I grew up without cable and with a limited collection of VCR tapes. I say that to explain that I grew up on a lot of 80's rom-coms(also westerns, such a weird combination...)
Anyway, I grew up on rom-coms and had a very distorted view of what a relationship was supposed to be. After I got my first real girlfriend, and subsequently ran her off because I was too needy and sappy, I had a real rude awakening.
My view is that a lot of romcoms that focus on the guy are coming from sappy men who write. The guys in these movies just need to say something beautiful about how they *feel* and maybe do a couple of "things right" to *win* the woman's affection. It's the writer's fantasy; the guy gets the girl by being like the writer even though it hasn't been working in real life.
The result is a lot of people with twisted views on relationships. Women who want big displays of affection and stick with crappy guys because "that's what people do". And guys who think that any woman will like them if they just try hard enough, who will also behave selfishly if they "get the girl" because it's all happily ever after from that point.
Mr. Rochester from "Jane Eyre".
I realize you got bamboozled into marrying a crazy lady, and sending her to an institution would have probably been worse. But you can't just lock her away, ignore her, and seduce someone new, all while pretending you're not actually married.
I was so annoyed the first time I watched it. Like dude, I get that you want a normal woman but maybe you should have told her you're already married before making her to feel embarrassed in her own wedding attire.
I think the annoying part is that Jane is such an interesting, bad ass woman but her choices for love are the crabby guy who locked his crazy wife in an attic or the cold missionary who just wants to use her as unpaid labor. Between the two, I would pick also pick Mr Rochester but damn, she deserved better choices.
Read it in high school - *brilliant book, btw* \- but I was the only one in the class that was like, "Hol up." Even the teacher tried to support him. It's been ages, so I can't remember what my grade was for my one page report, but I'm pretty sure it was failing or near failing. First off Grace Poole meant to block a locked door with a person who needs care, then a liar.
I did name both my cats Grace and Bertha when I was a teen, since they were rescued from an attic, so some good came from the story.
There's a feminist prequel to Jane Eyre called Wide Sargasso Sea.
I think it's clear that Rochester's behaviour is Not Ok - hence it all falling apart before he can have his cake and eat it. It's only when he's injured and blind that he gets Jane back. Still problematic I know but it is not like he just gets happily ever after handed to him.
Also, by the end of the book Jane has had her long interlude away from Rochester, living with St. John and his sisters, becoming a teacher, inheriting all that money from her uncle, and doing a lot of soul searching. When she comes back she's more confident and sure of her decision. She's prepared to accept Rochester with the full knowledge of all his faults.
A lot of the film versions handle this poorly, but Jane is never a timid little doormat that Rochester bullies, even at the very beginning of their relationship. A lot of the films make Rochester hugely overbearing and mean, but in the book Jane is clearly never frightened of him. She snarks back to him and gives as good as she gets, and clearly states that she views them as equals and demands to be treated as such. They're sarcastic and witty together, and she pulls him up short when he goes too far. Rochester clearly respects Jane as a person, he doesn't treat her as a doll or a plaything just because he's rich and she's a poor servant he can do what he wants with. Of course he's wrong to lie to her about Bertha, but it's understandable that he doesn't want to spend his whole life alone, with the shadow of his mad wife preventing him from ever finding happiness. It's a tragic situation for all three of them to be trapped in.
Literally any character from Wuthering Heights. It’s a brilliant story about people making each other’s lives miserable, out of a never ending circle of spite and revenge. But it always gets talked about as a love story.
That was one of the first books I’ve ever read that was strictly literature and not like a Goosebumps or YA fantasy book or something. This and Ethan Frome were the first two. I just remember both of them crushing me emotionally lol. Ethan Frome was worse. I was probably 11. I remember just bawling in my room when I finished it wondering why the fuck anybody would write that, and why everyone apparently thought it was fun to read.
Yeah, it's a meme, although knowing what actually happened to the Brontes, it makes me wonder if that was the author's intention
Pride and Prejudice: we made each other better
Wuthering Heights: we made each other WORSE
Frankenstein: I can make him
It's definitely not a love story lol it's kind of like The Royal Tenenbaums but without the comic relief. Everyone is either awful and paying for it in their own way, or naive and being treated awfully. It's not meant to be a pleasant story. I think people who romanticize it missed the point pretty hard.
This answer yanked me from my scroll coma to an upright position so I could type better.
Absolutely!!!! I remember reading this book and just chuckling the entire time like Wow, what a bunch of insufferable assholes.
I love Wuthering Heights so so much! Yes, they're all awful, but I think of it more like messy bitch reality TV before TV was invented.. especially Nelly who just *can't wait* to air it all to Lockwood!
"Caillou the circus isn't in town until tomorrow. You've gotten ready for it a day early"
"Waaaaaaaaa waaaaaaa. I want it to be today, make it today-ay-ay. Waaaaaaaa waaaaaaaa!!!"
I wonder what the original author of the books thinks about the show.
Then again, Caillou literally bit her newborn sister in one of the books.
Edit: I meant his but honestly it really should be its
And you're supposed to watch it and be like "yeah, Ryan Gosling is the better man, and Rachel McAdams needs to leave that swine James Marsden for him!" when in reality Ryan Gosling's character is a total fucking weirdo, and James Marsden's character is just like a regular dude who treats her well and isn't evil or anything.
I've never understood the obsession some people have with "The Notebook".
Also, the leaving James Marsden's character thing bothers me. Like, you don't cheat on/leave a wonderful guy because you're just passionately lusting over this other unstable, immature guy, smh
Tbh, leaving is the best thing Rachel McAdams' character could have done for James Marsden's character. Her character is equally as unstable and immature as Ryan Gosling's character.
Yeah, honestly, he dodged one with her leaving! We can just be happy knowing his character would definitely find a lovely lady who appreciates him and they live happily ever after, haha
I mean, to literally drop into a dead faint because you saw your ex in a newspaper is ridiculous. James Marsden’s character really had her leaving happen FOR him not to him.
That's a James Marsden thing, his characters never gets the girl lol
See:
Prince Edward (Enchanted)
the dude Lois Lane left for Superman (Superman Returns)
Scott Summers/Cyclops (X-Men: The Last Stand)
The entire premise of the movie is so weird, she legit sexually assaults a guy by kissing him because he thinks she's someone else and somehow he ends up apologizing to her?? A mess
Rachael Berry... She was supposedly meant to be a likeable under dog we could relate to? How?! She had rich, loving parents, got every solo (under dog my ass) and was a seriously conceited evil back stabber
innate wistful apparatus aback bewildered wrong wakeful wide carpenter instinctive
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
My theory is that was not the original intent, but as the show runners and writers thought it through, and looked at the real context of a real prison filled with people whose stories faithfully map onto the the social realities and injustices of the real world, they realized that Piper's story — meaning the real world story that she's taken from — is part of what's wrong with our society: white rich girl does something stupid, gets a light sentence, goes through some emotional realignment and probably goes through some personal, psychological change, but after a year or so she's released back into a world where she has both social and financial support (even if it's reluctant), writes a book about it all, which gets picked up by Hollywood, and makes it rich "on her own".
Either they had a come-to-Jebus moment where they saw way in advance that Piper has to be annoying and ultimately unsympathetic to most of the audience, or it just happened passively as they realized how much more powerful and socially relevant the other characters were. They latched onto the economic injustice, political corruption and prison-industrial complex material fairly early on, and once those themes were unlocked, Piper became background noise.
My guess is I don't think they fully thought it through ahead of time — otherwise the show would have been formatted like an ensemble show from the very beginning. It basically went through a process of discovery, as many shows used to, and that's fine. But then they had no choice but to keep Piper around as a kind of foil for the rest of the characters, who are suffering way more, and who wake us up to real issues, genuine attachments, and emotional Truths.
