in their movies so that it’s not entirely obvious right from the beginning as to who the villain actually is. They do the same thing with Frozen, but again, I totally digress. Also, the whole lie he tells Ralph as to why Vanellope cannot be allowed to race is really clever as well. If I didn’t know any better, I probably would have believed him, like Ralph did. The fact that unlike most other Disney villains, he actually has some kind of backstory, although it doesn’t fully justify some of the terrible things that he does, it does make you feel bad for the guy. Before I knew about King Candy/Turbo, I didn’t even know it was socially acceptable to feel sorry for a Disney villain, but this guy proved me wrong. I find his cute, little “TURBOTASTIC!” line throughout that whole scene just really memorable and really funny as well. (You may notice that I give a not-so-subtle nod to this in the very name of this blogsite ;)). Lastly, King Candy/Turbo in his last transformation is just awesome and beautifully repulsive (as a kid, it probably would have scared the living crap out of me more so than any other Disney villain would have). Now, the reason why King Candy/Turbo is also the worst Disney villain is a few things. There is this racer-chick in the movie by the name of Vanellope, whom everyone else in the game calls “The Glitch” (Fun fact: I actually use this word as a euphemism for the B-word!) because sometimes she glitches as if there’s a virus in her system. This “gitching” was actually caused by King Candy/Turbo when he was trying to destroy her code. You see, before Turbo high-jacked her game, Vanellope was the princess of the game Sugar Rush, therefore Turbo basically dethroned her and made himself “King Candy”. The way I see it is that not only did he dethrone her, but he was the one who turned her into some kind of handicapped kid, so the fact that all the other racer-kids are making fun of her and calling her a certain, derogatory name just feels very hurtful (almost on the same level as “Mudblood” from the Harry Potter series). It’s not until right near the end of the movie that we find out why they were doing all this to her: Turbo had erased all of their memories of her, thus they did not even remember that she was their ruler. However, even that’s not an excuse for how they treated her! Even if someone’s not a royal, you still need to treat him or her with respect. And sure, Vanellope crosses the finish line, thus “breaking the spell”, they get their memories back, they apologize, Vanellope forgives them, and they all live happily ever after, but we didn’t know that! Even if we did, this is still a pretty distressing thing to go through. The topic of bullying in a kid movie is a kind of heavy one. To be fair, though, I will say that that was still more Turbo’s fault than their fault. I mean, he pretty much already ruined her life as it was. Did he really have to turn all her friends/subjects against her as well? Lastly, and this is a small detail but it bugs me nonetheless, why did King Candy/Turbo’s voice actor stick with that same goofy voice throughout the whole movie? For one thing, when you get to the part with Turbo’s backstory, it’s a bit of a spoiler as to who the bad guy of the movie is. Even though he only says one word over and over, it’s still pretty obvious that it’s the same voice that King Candy has. For another thing, once we know that he’s the bad guy and during his final transformation, wouldn’t it have made a lot more sense to have given him a more menacing sounding voice? Now I know that voice does not determine how dangerous or how much of a jerk you are, but who’s going to take any villain seriously with that voice? I mean, really! I am most certainly not defending this character, but I do think that when you think about awesome Disney villains, you really should consider King Candy/Turbo. I actually like this character more than I like the previous character on this list, but I have to place him so low because he’s a bad guy. Also, this character makes the perfect springboard into our next character…

8)

