Who do you hate, baby?

[sistermagpie]

Happy birthday samaranth!!! I can never tell if I'm getting the right day with the time zones, but I hope you're having a wonderful time whatever hour it is!!

Well, it seems like Ron Weasley really is becoming all the rage! There's dierondie, the anti-anti-Ron people, the people who unfortunately defend Ron by assuming if you don't like him it's because you ship something lame (or probably you're in love with Tom Felton...not sure how it relates but I know he's the cause of it somehow, he just has to be).

Funny thing is there seems to be odd idea floating around that you can't like any or all of the characters in a story and still be said to like the story. rosiegalbasi correctly points out that this is untrue.

I would also disagree with the idea people seem to have that not liking something in a story means you don't like the story. Or that you're getting nothing out of it and shouldn't speak of it. For instance, when people say they don't understand why someone who rants about a show still watches it. I get this a lot because I tend to have more to say about things that are flawed. I care enough to say what I don't like. That's all you need to know.

I do see a line one can cross that makes subjecting yourself to something not worth the aggravation, sure, but I also understand watching something you hate to go over why you hate it. I don't know if I can explain it, but I know I do it. And I enjoy talking to other people who are bugged by the same thing. People act like they can't understand something like an anti-Ron community, but surely I'm not the only one who's noticed many pro-whatever communities are anti-something communities in disguise. Not all of them, but some. dierondie is just saying it outright as a joke.

So what I thought would be fun would be to know which characters other people really hated? Be it in something you enjoyed or something you didn't--possibly because of this character. Just think back on characters in books/movies/TV shows that just rubbed you the wrong way and why. I'm going to try to think of my own--I decided in the end to try to leave out characters that I hated becomes of fandom, which unfortunately happens. Like, I liked Scully on XF far more before I had to deal with some of her fans. But feel free to use those yourself, as I know that fans can eventually become part of your view of the character, as they did with me and Scully.



Helen Burns from Jane Eyre Hated her.

Save us from this unnatural creature. I couldn't wait until she died, since it seems the only thing she thought was worth anything anyway. She'd get in trouble, suffer some humiliating punishment, claim she deserved it because she done wrong, then do it again.

Helen doesn't mind being humiliated because this is just the earthly world and God loves you and we're all sinners and yadda yadda yadda. She's like this very good, very sweet SLUG that wants everybody there with her, smiling blandly. I just remember as a kid being like, "Listen, you simpering idiot, either say fuck you to the school and act the way you want because they are wrong to try to change you, or else put some damn effort into not getting in trouble. Because now you're clearly just getting off on the humiliation and it's sickening."

Jane, unfortunately, learned a little too much from Helen when Helen should have been learning from her: "'I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give it to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I!"

Frannie Price in Mansfield Park Hated her. I found it hard to care if this girl found love when she seemed too judgmental to love anyone else.

Charlie in The Little Drummer Girl Hated her. Now, Charlie's got a disadvantage because she's a female character in a John Le Carre book, which means by definition she must think with her vagina. In Le Carre, men make decisions based on lofty ideals and great friendships. Woman are incapable of rational thought and tend to relate everything to sex (I mean, if it was sex with Tom Felton, sure, but most of them probably haven't even HEARD of him!). So it's probably not surprising that when he makes the female the main character, I don't like her (nor is it surprising his world seems so laughably homoerotic). She's described as being a mothering type, yet is completely cold--who would go to her for anything? Also, I have no patience with anybody who sympathizes with the kind of Middle Eastern terrorist movements she got involved with. Sympathy for Palestinians, sure, but spare me the romanticizing of men who need guns in order to not feel emasculated and the women who baby them. Feh.

Mary Bolkonskaya from War and Peace Hated her. Can barely remember her except that she was another of those long-suffering types who was supposed to be a role model and was just annoying. Patron Saint of passive aggression. Nicholas had no taste whatsoever. Hmmm...I also seem to remember hating Kitty in Anna Karenina, especially when she cried because the doctor had to see her naked to examine her. Let's just say I don't like many of Tolstoy's women. Line that said it all for me in my translation: "Sonja was 21. There were no surprises left in her." Uh-huh. Everybody stop reading now. I'm over 21. No surprises here.

Heh--guess I should mention OotP!Ginny here. Hated her. Shut up and die. etc.

Charles Wallace and Meg Murray from The Time Quartet. Sorry, hated them. Wanted Charles Wallace's perfect little wonder child self to get stuck with the Man with the Red Eyes. Perhaps I'd have a better reaction if I reread as an adult?

I'm annoyed now because there was somebody I thought of and now I can't remember who it was. If I remember I'll add it in later.