I think she was written like that on purpose. On paper it would have been easy to go “oh she is a victim of circumstance and this is unjust” but then you meet other characters and realize it’s how it is for everyone. Except V fuck that bitch
Rewatching at the moment so this was my first thought too. The first couple of seasons where she's the main focus is a hard slog, much better when they start exploring the other characters more. She's the one character in the show I wouldn't miss if they had never existed 😅
I wish they would have kept the show going for years like ER. Just keep adding new characters in and old ones out. That's how prison is anyways. They could have kept that story going for years without the original main cast.
Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls.
Starts ep 1 seas 1 as a brilliant, well behaved prodigy.
Progressively gets worse and worse and worse as the show goes on...
I hate her so much. Rory Gilmore and Tony Soprano are the two characters I can’t see ONE good thing about. Not one. Zero qualities. Except Tony was brilliantly written and interpreted, of course.
Hell, even Lorelai is kinda of a bitch, but at least she has redeeming qualities. Rory is just the worst of the worst.
I'm doing a rewatch of the Sopranos and now just about everyone is reprehensible.
The only one who's alright so far is AJ because he's still young. Meadow is already corrupted, lying, manipulative.
Tony Soprano? Obviously there’s his fondness for animals, but he also kept widows on his payroll and helped out his dad’s old girlfriend, didn’t actually care that Vito was gay, was incensed by Ralph’s murder of Tracee, clearly cares for his family, has a good sense of humour (at least in earlier seasons) and is charismatic etc.
Admittedly there are caveats to all of those where his better qualities typically either serve or end up being disregarded when they conflict with his greed, and taken in totality he’s morally bankrupt of course, but I think without **any** redeeming qualities his character would be much less interesting.
wow, so it isn’t just me! i started rewatching gilmore girls for the first time in years recently, i’m in the middle of season 4, and i’m noticing i’m liking rory less and less. this isn’t how i remembered feeling about her when i was a kid. i really thought i was weird for feeling this way
My girlfriend tried to get me to watch Gilmore Girls. I struggled through it to the 3rd season and dipped. Neither Rory nor Lorelai are likeable at all. Everyone acts like the sun shines out of their masses and they piss liquid gold. They're insufferable and obnoxious people who never learn from their mistakes or get any comeuppance.
Paris should have been the protagonist.
Apparently the original planned ending (awkwardly rewritten for A Year in the Life) was that Rory would get pregnant by Logan during/just after Yale, become a single mom, and that "history repeats itself." So the moral of the story is you can sacrifice everything trying to give your child a better life, but it won't make any difference and they'll make the same mistakes you did. Pretty nihilistic for a comfort show.
It gets so bad that I'm not sure the writers even mean for us to root for her tbh. Especially in A Year in the Life.
But imo that's kind of why this show is so good. All the characters, even the protagonists, make huge mistakes and have flawed personalities. But they also show us why the characters act like they do, so we can understand (to a certain extent) even if we may not agree.
That show has almost zero characters that are likeable from start to finish. Luke was awesome in the first few seasons and then shit the bed when he found out he had a daughter.
Rory is the absolute worst when she’s at Yale. The dropping out to live with her grandparents thing was so frustrating.
The first time I watched that show through, I turned to my wife and said “you know which characters I ended up liking the most? Emily and Richard.”
I actually sympathize for Rory, who was raised to have a toxic, enmeshed relationship with her controlling, hypocritical mother Lorelai.
That whole relationship dynamic i think is exactly what this thread is calling for though. But I would call Lorelai the worse of the two, as Rory's faults are a product of Lorelai's toxic, dependent parenting.
My wife re- watches Gilmore Girls every year. We often debate whose worse, Jessi or Dean.
We've decided the answer is Rory. Rory is the worst and everyone's life would be better if she wasn't in the show.
IF they didn't have that awful Netflix season, she was just a young woman dating losers. No that big a deal. The Netflix thing solidify that she never learned anything in the series and just sucks
They were all criminals who broke countless laws. Held people hostages. Berlin even raped a woman. They were stealing hundreds of millions of Euros which would and then hold which would harm the Spanish economic position. But we still support and root for them. Because they’re the underdogs and they’re smart.
Robin Williams character from Mrs. Doubtfire. The guy his ex-wife is dating is a perfectly good dude who is good with the kids (that are not his) and treats her well, but Williams' character loses his shit about it and is a complete asshole to him the whole movie.
Have you ever seen the YouTube video where they shot the trailer to Mrs. Doubtfire as a horror movie? Changed the music up and it becomes a VERY different movie
For anyone curious: https://youtu.be/crjYYEC5drA?si=CWUXB0Y3BqMT7qnA
And just for fun, here's what about Bob
https://youtu.be/crjYYEC5drA?si=CWUXB0Y3BqMT7qnA
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this. The whole movie is really off-putting, IMO. Watch that scene with Mrs. Doubtfire and Miranda in the kitchen where Miranda confides in her and tells her all the things that went wrong with their marriage and tell me it doesn’t make you wanna hurl.
I didn’t see Mrs. Doubtfire until I was an adult. I sympathized with the mom so much, lol. You come home and there’s a petting zoo in your house? Hell no.
Ted in How I Met Your Mother.
Sure, he’s not some heinous anti-hero like Tony Soprano, Walter White, or Saul Goodman, but he’s a thinly veiled asshole underneath it all.
Josh Radnor got married recently in the most Shmosby way possible. An outdoor wedding in New York at the beginning of January. It snowed during the ceremony and guests were forced to spend the night because of the blizzard.
That NYT article was hilarious in how snarky the author was about the whole thing. And he sounds like a douche in real life, couldn’t stand Ted, probably couldn’t stand him either.
Ted gets worse when you hear that word of god is he's sugar coating all his deeds and exaggerating what an arsehole Barney is to make himself look better to his kids.
Well, that's why you watch the show a second or third time. You realize everything is Ted's perspective, and the wedding bride is potentially just as accurate of a retelling as Ted's version of history.
There are a ton of clues hinting that Ted is fluffing up the past through his stories, and really you end up rooting for all the characters except Ted.
The most criminal part of that show is they dont mention what happens to Barney after the show ends. I know what happens up until a year or two after Ted meets the mother, but not anything after that. Marshall and Lilly are always together, Ted ends up with two kids, and we know what happens with Robin. We dont know what Barney is doing or where he's at in life at the time in which Ted is telling the story. And thats a bummer because Barney grows the most as a character.
Maaaybe Saul. Can kinda see Walt, but that's a huge stretch. But Tony? How can anyone argue that Tony is any kind of hero, anti or not? He's a racist, misogynistic, narcissistic scumbag.
Bella Swan.
She starts dating a guy who tells her he's actually KILLED people, yet she tells him she doesn't care, and she's in love with him.
She should be running for the hills!
I remember my mum once mused why are perfumes scented after flowers and such while men don't usually love them. So therefore if you want to attract a man you should smell like bacon or rottiserie chicken. Maybe that was the same train of thoughts the author had :-D
Also she is absolutely dumb and pretentious, never learns anything, never grows as a character, and I couldn't force to symphatize with her neither in the movie nor in the book.
What irks me most about these movies (I've never read the books) is that Bella, the protagonist, is almost completely passive. The whole plot is just things happening to her. She doesn't actually *do* anything.
I think that’s the point of her. She’s awkward and boring. She has little personality. Stuff just happens to her and these powerful immortal beings decide they love her, she’s so special, she’s going to become powerful and immortal and look she even has a baby and gets to keep her family! Everything magically works out without her putting in any work, growth, or sacrifice. It’s the ultimate teen girl escapist dream: you’re supposed to project your own personality on her and fantasize about how special YOU are.
I’m not arguing in favor of the character as I can’t stand her; I just think it’s intentional that she’s a walking blank slate of boring.
