Heroic Fails: Literary Heroes That Are Secretly Awful

[Spartan Girl]

Okay, since we have a thread for movie characters that aren't really as heroic as their films portray, I thought I'd bring it over to the books forum! Because God knows there are tons of characters like that in books. I'll start with one that always sticks in my craw:

Isabel from The Light Between Oceans is seen as a long-suffering martyr for giving up her "adopted" child in order to save her husband from being wrongfully convicted of murdering the child's bio dad. But that "sacrifice" wasn't really that noble when you remember that:

1) She knew from the very beginning that keeping the baby without checking to see if she was really an orphan was WRONG. 

2) SHE WAS THE ONE THAT FALSELY POINTED THE FINGER AT TOM IN THE FIRST PLACE. OUT OF PURE SPITE.

It drives me crazy that NO ONE calls her out on her monstrously selfish behavior. She is always treated as a victim just because her miscarriages left her oh-so emotionally fragile ?. Even Tom's friend, who knew the truth, bought her mealy-mouthed excuse that she "never intended for it to go that far", despite her taking her sweet time to do the right thing. He should have ripped her a new one a la Dumbledore and Snape in Deathly Hallows: "You disgust me. You don't feel guilty about Hannah, who spent all this time thinking her daughter died with her husband? What about Tom -- remember Tom, your husband?! You don't care what happens to him, just because he couldn't keep lying just to make you happy? He's the only father Lucy has ever known, and you'll let him hang can hang so you can have what you want?!"

But nope. Never happens.

Why Tom didn't leave her whiny spoiled ass once his name was cleared is beyond my understanding.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Spartan Girl

[starri]

Holden Caulfield.

[Black Knight]

Zade from Lani Sarem's infamous Handbook of Mortals (the one where the author scammed her way into the #1 slot on the NY Times's best-selling YA list, temporarily knocking Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give down, before people investigated and uncovered the scam). Jenny Trout just finished her read-and-snarkily-recap series of blog posts dedicated to this book and Zade is an awful, awful "heroine." She repeatedly uses her magic to hurt people for no good reason, among other things.

[HazelEyes4325]

Rochester from Jane Eyre.  I love that book...I really, really do.  But Rochester can just go suck it.  

(Spoiler for a retelling of Jane Eyre)

Spoiler

One of the reasons I enjoyed Re Jane by Patricia Park so much is that the Jane character kicks the Rochester character (who is also terrible, but probably not as terrible as THE Rochester) to the curb.  

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, HazelEyes4325 said:

Rochester from Jane Eyre.  I love that book...I really, really do.  But Rochester can just go suck it.  

(Spoiler for a retelling of Jane Eyre)

  Reveal hidden contents

One of the reasons I enjoyed Re Jane by Patricia Park so much is that the Jane character kicks the Rochester character (who is also terrible, but probably not as terrible as THE Rochester) to the curb.  

Yeah, the best that can be said about him is that he wasn't a total bore like Jane's cousin St. John and he seemed slightly less toxic than Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff!

[Wiendish Fitch]

14 hours ago, Blergh said:

Yeah, the best that can be said about him is that he wasn't a total bore like Jane's cousin St. John and he seemed slightly less toxic than Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff!

Frankly, I find them equally toxic but, hey, agree to disagree.

The point is: YAY! Other people hate that despicable Rochester! I feel a little less alone!!! :D

In Little Fires Everywhere, I didn't find Mia or Bebe particularly heroic or sympathetic.

Spoiler

They're the real baby stealers, and they're never, ever, ever called on it (Elena kind of does, but is framed as in the wrong for doing so). I feel that poor Mrs. McCullough's emotional stability is completely shot to hell after the years of trying and failing to conceive, the long process of trying to adopt, the stress of the custody battle, and to top it off? The shattering nightmare of her baby (which she legally adopted fair and square, for the record) being kidnapped from her bed and, because the kidnapper has fled to China, the hopelessness of ever getting her back. 

As for Mia, yeah, the whole being randomly solicited to be a surrogate was an icky arrangement, but a deal is a deal, and she fundamentally screwed that couple over by lying to them, stealing their baby, and only giving them a partial refund for their trouble.

I have no idea if Celeste Ng wanted us to side with them, but it sure felt like she did. Ginormous, troubling flaws in an otherwise good (if slightly overrated) book.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Wiendish Fitch

[nodorothyparker]

I always say Rochester is a great conversationalist, but dude?  You've got one wife locked in the attic insane to the point of setting fires and an almost wife nearly dead on the moors after your would-be bigamy came out at the altar.  You aren't the victim here no matter how much I may otherwise love that book too.

