My Most Hated Characters

I belated realized that this meme was intended just for characters from cartoons, anime and manga, but that seems more than a little limiting to me, so I modified it slightly to suit my purposes.  Anyway, I got the idea to do this from J-Cat, who expanded the parameters to not just include fictional characters, but historical figures and whole groups of people as well.

As always, I'm pretty indecisive when it comes to picking my top ten anything, so this list is potentially subject to change.

Please forgive me if this gets a tad wordy, but some of these characters are pretty obscure, and it may take some effort to explain who they are and why I dislike them so intensely.


10.  Anthony (aka Blandthony) Caine from the comic strip For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston

When I see people bashing TV shows they hate, I wonder why they even bother to continue watching them in the first place if they hate them so much.  However, that may be a little hypocritical on my part, since I kept reading For Better or For Worse well after it became obvious it was a total train wreck, and got my enjoyment from seeing other dissatisfied readers snark on it on a daily basis.

For much of its run, I considered For Better or For Worse to be a mostly inoffensive comic strip- the only thing that bothered me was the way dandruff flew off people's heads when they were yelling or surprised.  But in the last several years of its run, things really
seemed to go off the rails.  The direction Lynn Johnston took the strip aggravated a lot of readers, and arguably the most wrong-headed storyline was the one involving Anthony.

If you don't know, the strip followed the lives of the Patterson family, and Anthony was the former high school boyfriend of oldest daughter Liz.  Anthony was a real "nice guy" who got married to a horrible, career-oriented woman named Thérèse, whose sole purpose was for the cartoonist to display her scorn for women who have the audacity to think there's more to life than being barefoot and pregnant.  Thérèse didn't want kids, but nevertheless had one for the sake of Anthony, on the condition that he be the one to stay home and take care of it.  Even though he agreed to this arrangement, he was still somehow surprised when she didn't change her mind after the baby was born.  Sure, she was not likeable, but only because she was written as such a straw-feminist.  Johnston even retroactively blamed Anthony's ugly pornstache on Thérèse once she realized readers were making fun of it.

Thérèse was presented as being unreasonably jealous of Anthony's supposedly platonic friendship with Liz.  Actually, her jealousy wasn't so unfounded after all, as was made abundantly clear when Anthony started whining to Liz about how he still had feelings for
her.  And when exactly did he choose to spill his guts?  Moments after Liz had almost been raped.  In a totally contrived plot device, dorky Anthony was allowed to play the hero and save Liz from her attacker, though he totally undermined any good will that might have generated by immediately bitching to her about his failing marriage, grabbing her by the shoulders and pleading with her to wait for him.

Meanwhile, Liz's parents wouldn't shut up about how great Anthony is. Well, of course they liked him- he was basically a clone of her dad.  When Liz protests that she has a boyfriend, they're like, "Where is he now?"  Uh, he lives hundreds of miles away working as a cop, you asses!

Liz had started life as a teacher in a new town, but abruptly decided to give it all up and move back in with her parents, coincidentally not long after Anthony's divorce.  She didn't even tell her cop boyfriend she was moving until after he'd arranged a transfer to be closer to her.  A couple months later, Liz went back to visit her boyfriend and found him with another woman, which was obviously Lynn Johnston's way of fixing it so Liz wasn't the bad guy in the relationship, even though she'd already done everything but break up with the guy.

Readers were obviously meant to be rooting for Liz and Anthony to get together, and I'm sure some did, but a lot of us weren't buying what Lynn Johnston was selling.  The inevitable pairing was orchestrated in such a forced way, it really turned me off.

Johnston's entire premise seemed to be that the one true way to be happy is if you marry your childhood sweetheart and settle down in bland, suburban existence, just like your parents.  I'm not saying that that's bad for everyone, but the handling of that message really rankled.  Some have speculated that Johnston wasn't happy with the choices her actual kids made, and since she couldn't tell them what to do real life, she could at least control the lives of their analogues in the comic strip.

There was one strip in which Anthony showed Liz the fenced-in playhouse he'd built for his daughter in his basement.  If she'd tried, I don't think the cartoonist could have come up with a creepier or more apt metaphor for the life Liz was choosing.