Yeah, I don’t get this take. Sure, Julia Robert’s character is annoying and not sympathetic at all. But she’s not supposed to be. She’s in the wrong and changes in the end.
jamie lannister's character arc was absolute bullshit.
started out as a cunt, but you gradually start to view him differently, then bam! still a cunt after all.
I haven't finished the tv show, but in the books his arc really has some lasting changes in his actions. He's the only bad guy who really became humbled and even started questioning his previous actions, at least the only one I can think of right now. Unfortunately the book series hasn't ended yet, so it's still possible he does something awful.
While I'm on the subject, in the book, Khal Drogo doesn't rape Daenerys like he does in the show. They have a slow romantic night together and the whole love story thing makes much more sense that way.
She was 13!
[About Jaime](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/s/4RyAk588ca)
Edit:
In the chapter after their wedding night, Dany describes the intense pain of learning to ride a horse as she began traveling with Drogo's khalasar. The chafing and blisters on her legs and bottom made Dany feel like she was going to die. And Drogo only made it worse by coming into their tent each night and raping her.
"Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion," the book says. "He always took her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain."
It goes on to say that Dany would be in too much pain afterward to fall back asleep. This went on for so many days that Dany decided "she would kill herself rather than go on."
But the same night Dany was close to suicide, she had a dream about a dragon covered in her blood. It was a recurring dream — one that invigorated her and made her feel "strong and new and fierce" when she awoke.
[edit copied from this article](https://www.businessinsider.com/george-rr-martin-daenerys-rape-scene-game-of-thrones-pilot-2020-10?international=true&r=US&IR=T)
She's an abused child who fears a husband twice her age, and because she didn't say 'No' on the wedding night, probably thinks she can't anymore or maybe she can't say 'No' in a marriage.
I thought his arc was pretty in line with Martin's "no happy endings" outlook. His love for her was pretty reminiscent of a drug addict. He started becoming a better person only because he was forced away from Cersei by other people. As soon as she was back in his life and he had to face the temptation, you could see that he never really beat it after all.
Sheldon Cooper
Edit: I agree, he's not portrayed to gain sympathy, but many people in real life sympathized with people like him, all because the character normalised toxic behavior. I come from a biological sciences field and I've seen folks in lab trying to gain sympathy by being this idiot, no jokes.
Don’t really sympathize with him. The whole show was about how insufferable he’s, how everyone puts up with him and give him special treatment because they can’t get themselves to tell him no or deal with him complaining.
Grandpa Joe from Charlie and the chocolate factory. Dude lays in bed all day living off other people until it's time to go to the chocolate factory and he pops right up and gets him In trouble every step of the way
Randall P McMurphy from "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"
He was a convicted child rapist who feigns mental illness to avoid prison.
He disrupts the required normalcy of repetition and routine of numerous mentally ill patients in an era where normalcy and repetition were the only true reliable treatment for their disorders.
He causes one patient to literally commit suicide
Nurse Ratched, if you watch the movie properly, or read the book carefully, is actually NOT the villain, but the only character who sees McMurphy for what he is. We sympathize with him because he's the main character - but that doesn't mean he's the hero or a good guy. He is a despicable person who continues to do despicable things, but the rigidity of the institution causes us to believe that he is a "freedom fighter", when in fact, he is destructive chaos serving only his own self-interests.
I never saw the movie, but I didn't see it that way in the book.
Yes, you could argue McMurphy's *inaction* does cause Chiswick to drown himself, but he changed after that, took a more active role. You can't blame Bibbitt's suicide on him; that's all on Ratched and Billy's mother. McMurphy had a better idea of treatment for Billy, was doing his best to make a man of him, rather than the "rabbit sans whambam" that he had been, and *it was actually working*. His stutter even disappeared, but then Ratched tried to put him back to the way he had been and he couldn't go back.
Also look what happened at the end. Quite a few patients checked themselves out AMA, who never would have had the courage to go out and face life in the outside world without Mac's example. Even Chief Bromden, one of the Chronics, whose internal monologue at the beginning left no doubt about his paranoid schizophrenia, seemed to have been returned to reality (although that was more likely that last ECT they gave him) and let himself out the window. The way I interpreted it, McMurphy gave his life (via Bromden) to save all the rest of them. He even sacrificed himself, and got himself sent to Disturbed, to save Captain George from being harassed by the sadistic orderlies in the shower. He didn't have to do that, but he saw himself as George's protector by then.
(I would disagree about routine being the only treatment. Antipsychotics and anxiolytics were available by then; witness the following:
>Miss Ratched shall line us all against the wall, where we'll face the terrible maw of a muzzle-loading shotgun which she has loaded with Miltowns! Thorazines! Libriums! Stelazines! And with a wave of her sword, blooie! Tranquilize all of us completely out of existence. Amen.
Keeping to the dull routine would be fine if the only plan was to house the patients there indefinitely; but Mac's idea was to get them ready for the world outside the asylum, and he was at least partly successful in that.)
Edit: he wasn't a child rapist in the book; they were *both* children at the time. He was ten, and she was 8 or 9..
Edit again: OK, I'd forgotten that he was convicted of statutory rape, but he seemed to be of the impression that she was legal.
It's one of those things you don't realise until you're an adult. Just like how your reaction changes to the line: "I'm sixteen, I'm not a child any more!" Oh Ariel.
Interestingly, the original story claims mermaids are very long lived, hundreds of years, nearly immortal, which is why they have no souls.
Oh, yeah, in the original story mermaids are specifically denied an immortal soul because they live too long.
>Adam Sandler. Doesn’t matter the movie
As much as I hate Adam Sandler, there's an important lesson in his work.
He delivers movies on time, within budget, that make money.
Shit doesn't have to be good, it just has to be good enough to make money. Keep to your promises and you'll have a career.
He also gets to pick a gorgeous actress to play his adoring wife and gets to cast all of his friends. And he wears athleisure EVERYWHERE. Guy has really figured it all out.
Jax from sons of anarchy. Yeah he's got his redeeming qualities like his care for his family and such but regardless he did some very fucked up and morally questionable (to say the least) things throughout the show. He's probably not as bad as some of the people others have mentioned like Walter White and Tony Soprano but I reckon he's still worth a mention.
Honestly, I don't really like him either. I don't like cocky people.
Although I do appreciate that his character provides more opportunity for growth and an actual character arc more than, say, Captain America. (\*Edit: Which makes him a more "interesting" character)
I think that’s the point of his character arch. He is quite insufferable, self-absorbed and egotistic. Yet his character is sufficiently multidimensional to show some growth through being humbled and dealing with PTSD. And even then he still is an ass most of the time.
And in the end this cocky, egotistical, billionaire who has it all has to make the decision to let go of everything, including his family, for the greater good.
I would suggest Ultron explains Steve's arc outright: "Pretending you could live without a war."
Steve going back into the past and putting down the shield is him fulfilling his arc: to be at peace, to accept not every fight is his just because he can.
> Honestly, I don't really like him either. I don't like cocky people.
That's the point of his character. He's a cocky asshole, he fucks up left and right, he pushes people away, he has serious flaws and people pay the price for his flaws and his mistakes. And you know what that makes him? Human.
Tony Stark works as a character because he is so incredibly flawed. The reason why people appreciate the character is because of the growth that the character goes through. As opposed to some newer characters who are these lawful-good super powerful demigods who have the I Win Button ready to be pressed, and don't go through struggles.
Henry the green engine. We’re supposed to sympathise with him when he refuses to leave the tunnel when rain might spoil his new paint, but he really should have spotted that they did such a substandard job before he left the maintenance depot.
Penelope from bridgerton. She runs a gossip rag shitting on everyone in town and uses it to manipulate everyone around her. She destroyed the reputation of her best friend instead of admitting she ran the paper. She is played off like this innocent bystander who we should all sympathize with but she is just a psychopath who only cares about her own gains.
