Stephen King has a staple character type in his books e.g. Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone, Ann Anderson in The Tommyknockers, the abusive boyfriend (whose name I can’t bother to look up) in It, Roland LeBay in Christine, “Buster” Keaton in Needful Things whose credo is basically My Way or the highway - and come to think of it, I’ll take the highway, too. Hateful, unreasonable, uncompromising people who, even if they are not necessarily the villain/monster of the story, just make life in general unpleasant for everybody. I have the urge to get on my riding mower and give these people The Big Haircut. Grrrrr.
There’s a new meme in fantasy/romance that of a woman who is her own person. Great, we likes it. But then, every time a friend gives her good advice or a boss a reasonable order, then she MUST do the exact freaken opposite, often leading to disaster. And then her boss and friends- once you have seen this occur a zillions time, why not: “Hmm, if she jumps off that cliff it will really hurt and we don’t want her to do that. Ok- Lady you MUST jump off that cliff right now, it’s a order!”.
All of them (author included) need a good bitch-slapping. Rachel Caine- you and your protagonist Joanne Baldwin are first.
Jo in Little Women. How could she let Amy have Laurie?
And yes, I know that LMA very likely had lesbian tendencies and that she didn’t want her alter ego Jo to marry any man at all and that she only introduced Prof Bhaer at her publisher’s insistance.
Javert, from *Les Misérables. *Come on, man, it was a fucking loaf of bread.
Pleased to know I wasn’t the only one that hated both the story and Holden…
FWIW…there is also a Dean Koontz book with a Holden Caufield as a key character
Gotta mention - from TV - Jack in 24. A beating isn’t enough. He deserves death!