To ask which book characters irrationally annoy you?

[WaterBird]

I'm currently reading the play "The Rise and Fall of Arturo UI" by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht (though it takes place in Chicago). There is a fairly minor character (at least at the point in the play where I'm at) called Young Dogsborough, whose father is a major character in his 80's. Any time the son says anything, it is to unnecessarily agree with the father. For example if the father says, "They've gone", the son will then say "My father says they've gone."
Which book characters have you felt annoyed by?

There are some immensely irritating characters who are colleagues on a police force in Sophie Hannah's books. I hate them all, which I remember every time I pick one up

Yes I remember them-isn’t one called Simon? They’re married but he has issues and doesn’t like having sex or something?

My mum and i were talking about Jo Rowling and she said ‘she’s a good storyteller, not necessarily a great writer’.

Which i totally agreed with.

And ‘Right On’ Rowling (as i call her!) also winds me up with the revisionist nonsense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hermione could’ve been black....of course, she could, Jo. 🤦‍♀️

Like a PP said ‘just own the stories, for crying out loud’.

misses the point of the thread 🧵

Yes I remember them-isn’t one called Simon? They’re married but he has issues and doesn’t like having sex or something?

Yes, I think it was revealed he'd got quite bad mother issues in one book.

A lot of my pet hates are already here and I'm particularly glad others have seen through marylou the sanctimonious cow, but can I add Ginty Marlow and Patrick merrick. To be fair I used to quite like Patrick until someone on here pointed out that he grew up into Jacob Rees mogg which seemed horrifyingly accurate. Albert campion, s son Rupert. All right as a child but so fucking irritating as a grown up. And perdita can fuck off too. And that pillock who died in tell Laura I love her.

Dh wants to nominate the Thomson twins in tintin and Jane bennett for being insipid and soppy. And I'll add biggles

I know what you mean about Anne, @Collidascope. Her starry grey eyes and virginal neck made Ruby Gillis and Diana Barry look too showy apparently . And where did looking showy get you, in Diana's case married to a plumper called Fred, and poor old Ruby Gillis, death from flirting

Eilis Lacey in Brooklyn, she's so fucking passive. At least in the film she was given a bit of personality.

But my personal worst character ever is Catherine Gehrig in The Chemistry of Tears. She describes herself on page 2 as 'the oddly elegant tall lady'. Yeah right. No woman has ever described themselves as oddly elegant. The entire book is a fantasy written for men who have affairs. Why are so many men incapable of writing women?

Tell you who writes good women (as a man) - Christopher Brookmyre. Writes good men too! Including male characters that are attractive to women, in terms of their personality, but you think "how would a straight man guess that would an attractive trait"

YY to the annoying police in Sophie Hannah's books. I love Sophie Hannah's writing so much that I make her an exception to my rule not to read anything with dull police procedural bits in it, but even so, I find myself skim-reading the parts about the two officers with their on/off relationship and the one in charge with the 'amusing' nickname and habits, and the rest.

Helen Schlegel in Howard's End and Jacky

calloway
I seem to remember poor Ruby Gillis being described as having an "insolent" beauty at one point!

The narrator in The Wasp Factory. I couldn't understand if you were supposed to find them sympathetic at the end but I just felt nauseated by the whole read.

The main character in Brooklyn

I'd forgotten her. I couldn't get into that story, and life is too short for crap books.

I'd forgotten the Flowers in the attic crap - probably my brain blanket all out for my own survival.

And death purified her insolent beauty so she got to be a "magnificent corpse" as Mrs Lynde said.

Take it I'm not the only one who feels that whilst Ruby Gillis died of consumption, there's a vague veiled hint of it being sex and beauty that killed her in some way.

Not Biggles! I love Biggles!!

Oh- and Dick from Flambards is intensely annoying. A sullen lump. I was v pleased with the book 4 reversal.

Unable to comment on Cathy and Heathcliff as have never got past the first few pages. Have tried numerous times and glad to see I am not the only one.

Cannot stand any of the characters in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (or the Millennium trilogy). Alleged feminism - to me all the female characters were a repressed misogynist's idea of what strong, independent women would be. Horrible characters, all of them.

Probably been said before by now, but the whole lot of 'em in The Great Gatsby. Awful bunch.

@Aberforthsgoat
Dumbledore
He made everything unnecessarily difficult and cryptic WHY NOT JUST TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED TO DO/ WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN

Because there would be no books otherwise, I know, I know.

Are you my DH? He got talked into watching the whole HP series and is extremely pissed off about this point (as am I, to a lesser extent). And any twisty/heist etc movie where people do things ostensibly to 'throw people off the scent' or trick people in some overly elaborate way that WOULD MAKE NO PRACTICAL SENSE TO THE PEOPLE DOING IT

Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I SO wanted to throat-punch that woman - and I am not a violent person.

I just mentioned the Dumbledore post to DH and he got really cross again "ALL the adults in the Harry Potter books do that! They're basically all just talking in riddles to each other!"

Not sure if it's been said, but Amelia Sedley in Vanity Fair. Ugh!

I love WH Heathcliffe and Cathy are not endearing characters and it’s not a story about love it’s about the darker side of human nature jealousy, obsession, cruelty

I can’t stand the Famous Five so twee I never liked them as a child

The wife in The Husbands Secrets god she is so smug and self absorbed i wanted it all to fall about just to stop her being so smug

Uriah Heep and his mother - ever so 'umble
Agree with the second Mrs deWinter
Mrs Jellyby- those poor kids!
Mr Craven (the little princess)- honestly, man, get a grip. And Medlock, have some compassion for the poor kids!
Agree with Harry Potter- oh, the angst! Speaking of which, Katniss Everdeen. I respect her survival skills though
Also Mr Poe (series of unfortunate events)

**NOT the little princess, the secret garden. Good lord, I need to go to bed!