r/AskReddit • u/Umbrosyx • 7h ago
What fictional character do people treat like a hero even though they're actually a terrible person?
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u/Scarabaeus_ 7h ago
Walter White
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u/TurnHot3765 7h ago
Beat me to it, but I was gonna go with Saul Goodman.
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u/Scarabaeus_ 7h ago
He's a bad person too, but at least not a murderer. 😂
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u/Cannon__Minion 5h ago
He got Howard killed, let's not pretend that he doesn't have blood on his hands.
And even if we go by the true definition of murder, let's not forget that he was willing to ruin Howard's entire life because of a pathetic reason which imo is way worse than killing someone.
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u/ZeldaZealot 5h ago
Sure, the causality is there that Jimmy got Howard killed, but there’s no way he could have predicted that happening. It’s the same situation as placing the blame for the plane crash on Walt. Wouldn’t have happened without his actions, but he can’t have possibly known how events would unfold.
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u/muammar_gandalfi 5h ago
Copy and pasting my reply to another comment here: “He did suggest killing Jesse. If Walt didn’t shut down the idea, then Saul would have been guilty of ordering a murder, which most people and jurisdictions consider to be an act of murder in and of itself.”
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u/classicmaleshooter 3h ago
One of my favorite single lines in Better Caul Saul was when he was talking to the law firm partners and one of them, the woman, gets exasperated with him and just outright says "Stop selling, Jimmy!"
I like Jimmy, but there was something satisfying about telling a con artist that you've lost patience for his sales pitch
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u/OperatorTrick2026 5h ago
It's insane how many polls constantly get people voting Skylar White as the worst TV character ever just for being "annoying".
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u/CaptainFartHole 5h ago
Right? She was just a normal pregnant woman trying to keep her kids safe and survive being married to a homicidal psychopath who literally raped her. And yet people still hero worship Walt. It's incredibly fucked up.
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u/willclerkforfood 5h ago
I mean she did give her husband an unenthusiastic hand job on his birthday, so she’s definitely worse than Hitler…
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u/Gyunos 6h ago
He seemed like a good family guy, engaged teacher, etc. Until he started manufacturing drugs, Then he just dove further and further into Heisenburg
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u/fiendishrabbit 6h ago
You don't end up a full-blown narcissist like that without a history. He kinda had it somewhat under control before his illness, but I doubt that his family dynamics were entirely healthy even before his diagnosis.
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u/johnis12 6h ago
Yeh, I remember reading a bit of his backstory and even before all this he was a bit of a narcissist. After he got a lotta power, it just fed into his pride and ego.
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u/RumHamComesback 3h ago
He is a deeply flawed person even before he starting cooking meth and selling it. He clearly has problems with pride and the fact he's a high school science teacher forced to work extra shifts at a car wash clearly eats away at him and wants to do more. But, he wants to do it himself, even when he is given a cushy job at someone else's company that will fix all his problems he's too blinded by ego to do the right thing.
Not all protagonists are good people doing logical things. If it wasn't for dumb decisions and idiots we wouldn't have a good chunk of entertainment and fiction that's out there. Stories sometimes work because of character flaws and we have flawed people in real life so it ain't a stretch to show one.
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u/classicmaleshooter 3h ago
Also, I don't think there's anyone in the entire show that denies Walt is an intelligent guy. It seems to be what the other people in his life lead with when they describe him.
But that wasn't enough, he wanted to be popular and admired like an actor or something and when he couldn't get that he settled for scaring the shit out of them as a drug lord
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u/parmsandwich7 6h ago
Carrie Bradshaw oh my god. Was actually a terrible friend!
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u/politicalstuff 3h ago edited 2h ago
OK, so the timing is actually hilarious. I was just talking to my wife about this the other day.
She said she saw something online that made her think back to the show and realize oh my God Carrie is actually a terrible person. Super trashy, selfish, hypocritical and stupid.
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u/2PlasticLobsters 3h ago
I watched this show exactly once, because some friends were so into it. I have no idea what the appeal was, I didn't like any of the characters.
What made it even weirder was that one friend seeemed to use the show as some guide to The Good Life, like a lot of people did with Playboy in the 70s. She got obsessed with Cosmopolitans when they were featured on the show. The she got mad at me when I didn't like it & got something else. She was losing the plot in many ways & we're not firends anymore.
