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Original poster

Whose the most horrible character in any book you've read?

244 replies

FreddoBaggyMac · 31/08/2010 08:28

I've just finished 'The Help' and am very sad about it too [sniff] I miss Aibileen... Anyway I feel the need to make my hatred of Miss Hilly public. I don't think I've ever detested anyone in a book quite so much...

I thought I would create a tribute thread in her honour, listing the most repugnant characters in fictional history. Please help by adding entries to the list!
I nominate MISS HILLY from The Help as the number one entry.

OP posts:
DashingRedhead · 17/11/2010 14:24

Totally agree re Mrs Norris, but think Mr Collins and Lydia are just hilarious, though they make me cringe with embarrassment too.

Urk is v creepy (yes, will go and cletter something to get over it).

Also agree re Sir Percival Glyde and many of the others. Refuse to read American Psycho, so can't comment on that.

I thought nearly everyone in the Slap was absolutely obnoxious, but still found an absorbing read nonetheless.

notnowbernard · 17/11/2010 14:21

The bent copper in Filth by Irvine Welsh

MayorNaze · 17/11/2010 14:20

the aunt in jane eyre. i used to have nightmares about the red room

yy to miss minchin and marchpane

the mother in flowers in the attic Grin

tess was a complete drip btw. MOST iritating literary character ever.

moulesvinrouge · 10/11/2010 22:40

Hello!! I'm new so hello all. I think Lydia Bennett - total slagrat, Miss HIlly obv, and whoever that total bitch was in Cat's Eye - Cordelia?

mollycuddles · 10/11/2010 04:35

Yy re Fagin. The real villian.

Voldemort obviously as said

Also agree re Angel Clare, Mrs Danvers and Edward in Twlight. Can't think of anyone new at this time in the morning. (sleep deprived and a bit brainless clearly)

Rhinestone · 10/11/2010 01:43

Franklin from We Need to Talk About Kevin - not questioning your son about how his little sister lost a fucking eye? When said son was looking after her? Fucking twunt.

Pappy in Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. Horrible, horrible, racist, evil, murderous, horrible man. And probably a paedophile too.

RealityBomb · 09/11/2010 18:37

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RealityBomb · 09/11/2010 18:36

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gherkinwithapurplemerkin · 09/11/2010 18:34

Fagin.

He is NOT the lovable rogue in the musical, he is throroughly nasty through and through (though obv a v racist character). He is a murderer several times over; and he grooms the children in his gang to become criminals and prostitutes once they are too big to pick pockets. he is why Bill Sikes is so vile.

CheerfulYank · 09/11/2010 18:27

Joe St. George, the husband in Dolores Claiborne.

I'd have done worse, you can bet on it.

overthemill · 09/11/2010 18:20

ooh the 'lead' in perfume by patrick suskind - totally makes me shiver years later!

Bue · 08/11/2010 14:24

Nope, the only crime novels I've read are Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson and there's no one terribly unlikeable in those :) I honestly think Briony is about a million times worse than some of the other characters mentioned here!

But I've changed my mind. Just finished The Help. My god, the OP was right. Hilly Holbrook is horrid.

notinmypocket · 08/11/2010 14:21

Mr Pudd - he pops up in a couple of John Connolly books mainly The Killing Kind I believe.
Truly horrible

ensure · 08/11/2010 08:32

Mrs Norris in Mansfield Park.

CoteDAzur · 07/11/2010 19:24

LOL @ Briony in Atonement as "the most horrible character in any book you've ever read", by the way.

You must have led a sheltered life, Bue Smile Have you never even read a crime novel, with, I don't know, a criminal or something?

CoteDAzur · 07/11/2010 19:22

Eucrid Eucrow in Nick Cave's first book "And The Ass Saw The Angel". Really, there is no competition.

FellatioNelson · 07/11/2010 08:40

For books chock-full of horrid irritating characters you can't beat Martin Amis. Vile, all of them. It's made me want to read them all again now!

Another one is Camberwell Beauty by Jenny Eclair. Anna is particularly vile, but she goes a bit mad in the end so that's alright then.

Bue · 22/10/2010 18:10

The child Briony in Atonement is just awful. Though I sort of came around to the adult version in the final pages.

Kevin's mother...dunno... it's such a complicated story that I felt a certain amount of sympathy for her at times. Again, I came around to her in the end.

Marlinspike · 22/10/2010 10:25

How about Engleby (from the Sebastian Foulks book of the same name?) a very creepy individual?

Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings

Unprune · 22/10/2010 10:16

All the characters in The Crimson Petal and the White.
Just hated the lot of them. I wonder what they'll be like in the tv adaptation.

LittleCheesyPineappleOne · 22/10/2010 09:43

Oh Peter Cleave - good call. Such a great book. And Fred.

theQuibbler · 22/10/2010 04:34

Fred from The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Takes hypocrisy and self-interest to new levels.

Peter Cleave from Asylum, by Patrick McGrath.
Truly scary man.

Another vote for Casaubon - that character makes me shudder, along with St John Rivers from Jane Eyre - the creepy, overbearing, repressed weirdo.

elkiedee · 22/10/2010 03:13

I've just been reading A Little Princess, and I've been thinking Miss Minchin. Lavinia is pretty loathsome too.

Adult fiction - the man in Room is pretty loathsome.

anonymosity · 21/10/2010 01:05

oops sorry, just looked up and seen he's been named already!!!

anonymosity · 21/10/2010 01:04

Casubon (sp?) in Middlemarch

horrors.