Characters you love and hate (at the same time)

[Hachimitsu]

I thought about starting this thread for Characters any of the members love and hate or are seriously conflicted about. When I say characters, I mean any character from any form or entertainment, literature, poetry, television, movies, video games, anything.

When I say conflicted about, I mean as an audience member you can't confirm your feelings about a character one way or another. This is not a thread for characters you totally love, or for characters that you hate with a passion of a 1000 burning suns. It's a thread where you feel both those feelings at the same time.

You can post your own thoughts without reading my 2 picks first so go for it. Sorry for being so wordy.


So anyway I will start with my list and give reasons why I feel that particular way about them. I may also put in some things that are slightly spoilery so I will give warning to people who are interested.


Scorpious of Farscape (Television show)

In the begining, I hated this character. He is evil, obsessively driven and will do anything to reach his goals. For quite while I just chalked it up to he's evil and power hungry.

For those who don't know Farscape, Scorpious was like the most evil villains I had ever seen in television.

Usually that is about all you get from characters like him. But then the writers of Farscape give him a back story, which is very sad and dark. But then people can still be evil and power hungry with a sad back story, right?
Then we find out he is trying to save his mother's people. By getting his hands on this amazing weapon John Chrichton has, Scorpious can save his mother's people from being destroyed. It's not about self agrandizement at all (at least in his mind).

Even though he makes John' Chrichton's life a living hell, and does not ask for anything nicely for some reason I understand his obsessive determination.

SPOILER stuff


Also it's very interesting, he never knew his mother, but in certain reconstructed flash backs, we find that he himself has imagined that his mother would be sympathetic toward Peackeepers. As an audience member we know the same information he knows about his mother. She could hate Peacekeepers for all we know. I think I find it interesting that in Scorpy's cold calculating heart that he wishes he could make amends for what happened to his mother, that is what is driving his obsession. Not want for power or self agrandizement.

He feels this way, not even knowing if she loved him back or not. *sniffle*

So even though I want to hate him for make the crew of Moya's life a living hell, I still sort of care about him and I sympathize with his goal. (Or at least the emotional justification for it). Every time I see Scorpious on screen I am pretty torn.


Yuko Ichihara from xxxHolic and Tsubasa Chronicles (Manga)

Yuko Ichihara is a very interesting character, she can grant any wish for a price. At the begining of xxxholic she gets this indentured servant boy Watanuki (she tricks the poor teenager into it). She is pretty silly and basically makes the poor boy do a lots of house keeping, cook her fancy dinners and give her alchohol.

CRUCIFER DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER

For people who are never gonna read the manga go ahead!!!

A lot of bad things happen to Watanuki and the audience realize that a lot of Yuko's attitude is front to protect Watanuki. She even says she loves him sort of. (Not romantic, but platonic mentor kind of love). Eventually Yuko tells Watanuki to leave his house and sleep in her room, since the situation is getting worse and she dosen't want him to know.

We also find out that there are wishes Yuko will not grant since the price would be too high and it would it would seem to violate her moral code.


So basically all through the story I have loved the character of Yuko. Although harsh, she is caring and protects the people she loves. Also she is very funny and makes poor Watanuki work hard.
Crucifer you better not be reading this.
THEN, in Tsubasa Chronicles (she is a cross over character) we find out that she has done something horrible to Watanuki (and it's recent). Basically he paid a horribly high price to grant a wish. Watanuki gives up all of his memories as a price for a wish to help someone. He only remembers Yuko and her shop and a couple of other things. He even give up his memories of his dead parents!!! Heck he dosen't even remember making the wish. The poor boy is questioning his own existence!!!

My reaction after reading that I was like Yuko!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How could you take away the boy's precious memories!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is all he has!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought you loved him!!! Doesn't this violate your moral code Yuko?


Crucifer you better not read this either.
I was so shocked and devastated by what she did I don't trust her anymore. In fact I hate her for what she did. I thought she cared about him. So I turned from loving a character to hating a character. I can't hate her comepletely since she was so caring to Watanuki before and I used to trust her. Now My mind is boggled and I don't know what to think of her character. I certainly can't trust her at this point.

I would love to know what everyone thinks, and you guys can critique my choices too. (I have more but this post is long enough already). Let me know if I was too sensitive about spoilers. I'll turn some of the text black if people think it's not spoilery.

[Primula Baggins]

Wilma, this is an interesting thread!

I haven't read any manga, but as you know, I love Farscape, and I have to agree about Scorpius—he's much more dimensional that villains usually are, especially on television!