Comments

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I agreed with quite a lot of those, especially the brats from A Wrinkle In Time. I also thought that Eustace Scrubb, pre-dragonification in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was expressing a number of perfectly reasonable sentiments and I detested how one was supposed to prefer him after the dragonification and identify wholly with the Pevensies before. Me, I'm with Alberta and whatever his father was called.

I will defend Fanny Price up to a point, though. The Austen heroine who really sets my teeth on edge is Emma.


And the reason the wedding fic is delayed is that I'm having to write Ron and I can't. Canonically he's a bundle of prejudices and petulance loosely tied together with red hair.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree on Eustace. Of the kids Edmund was always my favorite, and then Eustace.

And the reason the wedding fic is delayed is that I'm having to write Ron and I can't. Canonically he's a bundle of prejudices and petulance loosely tied together with red hair.

And I think this explains why I probably appreciate Ron the most when he's being prejudiced. I know where he's coming from when he's jealous of Harry or envious of Draco or repeating his family's feelings about whatever group he's talking about. It's just hard knowing how this all ties into whatever else he's supposed to be.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

The only character I hate in HP books is Grawp. I hate all the Grawp subplot. And I hate him just because he exists!

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- although he's not quite as bad, Grawp kind of reminds me of Jar Jar Binks. Just...why?? I'd love to see that bootleg copy of Phantom Menace that had the whole Jar Jar supblot edited out.

(I do have to wonder what happened with Grawp, though -- last we saw he was rampaging through the forrest with a face full of broken off arrowheads, unable to speak the language, seemingly unaware of his own strength. I mean, what the hell? I think it's likely book 6 will open with Hagrid grieving because the centaurs killed him.)

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

On reviewing my previous comment, I concede that canonically Draco is a bundle of prejudices and petulance loosely bound together with blond hair. But he doesn't come with a stamp of Authorial Approval.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, and that somehow makes a difference, it really does. Prejudice and petunlance one can work with...it's harder when one isn't supposed to see them as such. Also we see more of Ron so we know this is all there is, whereas with Draco we can fill in the gaps with things that are far more interesting.

[anaid-rabbit.livejournal.com]

I really don`t like either OOP!Ginny or *ducks rotten tomatoes* Sirius. He annoys me. *hides behind a rock* We`re supposed to like him because he`s uber cool or whatever. Bleh. I`ve always seen him as a disturbed, bitchy, judgemental character that almost everyone seems to be required to love. JK`s Gary Stu. *ducks a particularly smelly rotten cabbage*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! Definitely this character is no way universally loveable. I can SO feel for Snape in their scenes. The thing with Sirius too is in many ways even in canon he's more loved for things people project onto him rather than what he does himself. He's a nice fantasy idea of a father for Harry but he never actually fathers him. He seems like a fantasy hero but then he shows up and gets killed.

All in all in OotP I thought Sirius came across like a seriously difficult guy with a drinking problem--which doesn't always make for bad reading, but I imagine he'd be hell to live with.

[kylandra.livejournal.com]

Oh lord. I hate so many characters in stuff that I otherwise like. I could be here all day, heh.

I think I hated pretty much every single character in War and Peace. Especially the women. But then, I have issues with that book overall, seeing as how I'm not big on being repeatedly slammed in the head with the Authorial Two by Four.

Sarsefield in Edgar Huntly (I had a lit class not long ago with that, so it's rather fresh). He's just...argh. Holier-than-thou, manipulative jackass.

Harry Potter is rather strange for me in that I like quite a lot of the characters. I think it's partly all the discussion in fandom, that other people have gotten me to see things about other characters that I didn't think of or had overlooked. But I've found myself caring less and less about Hagrid since he became a teacher--don't know that it's reached full-on vitriol level, but I want him to be fired ohsobadly. Well, okay, I'll admit to being mainstream and hating Umbridge, just like practically everybody else, LOL.

I hate Lana Lang in Smallville. But then again, most people that I know around the fandom seem to.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think I hated pretty much every single character in War and Peace. Especially the women.

Heh--I think I remember at some point reading it and realizing the only characters I sort of liked were clearly the ones I was Not Supposed To.

I hate Lana Lang in Smallville. But then again, most people that I know around the fandom seem to.

Which is a great point given the recent kerfuffles, because characters usually are hated by fans more than non-fans if they're going to be hated at all. Because fans care enough to notice how annoying they find them!

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

I haven't read all of the books you mentioned *adds to to-read list*, so I'll comment on those I know.

Helen Burns made me go nuts. You're right, I would've felt cheated if she hadn't died - it seemed the only reasonable thing she could do. She was weak-willed, pathetic character. The way she left her teachers to treat her this way without protesting made me want to strangle her - how can anyone have so little self-respect!

