(no subject)

[apocalypsos]

So minervacat asked which five fictional characters you want to punch in the face. Oh, boy. Here's mine.

1. Dan, One Tree Hill -- Jesus, I don't even follow One Tree Hill, I don't. I just keep flipping onto that show and every time I flip past it, I keep catching him on my screen. And he's repugnant. He's repugnant for an evil character, for crying out loud. There's savoring the deeds that an asshole does because they're entertaining, and then there's being so disgusted that you literally can't watch any shows on the channels bookending that show.

2. Piper, Charmed -- Piper, SHUT UP. It was okay to whine about wanting a normal life for maybe the first two seasons. We are now in season eight, and you're whining about wanting it for your two boys, one of whom is the most powerful magical being in existence. Guess what? Expecting Wyatt and Chris to have normal lives at this point is sad and stupid. STOP THAT.

3. Kate, Lost -- Yes, I want to punch her in the face, and I want to do it with the Hulk's fist. "Katred" doesn't even begin to describe it. I have absolutely no sympathy for her, I can't empathize with her because we have nothing in common, and she's annoyingly Mary Sue ninety-nine percent of the time.

4. Susan, Desperate Housewives -- Okay, maybe not a punch. Punching Susan seems wrong somehow. A sharp slap across the face is perfectly acceptable, though. And I'd have to add a lot of, "How friggin' selfish can you be, for crying out loud?" Why am I supposed to like this woman? Either she's a victim, or she's an instigator, and either way she's bad at it.

5. Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- This is a prime example of my attitude towards most of my favorite shows, in which I invariably hate the main character most. And honestly, did I ever hate Buffy most of the time. The sad thing is that I could write her voice easily even though I didn't like her, and I loved Cordelia but didn't have half of the grasp I did on my Buffy voice. She was just so, "Oh, WOE is me," which admittedly she could back up most of the time, but still. Plus, every once in a while, she'd do something that just made me want to throttle her. (Don't even get me started about the time she backed the Watchers into a corner and got them to reinstate Giles with back pay, but never bothered to get them to pay HER a salary. Princess, you were the only Slayer they had available at the time (if I'm remembering correctly, Faith was in jail then -- either way, there were only two of them in existence, for Pete's sake), and they can afford it if they're so gung-ho for you to focus on your Slaying, can't they? Sheesh.)

EDIT: OOO! OOO! I thought of one more ...

6. Anita Blake, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter -- She didn't lose me when the books became one big, awful Fu-Q-Fest. She lost me when she was dithering between Richard and Jean Claude constantly, and then once a book, like clockwork, she would say that she's probably going to die by the time she turns thirty anyway. Well, Jesus, woman, then why are you whining about this? Fuck them both! If that's your attitude, who gives a damn?

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Katred! What a wonderful word!

And bless you for calling her a Mary Sue. I was arguing to someone else that she was a total MS and the response was "You're sexist. You just don't want the woman to be a competent leader."

I wouldn't mind that at all if Kate were competent or a leader.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I can't remember who it was on ye olde friends list who coined Katred, but OMG YES. It so aptly describes that feeling I get when she's onscreen.

And she is so not a competent leader. It does not make you a competent leader if you're the only female character who just magically knows how to do everything when it's needed.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

And whom at least two men want to schtup. Can't leave that out.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Well, that -does- tie into my theory that Locke affects the reality around him. As in, Mount Baldy can wish you into the cornfield. Or make you an expert tracker if he wants you to be.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I fully understand why some people hate on Kate. I just don't see the Mary Sue at all.

She's an idiot and she screws up a lot and she's gotten people DEAD FROM STUPID.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The Mary Sue comes in from having at least two men in the camp semi-crushing on her and having fallen into some sort of leadership position despite her Tortured Past (tm).

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I just put her through a Mary Sue Litmus Test and got a 75. Needless to say, that's not good.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Well, what qualifies her as a Mary Sue to me is:

-- Every time a group goes on a mission, she's the token woman.
-- She was revealed as a criminal and was OMG OSTRACIZED ... for about half an episode.
-- Jack, Sawyer, Sayid, Charlie, and Hurley -- at the very least -- have all expressed some sort of romantic or sexual interest in her (meaning at least one flirty comment or pick-up line used) at one time or another.
-- She inexplicably displays equal talents in tracking as Locke, who seems to be as expert as they get. (And no, I don't consider "career criminal" or "Daddy took me camping" as a reason to be able to follow tracks. Hell, my grandfather, uncles and dad took me camping all the time as I was growing up and I couldn't track an elephant.)
-- She KILLED THE MAN SHE LOVED WOE.
-- They've set her up in a way in which she's supposed to reform Sawyer. God only knows who the hell is supposed to reform HER, but whatever.
-- If I'm remembering correctly, wasn't she abused as a child? 'Cause that counts, too.
-- She's the most important female character. (Which doesn't specifically make her a Mary Sue, but does in relation to the rest of this stuff.)
-- Every magazine and review talks about how everybody just loooooooves Kate (contrary to what I've personally seen, which is that very few people like her).
-- J.J. Abrams's wife has the same name.

And I got all of those after putting her through a Mary Sue Litmus Test. Plus, her score was a 75, making her an Irredeemable Mary Sue, and that was with me being generous and letting her get away with a LOT.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I guess I don't quite get 'Mary Sue'. For me, Shannon would be a Mary Sue.

Anywho, like I said in another comment, Kate's unaccountable talents seem to be a function of the island magic.