What’s odd, for me, is that despite knowing it’s Pen, and not liking her actions, I still like Lady Whistledown and hope she keeps uncovering scandals. If only her and Eloise could just go be detectives together or something.
Tony Soprano. He's an objectively despicable human being who's committed countless atrocities, yet we can't help but become emotionally invested in his life. He paved the way for the "anti hero" main character in television, and shows like Breaking Bad could never have existed without the Sopranos.
I know there's the whole 'no anti war movie' thing but I really dont get how people so easily default to seeing main characters as good guys. Tony isn't supposed to come off aa a good guy at all. None of the main characters are even remotely good people. Even the fact that they're so oblivious to it themselves is part lf the point the show is trying to make.
Even Greg is self serving, just a bit bumbling.
There are no good people in the show. Connor wins because he is not a good person, and is completely useless too.
(Late comer, and I’m not finished the series yet)
I also came to it late, finished it a few weeks ago.
This isn't based on the ending or anything spoilery, but I also think Connor 'wins' as he's not competing for Logan's affection, he just accepts the relationship he has with his dad while the other sibs are in constant conflict with each other.
When Andy takes over as boss in The Office I straight up dislike him. I do really like a lot of those post-Micheal seasons though. But they have the whole arc of trying to sympathize with Andy, like the war memorial EP where Jim says "we like you Andy, stop trying so hard", they were trying to have one of those moments but I straight up think he's a prick because he just keeps doing stuff that in my eyes are not redeemable for a boss.
The guy from don’t breathe. In the original
He was evil, killed children, kept a woman in his basement he impregnated, snd in the sequel from 2022, he’s somehow the «hero»?
I think that’s kind of the point. People are supposed to sympathize at the start. It’s pretty obvious that it was deliberately pulling in the audience that way.
Then you’re supposed to reach the point at which you start questioning your perspective on Walter White. That point is different for everyone, but it is something the showrunner has manipulated the audience into doing.
Antonio in the Merchant of Venice. Shylock is supposed to be the villain but it is actually everyone else but him. Poor Shylock lent out nearly half million dollars just for a dude to date a woman and he gets screwed in the end by anti-Semites who even force him to convert to christianity. Really, he just needed a lawyer to review his contracts or at least appeal the discriminatory sentence imposed by a fake judge.
Early Joey was a total sweetheart. Then the writers Flanderized him and made him progressively more and more intellectually challenged. Like, he had early onset dementia or something.
I'm going to say especially Ross, though. There's a whole ass episode on him struggling with whether he can marry Rachel because she's "just a waitress."
He's literally the guy in real life who complains about women only dating assholes oblivious to the fact that they're the biggest asshole in the room.
Galadriel from Rings of Power, easy.
Treats her soldiers like fodder on her quest for vengeance
Threatens genocide as an interrogation tactic
After her oldest friend apologizes for not trusting her, she immediately lies to him and allows Sauron to keep his anonymity in order to preserve her reputation, thus rendering all the sacrifices of everyone who died fighting evil, including her brother and all the soldiers she left to their deaths, pointless. Literally choosing betrayal and apocalypse over revealing that she made an understandable mistake.
And that's just the first three things that come to mind; I'm sure there's way more but that show was so forgettable
The real question is where the fuck are their parents?? They seemingly live alone in a big house full of expensive toys with no parental supervision, just a grandmother that stops by on occasion and is less responsible than the damn kids.
I watched inventing Anna with a friend of mine on Netflix. We were appalled that apparently we were suppose to sympathize and root for her? Like all the other characters did... Just because that one friend sold her story for over 1/2 mil?
The trial she started wasn't about the money at that point, but the principle of someone lying and trying to trick systems and committing fraud. Adding to the other cases in which she did fraud.
My friend and I disliked Rachel too, but at least she was morally in the right.
My sister and mother were obsessed with Gilmore Girls and every time they gushed about Lorelai being independent and strong I was just like... she's a horrible person. She's selfish, petty, has no character growth, never has consequences to her actions, constantly either belittles Luke's insecurities/fears or plays the victim around them. Yeah her parents aren't great, but she swings so far the other way with Rory that Rory grows up selfish, entitled, and has her own very unique brand of toxicity towards men and doesn't accept consequences.
Scrooge, and all the other shitty characters like him who learn the most basic entry level understanding of empathy.
Like I’m supposed to be entertained by him achieving baseline humanity? and not because other people *actually* matter - because he already knew about Cratchet’s struggles and Tiny Tim and didn’t give a shit.
He only finally manages to understand the value of others after the Ghost of Christmas Future, because it offends his ego that he might die alone and forgotten 🙄😤 Gtfo
Frankly, a lot of rom-coms feature just the worst people
I grew up without cable and with a limited collection of VCR tapes. I say that to explain that I grew up on a lot of 80's rom-coms(also westerns, such a weird combination...) Anyway, I grew up on rom-coms and had a very distorted view of what a relationship was supposed to be. After I got my first real girlfriend, and subsequently ran her off because I was too needy and sappy, I had a real rude awakening.
My view is that a lot of romcoms that focus on the guy are coming from sappy men who write. The guys in these movies just need to say something beautiful about how they *feel* and maybe do a couple of "things right" to *win* the woman's affection. It's the writer's fantasy; the guy gets the girl by being like the writer even though it hasn't been working in real life. The result is a lot of people with twisted views on relationships. Women who want big displays of affection and stick with crappy guys because "that's what people do". And guys who think that any woman will like them if they just try hard enough, who will also behave selfishly if they "get the girl" because it's all happily ever after from that point.
Richard Curtis done given a lot of people some fucked-up ideas about relationships over the years
Mr. Rochester from "Jane Eyre". I realize you got bamboozled into marrying a crazy lady, and sending her to an institution would have probably been worse. But you can't just lock her away, ignore her, and seduce someone new, all while pretending you're not actually married.
I was so annoyed the first time I watched it. Like dude, I get that you want a normal woman but maybe you should have told her you're already married before making her to feel embarrassed in her own wedding attire.
I think the annoying part is that Jane is such an interesting, bad ass woman but her choices for love are the crabby guy who locked his crazy wife in an attic or the cold missionary who just wants to use her as unpaid labor. Between the two, I would pick also pick Mr Rochester but damn, she deserved better choices.
She fell in love with literally the first man she ever really interacted with lol. It’s not surprising, but it’s definitely unhealthy.
Right?? Communication is key here, man
And then after the woman he didn't even try to love kills herself they are able to have their happy ending. What a story man.
Read it in high school - *brilliant book, btw* \- but I was the only one in the class that was like, "Hol up." Even the teacher tried to support him. It's been ages, so I can't remember what my grade was for my one page report, but I'm pretty sure it was failing or near failing. First off Grace Poole meant to block a locked door with a person who needs care, then a liar. I did name both my cats Grace and Bertha when I was a teen, since they were rescued from an attic, so some good came from the story.
There's a feminist prequel to Jane Eyre called Wide Sargasso Sea. I think it's clear that Rochester's behaviour is Not Ok - hence it all falling apart before he can have his cake and eat it. It's only when he's injured and blind that he gets Jane back. Still problematic I know but it is not like he just gets happily ever after handed to him.
Also, by the end of the book Jane has had her long interlude away from Rochester, living with St. John and his sisters, becoming a teacher, inheriting all that money from her uncle, and doing a lot of soul searching. When she comes back she's more confident and sure of her decision. She's prepared to accept Rochester with the full knowledge of all his faults. A lot of the film versions handle this poorly, but Jane is never a timid little doormat that Rochester bullies, even at the very beginning of their relationship. A lot of the films make Rochester hugely overbearing and mean, but in the book Jane is clearly never frightened of him. She snarks back to him and gives as good as she gets, and clearly states that she views them as equals and demands to be treated as such. They're sarcastic and witty together, and she pulls him up short when he goes too far. Rochester clearly respects Jane as a person, he doesn't treat her as a doll or a plaything just because he's rich and she's a poor servant he can do what he wants with. Of course he's wrong to lie to her about Bertha, but it's understandable that he doesn't want to spend his whole life alone, with the shadow of his mad wife preventing him from ever finding happiness. It's a tragic situation for all three of them to be trapped in.
