Who is your most despised fictional character…..

[Au Naturel]

There are 2: Ignaz J. Reilly ( from the book A Confederacy of Dunces ). I could not finish that book because that character made me feel so disgusted and nervous and irritated.......And
"The Dude" from "The Big Lebowski" (I hate him from the deepest pit of my stomach)

Now that I post them here together I see a pattern. Both good for nothing men. But still they are being kept alive by their surroundings although they lift not one finger. Perhaps, after I never had that luxury, even a fictional (idiotic) character having this luck/privilege/support is not bearable for me...

God, even thinking about them makes me want to smack bottles against the wall....

LOL! I loved "A Confederacy of Dunces!" Reilly is definitely touched in the head - but in a funny way. Every character in the book is a parody of people you might see in real life. Sadly, the author committed suicide.

Don't be angry about what you didn't get. The past is something you can't change so let it go. That anger traps you in the past and prevents you from moving on. (Overcoming my fixation on the past is a battle I fought over 40 years ago.)

This is where I am. How do I make it better? Only thing that matters.

 

[PinkPhilodendron]

LOL! I loved "A Confederacy of Dunces!" Reilly is definitely touched in the head - but in a funny way. Every character in the book is a parody of people you might see in real life. Sadly, the author committed suicide.

Don't be angry about what you didn't get. The past is something you can't change so let it go. That anger traps you in the past and prevents you from moving on. (Overcoming my fixation on the past is a battle I fought over 40 years ago.)

This is where I am. How do I make it better? Only thing that matters.

My Ex (I swear this wasn't the reason for breaking up with him, I guess) loved that book too. He even used that name on social media sometimes. Obviously I am too autistic for that humor. HoR-Ri-Ble.

And no, I am not trapped in the past as long as I don't have any contact to such people. And if I meet such people...well, anger makes the pulse heighten, so it's like sports, so it's healthy in a way : D

 

[DeepVortex]

I absolutely hate Geoffrey Bledding from the book Bledding Sorrow. It’s an older book, but if you ever come across it and read it, you will know why he is on my fictional character hate list.

 

[Equals Tuesday]

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really don't like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Sometimes, he is genuinely being a selfish jerk, but a lot of times the writers use the fact that he can't grasp other people's emotions or understand the meaning of what their saying to get a laugh. I just find it really cruel.

 

[Xerces Blue]

James Bond.

Could not grasp how other people found him appealing.

It's because he's Confident and Competent.
Similar to Conan the barbarian or Fafhrd and the Grey mouser.

 

[Xerces Blue]

@Equals Tuesday The Big Bang Theory always seemed like a show for stupid people about "Smrt people"
Watch it without the laugh track, it's horrible.
And the Science is usually either outright wrong or out dated.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Don't be angry about what you didn't get. The past is something you can't change so let it go. That anger traps you in the past and prevents you from moving on. (Overcoming my fixation on the past is a battle I fought over 40 years ago.)

Amen, brother! I have only been in CPT for 2 1/2 months and I am on the verge of letting my resentment and bitterness go. It is very hard work, but I was ready for it.

 

[Au Naturel]

It's because he's Confident and Competent.
Similar to Conan the barbarian or Fafhrd and the Grey mouser.

There's a literary trope known as "the competent man." Bond is the action-adventure version of that trope. Way back in the 60s the saying was that women wanted him and men wanted to be him. There have been many incarnations of Bond and each approached it from a different POV. The many many Bond copies we've seen attest the to immense popularity of the trope.

The many isekai anime out there with overpowered protagonists are just a variation on the theme.

Men (well, most of them) naturally want to be strong and brave and confident and competent and to defeat all the demons that bedevil them. They also want the mating rights that being an alpha entails. Many women see him and instinctively want children who will be strong and brave and confident.They also hope he will protect them. Of course they don't literally want James Bond (a lot of Bond girls end up dead) but they do want his strength.

The Bond franchise hit a home run when it picked up Daniel Craig. Their re-imagining and rebooting of the character was brilliant. Dame Judy Dench as M was also brilliant. Watch the Bond character grow and start to show increasing cracks as he loves and loses and comes back over and over to fight the evil that is Spectre. There can never be a Bond like that again.There will probably never be another Bond, period. I expect to continue to see his copies.

