Sure, he’s an utter bastard, but he knows he’s alive and he fully accepts the consequences of his actions, so that makes him all right, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.
In fact, he has stated that he believes that there is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual. He can’t “acknowledge” being gay if he believes there’s no such thing.
Oh, and how could I forget the creepiest protagonist of them all? Richard III was a right bastard. He murders his brother, supporters and nephews, and even has the cheek to gleefully share his horrible plans with us, the audience. Even while we’re jeering at his rivals for being stupid enough to fall into Richard’s traps, we fall right into them as well, because we’re almost starting to root for the jerk by the end of the play.
Yeah, she’s a wench. She was a good deal nicer in the movie than the book. Julia Ormond made her downright sympathetic, but the book made her out to be an empathetic monster.
Well, if we’re talking about comic characters, how about…Batman? He’s a jerk, and his actions have arguably lead to the deaths of many innocents for the sake of his personal moral code.
Plus, his costume includes grey briefs over light-grey tights. I’m sorry, but there’s a natural limit on how impressive that can be.
Thanks for fixing the link—and the country is yours. But be warned, it comes with a terrible curse. And it’s the world’s leading exporter of medical specimens!
Damn, most of my good ones are taken. The anonymous narrator/protagonist from Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky made me want to slap the living shit out of him. Most Russian literature makes me have this reaction though. No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai affected me in much the same way as Notes from Underground. Oddly, the character from Camus’ L’etranger doesn’t seem to have affected me as much as these two. In fact, I had to look up the book to remember the main character’s name, Meursault.
I have a rough time dealing with characters who have certain kinds of mental problems, particularly if the writing is well done. I tend to immerse myself in a book, become the character, live in that world while I’m reading. Because of that, I have to take books like this in small doses. I either get weird or have violent reactions against the character if I read for too long.
Not so personally reprehensible was Tom Ripley from the books by Patricia Highsmith. Ripley is self-centered, arrogant, and almost as competent as he thinks he is. I think he was written not to be likable. The homosexual subtext was amplified for the movie, The Talented Mr. Ripley, while the amoral criminality of the character was de-emphasized. For example, the opening scene of the movie doesn’t mention that Ripley was in the middle of running a con when he played piano at that party. He’d been forging checks and documents in New York for close to a year by that time, as we find out in the first chapter or two of the novel.
Or dark blue on grey. Or purple on grey. Or black on grey. Or black on black.
But, why do people say that he’s wearing briefs over his tights? Isn’t it just that his tights are coloured differently in different places?
Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. Self-obsessed, petulant, juvenile idiot.
Pete Dexter’s Paris Trout. A racist, woman-hating sadist killer whose position in a small Deep Southern town basically makes him God. The fact that he takes no joy in anything he does, merely carries it out like a force of nature, only adds to that impression of an ascetic priest of pure evil.
Mixtli in Gary Jennings’s Aztec. An admirable man in many ways (brilliant, loyal, adaptable, poetic) but also, by the end of the book, a murderer, a regicide, a social climber, a cruel husband, and a sellout. Still a favorite historical novel of mine.
Haviland Tuf in George R.R. Martin’s Tuf Voyaging. A smartass, misanthropic, solitary, overweight, borderline-megalomaniac - but damn, it’s a really good book! For all his faults, I wish I could be Tuf’s sidekick. Can’t wait for the sequel, whenever Martin gets around to it.
I believe that’s 4 votes for Holden. We may have a winner for most hated protagonist, folks.
For second place, I’d like to nominate some other characters from George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series (although I suppose it could be argued that these are supporting characters):
Stannis Baratheon - A more hardass and stern man was never born. He made Davos a knight while also cutting off some of his fingers, for Davos’ efforts in smuggling onions into Stannis’ castle while it was under siege.
Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish - Charming, handsome, and utterly amoral, he sees people as no more than pieces on his game board.
Theon Greyjoy - He thinks he’s better than the Stark family that he’s been living with (as a sort of hostage to keep his father from rebelling again), plus he’s vain and cruel. When he sets his plans in motion, it turns out he’s too stupid to keep events under his control.
