Least favorite character

[Mailliw73 he/him]

What are your least favorite characters you've ever read? From any work. Whether they're your least favorite because they're evil, weird, or you just don't like how they're written, put it here. Feel free to discuss these.

Here's some of mine to start:

Harry Potter: Bellatrix freakin' Lestrange!!! Severus Snape. Dolores Umbridge. Both Ministers of Magic. The Malfoys.

Hunger Games: Presidents Snow and Coin. Peeta. Cato, Glimmer, Marvel.

Enderverse: Bonzo. Achilles. Peter (for a while).

Sanderson: Dilaf. King Iadon. TLR. Ati. Yeden. Jastes Lekal. Straff Venture. Sadeas the traitor. Gaz. Nan Balat *shudders. Szeth. Jasnah. Steelheart. Nightwielder. Deathpoint.

[cem he/him]

WoT: Gawyn Trakand. You know how there are characters you love and characters you love to hate? I hated hating Gawyn. He annoyed the daylights out of me. I wish he'd have just disappeared.

 

SA: Nalan

Edited November 2, 2013 by firstRainbowRose
please don't swear

[Kurkistan he/him]

WoT: Elayne. I wanted to tear my eyeballs out calmly close and set down the book when reading her sections.

 

Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen. I once had to do a 2-page persuasive essay on anything for a creative writing class, and chose a detailed analysis of her true nature as a sociopath.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Kadrok she/her]

GRRM: Cersei Lannister, Joffrey Baratheon, Ramsay Snow

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Obviously Jeoffry from Game of Thrones. Visarys was also pretty bad. Ramsay Snow is a bastard, but a clever bastard. So I appreciate him. But he is a bastard.

Wheel of Time: Pretty much the whole Trakand bloodline. They're all just horrible, shallow people. Galad is actually my favorite of them. and that's saying something.

The Dark Tower Series: Susannah. I just didn't like her. And getting a whole book? Come on.

And she left Roland to live in a fake world with pretend hapiness. Unacceptable.

I honestly didn't like too many people from Hunger Games. Gale was alright, but just way too sensitive and petty when it came to Katniss.

Under the Dome: Big Jim Rennie. Oh man, that guy was something else. I love hating those "I'm doing what I think is actually best. I somehow view myself as the good guy" characters. Just that smugness!

For Sanderson works, I actually enjoy most of his characters. Even the ones we're supposed to hate. Hrathen was a bit silly. Has that aforementioned Big Jim Syndrome.

[bartbug he/him]

Elantris: Sarene. She was a fine character, it was just that in the chapter triad system, more often than not I would skim through her chapter to get to Raoden and Hathren, who are AWESOME. As a supporting character instead of a main, I would've been okay with her.

[Ryan he/him]

Captain Kennet from Robin Hobb's Liveship trilogy. I just...gahh.

 

In the WoT, it's gotta be Elaida. Elayne and Gawyn at least have redeeming qualities, and kicked butt in the end.

[Kadrok she/her]

Ramsay Snow is a bastard, but a clever bastard. So I appreciate him. But he is a bastard.

I didn't think of him as overly clever. I just found him thoroughly monstrous... I wanted him to die a very slow death, suffering terribly as he did so, and that's not something I particularly like feeling.

[Matrim Bloody Cauthon he/him]

WoT: Elayne, Egwene, Nynaeve they annoy me so much. Galad, Berelain and Elaida.

[Newan he/him]

WoT: Weiramon.  Tuon.  Freaking Valan Luca

[Tien'sPetLurg she/her]

WoT: Perrin's wife. Faile annoyed me. I wanted better for him.

Tuon wasn't great but it was a cultural thing for me. Within those customs, she was ok I guess. I had hoped her experiences would improve her but...alas.

I wanted to help Nynaeve pull her braid sometimes. (In the early books for sure)

There are villain types that I love to hate. Where would our stories be without them? I tend to base my answer here on personality of the supposed good guys/gals.

In BS Stormlight Archive, I really don't like the king, Elhokar. He's exactly the kind of person I loathe.

[Terisen he/him]

Harry in The Order of the Phoenix.  My goodness, I just wanted to reach in to the pages and smack him upside the head throughout that entire book.  Yeesh.