All due respect to Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan but my second favorite Bond was George Lazenby in "On His Majesty's Secret Service." He wasn't the highest in acting skill and Telly Savales as Bloefeld was a bad choice. Diana Rigg, OTOH was the best Bond girl ever. The vulnerability of the Bond character at the end was crushing.

 

[AGXStarseed]

There's a literary trope known as "the competent man." Bond is the action-adventure version of that trope. Way back in the 60s the saying was that women wanted him and men wanted to be him. There have been many incarnations of Bond and each approached it from a different POV. The many many Bond copies we've seen attest the to immense popularity of the trope.

The many isekai anime out there with overpowered protagonists are just a variation on the theme.

Men (well, most of them) naturally want to be strong and brave and confident and competent and to defeat all the demons that bedevil them. They also want the mating rights that being an alpha entails. Many women see him and instinctively want children who will be strong and brave and confident.They also hope he will protect them. Of course they don't literally want James Bond (a lot of Bond girls end up dead) but they do want his strength.

The Bond franchise hit a home run when it picked up Daniel Craig. Their re-imagining and rebooting of the character was brilliant. Dame Judy Dench as M was also brilliant. Watch the Bond character grow and start to show increasing cracks as he loves and loses and comes back over and over to fight the evil that is Spectre. There can never be a Bond like that again.There will probably never be another Bond, period. I expect to continue to see his copies.

All due respect to Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan but my second favorite Bond was George Lazenby in "On His Majesty's Secret Service." He wasn't the highest in acting skill and Telly Savales as Bloefeld was a bad choice. Diana Rigg, OTOH was the best Bond girl ever. The vulnerability of the Bond character at the end was crushing.

Well put.
Personally, I wasn't a fan of Daniel Craig as Bond - while he started strong in Casino Royale, what followed was mostly a letdown and it wasn't helped by the fact that it became clear that Daniel didn't want to play the role any more. Still, to each their own.

Also, I do believe Bond will be back in another reboot as he's too well known/popular to simply hang up his suit just yet.
For comparison, look at the Godzilla franchise - the main character there has been killed multiple times (including in his original 1954 film and later in a 1995 film that made the news) and he's still getting movies and shows today.
Alternatively, look at Doctor Who - that show crashed and burned back in the 70's before, after a failed movie attempt in the 1980's to bring it back, it was properly brought back in 2005 and went strong for a long time:

As such, I doubt James Bond will be going anywhere yet. Also, I agree with author Will Jordan (The Critical Drinker) from his "Who Was The Ultimate James Bond?" video on YouTube - which I can't link here as it has some bad language in it - in saying that Henry Cavill, who has played Superman in the DCEU and Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, would make a good James Bond.

 

[Callistemon]

Very true. I guess the reason why Delores Umbridge gets under my skin so much is because she acts exactly like my middle school home room teacher. Those were dark days for me.

I had one like that, in Year 3/4, a genuine sociopath. Thankfully my Year 1/2 teacher was one in a million, in the other direction - just fabulous in every way a teacher can be fabulous. I shudder to think of what the repercussions to my life would have been if their order had been reversed and I'd had her first up - coming from a horrible home background that set me up with complex PTSD. But by the time I got her, I already knew that there were also good people in the world, and I used to picture her as an evil witch with a cauldron to make death potions, when she was being nasty to people.

And I mean nasty - like trolling the dyslexic kid in our class, who was shy and quiet and never said boo to a goose. I vividly remember her handing out our dictation exercise books and saying to him, as she handed him his, "So, Jacob, are you going to fail again today?" and smirking at his distress as he broke into tears. Poor kid sobbed through the whole dictation and didn't even try to participate, while I sat at the back of the class fuming and thinking what a Wicked Witch of the West she was.

But she was a real person, so it doesn't answer your original question. Umbridge is horrible, yes. In many, many ways, and while she may have equals, I don't know that any surpass her in vileness, even if they had a higher body count etc. She's a real archetype, and we've all seen people like this...

The first fictional character I remember having really strong negative feelings about is Scrooge McDuck, in the Italian-produced comic books that were very like Asterix in their storytelling and that were never translated into the English language (and the American TV cartoons are nothing like it, they're playschool level). He was so vindictive to his nephew and grand-nephews in one story that I got a black crayon and literally wiped him off the page with it. I would have been around 6 at the time, and I still have the comic book and its outraged smear of black crayon...