Hey, you stole my answer! Covenant was a thoroughly unlikeable person. Then again, I loathed the books - I managed to force my way through the first one, then the first one in the second trilogy. The “high” point of #1 was when he raped someone. Bleh. Maybe I hated the books so much just because of the “protagonist”.
Flashy - I like him. Yeah, he’s a liar and a cheat etc. But as I pointed out to Papa Zappa once, all in all he’s actually OK at the soldiering thing. And he’s under no illusions about his own shortcomings. I think he’d be great fun to hang out with (aside from being fictional and dead and all).
Sure, but when it came down to it he was the ONLY “king” of the five to bother doing The Right Thing for everyone. Even if he did use his pet sorceress to kill his rivals.
Ugh. Nothing worse than someone amoral and incompetent. I actually LIKED him at first. When he died, well, I was quite happy.
Still, I don’t think anything could ever top the Red Wedding. I’m not sure I’ve ever read something so horrifying in my life. I was waiting for it to all have been a bad dream or something.
And that puts daddy Lannister on the top. Combine that with what he did to Tyrion when he had his first love, and I think he’s the worst. But for the purposes of this thread, I guess he doesn’t count as a protagonist since we never get the story from his perspective.
-Joe
Actually, I think Stannis is her pet, he just doesn’t know it. That’s just speculation though.
I don’t remember him dying. Captured and thrown in a dungeon, sure, but I don’t remember an explicit “Theon is dead” passage.
Certainly a possibility. Although I think he’s just got hisself some religion. I know I’d be a lot more amenable to religion if it could be used for whacking my enemies and giving me kewl glowing swords.
But either way he seems to be giving the orders…so far.
Hmm…it’s been a couple years (back when I thought aFfC was coming “in April”) but I thought he eventually ended up dead. Still, rotting and tortured I can accept too.
-Joe Lannister
Yup, Stannis is deeply and purely honorable. He would have stepped aside if someone had a better claim, or if Joffrey had been legitimate. But doing The Right Thing in the North, disregarding that he did it for political reasons, does not make him “likable.”
As for Theon Greyjoy, I did find him likable at first, and still retained my sympathy for him all the way down his abysmally stupid campaign.
Baelish was a total fucko all the way, though.
Did he do it for political reasons? I thought it was more of a Davros convincing him that he couldn’t do anything productive (re: killing his enemies and taking the throne) that he decided, “Well, hell, may as well use my troops for the good of the kingdom even if I can’t be king.”
Sure…but still. It’s like the Prince of Monaco finding a way to take over France. And let’s face it, in a Dog Eat Dog world he was a runt chihuahua.
-Joe, podengo pequeno
[hijack]Um, that was Larry Fishburne (in Othello, I mean, the stick up guy was Sammy L. and I don’t know who you saw on The Daily Show, but Othello was definately Larry) and I can’t imagine him disliking Othello more than Ike Turner! WTF[/hijack]
RE: OP I nominate Roland of Gilead. Sure he’s the hero, gotta save all existance, only because if the tower fell he wouldn’t be able to go inside. What a shmuck.
I’d have to say the four protagonists in Heinlein’s Number of the Beast, mainly because they did everything in their power to AVOID trouble. Whenever a situation looked potentially sticky, they’d get in their space ship and take off. Then they’d high-five each other for how smart they were.
Come on, great stories are ALL ABOUT conflict! We WANT to see the main characters get in trouble. If they’re so smart, then they’d figure out how to get out of trouble and turn the tables on their enemies. Quit running away with your tail between your legs and crossing that reality off the continuum map.
Eh. They did eventually figure out that they couldn’t run away. The Beast was pretty much ubiquitous throughout the multiverse. Of course, this was also about the time that the book stumbled itself into a mishmash of completely random historical and fictional characters mixed in with Heinlein’s entire stable of past characters. The last chapter or so, where the entire action consisted of Jubal and someone else describing who was arriving at the giant party/resort the four protagonists had set up was both excruciating and completely pointless.