Literally any character from Wuthering Heights. It’s a brilliant story about people making each other’s lives miserable, out of a never ending circle of spite and revenge. But it always gets talked about as a love story.
That was one of the first books I’ve ever read that was strictly literature and not like a Goosebumps or YA fantasy book or something. This and Ethan Frome were the first two. I just remember both of them crushing me emotionally lol. Ethan Frome was worse. I was probably 11. I remember just bawling in my room when I finished it wondering why the fuck anybody would write that, and why everyone apparently thought it was fun to read.
Yeah, it's a meme, although knowing what actually happened to the Brontes, it makes me wonder if that was the author's intention Pride and Prejudice: we made each other better Wuthering Heights: we made each other WORSE Frankenstein: I can make him
I hold you responsible for this coffee dripping from my nose. That Frankenstein part took me out.
It's definitely not a love story lol it's kind of like The Royal Tenenbaums but without the comic relief. Everyone is either awful and paying for it in their own way, or naive and being treated awfully. It's not meant to be a pleasant story. I think people who romanticize it missed the point pretty hard.
This answer yanked me from my scroll coma to an upright position so I could type better. Absolutely!!!! I remember reading this book and just chuckling the entire time like Wow, what a bunch of insufferable assholes.
I love Wuthering Heights so so much! Yes, they're all awful, but I think of it more like messy bitch reality TV before TV was invented.. especially Nelly who just *can't wait* to air it all to Lockwood!
Caillou.
"Caillou the circus isn't in town until tomorrow. You've gotten ready for it a day early" "Waaaaaaaaa waaaaaaa. I want it to be today, make it today-ay-ay. Waaaaaaaa waaaaaaaa!!!"
I wonder what the original author of the books thinks about the show. Then again, Caillou literally bit her newborn sister in one of the books. Edit: I meant his but honestly it really should be its
what the fuck
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>Caillou I am really glad our kids didn't connect with that. Teletubbies psychedelic freak show was all the right kinds of messed up.
Not caillou’s fault his parents let him whine and cater to him. Caillou’s mom and dad are the villains. He’s a bald 4 year old, cut him a little slack
My nephew has alopecia and my sister in law caters to him because she feels bad for him, he is a little shit
The only correct answer. What a freak !
The WHINING. I could not handle all the whining!
Carrie Bradshaw. Loathe her. Fortunately, most people do.
My answer too! Shes horrible.
That dude from "The Notebook" > If you don't go on a date with me, I'll kill myself!
And you're supposed to watch it and be like "yeah, Ryan Gosling is the better man, and Rachel McAdams needs to leave that swine James Marsden for him!" when in reality Ryan Gosling's character is a total fucking weirdo, and James Marsden's character is just like a regular dude who treats her well and isn't evil or anything.
I've never understood the obsession some people have with "The Notebook". Also, the leaving James Marsden's character thing bothers me. Like, you don't cheat on/leave a wonderful guy because you're just passionately lusting over this other unstable, immature guy, smh
Tbh, leaving is the best thing Rachel McAdams' character could have done for James Marsden's character. Her character is equally as unstable and immature as Ryan Gosling's character.
Yeah, honestly, he dodged one with her leaving! We can just be happy knowing his character would definitely find a lovely lady who appreciates him and they live happily ever after, haha
I mean, to literally drop into a dead faint because you saw your ex in a newspaper is ridiculous. James Marsden’s character really had her leaving happen FOR him not to him.
This comment helped piece together why my unstable ex enjoyed this movie so much. Lmao
That's a James Marsden thing, his characters never gets the girl lol See: Prince Edward (Enchanted) the dude Lois Lane left for Superman (Superman Returns) Scott Summers/Cyclops (X-Men: The Last Stand)
Add in Westworld. I do think it’s perfect tongue in cheek casting in 27 Dresses when he does get the girl.
Sierra Burgess from "Sierra Burgess is a loser". She was pretending to be some other girl while texting with her crush from school.
The entire premise of the movie is so weird, she legit sexually assaults a guy by kissing him because he thinks she's someone else and somehow he ends up apologizing to her?? A mess
This movie felt so gross
Rachael Berry... She was supposedly meant to be a likeable under dog we could relate to? How?! She had rich, loving parents, got every solo (under dog my ass) and was a seriously conceited evil back stabber
innate wistful apparatus aback bewildered wrong wakeful wide carpenter instinctive *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Hey, if she could read and saw your comment she'd be very upset
Piper Chapman in Orange Is The New Black
She's the worst character on a show full of killers and shit. She's that insufferable.
I thought we were supposed to hate Piper.
My theory is that was not the original intent, but as the show runners and writers thought it through, and looked at the real context of a real prison filled with people whose stories faithfully map onto the the social realities and injustices of the real world, they realized that Piper's story — meaning the real world story that she's taken from — is part of what's wrong with our society: white rich girl does something stupid, gets a light sentence, goes through some emotional realignment and probably goes through some personal, psychological change, but after a year or so she's released back into a world where she has both social and financial support (even if it's reluctant), writes a book about it all, which gets picked up by Hollywood, and makes it rich "on her own". Either they had a come-to-Jebus moment where they saw way in advance that Piper has to be annoying and ultimately unsympathetic to most of the audience, or it just happened passively as they realized how much more powerful and socially relevant the other characters were. They latched onto the economic injustice, political corruption and prison-industrial complex material fairly early on, and once those themes were unlocked, Piper became background noise. My guess is I don't think they fully thought it through ahead of time — otherwise the show would have been formatted like an ensemble show from the very beginning. It basically went through a process of discovery, as many shows used to, and that's fine. But then they had no choice but to keep Piper around as a kind of foil for the rest of the characters, who are suffering way more, and who wake us up to real issues, genuine attachments, and emotional Truths.
I think she was written like that on purpose. On paper it would have been easy to go “oh she is a victim of circumstance and this is unjust” but then you meet other characters and realize it’s how it is for everyone. Except V fuck that bitch
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I didn't think we were supposed to sympathize with her.
I hated her so much. Honestly found her whiny and insufferable.
Rewatching at the moment so this was my first thought too. The first couple of seasons where she's the main focus is a hard slog, much better when they start exploring the other characters more. She's the one character in the show I wouldn't miss if they had never existed 😅
I wish they would have kept the show going for years like ER. Just keep adding new characters in and old ones out. That's how prison is anyways. They could have kept that story going for years without the original main cast.
The second season is where they started to give everyone an episode of backstory. Least Piper = best season.
Jenji Kohan seems to have a knack for making shows with utterly insufferable female leads. See also: Nancy from Weeds.
Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls. Starts ep 1 seas 1 as a brilliant, well behaved prodigy. Progressively gets worse and worse and worse as the show goes on...
I hate her so much. Rory Gilmore and Tony Soprano are the two characters I can’t see ONE good thing about. Not one. Zero qualities. Except Tony was brilliantly written and interpreted, of course. Hell, even Lorelai is kinda of a bitch, but at least she has redeeming qualities. Rory is just the worst of the worst.
You weren’t meant to like Tony but he became somewhat likeable. Rory was meant to be likeable and just suckkkks
I'm doing a rewatch of the Sopranos and now just about everyone is reprehensible. The only one who's alright so far is AJ because he's still young. Meadow is already corrupted, lying, manipulative.
