Fannish Friday: despised characters you love

[lirazel]

Tell me about a character that fandom in general hates that you love! I'm not talking about polarizing characters, where half of fandom hates them and half loves them. I mean the ones where, like, 80% of the fandom just flat-out hates the character, where the "consensus" is that the character sucks, etc.

My most obvious answer to this is always Dawn Summers. I love that dorky, nerdy little teenage girl, and I suspect that the majority of hatred for her arises from a) people disliking a character introduced late in the show, even when there's a really good plot-reason to introduce her, and b) how much people absolutely hate teenage girls. They hate them so much! They might make an exception for a fictional teenage girl who also kicks physical ass and plays to the male gaze, but any time a teenage girl acts like an actual teenage girl, she will get hatred from the majority of society.

Another example is Bela on Supernatural (yes, I did watch the first few seasons of that show, we will speak of it no more) who I thought was delightful and who I gladly would have watched a spin-off about. And despite the way fandom treated her, Ruby was fine.

Comments

[sophia_sol]

Professor Bhaer in Little Women! Sometimes it feels to me like everyone in the fandom thinks Jo should have ended up with Laurie in the end, and that the Jo/Bhaer ship is inherently ridiculous. But I am pro-Bhaer!!! Especially when you read the sequels (Little Men and Jo's Boys) where it is so clear what a good partnership they make, that they have similar values and interests and support each other in what they want to do. (lol this is probably me being too ace again!)

But even in Little Women itself (if you ignore the weird Moralizing About Types Of Stories content that Alcott put in because this was a kid's book even though she anonymously wrote gothic thrillers herself) Bhaer is just a kind, odd, warmhearted fellow who's happy to be himself, and I love him.

[lirazel]

Awww, I like him too! I agree with LMA that Jo should not end up with Laurie and I'm glad she didn't go there. Bhaer is a better match if Jo has to have a partner at all, which apparently the publishers said she did. I still like to imagine an ace Jo being a badass spinster.

Btw, have you seen this?

[sophia_sol]

ok now I'm imagining the au where Jo and Bhaer are platonic aroace bffs who go into business opening a school together and what a GREAT vision imo.

also no I had not seen that and ooh, a venue for bird content on dw, thank you!!

[lirazel]

Yes I love it!!!

You're welcome! :D