I really dislike Mrs Weasley.

[cockneysalad]

She is an awful character, she seems to prefer Harry to Ron and is mean to Fleur. She is also a bit of a stereotype, the apron, the knitting, the homemaker etc. Which literary characters annoy you and why?

Maggie Tulliver - so intellectual and self-interested that she forgot to feed her brother's poor rabbits.
There's a lot more to it than that, I know. And George Eliot is the best of authors, but I have never forgiven her for that.

I loathe Cormoran Strike from Rowling's detective books.

• Overloaded with backstory. Illegitimate rock star's child! Oxford! Mad ex! Dead mum! Lost leg!
• The nickname thing. Rowling thinks it makes him look cool. People like that IRL are twats.
• He's a stone cold hypocrite about Robin's relationship when he stayed with an abuser for 16 years. He is horribly hypocritical about her
• Delusional about his ex. No woman is actually unimaginably more beautiful than any other woman. There are men who will swear bind the Scarlet Johanson is a dog and Angelina Jolie gorgeous and vice versa.
• Incredibly horrible to the girlfriends he is inexplicably attractive to.
• Insanely unbelievable Damascene conversion from uncle who can't even remember his nephew's ages to gibbering emotional wreck because one of them is ill.
• He, a grown man approaching his forties, says 'I need to pee'.

Rowling also has no idea of what different weights look like. A 16st man who is 6ft 5 might not be super-trim, but would almost certainly not look like a 'fat bastard' to most people's eyes.

Since Robin is tragically slipping his way, I think I'm going to have to give up on the series entirely (especially since Rowling seems to be insistent on ever more insanely overburdened plots as she goes on, and her editors can't seem to keep her in check).

That second one should be 'horribly hypocritical about her professional mistakes also' - Strike makes similar mistakes in his past for the same reasons and gets off due to luck - he accords Robin no such licence, in spite of her having HUGE personal reasons for wanting to help an abused child.

I found wildacre really disturbing. It's been a long while since I read it but didn't she leave her true love in a mantrap?

And shag her brother for 2 books worth (who for some reason I have in my head as looking like a Georgian cousin Matthew from Downton). I really struggled with the incest as plot device thing.

And yes re strikes weight - dh is 6 4 and was 15 stone. He looked really solid and his bmi was only just 26 so only a little overweight. So an extra stone on a taller man isn't going to make him mr creosote

Robin and mary-Lou are ok in the armishire books. I actually LIKE robin in some of those. But Joey is only bearable on odd occasions.

Also agree that Jane Bennet really needs a personality. Though I'm angrier about Bingley. What a shit.

I'm afraid I'm pro Molly Weasley. Yes, more money should be coming in but I'm not sure all the blame should be going her direction.

The catsthecats - There are men who will swear bind the Scarlet Johanson is a dog and Angelina Jolie gorgeous and vice versa.

:o that took me straight back to 1980s Yorkshire, I haven't heard the term "dog" for a woman for years! "Yer a right dog"

Angel Clare - I read P&P for school aged 15 or so and I assumed he would be nice after she'd been through so much with Alec. I was DEVASTATED when he turned out to be such a spineless po-faced twat. Good lesson for life! Sadly wasted on me as I went on to have relationships with more than one Angel type.

Dobby is SO annoying - but he seems to be based on real house elf folklore which does often include a lot of that pride, over-helpfulness and annoyingness so in that sense he's part of a long tradition. The giving of clothes thing is also from old folklore.

As for Slytherin, I always thought it was just too extreme the way there's a "good" house for morally upstanding sporty types and a "bad" house, complete with revolting-sounding name. Just wouldn't work. Ravenclaw all the way for me!

The horrible couple from Gone Girl. They deserve each other.

oops Tess not P&P! (did them both)

I agree about Mrs Weasley.

In the books we are explicitly told about what they have in their gringots vault. It isn't much at all. I lost all sympathy for their finances when they blew those winnings on the holiday to Egypt to see Bill.

