GTFO: 10 Characters People Love and I Don't
I'm feeling a bit under the weather, and I can't write anything clever (or anything at all), so I thought I'd make a list of characters that annoy me right now and are heavily overrated in my opinion. Standard disclaimer: this is very much an IMHO post. Which means: I am not bashing these characters. I have reasons not to like them but I'm not saying they suck or that everyone should dislike them and I am not trying to insult their fans. There are characters one dislikes irrationally, even if admitting their overall awesomeness: f.ex. you dislike the actor portraying them and that interferes with your perception of the character; or you dislike the character's motivation and can't reconcile their action; or it's a character you love to hate. This post is NOT about those characters. This post is about those characters that everybody else loves and you just can't understand why. Perhaps they are very one-sided; their writing feels flawed to you; they are too inconsistent; and yet everyone around you seems to be head over heels for them. Including the other characters in the show. Ever happened to you? Sure as hell happened to me.
1. Natasha Miles (Being Human)
Natasha appears only in one episode of the frankly godawful series 5 of the previously brilliant Being Human. It's clear from the start that her express purpose is to get fridged. Sure, Natasha seems to have a personality, but her motivation, strictly speaking, isn't her own. She exists to unbalance the relationship of the main characters - and she does it in a very plothole-y way. F.ex.: why didn't Tom and Alex think of taking a closer look at the body? Bitemarks should be pretty different from a knife wound. And why did Natasha's ghost only reveal herself to Alex after Hal was out the door? Obviously, to create more drama, but it doesn't excuse the lack of logic. Usually the main defence of any character's fans is that a character is not real, so it's the writers' fault. Imho, no. Not all the time. Hal's actions are the writers' fault because Hal had been a pretty well-rounded character before he suddenly started acting crazy and contrary. Natasha had started out like this. She was never a character, but a story device. She fulfilled her role in a very clunky, illogical and clumsy manner, and then she died. Even then her body was used to jerk a few extra tears out of us in that extra scene featuring Tom and Rook.
And yet, Natasha seems to be the current fandom favourite. Being Human has a huge number of interesting characters, and all of them are completely overlooked in favour of a walking plot device. Natasha's story is banal, inconsistent and downright eyebrow-raising: one of the biggest issues I've got with her is her relationship with Rook. In 5x03, when Rook is getting ready to commit suicide, he clearly states he's got no one and nothing in this world but the job. It makes sense that he cares about the girl he saved, but 5x05 complete with Sarah Dollard's headcanon/interviews and fanon blow it completely out of proportion, making Natasha the most important person in his life. If that had been so, I doubt he would have completely forgotten about her. Of course they had to keep her secret before 5x05 but the writing could have just been worded differently. A lot of problematic themes and plot twists are just a matter of wording and are easily avoidable.
Another problem I have is when people take a character and stick them into any and every situation ever. It's like people shipping Marvel's Loki with everyone regardless of motivation just because he's hot or Vikings' Athelstan because he's cute. Fortunately, as far as shipping goes, I've only seen Rook/Natasha, which is more or less plausible, but then, I've also seen fics, in which Natasha pretty much single-handedly defeats Hatch or smth. Excuse me: what?
2. River Song (Doctor Who)
This could actually be said for any Moffat girl, at least on DW. Reinette, Amy, arguably Clara all fall into this category for me. Know why? Because they are all the same. They have the same characteristics, and most of their lives revolve solely around the doctor. They are the girls who wait for the guy who is off having adventures. Even if they want to leave, they can't. In this sense, River is fully the victim of Moffat's brilliant "feminism". She is clever, smart, skillful, she is a time-traveling archaeologist who has had plenty of her own adventures - and she has a life sentence for killing someone who is not dead; we never see any of her solo adventures on screen; we don't even see her traveling with the Doctor, she is usually just waiting for him to drop by her cell and whisk her off on some off screen trip. She is tragically in love with the man whose life doesn't move in the same direction as hers and she freely admits that the worst moment of her existence will be when he stops recognizing her. It could be sad, but the way Moffat writes it is just maddening. Take the infamous wrist-breaking scene in "Angels Take Manhattan". This completely invalidates River as a character, making her a kind of an addition to the Doctor. She is the Doctor's quirky, on-and-off wife (speaking of that: maybe I wasn't too attentive, but I still don't get what that was for even); that's all.