 

[Callistemon]

James Bond.

Could not grasp how other people found him appealing.

OMG don't get me started. Yes!

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I seriously hate Hank Hill and want to smash his face in with a propane tank to permanently shut him up! I am attempting to write a crossover with him and the Bad Idea Bears from Avenue Q whose true existence is left ambiguous to both the other characters in the story and the reader and are just stated in the story to be hallucinations caused by dementia from the result of playing high school football and getting a couple of concussions. I wrote another story where Peggy leaves Hank for neglecting her and takes Bobby with her and ends up with Bill and those three end up being happy while Hank loses everything and becomes the new “Bill” and is found dead from a heart attack after he gained weight and became a recluse and wearing his old football jersey that is ripped because it was too small to fit in. Some people were pretty upset that I killed off Hank but I like to think of it as being an alternate timeline.

 

[Equals Tuesday]

I seriously hate Hank Hill and want to smash his face in with a propane tank to permanently shut him up! I am attempting to write a crossover with him and the Bad Idea Bears from Avenue Q whose true existence is left ambiguous to both the other characters in the story and the reader and are just stated in the story to be hallucinations caused by dementia from the result of playing high school football and getting a couple of concussions. I wrote another story where Peggy leaves Hank for neglecting her and takes Bobby with her and ends up with Bill and those three end up being happy while Hank loses everything and becomes the new “Bill” and is found dead from a heart attack after he gained weight and became a recluse and wearing his old football jersey that is ripped because it was too small to fit in. Some people were pretty upset that I killed off Hank but I like to think of it as being an alternate timeline.

That's true hatred. I'd say you win the most despised character forum.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

The dementia story I’m sort of writing it as if it were a Twilight Zone episode and there is evidence that the Bad Idea Bears are imaginary but also very real at the same time. I’m also using resources on dementia caused by head trauma to make the story seem even more surreal.

 

[Au Naturel]

Well put.
Personally, I wasn't a fan of Daniel Craig as Bond - while he started strong in Casino Royale, what followed was mostly a letdown and it wasn't helped by the fact that it became clear that Daniel didn't want to play the role any more. Still, to each their own.

Also, I do believe Bond will be back in another reboot as he's too well known/popular to simply hang up his suit just yet.
For comparison, look at the Godzilla franchise - the main character there has been killed multiple times (including in his original 1954 film and later in a 1995 film that made the news) and he's still getting movies and shows today.
Alternatively, look at Doctor Who - that show crashed and burned back in the 70's before, after a failed movie attempt in the 1980's to bring it back, it was properly brought back in 2005 and went strong for a long time:

As such, I doubt James Bond will be going anywhere yet. Also, I agree with author Will Jordan (The Critical Drinker) from his "Who Was The Ultimate James Bond?" video on YouTube - which I can't link here as it has some bad language in it - in saying that Henry Cavill, who has played Superman in the DCEU and Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, would make a good James Bond.

Henry Cavill would definitely be good. Idris Elba would have been good if he were younger.

That was a problem with Roger Moore. He replaced Sean Connery because Connery no longer wanted the part and Lazenby didn't want to do another one. Moore was 3 years older than Connery and obviously not physically fit but his reputation as "The Saint" greased the skids. They didn't play him as a Connery's apex predator but rather as more cartoonish. Bond is not a cartoon hero. Jaws is not a proper villain.

Conner did one more Bond movie that made fun of the age issue, "Never Say Never Again" a "Thunderball" clone. I think it was his best. Kim Bassinger was absolutely delicious as a sadomasochistic villain.

Did you know that Davin Niven played Bond once? Not part of the official franchise. An off-beat version of Casino Royale with Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, John Houston, and Ursula Andress.

I'm thinking we'll see a female, maybe one of color. That's who the replacement 007 in the movie was, Lashana Lynch. The diversity crowd is demanding it. Problem is, there has rarely been a female spy with that kind of appeal since Diana Rigg did Emma Peel in the original Avengers series on BBC. Scarlett Johanson is tied up with Marvel commitments. Lynch lacks a big fan base. Halle Berry is probably too old for the part. Maybe Naomie Harris, the current Moneypenny, will take up her gun again.

