Top Ten Deeply Irritating Male Characters

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”

Homer

Because why should women get all the attention? #equality

1. Mr B. – Pamela, Samuel Richardson. Mr B. needs the meaning of “consent” explained to him slowly and carefully. About a hundred times. And even then he might not get it.

2. Dodger – Dodger, Terry Pratchett. Dodger is the archetypal Chippy Victorian Rogue with a Heart of Gold. His motivations are wildly inconsistent, his character is as shallow as the cliché, and he is not funny.

3. Odysseus – The Odyssey, Homer. I’ve never understood why Odysseus is considered such a hero. He’s clever, maybe, but he’s also a bit of a weasel, abandoning his men to save his own life, keeping secrets from his crew, and generally making idiotic decisions. Maybe this is a culture clash – Homer was, after all, writing over a thousand years ago – but we really shouldn’t be looking to Nobody for his heroism.

4. Mordred – The Dark Tower, Stephen King. He kills Oy. There is no forgiveness for that.

5. Frito – Bored of the Rings, The Harvard Lampoon. I really despise this Tolkien parody: it’s tone-deaf and annoying and exists only to make fun of the original. All the characters are selfish and cowardly and ridiculous and ugh. Maybe I’m just humourless and dull.

6. Stephen Dedalus – Ulysses, James Joyce. Please, shut up with your pretentious literary musings. They are dull and solipsistic and unimportant.

7. Master Blifil – Tom Jones, Henry Fielding. He is hypocritical, condescending, self-serving and generally a horrible, petty human being. And I just want to punch him.

8. Tristram Shandy – Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne. Another solipsistic muser on Life, the Universe and Everything and just why. These characters are so self-important.

9. Feanor – The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien. Yet another self-involved creator, one who literally can’t stand seeing his magnum opus in anyone else’s hands – even if getting it back means waging war against his own family. Feanor is directly responsible for at least 50% of the nasty stuff that happens in Middle-earth right into the Third Age.

10. Prince Humperdinck – The Princess Bride, William Golding. Just nasty – jealous and petty and sadistic and cruel. Ugh.

(The theme for this post was suggested by the Broke and the Bookish’s weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)