3. Captain Hook (Once Upon a Time)
Revenge as a motivation is older than... I don't know, I'm pretty cavemen could have used it. It seldom contributes anything but extreme angst qualities to a character. It works in case of Regina because her story is tragic, her anger is unfounded but she can't stop, and she's got more than enough personality to make up for her questionable motivation. Killian Jones, the dashing pirate who had the misfortune of pissing off Rumpelstiltskin, is alas a rather typical "pirate" character: overtly selfish, a tad sentimental, a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the making. He brings nothing to the ensemble except for his convenient enchanted ship capable of traveling between worlds. Any chemistry he might have with Emma is negated by the neon-bright message that Neal is Emma's true love, and shipping him with any other character (except maybe Cora, with whom he actually spends time with) is pretty difficult.
4. Rudy Wade (Misfits)
Getting used to a replacement character is always hard, but it's not impossible. If a character proves to be sufficiently different not to encroach in the previous character's territory, if s/he has a personality of his/her own and makes his/her own decisions, it's quite possible to accept this new character. Rudy... has a personality. Most of it is Nathan's. Nathan was dirty-minded, racy, vulnerable inside, obsessed with getting laid, selfish, but ultimately not such a bad friend. Rudy is all that. The lines he says might as well have been written for Nathan. It doesn't help that the actor has very wooden mimics, unlike Robert Sheehan who played Nathan. Which is why I find people who adore Rudy and hate Nathan frankly puzzling. They are 90 % the same people except Nathan came first.
5. Delphine Cormier (Orphan Black)
Everyone is so busy rooting for Orphan Black's adorable gay ship that they overlook one crucial thing: Delphine isn't much of a character. Once again, this is a walking plot device whose story is somewhat less banal solely because it involves two women instead of the traditional girl/guy setup. Delphine isn't even a villain who turns good because of falling in love; she's just a regular person doing something she believes is actually good, but then of course she starts having doubt because wow, she's in love. And a little too quickly too. She caves in with just about the minimal resistance (if any at all). She is bland, hardly consistent, and given the predicament Cosima is in at the end of season 1, I'm sure we are about to have more stereotyped tragic gay lovers angst on our hands.
6. Hannah McKay (Dexter)
This one is difficult because I'm not sure what the fans' response to her actually is. I don't mind Hannah so much as a character, as I mind her entire storyline with Dexter. They spent 4 seasons developing Dexter's feelings for Rita when he believed he was incapable of love. After that, unexpectedly, came Lumen. As jarring as her showing up right after Rita was, it was pretty clear she wasn't staying. Dexter had feelings for her but it was never anything of the dark Romeo and Juliet magnitude the writers are going for with Dexter/Hannah. Of course Dexter is changing, growing, evolving, but rehashing the wanting to connect plot for the 100000th time is never a good thing. Hannah barely exists outside Dexter, and now Dexter is moving towards not existing outside Hannah. It's kind of pathetic. Moreover, building Hannah up as the only perfect match for Dexter is stupid: sure, Rita didn't know about his murderous side but she loved him completely and made him happy; Lumen couldn't stay with him but he chose to let her go, he didn't try to stop her; Hannah isn't perfect is because she is a danger to him and to those he loves, she has already shown willingness to kill Deb for example.
7. Tyler Lockwood (The Vampire Diaries)
There are characters in TVD that I intensely dislike and then there are characters that just irk me. Tyler is the latter. He started out as an inconsiderate jerk whose personality became changed by his curse, and he could have been interesting... except, like River Song, he does most of the "interesting" stuff on screen. Tyler constantly leaves Mystic Falls (and the world outside Mystic Falls exists only when the story demands it, preferably if Elena and/or one of the Salvatore brothers are in it) only to breeze in and out throughout the series and to serve as the readymade angst for Caroline. It doesn't help that there's no acting skills to speak of either.
8. Jon Snow (Game of Thrones)
Jon is a bit of an oddball on this list. First of all, he doesn't really irk me. Like all GoT characters, he exists in two incarnations. I can't really say anything about the book one, but the TV Jon is a bit bland. Imho there's just not much work to be done with him. But if we were to talk overrated ships, GoT is a treasure-chest of those, starting with Sandor/Sansa and Jon/Dany. For Christ's sake, have the latter even met?!
9. Lois Lane (Smallville)
Lois Lane is an iconic character, and hers are big shoes to fill. Smallville is well-known for making questionable character-related decisions, but given that Lois is a main character, they at least had more room to develop her. I tend to like Lois within the general Superman canon. Smallville's Lois, while supposed to be badass, is generally incredibly annoying, overacted, and dumbed down for the sake of not discovering Clark's secret too soon. She appears in season 4 - some 4 seasons before the writers actually begin to develop the Clark/Lois lovestory seriously, but given that it comes after 7+ seasons of the Clark/Lana back and forth drama, it still seems to come out of nowhere. It is almost nipped in the bud when Lana returns in season 8, and yet, just as soon as she departs, Clark once again sets his sights on Lois. Their lovestory is ill-timed, their dynamics is more comical than romantic, and on top of all Erica Durance shows a distinct lack of acting abilities 99 % of the time.