Yet isn't that the key to all great villains—that they have reasons for what they're doing, that they really believe they're right? I read somewhere that in creating a villain, it's a good idea to think about the whole story from his point of view—what is he trying to accomplish? Why is it, in his mind, reasonable and desirable? The writer said you get extra points if you can raise doubt in the reader's mind, make readers wonder if the hero of the story might actually be wrong.

[MaidenOfTheShieldarm]

I feel that way about a lot well written villains, especially in Shakespeare. For example, Iago is absolutely fascinating and I enjoy him very much as a character, but I cannot like him. Othello is the same way -- I cannot bring myself to like him because he is so easily consumed by jealousy and yet his love for Desdemona is so obvious. Falstaff absolutely is ambiguous as well. Yes he's funny and jovial but at heart he often turns out to be cowardly and self-centered. Does wit make up for all of his sins? Sometimes I think not. At the same time, that's what makes Falstaff so genuine.

I could say similar (to Iago especially) for Sweeney Todd. There is so much pain and bitterness under the madness. He's a beautiful character and particularly interesting in light of what Prim said about seeing things from the villian's perspective. Sweeney could either be the villian or the tragic hero of the piece which is what is so interesting about him. Despite being a serial killer, he is ultimately very sympathetic. Even so, it feels wrong to like someone as messed up and violent as he is. (This is almost a question of versions for me as well. I like him a lot more as a person in the stage show than I do in the movie.)

Actually, I would have to say almost all of the most interesting characters fall into this character. A perfect character is usually boring, right? Oh, there are exceptions, but not having an absolute stance on a character gives a lot more food for thought. Tolkien is one of the few authors who can get away with having unambiguous characters in that respect.
I hope that's on topic. I feel like I'm talking around this a bit because so many of my favourite characters are morally ambiguous. I guess I just generally think that perfection isn't very interesting.

[Primula Baggins]

I guess I just generally think that perfection isn't very interesting.

I don't think most people think it's very interesting. To be honest, that's something about some characters in LotR that I have had a great deal of trouble getting past.

Me for the flawed characters. The ones who make big plans and then can't quite carry them out. The ones who aren't infinitely strong and perfect—where in the face of constant wearing temptation, their strength gives out, and they finally give in. (Frodo. . . . )

The ones who are, in fact, a lot like me. And, dare I say, most of us.

And the same goes for villains. Perfection of either heroism or villainy lifts a character out of reality into the heady realms of . . . shiny plastic.

[MaidenOfTheShieldarm]

That is a good point, and so I think I would emend 'perfect' to essentially good or essentially bad -- essentially any one particular thing without leaving that bit of ambiguity. Is that still the same thing? I suppose it is. There seems to be a trend to giving bad characters tragic backstories to make them not essentially bad, but that can often seem forced or predictable. So I guess what I really like is what Wilma was talking about with good people who do really horrible things or vice versa but are still very genuine throughout that spectrum.

I keep trying to explain myself but then I realize that I don't know exactly what I'm trying to explain. (Sometimes I don't know why I even bother.) I think Iago is fascinating but Shakespeare offers us no explanation for his villainy -- does that make him essentially evil? There are characters that I love that are essentially something, like Faramir who is essentially good, but they are still interesting and I'm not sure what would make them the exception.

Also, my apologies for already derailing your thread, Wilma! It really is a very interesting topic.

[Primula Baggins]

Mossy, I am glad you bother, because your posts are fascinating.

It is true that sometimes evil has no traceable cause, and I suppose that applies to virtue as well. (Though I think C. S. Lewis was onto something when he attributed notable virtue, in many cases, to a good digestion. And if the opposite can apply to villainy, I at least don't want to think about it. )

I'm warming to Faramir these days. Yes, he is good in a way for which I have trouble tracing the cause; but if he were born a good man, in the family he was born in, I feel obliged to have sympathy for his troubles.

I don't think tragic back stories are any excuse for genuine evil behavior. They make it more plausible, as with Scorpius, yes. But we all know people with extremely tragic back stories who are good and decent and kind—who have fought and struggled and risen past it. I don't think torturers like Scorpius, or serial killers in real life, get a pass because they have rough backgrounds (unless they are maimingly rough, the kind no one could emerge from sane and whole).

I prefer villains with ideals, who think they are serving them. The villains I've written have been attempts at that, some of them.

[Holbytla]

Archie Bunker

[Hachimitsu]

Oooh It's nice to see more conversation. I'll try and comment on what I can understand (some of it is a little bit over my head I think).