Frannie Price was the living nightmare - simply irritating and boring at the same time. I hated her more than Jane Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, and this is saying something.

I remember that I hated Kitty, too, although I'm not sure why - have to reread the book and remember what it was. I liked Katya Maslova from Tolstoy's women best.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

I could make a very long, nice list of hate, but they aren't characters people easily recognise, so there's no fun. The most famous in fandom circles I think are Neville, Aragorn (but not his horse), Buffy and (watch for the more incendiary) Jo from Little Sisters. It's a bit like your thing with Ginny, except she's another stereotype of female prowdess. And I LOVE AMY. Let me stand proud and tell the world.

I think the Tom Felton is related because didn't Rupert Grint like Draco? Also, Rupert/Tom. *dons tinhat, is old pervert tainting the children's innocence with the imposition of my thoughts, etc.*

I will now stay awake all night thinking about all my hate and let it warm my womb heart.




... Okay, I need to say. I hate Kira from Angel Sanctuary. He's an ungrateful poser with a mullet. I want to take his scalp, so at least one thing about him will stop to hurt my feelings. And Kenshin, who defeats his enemies with the power of his lectures.

[mirabella]

OH MY GOD FANNY PRICE *STABS*

I hate her. I hate her and I want her dead. One day I will write fanfic in which she gets thrown under the wheels of a racing curricle and dragged from Edinburgh to Bath, losing bits all along the way.

Um. Anyway.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! Now that would be a sight to see on that long trip from Edinburgh to Bath.

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

I think my most hated character would be Rowan Mayfair from The Witching Hour and Lasher. What a egoistical slut (and I normally hate calling females that, but she really is one) and she even kills of one of the few likable characters in the book. Why? Because the character belongs to a different race that is supposedly evil, but she hasn't done anything bad or evil at this point, she even saves Rowan's worthless life. And even worse, Rowan is her mother. From what I heard she turns into quite the Mary Sue, even getting it on with Lestat.

Second the notion about OotP!Ginny. I never minded her in the previous books, but book five was horrible. She basically has a huge neon sign with an arrow pointed at her head, saying "You have to like her! Gurl Power!!1!1".

About Ron, you have to admit he gets bashed quite a lot. I don't mind if someone doesn't like him and most people have their own good reasons for doing so, but the Ron-hate is sometimes really ridiculous. The are Anti-Ron websites, mailing lists, lj-journals and he gets bashed in all kinds of fanfics that don't include him in the pairing. Heck, he gets even bashed in Sue-fics or Harry/Ginny fics or people write fics just to bash him and have him die a painful, bloody death.


Tora_Chan

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

From what I heard she turns into quite the Mary Sue, even getting it on with Lestat.

Ah yes! I remember reading the first book and thinking that was one of those books that I liked despite seriously disliking the main character. Basically, I liked the premise and that whole history of the family, but really didn't care for the main story at all. Once I was temping and the person had the second two books and I sort of speed-read them. She did become more annoying and the whole thing, iirc, just got way to obsessed with breastfeeding. Ahem. Yeah. Anne Rice.

She basically has a huge neon sign with an arrow pointed at her head, saying "You have to like her! Gurl Power!!1!1".

Ugh! Exactly. Hate her.

Heck, he gets even bashed in Sue-fics or Harry/Ginny fics or people write fics just to bash him and have him die a painful, bloody death.


Ugh, yes. I hate it when people do this to any character but Ron gets it a lot. Like I said somewhere else I can understand people not liking the character and it doesn't bother me. The only time I feel like i have to say something--whether I like the character or not--is when they're being misrepresented. So if somebody doesn't like Ron, fine, but when people get crazy it's just annoying. If you're going to hate a character hate what's there.

[westmoon.livejournal.com]

Fanny Price.

YES.

To this day I refuse to even think about Mansfield Park.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! This is becoming the diefanniedie group.:)

[cleverthylacine]

oh god.

Albus Dumbledore.
All of the Weasleys except Molly, Percy, and Ginny, ESPECIALLY Arthur.
Grawp.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, except in the very first movie from 1977.
Thomas Covenant.
Christopher Chant/Chrestomanci.
Elli Quinn.
Pavel Chekov, who probably thinks the Russians invented LJ.
Adric, companion to the Fifth Doctor.
Hobbits, in general.
Wesley Crusher.

Those are just the ones off the top of my head.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Golly, you mean there's someone else out there who feels the same way about That Quinn Woman (or TQW as she is now immortalised on the Lord V list)?

