Previously Good Characters leaving under a cloud.

[hit_n_run_me]

Can't think of a particular reason why I've created this topic right now

I'm wondering if anyone, with a better memory bank than mine, can recall characters of, lets say. good reputations and kind hearts, who have left the bay having done harm. I don't mean unintentional harm, I mean that in order to satisfy the plot, and ease their departure, they have been given a character transplant just before they left so that they could knowingly cause harm.

Looking to very recent times I think that, in a way, Annie could qualify.

She didn't do anything bad but the way she treated Romeo and then left wasn't very nice and, I think, out of character. The old Annie wouldn't have given him the six week challenge to make her want to stay; and I don't think she would previously have left after their declarations of love etc.

I feel that both the plot and Annies character were manipulated to allow Charlotte Best's departure.

I agree with that also to not be in contact with Romeo after she left didn't seem right either. I also thought Melody's departure was daft although they kind of did the opposite with her mum - a formally malicious character turns nice and the Melody leaves with her.

I thought Danni leaving fitted with her character but I was surprised at how the other characters spoke about her when she left. i didn't think it was surprising she wanted to leave a town where so many awful things had happened or see anything wrong with chasing a career

Yeah I'd have rather had Annie not reutrning for those few weeks at all, it felt like they removed part of her personality completely.

I can't remember what characters said about Dani after she'd left, but she always seemed to get a lot of undeserved slack in my opinion - not necessarily from other characters, but it seemed like she was just suppose to get over her rape ordeal and accept her rapist was going to date her sister - always found that very odd.

[Nicky2]

How about Roman ? A real good guy at first. His character changed a lot and he ended up in jail

[beau_t]

I can think of a few Neighbors characters that have been written out like this, but yeah I was just about to say Shauna. They kinda did it to Kelly too, she dumped Travis and their wedding arrangements in order to fulfill her career aspirations, without so much as a onscreen goodbye. Though it was written with a lot more poignancy.

This is true, though I'd say it was less of a "dark cloud" ending and more of an "unsung hero". They were both leaving so Kelly could take a good job in the city, but she knew Travis would never be truly happy in the City, despite what he kept saying. So she made the decision to leave without him, and ultimately break her own heart to make him happy in the long-run. It was quite a heroic ending actually - but underplayed perfectly.

Another character who left under a dark cloud was Josie. Scott pashed her, and the whole town blamed Josie when Hayley found out and nearly had a miscarraige. She tried to do the decent thing and tell Scott he wasn't the father (she found out from a hospital file that had somehow come into her posession), but he wouldn't listen, so she wrote him a letter which he then ripped up. Josie left town with everybody thinking she was a bad egg but if only Scott had read the letter everyone would have known her heart was in the right place.

And of course Jesse - he left under a VERY dark cloud by killing Chloe!!!!

[Nicky2]

Actually Jesse left the bay twice under a dark cloud. Once on the run from the police when get got involved in scams with cars and once after Chloe.

[_chris70_]

Roman is the best and most recent example...

Even Aden, which is a shame, I felt that character arc didn't quite work out.

[jodlebirger]

Roman is the best and most recent example...

Even Aden, which is a shame, I felt that character arc didn't quite work out.

Yes, I agree! He certainly left under a very big cloud after burying his own father twice, tampered with evidence and after Nicole broke his heart he didn't want to say goodbye to those who had helped him. It felt like his departure wasn't meant to be the final departure. Aden very often reacted like that but then he changed his mind... So he should have come back for a visit after a short while to say a proper goodbye like Drew did. I feel that all the work they had done with the character was thrown away during the his last 6 weeks on the show. And during the past few weeks he was made to be a slob who didn't want to do a proper job. He was also yelling at Colleen in the kitchen. They suddenly made him much worse and different than he ever had been before. Only a few months before he had taken two jobs just to satisfy both Alf and Leah... And then suddenly it was his fault that he had two half jobs, and not a full job... Because he wasn't able to do a proper job?? what??? They totally twisted the totally storyline!!! And this bit with his father, he wasn't hating him the week before he suddenly hated him again and carried around his body like he was nothing!!!

And then we have the storylines about Jesse, as other here has stated; left under a cloud twice. Especially the last one felt hard to swollow.Because he had gone through so much and really turned his life around.