10. James Bond (James Bond)
Everybody loves James Bond. Major actors dream of playing Bond, while actresses would love to become Bond girls. Public looks forward to new movies with trepidation. Meanwhile, Bond (at least in the books) is a dull sexist with no personality to speak of. Lynch me of you will or try to explain Bond's iconic status; to me, he's a blank slate that could be just about anyone.
1. Natasha Miles (Being Human)
Natasha appears only in one episode of the frankly godawful series 5 of the previously brilliant Being Human. It's clear from the start that her express purpose is to get fridged. Sure, Natasha seems to have a personality, but her motivation, strictly speaking, isn't her own. She exists to unbalance the relationship of the main characters - and she does it in a very plothole-y way. F.ex.: why didn't Tom and Alex think of taking a closer look at the body? Bitemarks should be pretty different from a knife wound. And why did Natasha's ghost only reveal herself to Alex after Hal was out the door? Obviously, to create more drama, but it doesn't excuse the lack of logic. Usually the main defence of any character's fans is that a character is not real, so it's the writers' fault. Imho, no. Not all the time. Hal's actions are the writers' fault because Hal had been a pretty well-rounded character before he suddenly started acting crazy and contrary. Natasha had started out like this. She was never a character, but a story device. She fulfilled her role in a very clunky, illogical and clumsy manner, and then she died. Even then her body was used to jerk a few extra tears out of us in that extra scene featuring Tom and Rook.
And yet, Natasha seems to be the current fandom favourite. Being Human has a huge number of interesting characters, and all of them are completely overlooked in favour of a walking plot device. Natasha's story is banal, inconsistent and downright eyebrow-raising: one of the biggest issues I've got with her is her relationship with Rook. In 5x03, when Rook is getting ready to commit suicide, he clearly states he's got no one and nothing in this world but the job. It makes sense that he cares about the girl he saved, but 5x05 complete with Sarah Dollard's headcanon/interviews and fanon blow it completely out of proportion, making Natasha the most important person in his life. If that had been so, I doubt he would have completely forgotten about her. Of course they had to keep her secret before 5x05 but the writing could have just been worded differently. A lot of problematic themes and plot twists are just a matter of wording and are easily avoidable.
Another problem I have is when people take a character and stick them into any and every situation ever. It's like people shipping Marvel's Loki with everyone regardless of motivation just because he's hot or Vikings' Athelstan because he's cute. Fortunately, as far as shipping goes, I've only seen Rook/Natasha, which is more or less plausible, but then, I've also seen fics, in which Natasha pretty much single-handedly defeats Hatch or smth. Excuse me: what?
2. River Song (Doctor Who)
This could actually be said for any Moffat girl, at least on DW. Reinette, Amy, arguably Clara all fall into this category for me. Know why? Because they are all the same. They have the same characteristics, and most of their lives revolve solely around the doctor. They are the girls who wait for the guy who is off having adventures. Even if they want to leave, they can't. In this sense, River is fully the victim of Moffat's brilliant "feminism". She is clever, smart, skillful, she is a time-traveling archaeologist who has had plenty of her own adventures - and she has a life sentence for killing someone who is not dead; we never see any of her solo adventures on screen; we don't even see her traveling with the Doctor, she is usually just waiting for him to drop by her cell and whisk her off on some off screen trip. She is tragically in love with the man whose life doesn't move in the same direction as hers and she freely admits that the worst moment of her existence will be when he stops recognizing her. It could be sad, but the way Moffat writes it is just maddening. Take the infamous wrist-breaking scene in "Angels Take Manhattan". This completely invalidates River as a character, making her a kind of an addition to the Doctor. She is the Doctor's quirky, on-and-off wife (speaking of that: maybe I wasn't too attentive, but I still don't get what that was for even); that's all.
3. Captain Hook (Once Upon a Time)
Revenge as a motivation is older than... I don't know, I'm pretty cavemen could have used it. It seldom contributes anything but extreme angst qualities to a character. It works in case of Regina because her story is tragic, her anger is unfounded but she can't stop, and she's got more than enough personality to make up for her questionable motivation. Killian Jones, the dashing pirate who had the misfortune of pissing off Rumpelstiltskin, is alas a rather typical "pirate" character: overtly selfish, a tad sentimental, a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the making. He brings nothing to the ensemble except for his convenient enchanted ship capable of traveling between worlds. Any chemistry he might have with Emma is negated by the neon-bright message that Neal is Emma's true love, and shipping him with any other character (except maybe Cora, with whom he actually spends time with) is pretty difficult.
