Character types you hate - any media

[angryscotsman93]

Ok so I'm listening to a really good audiobook right now, the Way of Kings/Words of Radiance books by Brandon Sanderson, and I'm loving it....buuuuut.

There is one character in the series that hits almost every one of my "oh for fuck's sake!" buttons. So I felt like partially venting my frustration, and sharing my dislike for this archetype of character.

It's what I usually call the "Girl with a TERRIBAD AWFUL NO GOOD SECRET PAIN AND PAST!!!".

Common traits for this character.

1. She has some dark past crime/sin/transgression that she has mentally locked away.

2. She can't even think about it, and any mention of it will make her shut down and withdraw into a near catatonic state of "not listening, not listening, don't think, don't think, lalalalalal" crap.

3. She has most likely run away from this past, and is pretending to be someone else in another location, and has a pathological fear of anyone finding out who she was, feeling if she can just hide from her past, then it didn't happen to her, and instead was someone else.

4. She will lie, manipulate, cheat, steal, and do pretty much anything morally/criminally wrong to protect her secret, even from her friends/allies. Justifying this behavior as being ok, because anything is allowed to hide her secret.

5. The actions of point 4 frequently will end up making the overall plot much worse for the heroes, and is frequently the driving force behind "Everything turning to shit".

6. When her secret is inevitably revealed, almost every time, her friends will still accept and love her, and not shun her like she assumes they will. So all of her self driven paranoia/guilt is in the end, pointless, and is hand waved away by her friends, without any actual repercussions.

Note to 6: Many times, the action done by the woman isn't actually very bad at all, or is totally justified in the situation e.g. Killing someone in self defense, but she feels she murdered them because of her own fucked up mental processes. Which further frustrates the issue, in that all of the above mentioned shit, was basically only because the woman was wrapped up in her own fucking drama, and couldn't see past herself to do anything productive. And she's then embraced lovingly and all that crap at the end.

I can't accurately describe, without using all caps and many profanities, how much I hate this character type in stories. I just...gah! It pisses me off so much. I find myself rolling my eyes, and growling in frustration when one of them pops up in a book/movie, and fast forwarding through their drama shit to something, anything else.

So what character archetype do you hate?

capcha phrase: Yellow Belly, oddly fitting given the context of my archetype.

Lol, i was literally going to post the exact same archetype (though the dudes who show it annoy me too)

I also hate the stupid scientist archetype, the person who apparently has like a doctorate in everything but who's judgement is that of a deer in the headlights.

Also the helpless kidnapee archetype (damsel in distress, but you see it with male kids too sometimes), especially when they clearly could have done something to help themselves but just didn't.

IS SOMEBODY TALKING SHIT ABOUT SHALAN

YOU ************, I'LL.... Admit I actually agree with you. Her segments can get kinda dull. Still, I'm barely a third of the way through Words of Radiance, mainly because I was distracted by another book.

By the way, if you ever get the chance, look up the book "Pay Me, Bug!" It's a good read.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Poorly written strong female characters. It's not that hard of a thing to do if you're already used to writing strong male characters; just give the sort of lines you would give to that sort of character to a female character. For some reason though, a lot of writers tend to portray strong-willed female characters as less strong and more as wholly irrational and stubborn. I'm not saying that people who write such characters are sexist, but it definitely has undertones of the same stereotypes that strong female characters aim to subvert.

If it's well written, I am fine with pretty much any character type.

Pretty much the same.
I really don't like it when strong female character is just that, a "look how tough I am" lady in fiction. My most primary example is Black Widow. I really didn't like Black Widows character in Iron Man 2; The Avengers and forward, she got better, but she was so "look how tough I am" in Iron Man 2.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Poorly written strong female characters. It's not that hard of a thing to do if you're already used to writing strong male characters; just give the sort of lines you would give to that sort of character to a female character. For some reason though, a lot of writers tend to portray strong-willed female characters as less strong and more as wholly irrational and stubborn. I'm not saying that people who write such characters are sexist, but it definitely has undertones of the same stereotypes that strong female characters aim to subvert.

Yeah, trying to avoid her being meek and demure they make her ridiculously aggressive, avoiding one stereotype by jumping straight into another.

 

[Batou667]

I hate:

- When the protagonist (or group of protagonists) are designated "cool" by speaking in nothing but catty, contrived soundbites, Joss Whedon style.

- Children in the vast majority of movies. Either they're bratty little hellions who get away with literally anything, or they're useless quivering dead weight plot devices to infuriatingly wander off, get abducted, blow the protagonists cover, press the big button marked "do not press", and so on.

- "The sarcastic dude", usually in a zombie or horror film. It's the fuckin' apocalypse, yet this guy is still running his mouth and dividing the group. Why does this guy not have an "accident" in the first ten minutes?