For me there are essentially very good characters that I can totally fall in love with. Even if they are syrupy good (Example Torhu Honda of Fruits Basket). I can love certain characters even if they have done bad things with no certain trace of residual hatred or dislike for them (a good example is Major Kira Nerys from Star Trek Deep Space 9. Depending on a persons interpretation she was a either a terrorist or a freedom fighter. Another example is Logan Echles of Veronica Mars). I think the reason those characters interest me is that there is a genuineness about their good acts (I guess).

There are evil characters who could have a sad back story yet I have no sympathy for them because they are just plain rotten in my evaluation. ( For example David from Coronation Street. Something is just plain wrong with that boy.)

But for characters I have listed in the first post, there is just something I guess I can't put my finger on about them. Maybe I find it as some form of opposition of their general personality, that surprises me and confuses and leaves me conflicted. I am gonna list another character and see if I can explain any better. (Warning it's a Bleach character and some people may not want to read about it.)

Gin Ichimaru of Bleach
Gin just likes to psychologicaly mess with people in a very sick way. I guess the best way to describe his evilness is that he can basically commit rape with words. I don't know how to explain it any other way. He can mentally torture a person. All he needs is words to harm a person. I honestly think if he found a way to cause someone to irrevocably go insane, by saying just a few words, he would do it. He has also conspired to commit murder and lured people to their deaths (well almost death for one character it was a sheer stoke of luck that she got medical attention in time of she'd be dead). On top of that he just looks evil (really). My mind can't even imagine what he'd do if he physically wanted to hurt a person. It's just too... traumatizing I guess.

In fact much of the audience just finds something wrong with him. For many people feel (including me), it's not a sad back story that makes him villainous, it's just that he is innately twisted in the head and irredeemable . Now just as with David on Coronation street, I would think that I would just write him off as evil and totally dislike him. For a long time I did. But then, in a couple of flash backs through the eyes of a another character (a female character) we see that Gin saved her life. He found her as she was dying of starvation. He realized what was wrong and gave her food. Also we discover that they sort of stayed together and lived together for survival. :suspicious: Now I am not saying he is a "good guy" in these flashbacks because even then he would mess with peoples heads a bit, so it sort of confirms that his mind was innately twisted. But he saved the girl's life. That would seem out of character almost (the way they portray in the manga though, the writer makes it work ).
Also (and this was the clincher for me), through another flash back we find out that this girl he saved doesn't remember her birthday and it's obvious that it bothers her a great deal. So, to make her feel better, Gin says "Well, the day we met, that will be your birthday then". My reaction : Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
This makes her a feel a lot better and you can see that Gin basically helped give her an identity!!!

But ....he's supposed to be evil (right?)!!! How can he be capable of sympathy and that sort of kindness?


Eventually when a whole lot of wicked things he does comes to light and he gets caught, he doesn't show remorse, but he does apologize to one person and one person only. That girl he saved from starvation since he knew she would be dissapointed in him. (He actually did not cause her any kind of direct harm like he did to a ton of other people).


Now every time I see him I think "that evil Gin etc...." Like everyone else. But then after I have my little rant on his evilness, I feel bad and think, "but then again, he did give that person a birthday...". Like he just hits a soft spot for me or something. Other people have even asked me what is wrong with me to feel any sort of kind or compassionate feeling for Gin . Honestly, I don't know what's wrong with me. I am confused myself.

OK It's safe to read those who avoid Bleach like the plague


Maybe it is acts they commit that are in opposition of their general personality is what confuses me. Especially in the case of Gin. That is the only real reasoning I can give because really I should totally hate him because he is a villain. My feelings toward Gin totally stump me. He's so scary if I saw him walking down the street I would run the other way. But when there is a good act he commits (which is rare) there is a genuine goodness about it which I don't want to believe he is capable of.

Sorry Holby, I missed your post since I took so long to construct mine.

[Holbytla]

Well it wasn't much of a post.

Archie wasn't really a villain, but at times certainly held reviled views.
Yet at the same time, down deep, he was generally a decent guy.

Archie was just a basic guy struggling to come to terms with the fact that much of what he learned growing up was wrong. The world was changing around him faster than he could keep up.

Wikipedia does a better job of explaining him than I can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Bunker

[Hachimitsu]

That is a good choice Holby. I did know a bit about him since I have seen a few episodes and what I like about the writing (and Carrol O'Conner's acting) is that the show seemed very very funny while having dialogue about very very serious subjects.

