Annoying Main Characters: Loveable, Relatable &... A Little Hateable 🤨❤️ | Trope Explained

[theemii]

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From The Bold Type's Jane to SATC's Carrie to Desperate Housewives' Susan to OITNB's Piper to HIMYM's Ted to... so many others, main characters are the ones that pull us into a show or movie, the eyes through which we experience the story, and sometimes, and much as we may love them… they’re really annoying. We’re not talking about real baddies

Comments

[ripqueequeg]

I feel like, besides the main character in question typically being a woman, most main characters are pretty bland so audience members can see themselves in the character, then youve got the fun side characters, who make the main seem even worse

[daredevilwolf]

did anyone elses moms growing up love the original airing of sex and the city?

my mom and her friends would throw mini parties and gather together at one of their houses so they could watch it together

[jojito]

My mom hated it.

She forbade me to watch it (I was definitely too young), but I would anyway. In my country it aired on Sundays at midnight, but heavily censured. The episodes lasted like 15-20 minutes because they removed all the sex/nudity scenes. So many times the plot wouldn't even make sense because there were huge chunks missing. But I loved it anyway, lol.

I still remember my surprise when I heard SJP's real voice. The voice actress who dubbed the show for the latam audience sounded much more mature. Sarah almost sounded like a child.

[daredevilwolf]

i feel sorry for you

so i guess you didn't get hbo's oz or their porn shows like real sex or the bunnyhouse

which i watched when i hit puberty with the volume down low because hey you're 13 and have strange feelings

turns out i was asexual but i'm a sex positive asexual

[ltmsysf]

that sounds so cute

[mayjailer]

none of the satc women are perfect friends or human beings, for that matter. the way people have turned on carrie bradshaw as a character in recent years has been so extreme and overdramatic. and i think a lot of it is because people blindly take alexander wang supporting, scat singing kim cattrall's word for it that sarah jessica parker is a mean girl, which makes it even more laughable.

[pinkspade]

ia the persistent "carrie is the WORST!!!" comes across as defensive posturing to me

[cbluechicken]

i'm tired of it. I've rewatched it so many times but she was a very well written and real character. she would be in the FFA rn talking about Big.

[primimproper]

I also find it weird and hyperbolic. There are only two moments in the SATC universe where I think Carrie came off worthy of the backlash:

1. Expecting money from Charlotte for a down-payment

2. Describing self-made Samantha as treating her as an ATM machine, when she's essentially Big's wealthy socialite wife who doesn't write anymore (meaning Samantha couldn't possibly live in London off her fee for Carrie's publicist work).

And even then, those moments can be seen as part of Carrie's humanity/imperfect point of view.

(Though I think the ATM dig was specifically coded to Kim Cattrall for refusing a cameo for anything less than $1 million)

[laydownhere]

you need to write a main character that way in a long-running series. you want them to do three steps forward, two and a half steps back per episode otherwise why would you watch them for years and years

[arilicious]

annoying main character that needs to be mentioned (but wasn't): Dr. Jack Shephard.
but somehow he avoids the "annoying main character" criticism.

[screamingintune]

I just started watching Lost (1 more season to go) and HARD agree. as a medical sociologist he is an absolutely DREADFUL doctor too like omg, all the malpractice suits

[aliceofclubs]

I disliked him from the pilot episode. something generally off-putting about him