The Bond franchise makes more sense if you assume that James Bond is simply the name associated with the position and different people take it on as the previous guy retires. That changed with the reboot when we got backstory about Bond's past in "Skyfall."

 

[AGXStarseed]

Henry Cavill would definitely be good. Idris Elba would have been good if he were younger.

That was a problem with Roger Moore. He replaced Sean Connery because Connery no longer wanted the part and Lazenby didn't want to do another one. Moore was 3 years older than Connery and obviously not physically fit but his reputation as "The Saint" greased the skids. They didn't play him as a Connery's apex predator but rather as more cartoonish. Bond is not a cartoon hero. Jaws is not a proper villain.

Conner did one more Bond movie that made fun of the age issue, "Never Say Never Again" a "Thunderball" clone. I think it was his best. Kim Bassinger was absolutely delicious as a sadomasochistic villain.

Did you know that Davin Niven played Bond once? Not part of the official franchise. An off-beat version of Casino Royale with Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, John Houston, and Ursula Andress.

I'm thinking we'll see a female, maybe one of color. That's who the replacement 007 in the movie was, Lashana Lynch. The diversity crowd is demanding it. Problem is, there has rarely been a female spy with that kind of appeal since Diana Rigg did Emma Peel in the original Avengers series on BBC. Scarlett Johanson is tied up with Marvel commitments. Lynch lacks a big fan base. Halle Berry is probably too old for the part. Maybe Naomie Harris, the current Moneypenny, will take up her gun again.

The Bond franchise makes more sense if you assume that James Bond is simply the name associated with the position and different people take it on as the previous guy retires. That changed with the reboot when we got backstory about Bond's past in "Skyfall."

I personally hope they don't change James Bond into a woman, especially as his current custodians have declared that Bond won't be female any time soon - with Barbara Broccoli stating the following in an interview with Variety:
"I believe we should be creating new characters for women — strong female characters. I’m not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that."

Honestly, I agree with Barbara on this as taking an established character and swapping their race, sex/gender, etc. just feels lazy.
I'd rather see new and interesting characters (or at least see public domain characters given a new lease of life) who are female and/or ethnically diverse that we can grow to love and enjoy in the same way we've grown to like/love characters such as Ellen Ripley, T'Challa, Sarah Connor and Blade among others, instead of lazily resorting to changing another character just to get brownie points on social media from people who will likely never pay to see the finished product anyway.

Considering that Jinx from Die Another Day nearly got her own spin-off series and with the Bourne franchise having a TV spin-off with Treadstone (not to mention shows like Doctor Who having spin-offs such as Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures among others), you could maybe take this idea and apply it to the James Bond Universe; showing other '00' spies and characters getting up to adventures on their own while leaving James Bond (effectively the "anchor character") intact.
As long as the characters are well written and treated with respect (heroes and villains alike), the stories are interesting/not riddled with plot holes, they don't use it as an opportunity to take cheap shots at James himself (which would definitely anger a lot of people) and don't flood the show with identity politics (as most people watch TV and movies to escape the real world for a bit and so would be turned away by this), I think a potential James Bond spin-off show/movie series could work.

If the show worked, you could maybe have crossovers where the characters all interact with each other, like this example from Doctor Who which had SJA and Torchwood cross over with the main show:

 

[Streetwise]

I personally hope they don't change James Bond into a woman, especially as his current custodians have declared that Bond won't be female any time soon - with Barbara Broccoli stating the following in an interview with Variety:
"I believe we should be creating new characters for women — strong female characters. I’m not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that."

Honestly, I agree with Barbara on this as taking an established character and swapping their race, sex/gender, etc. just feels lazy.
I'd rather see new and interesting characters (or at least see public domain characters given a new lease of life) who are female and/or ethnically diverse that we can grow to love and enjoy in the same way we've grown to like/love characters such as Ellen Ripley, T'Challa, Sarah Connor and Blade among others, instead of lazily resorting to changing another character just to get brownie points on social media from people who will likely never pay to see the finished product anyway.