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Actually the really creepy thing about Helen Burns is that she was supposed to be a portrait of Charlotte's dead sister Maria. So if you'd expressed your perfectly reasonable reservations about her characterisation to the author you'd also have got the OMIGOD HOW DARE YOU SPIT ON THE MEMORY OF MY SAINTED DEAD SISTER BITCH!!!!! response

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

And somehow, that makes the whole thing more horribly funny to me. I refuse to believe her real sister was anything like Helen.

[eido.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems like Ron Weasley really is becoming all the rage!

Every time something like this happens in HP fandom, I feel like I'm back in junior high. Standing in the middle of Wal-Mart with my babysitting money, the fateful internal duel ensuing between the Valu-Pack of Aquanet or the new Poison cassette. All together masochistically nostalgic, inconsequential and incredibly sad.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, so sad.

I wonder how people outside of fandoms get their jr. high fix?

[anamirza.livejournal.com]

Watch as I skip all your brilliant commentary in my haste to Jerry-Springer-fan a number of fictional characters:

First, the shared characters:
* I really wanted to slap Ginny Weasley in OotP. I bet Hermione did, too, even more than the crazy Luna girl. She only refrained because (a) that sort of treatment is reserved for her destined soulmate Draco (yes, kidding) and (b) well, it's Ron's sister. Ron, you know. (not kidding). Other characters I thought needed a good, hard shake or, to be more civilized, therapy: Cho, Sirius, Ron

* I felt really sorry for Fanny Price, and that really made it hard for me to relate to her - I sort of wished her well in the way that one wishes really distant cousins who are in a tight financial spot well - you hope things improve for them, but you don't send money.

And then the obvious:

Absolutely everyone in Vanity Fair including (and perhaps especially) the authorial commentary. I did not stab this book, and that says a lot about my self-control.

Absolutely everyone in Bonfire of the Vanities. But unlike the previous novel, I loved this one. It really hit my Jerry-Springer button. I hated them all.

Artemis Fowl. I know, why the Draco love but no Artemis Fowl love? I think hurt!comfort must be the key there.

And the ashamed-to-admit category:

I really didn't like Sam on first read of LotR; I found him outright embarrassing. Or Arwen: breaking the heart of the clearly-more-deserving Eowyn, simply because she's pretty and elven and and Aragorn has a weakness for shallow women. Bleh.

There are more, but free time is up.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I love bringing up my roommate's commentary on LOTR in my lj or on Tolkien boards because she really can't stand Tolkien's writing and Sam is *exactly* the kind of character who gets on her nerves. The working class innocent emotional blah blah blah. It gets really funny because I know so many people who *adore* Sam, and I am all into Frodo (whom many people can't stand) and who does my roommate love? Gollum. Which just so fits her.

And Arwen...um, why does she get Aragorn again? Because she can sew? Oh, okay.

I felt really sorry for Fanny Price, and that really made it hard for me to relate to her - I sort of wished her well in the way that one wishes really distant cousins who are in a tight financial spot well - you hope things improve for them, but you don't send money.

I love it. Yes.

And also on the two Vanity books, though I think I remember liking both of them. Bonfire was such a fast read it was a lot of fun, and absolutely everyone was awful, just as they should have been. The only thing that sort of annoyed me was the way Wolfe kept repeating the fact that New York Cops are Irish even when they're not. I GET IT!!

[the-gentleman.livejournal.com]

dietdudleydiet. You know it makes sense.

And to be honest, *everybody* in Jane Eyre annoyed me. Give me Wuthering Heights any day of the week.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I second that. There's a book called The Return of the Twelves about a boy who discovers the Bronte's old soldiers that come to life. I hated the book and one of the reasons was the author made it clear the two genius Brontes were Charlotte and Bramwell (the author was a woman who seemed to romantize over little boys in a creepy way). Anyway, Emily was just sort of an also-ran when as far as I could see she was the best of the lot! When her characters were being dreadful, they were supposed to be.

Am now going to check in on dietdudleydiet and see if someone gets upset, flails an arm and hits a puppy!

[cleverthylacine]

Huh. Everyone in Wuthering Heights annoyed me. I wanted to bitch-slap all of them.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. And I hate when someone compares Snape to Heathcliff. Ugh.

[fiera-316.livejournal.com]

Hah, I couldn't hold back. I don't know, for some reason it's really hard for me to actually hate the HP characters.

But in other books: I really like the Narnia series, but I absolutely could not stand Lucy Pevensie. I adore Edmund, I totally identify with Susan (the way she turned her back on Narnia when it kicked her out for being too old), and I did like the way Peter took the whole "heroic and righteous big brother" thing a little too far; but Lucy was presented as this innocent and valiant and girl-power! type figure throughout the whole series, she didn't even change slightly...and I don't know, it just really irritated me.
(She's admittedly like the female Peter in a way, only we were forced by the author to like her, whereas with Peter we could more or less make up our minds).

