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People Break Down Which Fictional Characters People Should Stop Glorifying

People Break Down Which Fictional Characters People Should Stop Glorifying
Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

I love a good bad guy in fiction.

Who doesn't?

The villain is always the juiciest character.

In the end, they're the most broken and flawed. So they have the most to unearth.

But as generations have passed, and on a second glance, there are some characters we maybe give a little too much respect to and love to.

I mean, you don't watch Dateline NBC and root for the serial killer. Right?

RIGHT?!?!

I blame the book Wicked. It turned the villain story upside down... and The Sopranos.


Redditor TourSignificant1335wanted to discuss all the characters in fiction we really need to re-examine. Maybe we shouldn't be lauding them so much.

They asked:

"What fictional character should people really stop glorifying?"

Hannibal Lechter. Yes, Sir Anthony Hopkins is brilliant. But he eats people. For fun. With wine. Not a good guy.

Bad Chris

"Christian Grey."

Freedom0001

"It's just cause he's rich and handsome. It's romantic only because of that. Imagine the story but a broke ugly guys tries to get a girl to get into BDSM and does a bunch if stalking. 100% guaranteed it will be advertised as a horror movie."

Ibreathoxygennow

Giphy

Hit the Road Jack

"Jack from jack and the bean stalk. He broke into the giants castle, stole all his stuff, ran away and when the giant tried to get his stuff back, he freaking murdered him."

Exotic_Imagination69

'...and then Jack chopped down the beanstalk, adding murder and ecological vandalism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, but he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you're a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions. Seems like you share something in common with a Miss Susan Sto-Helit."

gl0vely

'bad boy'

"JD (Heathers)."

shawtyalilperry

I think people romanticizing JD is the whole point. If you find his 'bad boy' traits attractive, if you want to fix him, if you grow blind to his flaws. You then understand exactly why Veronica stayed by JD's side, even through all the crazy shit he did and also planned to do."

Etaleo

Psycho

"I thought Patrick Bateman was cool as a teen & young adult and now I'm an angry awkward weirdo."

Significant-Garlic87

"I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion."

"In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion."

Limp-Munkee69

The Devil

"Madeline Wuntch. You might ask, if she’s here who’s guarding hades? That fork tongued lizard witch turned out to be a Korean toilet ghost."

itstimegeez

Giphy

I don't care how messed up 50 Shades is... I love you Jamie Dornan.

The Bad Guys

"Gordon Gecko - Wall Street."

"Jordan Belfort - Wolf of Wall Street."

"They are supposed to be cautionary tales of what not to do."

EnigmaCA

leonardo dicaprio GIFGiphy

Tony. Tony. Tony.

"Tony Montana... like seriously, he had about the worst ending you could ask for 🤷🏼."

karmaredemption

"I love shi**ing on this one, because he got assassinated solely because he did the least gangster thing and killed his associate who was going to blow up a car with the narcs kids and wife in it. He dies because he had compassion for innocent people, unlike the thug types that glamorize his image."

AubinSan93

Bad Romance

"For those that love The Notebook. Noah threatened to kill himself if she didn't go on a date with him. Nope nope nope."

AlwaysShip

"They have a toxic boderline abusive relationship. I don't understand how people say it's 'goals' when all they do is fight and manipulate each other."

TWWSi

"I hate that movie with a burning passion. Witch cheated on her fiancé. Her fiancé deserved so much better. I’d pay to see the movie from his perspective."

lonestarcom

Twilighted

"Edward Cullen."

ThiccccLatina1996

"Robert Pattinson has openly talked about how f**ked up that character was. He almost got fired because he played him too dark. He was like 'yeah, it's dark, it's a 100 year old vampire stalking a teenage girl!' He thought Stephanie Myers was like actually deranged."

ScarletCaptain

"I find Bella way worse."

HumanEcon

Him

"Dude from You."

joosypoosy69

"The show first got recommended to me by a woman in my checkout line when i was a cashier. She told me, 'I wish someone loved me like that! Well kind of, haha.'"

LifeNorm

Giphy

Oh Effy

"Effy from skins— the show literally romanticized her mental health disorders."

mygayla

"This is a good one, I watched skins when I was in high school and I really wanted to be Effy, she seemed so cool and awesome and did all the cool kid things. I was a typical teenager and I can only be grateful I didn’t do more stupid crap then."

MissNinja007

Interesting

"Luke Castellan. He is not a tragedy. Other characters had it just as bad as him (if not, worse) and didn’t turn evil or try to kill innocent people (including the one he loves)."

REDDIT

"Luke is an interesting one to me. I always thought he was the type of person that you weren't supposed to agree with, but you could at least see where he was coming from."

"Even Percy kind of sees it, since he makes the gods promise not to neglect their children so much. There's also the fact that he was being manipulated by Kronos. Not that he was right or people should look up to him, but his choices definitely make sense."

TheOncomimgHoop

Toxic Together

"The Joker."

PinkSweetGhost

"Someone once told me after they saw Suicide Squad that they wanted a relationship like what Joker and Harley Quinn have. I told her 'So you want to be both mentally and physically abused? You want to have to look over your shoulder when he gets mad and hope he doesn't take it out on you? You want to be beaten half to death and then be told it was you who made him do it? Ok whatever floats your boat.'"

Sassh1

Bad Guy

"Walter White."

Sontronite

"Yeah he's legitimately just an awful person from the very first episode. He could have taken the job and not put him and his family at risk. He has several opportunities to stop. He even admits it was just for him. He's an amazing character, but he's a villain that happens to be a protagonist."

-SlinxTheFox-

Kids...

"Romeo and Juliet."

TemporalTailor

"The play was written just after a plague outbreak in London. They were just two horny kids who had to be married before they could get laid, and wanted to get some before they maybe died too. And their families were both filled with a**holes."

Muninwing

leonardo dicaprio love GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy

Bad Touch

"The Peaky Blinders. I recently watched the show and I just don’t understand why every guy wants to be like them. They are all horrible people who destroy everything they touch."

El_Diablo_09

"Glorified in the sense that they radiate charm and power? There's something appealing about the characters but someone watching the show would see that they are deeply troubled. There's a pretty big emphasis on their crippling PTSD, drug addiction and inability to form healthy relationships."

evilcreampuff

Bad People

"Ramona Flowers."

tr0jance

"This is the main reason that I prefer the comics over the movie of Scott Pilgrim (though the movie is great); by the end of the series both Ramona and Scott recognise that they're pretty shitty people but have made some kind of commitment to trying to get better together wheras the movie doesn't really go that far."

Mr_Pleasant2310

Bad Hamm

"Don Draper."

okaydamn

"Yeah, I think most people view the show in the lens of glitz and glamour of an idealized upper-class lifestyle of the time with some comedic and salacious side-story. "

"They miss the point that his most important character development comes later in revisiting his past. Facing being a paper tiger. Feeling lost in what most folk would value as an ideal life. Sad little kid hurt and haunted. And hurting many in the process of trying to run from that."

Dangercakes13

Alan is Genius

"Snape — he bullied a child so badly that he was that child’s boggart. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it came to being a bully or being unfair."

Altrano

snape GIFGiphy

Hate Her

"Carrie Bradshaw."

TrashPandaShire

"Yes!!! Thank you! She was the narcissist of the show and Samantha is the sh*t. Carrie cheating on Aidan for the piece of sh*t Mr. Big made me realize how much she placed herself first. And let’s not forget the episode where she yelled at Charlotte for not giving her money to cover her financial mistake."

MotherAgnes

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