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Original poster

To ask which book characters irrationally annoy you?

547 replies

WaterBird · 12/02/2019 20:24

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?

OP posts:
liverbird10 · 15/02/2019 00:10

Heathcliff was a worthless bastard, and Catherine needed to get a grip. I hated studying that book at A-level almost as much as I despised being stuck with A Streetcar Named Desire for the same course.

Hideous.

Cattenberg · 15/02/2019 00:19

This thread has brought back memories of Malory Towers. I remember Catherine, who had an ambition to be a good person and help people, and was pilloried for it.

And poor Maureen, who was excited about the school pantomime and wanted to help out, even though she wasn’t very good at it. She was branded a “pest”. The other girls decided that turning her efforts down scornfully would be too harsh, but pretending they were intended as jokes would be fine.

The girls all got together to laugh at Maureen’s costume designs and musical compositions and she fled in tears. She was also scorned for even hopingthat she might be cast as Cinderella when she had prominent front teeth. What lovely girls.

I loved Enid Blyton when I was young and swallowed most of her character judgements, but I do wonder about her now.

sara4 · 15/02/2019 00:24

Emma Woodhouse's annoying, hypochondriac father in Emma. Nothing redeeming about him at all.

Amibeingnaive · 15/02/2019 00:35

Darrell from Malory Towers. Unbearable. I can see why her parents sent her away.

Bridget Jones. Self-indulgent, vapid fool.

James Potter - obvious toss-rag.

Amibeingnaive · 15/02/2019 01:03

Oh and that Debbie from Mog. Crying because a cat licked your hair? Shut up.

And the Dad from Tiger who came to tea. Obviously EA - the mum panicking about the fact Daddy won't have any supper (never mind there being no water for your young child). And then Daddy comes home and has the incredible and totally innovative idea of going out for supper. All hail Daddy, the brains of the operation. But then, in fairness, maybe Mummy shouldn't have let a rogue tiger in?

And don't even get me started on Thomas. Every day, the same.

Fat controller: Thomas, please go from A to B and complete this simple task.

Thomas: I know what will really impress the Fat controller! I'll go off on a ludicrous deviation, get myself into some sort of easily avoidable trouble and wait for one of the other engines to come to my rescue...

Thomas: Oh, Gordon, you're so grumpy!

Gordon: I was happy enough until you came along, you incompetent, brown-nosing little bell-end.

Amibeingnaive · 15/02/2019 01:10

Also Lavender in HP. Leaving aside the minor issue of date rape, she is a simpering embarrassment to womankind. Have some self-respect.

Amibeingnaive · 15/02/2019 01:29

Willy Wonka is also a shady bastard. Creepy, disingenuous loner fixated on kids. Hmmm.

Spot the dog also irks me. I find him smug. Babar's another, but that royal privilege, I suppose.

Brian from Starter for Ten. Such a chip on his shoulder.

Pinchycrab · 15/02/2019 02:33

Elmer
Everyone 'falling about laughing' at some stupid thing he says. I don't think so.

tobee · 15/02/2019 03:34

Fucking Jimmy Porter. Supposed to be some new kind of anti hero? He can best fuck off with nasty misogynistic ways. Not attractive at all. Wanker

tobee · 15/02/2019 03:37

Oh and bleeding Achilles. Boring little tit!

tobee · 15/02/2019 03:38

Feel better now Grin

JAMMFYesPlease · 15/02/2019 05:16

Claire bloody Fraser in Outlander riles me. The TV version is worse for me but the book version really got to me from about book 5.

James Potter is awful and I don't get why people defend him. Dumbledore puts all his students in danger for very little reason so he's on the list.

Twilight I couldn't stand mist, except Jasper and surprisingly Rosalie once I got her backstory. But Bella Swan can do one.

Most of my irrational hatred is for TV characters rather than book characters (like Gina in Brooklyn Nine Nine). It's usually something visually that's going on that irritates me to high heaven.

Akire · 15/02/2019 06:22

Hermonie Granger comes across as so wet and pathetic in the books. Even in chamber of secrets she has to be talked into doing spell to save them because she’s a pathetic but clever girl. She always crying and girly. I’m so glad they made her normal in the films.

Strixaluco · 15/02/2019 07:28

TedandLola
Think you're barking up the wrong tree there about Snape ... unless the mothers of all the other Gryffindors binned him off as well?

SchadenfreudePersonified · 15/02/2019 09:13

how could she get away with it anyway -she was supposed to be about 12 or 13 wasn't she, so she would have had boobs FGS!

Fair do's!

I'm 65 and I still haven't got any . . . .

SchadenfreudePersonified · 15/02/2019 09:22

Who the hell takes hard boiled eggs on a picnic?

Peter whimsy, pre his marriage to HarrietVane. So annoying. After Harriet I like him. She has calmed him down.

He obviously just needed a good "seeing to".

Naive - You description of every plot line in Thomas the Tank Engine has me rolling! 'Tis BRILLIANT!!!

(And yet kids love him - but I must admit I loved Enid Blyton and now I couldn't read her shitty mysogynistic, racist and (probably, if you look hard enough) homophobic stories to a child if my life depended on it.*)

*Possibly I could force one out through gritted teeth if the dog's life depended on it.

ReaganSomerset · 15/02/2019 09:27

Amibeingnaive

😂😂😂Grin

fitwell · 15/02/2019 10:01

Emma such an interfering woman

bibliomania · 15/02/2019 10:29

Cattenberg, I haven't read the Malory Towers books in 30 years, so your description really shook me. Those poor girls, I could cry for them.

SinisterBumFacedCat · 15/02/2019 10:39

Tracey from Swing Time, the bullying bitch! Mai character should have gone NC with her years ago.

ralfeesmum · 15/02/2019 11:37

Definitely Agatha Christie's "Miss Marple" - how does a mildly wet and unnassuming wee spinster living way, way out at a chocolate box village called St Mary Meade (population tops. about 75), manage to make Scotland Yard's finest look like plonkers by solving ALL the local murders?

Give me a break!

Emlok · 15/02/2019 11:53

Every character in On the Road - what a total waste of my time reading about those hideous narcissists.

Agreed about Fanny Price though. Fitting name!

ToffeePennie · 15/02/2019 12:06

Lanorie in the kingmaker. Very very frustrating. If everleigh knows her as well as she claims surely she KNOWS she can’t keep a secret?!
Lucy Atkinson’s perfect mummy from “why mummy drinks/swears/doesn’t give a xxxx” - she drives me bonkers. Tries to project this perfect persona then claims to love Ellen’s app!? And she’s far too realistic; much to close to certain playground mummies I know!
Finally:
The most annoying character in history has to be the older sister in Vivian’s heavenly cake shop. Zero responsibility and no sense of work ethic at all. Awful

LilaJude · 15/02/2019 12:13

@Amibeingnaive actually laughing out loud, someone should be paying you to write reviews

Bignosenobum · 15/02/2019 12:30

The woman in fifty shades she keeps saying "holy crap". I couldn't read it because it was so illiterate . I just did not think it was sexy at all.

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