[Matrim Bloody Cauthon he/him]

Harry in The Order of the Phoenix.  My goodness, I just wanted to reach in to the pages and smack him upside the head throughout that entire book.  Yeesh.

 

me too. I hated him in that book.

 

 

WoT: Weiramon.  Tuon.  Freaking Valan Luca

 

back off.

[shortycake she/her]

WoT: Elayne. I wanted to tear my eyeballs out calmly close and set down the book when reading her sections.

 

Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen. I once had to do a 2-page persuasive essay on anything for a creative writing class, and chose a detailed analysis of her true nature as a sociopath.

I second the Katniss thing. By Mockingjay, I couldn't stand any of the characters in that series. Oh wait, yes, I could. BUT THEY GOT KILLED OFF. 

 

I never liked Denna in the Kingkiller Chronicles. I don't think she's a bad character per se, I just find myself groaning and rolling my eyes every time she pops up or Kvothe waxes poetic over her pinky finger for twenty paragraphs. 

 

I hated Shallan in TWoK (totally loved her by WoR, though). I found her sections ridiculously boring compared to Dalinar's and Kaladin's. 

 

And I hate to say it, I honestly do, but from page one of Mistborn I was never a fan of Vin's. 

[maxal she/her]

Fun topic.

 

Robin Hobb: the Fool (he annoyed me greatly in the Assassin's trilogy, I liked him better in the other trilogies), Kennet, Hieman, Nevare

 

GRRM: Cersei, Joffrey, Ramsay Snow, Lord Bolton

 

WoT: Rand , Min , Gawyn, Tuon, Egwene and Elayne in the last books (I liked alright in the first books)

 

Brandon: Elhokar, Sadeas, Szeth

 

There are probably many others, but they don't come to mind.

[traceria she/her]

I never liked Denna in the Kingkiller Chronicles. I don't think she's a bad character per se, I just find myself groaning and rolling my eyes every time she pops up or Kvothe waxes poetic over her pinky finger for twenty paragraphs. 

 

Ugh.  Denna.  She reminds me of this one vile girl I knew in college.  I just don't like her type.  My husband and I have had long conversations about what it is specifically that just rubs me the wrong way.  Many things.  Many things...  Kvothe, you could do so much better.

 

You all have also hit some of the others, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned Min from WoT yet.  (EDIT: Sorry, maxal, I just saw you mentioned her!)

 

My other additions:

- Blood Song (Anthony Ryan):  The king and his daughter, whose names I can't remember off the top of my head.  I dislike them because they're despicable people.  At least, I think the daughter is.  She's kind of a question mark at times.  The king, though?  Nasty dude.

- LotR - Denethor.  How dare he do that to my Faramir!!

- Runelords (David Farland) - Raj Ahten.  I only made it through the end of book two and Raj Ahten did something so horrible that I couldn't bring myself to continue the series with book three.  That's pretty bad.

Edited June 23, 2014 by traceria

[Quiver he/him]

Richard Rahl.

I'm working off of a slightly different metric; while what Richard does perform "evil" acts, that's not why I hate him. Heck, I only got three books in before dropping it, and most of his worse crimes come later.

But I hate Richard because, maybe more than any other lead I've read in a long time, Richard is an example of wasted potential.

The character comes so close to being fascinating so many times! but whenever he does! his actions get an authorial excuse; it's okay for Richard to do things villains in previous books were doing, because reasons. Rather than engage in those, get into the head of what it must be like to make choices which you condemned others for, the masquerade and identity roulette he ends up suffering and how he balances being a woossguide, a king, an emperor, a messiah, a trickster, a wizard, bringer of death, a rape victim and whatever else he got in later books...

At best, they get token acknowledgement, at worst, their ignored.

So Richard? Congratulations. I hate you more than Joffrey Baratheon and Ramsey Snow. Because they might have been monsters, but at least they did things that influenced the plot. At least they are repulsive enough to be fascinating in their own way. At least it feels like Martin is making a complex and fascinating point about power, corruption, nature, nurture, bastardry and lineage.

You I regard as someone who could have been great and instead ended up a disappointment.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Tuck Everlasting: The man in the yellow suit. I don't know how Babbitt managed to create such a loathsome character in so few pages, but he was a despicable human being. 