- Randumb characters.

 

[Erttheking]

Tsundere characters. I just...what is the fucking appeal of that!? Ladies, would you ever want to be in a relationship with a person who spends half of the time belittling you and sometimes physically assaulting you? No? Well neither would I!

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

The power of friendship characters.
I hate those characters the most. Though I guess this is more of a plot device.

Tsundere characters can go and eat shit, especially the small ones with height complexes and flat chest complexes.
Seriously, that shit is way overused.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I firmly believe that no trope is inherently bad, as anything can be done well. However, generally speaking, I tend to hate:

-The emotionless badass. Guh. Why even have that character? If they exist simply to kill the shit the rest of the party can't, and the writer couldn't be arsed to actually write a character with a PERSONALITY, its just lazy writing. I almost hate it more when you get characters like this with one defining characteristic: that they will protect the ones they care about blah blah blah. Attack on titan had some of my most hated examples of both types: levi and mikasa.
-the dense protagonist. (LOOKING AT YOU INFINITE STRATOS) the main character who remains PAINFULLY unaware of the affections of his love interest(s)
-The tsundere, in agreement with Hades above.
-the idiot protagonist. you know, the guy with the amazing hidden power and who is destined to save the world, but can't think beyond a third grade level. You see this alot with child protagonists.
-The one that screws it up for everyone. Think Vegeta for this one: the guy who is so obsessed with something (their ideology, etc.) that they will throw logic out the window just to get what they want. (e.g. the guy that lets the villain power up to maximum just to have a good fight)

As I said at the beginning, anything can be done well. I can think of examples of each of these archetypes that I actually do enjoy, but the majority of them are just painful to me.

Once again, sturgeon's law: 90% of everything is crap.

look, I'm a fate/zero fan so I find Emiya Kiritsugu to be a good version of the emotionless badass type. He has emotions and in the past wanted to be a hero but as time went on and more people close to him died, he hardened into the mage killer he is. The only remnants of his happier self is his relation to Irisviel and Illyasviel.

OT as an anime fan I can say this. Self-insert characters are the worst. The type of bland, underdeveloped near perfect person that we know will win. I hate Kaizuka Inaho and Kirito so much because of this, no tension. hell, the base rule I have is "are you more op than Kira Yamato at the end of SEED (destiny got too much)"; if yes, you are a god damn self-insert.

The harem protagonist thing also pisses me off. I get it, having 5 girls chase after you is not the fantasy everyone thinks it is: bitter rivalries, hurt emotions, a massive social challenge for even the most socially capable person on the planet and a living nightmare for normal people. That said, grow a spine and set your foot down. Yes, feelings will be hurt if you pick someone but that will happen no matter what you do. The harem ending will leave people feeling under appreciated. Loner ending will tear at their hearts. Picking one will cause the others to have pain. you might as well get it out of the way to minimize the damage.

tsundere is a mixed bag. I like Misaka Mikoto but while her tsundere antics are somewhat cute, it's mostly the tragedy of the sisters and the attempt to stop it that made her compelling and the interaction with her friends that made her loveable. The issue comes from if you make tsundere the only personality trait they have without a good backstory to explain it.

 

[DaWaffledude]

Is Kreia a character type? 'Cos fuck Kreia.

"Ooh, look at me, I'm so much better and smarter than everyone and everyone else is wrong and you're stupid for being a good person and you're stupid for being a bad person and everyone listen to me talk about how right I am. What's that? You want me to shut up? Fine, I'll just threaten to leave while insisting you'd never want me to do that."

You know what? Fuck you Kreia, get the hell off my ship.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Characters that are there just to be the figurative punching bag for others. (See: Meg Griffin and Squidward Tentacles)

Also, characters who are stupid assholes who never get their comeuppance for their actions (See: Peter Griffin and Patrick Star)

...I'm starting to see a pattern here...

 

[happyninja42]

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IS SOMEBODY TALKING SHIT ABOUT SHALAN

YOU ************, I'LL.... Admit I actually agree with you. Her segments can get kinda dull. Still, I'm barely a third of the way through Words of Radiance, mainly because I was distracted by another book.

By the way, if you ever get the chance, look up the book "Pay Me, Bug!" It's a good read.

YES! YES I AM!! WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT?!? CUMMON! *makes fist gestures and bounces around the ring*

She gets better, and she doesn't dip entirely 100% into that archetype that I described, but she's really damn close, like 5/6 of the traits.