I'll add Snape from Harry Potter to the list.  Finding out at the 11th-hour that he didn't want to see the kid of the woman who didn't return his calls dead doesn't undo the previous six books' worth of cruelty to that child and nearly every other child who crossed his path.  I know there's an overarching theme in those books of both Voldemort and Snape lashing out at a world that didn't love them and Snape definitely earns points for being a double agent all those years, but that makes Snape a tragedy not a hero.  Meanwhile, whole volumes could be written about Dumbledore who, all casual child endangerment aside, as Snape says raised Harry like an animal in a pen to die in some vague hope that it would all work out in the end without ever cluing him in to that fact.

[Spartan Girl]

Rachel in Something Borrowed. Portrayed as the long-suffering "nice girl" bff of a shallow party girl to justify an affair with the best friend's fiancé. Didn't buy it for a second.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Spartan Girl

[scarynikki12]

11 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Rachel in Something Borrowed. Portrayed as the long-suffering "nice girl" bff of a shallow party girl to justify an affair with the best friend's fiancé. Didn't buy it for a second.

Without question.  She hates Darcy and should have ended the friendship but uses her hate to justify the affair.  And the author makes it worse by revealing the fiance was into Rachel first and that Darcy cheated as well.  So, what little guilt Rachel did feel went away now that Darcy's done the same thing. 

I think that Something Blue was a bit better, in that the relationship between Darcy and Ethan was more likely to last (Rachel and Dex are the couple that stay together long past the relationship expiration out of a need to prove that they're more than how they got together but they will 100% end up divorced and in a nasty custody battle over the kids), but they still absolved Saint Rachel for her actions by having Ethan take her side about the affair.  The message ended up being that Darcy should forgive Rachel because she Felt Bad about the affair and, since Darcy cheated herself anyway, she shouldn't be upset about the betrayal. 

It's so frustrating and I'm sure the author will one day release a book centered on Rachel's daughter being torn between Darcy's twins and start the fight all over again.  Bonus points if the daughter treats each twin like shit but is never called on it except by Darcy who is painted to be the villain. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

4 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Rachel in Something Borrowed. Portrayed as the long-suffering "nice girl" bff of a shallow party girl to justify an affair with the best friend's fiancé. Didn't buy it for a second.

 

Rachel was a nasty piece of work, as was Dex (I think he doesn't get more vitriol because he's just so lame). You know who should have written Something Borrowed? Gillian Flynn. Her protagonists are, excuse my French, fucked up to the extreme... but she knows it and pulls no punches. Her characters are never framed as sweet, misunderstood victims, which I think was Emily Giffin's mistake in writing Rachel. She wants us to see Rachel as a scrappy, lovable underdog, but all I saw was a whiny, entitled, mealy-mouthed, morally hypocritical loser who hooked up with another whiny, entitled, mealy-mouthed, morally hypocritical loser.

Darcy may have been a brat, but at least she got a decent character arc in Something Blue.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Wiendish Fitch

[scarynikki12]

A Gillian Flynn version would have been awesome!  Rachel would have fascinating under her pen.  She'd have set up the affair years before so that her reputation wouldn't be tarnished, she'd have known Darcy was also cheating and waiting to use the information to her advantage, AND it would all be long term revenge for Darcy's lie about getting into Notre Dame.  And Dex would still be as lame and stupid as he was but this time he'd be the unaware pawn of Rachel's in her plan to destroy Darcy.  And we wouldn't be at all upset that he's her pawn because he cheated on his fiance and doesn't think he did anything wrong, so fuck him.

I'm now legitimately sad that this version isn't out there. 

[Black Knight]

I'd like to recommend Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea to the people talking about how terrible Rochester is. It tells the story of his first wife and their marriage, mostly from her point of view.

[Neko]

Does Angel Clare from Tess of the D'Urbervilles count as a heroic character?  Because I thought he was awful.  I know things were very different back then, but kicking your wife to the curb on your wedding night after she confides in you about being raped?  Real nice, asshole.  I honestly hate Angel more than Rochester and Heathcliffe, combined.  At least those two were upfront about being assholes.  Angel, by contrast, is the quintessential "nice guy".  Fuck him.