The same with Kane actually, when he and Kirsty ran away and stayed away for about 3 years. He was blamed for something he didn't even do, panicked and became a criminal again when he ran away and returned as a bank robber.... So much character developement thrown away.... He had done so much to turn his life around. Try to start studying at school again, go to therapy and so on... just for nothing...

Even Kirsty left under a cloud, betraying Miles after also she had tried to turn her life around.

I feel that even Geoff left on a cloud. He was turning back to his religion. I don't mean that religion/belief is a bad thing, but he used to be a very jugdemental person when he had his strong belief. And then by the end he said he wanted to turn back to his religion because he used to be less jugdemental back then... They totally twisted the storyline. Geoff used his religion to jugde everyone including himself. He had learned this from his grandfather.

So in HAA land they really want to show to the world that people with a tough background can't turn their lives around no matter how hard they are trying. Or making the really good ones who help others in need, bad in the end. I actually feel that I have wasted my time when I have invested some interst in the character and the show, when they are leaving this way.

[Red Ranger 1]

^I agree that all of those left under a cloud aside from Geoff but I don't think any of them acted out of character, although I agree there seemed to be a certain revision of the facts where Geoff and Aden were concerned.Geoff's "I always used to see the best in people" gets filed under Characters Talking Nonsense, although interestingly it is true that the old Geoff would never have gotten into a fight, let alone started one.You seemed to be implying that Geoff going back to his religion(if he ever went away from it)is going to make him forget all that he's learned and become more judgemental but I disagree.Although the execution was poor, the idea was pretty good, I saw it as more about him remembering who he wanted to be and finding purpose in life rather than going off to become a bible-bashing bigot.

There did seem to be some rewriting of facts where Aden was concerned, trying to make out he'd been different since Belle died and holding up his having two part-time jobs as evidence when it was more a case of him finding himself in a spot and trying to please everyone, although that can largely be explained away as Justin's prejudice and Nicole's paranoia.As you said, it was typical of Aden to push people away when he was embarrassed or get defensive because he knew he'd made a mess of things.And storming out of the Diner midshift was hardly unusual.Normally he would probably have stewed for a few days and then got back to normal but this time he had Justin encouraging him to run off to the city instead.Maybe he would have gone back to talk to people if he'd been on his own but Justin would probably have discouraged him.(So Jazz is more responsible than Justin...)His attitude towards his father was often changeable, when he was on the run he did seem to switch between worrying about him and being contemptuous of him, so I think it's in character for him to be borderline sympathetic when he thought he was still in jail but then, thinking that burying his body was the only way to help Justin, focus on the hate in order to justify it in his mind.

Kirsty could be selfish and have a tendency to run away from her problems at times so I don't think it was out of character for her to decide moving to the city was best for her and ignore the effect it would have on everyone else.As with Aden, it seemed to largely be facilitated by a relative getting in touch and offering her a way out.

Which leads up to Kirsty and Kane going on the run.I guess it shows an inability to learn from their mistakes, since they'd run away together twice before only for the romance to wear off very quickly, but at least they had form.Although Kane was innocent, it's in character for someone with his history and temperament to resort to stealing and justify it by saying he's just looking out for his family.

With Jesse it was more a case of a basic weakness of character.During his first stint, he did have a tendency to take the easy way out if he found himself in a spot which is what led to his departure, when he found himself in financial difficulties, took work from someone dodgy and ended up in a deeper and deeper hole.It also wasn't exactly out of character for him to react to a setback by getting drunk and doing something stupid, which is what led to his second departure.He did at least take responsibility for his actions so there's some hope there.

I agree that it can be frustrating and disappointing when a character you like gets written out in a way that you don't and when the writers insist on dwelling on a character's less pleasant traits rather than letting them rise above them.But I think that's different to giving a character a personality transplant or a dark past in order to get rid of them.

[jodlebirger]

I agree that it can be frustrating and disappointing when a character you like gets written out in a way that you don't and when the writers insist on dwelling on a character's less pleasant traits rather than letting them rise above them.But I think that's different to giving a character a personality transplant or a dark past in order to get rid of them.

