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Post by magikcat on Feb 25, 2009 20:55:23 GMT -5
I'm not sure where to put this, but since this was more opinion than discussing questions I thought it'd go here.
Anyway, what character is you least favorite and why?
For me, it has always been Bellatrix Lestrange. She's the kind of woman that I NEVER want to be -- she's just ... too evil to be even slightly cool. Pushy, selfish, no respect for others -- she reminds me of the Queen Bees I knew at school ... in a warped, crazy way. And her romantic attachment to Voldemort always sickened me.
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Post by Author By Night on Feb 25, 2009 21:34:10 GMT -5
I've moved the topic here, just FYI.
My least favorite character who is supposed to be sympathetic is Winky, to be honest. I know we're supposed to feel sorry for her, but she ticks me off. I don't know why - it's not her fault that her loyalty to Crouch is practically programmed in!
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Post by pigwithhair on Feb 25, 2009 23:14:25 GMT -5
Oh, mine was clearly Umbridge. She was worse than Voldemort in my book: tortuous lunatic that she was. I hated her all the more for hiding behind the pink. I think she really did think she was doing the "right" thing. Clearly insane.
And she set the dementors on Harry. I was disappointed that was left out of the film.
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Post by mo on Feb 26, 2009 14:21:38 GMT -5
There are so many villains that are detestable...but I can't say that they are bad characters, because they are actually wonderful characters that evoke exactly the fear and revulsion that a good villain should.
I would say my most-hated villain would be Umbridge, because she has enough bureaucratic prosaic rigidity to seem aaaaalmost normal and unimportant...and beneath that irritatingly bland exterior lies a truly evil person, one who is so at home with the horrors of the Muggleborn purge that she can produce a corporeal Patronus while wearing the Horcrux and surrounded by Dementors. Blech. Other characters may be more extreme in their evil, but there is something deeply disturbing about the way the Umbridge's blackened soul lurks beneath this simpering little bureaucrat with a hair bow.
My least favorite character in terms of literary complaints would be Ginny. I feel like JKR knew from the start that Ginny's arc would end in the epilogue as Harry's wife, I just wish there had been more attention paid to developing and fleshing out her character every year as the series went on. Her personality seems to jump around a bit with no explication of how or why this occurred. It's not that I dislike Ginny as a person, it's that I find it hardest to imagine that person. The other characters, from primary to barely-there all jump off the page, and I feel like Ginny is an unfortunate exception.
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Post by pigwithhair on Feb 26, 2009 19:47:40 GMT -5
MaybeOnce, I have to agree with you about Ginny. I feel the same. I liked her well enough early on, and she had a resurgence of likeability from me when Harry broke up with her at the end of HBP - I liked how she reacted there. But through most of books five and six she was a spoiled snot I just wanted to smack. I have all older brothers and I just can not relate to her.
I agree with your assessment that this is mostly down to her not being as well fleshed out. We didn't see much of her and Harry, which I was actually grateful for since I don't like her, but I think it hindered the character.
I think JKR was trying to bring her off as a very strong personality - and, for me at least, missed the boat.
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Post by Mirabelle on Feb 26, 2009 22:35:20 GMT -5
Luna, for me. I cannot stand her. I do not find her particularly wise or insightful. I really don't understand why people seem to think she's this independent person who doesn't care what people think of her and is perfectly fine being by herself when she's states in HBP that she missed being around people. She paints pictures of people on her ceiling and writes "friends" around them! That is not the action of someone who doesn't care if people don't want to be her friend. Frankly, I thought that was creepy. I don't blame anyone at Hogwarts for not wanting to be her friend.
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Post by misshickerson on Feb 27, 2009 13:01:54 GMT -5
I wasn't overly fond of the house elves. Kreacher was my favorite of them all, just because he took the creepiness of unswerving devotion to terrifying heights. Dobby and Winky were annoying to me and led to the whole SPEW movement which didn't come to fruition.
I teared up when Dobby died, but I was not as heartbroken as at Hedwig's death.
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Post by vegablack on Feb 27, 2009 14:38:48 GMT -5
I don't include the villains in my list of least favorite characters since they propel the story and are often fun to read.
The characters I disliked and found annoying are Dobby and the houseelves. I found Doby and Winky annoying. The best part of Dobby was his death.
Worse than Doby and Winky was the Grawp subplot. I don't like the invention of barely intelligent sentient characters. I found Grawp boring to read about and he supplied little to the story. Hagrid was a welcome element in the early books when they were very much books for children. In time Harry out grew Hagrid, who became a little tiresome but he was a part of Harry's life that couldn't be excised. The subplots surrounding him and the addition of Grawp was boring beyond forgiveness.
The funeral of Aragog almost made up for it though.
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Post by starsea on Feb 27, 2009 17:05:35 GMT -5
I wasn't overly fond of the house elves. Kreacher was my favorite of them all, just because he took the creepiness of unswerving devotion to terrifying heights. Dobby and Winky were annoying to me and led to the whole SPEW movement which didn't come to fruition. Yes. I don't dislike them as much as you, but I never got why everyone loved Dobby so much, though I did think he was funny. In the end, that whole plot seemed to only be there so Harry could be nice to Kreacher and find out what Regulus did. Finally somebody else who felt the same way as me!  And Vega, I was incredibly frustrated with the Grawp plot as well. Hagrid got really irritating during the later books. |
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Post by Mirabelle on Feb 27, 2009 20:55:39 GMT -5
I wasn't heartbroken over Dobby's death at all and my eyes were as dry as the Sahara when I was reading it. A part of me is resentful he got a funeral when other characters, characters I actually liked, did not.