[Joe]

Gandalf. He bullied Bilbo into joining the dwarves on their adventure, then basically pushed Frodo into going from Rivendell all the way to Mordor. Sure, the ring was destroyed. Good won. But I don't approve of his methods. And he could have come up with a better way of securing the One Ring. "Don't put it on, even though it's on a necklace." At that point, Frodo had already put it on twice. Just the other day I realised that even a cloth pouch sewen shut would do a better job than that.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Joe
Spelling.

[nodorothyparker]

14 hours ago, Black Knight said:

I'd like to recommend Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea to the people talking about how terrible Rochester is. It tells the story of his first wife and their marriage, mostly from her point of view.

I have read it.  The fact that it's a different author's take aside, it didn't really change a whole lot for me as I was already sympathetic to the fact that divorce laws and notions of psychiatric care being what they were he was kind of stuck and didn't have any good options.   But it also drove home to me how much control a husband had, from ownership of a wife's fortune to even her identity and what name she was allowed to go by.   That presumption of control also means that for all his caterwauling about how awful it all was for him, he was perfectly willing to make Jane a party to bigamy and let her think there were haunts or deranged servants running loose maybe trying to kill both of them rather than lay out the facts as they were and give her agency to make her own choices.

I say this as someone who mostly likes Rochester as a character, loves Jane, and really loves the book.

[Wiendish Fitch]

For the handful of Rochester haters out there, I once again urge you to check out John Sutherland's masterful essay, "Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?". It's an insightful, thought-provoking, damn near unforgiving critique of Rochester's actions.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Wiendish Fitch

[Spartan Girl]

Hannah Green, from Philippa Gregory's The Queen's Fool, was portrayed as an independent woman in the medieval ages, but as I read the book over and over, I started to realize that Hannah was kind of a hypocrite.  I get why she didn't want to be a part of religion anymore, but she generally looked down on those that were.  Not to mention her hypocritical anger of her husband fathering an illegitimate child during their engagement, yet she spent the better part of of the novel mooning over Robert Dudley, A MARRIED MAN, herself.  And where was her self-righteous indignation over Robert Dudley's poor, neglected, humiliated wife?  She was just, "Oh well, shouldn't have married a guy above her station."  Ugh.

[kathyk24]

Dumbledore is the worst. He doesn't help Sirius clear his name when he learns he's innocent of killing the Potters. He hires Lupin who is an excellent teacher then he forces him to resign in disgrace. He leaves the students in the care of Umbridge who is a sadist.

[Mabinogia]

I could not stand Dumbledore. His name doesn't start with Dumb for nothing. He was the most harmful person at Hogwarts because he was so trusted, he got away with using children as weapons, constantly putting kids in harms way and basically hand waving his total lack of actually helping Harry with talk of prophesy and destiny. What a pompous, useless ass. 

[festivus]

25 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I could not stand Dumbledore. His name doesn't start with Dumb for nothing. He was the most harmful person at Hogwarts because he was so trusted, he got away with using children as weapons, constantly putting kids in harms way and basically hand waving his total lack of actually helping Harry with talk of prophesy and destiny. What a pompous, useless ass

I've only read the Harry Potter series once so I'm definitely no scholar on the subject but damn if this didn't make me laugh.

[scarynikki12]

3 hours ago, kathyk24 said:

Dumbledore is the worst. He doesn't help Sirius clear his name when he learns he's innocent of killing the Potters. He hires Lupin who is an excellent teacher then he forces him to resign in disgrace. He leaves the students in the care of Umbridge who is a sadist.

 

Dumbledore is definitely a Machiavelli type but I would argue against these examples.  He had no proof that Sirius was innocent and, when he finally did, Sirius was dead.  Lupin chose to resign after Snape revealed him to be a werewolf.  And he fled Hogwarts because he took the blame for the DA and left to avoid arrest.  I would say that his choice not to reprimand Snape for being a bully and bad teacher, not checking in on the Dursleys to make sure they treated Harry well, his treatment of his brother and sister, his ego, and his tendency to not tell Harry important information until the last minute, are the examples I'd choose.

But then I don't consider him to be a hero.  I think he's more heroic than Snape, as he was genuinely on the side of good and determined to do his part to bring down Voldemort, but he didn't hesitate to make choices that could have negative outcomes if they contributed to a final victory.  He's a messy character, in a way I love, but he's not a hero. 

I have to second Angel from Tess of the d'Urbervilles.  Horrible man.

