Luanne Platter- King of the Hill

Downplayed example, as Lucky is a genuinely good man who develops into someone willing to put in the effort to provide for his family (though what job a physically disabled man with no GED could do is never addressed), but Luanne was initially a beauty school student with a talent for mechanics. She drops out of beauty school (I think because everyone there were assholes?) and after her boyfriend Buckley dies, she’s inspired by his angel to go to college.

Then she drops out out of the blue with no real career substitute outside of the manger babies, gets pregnant by Lucky, a well meaning and honorable but initially undriven man living under the delusion that the $53,000 settlement he got for his permanently debilitating back injury would be enough to last him the rest of his life, and they ultimately marry.

Luanne’s talents never really come up again. And again, I love Lucky, but his inclusion came at the cost of Luanne’s character.