And Merrick from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles irritated me a lot, too. Can you say Mary Sue? *sigh*

But for the most part, I'm indifferent to the characters I dislike in books, so I can't really list them all; I just remembered that these two in particular irritate me.

[cleverthylacine]

When Merrick screwed Lestat I completely lost interest in her.

Since it's in theaters and thus on my brain...

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

Marie in the book version of The Bourne Identity. I saw the movie first, was drunk on this woman who was smart, compassionate, and doing a damned good job of trying to navigate a world that she really couldn't belong in, and immediately pounced on the book. Old formula, right? The movie is always worse than the book, so if the movie was that good...

Oh, my God.

Ludlum spends all of this time telling the audience how smart Marie is, how successful, and then flushes it all down the toilet by having her fall in love (in the span of about two days, nonetheless) with the man who two hours before was smacking her around and threatening to kill her. Even adding the beginnings of Stockholm Syndrome in there (which really didn't have time to take root) and Bourne's tacked-on rescue of her, find me one real woman who would be that stupid. Even worse, it unmasked what had up to that point been a very sly, surprisingly enjoyable author avatar. I could buy that Bourne was every adolescent boy's fantasy when he had spent years training to be an assasion/super spy/general badass, but when his Magical Powers of Manhood automatically grant him a gorgeous woman without effort? It was the point when I threw the book across the room and swore never to read another word that Robert Ludlum wrote.

Re: Since it's in theaters and thus on my brain...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Ludlum and Le Carre have some things in common. Is this part of the espionage fantasy, that women easily fall prey to mind control through sex?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Lalala I very rarely hate any character. Ever. I think people saying "I HATE so-and-so" kind of scare me, seriously. That attitude of hatred is what I truly and utterly HATE right back, but I think it's actually more anger than hate-- just anger at the -idea- of hate. I've gotten pissed off at characters which get interpreted or pushed at me in a 'like 'em or die' sort of way (Lucius). But without fandom telling me that Lucius is OH SO HOT, I wouldn't really care. I hate people's kink for Lucius (the idea of loving him for being sexy-alluring rather than pathetic-and-evil and over-the-top) rather than hating Lucius.

Hate makes me sad :(( And angry. Even silly fictional hate. :/ :/ Seriously hating people are the ones I hate, unless I identify with them and get into their heads (which is what I do with any character I bother thinking about) and understand them. No one is worth hating, man. :/ :| I think I just identify with people too much. Anyone can be lovable, because their emotions (once understood) are universal-- in the end, you -are- that thing you hate. You (the general you) ARE THEM.

Anyway, in fiction, I tend to ignore the minor or non-pov characters and basically identify with whatever the pov character feels. I don't remember my hates, if I had any; I remember my loves but the hates... I don't hate people (or characters) much-- I just ignore them. If I don't like you, I ignore you. Maybe that's worse than hating, I don't know.

I don't like Hermione, I guess, sometimes. She's so... I think it's hard for me to identify with her emotionally since she clamps down on things. Meh. But it just takes a bit more effort. I'm just more -distant- from her. I think too often she's been just, y'know, exposition-girl. She hasn't had as many issues as Harry, Ron, etc. I guess that's why you don't like Ginny, but whether or not they're canon and obvious, Ginny's issues are obvious to me. Hermione is more... opaque. But when I wrote `Thirst'-- all that obsession and need to know and to be on top of things-- I was like, yeah. I get it. Hermione just keeps things in, but that's a major issue.

The Ron-haters make me sad, but the Ron-lovers scare me. I can't win. Extreme worship of a character bothers me as much as mindless bashing. I love and adore Ron, but I'm not like, rah-rah or anything. I'm not rah-rah about Harry, either, and I try not to defend him unless people just say stupid (unfair) things about him.

Mreh. I hated the Dursleys? But that was more JKR's way of writing about them.
A lot of people annoy me. Almost -all- people annoy me. I'm very easily irritated by fiction & reality, but hate requires some sort of... I dunno... vendetta-type feeling. I honestly can't remember, but I think I hate storylines (when a story really disappoints me, like `Great Expectations' when I was 8 or so) more than characters. I think I just. In the end, I empathize with everyone.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The interesting thing at looking at what people have said, for me, is that it shows that with fictional characters it's not like real people. Like with people I don't think I've ever really hated anyone. Maybe somebody on the Internet who just annoyed me or something, but it's not real hatred.