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u/Mom_who_drinks 6h ago
Achilles
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u/Beneficial-Focus3702 5h ago
Greek hero’s in general. And tbh I think that’s supposed to be the point. Like, even though they did things worthy of story they were still shitbags.
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u/Immortal_Azrael 5h ago
Heroes in ancient Greece aren't really the same as what we think of as a hero today. It was less about being a good person and more about accomplishing impressive feats. The word has kind of changed meaning over time.
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u/wasframed 3h ago
Achilles is the "hero" of the Iliad because he is the character that changes throughout the story. He goes from wanton murder machine to finding his humanity.
Hector is much more likeable because of his fighting for family and country and nobility and all that jazz, but he doesn't actually change throughout the story.
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u/dubh_righ 6h ago
Yeah - to the Greeks, Hector was a far greater hero than Achilles. To fight and have your opponent basically have no chance against you due to magic was cowardly in a way that we don't really understand the same today.
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae 5h ago edited 5h ago
Hector was shown to be a genuinely loving son, husband, and father. One of the most heartbreaking passages in the Iliad is when Hector comes to say goodbye to his family. His infant son starts to cry at the sight of him. Hector realised the baby has been frightened by his ornate helmet. He and his wife, Andromache, laugh. Hector takes the helmet off, kisses his wife and son goodbye.
Hector is killed by Achilles, his body desecrated. Andromache is taken as a slave and repeatedly raped, forced to bear children for her captors. Their baby son is thrown to his death from the city walls.
Hooray.
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u/needmorepizzza 3h ago
I knew about the story already, but the contrast in the delivery between the wholesome family-friendly story of the first paragraph and the brutal horror story of the second one caught me off guard.
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u/Sad-Artichoke-2174 5h ago
"Incensed with wrath, Achilles takes his vengeance a step further, and drags Hector's body from his chariot around the walls of Troy"
This has filled me with such melancholy and profane sadness, even when I first read those lines as a child
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u/loptthetreacherous 5h ago
If we're talking Greek heroes, Theseus was the worst of them all. Absolute scumbag.
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u/Sad-Athlete-9313 3h ago
Jason too. He pretended to love Medea so he could get the Golden Fleece and even let her kill her brother for him, then dumped her and their two kids the second he got the opportunity to marry another princess with higher political status. What she did in response to that definitely wasn’t right, but neither was he.
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u/ReliableEngine 6h ago
Maverick from Top Gun. He's an arrogant dick who breaks every rule and destroys things just to feed his own ego. He reaches the rank of Navy Captain (O-6) when he deserves to be thrown out of the Navy if not criminally charged.
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u/chalk_in_boots 2h ago
I made a similar comment recently. In like the first 20 minutes he sexually harasses a random woman in the ladies' bathroom, conducts an unauthorised flyby that probably should have actually shattered the windows in that tower, then for the rest of the film flies so dangerously he winds up getting Goose killed (yes the flat spin/jetwash was ruled not his fault, but if he hadn't been so close it wouldn't have happened), flies below the hard-deck which is literally there to simulate the ground, like, if you hit the hard-deck you've effectively just flown into the dirt.
Oh, then in the end chickens out of an actual firefight nearly getting other pilots killed.
Childhood is thinking Mav is cool. Adulthood is realising Ice-Man was right about him.
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u/boromeer3 4h ago
Wait until you see the guy we have in charge of the whole Department of Defense
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u/bliip666 7h ago
Severus fucking Snape, to use his full name.
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u/98Kane 6h ago
Movie Snape has softened people a little bit. Book Snape is a relentless cunt from the start up until his very end.
Just because he was loyal to Dumbledore and followed orders doesn’t mean he’s not a coward and an awful person.
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u/panda_98 6h ago
My stepmom was such a die-hard Snape fan until she read the books. Then she was like "I didn't know Snape was so bad!"
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u/what_the_purple_fuck 5h ago
that's what happens when you cast Alan Rickman 🤷🏻♀️
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u/RumHamComesback 3h ago
Nail on the head. Alan Rickman's charisma shone through the character making him more likeable than what we read in the books.
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u/Melcolloien 4h ago
I love Snape as a character for this reason. The man is a hero. He is very brave. Very powerful. Very tragic.
He is also an absolute asshole and a bully. He is bitter and makes others suffer for it. He should not be a teacher or be in any position of power.
