Accidental Villains

 

A lot of good stories can have an antagonist. They could have different types of personalities, they could be jerks, they could be bullies or they could be outright evil. We can despise or love to hate some of those characters like Lotso, Gaston, Scar, Hal/Titan or Mother Gothel. However, sometimes, there can be times when there are characters that we despise that aren’t actually the villains but really people who have really unlikable or detestable qualities that make it hard for us to like them, to the point where we might despise them more than the actual villains. TV Tropes would describe this trope as Jerks Are Worse Than Villains, and I would like to talk about some characters that fall into that category. Maybe the reasons certain characters can be more hateable than the supposed villains or antagonists, might be because they can be people that can exist, real bullies, real toxic people and true narcissists, people who can make the world lose faith in humanity, it can be due to weak writing or something, but when they are too unlikable it can make their redemption unbelievable, and hard to buy. Here are some examples of characters that some could despise more than the supposed villains.

 

In my first article I talked about how both Shark Tale and Chicken Little have one character that we’re supposed to like and want them to learn their lessons but due to bad writing or poor execution, we despise them more than the supposed antagonists. Be sure to read that one to see more, but long story short, both Oscar and Buck Cluck are too detestable that their redemption feels forced and not developed well. Here are more examples.

In Toy Story, the main antagonist is supposed to be Andy’s next door neighbour, Sid Phillips, this kid loves to dismember, destroy and blow up toys just for fun, the first scene we see of him, he blows up a Combat Carl, and then when he takes Buzz and Woody home, we get to see more of his torturous ways, he lets his dog Scud eat the alien he won, (judging by Buzz and Woody’s expressions it was quite brutal), he takes his sister Hannah’s doll and dismembers her head replacing it with a dinosaur’s head, so he not only tortures toys, he bullies his little sister! Some could pass him off as a kid who’s just having fun with toys and he doesn’t know they’re alive, until Woody and the toys scare him, others could see him as a bully (sometimes I wonder if Andy ever came to play with him, but then he destroyed one of his toys and Andy got so upset he ran to his mom and didn’t want to play with him anymore, or maybe his mom saw Sid blowing up toys and saw him as a bad influence and forbade Andy from playing with him), however I find that the real villain of the first Toy Story would actually be Potato Head, this guy has a bad attitude, he’s always mocking Woody whenever he holds staff meetings, like when he makes a joke about moving buddies when Woody tells them that this is serious because he doesn’t want anyone left behind, showing while Woody does have a bit of an ego, he cares about the safety of his fellow toys and wants the best for them. Then, when Buzz first arrives, while Woody is possessive about Buzz being on his spot, he still is willing to be polite and welcome him and when Buzz asks him about fossil fuels, he simply misinterpreted that he needed batteries and told him what they had. However, once Buzz meets the other toys, when Slinky points out Woody has a voice box too, it’s only when Potato Head makes fun of it that Woody starts to get jealous and Potato Head feeds into his jealousy by making snarky comments towards him. Even in the scene where Bo tries to assure Woody that Andy will always have a special place for him, once Potato Head makes a joke about being put in the attic which angers Woody and leads to him and Buzz having a petty squabble, I swear I wanted to kick Potato Head telling him to be quiet. The big moment comes when Woody accidentally knocks Buzz out of the window, Potato Head immediately accuses him of doing it on purpose, sure he wasn’t wrong about Woody being jealous but he could’ve at least been reasonable, he orders everyone to attack him, while Bo and Slink try to stop them, but Andy comes back before they can go any further, and while Andy looks for Buzz, Potato Head threatens to hang Woody, I’d like to turn you into a mashed potato you spud head. Plus, before the attack, Potato Head asks Woody if he is going to knock him out the window if Andy plays with him more, I always say, “Yes I would, with that attitude.” Then when Woody tries to find a way to get back from Sid’s house, Potato Head tries to stop that from happening, and accuses Woody of lying that Buzz is there, dude! When Woody’s attempts to convince them that Buzz is fine fail, from telling Buzz to come tell them (Buzz was too depressed to care because he realized he’s a toy) and using his arm to make it look like him only for that to fail, Potato Head accuses him of being a murderer and drops the lights down, destroying any chance of them coming home, as someone pointed out, it is understandable that they turned on Woody because he told a lie to them, but they also shouldn’t be surprised Buzz’s arm is broken because he’s at Sid’s house (though neither Woody or Sid had anything to do with that, Buzz broke his arm off when he tried to fly only to fall and hit the floor), but it is still quite a moment. Finally, when Woody catches up to the moving van, he ends up giving them the wrong idea when he throws RC out, the toys think he’s getting rid of him but he’s actually using him to find Buzz and get him to the moving van, (notice RC seemed so happy to see him when he found Buzz) but it’s Potato Head who orders the toys to throw him out of the van, then while celebrating, Lenny the binoculars see Buzz and Woody coming and the toys realize Woody was right. The closest to a punishment Potato Head gets is when Woody throws RC back into the van and Potato Head ends up getting hit, take that dude! By the end we see he’s mellowed out and even in the sequels, maybe because he has a woman to keep him in line. Even as a kid I couldn’t stand Potato Head, and that’s why I and some others believe he is the true villain of Toy Story 1, and credit to the late Don Rickles and the fantastic writers at Pixar, like Andrew Stanton for succeeding in that.

