[ONTD ORIGINAL] Overly Hated Female Characters That I Love
Basically, I seem to love fictional ladies that most of their various fandoms hate. But that always makes them more likable because other people are wrong.
1. Skyler White - Breaking Bad
I mean, duh. "The Skyler White effect" became a TV trope because of this. The character of Skyler stood up against her murderous, drug dealing husband for, well, his murdering and drug dealing ways. And yet the audience hated HER. It got so bad that actress Anna Gunn had to write an NYT op-ed about the reaction to her character, and how she has received death threats herself.
Life hack: Never trust a Skyler White hater.
2. Tara Knowles - Sons Of Anarchy
All she wanted was to get her kids out of Charming, and she was forced to resort to some extreme measures to do so (faking a pregnancy and miscarriage). You'd think she was the one personally running guns, putting a hit out on other major characters, getting DUI's with kids in the car, murdering people in cold blood, and shooting up churches and schools, with all the vitriol she got before and after her unnecessary
violent death.
Fun fact: actress Maggie Siff specifically mentioned Skyler hate when talking about fan reactions to Tara! THAT would have been a fun crossover.
3. Laurel Lance - Arrow
A lot of the hate was convoluted, but it also seemed ship based. Viewers were pitting her against Felicity, all over bland ass Oliver. Even though Laurel was secretly in love with Nyssa ok. I remember a lot of gross celebrating when she was killed I MEAN WHEN SHE LEFT EARTH-1.
4. Elizabeth Swann - Pirates Of The Caribbean
My Pirate King. Yes, she's pretty much beloved now, but 20 years ago when the trilogy was still new, I was in a very small minority defending her from an actual hate campaign against her. She was "whiny," she was "always preening," she was a "Mary Sue," etc. Despite all that, she became a king.
And believe it or not, unlike with many hated female characters in general, the hate for Lizzie was NOT coming from the male fans of the trilogy, it was mainly coming from the women. Yay for internalized misogyny, then and now.
5. Shiv Roy - Succession
Honestly, I'm not sure if she would really count, because the entire point of the show is that every single character is loathsome, but for some reason (hmmm) she gets more hate and vitriol than her brothers do. People claim it's because of her actions at the end, but I'd bet she would have also been blamed for not doing something, if the company had tanked with Kendall as CEO because he was off on another killer drug trip.
6. Dee Reynolds - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
My trash queen. The only female lead on a "frat bro" show, so naturally she gets the most hate from the misogynist frat bros who watch it. It doesn’t help that the male characters on the show take part in the hate themselves. What makes it even worse is that actress Kaitlin Olson is continuously told in real life to "shut up, bird!" by fans of the show who can't differentiate between the two.
7. Abbie Mills - Sleepy Hollow
Look how cute she is!⬆️
From what I remember, a lot of the hate was based on racism, mainly from fans of the Katrina character. They wanted the white man with his long-dead, white wife instead of the kick ass, smart black woman (even if she was a cop), who he was actually in love with. Sucks that the racist executives listened to their whining.
8. Ginny Weasley - Harry Potter series
HP sucks now but I adored Ginny growing up, idc. She was underrated and JKR, being a shitty writer, really dropped the ball on the character and her trauma from COS. Most fans mainly disliked her because she was in the way of Harry falling in love with Hermione/Luna/Draco/Hagrid/Dobby/the Giant Squid.
I'm talking about the book version only btw.
9. The Mad Women - Mad Men
One of them. Two of them. All of them. Take your pick. Meanwhile Don and his (literal) navel-gazing and drama were always excused by fans.
10. Iris West - The Flash
I'd only watched the first few seasons of this when it was on, so I wasn't too deep in the fandom back then, but from what I saw, it seemed that - like with Abbie - racists shipped the white man with the white girl and only hated Iris because she stood in the way of their white love.
11. Carmela Soprano - The Sopranos
Before Skyler White, there was Carmela Soprano. Enough said.
12. Adriana La Cerva- The Sopranos
I think this was more "she deserved better from the show" rather than that she was hated by fans, but there were still some pretty vocal viewers after
her death, who were saying "she had known what she was getting into," when in fact she had been physically and emotionally abused for years by Chris, Tony, and his gang. Not to mention later blackmailed by the FBI into becoming a "rat."*
*It's been years since I've watched, so I might be wrong on some things. But I know her ending was bullshit.
13. Allison Hargreeves - The Umbrella Academy
She had her daughter ripped away from her, like, five times by the fourth season. (She also lost Raymond during one of those times too). Of course she'd make irrational decisions just to get her back.
Who are some of your favorite fandom least faves ONTD?
(Also mods I fixed the sources!)
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