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u/aki-kinmokusei 1h ago
this is why I loathe the epilogue. You mean to tell me that you gave your youngest son the middle name of the very man who bullied and ridiculed you and your friends your entire school years? And Dumbledore wasn't a saint either. Albus Severus Potter got a terrible name all around. And don't get me started on his other kids being named after his father and mother with his godfather (Sirius) and school friend's (Luna) names as their middle names.
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u/chalk_in_boots 2h ago
You mean the guy who wanted to basically be wizard Hitler (called himself the half-blood prince) and as a teenager invented a spell that basically eviscerates your enemy wasn't a good dude? Shocker.
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u/RumHamComesback 3h ago
Book Snape had high school hang-ups that got more and more pathetic the more you read. It's like, bro, get over it. Now you're taking it out on the child of your bully and the girl you loved like god damn.
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u/arcspectre17 6h ago
After listening to the new books I feel like alan Rickman is what people love more then severus.
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u/i_r_winrar 5h ago
What new books?
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u/TranscendentalRug 5h ago
There's not new stories, they just redid the audiobooks on audible with a full cast
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u/Emperor-Pizza 3h ago
On god. Dude is a full on creepy incel stalker who almost bullied a kid to suicide, & was a bully to the son of the woman he allegedly loved because she married someone else.
Dude is a loser. Big fucking time.
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u/Hunthausen_Demarques 7h ago
My old roommate idolized Tyler Durden.
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u/cbih 6h ago
Which one?
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u/crazy-diam0nd 6h ago
How did you know he had multiple roommates?
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u/Monteze 6h ago
Less so now but for a while people seem to think Don Draper was cool as hell.
Well his aesthetic is cool, and he should be happy. But he is a miserable alcoholic who treats his family like shit, gets chance after chance and blows it.
You'd hate to have Don as a friend or co-worker honestly.
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u/everdishevelled 3h ago
I knew one of the real life Don Drapers and he was an amazing man, at least as an old guy. His family seemed to cherish him, so I suspect that he was genuinely a good man. I guess they needed to make Don an asshole for the drama, I've never seen the show.
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u/JennJayBee 3h ago
Dumbledore.
Dude is constantly risking the lives of children by letting them handle what should be the responsibility of the adults.
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u/chalk_in_boots 2h ago
Hmmm, I'm the headmaster of a school and one of, if not the most powerful wizard alive. Let's hide all this dangerous shit around and send a bunch of 13 year olds to fight fight wizard Hitler.
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u/Dragonbuttboi69 1h ago edited 1h ago
But you see if he did it himself he'd have to reschedule his Offices & Employment session, Mr Weasley and Mr fudge won't be available until December if they skip and they're right before they face the big boss to ask for a raise.
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u/chalk_in_boots 1h ago
Also, can we just briefly address that he was definitely partaking in some Philosopher's stone elixir. Dude was like 150 and pulled a fast one on Fudge and like 3 top tier aurors. No way he and Fleming weren't in cahoots about being like the Bee Gees and Stayin' Alive.
Also "hey you know who would be a great DATDA teacher? The fucking werewolf that's literally called Wolf in Latin. Absolutely nothing could possibly go wrong"
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u/oniman999 2h ago
To be fair, the adults in the story are largely incompetent. But yes, Snape of all people called him out for raising Harry like a pig for slaughter since he always knew Harry would have to die.
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u/Zanoushe 5h ago
a lot of Star wars fans unironically think Anakin is a good person just because he's one of the protagonists of the prequels.
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u/youareallnuts 2h ago
I knew my ex son in law was an idiot when he said Anakin was a hero.
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u/Z_T_O 6h ago
I’m absolutely convinced that Ferris Bueller, Jack Skellington and Tony Curtis’ character in Some Like It Hot are all excellent portrayals of psychopathy
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u/Shake-dog_shake 6h ago
Couldn't agree more about Jack Skellington. What a reckless egomaniac. I believe that the film drops multiple hints that he actually knows exactly what he's doing and how it will affect the lives of both the humans and the various holiday creatures.
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u/TheColourOfHeartache 5h ago
What hints?
