To expand the Austen universe, I cannot stand Mr. Collins from P&P. What an obsequious and yet simultaneously arrogrant prig. I almost hate Charlotte for marrying him, but I pity her too much. I wouldn’t be terribly upset if I discovered he’d gone on a church mission and been eaten by cannibals.
Oh, I despise Mr. Collins too much to hate him. Lady Catherine, though…perhaps I shouldn’t go there right now.
Hal Jordan and Ollie Queen. nuff said.
Ray’s mom on Everybody Loves Raymond. Gaaaahhhhhhh!
TV characters who weren’t officially villains that I hated were Mona (Katherine Helmond) from Who’s the Boss? (her constant humiliation of her daughter, while played for laughs, was just painfully belittling and I wanted to slug her on Angela’s behalf), Maude from Maude (as irritating as Archie, just in reverse) and Julia Sugarbaker in the last few seasons of Designing Women (when the character had gone from occasionally ranting faded belle to just shrill judgmental elitist bitch).
In pop-fiction and literature, as far as out and out villains, here’s another vote for Umbridge (surely Rowling will give her a fitting end in the last book). For more nuanced characters, both Thomas More and Richard Rich in Man for All Seasons (both are historical characters, but the play itself is heavily fictional), the former for being such an ideologue and the latter for, of course, being soulless sleaze. I loathed Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (for not having the balls to tell Scarlett to get the hell over him- he was married, a father, and a closet case but needed the adulation too much to let her go). I couldn’t stand Arthur in several versions of the Arthurian legends for his idealism and blindness to what was going on around him which led to death and destruction in his kingdom. Many others but my mind’s blanking at the moment.
Marius. I can’t stand Marius. Yeah, I know, I’m the only one in the world…but I don’t care. Pompous little jerk has everything on Earth handed to him on a silver platter. People risking their lives to save him, the resistance begging him for his aid, a lover so devoted she’s distraught beyond compare at the prospect of his departure. And all he can do is sit around and whine about how sad he is.
Yeah, no $@!#, genius. News flash: there’s a revolution occuring. Bloodbaths in the streets, chaos abounding, society in the midst of total upheaval. I think a lot of people are sad right now. What’s more, I think they have a little more going through their minds than whether or not you should leave your house. Heck, even the musical production is nice enough to you to give you your own little solo number in which you can complain about your woes. Which basically amount to the depth of a Clash song. “Well come on and let me know: should I stay or should I go?”
Stupid Marius. Who cares about you anyway? (Answer: a whole lot more people than rightfully should.)
Casaubon.
The Heep rocked, dude! Most of Dickens’ heroes are pretty mimsy, except maybe Sidney Carton, but Pip is particularly detestable: that chapter where Joe Gargery comes to visit him in London and Pip, secure in his “expectations” sneers at and condescends to him…grrr!
I don’t hate him, but certainly agree with you on many points.
Several things that bugs me about him.
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One of his friends gets kicked out of law school to protect him, and when he gets his degree, he would rather wander the streets feeling sorry for himself. Apparently, working distracts you from that.
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Marius almost lets Valjean be killed by a gang of ruthless thugs/robbers because he believes it would be wrong to turn in the guy who “saved” his fathers life, even if he is a total scumbag. Dude, your father didn’t know who the guy was, and your father certiainly didn’t know he was trying to pick his pocket, not save his life.
3.He throws Valjean out of his house because Valjean admits he was once a criminal, 20 years before. Since then, he has been very kind to you. And that’s how you repay him.
Hear, hear, Fionn. I was surprised when I re-read On the Road at the age of 29 to find out how much and how deeply I disliked Dean. When I was 17 I thought he was some kind of tragic fallen angel; after a decade or two of knowing people like him, I just thought he was an asshole.
I must admit I did like the device of his bandaged thumb, which caused him to run around all the time holding it up as if he were giving the thumbs-up to the world.
Peggy Hill. Ooooh Peggy Hill. How I hate thee, vile hell-harpie.
I don’t know if she’s meant to be unlikeable, or just meant to be naive and kind of set in her southern ways like Hank, but I really do find myself rooting for her to fall flat on her face and fail every time she appears onscreen.
King of the Hill is kind of a tolerable show. Not bad to have on while I’m getting ready for work in the mornings. Or it would be but for the shrill, ignorant and incredibly hateful chittering of that horrid, horrid creature.
Raaaar.
Also, any of the Seinfeld crew. They’re all fcuking morons.
Bobby and Khan jr/Connie are the only two characters on that show I can stand at all. Hank’s as bad as Peggy, and his friends are too annoying to be funny (so’s the girl, whose name I can’t remember). Hank’s dad is even worse than Hank and Peggy combined, and his wife is…truly pathetic. Dale’s wife is…tollerable, but not likeable. Her kid is annoying, and his dad is nothing but a prop for the ‘clueless Dale’ joke. Connie’s parents are as bad as Hank and Peggy, in every way.
I don’t know why I’ve watched enough episodes of the show to form opinions on all of those characters…I’m a bit of a masochist, I guess.
That buttwipe Thomas Covenant. “Hey! I’m in a fictional universe! And I have leprosy!* So I’ll rape whoever I want to! And act like a total ass! For an entire series!”
And Emma Bovary. And Emma’s stupid husband. And anyone else Flaubert ever wrote about.
And the obligatory…Jar-Jar Binks! I know you can’t hate a character that was never created 
but I do!
*[Marge Simpson]“Hanson’s Disease, Lisa. Hanson’s Disease.”[/Marge Simpson]
Ha, I was waiting for someone to mention him. I loved and hated Thomas Covenant equally. Thomas Covenant was an asshole. He was supposed to be an asshole. And Donaldson wrote him very well as one. However, I couldn’t help but like him - at least he never once pretended to be anything but an ass, and never tried to claim to be a noble or honorable man. And while he hated every second of it, he did what he had to do.
I might have developed an even stronger soft spot for him when he went skipping merrily through Andelain in the second series, though. His love for the Land that was showed so clearly then.
And Linden Avery was no walk in the park either.
Another vote for Umbridge. It’s rare in this quasi-sophisticated day and age, when so many fictional works go out of their way to insert shades of gray around everything, to have a character who is just so outright hateable in all ways.
The Gentleman with Thistle-down Hair in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
As mentioned above, definitely Thomas Covenant. I despised him. In fact, I loathed him so much, I vowed never to pick up another book by that author (whose name I seem to have blocked from my memory). Yeah, so, he was written that way…call me petty but damned if I’m going to waste my time reading another book in the series with such a foul main character. I only completed the thing in the faint hopes he’d get his comeuppance or at least change or, I don’t know, show remorse or something.
Oh, and ditto for Umbridge.
He didn’t show much in the way of remorse in the first book, but he definitely felt it in the rest of the series.
Pretty much everyone in Hamlet. It’s like watching a train wreck of a family dispute in which NO one is worth speaking to. At the end they’re all dead. Good.
Leo from Twin Peaks. Ooooh what a meanie!