The Scrappy/Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Although A Song of Ice and Fire has a number of characters you could call "controversial," nobody really fits this trope like Darkstar. He managed to inspire an entire hatedom based on his appearance in a single chapter. (Whether said hatedom is serious or just for laughs is up for debate.) And unlike other controversial characters, it doesn't seem like anybody actually likes the guy. A deliberate attempt at an Ensemble Darkhorse Gone Horribly Wrong.
    • That might have something to do with his appearance being a rare example of Martin breaking the "Show, Don't Tell" rule - he is supposed to be some kind of amazing Badass. Unfortunately, his greatest "onscreen" achievement so far is a botched attempt to assassinate fan-favourite Myrcella Baratheon, an eleven-year old girl.
  • The Wheel of Time series has Faile as the most hated character by far. It didn't help that her introduction as a Slap Slap Kiss Rescue Romance Love Interest hardly made sense at all, or that her entire culture believes men and women in love should yell at each other in a never-ending struggle for dominance. Not that her personality is any more obnoxious than any other female character from The Wheel of Time, but that's another story...
    • Nobody seems to like Nynaeve either. She is arguably the most obnoxious female character (or character full stop) in the series, which is one hell of an achievement considering what the others are like.
      • Very debatable, actually. While Nynaeve filled this role at the beginning of the series due to her constant nagging, as the series has gone on she's evolved into a competent and powerful Aes Sedai who (unlike nearly every other female character) actually respects men and trusts Rand implicitly. In doing so she's managed to gain a lot more support in the fandom.
    • By contrast, Egwene has begun to fall into this role as she does everything from single-handedly re-uniting the Aes Sedai to rediscovering how to manufacture cuendillar. She also manages to drive away, isolate, endanger, horrifically abuse, disrespect, insult, and otherwise screw over all of her friends.
      • By the end of the Gathering Storm, Egwene, by virtue of rallying the defense against the Seanchan attack against the Tower and prior to that, undermining Elaida's misrule has gained a lot of admiration and support in the fandom.
  • Within The Vampire Chronicles fandom few characters get as much malice as Merrick, a never-before-seen crossover from a different Anne Rice series who somehow became a titular character. Many fans consider her to be the author's personal Mary Sue (evidenced by her impossibly beautiful and talented self showing up out of nowhere and immediately becoming beloved by all other characters, including the previously gay narrator, David) and argue that the entire novel reads like bad fan fiction (people behaving out-of-character, presence of a Mary Sue, ridiculously pointless plot even for Anne Rice...you get the idea). Fans who had managed to survive past Queen of the Damned (which was simultaneously loved and reviled by fans) agreed that this novel was officially the moment the series Jumped the Shark and put all the blame squarely on Merrick's shoulders. Cue dozens of Fan Fics wherein the character is either ignored or killed outright, sometimes to the point of having other characters kill her for being so annoying.
    • Daniel, the "interviewer" of Interview With A Vampire has his own hatedom as well. His habit of puppy-dogging behind Armand earned him the nickname "Daniel the Spaniel" from many, many writers.
  • Dylan of Maximum Ride has virtually no fans due to being a bland replacement for Fang as of the end of the 6th book. He is allegedly Max's perfect other half; try telling the shippers or any other fan of the series that. Go ahead. I'll come to the funeral.
  • From The Dark Elf Trilogy: Everybody hates Drizzt. Well, everyone except the everyone that loves him (they are best-selling novels).
  • And after you've done that, pick a character from Warriors. Any character. Now, you can be sure that a decent slice of Warriors fanfic is entirely based around hating that character.
  • The Five-Man Band in Black Dogs liberate a girl from the service of an evil magician, and as she tags along with them, she quickly becomes The Scrappy to both the characters in the book and the reader. The nicest character treats her with a polite indifference, and most of the other characters dislike her to some extent because of her uselessness, ignorance of their customs and tendency to fawn sickeningly over the only humanoid male in the party. When she is finally killed she is not mourned by anyone.
  • In-universe example: In Discworld, the Personal Dis-organizer is an imp-powered PDA that comes equipped with so many malfunctions, warranty loopholes, and annoying personality-flaws, people unfortunate enough to purchase one (or, in Vimes' case, have one foisted off on them by their wives) have been known to snatch up a sledgehammer at the first hint of a "Bingeley-bingeley beep!".
  • In Harry Potter, Dobby gets tagged with this, especially the film version.