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u/Shake-dog_shake 3h ago edited 2h ago
"Hints" might have been the wrong word to use. Maybe "unintended implications" is more accurate to what I mean? I don't believe that the filmmakers want the viewer to see Jack as having bad intentions. I think there's just a little gap in the logic of the film's writing that leave Jack's actions open for being interpreted as malicious.
The latter half of the film is played as if Jack doesn't really understand what he's doing or why his actions are so offensive, despite having established multiple times that Jack does, in fact, perfectly understand the difference between Christmas and Halloween, and what people want out of each holiday. The lyrics to "What's This?" and the "How jolly our Christmas will be!" "My Christmas is filled with laughter and joy" quotes show us that Jack KNOWS what Christmas is, at that there is no place in it for scary wooden ducks or tree-eating snakes. So it just feels weird (potentially malicious) that he loaded his gift bag with those things, distributed them to human children, and then acted like he couldn't understand why things were going wrong
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u/chalk_in_boots 2h ago
I like the fan theory that Bueller doesn't actually exist and is just a hallucination that Cam's brain came up with in his fevered state.
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u/jungle_cat187 6h ago
Rick Sanchez
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u/kitskill 5h ago
I'm constantly astounded by the number of Rick and Morty fans who don't understand anything about Rick and Morty. Like, not even the subtext, the explicit text of the show.
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u/moal09 2h ago edited 2h ago
It is also a bit more complex though, as Rick is a victim himself and would be likely been one of the most ethical Rick's if not for what happened.
He also does usually do the right thing, albeit reluctantly. That being said, he does legitimately destroy a few universes in the show -- sometimes callously.
I think the show does a good job portraying him fairly. He's not a great person most of the time, and he hates himself as much as anyone else does. But it also does a very thorough job of showing how he became that way over time.
If you had access to infinite universes where you could lose your loved ones in 1 and then hop to a nearly identical parallel one minutes later, your sense of right and wrong and the value of life would get pretty fucked up pretty fast. One of the other Ricks even calls out how irrational his attachment to C137 Morty and his current Summer are, since he could theoretically replace them with near identical versions at any time. It's a situation where I think most people would become bad people in his situation because we never meant to have that kind of power or to grapple with those kinds of existential decisions.
He does also change significantly throughout the show and is generally much more self aware and self loathing in later seasons. I also think a lot of people haven't watched since Pickle Rick though -- and even in that episode, it ends with him realizing he's being an asshole and agreeing to attend therapy.
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u/Toyota__Corolla 6h ago
He is basically a junkie hack that got lucky and goes around murdering without consequence
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u/From_Deep_Space 5h ago
A pretty transparent parody of Heinlein protagonists
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u/dew2459 4h ago
I assume you mean a parody of the wise old guy who shows up in most of Heinlein's stories and repeatedly lectures & rants to the young protagonist about libertarianism?
Anyways, I was never a R&M fan, but I'm definitely going to use that when explaining why I don't care for Heinlein's later stuff.
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u/badass_panda 4h ago
Yeah I got turned off to the show for a while because of all the weird fans that somehow thought Rick Sanchez's behavior was aspirational, like being an irresponsible frequently-suicidal psychopath somehow proves you're a super genius.
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u/Malk_McJorma 7h ago
Sandman / Dream of the Endless / Morpheus
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u/sakkaly 7h ago
Oh yeah he’s horrible and it’s hard to explain that to people who only watched the show because they toned him down so much. They had to tune down Desire a lot because otherwise they would have looked like the cartoonishly evil obvious bad guy and not “just as bad [as Dream].”
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u/djsosonut 7h ago
I don't find him horrible, but I do hate how much they toned down his darker actions on the show. Same with the guy that stole is Crystal. Dream's comic started out as a horror comic, and I missed that they didnt embrace his Nightmare aspect for the show.
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u/Rev-Dr-Slimeass 6h ago
I only watched the show. I got the impression he was more of the personification of a facet of the spiritual universe. Sort of beyond the concept of mortal good or bad.
Is this the wrong take?
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u/Immortal_Azrael 4h ago
Yes but no. The Endless are a fundamental force of the universe but they also have an individual "human" aspect to them, which is why they can die and be replaced. This is especially true of Morpheus. He thinks of himself as above it all but it's repeatedly shown that he can be emotional and petty and he doesn't really know how to handle his feelings in a healthy way.
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u/Nalurah 5h ago
The Phantom in Phantom of the Opera. Yes, his life was horrible but he is also a maniac and a killer.