Another example would be in two Christmas classics, Home Alone and Home Alone 2 Lost In New York. The stories revolve around a boy named Kevin who has issues with his family, after he gets into a fight with them, he finds himself in a situation where he’s separated from them, he enjoys being away from them, but misses them as time goes on, and gets to know someone who may look scary but is actually kind and gives him good advice, then he finds out two burglars are on their mission and he comes up with booby traps to stop them and have them thrown in jail and reunites with his family and has a merry Christmas with them. The villains in these two are the Wet or Sticky Bandits, Harry and Marv, they take great pleasure in stealing valuables from houses, before the robbery, Harry dresses as a cop to investigate so nobody will be the wiser. The bandits have different personalities, Harry is short tempered and stupid, while Marv is bumbling and a really big idiot. The latter even comes up with their names, the name Wet Bandits comes from Marv leaving the water running after robbing a house, Sticky comes from him having tape on his hands to steal money or things. The parts when the two fall into the booby traps is always comedy gold, from their reactions to seeing how stupid they are, whether it’s Harry burning his hand on the hot doorknob, getting a blowtorch on his head twice, Marv stepping on ornaments, getting electrocuted, getting hit by bricks or the bandits getting attacked by pigeons it’s always a hoot and Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern nail their performances. While Harry and Marv are the villains, they’re enjoyably stupid, however, the characters in the movies that we actually do despise are actually Kevin’s family. We’re supposed to see Kevin as an ungrateful brat, but when we look closer, we see the reason he’s acting up is because he has a terrible family, his siblings call him names, never help him, and his older brother Buzz is the worst, he bullies him, eats his cheese pizza on purpose and mocks that if he wants some he’s going to have to puke it out, gross! When he mocks vomiting, Kevin gets angry and pushes him causing him to spill milk on the passports (okay who puts tickets and passports on the dinner table?!) and when Kevin tries to explain what Buzz did, he gets sent to bed. But that’s not the worst part, before he gets sent upstairs his Uncle Frank calls him a little jerk, and his parents don’t defend him, what kind of parent allows their brother or brother in law to talk to their child like that? If I were Peter, I would’ve kicked Frank and his family out of the trip. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when Kevin’s brother Jeff calls him a disease, do his parents chastise him for talking like that? NO! It’s quite obvious Kevin is the scapegoat and the unfavourite child. But it doesn’t stop there, when Kevin complains to his mother that everyone hates him, instead of assuring him it’s not true, she tells him to ask Santa for a new family, lady! Sounds like you hate him! Kevin wanted to wish his family away, honestly at this point, who can blame him? Sure, later his mom worries about him when she realizes far too long that they forgot him and does everything to get back home, it still doesn’t take away the fact that she neglected her younger son and allowed people to bully him, a parent who doesn’t stick up for or defend their child shouldn’t be a parent at all. We’d think by the end of the movie the family learnt their lesson, it means nothing when the sequel comes. When Buzz humiliates Kevin at a Christmas pageant, Kevin gets angry and punches Buzz causing all the kids to fall over, yet Kevin gets the blame! After Buzz gives a fake apology, Kevin is expected to apologize, when Buzz calls him a trout sniffer, Kevin declares that he's not sorry and calls his family out for being so stupid to fall for his lies and they threaten to send him to sleep with his cousin Fuller, who has a bad habit of wetting the bed from drinking too much. Then when Uncle Frank verbally abuses him, Kevin calls him a cheapskate since he barely pays a penny for anything, showing he’s willing to stand up to people after his first time alone. Then when his mother goes to talk to him she doesn’t listen to what her son has to say! My goodness, and to make matters worse, when