But with characters when I was looking at my list I realized that they were all kind of similar--and other peoples' lists seem the same way. Like when I asked antaniell93 about Christopher Chant and she could say she hated him because he knew what it was like to be a kid and not listened to and then he turned around and did it to other kids. It's not hating a character it's hating something they represent. So it's more that you hate the character because of what it seems to be trying to sell you?

In fandom, I think "hate" takes on a different dimension because you get people pitting one character against another. It becomes much more about that character--like people are defending "Ron" himself and how he's going to be the real hero! Or somebody is like, "OMG he was mean to Harry he's going to rape Hermione he must be stopped!" Whereas really Ron isn't a person in any discussion. He's a set of ideas and values. Or with Draco, since I "defend" him more often, for me it's not like anybody has to like this fictional construct, it's more that the reason I don't like people talking about him a certain way is because it seems really cruel and a way to make the world even worse. Meanwhile there's some other people who are furious at any suggestion that he shouldn't be completely hated or that Harry could be able to bully him because it totally conflicts with things that they believe in their life.

I think the reason we think of the word "hate" even though we know we're talking about a fictional character so why waste hate on them is because you're just frustrated. You have to listen to the character and have the author make it clear how they feel about this person and you want to disagree.

Hey There!

[prettyveela.livejournal.com]

Hiiiiiiii SisterMagpie!

I posted this in another journal but heck I'll do it again. I REALLY think people are missing the point of why so many Ron lovers(and yes some are R/Hr shippers, but some are other ships as well) got so offended by the community.

I'm the first one to say that I could care less what someone else thinks on a character. I'll debate a person and all that but in the end, I'll think what I wanna think, simple as that. The shit(excuse my french) hit the fan when people took at gander at this in the bio:

"Hate Ron? Think he should and will die? Or, better yet, do you hate all the sickening, Ron-loving, morons who think Ron is the secret main character of the Harry Potter books? Then this is the place for you. This is s forum for Ron-death fics, Ron-death art, Ron-death wishes and other Weasley-centric loathing. Especially Molly. If you hate Ron, you likely also hate Molly. You can hate any Weasleys but generally not the twins. They are cool. They were obviously the main recipients of the brains in the entire family."


That's when a lot of my H/Hr and R/Hr friends thought that the "joke" went too far and crossed over from attacking a fictional character, to real people in this fandom. Some ron lovers are friends with those people and took offense and why shouldn't they? "Oh I meant only THESE Ron lovers, not YOU!"

Sorry, that doesn't cut it.

I don't know any of those people in that community on a personal level, but I know they offended some friends on their flist and that's something they have to deal with.

In the meantime, join die_dierondie or dietriodie :D

Veela

Re: Hey There!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, I definitely am against the bashing of people who like the character--personally I really like Ron! I'm totally on the side of anybody who's being told they're an idiot because they like or dislike a character. It's like Adela's point about being annoyed at the assumption that if you hated him it was because you were an H/Hr shipper. Or, like with any character, it's annoying to have people make you into an extremist. I get it with Draco a lot--you like Draco? So you think he's great and abused and the hero of the booooks! And I'm like, "Um, no, I just think he's an interesting character." Since OotP I've suddenly met this new version of Harry Fan who's completely unhinged, self-righteous and self-pitying at the same time. Luckily they don't represent everybody who's a Harry fan!

It's the same way with Ron, I guess. Just because I like him doesn't mean I think he's the hero of the books (I can read the title, thanks!) and think anybody who doesn't like him is a moron. And just because somebody doesn't like him doesn't mean they think everybody who does like him is a moron. If people just stick to the characters they would avoid the wank.

But if there's one thing we don't want to avoid in HP fandom, it's the wank!

Thank you!

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

Thank you Magpie – you got the time zones exactly right! :-D

Interesting question – there are very few characters I’d actually say I ‘hate’, but there are a fair few I’m pretty impatient with. I guess it’s the characters who are there simply as a device to move the plot along, or who are given a sub-plot that is clumsy and pointless (Hagrid in general, and particularly Gawp in OOTP), or is badly drawn, or is the one we’re supposed to like/admire (And yes, Kitty and Levin from Anna Karenina were in this basket for me too.) Hermione in OOTP annoyed me – she was suddenly too full of the wisdom and maturity thing.

I wish I had more time to think about this, instead of just trotting out the names that everyone else has already mentioned. I'm sure there have been others, I guess I just block them out.


(Being the paranoid thing I am I opened my flist and saw ‘Who do you hate….samaranth’ and wobbled a bit. That will teach me to read all of the sentences, carefully won’t it!)

