# Characters too awful to exist
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 27, 2022, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176 "2022-02-27T01:28:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2022, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/21 "2022-02-27T18:43:02Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> I give you: Angel Martin.
>
> I don’t understand why Rockford didn’t push him off a pier or something. He conned Jim as much as he conned other people. Why is it when I try to watch a random episode, it always seems to feature Angel? According to imdb, he was only in a quarter! ☹
Angel came through for Jim on a few occasions; helped him with some of his cons, put the word out on the street, that sort of thing. And Stuart Margolin played him brilliantly, winning two Emmys for the role.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2022, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/22 "2022-02-27T18:55:00Z")
> [@Shoeless](#):
>
> Sheldon Cooper.
Yup, Sheldon’s social maladjustment (due to Asperger’s or whatever) makes him insensitive and lacking in empathy. As the show goes on, he starts to become at least slightly less clueless about this, at least.
But, I find Howard Wolowitz to be the most repulsive of the group. In a show in which all of the main characters (except for Sheldon) are obsessed with sex, to a greater or lesser degree (which I ascribe, in part, to it being a Chuck Lorre show), Howard is particularly odious about it. He’s relentless about hitting on women, and unapologetic about objectifying women. Even once Howard settles down with Bernadette, while he becomes loyal to her, he is still unrelenting horny and objectifying of her.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2022, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/23 "2022-02-27T19:05:56Z")
This doesn’t meet the standard of “so incompetent or disloyal that they break suspension of disbelief” because there’s an in-universe explanation. Namely Bombur of _The Hobbit_: He was one of only twelve dwarves that Thorin, an impoverished pretender to an extinct throne, could find to join his cause. The point was that the whole band were a ragtag group of not terribly heroic or competent people, like if you took twelve people at random from your neighborhood, job or school. But I’m fond of saying that they would all have done better if they had simply hanged Bombur at the start of the quest.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/24 "2022-02-28T20:03:45Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> I’m rewatching season one of Witcher, and being reminded of how awful the character of the Bard is; he makes me not want to keep watching. It made me think about other characters who are so utterly useless, aggressively so, that their tolerance by other characters is so wrong that it counts as a plothole: there is absolutely no way, to my mind, that the character of the Witcher, as developed in the story, would tolerate the character of the Bard, as developed in the story, beyond the time it takes for him to sing one song.
Interesting: I think the Bard exemplifies the _Witcher’s_ character flaws. Jaskier deals with Geralt professionally, of course–but he also relates to him as a person and without sex. No non-Witcher in Geralt’s life treats him that way. Nobody is just _friendly_. Geralt is intensely bitter and intensely lonely but has resigned himself to both states, and Geralt’s friendship threatens his equilibrium.
Sure, Jaskia does some boneheaded things, but so does Geralt; and Geralt’s eventual blow-up at the bard is not justified. For my money, it’s less about Jaskia’s actual faults, and more about how the Witcher just can’t handle the idea of a friendship like the one that Jaskia offers.
Plus, Jaskia’s genuinely funny, and I enjoyed nearly every second of his screen time.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/25 "2022-02-28T20:19:40Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> Plus, Jaskia’s genuinely funny, and I enjoyed nearly every second of his screen time.
Ahh, that’s the disconnect. I’ve been doing standup open mikes for the last couple years, which as you can imagine is mostly dreadfully unfunny wannabes (present company included). But of the hundreds of such such performances I’ve choked through, not a single one of them even approaches the violently aggressively horrifying unfunniness of Jaskier. His appearance onscreen engenders in me a vague feeling of violent disgust. He’s truly the punchablest character since JarJar or Urkel.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/26 "2022-02-28T20:28:36Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> But of the hundreds of such such performances I’ve choked through, not a single one of them even approaches the violently aggressively horrifying unfunniness of Jaskier. His appearance onscreen engenders in me a vague feeling of violent disgust. He’s truly the punchablest character since JarJar or Urkel.
