# Characters from books you would like to beat the s\*#t out of them **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 8, 2013, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650 "2013-10-08T03:56:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AnthonyElite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@AnthonyElite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnthonyElite)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/21 "2013-10-08T20:43:42Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Any characters from a book that to you are just so vile, so nonredeemable that you just want to beat them to within an inch of their miserable worthless lives? > > I have two. > > From The Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens. Mr. Quilp really needed to meet the business end of a baseball bat. I just hated that cocksucker. I’m not a violent person but for this guy I’d make an exception. > The female villain from Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Dorotea Benedetti. That bitch must die. Die in a fire! I hate you! DIE DIE DIE! > Only these two have provoked that strong of a reaction in me but maybe I’m weird. (pffft, maybe) > > Am I the only person who wants to beat up people from books? Sweet jesus, I thought I was the only one I knew that read Patter Recognition! I’ll fund the beating if you want to deliver sweet justice. Anything you need, just get it done and make sure it is MESSY. ---
**Author:** ![AnthonyElite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@AnthonyElite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnthonyElite)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/22 "2013-10-08T20:47:33Z")
Also, she doesn’t remain the villian for the duration, obviously, but **Detta Walker** from **The Dark Tower** series by Stephen King should have been pushed in a wood chipper. UGH! Annoying? Seemingly forced into the plot? Unrealistic reactions from characters you like? Unrealistic strength, ability, and wit? Yeah, nice try Stephen King, but I never bought into that trashball, try again. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/23 "2013-10-08T20:57:28Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Can I really be the first to name **Ignatius J. Reilly** from Confederacy of Dunces? > > I hated the character and the book, so I’ll add the author (the late) John Kennedy Toole to the list of beatings we’re generating. Psst, post #5. ---
**Author:** ![knifebreaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@knifebreaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/knifebreaker)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/24 "2013-10-08T21:08:24Z")
Joffrey Baratheon ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/25 "2013-10-08T21:19:15Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Heathcliff and Cathy (no, not the cartoon characters). I really don’t understand their appeal as tragic romantic figures. Heathcliff is a violent bully, Cathy is a [psycho hose beast](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=psycho%20hose%20beast), and between the two of them they torment and utterly destroy three generations of two different families, whose lives only start to improve once Heathcliff finally dies. The two may have deserved each other but they needed to be removed from the company of everyone else in the world. Oh, like there was much of anyone in the whole book who didn’t need a good foot up the ass. Hindley and the Lintons ruined their own damn lives. Hindley was a jealous asshole from the moment Heathcliff entered the house. He treated Heathcliff like shit even before his father died, treated him worse after the old man bought it, and would have drank himself into physical and financial ruin no matter what. (Admittedly, Heathcliff sped up the process.) Edgar Linton was a whiny, spoiled, self-righteous little prig who talked shit about Heathcliff right to his face and was too damn stupid to realize who and what Cathy really was even after he married her. Isabella Linton was a whiny, moony, moron who decided she was in love with Heathcliff out of, near as I can tell, sheer perversity. And then they had the freakin’ _nerve_ to whine about how ill-treated they were, as if their foolishness was everyone’s fault but theirs. And that kid Heathcliff and Isabella had, Linton. Whiny, spoiled little twerp before Heathcliff ever laid eyes on him. This was almost certainly the result of being raised by a whiny, moony, moron but I still wanted to put a foot in his ass. Perhaps he would have become less of a whiny spoiled twerp if he’d been left with Edgar and Cathy Mark 2, but I rather doubt it. Cathy Mark 2 was also more than a bit spoiled and self-willed, and her being stuck with Linton and Heathcliff is a direct result of her disobeying her father’s and Nellie’s instructions. Heathcliff treated her very badly, but she still deserves a foot in the ass for blaming the results of her own foolishness on everyone else. The list of characters who didn’t need a foot in the ass was: Hareton, who was the only innocent victim of Heathcliff’s perfidy, Nellie the housekeeper, and the nameless tenant–and the last two were really framing devices more than characters. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/26 "2013-10-08T21:54:33Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Psst, post #5. :smack: It did seem unbelievable! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/27 "2013-10-08T22:04:19Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > :smack: > > It did seem unbelievable! Someone proposed a rule about this akin to Gaudere’s Rule: Anyone who posts “I can’t be the first to post this” won’t be.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jayrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jayrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayrey)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/28 "2013-10-08T22:46:28Z")