Also, ostracizing Kate is stupid, no matter what dumbassedness she's pulled in the past. Like Hurley figured out, everyone has to band together to make it through. I lurve Hurley.

And the flirting, well, they are in a pretty unique situation. There's not much choice in terms of flirt. Rose has a man, Shannon has her one twu ded love brother, Sun is married, even Scott/Steve has a woman.

[valerie]

My 5?

1) Kate.
2) Kate.
3) Kate.
4) Kate.
5) Kate.

:P

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

*snickers* I don't blame you one bit. :)

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

1) Draco Malfoy - in happy memory of all the pissants like him I had to deal with in boarding school

2) Sawyer - Lost

3) Zaphod Beeblebrox - H2G2 (Hey, since he has 2 heads, can I use both fists? ;) )

4) Richard - ABVS - I mean get a grip already you furry weretwit...

5) the entire cast of Angel except Spike & Illyria...

[paradoxymoron.livejournal.com]

...abvs?

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

Whoops, my bad. ABVH (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter, not Slayer... )

[runcible.livejournal.com]

ahhh, why for you hate the Zaphod? D:

re: buffy

[glitterdemon.livejournal.com]

you know, for all the lip service buffy pays to slaying being her job, i think there's something in her that would balk at the idea of getting paid for it, especially by the watchers council, which she detests. besides, a job is something that you can quit - buffy can't quit. it's who she is.

to get paid would also, i imagine, make her feel more like an assassin. and if there's one thing buffy did not want to believe, it was that being the slayer was the same thing as being a killer.

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

1. Rory Gilmore as of this season's premiere. The earnest bookworm from Season 1 has somehow because a petulant, spoiled, flighty little brat. She lost me when her mom picked her up from jail and Rory wouldn't give her the courtesy of ignoring a cell phone call in the middle of their conversation.

2. Jackie, Veronica Mars. Oh, how do I hate Jackie? Let me count the ways. Her breathy little voice, her bitchy attitude with no other personality traits to redeem it, her decision to punk Veronica by using the memory of her dead best friend, the way she played Veronica off Wallace, and being part of the reason the last episode ended the way it did. Grr.

3. Bilfil, Tom Jones. Admittedly, this guy is supposed to be a total asshole with no depth whatsoever. But he's really a special kind of prick- exactly the kind of brown-nosing, backstabbing little twat that brings up some thoroughly unpleasant memories for me.

4. Al Zanni, How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater. Read the book and you'll understand.

5. Jack, Sideways. (The Thomas Haden Church character) Cheating, amoral, overgrown child. I was cheering when Sandrah Oh beat the crap out of him.

[daffybroad.livejournal.com]

BIG WORD on Rory. She really needs a hot bowl of shut the hell up.

[wufeidragon.livejournal.com]

Oy... Buffy Spike stuff pisses me off. And she never tells people what's going on with her and then they inevitably get mad.

I don't hate her, though.

I HATE Faith. Oh God, do I hate her.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

1) Hagrid for that huge giant. At least Buckbeak will stop murdering you if you bow.

2) Locke for being Evil Dr. Phil of the Jungle.

3) Leon Kennedy for letting the civillian he should be guarding run away so many times. I know, it's in the script but still. He shoulda protested more.

4) Adam, for the dumbest anti-Buffy plan ever. 'I'll make her friends mad at her, then I'll build zombies!'

5) Whoever authorized a psyhopathic scream machine to run the other giant robot that defends Japan in 'Evanglion'. Man, that girl neeed Thorazine.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Asuka is dysfunctional and needs to be slapped, but Rei is a (spoiler) dysfunctional permanently depressed, easily replaceable clone and Keichi is the guy us shy types always hoped we wouldn't grow into, and usually succeed in avoiding.

And the adults are all evil (sons of) bitches.

Really, noone gets off in Eva.

[loopychew.livejournal.com]

...did you just say "Keiichi?"

I now have this mental image of Belldandy possessing EVA-01.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Shinji, I meant to say. For some reason I've got his name mentally pegged as "the same as the OMG guy".

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Actually, reading back.. the description sort of applies to Keiichi nearly as well as to Shinji. Except Keiichi manages to be fairly cool, while still being a sniveling whiny too-shy-to-live person. Shinji is all those adjectives *and* a bit of a selfish ass.

[patsyrant.livejournal.com]

Punching Susan from Despearte Housewives would only wind up putting you in the morally untenable postion of enabling her slapstick adddiction.

Am soooo gakking this, btw.

[badficwriter.livejournal.com]

I didn't hate the Anita Blake stuff until Incubus Dreams, the latest. I got to the end and went 'Wait. Where's the story? The WHOLE BOOK was about nothing but her sex issues! Nothing much actually happened! It's just a long PWP! WTF?!'

[fyrdrakken]

I'm not going to try this meme because I know there are lots more than five characters I've wanted to hit but I won't be able to think of any when called to do so.

And my problem with Anita was largely that she was all, "I'm not the type of girl who sleeps around!" while proceeding to do just that. The writer painted herself into a corner by giving Anita more and more excuses for sex or almost-sex with the evergrowing cast of supernatural hotties, but with that inconvenient prissy attitude -- and yet she never really grew out of it or learned to adjust. And meanwhile kept jerking around the guys she was dealing with as she tried to find a way to deal without either adjusting her moral code to reflect her new reality or learning to make peace with living in what she felt was sin. (Come to think of it, a wee bit of the Buffy syndrome of, "I'm the Chosen, everyone has to deal with my shit but I don't have to put up with anyone else's if I don't want to.")