Kate and Peter find out Kevin didn’t get on the plane with them, they make a joke about it to the police who just looks at them with discontent, this cop should’ve had them lose custody for their irresponsibility. While the family does show to worry about him in deleted scenes, like Megan telling Buzz that he’s really cruel or the family except Buzz lying awake in bed or even in the films, it still is hard to look past their horrible behavior and the fact that his parents don’t take Kevin seriously. Honestly a happier ending would have Kate and Peter lose custody and end up in jail, the kids would be sent to foster homes (hopefully Buzz could go to military school) and Kevin would hopefully get adopted by a loving family, I would love it if Old Man Marley’s son adopted him, he would have great parents, a great sister to play with and have a wonderful grandpa to spend Christmas with, that would give Kevin a better family that would treat him well.

In Disney’s Wreck It Ralph the story has a video game villain wanting to be appreciated, so he leaves his game and wins a medal in a game called Hero’s Duty only to accidentally end up in a candy themed Mario Kart game called Sugar Rush, and ends up developing a friendship with a glitch named Vanellope. The villain of the movie is the leader of Sugar Rush King Candy, he is shown to be against Vanellope racing and will go insane whenever she gets close to racing, we also learn that he is behind Vanellope’s glitching and won’t let her race because if she crosses the finish line, the game will reset and she won’t be a glitch anymore, so we know he’s a bad guy. Then we learn he’s actually an old racing character named Turbo who destroyed his and another game just to steal the spotlight and had created a term, called Going Turbo, which is basically game characters game jumping. We also see Turbo is the opposite of Ralph, the latter only left his game just to gain love and appreciation, it was never for fame or fortune, just respect, which we all desire, while Turbo was selfish, he game jumped just to get the spotlight and his actions were more damaging. While King Candy is the villain, there are some characters in the movie that are a lot more nasty. The nicelanders, the residents of the apartment Ralph attacks are far from nice, in fact they’re quite rude towards Ralph treating him like a bad guy, when he’s really just doing his job, the only one who doesn’t do that is Felix, he is shown to be polite and try to make peace whenever Ralph and the Nicelanders argue. The breaking point comes when Ralph notices that he’s in the mud on the 30^th anniversary cake, and he tries to ask them to put him on the roof too, but Mayor Gene starts making rude comments about him being nothing more than the bad guy which angers Ralph so much that he ends up destroying the cake by mistake and decides to go get a medal to prove that jerk wrong. Then when Ralph comes back only to find out from Gene that their game is getting unplugged because he wasn’t there, Gene makes a snarky comment that he can own the apartment and when Ralph explains he didn’t want this he tells him he can live alone in the penthouse, barely taking any responsibility for his actions since his actions lead to Ralph leaving in the first place, honestly he should be living in the garbage. Another set of characters would have to be the racers of Sugar Rush, sure maybe them losing their memories can be a reason for their mistreatment towards Vanellope, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that they were complete bullies towards Vanellope, from making fun of her glitching, destroying her kart and Taffyta pushing her in a chocolate puddle, when Ralph sees this he yells at the bullies to leave her alone and chases them away, whenever he was thrown in mud, he wasn’t happy about it but when someone did it to someone else, he wasn’t going to let them get away with it. The part where he calls them rotten cavities, makes me want to borrow my dentist’s drill and threaten to drill the bullies if they don’t behave. While King Candy was a pathetic fraud, he seems like a saint compared to these bullies that made Ralph and Vanellope’s lives harder. I wish Gene was sent to live in the dump and the racers would spend a week in the fungeon, but well, at least Ralph and Vanellope gained the appreciation they deserved.