I could go on and on, but you're probably bored already.  But, if by any chance you're interested in learning more, read the essay called "Why I Hate Anthony by Shaenon K. Garrity, which describes the problem with the character and the comic more eloquently and thoroughly than I could:   shaenon.livejournal.com/29475.…

9. Delilah from the movie The Locusts

I don't actually remember this movie super well; I'm not even sure I saw all of it.  It was a wannabe Steinbeckian tragedy starring Vince Vaughn as Clay, a drifter who gets work at a ranch owned by Delilah (Kate Capshaw).  Delilah's son Flyboy(Jeremy Davies) was traumatized when his father committed suicide due to Delilah’s infidelity, and now he only speaks to his pet bull.  Clay befriends Flyboy and begins to coax out of his shell, but Delilah resents it when her son shows signs of independence.

Now, here's the scene I remember vividly and the reason this woman is on my list:  In order to teach Flyboy a lesson, Delilah has one of her brutish ranch hands tie him up and then she forces him to watch as she castrates his beloved pet bull, which subsequently dies.  Not exactly mother of the year material.  Things only get worse from there. It was truly one of the most depressing movies I've seen.

8. Mary Tilford from The Children's Hour

This spot was previously occupied by Nurse Ratched, but like I said, this list is subject to change.  I was having a little trouble coming up with characters I really hated, and Nurse Ratched seems like such an obvious choice, but I don't really have super strong feelings about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  Then today, I happened to catch part The Children's Hour on TV and was reminded how much I loathed this little brat, who destroys two women's lives with an untrue rumor.

7. Robert Kinsey from Stargate SG-1

If this short-sighted and corrupt politician (played by Ronny Cox) had had his way, the human population of Earth would have been enslaved and/or wiped out a couple times over.

6. Alixis from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Paradise

I hate this woman worse than any other villain in the nearly fifty year history of Star Trek.  More than Kai Winn, more than Khan, more than the Borg. You get the idea.

In this episode, Commander Sisko and Chief O'Brien beam down from their runabout onto a planet that they realize too late seems to be generating a field that renders their technology non-functional, leaving them stranded.  A colony of humans has been living on the planet for ten years after their ship malfunctioned.  They’ve been able to survive largely due to the de-facto leadership of Alixis, who, conveniently enough, even before being marooned, had been espousing the belief that reliance on technology has caused humanity to lose its way.

Sisko clashes with Alixis, who does everything in her power to persuade him and O'Brien that attempting to find a way off the planet is futile and that they should resign themselves to a life of spiritually-fullfilling, back-breaking manual labor in her community.
Even when one of the colonists is fatally poisoned by an insect bite and Sisko insists that if they could get to the runabout, the medical equipment on board could save her life, Alixis is against it.  When all other methods of bending Sisko to her will fail, she resorts to torture.  Ostensibly as punishment for the crime of "wasting time," Sisko is locked in what is essentially a sweatbox, which Alixis hopes will force him to see things her way.

Whaddaya know?  It ultimately turns out that Alixis sabotaged the ship the colonists were on ten years ago, and the field that prevents their technology from working was the result of a piece of technology she'd had hidden on the planet ahead of time.  Then she has her son try to kill O'Brien before he can inform the colonists of this discovery.

What makes this episode incredibly frustrating is that in the end, once the truth is revealed, none of the colonists opt to leave with Sisko and O'Brien.  They don't even seem to be as angry as they should be- in fact, they don't seem especially angry at all.  The consensus seems to be that Alixis may have done a bad thing, but they're all better off for it- well, except the ones who are dead because they were denied access to life-saving medical technology.  Heck, they may even turn the tech-nullifying device back on once Sisko and the others leave.

Where the fuck is the righteous indignation?  This lady stranded them and allowed people to die so she could be the dictator of her own personal utopia.  She's a goddamn hypocritical, murderering cult leader and has turned her followers into brainwashed sheep.  The serene, self-righteous smile on her face as she's taken into custody and beamed up is beyond sickening.  The only comfort I have is knowing that she undoubtedly was in for a looong prison sentence.

5. The Murderous Moppets (aka the Pupa Twins) from The Venture Bros.

I love The Venture Bros., but these guys are not funny at all; they're just a couple of perverted, psychopathic little creeps.  What makes it worse is how blind Dr. Girlfriend is to how horrid they truly are, instead treating them like they're her precious babies.  If anything bad happens to them in the fifth season, I'm glad, but don't tell me because I haven't seen it yet.