[Snow Apple]

I'm not a Dumbledore hater but it really pissed me off when be blindsided the Slytherins by awarding the house cup to the Gryffindor at the last minute. Instead of giving warning, he publicly humiliated them by making such a big show of changing the banners. If any Slytherins were thinking of changing sides, he lost them right there. It's like your fate is decided at eleven years old. You're a Slytherin; that's it; you're evil; the end.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Snow Apple

[Mabinogia]

15 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

It's like your fate is decided at eleven years old. You're a Slytherin; that's it; you're evil; the end.

And that was my biggest problem with the Harry Potter stories overall. Even St. Dumbledore was guilty of it. The Slytherins don't stand a chance in that world so it's no wonder they all turned out evil. Why bother even trying to be good if the whole world is going to treat you as evil because of what house some hat sorted you into?

[Spartan Girl]

15 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

Dumbledore is definitely a Machiavelli type but I would argue against these examples.  He had no proof that Sirius was innocent and, when he finally did, Sirius was dead.  Lupin chose to resign after Snape revealed him to be a werewolf.  And he fled Hogwarts because he took the blame for the DA and left to avoid arrest.  I would say that his choice not to reprimand Snape for being a bully and bad teacher, not checking in on the Dursleys to make sure they treated Harry well, his treatment of his brother and sister, his ego, and his tendency to not tell Harry important information until the last minute, are the examples I'd choose.

Yeah, those were the issues I had the problem with too, particularly the one with the Dursleys.  I mean for God's sake, the Dursleys tried to stop him from going back to Hogwarts by LOCKING HIM UP in Chamber of Secrets.  Screw the "blood protection", Dumbledore should have realized that the Dursleys weren't trustworthy at that point.  The only thing he did do as far as intervening was to send Petunia that Howler in Order of the Phoenix to stop them from chucking him out.  Why not send them a Howler or threaten to jinx them if they didn't treat Harry right?!  

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Why not send them a Howler or threaten to jinx them if they didn't treat Harry right?!  

Cause he didn't actually care how Harry was treated, actually, he probably needed him to be treated badly to become the weapon he needed him to be. Dumbledore was all about the result. I'm sure Dumbledore would spout off something about prophesy, and this is the way it had to be to make Harry the hero he was meant to be blah, blah, so D didn't have to actually help him.

[kathyk24]

6 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

And that was my biggest problem with the Harry Potter stories overall. Even St. Dumbledore was guilty of it. The Slytherins don't stand a chance in that world so it's no wonder they all turned out evil. Why bother even trying to be good if the whole world is going to treat you as evil because of what house some hat sorted you into?

I think Slytherins proved that they were capable of doing good things. Slughorn fought against Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts Narcissa Malfoy defied Voldemort in order to save Draco. Peter Pettigrew was in Gryffindor and he turned evil.

[scarynikki12]

One thing about Dumbledore's character that I appreciate is that he's willing to admit his mistakes.  He tends to realize them when it's either too late (the confrontation with Aberforth and Grindelwald that leads to Ariana's death) or almost too late (sending Hagrid at the last minute to give Harry his letter in book 1), so it's not like it always helps but it's there.  I think him reprimanding the Dursleys in book 6 for their treatment of Harry is him demonstrating one of these times of awareness.  I do agree that he should have kept a closer watch on Harry, staying in touch with Petunia to both keep up with his progress and make sure he was being treated well, since he was determined to protect him via that spell. 

I go back and forth on the Slytherin thing from book 1.  On the one hand, it was classic Dumbledore playing the long game and looking at the bigger picture: by giving those extra points in the Great Hall rather than right after Harry's confrontation with Quirrel/Voldemort, he made it clear to the remaining Death Eaters, DE allies, neutrals, remaining Order Of The Phoenix members, and OOTP allies (all of whom would hear about his actions from their kids) that Hogwarts was behind Harry now and when Voldemort returned.  And Slytherin House was corrupted by Voldemort and his lackeys long before this moment so I can't imagine there were that many students (if at all) who were on the fence about turning evil who then made the choice just because Dumbledore made a show of taking the House Cup away.  On the other hand, showing such blatant favoritism is an awful thing for any educator to do since he could have awarded the points before the feast and then just made a speech about the whys.  Since none of the characters ever referenced it as a reason for any of their actions I don't think it did anything more than give Gryffindor some glory.  Neville was favorably singled out and he didn't suddenly become popular but was still bullied and looked down upon by Snape and Malfoy's gang and wouldn't fully become friends with anyone for a few years. 

