The trouble is, all to often the teen reverts to being whiny and stupid at the worst possible time, thereby putting everybody in danger. It happens so often that it's almost predictable.
As I've noted in other threads, Bella actually drives most of the plot, at least in the first book. Though she also spends time obsessing over romance issues, but Edward is just as bad about that as she is.
Oh! Definitely just certain ones. Feminism is a fantastic cause in its goals and in what it's done so far for gender equality. Problem I have is the extreme feminists who seem to actually believe that men are scum. 'Feminazis' for me are those bra-burning, hate spouting, angry type of women who have taken feminism way out of what it was meant to be. They've just corrupted what it was. Kinda like fundamentalist Christians making the rest of Christianity look bad. I go to church, but I *hate* bible-bashing types who dogmatically preach the rubbish that the Westbro folks seem keen on. Bit unrelated to OP, but yeah. Just to get it cleared up I dislike most feminist characters in books.
The dutch author Maarten t Hart has a lot of feminazi's in his books. But they are meant to be feminazi, he didnt try to be feminist and failed.
I agree as a writer can offer you a character who is for a lack of better words a total dick. If the author gives that character a decently justifiable reason for the character being a dick, then the chances are that at least some people will like that character.
Unless its a comedy, why? I lived it in high school. Why would I want to read it? And its not dramatic enough to go the "Platoon" route. But maybe I am a little defensive. I'll always have a special place in my heart for "Hoosiers."
Every character in "Saving Private Ryan". The gentle teach who is the hardened commander. The bible quoting sniper. The writer who wont fire his gun until the guy they released shoots the captain. And Ed Burns whining his way across France. Totally ruined what could have been a perfectly good story.
I actually liked all of those characters and consider Saving Private Ryan to be one of the greatest war movies ever made. Not the best ever but it belongs in the top ten at least. That's just my opinion though.
Dude, the characters were the story. Do you look out your window and think, "Man I could totally see the forest from here, but these trees totally ruin the view."
No but I might think that would be a great forest if only they were evergreens instead of birch trees.
You're probably in the majority. But then the thread title isnt characters you didnt like an neither did anyone else either. I just felt the characters were too contrived.
Okay here it goes with a slightly controversial one. I dislike the try-hard comic relief character in most films; the ones that are always aping about or delivering dreadful one-liners. But I would add to this almost half the roles that Robin Williams ever played. They all just sounded like this to me: "look everyone, I'm being funny. Why aren't you looking? See the crazy things I'm doing? laugh. Why aren't you laughing? You should all BE LAUGHING!" I always found it incredibly tiresome.
@T.Trian - I think stupid character are especially prevalent in rom coms. I hate the convenient misunderstandings so the couple can now break apart for the climax. I do enjoy the occasional chick lit, but it's hard to find one I can read past the first 2 chapters of because they're all. So. Dumb. Saying and doing ridiculous things that are supposed to be funny and making mistakes the size of their own head and still not see what they're doing wrong, and if something magical's involved, as they sometimes are in this genre, then you just know the MC's gonna do something stupid with it. @Adenosine Triphosphate - re the blank females, I'm totally guilty of that btw. It wasn't until I kept trying to make my co-author's female character weep and tremble and my co-author kept coming back saying "That's not my character!" that I even realised I was doing it. I think in this case, it's because I watch far too much anime, where the celebrated female and/or love interest is usually soft-spoken, a weeping pacifist, utterly child-like and naive and full of sweetness. (There're exceptions but in general that's the attrative norm, it seems) Trying to break out of that now. I cringed when I reread some of my female characters from my past works after realising this.
You know, for ages I used to pronounce that "Hairy Potter"... that was during the phase when I clearly spoke with a British accent but hadn't quite grasped the way English phonetics work lol.
Really? Well, now I pronounce it as the way you hear it on film - Ha-ry as opposed to Hairy lol. All my friends laughed at me so I corrected myself pretty quickly. It wasn't that I couldn't pronounced a natural Ha - I very much could. But somehow the idea of the spelling and the pronunciation being connected together didn't always occur to me back then. I did a very similar thing with the tennis player Tim Henman. My parents forever pronounced it as "Team Henman" and I only really heard the name at home anyway when mum watched Wimbledon. So outside, with my friends, I also referred to him as Team Henman lol. Then one day my English friend asked me, "How come you pronounce Tim Henman as Team Henman, and yet you have absolutely no problem pronouncing my brother's name?" (her brother's name was Tim, which I pronounced perfectly correctly all the time) Again, just never connected pronunciation with spelling lol. After that I never said Team Henman again lol.
The only character I can think of that I truly dislike is Patrick Bateman. I have a hard time getting through American Psycho past the scene where he kills the kid, usually I just skip ahead a few pages. IMHO it's a testament to Ellis that I have read that book upwards of 15 times. As far as tv tropes go- the only one I really dislike is the female character whose sole job is to flash her boobs or draw in male viewers with her sex appeal. I can disguise it as seeing it as degrading but really I'm just insecure, looking at my post-4 kids including full-term twins body and being jealous.
Although it is almost de rigueur to have the comic relief character, but I've never found them to be interesting or helpful in enjoying the story, especially when you can see the author working hard to make him or her funny. I suppose that like the jesters of old, it was supposed to prevent the main character from being taken or taking him/her self too seriously, but it as drifted to the supposedly funny character being an idiot "just because".
Despite what is believed, most men are more interested and aroused by an intelligent (not bitter or overtly hostile) woman with a halfway decent figure, rather than the traditional dumb blonde or the token nude. Yes we will look, but that's as far as it goes and does not help the rating of the film in our minds. Exception being a man or teenager who has been largely deprived of such fare, for obvious reasons.
Please forgive me if I am overstepping my boundaries here but my wife and I have 3 kids including full-term twins. There are a lot of ways to create sex appeal for audiences, including males over the age of 25ish, beyond just showing skin or perfect figures. Skin and figures are a lazy tact but it works with younger men just like Michael Bay movies work. But its not the only way. Sex appeal beyond the superficial just takes a little more effort, thought, or imagination. How you extrapolate this is up to you...