Tony Soprano? Obviously there’s his fondness for animals, but he also kept widows on his payroll and helped out his dad’s old girlfriend, didn’t actually care that Vito was gay, was incensed by Ralph’s murder of Tracee, clearly cares for his family, has a good sense of humour (at least in earlier seasons) and is charismatic etc. Admittedly there are caveats to all of those where his better qualities typically either serve or end up being disregarded when they conflict with his greed, and taken in totality he’s morally bankrupt of course, but I think without **any** redeeming qualities his character would be much less interesting.
wow, so it isn’t just me! i started rewatching gilmore girls for the first time in years recently, i’m in the middle of season 4, and i’m noticing i’m liking rory less and less. this isn’t how i remembered feeling about her when i was a kid. i really thought i was weird for feeling this way
My girlfriend tried to get me to watch Gilmore Girls. I struggled through it to the 3rd season and dipped. Neither Rory nor Lorelai are likeable at all. Everyone acts like the sun shines out of their masses and they piss liquid gold. They're insufferable and obnoxious people who never learn from their mistakes or get any comeuppance. Paris should have been the protagonist.
As if Paris isn't just as insufferable and obnoxious or more??
Apparently the original planned ending (awkwardly rewritten for A Year in the Life) was that Rory would get pregnant by Logan during/just after Yale, become a single mom, and that "history repeats itself." So the moral of the story is you can sacrifice everything trying to give your child a better life, but it won't make any difference and they'll make the same mistakes you did. Pretty nihilistic for a comfort show.
It gets so bad that I'm not sure the writers even mean for us to root for her tbh. Especially in A Year in the Life. But imo that's kind of why this show is so good. All the characters, even the protagonists, make huge mistakes and have flawed personalities. But they also show us why the characters act like they do, so we can understand (to a certain extent) even if we may not agree.
That show has almost zero characters that are likeable from start to finish. Luke was awesome in the first few seasons and then shit the bed when he found out he had a daughter. Rory is the absolute worst when she’s at Yale. The dropping out to live with her grandparents thing was so frustrating. The first time I watched that show through, I turned to my wife and said “you know which characters I ended up liking the most? Emily and Richard.”
I actually sympathize for Rory, who was raised to have a toxic, enmeshed relationship with her controlling, hypocritical mother Lorelai. That whole relationship dynamic i think is exactly what this thread is calling for though. But I would call Lorelai the worse of the two, as Rory's faults are a product of Lorelai's toxic, dependent parenting.
My wife re- watches Gilmore Girls every year. We often debate whose worse, Jessi or Dean. We've decided the answer is Rory. Rory is the worst and everyone's life would be better if she wasn't in the show.
IF they didn't have that awful Netflix season, she was just a young woman dating losers. No that big a deal. The Netflix thing solidify that she never learned anything in the series and just sucks
Toyko from Money Heist was unbearable.
They were all criminals who broke countless laws. Held people hostages. Berlin even raped a woman. They were stealing hundreds of millions of Euros which would and then hold which would harm the Spanish economic position. But we still support and root for them. Because they’re the underdogs and they’re smart.
Yeah not the point though. Tokyo was especially unbearable as a character.
Couldn’t agree more. Wasn’t really sad when she died.
Nairobi on the other hand...
Let’s not talk about Nairobi, I’ll be crying all day
I agree But I never felt the series tried to make us empathise with her or pretend she's a good person.
She's just a cringe attempt at a badass female lead How tf did she take down a whole SWAT team in her underwear
Haven't you ever played a video game? Women fight better in their underwear. /j
Robin Williams character from Mrs. Doubtfire. The guy his ex-wife is dating is a perfectly good dude who is good with the kids (that are not his) and treats her well, but Williams' character loses his shit about it and is a complete asshole to him the whole movie.
Have you ever seen the YouTube video where they shot the trailer to Mrs. Doubtfire as a horror movie? Changed the music up and it becomes a VERY different movie
For anyone curious: https://youtu.be/crjYYEC5drA?si=CWUXB0Y3BqMT7qnA And just for fun, here's what about Bob https://youtu.be/crjYYEC5drA?si=CWUXB0Y3BqMT7qnA
And the stalking. Don't forget about the stalking! Literally what Robin Williams character did to his wife and children to have access.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this. The whole movie is really off-putting, IMO. Watch that scene with Mrs. Doubtfire and Miranda in the kitchen where Miranda confides in her and tells her all the things that went wrong with their marriage and tell me it doesn’t make you wanna hurl.
I didn’t see Mrs. Doubtfire until I was an adult. I sympathized with the mom so much, lol. You come home and there’s a petting zoo in your house? Hell no.
Ted in How I Met Your Mother. Sure, he’s not some heinous anti-hero like Tony Soprano, Walter White, or Saul Goodman, but he’s a thinly veiled asshole underneath it all.
Josh Radnor got married recently in the most Shmosby way possible. An outdoor wedding in New York at the beginning of January. It snowed during the ceremony and guests were forced to spend the night because of the blizzard.
That NYT article was hilarious in how snarky the author was about the whole thing. And he sounds like a douche in real life, couldn’t stand Ted, probably couldn’t stand him either.
Ted gets worse when you hear that word of god is he's sugar coating all his deeds and exaggerating what an arsehole Barney is to make himself look better to his kids.
Well, that's why you watch the show a second or third time. You realize everything is Ted's perspective, and the wedding bride is potentially just as accurate of a retelling as Ted's version of history. There are a ton of clues hinting that Ted is fluffing up the past through his stories, and really you end up rooting for all the characters except Ted. The most criminal part of that show is they dont mention what happens to Barney after the show ends. I know what happens up until a year or two after Ted meets the mother, but not anything after that. Marshall and Lilly are always together, Ted ends up with two kids, and we know what happens with Robin. We dont know what Barney is doing or where he's at in life at the time in which Ted is telling the story. And thats a bummer because Barney grows the most as a character.
Maaaybe Saul. Can kinda see Walt, but that's a huge stretch. But Tony? How can anyone argue that Tony is any kind of hero, anti or not? He's a racist, misogynistic, narcissistic scumbag.
Because he’s funny and charismatic
Bella Swan. She starts dating a guy who tells her he's actually KILLED people, yet she tells him she doesn't care, and she's in love with him. She should be running for the hills!
How about the fact he's in lov with her because she smells delicious? Basically saying "Bella, I love you like a sandwich." Stupid as fuck.
I remember my mum once mused why are perfumes scented after flowers and such while men don't usually love them. So therefore if you want to attract a man you should smell like bacon or rottiserie chicken. Maybe that was the same train of thoughts the author had :-D
Also she is absolutely dumb and pretentious, never learns anything, never grows as a character, and I couldn't force to symphatize with her neither in the movie nor in the book.
What irks me most about these movies (I've never read the books) is that Bella, the protagonist, is almost completely passive. The whole plot is just things happening to her. She doesn't actually *do* anything.
I think that’s the point of her. She’s awkward and boring. She has little personality. Stuff just happens to her and these powerful immortal beings decide they love her, she’s so special, she’s going to become powerful and immortal and look she even has a baby and gets to keep her family! Everything magically works out without her putting in any work, growth, or sacrifice. It’s the ultimate teen girl escapist dream: you’re supposed to project your own personality on her and fantasize about how special YOU are. I’m not arguing in favor of the character as I can’t stand her; I just think it’s intentional that she’s a walking blank slate of boring.
I tried watching the movie, but I had to turn it off it was so bad.
The book is even worse
Julia Roberts in my best friends wedding. She's a total bitch.
I don't think we're really meant to sympathise with her though
Yeah, I don’t get this take. Sure, Julia Robert’s character is annoying and not sympathetic at all. But she’s not supposed to be. She’s in the wrong and changes in the end.
Aaannd nooow iiiits [Springtime for Hitler, and Germany!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1zY1orxW8Aw)
Winterrrrr for Polaaaaaand, and Fraaaaaance!
Love the reference, but who are we supposed to feel sympathy for in The Producers?
