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

[belecrivain]

I haven't ventured into Danganronpa fandom enough to know if my faves are straight-up hated; I doubt it, though it wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of people found Gundham and Sonia annoying (both separately and together). I am also overly fond of Leon and Celeste from the first game, even though the game is practically designed to make you think less of him and she (like Gundham) is so over-the-top written that she could definitely work a viewer's nerve.

Irvine from Final Fantasy 8, maybe? His big character moment is basically him screwing up, and he never really gets redeemed. So when I was messing around with the idea of writing post-game fic I wanted to write him a chance to show that the game events had helped him grow and become more competent (and pair him with Quistis, who was if anything overly invested in her own competence).

Also thirding the opinion that Riley/Marc Blucas deserved better, even leaving aside that we now know that everyone on that set deserved better.

Oh, now I remember! I think I was the only person watching Felicity who wanted Felicity to forget about Ben and Noel and continue things with the hot guy she randomly hooked up with in the art studio. (The actor is still hot, if you have a high tolerance for Thoughtful But Poorly Educated Guys Who Made Poor Choices While in Hollywood in the 1990s and Early 2000s.)

[lirazel]

You know I know nothing of your video games, but I enjoy reading your thoughts on them!

I think I was the only person watching Felicity who wanted Felicity to forget about Ben and Noel and continue things with the hot guy she randomly hooked up with in the art studio.

Oh no! Truly the most niche favorite thing of all!