I do want to clarify that the character doesn't necessarily have to be a villain. In fact with the example of Yuko, she isn't a villain at all. She is one of the forces of good actually. (I can't go any deeper or else I would be spoiling.)

[axordil]

Evil is an evolutionary adaptation to prevent boring fiction.

[Primula Baggins]

Evil is a convenient label that, when firmly applied to naughty people, eliminates the need to examine the real reasons they might have for giving nice people a hard time.

This definition also applies to real life.

[axordil]

People in real life who do bad thing after bad thing fall generally into one of three camps:

1) Psychopaths who are poorly wired from the get go
2) Sociopaths who dismiss rules as being for lesser beings
3) People whose definition of "bad" isn't the same as the rest of ours, and who think they're doing something good.

There is overlap. But

All that said, most bad things are not done by people who do bad things all the time. They're done by people who slip a stinker in now and again for a variety of reasons: greed, lust, sloth, pride, the usual suspects. They may not view the action as wrong, or they may decide one wrong action isn't a big deal, or they may think that it isn't hurting anyone...you get the idea. These are the characters that I find interesting, especially when one fairly innocuous slip ends up being the one that starts to drag them down. People who have moments of weakness, or face a temptation they can't resist, and who spiral into the dirt or close to it.

[Erunáme]

Since I just did a BSG marathon, I'd have to say I love and hate a lot of the characters on that show, especially Kara Thrace.

[Hachimitsu]

Ooohhh I was thinking if I ever did keep up with watching BSG, I would find characters like that. Once I get over my hangups on the show, I may give it a try again.

[WampusCat]

Benjamin Linus on "Lost." What a manipulative, cold SOB -- but I can't take my eyes off him when he's on screen. When he says that he's "one of the good guys," it defies all logic ... but I almost want to believe him.

[vison]

Alaric Tudor.

[narya]

Coincidently I was listening to a podcast this morning (All in the Mind, Australian Public Broadcasting) about people on death row. The ones they interviewed were the ones that were pardoned because they were found, after 20 or 30 years, to be innocent. They certainly inhabited a gray area between good and evil. One of them, for example, had a very troubled childhood and was bipolar. He entered death row as a young man, for starting an apartment fire in which a little girl died. Turns out he didn't start that particular fire, though he had probably started other fires in buildings that were vacant. So where do we draw the line between "evil enough to justify the State killing him" and "not quite that evil"? It certainly isn't the act of killing a person itself - otherwise we'd paint soldiers, policemen, executioners, smokers, fast food purveyors, poor drivers and self-defenders in the same boat as anyone else who causes the death of another human. And it isn't the intent to kill that makes a murderer, or else the 17 year old sitting in the idling get-away car wouldn't be given a life sentence because the hold-up in the convenience store went bad. Is a man who spends his whole marriage killing the soul of his wife that much less evil than the one who kills her outright in a drunken stupor? One of the men interviewed in the show who had spent decades on death row could only think of one "evil" person during his tenure there. All the rest were basically decent people, perhaps with very poor skills at managing anger or drug usage, who consider themselves more victimized than the one they killed, after many years of inhuman treatment by the prison system.

Ah, but I digress. We were talking about characters you love and hate at the same time and feel conflicted about. I certainly don't like Scorpi or Archie, which is why I decided to stop watching both shows. Sometimes a little antagonism in a story is a good thing, but sometimes it just makes me want to leave the room. I go to TV or books for escape - I don't need to be reminded of real life. My dad was very similar to Archie Bunker, in my idealistic teenage eyes, and seeing him laugh at Archie's quips every week was just too much for me.

I can't think of any character - or real person for that matter - that I love and hate. Perhaps I don't feel that kind of intensity about characters. Rather, I feel more or less intense bonding (Frodo) or rejecting (Scorpious) or a little of both (most everyone else).

I tend to be that way in real life as well. I stick with people I am comfortable with. The people who give me absolutely the most frustration in life are the ones I'm related to. Like the relative who give me that sidelong look and a baldface statement that we both know is a lie, but which she will defend adamantly (with a great show of injury) as the truth. She is someone I wouldn't give a second chance to if I had a choice. But since we are related, I have to bite my tongue and play along with her, like a total idiot. Perhaps the conflict is the struggle between my own unrealistic optimism about the person (if only she'd change ...) and pessimism (she has no redeeming qualities) that keeps me coming back for more unpleasantries.

Oops, digressing again.

[vison]

Well, whatever that was all about, I'm still glad to see your dear face.

[narya]