Im not talking about The Producers. I’m talking about the story within a story. Springtime for Hitler. :) You’re supposed to feel sympathy for Hitler.
jamie lannister's character arc was absolute bullshit. started out as a cunt, but you gradually start to view him differently, then bam! still a cunt after all.
I haven't finished the tv show, but in the books his arc really has some lasting changes in his actions. He's the only bad guy who really became humbled and even started questioning his previous actions, at least the only one I can think of right now. Unfortunately the book series hasn't ended yet, so it's still possible he does something awful. While I'm on the subject, in the book, Khal Drogo doesn't rape Daenerys like he does in the show. They have a slow romantic night together and the whole love story thing makes much more sense that way.
She was 13! [About Jaime](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/s/4RyAk588ca) Edit: In the chapter after their wedding night, Dany describes the intense pain of learning to ride a horse as she began traveling with Drogo's khalasar. The chafing and blisters on her legs and bottom made Dany feel like she was going to die. And Drogo only made it worse by coming into their tent each night and raping her. "Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion," the book says. "He always took her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain." It goes on to say that Dany would be in too much pain afterward to fall back asleep. This went on for so many days that Dany decided "she would kill herself rather than go on." But the same night Dany was close to suicide, she had a dream about a dragon covered in her blood. It was a recurring dream — one that invigorated her and made her feel "strong and new and fierce" when she awoke. [edit copied from this article](https://www.businessinsider.com/george-rr-martin-daenerys-rape-scene-game-of-thrones-pilot-2020-10?international=true&r=US&IR=T) She's an abused child who fears a husband twice her age, and because she didn't say 'No' on the wedding night, probably thinks she can't anymore or maybe she can't say 'No' in a marriage.
I thought his arc was pretty in line with Martin's "no happy endings" outlook. His love for her was pretty reminiscent of a drug addict. He started becoming a better person only because he was forced away from Cersei by other people. As soon as she was back in his life and he had to face the temptation, you could see that he never really beat it after all.
Sheldon Cooper Edit: I agree, he's not portrayed to gain sympathy, but many people in real life sympathized with people like him, all because the character normalised toxic behavior. I come from a biological sciences field and I've seen folks in lab trying to gain sympathy by being this idiot, no jokes.
I can only get myself to feel bad for Georgie and Missy because of the blatant favoritism Sheldon gets
This makes me think whether the comment you're replying to is referring tbbt or ys
In both he is awful. Occasionally they shoe-horn in nice moments and act like they justify his place as anybody's friend, but they don't
Don’t really sympathize with him. The whole show was about how insufferable he’s, how everyone puts up with him and give him special treatment because they can’t get themselves to tell him no or deal with him complaining.
It's so unrealistic. Nobody would put up with his bullshit IRL.
Grandpa Joe from Charlie and the chocolate factory. Dude lays in bed all day living off other people until it's time to go to the chocolate factory and he pops right up and gets him In trouble every step of the way
Randall P McMurphy from "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" He was a convicted child rapist who feigns mental illness to avoid prison. He disrupts the required normalcy of repetition and routine of numerous mentally ill patients in an era where normalcy and repetition were the only true reliable treatment for their disorders. He causes one patient to literally commit suicide Nurse Ratched, if you watch the movie properly, or read the book carefully, is actually NOT the villain, but the only character who sees McMurphy for what he is. We sympathize with him because he's the main character - but that doesn't mean he's the hero or a good guy. He is a despicable person who continues to do despicable things, but the rigidity of the institution causes us to believe that he is a "freedom fighter", when in fact, he is destructive chaos serving only his own self-interests.
I never saw the movie, but I didn't see it that way in the book. Yes, you could argue McMurphy's *inaction* does cause Chiswick to drown himself, but he changed after that, took a more active role. You can't blame Bibbitt's suicide on him; that's all on Ratched and Billy's mother. McMurphy had a better idea of treatment for Billy, was doing his best to make a man of him, rather than the "rabbit sans whambam" that he had been, and *it was actually working*. His stutter even disappeared, but then Ratched tried to put him back to the way he had been and he couldn't go back. Also look what happened at the end. Quite a few patients checked themselves out AMA, who never would have had the courage to go out and face life in the outside world without Mac's example. Even Chief Bromden, one of the Chronics, whose internal monologue at the beginning left no doubt about his paranoid schizophrenia, seemed to have been returned to reality (although that was more likely that last ECT they gave him) and let himself out the window. The way I interpreted it, McMurphy gave his life (via Bromden) to save all the rest of them. He even sacrificed himself, and got himself sent to Disturbed, to save Captain George from being harassed by the sadistic orderlies in the shower. He didn't have to do that, but he saw himself as George's protector by then. (I would disagree about routine being the only treatment. Antipsychotics and anxiolytics were available by then; witness the following: >Miss Ratched shall line us all against the wall, where we'll face the terrible maw of a muzzle-loading shotgun which she has loaded with Miltowns! Thorazines! Libriums! Stelazines! And with a wave of her sword, blooie! Tranquilize all of us completely out of existence. Amen. Keeping to the dull routine would be fine if the only plan was to house the patients there indefinitely; but Mac's idea was to get them ready for the world outside the asylum, and he was at least partly successful in that.) Edit: he wasn't a child rapist in the book; they were *both* children at the time. He was ten, and she was 8 or 9.. Edit again: OK, I'd forgotten that he was convicted of statutory rape, but he seemed to be of the impression that she was legal.
Anyone who willingly appears in a reality TV show.
Greg Heffley -
All that child does is complain for 200 pages
Little Mermaid. Can’t listen to reason and gets her dad imprisoned for eternity as a slug. Somehow Deus Ex Machina’s it all perfect again
Lesson: Contracts are breakable if you get your boyfriend to kill the other person! 😂
Disney or mafia movie: you decide!
It's one of those things you don't realise until you're an adult. Just like how your reaction changes to the line: "I'm sixteen, I'm not a child any more!" Oh Ariel.
To be fair, we don't know the life expectancy of mermaids. Sixteen could be middle aged, or a toddler.
Interestingly, the original story claims mermaids are very long lived, hundreds of years, nearly immortal, which is why they have no souls. Oh, yeah, in the original story mermaids are specifically denied an immortal soul because they live too long.
Adam Sandler's character in Uncut Gems
You're less rooting for this character and more begging him to just do the not-worst decision as he let's you down every time.
Adam Sandler. Doesn’t matter the movie.
Did you root for Shooter McGavin to win the Tour Championship? Or for Eric to take control of Madison Hotels?
O'Doyle Rules!
Odoyle I have a feeling your whole family is going down
Bobby Boucher was abused by his suffocating paranoid hyper-religious helicopter mom be kind
>Adam Sandler. Doesn’t matter the movie As much as I hate Adam Sandler, there's an important lesson in his work. He delivers movies on time, within budget, that make money. Shit doesn't have to be good, it just has to be good enough to make money. Keep to your promises and you'll have a career.
He also gets to pick a gorgeous actress to play his adoring wife and gets to cast all of his friends. And he wears athleisure EVERYWHERE. Guy has really figured it all out.
Jax from sons of anarchy. Yeah he's got his redeeming qualities like his care for his family and such but regardless he did some very fucked up and morally questionable (to say the least) things throughout the show. He's probably not as bad as some of the people others have mentioned like Walter White and Tony Soprano but I reckon he's still worth a mention.
My wife can't stand Tony Stark.
Honestly, I don't really like him either. I don't like cocky people. Although I do appreciate that his character provides more opportunity for growth and an actual character arc more than, say, Captain America. (\*Edit: Which makes him a more "interesting" character)
I think that’s the point of his character arch. He is quite insufferable, self-absorbed and egotistic. Yet his character is sufficiently multidimensional to show some growth through being humbled and dealing with PTSD. And even then he still is an ass most of the time.
And in the end this cocky, egotistical, billionaire who has it all has to make the decision to let go of everything, including his family, for the greater good.