How weird–as you surely know, Jaskia’s [a fan favorite.](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+witcher+bard+fan+favorite&rlz=1CAHGDC_enUS874&sxsrf=APq-WBuI0Hf5EhUY0GTKs_PvSUYNAyPScQ%3A1646079965534&ei=3S8dYqP-H4G6ggfXhb3wBA&ved=0ahUKEwjj4PfcnaP2AhUBneAKHddCD04Q4dUDCA4&uact=5&oq=the+witcher+bard+fan+favorite&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQAzIFCCEQoAE6BwgjELADECc6BwgAEEcQsAM6BwgAELADEEM6CggAEOQCELADGAA6DwguENQCEMgDELADEEMYAToMCC4QyAMQsAMQQxgBOgoILhCABBCHAhAUOgoIABCABBCHAhAUOgUILhCABDoFCAAQgAQ6BggAEBYQHjoFCAAQhgM6CAghEBYQHRAeSgQIQRgASgQIRhgBUOwCWJwPYIQQaAFwAXgAgAGvAYgB9QqSAQMzLjmYAQCgAQHIARPAAQHaAQYIABABGAnaAQYIARABGAg&sclient=gws-wiz-serp&safe=active&ssui=on) (Obviously a Google search isn’t definitive proof, but I don’t know how one would go about proving such a thing anyway). If your sense of humor is in the decided minority, I can see how you dislike him. I don’t think that leads to considering him a plot-hole, though; rather, you might consider that _your_ dislike of him might not be entirely shared by Geralt.
In a similar vein, I found Moira Rose to be nails-on-chalkboard in almost every scene she was in, and I kept hoping that her husband would divorce her just so that her character could leave the goddamned show. My opinion was not, to be charitable, universally shared.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/27 "2022-02-28T20:36:50Z")
FYI, Dandelion (his name in the books) is a fairly different character, at least through the first two books (as far as I’ve got). For one thing, he’s already friends with Geralt. There hasn’t been any kind of warming-up period or anything, and they’re friendly with each other, instead of Geralt basically barely tolerating him as in the show.
He’s also portrayed as not an incompetent buffoon, unlike the show. He’s not a warrior, but he’s not entirely useless either. And he’s got a fair degree of fame in his own right, as well as quite a bit of skill with the ladies and in social situations, which is something Geralt lacks by comparison.
I think that just having Jaskier show up and be a competent bard who’s a successful(?) womanizer would have seemed a bit weird to a lot of audiences, and less of a sidekick than having Jaskier be a new bard who’s trying to make a name for himself.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/28 "2022-02-28T20:43:45Z")
Urkel was a fan favorite. I’ve never let my own analysis/understanding/opinion of an art work be influenced by the majority opinion. After all I’m the dude who says _Showgirls_ is a masterpiece _Schindler’s List_ is an abomination. 🕶 _Three’s Company_ was a number one hit show.
And FWIW I found _Schitt’s Creek_ as a whole unwatchable.🤷
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### Author:  [@Mr.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.E)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/29 "2022-02-28T22:22:10Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> This doesn’t meet the standard of “so incompetent or disloyal that they break suspension of disbelief” because there’s an in-universe explanation. Namely Bombur of _The Hobbit_ : He was one of only twelve dwarves that Thorin, an impoverished pretender to an extinct throne, could find to join his cause. The point was that the whole band were a ragtag group of not terribly heroic or competent people, like if you took twelve people at random from your neighborhood, job or school. But I’m fond of saying that they would all have done better if they had simply hanged Bombur at the start of the quest.
Bombur put the dwarves’ party at 13, and so they needed one more member to get them to the much more agreeable 14. If they hung Bombur they’d be right back at 13 again, so they’d either have to pick up another hobbit (and good luck finding one even as competent as Bombur) or drop Bilbo as well, in which case the book never happens and Middle Earth is destroyed when Sauron gets around to claiming his ring from Gollum.
This, of course, merely agrees with what you’ve already said but is further proof that Bombur was instrumental in saving the world and absolutely needed to exist.
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### Author:  [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/30 "2022-02-28T22:37:11Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> It brought to mind the characters of Pippin and Merry in the LOTR movies, whose dangerous stupidity leads to many of the worst obstacles the Fellowship must overcome.