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u/sinumominous 4h ago
Easily Paul Atreides. Way too many people treat him like the hero, when Herberts whole thing was that he wasn't. Hoping that changes when Dune pt 3 drops (assuming they don't change the big things with him).
Side fact: IIRC Paul hears about the holocaust (that's right, Hitler is cannon) and he essentially called it rookie numbers.
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u/youareallnuts 2h ago
Paul Atreides was not a villain in in the traditional sense either. In the conceit of the novels he had to choose between bad outcomes or worse outcomes. 61 billion killed was the least bad outcome possible.
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u/GielM 1h ago
That's basically because the whole point of the series is to deconstruct the whole "Great Man/Woman" theory of how history works. Paul's a good as omniscient due to his genetic makeup and his mentat training. He's also as good as omnipotent due to being the emperor of the fuckin' universe with a horde of super-soldiers, and the wealth of the ONE planet that produces the universe's most critical good, at his command.
Yet he only has bad choices.
The tide of history is stronger than any man. Even him.
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u/sati_lotus 3h ago
Doesn't Paul kill 65 billion?
Kinda is if you're comparing...
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u/LotusPrince 7h ago
Anyone with charisma, even if they're openly terrible, like Homelander or the Joker.
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u/OperatorTrick2026 5h ago
Anthony Starr really knocks it out of the park with his acting performance as Homelander
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u/mdp300 4h ago
It's always a red flag when a guy is a really, really big fan of the Joker.
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u/lurkylurkeroo 4h ago
Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk.
Psycho little shit.
(I do appreciate that it is a primer on the indifference of capitalism and the need to destroy the ruling class - the billionaires in today's world - but still. )
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u/1stLtObvious 4h ago edited 4h ago
You should read Fables. The various fictional Jacks were rolled into one scumbag. He's not just all those Jacks, though. He's also the physical embodiment of the scumbag archetype.
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u/DrForester 6h ago
Slave owner and trust fund jock, Harry Potter.
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u/MisterBaker55 5h ago
Hey he's more than just that alright. He also fucks his best friends sister and becomes the Wizarding equivalent of a cop.
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u/Marthman 5h ago
The sister thing is too much. Cop? Ugh. Trust fund baby? Ugh.
Fucking your friend's sister despite having a relationship with your friend first. Bro, wtf?
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u/chalk_in_boots 2h ago
Hey, I dated my friend's sister for like 4 years. Got an apartment and a dog together, family all loved me, he was super cool with it, it meant we could hang out more and play Skyrim or GTA. Fucking great times.
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u/banehallow_ambry 7h ago
Gregory House
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u/CayseyBee 5h ago
Pretty sure everyone knows Dr. House is an awful person.
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u/erevos33 5h ago
Like the show never even pretended to show him in a good light. In fact it was clear about him being an asshole.
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u/needmorepizzza 3h ago
To take it a step further, the show treats any insinuation that he might be good deep down as worrisome. He seems cheerful? He must be on drugs!
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u/Ok-Holiday-8819 7h ago
Walter white. people confuse ambition with morality.
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u/Marthman 5h ago
Another way of putting this with perhaps a smidgen of a change is that people tend to confuse work ethic (industriousness, ambitiousness, etc.) with personal ethic (morals).
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u/OperatorTrick2026 5h ago
And they think being "annoying" makes a fictional character Satan incarnate. Poor Skylar White.
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u/Plenty-Ad395 7h ago
I'd say Walter White from Breaking Bad. It's crazy how many people treat him like a badass hero. They completely forget that by the end of the show, he was a ruthless drug lord who poisoned a child, betrayed everyone who loved him, and ruined his family-all because of his own ego.
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u/Good_Entertainer9383 7h ago
Pretty much every movie Martin Scorsese has directed.
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u/WTFwhatthehell 5h ago edited 5h ago
Vincent from GATTACA
We see the story entirely from his point of view and through the lense of what he wants.
But Vincent is an asshole who doesn't care about anyone else's safety.
He's repeatedly shown willing to put innocent peoples lives in danger for the sake of his ambition.
He almost gets drivers killed so that he can show off to a girl while trying to get laid and the broader plot is in essence equivalent to following the plan of a 747 pilot to falsify his medical certification.