Though in the spirit of fairness, Caladin hits on some of my hated male protagonist archetypes too, thought not as much in book 1 as in book 2. But, thankfully, for both of them, they seem to be growing out of it for the most part. This being sort of a driving force of the books really, so I can tolerate it, even if it is with gritted teeth. xD

 

[Guy_of_wonder]

the suave, sexy, mysterious man that uses women like objects. Characters like James Bond and to a lesser degree Indiana Jones. People like them, but i hate them so much. They act like complete assholes and get the girl. After they get the girl they (usually) use them for sex, treat them like shit and throw them out.

I find it disgusting and disgraceful that this is what men wanted to be like back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s (or whenever).

 

[hermes]

Kid characters that act and talk like they are perfectly balanced grown up men, and are lovable, and mature and experienced. Its like the authors never remember how it was to be a kid, ended up writing a Mary Sue, and at some point, forgot that he/she was supposed to be 10.

Incidentally, characters that have no physical flaws, psychological issues or educational blind spots. Or that any potential flaw end up being skills that will help them solve the plot.

 

[Grendich]

like a lot of people here: Kids
either theyre fucking useless or they get other people in danger.
no, you dont let them off the hook after a fuck up. you lock them in their room, you chain them to the wall if you have to. and if that doesnt help, you beat their ass bloody. you dont let them get out to fuck even more things up.
or better yet: dont make them appear in your movie/book/whatever to begin with.
Fuck you Carl.

'Comic relief'-characters, where comic relief pretty much boils down to 'this character is bad at almost everything and fucks up things regularly'. there may be a single moment in the story where these characters are slightly useful and thats it. Sometimes i actually like the character a lot and want him (its pretty much always a guy) to be successful, but the writers just dont let him. I fail to see how this is funny. Where is the relief in that?

The only thing worse than that are characters who do shitty, disgusting things and face no comeuppance from their actions. It's the mark of terrible writing.

Ahh, and look, we have another example from Legend of Korra.

Spoiler

Gotta agree with this so much. All that relationship-crap in Season 2 was so awful and there was way too much of it. Makos behaviour is bad enough, but i just dont understand why he never gets punished for all this crap. Doesnt help that he is probably one of the most boring characters in the series.


I dont know if it's just an effect of reading threads like this, but i feel like im tired of pretty much every character stereotype. Barely any character seems to be interesting anymore.

 

[Zipa]

Mine is what Alex from LoadingReadyRun refers to as Steve. [http://voxlunch.tumblr.com/post/88628071753/steve]

It is the same white dude with the same motivations over and over again. Linked above is Alex's blog where he talks about it at some length.

That and what few female characters that we have tend to gravitate towards always looking like super models or people of exceptional beauty, an average looking character is very rare. The only recent example that comes to mind is Billy Lurk from Dishonored.

 

[happyninja42]

Found another one I hate!

The No Nonsense Serious Black Person!

This one can be male or female, and is most commonly seen in tv shows. If it's a cop show, they're frequently the Lieutenant of the squad, but not one of the main detectives. If it's a medical show, they're the more senior doctor/nurse, usually in charge of the main characters.

They have a constant state of pissed offedness. They usually speak in ways that imply their lives are "really hard because of their struggles!", and intimidate and glare down the main characters at all times. They have zero humor, never smile, and are just there to be gruff and serious.

God I hate that character.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

the shrew/buzz kill wife. such unimaginative writing

 

[Ryallen]

Any character whose moves I can predict several hours beforehand with accuracy, or what I call stereotypes. Characters that fit into a specific archetype, no matter what the reason, and follows my predictions with an accuracy so bizarrely precise that I'm surprised that I wasn't part of the creative process in the initial phases of conception of these characters. The reason why I loathe TLoU so much is because every single character fits into this category, and yet the gaming public, journalists and mass consumers alike, is unable to look past all the style of quality voice acting, relatively phenomenal graphics, and solid gameplay to see what actually lies beneath: a cornucopia of cliches, stereotypes, or otherwise predictable characters so thin I could poke them with a stick and bruise their spines and a narrative so weak if it were tea it could pass for water. I loathe this game with all of my heart simply because of all the positive buzz that I am convinced that some sort of newbie adept at playing the heartstrings of humanity managed to somehow claw his way into the heart of Naughty Dog and form some sort of wager with the higher ups in the company that should his Oscar-bait (Yes, I'm quoting Yahtzee, because this phrase in specific just about sums up the entire game) piece of mass consumed garbage make any sort of positive review, his superiors would then be forced to leave the company. Lo and behold if after the game comes out everyone is sucking its collective dick, and Amy Hennig, Justin Richmond, and Nate Wells leave the company just before the masterpiece of manipulation was announced to be coming to PS4. Yes, this is a hate post about TLoU, because until someone is able to intelligently converse with me without quitting half-way through, I will continue to spout what should be the common truth about this game.