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14 Characters We Love to Hate, and Characters We Just Hate

The ones that keep us hooked, the ones we secretly want to be, and the ones that boil our blood and make us cheer when they die *spoilers ahead*

By G. A. MckayPublished 2 years ago 7 min read
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Although we love our heroes, we can't deny our love for villains, particularly the ones that are just too damn smart and creative for their own good.

Love to Hate

1. Amy Dunne | Gone Girl (2014)

Amy Dunne is the ultimate femme fatale. The pure dedication she puts into framing her husband for cheating on her is *chef's kiss*. Now, we can all agree she is a bad person; trying to get her husband the death penalty and all, BUT you have to admire her passion for revenge. She is the kind of character that you watch and you’re like “LOVE HER, YAS QUEEN” but would have absolutely no desire to meet her in real life because she is terrifying.

2. Cersei Lannister | Game of Thrones (2011-2019)

You know she’s bad, you kind of hate her, and you think she should die… just not yet. She was the kind of character where you really looked forward to her death, but you wanted it to wait until the very end because seeing the decisions she makes is just so damn entertaining. The opening scene in the season 6 episode 10 The Winds of Winter was absolute perfection; the tension, the music, the editing, and then finally just seeing Cersei’s satisfied face as she watches the sept burn, sips her wine… iconic.

3. Love Quinn | You (Season 3, 2021)

Season 3 Love Quinn, and I do mean her in season 3 because I really didn’t like her in season 2, but never has a character changed my mind so much. Her just being her psycho self was incredibly entertaining, but it was always the aftermath of those impulses that were really funny. Like after killing Natalie, the next-door neighbour,

Joe: Okay. Love, we need a story. A reason she died.

Love: She was unhappy and unstable, and she killed herself.

Joe: With an axe?

Love: She fell off a cliff and hit her head, I DON’T KNOW!

And in the finale episode Love is almost like a reincarnated Amy Dunne. Throughout the whole season Love acts on impulse rather than intelligence, but that moment she tells Joe “you don’t have to worry… this time I’m letting it absorb through the skin” (referring to the paralytic that then causes Joe to collapse to the ground), just made me go OOOOHHH DAMN! She really made season 3.

4. Sherry and Cary | You (Season 3, 2021)

The second highlight of You Season 3. I started off hating them, I remember thinking, yep I hope these two die. Sherry and her influencer site about being this amazing mother, how uptight she was, like when she got mad at Love for feeding her children cupcakes, made me want to punch her in the face. And Cary beheaded a squirrel with his bare hands. Enough said.

But by the end of the season, they were my absolute favourites. Both of them in the cage was comedy gold, especially when Theo discovers them and can’t believe what he’s seeing, and they just scream at him to stop being an idiot. Priceless.

Sherry: They’re murderers Theo!

Cary: We think they killed Gil too. They blamed it all on him.

Theo: Wait. Where’s Love?

Cary: What do you mean “where’s Love”!

Sherry: Theo she’s half of it! Don’t be an idiot! She caught her husband cheating with your stepmom and she murdered her and now she’s delivering a letter to a fucking preschool councillor half an hour away like she doesn’t have two people locked in a cage in her basement. She’ll be back any minute now. I am not exactly in a position to lie to you right now, am I?

The fact that she delivers this perfectly, without taking a breath just makes it so much funnier.

5. Tammy Swanson | Parks and Recreation (2009-2015)

I honestly think the Tammy episodes of Parks and Recreation are the best episodes. Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman as Ron and Tammy are the peak of hilarity in this show, and the fact that they are husband and wife in real life just makes it even better. It’s her laugh that really gets me, it kills me every time.

6. Phillip Davidson | Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Box (2018)

Best episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine ever. Sterling K. Brown as murderer Phillip Davidson is just flawless casting. So suave, so calm, just patiently waiting for Jake to run out of time. The confession that Jake manages to coerce out of him by dumbing down his murder plan is genius, and the pacing of the entire episode is perfect.

7. The Godmother | Fleabag (2016)

The Godmother in Fleabag is unforgivably snide and two-faced, particularly towards Fleabag herself, and I LOVE it. The Godmother is the main antagonist in the series (alongside Martin, who is also a character you just love to hate). Every time I watch Fleabag I get so excited for her bits, especially in season 2 where she is just flawlessly awful. I can’t imagine anyone other than Olivia Coleman playing her, she was perfectly cast.

Hate

1. Joffrey Baratheon | Game of Thrones (2011-2019)

The. Absolute. Worst. I could not WAIT for him to die. Watching him choke to death was so satisfying, I cheered and pumped my fist in the air when I watched it. He beheaded Ned Stark, he had all of Robert's bastards killed, including BABIES, terrorised Sansa, and tortured prostitutes for no other reason than pure enjoyment. Props to Jack Gleeson for his incredible performance as the character.

2. Ramsay Bolton | Game of Thrones (2011-2019)

The worst character in TV history. Worse than Joffrey, and that’s saying something. He tortured and castrated Theon, hunted people for fun and fed them to his dogs, and repeatedly raped and abused Sansa. I still think about poor Rickon. Zig-Zag. Ramsay deserved to be eaten alive by his own hounds.

3. Todd Packer | The Office (2005-2013)

I hate Todd Packer. He was just gross, I didn’t find him funny, and all he ever was was a bad influence on Michael. It was very satisfying when he got fired instead of Dwight.

4. Steve Wood | Dead to Me (2019-2021)

Now, Steve Wood almost made the ‘love to hate’ list, but I think that was just because he is played by James Marsden who is incredibly beautiful and charming. But Steve Wood is not. He was emotionally manipulative towards Judy, who wanted to come clean after the accident that killed Jen’s husband, and forced her to stay quiet. Not to mention he was working with the Greek mafia. RED FLAG.

5. Fred Waterford | The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-2021)

Hate. Hate. Hate. With a passion. Oh, he boils my blood. Fred Waterford is responsible for doing some pretty heinous stuff in Gilead, including rape, emotional and physical abuse, and even the mutilation of his wife. But honestly, for me, it was the smaller stuff, like giving June a woman’s magazine to read and acting like he was being the nicest guy in the world while simultaneously being incredibly patronising. Not to mention his flip-flopping loyalty between June and his wife, making June’s life even more hellish and unpredictable. The cherry on top was just his utter delusion that June liked him, let alone loved him, or that there was this unspoken deep relationship between them. Idiot.

6. Cato | The Hunger Games (2012)

Cato terrified me. I know he was just a kid like all the rest, forced into the arena with no other choice but to kill, but he seemed to enjoy it. His presence was incredibly uncomfortable, especially that look he gives Katniss after the opening ceremony *shudders*.

7. Delores Umbridge | Harry Potter (1997-2007)

I think the whole world can agree she needed to be exterminated. I guess life in Azkaban is a close second. Crazy bitch, ‘nuff said.

Did your favourite hated character make the list?

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About the Creator

G. A. Mckay

I am a Scottish writer based in Glasgow. I like to write articles about film, television and literature, also book reviews, and short stories.

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