lesbiassparrow | Characters that you cannot conceive of anyone ever disliking

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Characters that you cannot conceive of anyone ever disliking

I've got them, I am sure pretty much everyone else does: the character you fall so madly in love with that you are always completely startled when everyone else cracks out the hate. And then when you see that loathing posted far and wide you twitch a bit and feel compelled to defend them to the death, with pistols at dawn. Maybe you'd even risk ending up on fandom wank.

Okay, I am really hoping that's not just me.

One of my eternal fannish loves is Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was my first fandom and I was on a list filled with madly conservative people who constantly annoyed me and yet I hung in there for the Holmes and the Brett love. The closest I've ever gotten with being involved in a flame war was over the position of Victorian women and Brett's portrayal of Holmes. Honestly, I genuinely don't get it when people hate him and call him an overacting hack.* This is probably because I lack imagination and other essential things which would make me a better and more intellectual person, but in this case I don't care because ~~I am quite clearly right about the wonderfulness of Jeremy Brett~~ I have many scientific reasons that would convince you if only you'd listen.

I was wondering who is that character for people on my flist. Who do you honestly think is such an excellent character that you really boggle when people crack out the hate? Or if there's no one, why is that?

*And I strongly suspect that when people say this the baby Jesus cries.

Carolina won! Not by much but I do not care one little bit! Please let us not fold in the next game!

Sorry about the random hockey squee but these are exciting times.

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I love Londo from Babylon 5 with an overwhelming and all-consuming passion. I love his character arc, his various fucked-up relationships, his moral backsliding, and dear god I love Peter Jurasik chewing that accent like there's no tomorrow. It makes me awfully, terribly sad when people criticize B5 in any way for being overwritten or overmoralizing or generally not as good as the best thing ever ~~which it most clearly is~~ but I simply do not understand the criticism of Londo. He's the most perfect thing about it.

I also have complete and abiding love for Faramir, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone hate on Faramir, so clearly I'm completely validated there.

Strangely, Babylon 5 is a show I've been thinking about netflixing because I stopped watching it at some point after missing a couple of apparently pivotal episodes and finding out I had no idea what was going on and I think it would work much better viewing it all the way through.

And I liked Londo.

B5 is one of those things you watch intermittently for the first season, seriously for the second season, and obsessively for the third and fourth. And then feel slightly let down by bits of the fifth, but still. Straight through is definitely the way to go.

Londo is love. Bitter, horrible, tragic love. With lots of drinking. And alien sex.

Seeing as I'd rather face Montreal than many other teams, I kind of have to root against you. Plus, despite them being the Habs (ugh) they are a Canadian team so there is a bit of loyalty on my part.

In all honesty I don't think whoever makes it through this series will go any further as neither team seems to have real playoff hockey in them, so I don't think we'd be a threat. I just want us to get through the first round...

Yeah, plus all the added revenue from making it farther helps a team.

I don't think either team will win, I agree with you there. The Sens wouldn't face Carolina regardless, though, and there is no part of me that wants to see the result of the Buffalo-Philly mess.

BTW, check out my Harry Potter post, I think it kinda ties in to the first part of this one (it inspired me to write out my thoughts on it, anyway!). I don't see myself wanking over them but I have brief moments of my fandom is pastede on yay!

What a fantastic topic! I wholeheartedly agree with you about Jeremy Brett. I have enjoyed many of the portrayals of Holmes that I've seen (I loved Robert Stephens' in Billy Wilder's film, for instance), but Jeremy Brett will always be the definitive Holmes for me.

(I'll have to think about who else there might be for me. David Suchet's Poirot perhaps; I always wonder what Agatha Christie would have thought of him, since she never cared for any of the actors during her time.)

I love your icon!

And Jeeves and Wooster are another thing that I cannot imagine anyone disliking.

For Brett, like many different doctors but I honestly don't get people who think he ruined the character (and they're out there). One person on the list used to preface everything he said about him with 'The Granada hack' which always made me very twitchy.

like many different doctors but

I do not know what I meant by this bit. I think I meant that people like different representations of Holmes based and I can see the affection for 'your Holmes' but I still don't get hating Brett.

Hmm. Characters for whom I would risk f_w (only not really, because I'd flock it):

Aeryn Sun
Éowyn
Christopher Eccleston's Doctor

(Loathing of the above characters has not been widely posted, as far as I know, but if it were I would defend them. How could anyone hate them?)

Jonas Quinn (Now here's a character who has received a lot of disrespect, yet he is my favorite SG-1 member ever. I just don't get it.)

The Habs are nothing without Saku. *weeps*

Aeryn Sun is probably the only character from Farscape I'd go to bat for. Well, maybe Rygel as well. (Though I am a wee bit ashamed to admit my love for Rygel. He's a puppet!).

Oh, er, sorry about Saku (it was an accident!). But we've lost Wesley which makes me weep also.

Well, his eye is apparently not permanently damaged, and it sure beats having cancer!