@LuckyCricket I get that but maybe they have not seen him for years etc

While Elizabeth Bennett is insufferably smug, I believe her suggestion that she started to like Darcy when she saw his house was tongue in cheek, but she couldn't actually bring herself to admit she was wrong about him and liked him before that. Better to be an old fashioned gold digger than a poor judge of character.

I don't even know where to start with Thomas Hardy, that's definitely a man with some serious issues. Tess I feel sorry for, but she is a wet lettuce. Alec D'Urberville is a good for nothing rapist, and Angel Clare has to travel halfway around the world to 'find himself' before he can make sensible decisions. If only they could have had sensible hobbies like cycling.

Re slytherin/gryffindor, why do slytherins get such a crappy common room too? In the freezing dungeons, all cold and unwelcoming and bleak and depressing. Yet gryffindor get an amazing cosy tower with a roaring fire, comfy armchairs and all red/gold cosiness. Must be horrible to be sorted into slytherin and have to call the common room home for 7 years.

@tipsyandtim I always imagined it would be charmed to make more warm and dry and the furniture though dark opulent etc. Do you really think Lucious Malfoy would let his son stay in a depressing, moldy, damp dungeon that was not charmed lol

I couldn't stand The Famous Five either, (well, apart from Timmy the dog).

Dick and Julian are a pair of arrogant, sexist morons, George is too desperate to prove how tough she is, and Anne is a simmering, goody-two-shoes little twatwaffle.

*simpering

Every, single one of the main human characters in the Steve Alton 'Meg' series. They are without doubt the most arrogant, irritating, bunch of tosspots that ever were conceived of by the mind of a writer. In the first book the female protagonist spends most of her time hiding in a cupboard in varies ladies' toilets, including in a sea base at the bottom of the Marianas Trench so extra points for being weird as well as annoying there. I read about five of the books in the desperate hopes that they'd be eaten by a megalodon or crushed by a cronosaurus.

Spoiler alert: they aren't

@TheMysteriousJackelope

Thats not a spoiler alert. That is helping us learn from your mistake.

Thank you.

Tonks, even her name winds me up

My god yes! If she existed in real life she’d have one of those really short fringes, far too many pairs of Irregular Choice shoes and would refer to herself as “quirky”.

Also Hermione, but I think she’s just been tainted by Emma Watson’s charmless performance as opposed to the books.

I like Molly Weasley. I’d like to know more about her background.

@GlumyGloomer you might enjoy notre dame de paris the french musical, Phoebus is an asshole in it, it's very faithful and excellently melodramatic.

Ashley Wilks from Gone with the Wind.. a literary wet fart.

Frankenstein, completely his own fault, got carried away with his own ego and caused nothing but pain and suffering for everyone including the monster and still manages to feel sorry for himself.

Everyone in 50 shades of grey.

The Gruffalos child... Proving that most kids are insufferable little gits who think they know best and never sodding listen.

I don't even know where to start with Thomas Hardy, that's definitely a man with some serious issues

I feckin hate Hardy with a furious passion. I hated him after reading Jude but thought I’d give him another chance with Tess. I threw that book against the wall, then chucked it in the bin, Id never harmed a book in my life until then. I was about 17 at the time and now mid 40s I still feel the rage. 😡😂

@SinisterBumFacedCat

Harry is annoying, he spends the entire time asking questions! All the bloody time!!

James Potter was a bully to Snape and Sirius fancied him.

My other theory is that Filtch’s cat Mrs Norris used to be human, and he possibly fancied her.

I think you are on to something there. Isnt Mrs Norris old at the start of the books? She then lasts another seven years. Suspicious, bit like Scabers living longer than the average rat

I've posted before about my dislike of Stickman, a man whose selfish hobby leaves his wife worried sick and looking after three kids for the best part of a year.

@tipsyandtim exactly! I know snape over compensates but I can't blame him. Those poor kids are made to feel excluded and marginalised from the outset. It's not just griffindors either. Everyone cheers on abs (anyone but slytherin).

The worse bits for me are when dumbledore tells snape that maybe they sort too soon, the inference being he was a decent person after all. What a fuck you! Honestly it makes me rage. Then mcgonnagal makes them all leave when the battle starts and everyone else cheers. Because you couldn't have a single good one.