Thank you, thank you for saying that you think Holden Caulfield was a whiney, self-absorbed little twerp. I HATED that book when I had to read it in high school and it is one of the few that actually make me gnash my teeth when it’s mentioned. Yes, Holden gets a baseball bat upside the head AND a sharp pointy boot up his butt. ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/29 "2013-10-09T01:58:35Z")
Mme Bovary. How I hated her. I wanted to somehow transmit myself into the book and say, “Hey, you dumb bitch, the arsenic is in the cupboard!” and spare us all the agony of having to read more of her whiny bullshit. Ditto Carol Kennicot, the bitch from “Main Street.” Oh, how I hate Sinclair Lewis!! (Of all the days to be sick that year, it was the day the teacher was assigning term papers. I could have had my choice of authors. Instead I got assigned Sinclair fucking Lewis.) And add me to the Holden Caulfield and Thomas Covenant dogpiles! ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/30 "2013-10-09T03:02:17Z")
> [@knifebreaker](#): > > Joffrey Baratheon I want to [beat him with his own shoes.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rapo0h-RDnk) ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/31 "2013-10-09T03:17:11Z")
Can I vote for the cast of _Wheel of Time?_ I haven’t read _Twilight_ but I like to nominate them also. Max Devore from _Bag of Bones_. And Rogette also from _Bag of Bones_. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/32 "2013-10-09T03:45:53Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > Can I vote for the cast of _Wheel of Time?_ I haven’t read _Twilight_ but I like to nominate them also. I would also like to vote for the entire cast of WoT. I can’t remember a single character that I liked. And, ummm, I have actually read _Twilight_. It was on sale at Half Price Books, and I had lost a bet, and reading that piece of dreck was one of the options to pay the bet. I paid $2 for it, and it took me forever to read. I’m generally a very quick reader, but it was impossible for me to read that thing for any length of time. For those who think that it can’t possibly be as bad as people say it is, no, it’s not that bad. It’s worse. ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/33 "2013-10-09T03:46:25Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Dolores Jane Umbridge. > > Even considering [what may have happened to her](http://www.cracked.com/article_19397_the-5-most-depraved-sex-scenes-implied-by-harry-potter.html) off-screen (as it were), I’d like to beat the hell out of her. Oh yes, I second this very much. I heartily contend that the insufferable cow is easily the most evil character in the whole series, and that’s compared to the main villain who is a textbook psychopath. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/34 "2013-10-09T04:13:34Z")
> [@galen\_ubal](#): > > Thomas Covenant, professional whiner - even without the rape and whatnot, I just wanted to smack him headless. I’ll third that one. ---
**Author:** ![AnthonyElite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@AnthonyElite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnthonyElite)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/35 "2013-10-09T11:46:31Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I would also like to vote for the entire cast of WoT. I can’t remember a single character that I liked. > > And, ummm, I have actually read _Twilight_. It was on sale at Half Price Books, and I had lost a bet, and reading that piece of dreck was one of the options to pay the bet. I paid $2 for it, and it took me forever to read. I’m generally a very quick reader, but it was impossible for me to read that thing for any length of time. For those who think that it can’t possibly be as bad as people say it is, no, it’s not that bad. It’s worse. It really, really is. Someone left that book in my bathroom (perhaps in case we ran out of toilet paper?) and every time the business came up I would read a random page. I defy anyone to find one page that isn’t a danger to falling asleep on the toilet. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/36 "2013-10-09T12:31:14Z")
There was once a thread here on what fictional characters needed a good smack. The top female character was Scarlett O’Hara, top male character was Victor Frankenstein. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/37 "2013-10-09T12:42:54Z")
Another vote for Carol Kennicott of “Main Street”. What a self-righteous pain in the butt. And Jack Reacher. I wouldn’t try to beat him up, just shoot him. Any other tough guys want to make my day? ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/38 "2013-10-09T16:16:36Z")
Yahweh ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/39 "2013-10-09T16:17:08Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I would also like to vote for the entire cast of WoT. I can’t remember a single character that I liked. > > And, ummm, I have actually read _Twilight_. It was on sale at Half Price Books, and I had lost a bet, and reading that piece of dreck was one of the options to pay the bet. I paid $2 for it, and it took me forever to read. I’m generally a very quick reader, but it was impossible for me to read that thing for any length of time. For those who think that it can’t possibly be as bad as people say it is, no, it’s not that bad. It’s worse. I can’t say much bad about Tam and Hopper from WoT and even Lanfear had her moments 🙂 Another character who needed a beating was O’brien from _1984_. What a bastard. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650/40 "2013-10-09T17:14:56Z")
> [@Subterraneanus](#): > > Yahweh I’ll take Paul. What a douche. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-from-books-you-would-like-to-beat-the-s-t-out-of-them/670650.md?page=3)