But most people do like his character. I, for one, think he’s the funniest out of everyone on that show.
Along this line I nominate Agnes Grey. Christ I hated that character.
And let’s be honest. Who doesn’t enjoy watching an asshole who actually says what we are thinking to every idiot they come across. Who doesn’t love an Eric Cartman or Steve Stifler or a Dr Cox?
Could you elaborate? What did Tess ever do that was toolish? What didn’t you like about Jane Eyre, who was surely a product of her environment? And I’m sure we’re not supposed to like Madame Bovary. (I don’t remember Fanny Price).
For me it’s John Cusack’s character in High Fidelity. He recounts his former breakups as if he’s the victim, when in the most noticeable case he drove away his girlfriend because she wouldn’t have sex with him, yet remembers it for the next ten years as “Poor me, why is everyone so mean to me?”
Also, he was unbelievably cruel to his pregnant, current girlfriend.
I think we’re supposed to like him because he slightly improves at the very end?
Well played, sir, well played.
I suspect that Ellison’s stuff is so dark for the very simple reason that he enjoys making his characters suffer.
Take the others, and the also nominated Agnes Grey as well as every other 19th century doormat, but if that’s why Jane is on the list, I’d ask for her removal.
She’s an outright rebel, and her declaration to Mr. Rochester wherein she asserts her rights as a human being and not as a person of a certain class is maybe not a high point of English Literature, but a ripping good moment anyway.
(Pretty much every film version of her you can have, if that’s what you meant.)
I’d nominate Mr. Rochester. Yes, he’s supposed to be quirky and Byronic, but you are supposed to desire him. To me, he played tricks on people to give himself the opportunity to despise them. If someone had told me he was engaged, just as a trick to test my love, well, that alone would have cooled me right off.
So Jane did have bad taste.
Fanny Price is from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, and it shows Ms. Austen’s genius that the book could center around Fanny and I’d still read it. (Warning for those who haven’t read the book: Young people plan to put on a play! :eek:
The father of the house returns home in time, and the imprudent action is thankfully averted.
Tess I hated, but I hated Hardy in general and haven’t read him in decades. I thought we were supposed to like Madame Bovary (I didn’t) but maybe that’s a translation issue – different versions could impact on this.
For a 20th Century example: Melanie Wilks.
Me too but, then, I’m a bit of a Garden State fanboy.
Please elaborate.
The girl in the “Golden Compass.”
I’m guessing the other two books are about her, too. But I’m not going to read them, because she’s an utterly awful, unlikeable, little brat who is in desperate need of killing off.
You want bad things to happen to the nasty child and are disappointed when they don’t.
Wimp, wimp, wimp, bitch.
You can have Jane, I’ve never been fond of her.
Oh, and as long as we are in this place, can we make a movie where the entire character list of Wuthering Heights goes off to camp where a guy in a hockey mask and a little psychopathic doll do them in.
Self-absorbed whiny boys with superpowers frequently fail to be sympathetic.
See also: Paul Atreides.
Anakin Skywalker!
I once read where Lucas stated that the whole sage is about his rise, fall and eventual redemption.
Okay, but if so, shouldn't we we like the character, even a little?That would be an awesome movie.
I may not be the best qualified person to speak to this, since I’ve only read the first book in the series, and it was in high school, but I felt as though I was being pushed very hard to sympathize with Ender, to like him, and to agree with his decisions. In seemingly every situation, he faced impossibly lopsided odds, often with people cheating to stack those odds against them. The shower scene with Bonzo (am I remembering that name correctly, or is that the monkey from the Ronald Reagan movie?) is a good example: the whole situation just felt like a set-up for Ender to thrash the guy within an inch of his life, with no way the reader could blame him for it.
I guess it isn’t entirely me thinking Ender was a tool (as per the OP) so much as me thinking he was kind of eh, while bristling against the storytelling style.
Well, if that’s the case, it really wasn’t worth watching.
Seriously, because his rise and fall are both so poorly written as to be unbelievable, and his redemption is merely okay - hell, it’s over in ten minutes of screen time. The best parts of the saga (Episodes 4, 5 and most of 6) are where Anakin is already fallen and quite static in terms of his character development.
I do. It seemed like every other scene she was in, she was weeping–I wanted to wring her out like a wet dishcloth about halfway through the book.
(And she ends up with her cousin-slash-adoptive brother? How creepy is that?)
The Ender’s Game story was pretty dull. Ender was always too smart for his own good and much too smart for the writer. I admire Orson Scott Card’s frequent attempts, but he keeps writing character smarter than he is. He also keeps makng them very annoying. He obsesses and angsts over things no kid would ever actually care about.
Finally, the authorities keep trying to create tension by subjecting Ender to ridiculous pressures, under the mad assumption that a real genius will find a way to win. Of course, this leaves out luck, time, or any other possible explanation. This doesn’t help matters.
Braff is the perfect actor to play J.D., so that explains that. Scrubs is very well cast.
As to why he’s a leading man, he’s getitng a lot of cred and milage out of “Garden State,” a movie that was extremely appealing to the woe-is-me “Quarter life crisis” crowd. Personally I thought it was pretty bad, but it’s getting him more work.