I also find Pixar’s Coco to sort of fall into this one. While the villain Ernesto De La Cruz is a great example of what can happen when desires or dreams of fame and fortune go too far, seeing as he murdered his friend Hector for his songs and claimed them as his own, and is the reason why Miguel’s family bans music, the characters that I have issues with in the movie is more of Miguel’s family because they can be quite toxic, especially his abuelita Elena. She scares away people who have music with them, she forces her grandson to eat more tamales, she can be quite violent and she is a blabbermouth, blabbing to his parents about him wanting to enter a talent contest. Miguel may have desires but it’s clear he does love his family, and when he found out his great grandfather was a musician (he thinks it was De La Cruz) he is eager to be a musician without letting his family down, only for them to yell at him and never giving him a chance to talk or play. The worst part is when he declares he doesn’t care if he’s on the ofrenda, Elena destroys his guitar and when she sees her grandson upset, she immediately tries to comfort him as if she didn’t just do anything harmful, gosh! Before I continue let’s compare her to some other characters from Disney or Pixar that did something similar but why they did it better. Let’s start with Elinor from Brave, when she and Merida have an argument, this leads to Elinor throwing Merida’s bow in the fire, after her daughter runs off crying, Elinor quickly tries to get the bow out and realizes what she did and she felt terrible. Also, Marlin from the Finding films did wrong both Nemo and Dory by insulting them and that is what lead to them getting taken in the first place, but he does realize the error of his ways and he does apologize to both of them later. Also when Ralph destroyed Vanellope’s kart, he did it because he thought he was protecting Vanellope and you could tell in his eyes he didn’t want to do this, and once he did, he did feel bad for what he did. Triton from The Little Mermaid also did something like this too, when he destroyed Ariel’s treasures, when he left he did show a bit of guilt in his face, he realizes he hurt his daughter and when he sends others to look for his daughter, he is lamenting on his actions. These examples are how to do a parent or a person that makes a mistake that hurts the ones they care about but we still like them and see that they are good inside, while Abuela Elena is a bad example because we never see her apologize or feel guilty, and even when Miguel comes back she still acts terrible and still tries to take the guitar away and scolds him, at least his parents tried to be reasonable with her. This is why I don’t exactly feel for her when she teared up over Miguel singing Remember Me to mama Coco (don’t take this the wrong way, this is a great scene, I love Miguel’s relationship with his Mama Coco) and in the last scene where she strokes Miguel’s head isn’t a nice sight for me because I still see her as toxic. His great grandma Imelda isn’t any better, she will only let Miguel leave the land of the dead only if he doesn’t play any music, I understand she’s grieving over her husband but surely she would’ve known he loved their little Coco, and there might’ve been a reason he didn’t come home, but she still acts too controlling, Miguel even told her he didn’t want to pick sides, we’re supposed to not want Miguel to leave his family but seeing how some of them act, who can blame him? Now don’t get me wrong, it is still an emotional movie I just will say the message on family could be a bit problematic for those that have or cut out toxic families, it can be sad to hear when things like this happen, but sometimes, it might be for the best because those folks have to do what’s best for them, keeping toxic family members can really hurt them mentally so if that happens we should at least try to understand that instead of giving them a hard time for it. At the very least Encanto handled this kind of thing better, it does hold Abuela accountable for her actions and she does own up and apologizes at the end. Coco is a good movie, but it’s message on family can be problematic and that’s why I find the family to be worse than De La Cruz.