And Vincent is not a healthy person. We see him suffer a few cardiac events during the film, his health prediction says manic depression and that's exactly how he acts with bouts of depression and mania.
In the real world with shitty vision, a bad heart and manic depression he would not be allowed to fly a passenger aircraft based purely on his actual health, not anything about genetics.
Imagine that you are on an intercontinental flight and that immediately after takeoff the pilot makes the following announcement:
Dear passengers, I hope you will join me in celebrating a wonderful achievement of one of our navigators. His name is Vincent. Vincent’s childhood dream was to become an airplane navigator but unfortunately he was declared unfit for the job because of his serious heart condition. True, he does occasionally have symptoms of heart disease, like shortness of breath and chest pain, yet he is certainly not the kind of person to be deterred from pursuing his dream so easily. Being quite convinced that he is up to the task and that everything would be fine Vincent decided to falsify his medical records. And indeed, with the clean bill of health readily forged and attached to his application, he smoothly managed to get the plum job and is very proud to take care of your safety today. Can we please get some applause for Vincent’s accomplishment and perseverance in the face of adversity? And, by the way, keep your seat belts tightly fastened during the entire flight.
It's like when people totally fail to notice that the protagonist in fight club is an awful person.
People see a story about an underdog fighting "the system" and never stop to consider that we have medical tests for pilots for a reason.
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u/frogandbanjo 1h ago
Man, talk about missing an entire major thread of the movie. It's about the most insidious effect of nepotism: not that occasionally some fuckup will get something without earning it, but that nepotism will lead to a quantifiably superior overclass that gets all the best opportunities while the underclass is doomed to be literally, quantifiably unqualified to experience any kind social or economic mobility. They won't merely be judged based on their true limitations, either. They'll be frozen out of all the best clubs as a rule, because that's how it goes, and that's a downward spiral.
Vincent outperformed his supposed betters in real-world conditions, and the movie makes it 100% clear that he never would have been given the opportunity to even try to demonstrate his superiority if he'd played by society's rules.
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u/GreenEngineHenry 1h ago
Ser Jamie Lannister, the Kingslayer himself. Many people prattle on about his redemption and I will grant that he is getting better, but he is still a long ways away from anything resembling a good person. Did he solve the Siege of Riverrun without bloodshed, yes, but he also threatened to launch a newborn with a trebuchet to do so. He has several evils he must still answer for, to make a better future for himself and others Jamie must face his past
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u/The_Super_D 6h ago
Michael Douglas's character in Falling Down.
"I'm the bad guy?"
Yes. Yes he is.
Also his character in Wall Street.
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u/Available-Score1650 5h ago
Jack Shepard from Lost (love the show and like the character, I just don’t get how he’s supposed to be a hero once you see the backstory)
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u/Drafo7 5h ago
Rorschach from Watchmen.
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u/theoneandonlygene 5h ago
There was a reason none of his old friends were happy to see him. Well, probably several reasons.
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u/BasroilII 3h ago
The easiest summation- there's a lot of people that do not understand the difference between protagonist and hero.
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u/Wet_napkins 4h ago
I'm shocked nobody said the Shelby's from Peaky Blinders. Good show, definitely a power fantasy though. But my god the amount of people I would see fanboying over Tommy or Arthur.
The Shelby's started off as an understandable razor gang after the war but after the first few seasons(maybe even the first) were exactly as Detective Campbell described: "murdering cutthroat mongrel gangsters."
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u/Expert-Effect-877 5h ago
Chris Knight from Real Genius. The guy is a lazy, insubordinate asshole, and a bully to boot.
Willy Wonka is into trafficking, and he looks and acts like he shouldn't be allowed within 200 feet of a school.
I don't hate Harry Potter, but that kid got away with waaaayyyyy too much in school. The favoritism was blatant, and to this day, I wonder if it ever occurred to Dumbledore or anyone else in the Hogwarts administration to ask themselves just how Voldemort and Slytherin wound up with so many followers.
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u/Sullkattmat 5h ago
Well Dumbledore knows that almost certainly Harry will need to face Voldemort in the end as the only one who can vanquish him permanently so yea he lets Harry get away with a lot, even encourages/facilitates a lot of the stuff himself to train Harry for it in an organic, subtle way. It's more out of need to give the "good" side a fighting chance than any arbitrary favouritism for no reason.