That’s one of the reasons many LOTR fans were upset that the “Scouring of the Shire” coda was removed from the last movie; it helped demonstrate how the four hobbits - especially Merry and Pippin - grew throughout their journey. Granted, it would have added another 20 minutes to an already bladder-busting movie length.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movies, but I know Merry and Pippin were solely responsible for the Ents declaring war on Saruman / Orthanc (which in itself was a problem for me, because it made Treebeard look uninformed about his domain), and of course Merry helped make possible the slaying of the Witch-King. So calling them “obstacles” doesn’t really make sense, in my opinion.
Now, Jar-Jar … HIM I’ll happily vivisect and enjoy doing it.
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### Author:  [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2022, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/31 "2022-03-01T00:20:26Z")
Spud from Bob The Builder. Spud is a scarecrow who likes to play pranks on the other machines. So he’s not even a useful member of the team like the machines or Bob, just a nuisance who’s supposed to be cute or something.
In the newer episodes, Bob moves to the city. Spud is not in these episodes. I told my kids that Spud died.
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### Author:  [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2022, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/32 "2022-03-01T04:01:41Z")
Pippin and Merry are responsible for saving Faramir and killing the Witch King. Without Merry, Eowyn couldnt have harmed him.
As for the OP
Liz Lemon is a straight up villain.
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### Author:  [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2022, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/33 "2022-03-01T18:18:36Z")
Yes. I loathe the whole family except I loathe the daughter less. I feel sorry for her, an episode I happened to watch had someone (a counselor?) talking to her and she said she felt like an afterthought. Her father and brother bonded together over football, and her mother and grandmother bonded together over the care of the young genius. No one in the family was ‘for’ her much…are there actually creatures like Young Sheldon?? I want to slap his rosy little cheeks if I accidentally glimpse the start of that show in the middle of the night.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/34 "2022-03-01T22:50:47Z")
I always thought that was kind of the point; they’re all four misfits- Leonard being a painfully un-confident guy, Sheldon being an Aspergers weirdo, Howard being a runty letch, and Raj being so shy he couldn’t talk around girls. And that’s kind of how they all hit it off- they all worked in proximity to each other, and sort of hit it off.
The thing with Sheldon is that I think they knew he wasn’t necessarily being a dick deliberately, and were tolerant of his inadvertent dickitude. Contrast this with Kripke, who was basically an asshole and knew it, and they didn’t put up with him.
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### Author:  [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/35 "2022-03-02T02:44:30Z")
Jane Lynch’s character is one of the things that turned me off _Glee._ Why this bitch wasn’t thrown out on her ass for some of the shenanigans she pulled in that school is beyond me. Not that cared that much, I thought at best the show would be a guilty pleasure for me. But she put the kibosh even on that.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2022, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/36 "2022-03-02T18:36:04Z")
The most repulsive fictional character and certainly the worst Norwegian I’ve encountered lately is serial rapist and killer Svein Finne, from the Nesbo novel _Knife_.
A vile and creepy dude.
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2022, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/37 "2022-03-02T20:26:39Z")
Maybe the most objectionable, two-dimensional, worthless protagonist antagonist IMO is Daniel in Mike Leigh’s “Naked”. Couldn’t even finish the film with his increasingly predictable, tedious douchebaggery.
Leigh isn’t known for having the most huggable characters, but there’s also Aubrey, in “Life is Sweet”, whom I thought was completely WTF-you-doing-here? in this film.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2022, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/38 "2022-03-03T00:05:55Z")
:shrug: I like Jasiker. Maybe because I do know him from the books. He is a bit like the annoying younger brother but he has his uses and is often amusing. As someone noted he’s called Dandelion in the books. In Polish jasiker means buttercup. The translator thought dandelion would be better.
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2022, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/39 "2022-03-03T00:30:17Z")
Kinda vacillating on the Kris Kristofferson charcater in “Lone Star”. Sure, nothing but nastiness, but I’m also wondering if the plot would’ve completely suffered without him.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2022, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-too-awful-to-exist/960176/40 "2022-03-03T00:37:12Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> :shrug: I like Jasiker. Maybe because I do know him from the books.
It might be because you know him from the books–but a lot of fans, like myself, don’t. I found the actor to be genuinely amusing, working with the genuinely amusing script he was given.
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