[Red Ranger 1]

I believe you are thinking of Annie... I think her exit was rubbish too..But to change her the way they first did when she started to ignore Jai and turned her eyes on other boys first Dexter (who actually was about the same type as Jai) and then the more mature Romeo was a very normal and realistic developement of a young female teenager character. I think that this was in the beginning done beautifully, and was certainly not a personality tranplant! It is very normal to feel the way Annie did, and to do the things she did. She actually reminded me about my sister when she was at that age! But I think they did it too late, because there was no time to dig into this before Annie left for Japan and the storyline became confusing. And then when she returned for a six weeks stint it didn't work, and the excitement was gone and everything went cliched and unatural. So it would have been better not to bring her back.

I wasn't thinking specifically about Annie, I think there are more apt examples:Roman and Barry Hyde both suddenly revealed something they'd done years earlier and got sent to jail for it.Josh West got turned from a caring lifeguard into a ruthless businessman who everyone wanted to shoot dead.Alex got turned from a wisecracking ladies' man into a manipulative drug smuggler, although good acting saved that one a bit.Sam Holden got both the dark past and the personality transplant and got turned into a murdering drug dealer.Even Hugo, despite all the hints about him being involved in something dodgy, didn't really seem like the sort of person to bash Charlie over the head and abandon her on an island until about thirty seconds before he did just that.

Annie...I'm in two minds about it.I was disappointed that her feelings for Jai just seemed to disappear overnight but that's a typical Home and Away break-up.I think the storyline with Romeo was great at first, showing an inexperienced young girl suddenly finding an older boy taking an interest in her and sort of wanting to respond to it but not really knowing how.But then, a couple of weeks before she left, she suddenly turned into this stroppy, flirty, typical teenage girl:I think round about the time she was cosying up to him on the beach and taking a bite out of his sandwich was when I felt that they seemed to be stripping her of all the character traits that made both her and the storyline interesting and just writing a conventional and rather dull teen romance.I agree that her guest stint was a mistake and that the character would have been a lot better served by just being left in Japan because it didn't really add anything to her at all.

[jodlebirger]

I believe you are thinking of Annie... I think her exit was rubbish too..But to change her the way they first did when she started to ignore Jai and turned her eyes on other boys first Dexter (who actually was about the same type as Jai) and then the more mature Romeo was a very normal and realistic developement of a young female teenager character. I think that this was in the beginning done beautifully, and was certainly not a personality tranplant! It is very normal to feel the way Annie did, and to do the things she did. She actually reminded me about my sister when she was at that age! But I think they did it too late, because there was no time to dig into this before Annie left for Japan and the storyline became confusing. And then when she returned for a six weeks stint it didn't work, and the excitement was gone and everything went cliched and unatural. So it would have been better not to bring her back.

I wasn't thinking specifically about Annie, I think there are more apt examples:Roman and Barry Hyde both suddenly revealed something they'd done years earlier and got sent to jail for it.Josh West got turned from a caring lifeguard into a ruthless businessman who everyone wanted to shoot dead.Alex got turned from a wisecracking ladies' man into a manipulative drug smuggler, although good acting saved that one a bit.Sam Holden got both the dark past and the personality transplant and got turned into a murdering drug dealer.Even Hugo, despite all the hints about him being involved in something dodgy, didn't really seem like the sort of person to bash Charlie over the head and abandon her on an island until about thirty seconds before he did just that.

I really agree with you about those characters you named here. I had almost forgotten about most of them... But I really do remember how sad I was when they turned Josh West into a ruthless businessman. I wasn't so dissapointed in the Alex storyline, remember I thought it suited his character and the storyline was well written too.

Hugo was never meant to be good, but I really think that his action especially in the new year cliffhanger didn't suit him. So I do agree with you here too. I liked him with Xavier, and I liked him with his mother and also with Brendan.

Barry and especially Sam, never really saw the whole storylines because I dropped most of the 2006 and 2007 until the last 2 months, because I thought that was a really bad period with awful storylines. I actually stopped watching it regularly late 2005, when Amanda arrived, and also skipped most of the stalker storyline which I found awful. But I did liked Barry as a principal and also his difficult relationship with Kim, so when I found about the Josh West murder (I watched a couple of eps when the mystery was resolved) I really thought it was a horrible ending for Barry and also a horrible end to Kims and barrys relationship (very identical to Roman/Nicole storyline).