4. Rudy Wade (Misfits)
Getting used to a replacement character is always hard, but it's not impossible. If a character proves to be sufficiently different not to encroach in the previous character's territory, if s/he has a personality of his/her own and makes his/her own decisions, it's quite possible to accept this new character. Rudy... has a personality. Most of it is Nathan's. Nathan was dirty-minded, racy, vulnerable inside, obsessed with getting laid, selfish, but ultimately not such a bad friend. Rudy is all that. The lines he says might as well have been written for Nathan. It doesn't help that the actor has very wooden mimics, unlike Robert Sheehan who played Nathan. Which is why I find people who adore Rudy and hate Nathan frankly puzzling. They are 90 % the same people except Nathan came first.
5. Delphine Cormier (Orphan Black)
Everyone is so busy rooting for Orphan Black's adorable gay ship that they overlook one crucial thing: Delphine isn't much of a character. Once again, this is a walking plot device whose story is somewhat less banal solely because it involves two women instead of the traditional girl/guy setup. Delphine isn't even a villain who turns good because of falling in love; she's just a regular person doing something she believes is actually good, but then of course she starts having doubt because wow, she's in love. And a little too quickly too. She caves in with just about the minimal resistance (if any at all). She is bland, hardly consistent, and given the predicament Cosima is in at the end of season 1, I'm sure we are about to have more stereotyped tragic gay lovers angst on our hands.
6. Hannah McKay (Dexter)
This one is difficult because I'm not sure what the fans' response to her actually is. I don't mind Hannah so much as a character, as I mind her entire storyline with Dexter. They spent 4 seasons developing Dexter's feelings for Rita when he believed he was incapable of love. After that, unexpectedly, came Lumen. As jarring as her showing up right after Rita was, it was pretty clear she wasn't staying. Dexter had feelings for her but it was never anything of the dark Romeo and Juliet magnitude the writers are going for with Dexter/Hannah. Of course Dexter is changing, growing, evolving, but rehashing the wanting to connect plot for the 100000th time is never a good thing. Hannah barely exists outside Dexter, and now Dexter is moving towards not existing outside Hannah. It's kind of pathetic. Moreover, building Hannah up as the only perfect match for Dexter is stupid: sure, Rita didn't know about his murderous side but she loved him completely and made him happy; Lumen couldn't stay with him but he chose to let her go, he didn't try to stop her; Hannah isn't perfect is because she is a danger to him and to those he loves, she has already shown willingness to kill Deb for example.
7. Tyler Lockwood (The Vampire Diaries)
There are characters in TVD that I intensely dislike and then there are characters that just irk me. Tyler is the latter. He started out as an inconsiderate jerk whose personality became changed by his curse, and he could have been interesting... except, like River Song, he does most of the "interesting" stuff on screen. Tyler constantly leaves Mystic Falls (and the world outside Mystic Falls exists only when the story demands it, preferably if Elena and/or one of the Salvatore brothers are in it) only to breeze in and out throughout the series and to serve as the readymade angst for Caroline. It doesn't help that there's no acting skills to speak of either.
8. Jon Snow (Game of Thrones)
Jon is a bit of an oddball on this list. First of all, he doesn't really irk me. Like all GoT characters, he exists in two incarnations. I can't really say anything about the book one, but the TV Jon is a bit bland. Imho there's just not much work to be done with him. But if we were to talk overrated ships, GoT is a treasure-chest of those, starting with Sandor/Sansa and Jon/Dany. For Christ's sake, have the latter even met?!
9. Lois Lane (Smallville)
Lois Lane is an iconic character, and hers are big shoes to fill. Smallville is well-known for making questionable character-related decisions, but given that Lois is a main character, they at least had more room to develop her. I tend to like Lois within the general Superman canon. Smallville's Lois, while supposed to be badass, is generally incredibly annoying, overacted, and dumbed down for the sake of not discovering Clark's secret too soon. She appears in season 4 - some 4 seasons before the writers actually begin to develop the Clark/Lois lovestory seriously, but given that it comes after 7+ seasons of the Clark/Lana back and forth drama, it still seems to come out of nowhere. It is almost nipped in the bud when Lana returns in season 8, and yet, just as soon as she departs, Clark once again sets his sights on Lois. Their lovestory is ill-timed, their dynamics is more comical than romantic, and on top of all Erica Durance shows a distinct lack of acting abilities 99 % of the time.
10. James Bond (James Bond)
Everybody loves James Bond. Major actors dream of playing Bond, while actresses would love to become Bond girls. Public looks forward to new movies with trepidation. Meanwhile, Bond (at least in the books) is a dull sexist with no personality to speak of. Lynch me of you will or try to explain Bond's iconic status; to me, he's a blank slate that could be just about anyone.