Moving on, one of my most recent hated "heroes" is Belly from the I Feel Pretty series.  It pains me, because I adored Lara Jean from To All The Boys I've Loved Before but I think Jenny Han really missed the mark here*.  Belly's just awful.  She doesn't seem capable of making her own decisions.  She just goes along with the wishes of whichever boy she's dating.  She's completely obsessed, in a creepy way, with the older son of her mom's BFF.  And said BFF apparently spent her entire life saying she wanted Belly to marry one of her sons (and mom later dies so it becomes this weird Last Wish thing).  When Belly does date the older son, he comes across as 100% Not Into Her and it seems like he's dating her because he's aware of her obsession and his mom's wish.  Their entire relationship he treats Belly like shit, including being forced to take Belly to her prom and then promptly dumps her.  But Belly, despite a few moments of almost-clarity, just wants him back.  Then she starts feeling attraction for his brother and they end up in a relationship but it's clear that she'd go back to the older one in a second if he showed interest.  Then there's a whole thing in the third book where younger brother cheats on Belly and he asks forgiveness by proposing.  Of course she accepts because she's fucking dumbass and then they spend the rest of the book planning their wedding and not understanding why everyone is against it.  And the big resolution is not Belly growing up and making a choice to finally end the relationship but for younger brother to dump her because he read a letter from his mom about how happy she is that Belly is marrying the older brother (she wrote letters before she died with the intention that they be opened on each son's wedding day and got mixed up).  There's also a quick epilogue that takes place a few years later with Belly's wedding to older brother and there's no indication of any lingering issue regarding her going back and forth between the brothers, or that she almost married the younger one, or even just an indication that they all sat down and hashed out all of this insanity.  Just a few sentences about how they started writing letters to each other while she was studying abroad which led to them dating again.  Exactly no self-awareness in this character, or any of them really, and it's infuriating.

*Unless it turns out that this was one big satire in which case I still think it could use a once over by a different writer before any adaptation.  If it's not supposed to be satire, then lock it in a drawer and never speak of it again.

[Spartan Girl]

Odysseus from The Odyssey was a reckless liar. The recent retelling, Circe by Madeline Miller, really brings that to light.

[scarynikki12]

Ok, no one tell my Classics professors that I completely forgot about mythology.  I think they'd fail me retroactively and I'd have to agree.

Anyway: Achilles.  Spends the entire story whining and pouting because Agamemnon stole his slave* to the point that his boyfriend takes his place in battle, gets killed cause he ain't Achilles, and then, when he decides to get off his ass out of grief and revenge, he kills Hector (a far more heroic character) and then mistreats his body to thoroughly that the gods have to intervene so that it can get funeral rites and a proper burial.  He gets a few points for getting killed by Paris and gaining awareness in the Underworld but not enough to get me to view him as a hero.

*I paid attention in class, so I understand the context of the time and how Aggie's actions would have been viewed by Homer's audience but I don't care because I'm alive now and can judge that annoying gnat Achilles as much as I want.

Speaking of the gods, they aren't meant to be seen as heroes, as that's a human thing and they're on a higher plane, but oh man are some of them terrible.  Between all the rapes and general nastiness they didn't deserve to be worshiped.  Uranus stuffs his kids inside Gaia, Chronos swallows his, and Zeus swallows his first wife all to avoid getting overthrown by their offspring.  Hades becomes obsessed with, and then rapes, his niece and then, when Demeter grieves (a perfectly normal reaction to her daughter's kidnap and rape), her brother (Zeus) and grandmother (Gaia) step in to make her stop.  Yes, Demeter grieving takes the form of barren land and the humans suffer, but none of the gods were worried about their welfare but about the lack of sacrifices.  And then Hades still wins since Kore gets to spend part of each year with him. 

Aeneas treats Dido like shit because Destiny, though her refusal to acknowledge him in the underworld is SO GOOD that I can almost forgive it. 

Medea overreacts to an infinite degree but that doesn't excuse Jason using and discarding her the way he did. 

To be clear, I adore all these stories so don't misinterpret, but these characters are decidedly NOT heroes.

[nodorothyparker]

God, those Madeline Miller books were a revelation in just how good they were.  Months after reading them I can't stop raving about either one to anyone who will listen as they reminded me of how gloriously and wonderfully twisted Greek mythology could be. 

