A thing that I end up seeing on social media from time to time is people inventing pompous, fictitious archetypes so they can get mad at them and feel better about themselves.

And I’m sorry, but I could never take that seriously. Your insecurities are showing. It always bothered me how the internet treats being annoying like it’s the greatest crime that a human being could ever commit.

I think where this first clicked for me was seeing people complain about the rival in the original Pokémon games for being too mean, so lets start there.

Part 1: Rival Blue

There’s always been discussion surrounding the “mean rival” versus the “friendly rival” dichotomy in Pokémon games, but I’ve always placed Blue firmly in the friendly category, he’s just not a warbling sycophant about it.

I know this is the internet and people on the internet think making friends is hard, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they took it weirdly personally, but it’s clear that you and your rival are close friends, and I’ve never had trouble believing that.

Now, I’m not saying that he can’t come across like a smug asshole, but he’s 10. His dialogue always came across to me as good-natured slagging, you’re obviously competing with each other, but it’s in a fun way. He basically has the exact same personality as Sonic the Hedgehog.

If the more modern rivals are so popular, I don’t think it’s because they have compelling character arcs, it’s because they’re always kissing the player’s feet.

Part 2: Elves

Oh boy, now we’re reaching for the big guns.

When it comes to the ultimate sin of being annoying, no example better exemplifies this than the entire concept of elves. Oh my fucking god.

See, Tolkien established the elves as objectively better than humans in every single way. They're stronger than humans, they're faster than humans, they're smarter, they live longer, their magic is more powerful, and their steel is unbreakable.

The problem is that a lot of folks have a huge bug up their own ass about it. So, that means Legolas coming across as a little haughty, is used as justification to subordinate elves in ways that could be read as disgustingly fascist if not for the fact that this is fictional.

In fantasy stories, elves are almost always ether pure evil, subjugated, killed by hubris, incompetent, and/or reduced to hot babes for human men. And this is all because a bunch of insecure nerds crashed the fuck out over the idea of pointy-eared effeminate men thinking they were better than them.

The Lich King and Sylvanas Windrunner used in a shot-for-shot comparison.

"As far as I'm concerned, you're no different from the Lich King."