Every reader has experienced an occasion in which they are reading a book, loving it, but can’t stand the character(s). If you don’t like a character, does it change the way you feel about the book? Cause you to close the book and walk away? Or can you get past this and appreciate the book despite the character flaw?
Recently, I’ve noticed quite a few books I’ve been reading have characters toward whom I have very strong feelings. Here are just a few of them:
- Snape (Harry Potter)-is he good or is he bad? I admit (close your eyes if you haven’t read the entire Harry Potter series) that I was pretty livid when it was Snape who killed Dumbledore. I mean…Snape was/is the quintessential good bad guy, right? We ALL hated him, yet without him the novels would lack so much.
- “R” (Warm Bodies)-ok, not quite as much hate for “R” but you WANT to hate him. He’s a freakin’ zombie after all? Yet, he’s sweet, caring, has a conscious. Squint your eyes really tight and you won’t notice he’s decomposing.
- Rochester (Jane Eyre)-Ok, I can’t find any redeeming qualities in this character. He locks his wife up in the attic and tries to have an affair with the governess. Yes, we must look at the time period and the state of affairs, but darn it, I hated Rochester.
- Bett (The Bird Sisters) I just wanted to wring this girl’s neck! Yes, she’s got some drama going on at home but really? How dare she ruin the lives, the very futures, of Millie & Twiss? Grr!
So, tell me. Who are the book characters you love to hate? What makes you hate them? Do your strong feelings about a character sway your opinion of a book or are you able to look past these feelings?
Tags: Bookish Chatter
Twitter: emperorsclothes
says:
I love your take on Rochester. There was a really good BBC TV series on a while ago called Lost in Austen about a modern day Jane Austen fan who ‘goes back’ (though of course they never existed) to visit the characters in Pride & Prejudice. She quite liked Wickham. It’s always fun to see characters through our modern-day eyes – more permissive but less tolerant of oppression within marriage/the family.
Twitter: devourerofbooks
says:
Snape is definitely a good example. I think that if I hate a character because of what they are doing to other characters I care about, then it is a good sign that I probably love the book. One of your examples made me think “well, yeah, that character did bad stuff, but ‘eh’” because I wasn’t all that invested in the other characters that were being hurt. I ended up not loving or hating that book, I didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about it either way. There are some characters, though – like everyone in Zoe Heller’s The Believers that I hated not because of what they did to other characters, but just because they were reprehensible human beings in almost every way. That book I hated.
Twitter: devourerofbooks
says:
Oh, and yes, I meant to say YAY for hating Rochester! What an ass. How anyone sees that man as a romantic figure I will never understand.
Twitter: jennbookshelves
Reply:
May 11th, 2011 at 8:11 AM
Jen-
I knew I’d get a comment out of you about Rochester
Oooh, what a fun question! I always hated Snape while reading Harry Potter, but finding out the ‘real deal’ at the end of the books was such a testament to Rowling’s ability to create such rich characters. Despite how much I hated him for 7 books, I still managed to feel for him in the end. I always hated Amy March in Little Women. What a little brat. I didn’t mind Rochester in Jane Eyre but I think that book has been romanticized for me with the musical (which I became slightly obsessed with). They made him into a much softer, emotional character, and I actually really liked him.
Twitter: jenforbus
says:
Well, I don’t like Stephanie Plum, but I also don’t like the books, so that doesn’t count, right?
Let’s see, characters I hated while still enjoying the book….hmmm…I think I’ll go with Robin Castagna from Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware books.
I know Lucy Chenier is a character Elvis Cole fans love to hate. I started hating her when she blamed Elvis for wrongs her ex-husband created.
But both woman do the “I don’t want to deal with your job” routine after knowing what the character does (for a living) before getting in a relationship with them. I hate that.
Twitter: ibeforem
says:
Bella in Twilight. She’s the main reason I haven’t read the last 2 books yet. Oh god, the whiiiiiiiining.
Twitter: Trish422
says:
While I disagree about Snape – I actually loved his character – I am right there with you on Rochester. What an idgit.
Twitter: bermudaonion
says:
I always felt like there was something about Snape that Dumbledore knew and we didn’t. I guess I just wanted there to be some good in him.
Oh. I love your examples. Snape, for example, you know he’s sort of good, but you hate him, but then without him the books (or the films for that matter) wouldn’t be the same.
Gollum, in LotR, is another great example of a ‘love to hate’ character; also Alia Atreides in the third Dune book, somehow Petra in both Don Winslow’s “The Dawn Patrol” and “The Gentlemen Hour”, a few characters in the Lisbeth Salander books, and a whole lot in “The Song of Ice and Fire” series.
Snape, pfft. You want hatred, then it’s all about Umbridge. I hated more than I can recall ever hating someone real. It made the book so frustrating (in a good way, if that’s possible) and I felt like I really understood how Harry felt about her.
UGH! Hate that woman!
Oh, Snape is totally my lit crush, for ever! I love that he always managed to be in the right place at the wrong time and to suffer through the pressures of being the go between for Good and Evil. Fun!