Least Favorite Character

[mirinda]

So we all have our favorite people from Anne's books. Now who do you like the least, and of course...why?

[ghost8772]

boy, not putting a tunnelsnake among the wherries are you? personal least favorite has to be Jayge and Aramina (renegades of Pern and return performance in Dolphins of Pern) as far as main characters go I found them to be extremely hypocritical. one book they are breaking all the rules, dropping their duties and responsibilities and running from them all, then the next book becoming martinets about their kids must always keep their word, perform the duties set on them etc....

[Talysia]

I suppose I would have to say Meron, followed by Kylara. Kylara for her vanity and selfishness, and Meron for... well, being himself - an unprincipled and greedy. Along those lines, I'd have to say Chalkin, as well. Menolly's father, Yanus, in fact most of her entire family, too.

[manephelien]

Jaxom, because he's the Gary Stu of Pern. He gets to do it all and never really has to make any sacrifices for it. His only redeeming feature is Ruth who is the most interesting dragon in my book.

Another least favorite is Brekke, because she's such a doormat. Even Kylara, the egotistical witch had more personality until she lost her mind. Brekke, in spite of hearing all dragons is a holder at heart with holder morals she couldn't get over even in favor of her dragon. Thus, she truly deserved to lose Wirenth.

I'm not really counting evil characters here, because they can be so wonderful to love to hate. I really can't decide who's worse, Fax or Chalkin. Toric is going the same way, although he's not quite that ruthless, at least not yet.

I'm also really not keen on the "taming of the shrew" aspect of F'lar and Lessa's relationship. It sort of creeps me out, although it's a favorite of Anne's, since its analogs can be found in the Crystal Singer series (Killashandra & Lars Dahl) and the Talent series (The Rowan and Jeff Raven).

[kdf_333]

Originally Posted by manephelien

I'm also really not keen on the "taming of the shrew" aspect of F'lar and Lessa's relationship. It sort of creeps me out, although it's a favorite of Anne's, since its analogs can be found in the Crystal Singer series (Killashandra & Lars Dahl) and the Talent series (The Rowan and Jeff Raven).

hmm makes you wonder if she bases that on life experience. only i don't think her man stayed.


anyway my least favorite is fax. he was just so evil. the others mentioned were selfish or greedy or ignorant or fearful, but fax did stuff that not even those reasons could explain.

and yeah ya gotta love a bad guy, especially a bad guy you can sorta identify with.

[manephelien]

I like the bad guys myself. Anne's pretty good at writing villains. Fax was evil, but so were Chalkin and Meron.

Certainly Anne based a lot of Killashandra on her own life. She studied voice for years only to be told that she had a burr in her voice (probably from being made to sing in the wrong range in her early years) which meant she couldn't become a professional opera singer.

It's obviously impossible for outsiders to judge the reasons for relationships breaking up, but Anne did move from the US to Ireland after her divorce. Who left whom? Difficult to tell, and not really our business, especially not at this late date. Of course, it's always interesting to see how an author's private life affects his or her writing, so in that sense I suppose a slight interest might be legitimate...

[kythe]

I agree that Lessa and F'Lar are my least favorite characters. You are supposed to "hate" the bad guys, but this is one of the few stories I have truly enjoyed without being able to relate to the main characters.

F'Lar is egotistic and even physically abusive to Lessa, yet she still learns to love him and the problems of their relationship are minimized or blamed on Lessa's insufferable attitude. F'Lar is seen as a hero and she is often referred to as "his weyrwoman", even though she clearly has made important decisions outside of his influence.

Yet as distasteful as I find this, it is an accurate portrayal of the role of women in past generations. I have also wondered how much of this has been reflective of Anne McCaffery's personal life or her family growing up. She is in her 80's, and many women in her generation had very different roles and aspirations in life than those of us who are much younger.

[jamlebrilla]

I picked up this book of hers called The Lady. All I can say is, maybe she should stick to fantasy. I thought all the characters were uninteresting with no real depth. But if I had to pick the one I least liked, I'd have to say Catriona, all for the reason that since she was the lead, I expected more from her.

[devilsgrin]

Its hard to pick just one character that i liked Least. While favourites are easy (F'Nor, Menolly, Piemur, and others)... Anne seems to write some characters badly, or portray them in such a way as to make them instantly dislikable. She also has a prevelance of Door-Mat women. Menolly (as much as i like her) began as a door-mat, but thankfully grew out of it as she grew into her talents.
Brekke - BORED THE SHYTE out of me. Door-mat AND prude. In the Weyrs, such attitudes toward sex are not only misplaced, but as we saw with Wirenth, Dangerous. Its a shame she got to hook up with F'Nor... since he's about the best character in the Pern books.
I also despise F'Lar. He gets all the credit for saving Pern. Yet it was Lessa who actually saved the planet. She also annoys me. She started out so promising. Here is a woman whose empathic powers are so strong not only 'hear' all the dragons, she can influence HUMANS, submitting to the will (and physical abuse) of a man who is nowhere near her equal. i notice that her powers are seriously downplayed once she bonds with Ramoth. Its a shame. Tho it did perhaps save Lessa from becoming a Mary Sue.

[ragtagblues]

Sh'gall from Moreta's Ride I found to be a little brat, I actually really struggled with that book because of the way Sh'gall was portrayed and he isn't really in it much.

Further I have always had an intense dislike of N'ton and Sebell, one that I haven't ever been able to explain to my satisfaction, I don't know why I dislike them I just do . . . .