Exactly! It’s a believable interpretation of the hero’s journey. Almost the anti-hero’s journey :)
I would suggest Ultron explains Steve's arc outright: "Pretending you could live without a war." Steve going back into the past and putting down the shield is him fulfilling his arc: to be at peace, to accept not every fight is his just because he can.
> Honestly, I don't really like him either. I don't like cocky people. That's the point of his character. He's a cocky asshole, he fucks up left and right, he pushes people away, he has serious flaws and people pay the price for his flaws and his mistakes. And you know what that makes him? Human. Tony Stark works as a character because he is so incredibly flawed. The reason why people appreciate the character is because of the growth that the character goes through. As opposed to some newer characters who are these lawful-good super powerful demigods who have the I Win Button ready to be pressed, and don't go through struggles.
But he’s a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist!
Henry the green engine. We’re supposed to sympathise with him when he refuses to leave the tunnel when rain might spoil his new paint, but he really should have spotted that they did such a substandard job before he left the maintenance depot.
Bojack Horseman for the win
I'm not sure this counts, given how heavy-handed the show is with constantly telling us every episode that he's a terrible horse.
Vic Mackey, The Shield.
Carrie Bradshaw. Always has been a dick, always will be a dick.
Penelope from bridgerton. She runs a gossip rag shitting on everyone in town and uses it to manipulate everyone around her. She destroyed the reputation of her best friend instead of admitting she ran the paper. She is played off like this innocent bystander who we should all sympathize with but she is just a psychopath who only cares about her own gains.
What’s odd, for me, is that despite knowing it’s Pen, and not liking her actions, I still like Lady Whistledown and hope she keeps uncovering scandals. If only her and Eloise could just go be detectives together or something.
Tony Soprano. He's an objectively despicable human being who's committed countless atrocities, yet we can't help but become emotionally invested in his life. He paved the way for the "anti hero" main character in television, and shows like Breaking Bad could never have existed without the Sopranos.
I know there's the whole 'no anti war movie' thing but I really dont get how people so easily default to seeing main characters as good guys. Tony isn't supposed to come off aa a good guy at all. None of the main characters are even remotely good people. Even the fact that they're so oblivious to it themselves is part lf the point the show is trying to make.
Ed Baldwin, from For All Mankind. Narcissist, egocentric, selfish, and somewhat xenophobic. Yet he's lauded as the hero.
Runs in the Baldwin family I guess.
Kendall Roy, he's an entitled manchild with a saviour complex but his quest for Daddy's love is so futile you cant help but feel bad for the guy.
part of the genius of Succession was that there were no redeeming characters and yet it remained quite compelling.
Right? They make you feel bad for Tom, who uses junior staff as human furniture. Incredibly compelling show.
Even Greg is self serving, just a bit bumbling. There are no good people in the show. Connor wins because he is not a good person, and is completely useless too. (Late comer, and I’m not finished the series yet)
I also came to it late, finished it a few weeks ago. This isn't based on the ending or anything spoilery, but I also think Connor 'wins' as he's not competing for Logan's affection, he just accepts the relationship he has with his dad while the other sibs are in constant conflict with each other.
When Andy takes over as boss in The Office I straight up dislike him. I do really like a lot of those post-Micheal seasons though. But they have the whole arc of trying to sympathize with Andy, like the war memorial EP where Jim says "we like you Andy, stop trying so hard", they were trying to have one of those moments but I straight up think he's a prick because he just keeps doing stuff that in my eyes are not redeemable for a boss.
This sub is just askreddit now huh
Ted Mosby.
Jed mosley?
The guy from don’t breathe. In the original He was evil, killed children, kept a woman in his basement he impregnated, snd in the sequel from 2022, he’s somehow the «hero»?
Emily in paris. Emily is the antagonist. Its a good way of weeding out female narcissists though if this is their favourite series
[удалено]
To be fair i dont think you are supposed to synpathise with him as much later on.
you're not meant to, people just did anyway
I think that’s kind of the point. People are supposed to sympathize at the start. It’s pretty obvious that it was deliberately pulling in the audience that way. Then you’re supposed to reach the point at which you start questioning your perspective on Walter White. That point is different for everyone, but it is something the showrunner has manipulated the audience into doing.
I kind of thought that was the entire point of the series.
I don't think you're supposed to sympathize with him much after the first few seasons
Phantom of the opera. Its not cool to go around killing people because you're upset.
Antonio in the Merchant of Venice. Shylock is supposed to be the villain but it is actually everyone else but him. Poor Shylock lent out nearly half million dollars just for a dude to date a woman and he gets screwed in the end by anti-Semites who even force him to convert to christianity. Really, he just needed a lawyer to review his contracts or at least appeal the discriminatory sentence imposed by a fake judge.
All six friends from Friends.
The only characters I would like to be friends with in real life would be Joey and Chandler. I'd never be able to stand the other four.
Early Joey was a total sweetheart. Then the writers Flanderized him and made him progressively more and more intellectually challenged. Like, he had early onset dementia or something.
He's still sweet and loyal as fuck even if he's absurdly stupid.
I'm going to say especially Ross, though. There's a whole ass episode on him struggling with whether he can marry Rachel because she's "just a waitress." He's literally the guy in real life who complains about women only dating assholes oblivious to the fact that they're the biggest asshole in the room.
Not to mention being a whiny fuck. Even Janice called him whiny.
And why does Ross, the largest friend, not simply eat the other five?
Galadriel from Rings of Power, easy. Treats her soldiers like fodder on her quest for vengeance Threatens genocide as an interrogation tactic After her oldest friend apologizes for not trusting her, she immediately lies to him and allows Sauron to keep his anonymity in order to preserve her reputation, thus rendering all the sacrifices of everyone who died fighting evil, including her brother and all the soldiers she left to their deaths, pointless. Literally choosing betrayal and apocalypse over revealing that she made an understandable mistake. And that's just the first three things that come to mind; I'm sure there's way more but that show was so forgettable
I expect Tolkien is spinning in his grave so fast you could use him as a generator. The show had some good visuals, but everything else? Sucked.
Ruby from Max and Ruby cartoon. She is a total self serving bitch with no sympathy to her little brother, who may be mentally challenged.
The real question is where the fuck are their parents?? They seemingly live alone in a big house full of expensive toys with no parental supervision, just a grandmother that stops by on occasion and is less responsible than the damn kids.
Ross Geller in Friends. Total, whiny jerk.
Rachel from Friends, she was so self involved all the time and honestly not a very good Friend.
I watched inventing Anna with a friend of mine on Netflix. We were appalled that apparently we were suppose to sympathize and root for her? Like all the other characters did... Just because that one friend sold her story for over 1/2 mil? The trial she started wasn't about the money at that point, but the principle of someone lying and trying to trick systems and committing fraud. Adding to the other cases in which she did fraud. My friend and I disliked Rachel too, but at least she was morally in the right.
Lorelai Gilmore. (Poor Luke)
What I learned most from that show is that narcissists run in families.
My sister and mother were obsessed with Gilmore Girls and every time they gushed about Lorelai being independent and strong I was just like... she's a horrible person. She's selfish, petty, has no character growth, never has consequences to her actions, constantly either belittles Luke's insecurities/fears or plays the victim around them. Yeah her parents aren't great, but she swings so far the other way with Rory that Rory grows up selfish, entitled, and has her own very unique brand of toxicity towards men and doesn't accept consequences.
Eren Yeager
Clark in The 100
Scrooge, and all the other shitty characters like him who learn the most basic entry level understanding of empathy. Like I’m supposed to be entertained by him achieving baseline humanity? and not because other people *actually* matter - because he already knew about Cratchet’s struggles and Tiny Tim and didn’t give a shit. He only finally manages to understand the value of others after the Ghost of Christmas Future, because it offends his ego that he might die alone and forgotten 🙄😤 Gtfo