Also Slytherin doesn't have any crazy number of followers, there's a small core of ideologically aligned in Voldemorts core of followers but even among death eaters many follow out of fear, threats and coercion more than anything else. The two other houses aside from Gryffindor and Slytherin mostly don't hesitate to stand beside Harry for the final battle so I don't see what you mean by so many followers tbh
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u/purebredcrab 5h ago
Chris Knight from Real Genius. The guy is a lazy, insubordinate asshole, and a bully to boot.
Can't even hammer a six-inch spike through a board with his penis.
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u/mc_freedom 4h ago
I remember I saw this comedian talking about Slytherin and saying maybe it's a bad idea to tell these 11 year olds that they're bad, they'll always be bad, have them only hang out with the other bad kids, and make them live in a dungeon
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u/ComprehensivePut7485 7h ago
Homelander
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u/darsvedder 7h ago
only the dumb ones. took them 4 seasons to get that homelander would 1) hate them and that 2) that he is terrible
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u/Nonesuch1221 5h ago
Kratos from God of War, at least in the Greek games, he is fine in the Norse games.
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u/RemarkableRange5654 7h ago
It's a hot take but Jim halpert. He's very judgemental
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u/Fritoes 5h ago
I don't care how shitty her fiance was. Jim pursued and kissed an engaged woman because he's selfish. He also bought a house without consulting her at all. Jim sucks
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u/Marthman 5h ago
Just the tip of the iceberg.
Bring out the Jim hate!!!
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u/natterca 4h ago
He was damn right cruel to Dwight. Going way beyond lighthearted, fucking about.
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u/unitedshoes 6h ago
Does Tyler Durden count, or does being a hallucination/alter-ego of the narrator disqualify him?
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u/Swatraptor 6h ago
Who the fuck thinks Tyler Durden is a hero? Dude is a piece of shit from his very first scene. People like that he's the antithesis of modern society.
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u/unitedshoes 6h ago
Awful, stupid people. It's one of the most wildly misunderstood pieces of media of.... probably not of all time, but certainly of the last decade or two of the twentieth century.
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u/draadhaai 7h ago
James Bond comes to mind. Incredibly misogynistic, very big alcoholic and cheats on everyone and everything.
Secondly I think Rick Deckard should be on the list as well. Cheats on his wife and is a workaholic.
The thing they have in common is that they're both good at their jobs.
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u/smack1700 6h ago
In the original novels, Bond is aware that in his line of work he is completely disposable and may die at any given moment
So he drinks and womanizes and does what he wants cause he figures why not, I'll be dead soon anyway
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u/theaviationhistorian 4h ago
Exactly, Ian Fleming based him on who worked with him. And being a spy for the OSS and the early years of the Cold War meant that you had a very short life expectancy. And in the world of wetworks where ethics and morality are the first to go out the window, people like 007 will delve into such vices with the idea that they will be 'forever young.'
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u/RayekHeart 6h ago
I don't think we're supposed to think Bond is a hero. He's an antihero.
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u/nonameplanner 5h ago
Honestly, Bond isn't even really good at his job. Like, he's a spy. The goal is to blend in, get the information you need and get out. Every major bad guy knows Bond basically on sight. Not real easy to blend in that way.
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u/theaviationhistorian 4h ago
The Big Bad know that Britain is responding and have the same, if not more and better, resources than the UK intelligence network. So he knows blending in is useless, so he goes loud and proud in the sense that it would either throw off the adversaries in the hope of sabotaging part of their plan or accidentally/purposely give away their plan or weakness. Note that in a lot of the films Bond becomes so annoying to the Big Bad that they become passionate in murdering him. It's a bold strategy, but has been successful with IRL nations and armies.
And it is a lot more entertaining or less depressing than watching spies blend in to assassinate foreign nationals or their own nationals on foreign/British soil, becoming sleeper agents, or turning a foreign leader as an asset (allegedly). And agents involved in such missions only can do it once since their cover is usually blown after that.
Probably the only IRL spy that could have a series like 007 that involved blending in would be CIA agent Tony Mendez (Argo film), but I don't know how much womanizing is involved there contrary to alcohol.
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u/10111001110 4h ago
Isn't he supposed to be the flashy distraction. I feel like one of the movie openers has a different spy getting the intel while the villain is busy capturing bond
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u/nafregit 4h ago
since when did charm become misogyny? the emergence of that vile word over the past decade pisses me off. It's like every ist. Bin them all.
