How many times have you been reading a book that has a character who’s either so stupid or so obnoxious that you just want to reach into the book and give 'em a swift kick in the ass? A few that come to mind for me are:
Alannon the Druid from Brook’s “Sword of Shannara” series. A cryptic asshole who gives instructions in code for ‘your own good’ then throws a tantrum when you don’t decipher the clues in time:
Alannon: Shea when the time comes there’s something you MUST! NOT! DO!
Shea: Jeepers! Sounds important! What is it?
Alannon: Ain’t tellin’.
And he does this over and over.
Another slap-worthy character is Polgara from The Belgariad. Her boyfriend kills someone for the first time and is traumatized and she hugs and consoles him. Her “nephew” (age 14 or so) kills someone for the first time (in a pretty horrific fashion) and she tells him to stop whining and be a man. At another point, to throw some bad-guys off their trail, she tells everyone that her “nephew” is just some kid she’s stuck with that she couldn’t figure out how to get rid of. He’s obviously upset by this, but she doesn’t bother to explain her motives to him later. Bitch.
And while we’re at it: Almost every other character in the Belgariad: It took most of you FOUR books to figure out that Garion was the lost heir? I figured it out as soon as I heard that “a great snowy owl” saved the one of the heirs and that Polgara could shape-shift into an owl. Here’s a quarter guys. Go buy yourself a collective clue.
Thomas Covenant: Ok, so you’ve got leprosy. Shut the hell up about it. Quit sniveling. I don’t care. You’ve already told me more than I ever wanted to know about leprosy. And leprosy, in the context of this genre is no big deal (obviously in the real world it is a big deal). Elric had cause to snivel, You don’t. Now shut up and quit raping women. 'k?
Every single character in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, with the possible exception of Lan and Moiraine (unless she’s still dead). If fact, I’d like to do it myself, line 'em all up in a row and just let loose"
As for Covenant - at least he’s an adult, and he does get slapped around quite severely for the rest of the series, ending up reasonable bearable. In the Second Chronicles he’s much more nice to be around.
Besides, that’s Donaldson’s style - give us some severely fucked-up central characters, and have them supported by a bunch of awe-inspiring, larger than life heroes.
This character was probably THE most annoying one I’ve ever seen. Whine, whine, whine. It’s been about 20 years since I’ve read it, but IIRC, he didn’t even have leprosy in the fantasy world, and yet he still whined about it. argh.
Except in his Gap science fiction series, in which he gives us some severly fucked-up central characters and has them supported by a bunch of even more severly fucked-up characters. And yet for some reason I was compelled to read the whole thing.
I agree on the Wheel of Time comment. I didn’t even finish the last book because I got so bored with the characters and their constant hand-wringing. Hey Rand – it’s OK to kill a woman if she is evil incarnate and bent on the destruction of you and your friends. Really, chivalry should only be taken so far.
I disagree - Warden Dios, Min Donner and Hashi Lebwhol all seemed to exist on a higher, more archetypical plane than Morn, Angus and Nick. Min was loyalty and dicisiveness personified, Hashi was cunning personified, and Warden was the book’s soul. It’s a sign of Donaldson’s mastry that he managed to make three almost abstract characters into living, three-dimensional beings. I’d hardly call them fucked-up.
L Ron Hubbard’s Mission Earth series. Soltan Gris a main character (not the hero) who practically threw a temper tantrum throughout two full books. The entire series was ten books but I could not take any more of him. I couldn’t read another word where he’s yelling at the reader. And that’s exactly what he was doing. He was the guy who stands up at a horror movie and yells “Don’t go in there! The killer’s in there! If you go in there you’ll be killed! Someone tell him that! PLEASE LISTEN TO ME!” It was seriously that bad. I so desperately wanted to smack him.
Yes, but the whole point was that Thomas Covenant did not believe that the fantasy world was real. He thought it was massive self-delusion by psyche to trick him into giving up his leprosy-training. If the fantasy could give him hope of a life without leprosy then he would give up the habits that kept the leprosy from progressing and eventually die.
As for fenris’ request that Thomas be slapped around and told to stop whining: Donaldson wrote three whole books doing exactly that. The other examples given are of characters that are unintentionally whiney or stupid; the whole point of the Thomas Covenant Chronicles is that he is whiney. There’s a difference.
in the episode AMOK TIME we find that Spock has a HOT babe back on Vulcan and he’s running around the galaxy with some nitwit human and the NITWIT HUMAN IS IN CHARGE!!! Spock deserved to have some Vulcan kick his silly a$$.
of course that would ruin the whole series, but hey. HOT BABES with brains aren’t a dime a dozen.
i LOVED her explanation of why she had Kirk fight Spock. Dragonladies are where it’s at but you have to check out where the target lock is set. ROFL!
Gee, the last time I left the kingdom unattended my cousin usurped the throne and tried to kill me. I have to go away again. Who should I put in charge . . .