As portrayed in Song of Achilles, Achilles's ridiculous pouting might have been somewhat forgiven had his any of concern about Agamemnon taking Briseis at all been about the sexual violence or abuse she was almost sure to suffer at his hands, but that wasn't even on his radar.  Patroclus considered it.  It's a huge part of his motivation for talking Achilles into taking so many female prisoners as prizes when neither of them are remotely interested in them as sex partners.  But no, it was his honor and his glory that he was snitting about.  How dare Agamemnon disrespect and mistreat me this way?  Yeah, I know too that's a modern reading vs. how it would have been viewed at the time, but the issue's already raised by having Briseis and all the other women there in the first place.  Patroclus is only on that battlefield getting himself killed pretending to be Achilles because Achilles was still sitting around snitting about it and things were about to get very ugly for them all very fast if the Greeks didn't think he had their back.

Circe's take on Odysseus did precious little to improve my opinion of him.  

[Joe]

11 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

Speaking of the gods, they aren't meant to be seen as heroes, as that's a human thing and they're on a higher plane, but oh man are some of them terrible.  Between all the rapes and general nastiness they didn't deserve to be worshiped.  Uranus stuffs his kids inside Gaia, Chronos swallows his, and Zeus swallows his first wife all to avoid getting overthrown by their offspring.  Hades becomes obsessed with, and then rapes, his niece and then, when Demeter grieves (a perfectly normal reaction to her daughter's kidnap and rape), her brother (Zeus) and grandmother (Gaia) step in to make her stop.  Yes, Demeter grieving takes the form of barren land and the humans suffer, but none of the gods were worried about their welfare but about the lack of sacrifices.  And then Hades still wins since Kore gets to spend part of each year with him.

What I love about the old-school gods is that they're such a pack of complete bastards. It's wonderful. The Aesir are no better. They want someone to build a wall around Asgard, right. So someone comes along. His offer: If I build this within a certain time, I get to marry Freya, goddess of love. Sure, they say, because they don't believe it can be done. Probably over her protests, of course. But the builder has a great horse and makes worryingly good time, so they set out to distract him. Eventually Loki turns into a mare to distract the horse, and gets himself knocked up. Yes, really. The offspring is Odin's eight-legged horse, Sleipnir. Keep in mind that in the actual mythology, Loki is Odin's adopted brother.

Right there, you have offering a woman as a price, reneging on a deal, mpreg, making your nephew your pet. Norse mythology is completely fucked up, though that's probably the worst one I can think of.

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

God, those Madeline Miller books were a revelation in just how good they were.  Months after reading them I can't stop raving about either one to anyone who will listen as they reminded me of how gloriously and wonderfully twisted Greek mythology could be. 

As portrayed in Song of Achilles, Achilles's ridiculous pouting might have been somewhat forgiven had his any of concern about Agamemnon taking Briseis at all been about the sexual violence or abuse she was almost sure to suffer at his hands, but that wasn't even on his radar.  Patroclus considered it.  It's a huge part of his motivation for talking Achilles into taking so many female prisoners as prizes when neither of them are remotely interested in them as sex partners.  But no, it was his honor and his glory that he was snitting about.  How dare Agamemnon disrespect and mistreat me this way?  Yeah, I know too that's a modern reading vs. how it would have been viewed at the time, but the issue's already raised by having Briseis and all the other women there in the first place.  Patroclus is only on that battlefield getting himself killed pretending to be Achilles because Achilles was still sitting around snitting about it and things were about to get very ugly for them all very fast if the Greeks didn't think he had their back.

Yup.  But I will add that the Achilles portrayed in Song of Achilles was more sympathetic than other versions, because you did get to see a better side of him before he was corrupted by the war and the promise of fame, glory, and all that jazz.

Moving on, I think Lena Gray in Maeve Binchy's The Glass Lake is another example of an unlikable heroine.  Yes, she did help out a lot of people at her job, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that she abandoned her family for her douchebag former flame.  And I hate how the book glorifies her as a feminist hero.

[scarynikki12]

I theorize that Homer wasn’t wild about Achilles either, since he made such a point of showing him disrespect Hector’s body and his sitting out the war despite being the best warrior. He also showed him gaining that awareness about glory in the underworld so it’s possible. 

[proserpina65]

On ‎09‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 9:30 PM, Black Knight said:

I'd like to recommend Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea to the people talking about how terrible Rochester is. It tells the story of his first wife and their marriage, mostly from her point of view.

I've read it, and find her horribly unsympathetic.  It actually made me feel sort of sorry for Rochester, as he was tricked into marrying her.  But only briefly.