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u/csvega84 4h ago
I am going to name Sean Astins character Dave in Encino Man. Dude was a selfish, manipulative person who only wanted a females attention. He betrayed his best homie and abused another. He was so icky in that movie and praised as a cool main character. Pauly Shores character Stoney was the real hero the entire film.
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u/Shake-dog_shake 6h ago edited 6h ago
Ash from the Evil Dead franchise, particularly in Army of Darkness and onward. We all love him but he'd be unbearable to interact with in real life.
The Dude from The Big Lebowski. He's overly passive and aloof to the detriment of himself and everyone around him. He's quite pathetic
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u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson 6h ago
The Dude from The Big Lebowski. He's overly passive and aloof to the detriment of himself and everyone around him. He's quite pathetic
And yet, he abides.
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u/PyrrhuraMolinae 5h ago
I loved Ash up until that moment in Army of Darkness when a woman very respectfully gives him a blanket she handmade, and he sneers and says he might use it for his horse.
Lost all sympathy for him after that.
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u/obiwanshinobi900 4h ago
well she also pulled his hair and punched him when he was dragged through the streets, so she kinda had it coming.
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u/GriffinFlash 6h ago
D-Fens from falling down.
Guy was going to kill his ex and his daughter before killing himself.
But everyone keeps going "poor guy just wanted breakfast and lived in a society." Guy was an over controlling psychopath.
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u/Monteze 6h ago
I can't find the video right now but there was a good analysis of this from the lens of the minorities. D-Fens is basically the classic boomer guy who feels entitled to everything and takes being wronged once to the extreme. Refusing to see how much on an ass he has been or how he escalates everything.
"I am the bad guy?" are the perfect last words? He really can't get past his own ego.
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u/R0n1n_76 5h ago
Wanda Maximoff. The original get revenge on Stark for selling weapons that killed her people, I'm down with. But enslaving an entire town of people so you can play make believe is another.
Also, the end line of the show from Monica "they'll never know what you have up for them." Like really? She shouldn't have held them there in the first place!
Grief f'ing SUCKS. It's an endless hole that can suck you in, but taking everyone with her and having her fans pretend that what she did was okay. Then acting surprised when she fully embraces the darkness (The Darkhold book) at the end of the show, implying she learned NOTHING. Boggles my mind.
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u/SpikeBreaker 4h ago
Movies and TV shows are bland compared to House of M or Decimation...
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u/nafregit 4h ago
Stringer Bell from The Wire maybe? Or at least to me, I found it quite sad when he got killed.
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u/dank_imagemacro 5h ago
Is Hercules too obvious? Kept getting angry and/or drunk and killing innocent people.
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u/Catshit-Dogfart 5h ago
V from "V for Vendetta" - especially as portrayed in the original graphic novel.
V isn't just any terrorist, he's an anarchist and a pessimistic nihilist. He'd rebel against any form of government and build nothing in the wake of destruction he desires to cause. Anybody who seeks to make sense of things is his enemy, he's opposed the very concept of order no matter how fair and benevolent, his ideology is to tear down anybody who starts making rules. Frankly he's insane.
Now to be fair, his enemies are indeed corrupt and wealthy monsters who view humanity as a chattel to be controlled and consumed. In the comics V goes for much more than simply tearing down the system that puts them in power, he's a sadistic torturer and psychological assassin. Death isn't enough for him, it has to be terror. And again, V would direct his ire towards any authority figure of any kind.
It's basically a story about one bad guy fighting other bad guys, and he looks really stylish the whole time. Not even really an anti-hero like Venom or Tony Soprano, just a straight up villain who looks decent compared to other villains.
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u/Rigistroni 4h ago
Id still put him in antihero territory since despite how monsterous he can be he does do a lot of good and he is 100% correct about the government he's rebelling against. And in the end he does learn to let go of that and entrust the future he envisioned to people who will actually live in it
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u/2boku 7h ago
Bobby Bacala from the Sopranos.
People from our subreddit, I can't even say its name, always yap worse than six barbers about how Bobby is such a kind guy and the sweetest and gentlest of all the lowlife gangsters on this show of ours.
That parade float murdered a French Canadian in cold blood, over something, I forget, what was it again?