I also want to talk about the Pixar short Bao. When I went to see Incredibles 2 I was excited to see it, and was eager to see the short before the movie, but when it did play, it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. The short is supposed to have us sympathize with the mother as her dumpling son pushes away from her, and we’re supposed to see him as rude and ungrateful, but in my and some others’ eyes, the mother is the bad one. She’s always making her son do things with her, whenever he wants to play with his friends or do something different she always intervenes, which angers the son and he distances himself away from his mother, and when she’s shocked to see her son is engaged, and he hugs her before leaving with her, his mom is basically saying “what about me?” I swear parents who try to act like they should be the only people in their kids lives make me super uncomfortable, parental guilt trips bug me to no end, that’s why I have issues with the Kung Fu Panda holiday special from 2010. I know it can be hard for your kids to grow up and have dreams, goals, jobs and lives outside of home, it’s okay to be sad but guilting them for it is wrong, you need to be more understanding, or else you’re just going to push them away. This is shown when the mother blocks the door to keep her son from leaving and she ends up eating him, and breaks down, which is probably supposed to symbolize her saying something that had her son leave her and her regretting it. The hardest part for me is the fact that it’s the son who has to come and make amends, his father pushes him into the room where his mother is crying, when she should’ve called him or got him to come over and apologize to him, if you parents do something that ruined your relationship with your child, be the big person and make it right! I feel that the short tells us we should accept our toxic helicopter parents and not build our own lives, I’m not saying don’t cherish your family and parents, but if they try to hold you back that’s where you draw the line. Luckily Pixar did better with these kinds of parental stories, 15 years before, they released Finding Nemo, a movie that showed the dangers of overprotective parenting while still making Marlin a sympathetic character. Heck the director of Bao Domee Shi a few years later directed Turning Red which did succeed in showing how Ming’s helicopter parenting is harmful and it ends with Mei standing up for what she believes in and helping her mom’s inner child heal, and it’s handled well, kudos Domee!

Another one I could think of would have to be one of DreamWorks Animation’s most infamous movies Bee Movie. We are supposed to sympathise with our protagonist Barry B Benson for not wanting to go into traditional work, he wants to explore the outside world before he gets a job he’ll be doing 24/7 without any breaks, where he meets and falls in love with a human florist named Vanessa, but then finds out that humans have been taking their honey and sues them for it. With his willingness to stand up for what he believes in and trying not to conform, we would like him, however, he does come across as a bit selfish and irritating, he sues the humans for stealing honey, yet he doesn’t want to go into honey, he’s not willing to go to a friend’s funeral, he annoys celebrities at the courthouse and his actions caused the environment to nearly die, and yet we’re supposed to like him. Growing up is also realizing that the supposed villains the lawyer Layton T Montgomery and Ken (who are actually voiced by Pacha and Kronk themselves) were not really villains. Montgomery was doing everything he could to make sure nobody destroys nature and the environment, when the bees win the case, he tells Barry this is bad for the environment and he’s proven right, the bees have too much honey and end up stopping, they don’t work at all and this results in flowers dying and the world looking gray and bleak, even Vanessa had to close her store down. All because Barry wanted all the honey for themselves, and we’re supposed to like him, he even let his best friend down, he loved making honey. Plus, it lead to a scene where he tranquilizes Pooh Bear to take the honey back, dude! Yes, it was a tranquilizer dart, it would only put him to sleep for a while, but still, it looked like you shot him down, yeah shoot down a beloved character, that will be a good sight for children, it had me a bit shaken when I was a kid. DreamWorks, I know you and Disney are rivals but this is going too far!  Yes, Barry does realize his mistakes and does try to fix the problem, but even then I don’t buy his redemption because the whole climax is stupid, there’s a pointless scene of him teaching Vanessa to fly a plane and it just drags, heck before he comes up with a solution, he makes a suicide joke! Dude! Suicide is not funny, a lot of people have taken their own lives due to depression and it’s hard because it’s an invisible illness, that’s why Robin Williams is gone, making a joke about this is just sadistic! But there’s a bit more. We’re supposed to dislike Vanessa’s boyfriend for wanting to kill Barry, but let’s be honest, he had every reason to want to do that. He seemed like a great guy, looking for a good job and just wanting a nice life, and that got messed up when Barry showed up. When Barry was nearly accidentally eaten, Ken noticed that and was about to crush Barry with winter boots, but Vanessa stopped him, Ken had good reasons to try to