 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Dolores. Umbridge. I had such a visceral reaction to her that I invented a new fanfic pairing: Umbridge/Avada Kedavra.

 

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Harry, after his entirely unsympathetic reaction to Draco's nervous breakdown. Maybe it's because I've had one before, which put Draco into an entirely new light for me during that scene, but Harry doesn't even try to help him. Doesn't even ask. He's just all, "Oh, he's attacking me, so it's perfectly okay for me to try this weird dark curse on him!" And then we're supposed to sympathize with him afterward because Pansy Parkinson "vilifies him to the entire school"? I'm with Pansy on that one! 

 

All the Pretty Horses: Pretty much everyone. I can't think of a single character I liked. I think I was fond of one of the horses….but I'm not sure. Oh, the truck. I liked the truck. 

 

Oedipus: Almost everyone. I liked the Greek Chorus, but I didn't really have a chance to get to know them. Everyone else was a melodramatic moron. Except the gods. The gods were jerks. 

 

Other than that, I honestly can't think of anyone else off the top of my head. I might later, but there are usually precious few characters I actively dislike in fiction. 

 

 

[Mailliw73 he/him]

- LotR - Denethor.  How dare he do that to my Faramir!!

I actually quite liked Denethor. Until he went all pyrosuicidal.

[Iredomi]

I'm just going to stick to Cosmere books because I can't seem to think of any characters that stick out in other ones at the moment.

 

Well I have never liked Iadon just the perfect mix of coward and villain, that always disturbed me.

 

I had some issues with how Sadeas was written in his POV could have sounded a tad more sympathetic some of his lines of thought slipped too far into generic baddy for me, but I loved Sadeas as a character so definitely not one of my least favourites.

 

Also Ranette being canon homosexual could have been more explicit, so I hope that that concern in particular is met in the sequel.

 

Never liked Yalb (I think it was Yalb...) I found that his manner just irritated me to no end.

 

Other than that I don't think I dislike too many of Brandon's characters, as long as they are internally consistent and have believable dialogue then I'm into them. There are definitely characters I'm just meh about but that automatically comes from having such a large roster, and I'm pretty into most of the main characters anyways. But yeah overall I would say Iadon is my least favourite character by far.

[Swimmingly he/him]

I think Odium's influence tends to turn people into generic baddies. The tragedy is seeing them change.

[Iredomi]

That's actually a very good point I always forget about the influence of the "gods" on characterization. Very good point.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Bayaz from the First Law Trilogy, he seemed to be a product of a harsh world until the end of the last book, when he showed that he was really just arrogant and a petty bully, who should have died several times during the story, any of which would have made a MUCH more satisfying ending.

[traceria she/her]

I actually quite liked Denethor. Until he went all pyrosuicidal.

 

It got too personal for me when I saw how he treated his younger son.  If I didn't love Faramir so much, I probably could look at this a bit more objectively. 

[Chrono she/her]

I kind of got fed up with Katniss in the Hunger Games Trilogy, but the character I loathed the most was Gale. The guy basically whined all the time about how Katniss only liked him when he was in pain, how she never noticed him, how they were in love, etc. I basically wanted him to die, except Suzanne Collins killed off everyone else I didn't want to die and left him alive. And you know, the whole explosion at the end of Mockingjay thing. Compared to Gale, Peeta was a saint (though he did have his share of annoyingness too). 

 

Eragon: Everyone who wasn't Roran. Especially Eragon. After the end of Eldest, I wanted to shoot him, because he was being such a brat about his true parentage. I get it, you're basically the son of the baddest baddie in existence besides the main villain. That's upsetting. Now stop whining about it at every freaking opportunity. Also, special mention goes to Arya, who somehow manages to be both childish and condescending at the same time. Really, I just don't like the characters in that series except for Roran. Roran was awesome.

 

As for the Cosmere, I would have to say the one person that deserves my hatred the most is Lin Davar. I just cannot stand child abusers in any form, and while I felt pity for him when his motives were revealed, I just couldn't stop hating him. As for the others, I kind of found Sarene a little shallow at first, but then she warmed up to me. I also thought the character of Zu in the Emperor's Soul was kind of flat, but since it was a novella, I could see where it was coming from.