Re: Thank you!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I have got to do better with birthday posts. You got HATE! and Naias got INCEST!

I didn't even think of that! But I would have had exactly the same reaction if I had read my own post. Sorry!

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I'm re-reading Wuthering Heights right now, and I just loathe everyone in it except Nelly Dean and Mr. Lockwood. Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw should both have been locked in a cellar together for the rest of their lives. At least HE has some justification, based on his rough childhood and the humiliation he suffered from Hindley, but Catherine? There's just no excuse for the bitch. "Fiery spirit" my ass. "Sociopathic drama queen" is more like it.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes! I love the book, but it amazes me when people think this is like...a romance. Heathcliff is relatively sane given his past but Cathy is just a complete menace. Even after death!

[darklites.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think the character I hated the most out of any book I read, up to the point where I was beating the book against any available surface, was Gwenhwyfar from The Mists of Avalon. Oh, God. Her dithering internal monologues, her intolerably contradictory piousness, her double standards, her superficiality regarding people's appearance, her self-hatred of being a woman - just, ackk! And she manages to ruin the lives of the characters I cared about with her idiocy (which I realise was the point in showing the 'tragedy' of her patriarchal Christian upbringing of the time blah blah, but it doesn't make me feel any better about it)!

I'm aware that there are reasons for the way she acts (her upbringing, etc.), and at least the author wasn't 'force-feeding' the reader great 'qualities' to imply that you are supposed to like her. However, the books spends chunks in her POV, and so many bad events are caused by her actions, that reading them brought up so much roaring hatred from me I was literally pulling at my hair at some points. I remember venting out my hate with a friend who'd read the book, and I did feel far better afterwards, ha.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I've never read MoA but I have heard exactly that about that character--it's probably the reason I never wound up reading it myself! But yeah, you can see what the author's doing but I can see that it's not anything you can really enjoy reading. Some villains are bad but compelling but when a character is so misguided but not in a way the reader can be sucked in by or feel much sympathy for...that's just painful.

This comment has spoilers for the movies Cruel Intentions and Kill Bill Volume 1.

[blankcanvas.livejournal.com]

The one character I really can't stand is the girl Reese Witherspoon played in Cruel Intentions (the movie). I think that movie is based on the book Dangerous Liasons. I haven't seen it in awhile and I can't remember the name of the sweet, innocent, virginal girl she played but god damn did she bother me! She's just so right and good about everything! And she was so irritatingly confident and self-assured about being good, was the real problem. Also, she's competing with Sarah Michelle Gellar's character (whose name I also can't remember) who I liked quite a lot because she was so much more interesting and fun, even if she was cruel and incestuous. Hm, on second thought maybe she's interesting and fun because she's cruel and incestuous. :) And I hated that Reese Witherspoons's character wins at the end because she just... shouldn't have come out on top. She wasn't as smart as Sarah Michelle Gellar's character! Or as pretty, but that's just my love for Sarah Michelle Gellar coming through. :) I actually heard that her character doesn't win in the book and that the movie was given a Hollywood ending. Which makes her character in the movie even more annoying if that's true! I'm too lazy to try and get through that thick book and find out, though. :)

I love love love that movie until the ending where everything goes wrong (from my point of view). I think I was supposed to want Sarah Michelle Gellar's character to lose everything but I just sympathized with her and was definitely not happy when she lost. I actually cry every single time I see the ending, not because I'm sad that Ryan Phillippe's character dies or because I'm touched by Reese Witherspoon's character's little tribute thing, but because I feel terrible for Sarah Michelle Gellar's character. I hate stories where people fall down in social status in general though, that's just something I hate to watch. Maybe that's the reason Reese Witherspoon's character bothers me so much. Not only is she just full on irritating, but she also has to hurt a character I really like in the way that bothers me the most.

Another character I don't like is The Bride from the Kill Bill movies. She dismembers people. A lot. That bothers me because, on second thought, bringing people down in social status is my second least favorite way to hurt them. Cutting off their limbs and making sure they have to live with something that awful that can never be fixed is worse. Because she doesn't kill the members of Lucy Lui's character's gang, she just chops something off of every one of them and tells them to go, and tells them to leave the things she cut off so they can't rush to the hospital and try to get them reattached. That bothers me more than I can even say, especially because they were just gang members and did not deserve her crazy rage. But in my opinion losing a limb is something no one deserves, because it's just something that personally freaks me way out. Also, she cuts up the pretty (and also sinister) lawyer really badly which on it's own is worse than the dismembering of like 80 male gang members because the lawyer is a woman. It's just worse to do that to a woman, and a woman who is not a fighter and can't really defend herself. The Bride's only saving grace is that she is played by Uma Thurman who I love. :) I know I'm supposed to sympathize with her righteous rage but... I don't sympathize that much.