do that, he’s allergic to bees, but Vanessa just brushes that off and rips his resume brochure he worked so hard on to let Barry out of the apartment, as she looks lovingly at the bee, ugh makes me want to puke! And to make matter worse, during that scene, some of their friends make fun of Ken’s allergy to bees, dude, allergies are quite serious! Later, when Ken has his planned yogurt night with Vanessa, Barry intervenes as he and Vanessa plan their court case, and Vanessa just kicks him out, and when he reminds her it’s their yogurt night, she just says goodbye rather than gently apologizing as it’s not the best time and telling him they can do it another time, like maybe next week, no wonder he was screaming at the top of his lungs! Oh, and he also had the sanest reaction to Vanessa telling him about helping him sue the human race, that’s absurd, I know crazy ideas from Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks (seeing how the next DreamWorks film had a silly idea yet it still worked well) can work, but this is too much! Plus, there’s a scene where Ken arrives late for dinner with Vanessa and she invited Barry over, as Vanessa goes to heat up the dinner, while she does that she tells him that Barry agreed with her that eating with chopsticks isn’t special and that he let Barry borrow his razor for his fuzz, uh hello, Ken is allergic to bees, that could make him sick or worse! This leads to Ken trying to kill Barry in the bathroom from spraying hairspray on a lighter or trying to flush him, only for them to backfire and Vanessa catches him and dumps him, and we’re supposed to see Ken as a villain?! Ugh, honestly I feel sorry for him, he was the only normal person in this movie and I think he's better off without Vanessa, and I hope this character has a better life in the future, this treatment towards him and a lot of other things explain why I find this to be one of the worst DreamWorks movies ever, and why I think it’s worse than Shark Tale. I still do enjoy playing the game though, it can be fun.

I also want to talk about a character on a TV show that got on my nerves as time went on. In 2017, Chuck Lorre decided to air a spin off show revolving around one of the characters, Sheldon, but it’s his life as a child, we see his times in high school and college and we also see things going on with his parents, his older brother Georgie, his twin sister Melissa “Missy” Cooper and his Meemaw Connie. Because it was a prequel to Big Bang, it was inevitable that Sheldon would become insufferable as the series went on because he’s shown to be a condescending jerk who thinks he’s smarter than everyone, he puts others down and acts so arrogant, but something else changed too. In the Big Bang Theory, Sheldon has a great relationship with his mom and has said bad things about his deceased father, so when the spin off began, we might think that Mary is the better parent while George isn’t, but as the series went on, we start to see that it’s the other way around. George wasn’t the perfect parent he did at least do his best, and treated all three of his kids equally, though he can be a bit rude to his older son, he still does want the best for him and is willing to have his back no matter how many mistakes he makes. He also is great with his daughter Missy, from taking her out to dinner at Red Lobster, giving her a memory she cherished, especially after he died, he was willing to throw a baseball with her, comforted her when she was heartbroken about her crush on that same episode, he was supportive of her playing baseball, he would defend her and when Missy got her first period, though he was freaked out, he was still willing to help his daughter and that’s a true dad (makes me think of when my own father had to do that when I got my first one). He even was a better parent to Sheldon, he disciplined him, he made Sheldon feel safe when they got on a plane, and always was eager to help expand Sheldon’s education. His mother Mary Cooper on the other hand got more insufferable as time went on, it’s clear she puts her religious beliefs over her family, always forcing them and using her religion to control the family. Whenever George dares to do something that could help the family live a more financially stable life or something that could expand Sheldon’s education, she mostly makes a big fuss and almost always gets her way, in the thanksgiving episode, George gets an offer to coach at a university in Oklahoma, Mary is already against that and uses her mother to guilt trip him into not moving away, and by the end George turns down the job offer and Mary had the audacity to question why he turned it down. Plus, whenever Sheldon seems to be at a stage where he’ll go away, Mary just wants to keep her baby around that she makes fusses whether it was Sheldon going to a gifted school in Dallas, when George was offered a job at East Texas Tech which could get Sheldon to enroll full time, she accused them of succumbing to the sin of greed and takes everything away, or when she got letters from universities for Sheldon to join, she hides them from both Sheldon and George and when he called her out, she spoke to him as if he wasn’t important to this decision, this leads to the two having an argument and George telling her that she’s not thinking about what’s best for Sheldon but for herself, she does admit it later though. She also is a bad wife, she treats George like garbage, she undermines his parenting skills, she