Ed Wynn from Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, the Ed Wynn Show, etc.- This one is probably cheating as Ed Wynn was an actual person and not just a character. Anyways, those of you who have seen Wreck-it-Ralph might have noticed that King Candy/Turbo’s voice sounds very familiar, and know that you’ve heard that voice before, but you just can’t put your finger on it. That’s because his voice was literally based on comedian and voice actor, Ed Wynn. Besides hosting his own show, Wynn had voiced the Mad Hatter on Disney’s 1951 Alice in Wonderland (hmm, maybe NicePeter on YouTube should rap-battle Ed Wynn vs. Johnny Depp…) and live-acted as Uncle Albert from Disney’s Mary Poppins (“I Love to Laugh”). He was most known for his comical voice. Most of you probably thought he was faking that voice, weren’t you? But nope! It’s real; the only thing he did was faked a lisp when voicing the Mad Hatter, but other than that, that’s how he legitimately sounded in real life! Most of the people who I tell about Wynn give me some really confused looks (except for some teachers and a few friends with old-school parents). The reason why I’m placing him so low on this list is because 1) like I said before, he was an actual person and not just a character, 2) I can see why he’s underrated: he died decades ago, therefore I feel almost silly putting him on this list at all, and 3) as for his voice, it’s pretty good. As a matter of fact, it’s one of my favorite cartoonish voices of all time. I’ve even been told that I sound like the female version of him sometimes, especially when I’m excited (not sure how I should feel about that…). Ironically though, it does grate on the ears sometimes and is probably not something I’d want to listen to everyday.

7)

Argus Filch AND Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter series- These are two of my favorite minor characters from Harry Potter: Argus Filch and Moaning Myrtle. Filch is basically the janitor dude at Hogwarts. He hates children and pretty much everyone except his pet cat Mrs. Norris. I actually have no idea why he is one of my favorites, as he really doesn’t contribute much to the story of Harry Potter. In fact J. K. Rowling could have just written the series without him. This is why he’s also a character that I’m surprised even made this list. Maybe it’s not that I necessarily like him half as much as I feel sorry for him. Not just that he is a bitter old man who has sort of a dirty (as in “unsanitary”) job and who nobody likes, but he is also a squib. Now, for those of you who do not know your trivia, a squib is defined as one who has magical parents but no magical powers himself; basically the opposite of a Mudblood (one who has magical powers but muggle parents). One must wonder how he went through childhood, being the only one of his friends (at least I’m assuming) who did not know magic. If I had to guess, maybe he joined a squibs only club and felt at home among them. It’s a shame Rowling never gave us a backstory of Filch like she did Sirius Black and Severus Snape.

As for Myrtle, she actually contributes somewhat to the story (particularly in the 2^nd and 4^th movies). Now, I’m assuming a large amount of you read Harry Potter (sort of a lame assumption, sorry) so I’m not going to go into specifics with this one. However, I am going to say that in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Myrtle helped Harry and Ron track down the one who opened the titular chamber and how, and in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, she gives Harry some pointers on the second task. That latter part is more memorable than the former part for reasons that should probably be left unsaid, except for it had to do with the bathtub 0_0. I’m surprised that Myrtle does not come up in conversation very much when talking about the Harry Potter series, or at least more surprised than I am that Filch doesn’t. Also, and this is small, but for some reason, the movies seem to have made Myrtle a little prettier than she is in the book illustrations. In the book description, Myrtle is described as having lank hair, acne, and being a bit overweight. In the movies, she’s shown with cute pigtails, a clear complexion, and a slim figure (although, it is sort of hard to tell, as she is a ghost :P). In fact, I have a theory that she might be a distant relative of Harry Potter, as they are both pale with dark hair and glasses, but again, I’m digressing. Moving on to…

6)

Prince Adam from Beauty and the Beast– For those of you who don’t read Disney fan theories, Adam is what most people think is the real name of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. This makes sense as the name “Adam” is actually Hebrew for “man”. A lot of people don’t think that Prince Adam is very attractive and they liked him better as a beast. While I can understand how people can say the latter (hey, wouldn’t you rather be a super-cool, mythological character if you could?) the former just sort of misses the whole point of the story and the moral that it teaches. I almost think that Disney made Prince Adam look like he does to make his audience really think about this sort of thing. I myself do not see anything wrong with how he looks. Even if I did, I would probably still like him.  Not much else to say about this one.

Stay tuned! Part 2 is coming soon! This is the TURBOTASTIC! (Sorry, couldn’t resist) Asian, and I’m signing out!