On ‎09‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 12:19 PM, Wiendish Fitch said:

For the handful of Rochester haters out there, I once again urge you to check out John Sutherland's masterful essay, "Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?". It's an insightful, thought-provoking, damn near unforgiving critique of Rochester's actions.

 

My take on it was that Rochester was awful, Jane was a horrible priggish snot, and I hated them both.

Edited September 6, 2018 by proserpina65

[proserpina65]

17 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

Speaking of the gods, they aren't meant to be seen as heroes, as that's a human thing and they're on a higher plane, but oh man are some of them terrible.  Between all the rapes and general nastiness they didn't deserve to be worshiped. 

The gods are cruel and capricious indeed.

[Spartan Girl]

If you want another realistic take on the asshole heroes of the Trojan War, The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker is told in the POV of Briseis, Achilles' "prize". And believe me, she doesn't sugarcoat the fact that being a "war prize" is basically turning women into chattel.

Another not-so-great mythological hero is Rama from the Indian epic Ramayana. He knows his wife, Sita, was faithful, and yet he abandons her because he can't have his people doubt her. As much as I love that story, I was never able to accept that part. But unlike those poor unfortunate Greek women, Sita was ultimately able to take her fate into her own hands.

[DearEvette]

On 9/5/2018 at 10:03 PM, scarynikki12 said:

Speaking of the gods, they aren't meant to be seen as heroes, as that's a human thing and they're on a higher plane, but oh man are some of them terrible.  Between all the rapes and general nastiness they didn't deserve to be worshiped.  Uranus stuffs his kids inside Gaia, Chronos swallows his, and Zeus swallows his first wife all to avoid getting overthrown by their offspring.  Hades becomes obsessed with, and then rapes, his niece and then, when Demeter grieves (a perfectly normal reaction to her daughter's kidnap and rape), her brother (Zeus) and grandmother (Gaia) step in to make her stop.  Yes, Demeter grieving takes the form of barren land and the humans suffer, but none of the gods were worried about their welfare but about the lack of sacrifices.  And then Hades still wins since Kore gets to spend part of each year with him. 

I know right?  They were a messed up, dysfunctional ratchet family all around.  And don't forget Athena. Holy cow she did Medusa dirty.  Poseidon raped poor Medusa in one of Athena's temples.  And what does Athena do?  She turns Medusa into a monster for having the audacity to be raped.  And even worse, according to Ovid, the prevailing attitude was that Medusa deserved what Athena did for being 'too pretty.'  And the final insult was that Athena helped Perseus kill Medusa even though Medusa wasn't doing anything to anyone on purpose.  It wasn't her fault she turned people to stone. 

[hendersonrocks]

The Age of Innocence is one of my all time favorite books, but Newland Archer, May Welland, and Madame Olenska are all seriously flawed. (And I love them for it!)

[Spartan Girl]

Victor Frankenstein. He not only wanted to play God, he also abandons the being he creates because he was so ugly. Well, what did you expect, dumbass?!  You made him out of mismatched body parts!

[proserpina65]

On ‎09‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 8:55 AM, Spartan Girl said:

Victor Frankenstein. He not only wanted to play God, he also abandons the being he creates because he was so ugly. Well, what did you expect, dumbass?!  You made him out of mismatched body parts!

I think Frankenstein's motivation was a little more complicated than his creation was ugly, but otherwise, I agree.  The book is written in the first person, and I think the speaker wants us to sympathize with him, but I'm fairly certain that the author does not.  At least, I hope not.

[scarynikki12]

Frankenstein is one of those books that feels new every time I read it but I’ve never felt that Mary wanted her audience to feel sympathy for Victor. The Creature, yes absolutely, and all the other characters to varying degrees, but not Victor. Filmmakers have shown sympathy for him, which tells me they don’t quite get it, but not Mary. The closest she wants us to get is the moment The Creature opens his eyes and Victor fully realizes what he’s done. Then it’s over as we get a thorough examination of how his abandonment of his creation is an even bigger mistake than the experiment. Victor is still the Big Bad of this story.  

[Spartan Girl]

You create life, you have to take responsibility for that life. Whether Victor was repulsed by the creatire's appearance or realized the enormity of what he done, he pretty much chickened out. If that's not a perfect metaphor for paternal abandonment, I don't know what is.

Anyway, Peter Pan is another character that fits this thread. While the original version is not as evil as some retellings have made him, he's not that heroic either. He's selfish and fickle and all but indifferent to his so-called friends.