Considering that Jinx from Die Another Day nearly got her own spin-off series and with the Bourne franchise having a TV spin-off with Treadstone (not to mention shows like Doctor Who having spin-offs such as Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures among others), you could maybe take this idea and apply it to the James Bond Universe; showing other '00' spies and characters getting up to adventures on their own while leaving James Bond (effectively the "anchor character") intact.
As long as the characters are well written and treated with respect (heroes and villains alike), the stories are interesting/not riddled with plot holes, they don't use it as an opportunity to take cheap shots at James himself (which would definitely anger a lot of people) and don't flood the show with identity politics (as most people watch TV and movies to escape the real world for a bit and so would be turned away by this), I think a potential James Bond spin-off show/movie series could work.

If the show worked, you could maybe have crossovers where the characters all interact with each other, like this example from Doctor Who which had SJA and Torchwood cross over with the main show:

I think it could be a female 007 if the actor has a very extrovert personality don't think Daniel Craig or pierce Brosnan were accurate, David Niven should have done more ,but who knows ,maybe he was starting to feel the affects of motor neurone disease ,even before his speech was affected ,I'm less interested in BBC productions so I'll wait for commercial channels for British scifi

 

[Au Naturel]

I personally hope they don't change James Bond into a woman, especially as his current custodians have declared that Bond won't be female any time soon - with Barbara Broccoli stating the following in an interview with Variety:
"I believe we should be creating new characters for women — strong female characters. I’m not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that."

Honestly, I agree with Barbara on this as taking an established character and swapping their race, sex/gender, etc. just feels lazy.
I'd rather see new and interesting characters (or at least see public domain characters given a new lease of life) who are female and/or ethnically diverse that we can grow to love and enjoy in the same way we've grown to like/love characters such as Ellen Ripley, T'Challa, Sarah Connor and Blade among others, instead of lazily resorting to changing another character just to get brownie points on social media from people who will likely never pay to see the finished product anyway.

Considering that Jinx from Die Another Day nearly got her own spin-off series and with the Bourne franchise having a TV spin-off with Treadstone (not to mention shows like Doctor Who having spin-offs such as Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures among others), you could maybe take this idea and apply it to the James Bond Universe; showing other '00' spies and characters getting up to adventures on their own while leaving James Bond (effectively the "anchor character") intact.
As long as the characters are well written and treated with respect (heroes and villains alike), the stories are interesting/not riddled with plot holes, they don't use it as an opportunity to take cheap shots at James himself (which would definitely anger a lot of people) and don't flood the show with identity politics (as most people watch TV and movies to escape the real world for a bit and so would be turned away by this), I think a potential James Bond spin-off show/movie series could work.

If the show worked, you could maybe have crossovers where the characters all interact with each other, like this example from Doctor Who which had SJA and Torchwood cross over with the main show:

Henry Cavil did get a spin at the reboot of "The Man from Uncle." Good actor, terrible script. Completely lost the ambiance of the original. Making Napoleon Solo a wussy art thief and Illya Kuriyakin a musclebound hunk was a big mistake. Making the female lead April Dancer would have been interesting but they didn't.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Zhu in Music is just one of the worst people ever. She never cared about her sister and throughout the entire movie all she did was complain about how she can’t do whatever she wants because she has to take care of her own sister. Um about that. Music is literally the only family you’ve got, you stupid b****! What’s even worse is that Zhu was just going to ditch her own sister at some random group home just so she can live on a beach and she did nothing to stop that one guy from hurting Music who clearly was in pain and even more distressed from being violently pinned onto the ground because the man said “it’s good for her.” Zhu should have immediately grabbed a knife and threaten to cut off the man’s parts if he didn’t stop hurting her sister. And the ending was so forced and Zhu didn’t earn the change of heart moment. Nothing she did was either redemption worthy or enough to make the viewer care about her. Kate Hudson, you are soooooo much better than this disaster. You had a flawless career with hundreds of fans praising your work and rarely having anything bad to say about you. Your mom is Goldie Hawn. Why would you choose to play such a horrible and unlikable character after reading the script?

 

[SpiltPaint]

Geoffrey from Game of Thrones, couldn't stand that character.

Also Homelander from 'The Boys' series, at first anyway. The more I've watched the more I respect how great of an actor he is, and am now a fan and believe no one could play that part better than he has.