I hope this all makes sense! I think this is like, my longest comment ever.

Re: This comment has spoilers for the movies Cruel Intentions and Kill Bill Volume 1.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You know, I've never seen CI but as I was reading it I knew that had to be the character Michelle Pfeiffer played in DL and you're right--she doesn't win in the end and the story works much better because of it! (I almost mistakenly thought it was the character Uma Thurman played, who's even more decadent and so funny and successful, despite being sort of pea-brained.)

I hate stories where people fall down in social status in general though, that's just something I hate to watch.

I so identify with that--yes! I guess there are some people who enjoy watching it happen but I don't at all. I rarely like to see over the top arrogant characters get destroyed either. They can get shown up, but I don't like it when everything's taken away from them. That does sound much worse than the original, where the Glenn Close character does wind up sort of crucified but we're really not supposed to cheer about it.

Cutting off their limbs and making sure they have to live with something that awful that can never be fixed is worse.

Again, yes! And it's odd, but these things seem to go together somehow. It's like that kind of thing where you're supposed to get pleasure out of watching a person have to live without something that was rightfully theirs--that bothers me. Like when I was talking about not liking arrogant people taken down that way I was thinking about ER where I really liked Dr. Romano. He was arrogant and often a jerk but also often spoke the truth when everyone around him was being an idiot. He was one of the only characters I could stand. Then they chopped off his arm--why? It was like they did it to punish him and then everybody just enjoyed the way he had to deal with it along because "nobody liked him." So now the source of his arrogance, that he was a great surgeon, was taken away from him and he was nobody--it was very like losing social status and also there's the dismembering.

Characters who drove me bonkers

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Everyone - just everyone - in Hardy's The Return of the Native. Even read by the delectable Alan Rickman, I just can't finish that book; I want to kill everyone in it with a rusty spoon.

Artemis Fowl. Detested him. Authorial voice paints Artemis as the hero but to me he is almost intolerable. I did get to the end of the book I started, but could never read another.

Tom Bombadil. I know Tolkien loved him to little minty balls, but I didn't. I don't know how Goldberry stood all the rollicking singing, I think I'd have offed him with a bread knife.

Romeo and Juliet. I know this is supposed to be a major tragedy, but...what dolts they both are. Everybody in that play seems to be afflicted by terminal selfishness, but R&J are the worst examples. And while I'm on Shakespeare, Lear's daughter Cordelia gave me hives as well - I never quite believed in her honesty.

Character the authorial voice says we should hate, but I didn't:
Even before I saw him played by Alan Rickman, I rather liked Obadiah Slope from Barchester Towers. I read the book for "O" level, before Barchester Chronicles was even made, and I thought Slope got a raw deal both from the author and the other characters. I remember really hoping he'd be happier in his new parish in the industrial north, and that the people would be nicer.

Re: Characters who drove me bonkers

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I never read Return of the Native but having read other Hardy I'm sure you speak the truth here!

I'm really going to have to read some Artemis Fowl. Even if I wind up detesting him, at least I won't have that particular black hole in my education in fandom--he comes up a lot!

Tom Bombadil--good lord. How many people stop reading LOTR when he appears, I wonder?

Romeo and Juliet. I know this is supposed to be a major tragedy, but...what dolts they both are. Everybody in that play seems to be afflicted by terminal selfishness, but R&J are the worst examples. And while I'm on Shakespeare, Lear's daughter Cordelia gave me hives as well - I never quite believed in her honesty.

I agree. I think any production of R&J really needs to embrace the fact that they're complete idiots. When people try to avoid that the play just doesn't work.

I remember liking Slope as well! Hmmm...I think that would make a nice companion post. Characters you were supposed to dislike but didn't!

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Amelia Sedley in Vanity Fair. Passive-aggressive little bundle of nastiness and entitlement. kicks her. kicks her again. Poor Dobbin.

As others have said, everybody in Wuthering Heights. They deserve each other.

Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of The Cake Bible. It may be non-fiction, but it's autobiographical non-fiction, and she is the most prescriptivist, condescending cook it's ever been my displeasure to encounter. Speaking of which...

<heresy>M.F.K. Fisher</heresy>. I am supposed to like her because she is a Great Writer and a Great Foodie. I think she's self-important and oblivious. And her treatment of her children and lovers (as glimpsed in occasional walk-ons) is creepy. They seem to exist only to illustrate her points.

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Amelia Sedley in Vanity Fair

Oh, goodness, yes. I'd forgotten about that loathsome little creep.