fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3057 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3057 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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02.

[Polandball]

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03.

[The X-Files]

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04.

[Nick Lea/Krycek]

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[Plague Inc Evolved]

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06.

(Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

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07.

[Grimm]

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08.

[Discworld]

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09.

[Magi the labrynth of magic]

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10.

[The Clangers]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 052 secrets from Secret Submission Post #437.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I watched Sideways for the first time yesterday and it was almost unbearable for me. The characters were just SO DAMN UNLIKABLE. It was basically a movie about a depressed asshole going on a drinking holiday with his sleazy asshole friend.

Today, I watched (for the 8 millionth time) Reservoir Dogs, a movie that I LOVE. And that movie is full of assholes! I even HATE some of them, so it can't be that they are likable assholes.

It got me thinking:

Why do some unlikable characters make a movie unbearable, while others are just fine?

Are there any movies you can't stand because the characters are so unlikable? Are there others that you love despite the characters you hate?

I think a factor for your first question is whether or not they get away with their actions, and how well/badly the script tries to make you empathise with them.

I expect it has to do with the rest of the plot. The more you enjoy the plot, the easier it is to like the characters (no matter how terrible).

And I expect how well the actors portray also determines how much you enjoy the characters.

The only character I can think of that I really hated was Tyler Durden from Fight Club. But I don't actually know if he was supposed to be unlikeable. Some other replies will hopefully remind me of more characters. :X

I think the characters are the reason I hated almost all the rom coms I've seen. Because I have nothing against romance or comedy.

Not movies, but I hated nearly everyone in Breaking Bad. The end was poetic justice.

Wanted is the only movie I never finished. I really like James McAvoy but his character was so unlikeable. Ditto all the others too. I couldn't stand any of them and had to quit the movie.

Breaking Bad. I want to keep watching the show, but I just can't because I find all the characters so damn unlikable.

this.

For me it depends how they're unlikeable, and where I sit on the barometer of reaction towards that unlikeable trait.

A lot of characters written to be likeable piss me off, because I don't associate their traits - ditziness, helplessness, whining, self-centredness portrayed as agency, shafting other people for their own ends when it's supposed to be 'sympathetic', doing stupid things that are supposed to be 'cute' - with likeable people. I associate them with people who annoy the fuck out of me.

So personal dealbreakers will also make for fictional character dealbreakers. If an unlikeable character doesn't hit any of my Nopes, then I won't have that knee-jerk reaction and will take a wider view of the narrative as a whole. Like real life, the best characters won't be black-or-white, they'll have decent traits along with the bad, so a lot of the baggage you bring to it in relation to your own feelings on those traits can make or break it.

It also depends on the context of the story. The GoT thread makes me realize I don't technically 'like' about 85% of the entire cast, but I can still empathize and even feel a tiny bit of respect for their choices within the framework of the narrative. I like them as characters even when I wouldn't like them as people.

nayrt

Bingo. In a similar vein, I don't have much sympathy for people who complain all the time, so if I'm clearly expected to sympathize with a character who is petulant, sullen and self-pitying, there had better be something else--either great world-building, or other characters I find interesting, or awesome prose--to keep me turning pages while Author's Darling pisses and moans their way through their chapters.

Not a movie but I felt this way about Helix and it's why I didn't even finish the first season.

Frankly I can deal with a lackluster story better than I can unlikable characters. If I don't like the cast I don't see the point.

For me it really depends on how the narrative treats them and their actions. Assholes that are supposed to be assholes in the narrative I'm fine with and even like because I find them fun to watch.

But 'good' characters that do really awful and shitty things getting hand-waved with 'but they're the good guys so it's okay!' really bugs me and I tend to hate it.

Unlikable + annoying seems to be the killer combination for me.

I gave up trying to watch The Mosquito Coast because Harrison Ford's chatacter was like this (fortunately, I'd checked it out from the library, so I lost nothing by not finishing it). It took me forever to finish reading Titus Groan because o many of the characters are like this.

god, yes. Harrison Ford's character gets more and more obnoxious through the whole movie, and I was over at somebody else's house when they were watching it on TV and they were really into it so I couldn't ask them to turn it off.

For me, it usually comes down to what sort of unlikeable they are, and whether or not it's something I'm likely to deal with in day-to-day life. I can enjoy murderous assholes a lot more easily than I can enjoy, say, a loudmouthed sexist homophobe, because the former is utterly divorced from the world I live in, while the latter works in the office next to me and never shuts up. My tolerance is already used up.

[ SECRET POST #3057 ]

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