Message From the Proprietors: How to Hate

The Library Science Degree blog has just posted a list of the fifty most hated characters in literature. The kids from Twilight top the list, though in doing so, they demonstrate that there's a thin line between love and hate (cf. Holden Caulfield who's at #3). Iago's fifth, Humbert Humbert is sixteenth, and Satan is all the way down at #50. How do you feel about unsympathetic characters? Are they villains? Do they need to be? Can self-centered behavior and overexposure convert a character from a flawed hero or heroine into something more malignant? Several of the hated characters have been featured here; others have thus far escaped unscathed. Go, look at the list, then come back here and write a letter to that character--or any other character who gets under your skin/gets your goat/gets your blood boiling.