Late Jeremy Brett is not quite as good. Early Jeremy Brett is the best Holmes ever, and I cannot imagine that it will ever be done as well again. (See also the Fry/Laurie Jeeves and Wooster.)

If anybody ever put down the Eccleston Who, I should explode.

Some people love Buffy the show and hate Buffy. I do not get that. She is the hero -- not the titular character, the hero. She's the one who goes to the darkest places and fights her way out.

Late Jeremy Brett suffers from his illness and the, ahem, 'artistic' style of some of the directors. And I know there will be other Holmes whom people will like, but I cannot imagine that you could have any reason for thinking his Holmes is rubbish.

I imagine watching Buffy with mad love and hating Buffy must be a very frustrating, not to mention schizophrenic experience.

As for CE's Who...well, I haven't met anyone who hates it yet, so I don't know how far I might go in my haste to defend his honour.

> I know there will be other Holmes whom people will like,

As long as it isn't Rupert Everett, because there was no defending that performance or that script.

You see, I am one of those people who would probably buy a jamjar if you wrote Holmes on it, and thus I didn't really mind the Rupert Everett one because I'll watch anything with Holmes. He's my crack.

Though I wouldn't say it was good. Or something I really want to see again.

The words "foot fetish" and "Sherlock Holmes" should *never* appear together. IJS.

Nor should a scene where Watson's wife educates Holmes about sexual criminals. That ate at my soul a bit.

Some people I know had a problem with Eccleston from the pre-publicity about how he was ambivalent about having taken the role, and how we all knew he was only staying for one season even before we'd seen a single episode. "Disrespect for the character" was the phrase I heard more than once. All of them changed their minds after seeing his performance, though.

I never get the respect for the character bit. I would much rather an actor who was good and didn't care a fig for the long, oh so long, backstory of the Doctor, than one who was rubbish and loved him.

I tend to expect that every character is disliked by someone, somewhere. Somewhere far away. Because when I come across it where I don't expect it, it's still like a slap in the face. "But whyyyy?"

In BSG, it's fairly predictable who that is.

The strangest phenomenon in terms of character love I've yet come across as in Highlander, my first fandom; a lot of people who loved the central character seemed to automatically assume that any newbie was going to go off on a hating trip any second... it makes more sense in retrospect, but back then, I went, "Bwuh?" a lot.

I expect people to dislike characters too, but then there are some where I am still reel from the shock that not everyone likes them. Most of the time I expect that my tastes won't align with everyone else's (I like the Sixth Doctor and Peri, for heaven's sake. And Tegan! That's just asking for the hate), but then with some characters my wee brain can't take the concept and I have to run fast away and nurse the pyschic wounds. (As with Jeremy Brett.)

I have never been in Highlander fandom or really watched the show, but who was the main character everyone was supposed to hate? And why? Did he tap dance on beds of puppies or something of that ilk?

The hero was Duncan, who at some point got a lot of hate for being a meanie to the very popular sidekick character/main slash partner. But walking in there as a newbie with a lot of love for Duncan, you could really get the impression there was a secret test you had to pass to prove you weren't one of those hating people. The number of conversations that turned into bashing of the Duncan bashers for no reason obvious to me was boggling. (If you know more of the history, it becomes less strange, but a traumatised fandom does not really make for newbie friendliness.)

Loving a character, I tend to assume other people love them too, except those weird people far away.

So I saw your post earlier this evening and thought to myself, there's no character I feel strongly enough about to take on a disagreeing fandom, but then I realized how wrong I was.

I'm sure you'll find this as no surprise, Cordelia Chase is the one character I have felt irrationally defensive of and for. In fact, the whole experience left such a bad taste in my mouth, I'm not sure I'll ever care that much again...Although it is how I came to be here at all.

Starbuck and Rose are two characters I've really loved in the past, but I'm quite happy to let them go if need be.

I am still waiting for Christopher Eccleston to do something else I can love - but it doesn't have to be the Doctor for me to love him. He shines in everything I've seen him in - including his crazy part in Shallow Grave.

Poor Cordelia. I missed much of the fallout on that one as I didn't stray too far in Buffydom beyond ST.

CE is a god. And needs to make more shows. And films. So I can watch them.

Two! I love the Second Doctor completely and utterly and madly and the bestest thing is Nobody Dislikes Him. Ever. As a rule, kind of. Doctor Who fandom is mean and fractious and disagreeable so very, very often, but nobody ever actually hates Two ever. It is great.

If anyone ever did hate him, I would have to say they were Just Fibbing, yes.

Jeremy Brett is rather fab, but my Sherlock Holmes is Peter Cushing, ra.

Well, as long as you don't hate Brett I can live easy.

Two! He's so wonderful I am glad to hear that he is universally liked.

I am afraid to go off LJ into Who fandom because I know people will mock Six and Peri and I love them irrationally and will be sad. Ditto for Tegan.

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