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Post by birdg on Feb 27, 2009 21:05:22 GMT -5
LOL, a woman after my own heart!
I echo the Grawp and Dobby disdain. Grawp was pointless and JKR obviously being a bit indulgent over one of her favorite characters and Dobby was walking-talking Deus Ex Machina.
Other than them, my least favorite would have to be Petunia and Vernon Dursley. Especially Vernon. It actually took me a few tries before I could read the first book because I was so angry at how they treated Harry. I knew it was supposed to be a modern take on the fairy-tale trope of the bad step-family but having it in a modern setting just made their neglect and abuse of Harry seem all the more worse.
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Post by vegablack on Feb 28, 2009 1:37:32 GMT -5
I almost listed Vernon Dursley. He was almost unreadable at times. I think a kid might have enjoyed reading him though.
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Post by kelleypen on Feb 28, 2009 9:02:02 GMT -5
I'm going to preface this with, please don't hate me, but my least favorite sympathetic character is Hermione.
Her I told you so's make me crazy. Her attacking Ron with little birdies makes me want to attack her back. Her holding on to grudges before she will forgive makes me want to shake her. Her bossiness makes me want Harry and Ron to do anything but what she suggested.
She is redeemable with Ron . . . I like them together and shipped them all along. But Hermione herself? Ick.
Most nauseating bad guy? Umbridge.
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Post by vegablack on Mar 1, 2009 2:22:17 GMT -5
I always liked the fact that Hermione made studying and knowing things seem attractive. She could help Harry and do something as exciting as magic because she was studious. I appreciated that in her as a character. She is a know-it-all though.
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Post by doriscrockford on Mar 1, 2009 6:48:12 GMT -5
Umbridge, definitely. She is a weak-minded woman who was given undeserved power and then chose to abuse those more vulnerable than herself with it. I absolutely loathe people like that and I haven't read OotP as often as the other books because I get so irate by the injustice of her behaviour.
In the films, I think Dobby was my least favourite. I love BookDobby, but AnimatedDobby was too close to and too soon after Jar Jar Binks for me to warm to him. I might have, if he'd been in GoF like he was supposed to, though.
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Post by Mirabelle on Mar 1, 2009 13:55:34 GMT -5
MovieDobby looks liked the shriveled mushroom version of Alexander Putin. No wonder there were rumors Putin wanted to sue.
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Post by Alexis on Mar 1, 2009 16:40:58 GMT -5
Like mo, for me it depends whether it's least favorite as a person/magical being or least favorite as a part of the story.
Voldemort wins for least favorite as a person, hands down! After all, he's the one behind all the violence and hatred. Bellatrix and Umbridge follow close behind.
As far as the story goes, all the people mentioned above are good characters. A story about a boy hero doesn't work without villains! There's not really anyone here that I feel incredibly strongly about, though there are several characters (e.g. Snape) who have lots of fans that I'm mostly indifferent about. And I agree with other posters that Grawp was a not that exciting plot device. I guess maybe you could call him my least favorite? But I really don't feel that strongly about it.
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Post by eirdescania on Mar 2, 2009 10:17:05 GMT -5
Dumbledore. Definitely Dumbledore. Smug, megalomaniac bastard, so convinced he was so much better and cleverer and wiser he never had to discuss anything with anyone. Or tell them the facts. Just expecting them to trust and obey. It was OK in the earlier books when Harry was still a child, but it became painfully obvious he treated everyone the same.
Oh, and he had a misguided fling in his late teens, causing him to become celibate and cerebral for the next hundred years. While lecturing other on The Power Of Love.
But I agree with the Grawp-bashing. Whole-heartedly.
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Post by vegablack on Mar 2, 2009 13:44:47 GMT -5
I agree with you opinion of Dumbledore Eirdescania but with a twist.
I find that I like Dumbledore less outside the books than in them. I was feeling the way you were and then read Beedle the Bard and found him charming and winsome again. The weird thing was that I felt that way even as I found his attitude to lies and deceiving people for their own good apparent in the book. I found that attitude offensive but still liked him.
He is charming and engaging, but sinister all the same. That he could who made an error that killed his disabled sister could say that he rarely made mistakes says something about him as a person. And he did make an error he brought someone into his home to meet his brother and sister who were still children who had been expelled from school for his activities. He'd proved capable of mistreating others already. The man had an ideology that looked down on the inferior. Dumbledore had an insane sister who was easy to consider inferior. The situation was a tragedy waiting to happen. (I'm going to start a thread on Dumbledore because this is going outside the purpose of this thread.)
I think the fact that he can so win me over even as I disapprove of him makes him a very interesting character.
I wouldn't say he was my least favorite for the same reason I wouldn't list the villains. He made the story happen. He was entertaining, but he always gave me the creeps even in the early books. The last book explained to me why.
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Post by Chocolatepot on Mar 2, 2009 18:17:55 GMT -5
I'm definitely not a big Dobby or Winky fan ... and I like Hagrid basically just because Harry does. I would not have minded it if he hadn't been in the last few books, and I think I've read a total of three fics that involved him at all. (One was "Just Plain Wrong", and now I have to hate myself for remembering it.)
So much agreeing. I liked Luna at first, but the more I saw the fandom perception that she's the epitome of cool outsiders who march to their own drum, the more I just went "meh". She's weird, and doesn't get how to fit in, but I never got the sense that she wasn't fitting in because she felt she was above it all. She just had no clue how to relate to other people.
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