4. Lana Lang from Smallville

This is another of those occasions where I think there is a big disconnect between the creators and a large chunk of the audience.  I'm pretty sure we were actually supposed to like Lana Lang, but I know there was a lot of hate for this character.  Lana's primary function on Smallville appeared to be to make Clark Kent feel like dirt for keeping secrets from her, which was even more annoying given how many times he'd saved her life.  Besides which, she ended up keeping plenty of secrets of her own, which made her a big hypocrite.

Long past the point Clark should have gotten over her, the writers kept finding ways to bring them back together.  In fact, they seemed to think that the only plausible way Clark and Lana could ever be apart is if she got turned into a walking piece of kryptonite.  It's like they forgot that Lois Lane is supposed to be the love of Clark's life.

3. Bob and Mayella Ewell from To Kill a Mockingbird

I shouldn't have to say much about these two, since the book and the movie are so famous.  It's hard to say who is worse.  I guess Bob is, since he attacked the Finch kids with murderous intent, but both he and his daughter are contemptible racist scum for accusing an innocent man for a crime he didn't commit.

2. Mason Verger from Hannibal

I'm specifically referring to the TV show version of this child-abusing daddy's boy, as played by Michael Pitt.  What he did to his sister made me ill.  It was very satisfying to see him get his gruesome comeuppance.

1. Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series

Bigoted, sadistic fascist.  What made Umbridge so insidious was, like a lot of the villains that get my goat, she masked her horrible nature under a phony veneer of pleasant reasonableness.  At least with Voldemort you knew where you stood.


Dishonorable Mentions:

I thought of a couple more characters that I really detested.  Not enough for a whole new list, but they were bad enough that I really wanted to include them somehow.

Frank Hallett from The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane is a great film (I keep meaning to read the book on which it's based), and Frank is one creepy bad guy: a sadistic pedophile who stalks a Rynn, a lonely young teenage girl (played by Jodie Foster in the movie).  'Nuff said.  I'd be remiss if I didn't also make room for Mrs. Hallett, Frank's nasty and imperious mother, who uses her clout to ensure her son's predilections don't land him in jail while also poking her nose where it doesn't belong.  Luckily, Rynn turns out to be more than capable of taking care of herself.

Tim Watters, Karen Farris and the rest of Red Squad from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Valiant.

I personally consider DS9 to be the best Star Trek spinoff, but it also produced a couple bad episodes with some of the worst characters to ever appear in the entire franchise.  Perhaps it's no coincidence that both episodes happen to be about charismatic and dangerous cult leaders with an army of brainwashed acolytes behind them.

In the episode "Valiant," civilian Jake Sisko and Ensign Nog run across Red Squad, a group of elite cadets that were on a training mission aboard the starship Valiant when the Dominion War broke out.  Behind enemy lines and with the officers dead, pill-popping cadet Watters takes command of the ship and, visions of becoming the youngest war hero in Starfleet history dancing through his head, decides to conceal the truth of their situation from Starfleet and keep fighting the war instead of heading back to Earth, even though it's pretty clear that there's nothing stopping them from doing so.  Unfortunately, his overconfidence is shared by just about all of Red Squad, who blindly follow Watters to their ultimate destruction- a tragic example of the Dunning Kruger effect on a ship-wide scale.  

While Watters probably deserves the brunt of my hatred for getting his entire crew killed, if I'm being honest, out of that entire group of arrogant, delusional douchebags, the one I detested the the most  was Watters' second in command, Karen Farris.  There is a certain word I'd really like to call this girl and it doesn't start with a b, but rather the letter after it.  That's right, a Cranky Sue.  Stuck-up, snide and heartless (and maybe even a racist, considering the way she glared at Nog), Farris was a thoroughly unpleasant character.  I'm sorry that her death was quick; I really wanted to see her crying for her mommy and daddy at the end.  It would have been poetic justice after she practically mocked one of her underlings for doing the same thing earlier.  Actually, I'm sorry all but one of the members of Red Squad perished before it could fully sink in just what a terrible idea it was for a bunch of inexperienced, snot-nosed teenagers to take command of a starship and pretend to be soldiers.  Maybe they didn't deserve death, but they sure deserved to be knocked down several pegs and maybe even booted out of Starfleet altogether.


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