    • Every character in the series is considered The Scrappy in at least some fandom circle. It's that kind of place.
    • It might be easier to list the characters who are not really hated by anyone or at least are only hated by a nonvocal minority. Out of the Loads and Loads of Characters in the series, this pretty much comes down to book!Hermione (movie!Hermione, however, is a highly divisive character), Hagrid, Neville, Cedric, Luna, and the Weasley twins.
    • Though the most hated have to be Ginny and Cho, thanks to Marietta.
    • Particularly Percy being the Grumpy Bear and The Quisling of the Weasleys
  • Scall in The Heart of Myrial.
  • Keenan from Wicked Lovely.
  • The eponymous character of Karlsson on the Roof in Sweden, apparently. In Russia he has a cult following.
  • Gone (novel) is a series with a pretty widespread fanbase. For every child-whipping Complete Monster, sociopathic Magnificent Bastard, and manipulative Tsundere, there is a fanbase. Except Zil Sperry. You cannot like that guy. At all. Doesn't help that the author based him on Hitler.
    • There is also a lot of hate for the rest of the Human Crew, as well as Penny, Bug, Taylor, and Astrid.
  • Judas. Portraying him as anytihng othet than an outright villain will get you some accusations of heresy. Heck Divine Comedy depicts him chewed by Satan. That's a lot of hate towards a character who gave Jesus the opportunity to die for humanity's sins.
    • Eventually though, Judas manages to subvert this. He realizes how awful betraying Jesus was, and ends up hanging himself. Some theologians even speculate that, as Peter (who betrayed Jesus three times) was forgiven, Judas could've been, but alas...
    • Many texts have tried to subvert this. The Gospel Of Judas is a great example of this, picturing Judas as a close disciple who doesn't betray Jesus, but acts on his secret orders.
    • The Last Temptation of Christ features a similar portrayal of Judas as a devoted follower (that is, once JC starts preaching instead of making crosses for the Romans to crucify Jews upon). In fact, during the titular final temptation, it is Judas who appears and reminds JC of his responsibility and the costs if he were to choose another path.
  • Discussed in The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin, where the protagonist and one of his sidekicks decide to pass the time by naming fictional characters they detest, whom the author intended as sympathetic. They come up with Beatrice and Benedick, Lady Chatterley and "that gamekeeper fellow", Britomart, "almost everyone in Dostoevsky", "those vulgar little man-hunting minxes in Pride and Prejudice", and the Leech-Gatherer. At which point, they are interrupted by an outraged Jane Austen fanboy... who just happens to give them the next clue they need.
  • Bella Swan from Twilight. Many fans, whether they really enjoy the book's content or just see it as So Bad It's Good, really do not like Bella. Understandable, seeing as how she's whiny, mean, selfish, makes poor decisions, and is always dependent on other people to help her in a bad situation. That's not even getting into her countless Mary Sue qualities. Everyone loves her upon meeting her, for no explained reason. Even the hot vampire guy who hasn't met a girl he's wanted for a hundred years finds her irresistible, and if that wasn't enough, she also has a hot werewolf lusting after her too. And again, there is no reasonable explanation as to why she is so beloved.
    • But no one hates Bella as much as everyone hates Renesmee.
    • There are also those who hate Edward AND Jacob. While each is the scrappy to the other side, some people are sick of the merchandise fuel despite the ending of the series being determined before the first movie came out.
  • Sam Jones, from the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures, whose Holier Than Thou and overly politically correct and 'right-on' character was so disliked that her replacement, Compassion, may have been deliberately written as the exact opposite - i.e. rude, snobby, opinionated, and selfish - either to avoid this Hatedom, or to make people say "now that I think about it, Sam wasn't that bad."
  • Milo Banda is likely the only character in Septimus Heap who is disliked by some fans due to him being constantly away on travels while his daughter Jenna and the Heap family are in trouble and being generally embarassing for Jenna.
  • Animorphs One word: Cassie. A large part of the fandom thinks she's hypocritical and self-righteous and just can't stand her in general.
  • Dawn Schafer in The Baby Sitters Club series has gained quite a hatedom in recent years, though most of this can be blamed on her Flanderization from a laid back Granola Girl to a self-righteous extreme Liberal environmentalist. Mallory and Jessi are hated too, fans seeing Mallory as whiny and unsympathetic and Jessi as a badly-written Token.
    • In the spinoff Babysitter's Little Sister series, Kristy's stepsister Karen Brewer might as well be renamed Dirty Hellspawn.
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