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 minute ago, Spartan Girl said:

Anyway, Peter Pan is another character that fits this thread. While the original version is not as evil as some retellings have made him, he's not that heroic either. He's selfish and fickle and all but indifferent to his so-called friends.

There are so many beloved versions, it's easy to forget what a little douche Peter is. It always bothered me how lax he was about Tinker Bell trying to have Wendy killed, and that Wendy languished away for years at her childhood home waiting for him to come back, only to be dumped for her daughter (poor choice of words, I realize, but that's kind of what it amounts to).

I'll admit I only like the Broadway version for the songs (did Captain Hook really need so many?!).

[Snow Apple]

How weird. I was thinking about Peter Pan not even 30 minutes before I saw these posts. Like many fairytales, the original character is no Disney.

[Spartan Girl]

8 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

How weird. I was thinking about Peter Pan not even 30 minutes before I saw these posts. Like many fairytales, the original character is no Disney.

The Disney version isn't exactly all that nice either although he has slightly more empathy.

[proserpina65]

17 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

You create life, you have to take responsibility for that life. Whether Victor was repulsed by the creatire's appearance or realized the enormity of what he done, he pretty much chickened out. If that's not a perfect metaphor for paternal abandonment, I don't know what is.

Absolutely, which is why I don't think Mary Shelley meant us to have sympathy for him.

[Spartan Girl]

Bella Swan is an utterly worthless excuse for a heroine.  She has no ambitions, save for being with Edward.  She does NOTHING in the whole series except let everyone else fight over her.

[Black Knight]

I don't know that I'd say Yelena in Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study series is worthless per se - and I really loved the first book - but when I got into the sequels I started noticing how every crisis was created by Yelena and then she'd spend X pages dragging herself out of her self-created crisis, only to dive headfirst into creating her next crisis. I admired her ability to solve her problems but I did not admire how she continually created them. By the time I got to the end of the original trilogy I was simultaneously exhausted and bored by it all.

(And when I was looking up the series just now on Amazon so I could remind myself of the heroine's name, I discovered that Snyder has written three more books. I enjoyed the universe, but man, if it's all just the same as described above then I'm not interested. Poison Study was cool because, as the name indicates, it was largely about all the poisons Yelena had to learn, as the new food taster for the ruler.)

[Dr.OO7]

Elizabeth Wakefield is self-righteous to the point of cruelty and just as snobbish and stuck-up as she constantly accuses her sister and her sister's friends of being.

[IWantCandy71]

On 9/2/2018 at 4:31 PM, HazelEyes4325 said:

Rochester from Jane Eyre.  I love that book...I really, really do.  But Rochester can just go suck it.  

(Spoiler for a retelling of Jane Eyre)

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One of the reasons I enjoyed Re Jane by Patricia Park so much is that the Jane character kicks the Rochester character (who is also terrible, but probably not as terrible as THE Rochester) to the curb.  

Heh. When I saw this topic, he immediately came to mind before anyone. I love Rochester, because he's fictional and I love characters with warts the most. I just do. But is he a "good" guy ? In terms of his actions, absolutely not. He was *married*(okay so she was nuts and because of her mental state he couldn't-wouldn't-divorce her), and kept her locked up while he was making the moves on the governess.  Bad moves, dude. Just overall bad.

He is most often referred to as a "Byronic" hero, which is basically an anti-hero, and when you look at him that way, he's far more palatable. Another guy who is assumed to be a hero, who is really an "anti-hero", is Athos from "The Three Musketeers" and the subsequent follow up books. He also has a wife, and when he finds out she was a murderess condemned to die, who escaped the law,  he takes it upon himself to carry out the execution. Granted, based on what Dumas wrote, at the time, Athos(or Count de la Fere, his real name) had the right to carry out that kind of law enforcement on his own land. There is a legal term for it that I I have forgotten, but the fact that he was justified in the eyes of the law to do what he did makes it slightly more palatable. But the fact that this woman was someone he supposedly loved, and instead of extending mercy, he basically just said "Off with her her head", taints the character for me. I think he and Aramis are the two best characters Dumas created, because of their complexities. And I hate that the Keifer Sutherland version is so "Disneyfied". Of course, they also watered down Milady in that version. I mean, yeah Athos should not have did what he did, but Milady is pretty evil. She is one of the most terrifying  villians in literature, ever, although her son is bone chilling, as well. 

But just like I still enjoy Rochester, I also love Athos, judgemental behavior and all. And Aramis, oh Aramis. So power hungry, but at least in most movie versions, he is portrayed that way.