accuses him of not handling solutions and more! Don’t even get me started on her with Sheldon, she treats him like a prince, spoiling him and coddling him and enabling him which is why he’s such a narcissistic jerk, and she ignores her other kids. This one episode where Sheldon spent the night with his teacher, Mary tried to spend time with her kids, they didn’t want to, Mary, if you had paid more attention to them, maybe they would want to spend time with you, you dug your own grave. Plus, when the college letters incident happened, she only sat with Missy because Sheldon and George were mad at her and she had no one else, basically she treated her daughter like an option, making Missy feel extremely uncomfortable. It’s no wonder Missy went to Meemaw whenever she had to talk about something, whether it was having a boyfriend or shaving her legs, and Mary had the audacity to get jealous. I so wish Jo Frost from Supernanny would’ve existed so she could give Mary a great lecture and she wouldn’t fall for her holier than thou attitude, it was always great to see her calling parents out for favoring their kids and not take crap from anyone. Plus, the series 4 finale also has people calling Mary out for her attitude, when Pastor Jeff takes some time off due to having a baby, she tries to be in charge, showing how she just wants things to go her way and she thinks her holier than thou attitude makes her better than others, it’s proven even more when she comes home from work and sees trouble. When Sheldon tells her that Missy tore up his professor Proton picture, she instantly takes his side and goes to scold Missy and criticizes George for not handling it well, (what happened was Missy was dealing with heartbreak and was having anger issues, when she wanted to be alone and George told Sheldon to leave her alone, he didn’t listen, he told her not to get rid of her poster not because it was a great one for her but because he is used to seeing it every day, being the selfish little twerp he is, and when he calls Missy irritable and saying that’s why she has boy problems, this angers Missy and she rips it, he had it coming. When George orders both of them to stop, he sends Sheldon out of his room and as he scolds Missy for what she did, she ends up crying and he decides to let her calm down before doing anything else, he was handling it well) when she goes to Missy she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that her daughter’s crying and instantly orders her to apologize without asking her what’s going on and when Missy calls her out for always taking Sheldon’s side she denies it, wow Mary you are awful! Later George calls her out for her arrogance and when she claims his whole life is doing whatever he wants he criticizes her for never asking her if he wanted any of this, showing how selfish she really is. While she does admit that George is probably right about him later, it means nothing because even after George’s second heart attack, she still acts controlling and puts her reputation over everything. She enabled Sheldon to be bossy at a church lock in, when Georgie got a girl named Mandy pregnant, she passive aggressively told them to choose her religion for the baby and wanted them to get married so her reputation at the church won’t be tainted, god I hate her so much! Surely, she gets kicked out of the church for Georgie’s mistake but she also didn’t defend Missy for punching a boy for saying terrible things about the family, showing her family comes last. She criticizes George for getting chummy with their neighbour Brenda when she herself is being hit on by Pastor Rob and doesn’t seem to have an issue with it. Sure, when she goes with Sheldon to a school in Germany she does realize how much a pain in the butt Sheldon is, and she does realize how much she’s been taking her husband for granted and sends him a letter showing appreciation for him, and she does comfort Missy after she broke up with her new boyfriend, but even as sweet as it was, I didn’t exactly buy that she changed her ways, and it was proven when she and Mandy’s mother argued over which religion Georgie and Mandy’s daughter Connie or CeeCee would be in, they both baptized her behind her parents backs, showing Mary still wants things to go her way. I did like her for some parts in the 12^th episode of the 7^th season, she was supportive of George’s job offer which would mean moving to Houston, she finally put her foot down when Sheldon once again put up a fuss about moving even though he was going away, about time, it seemed like she was becoming a better wife and mother. Sadly, that didn’t last long, because one day, the family was preparing for a family portrait (something Mary wanted), George’s coworkers, Tom and Wayne came to the door and had some bad news to break to them, George died of a heart attack and everyone is devastated. The funeral episode was quite emotional, the episode that came after was when my hatred for Mary came back, she tried to force her kids to get baptized, when Sheldon and Missy don’t want to.  I understand she’s grieving but even then she is not being there for her kids in a difficult time, even when her mother calls her out for it, she doesn’t listen, and it bugged me when MeeMaw guilt tripped the kids into doing it, because remember guilt trips bug me to no end, I was proud of Missy for refusing. Now when I see the Big Bang show, I feel more hatred for Mary, especially when Georgie tells Sheldon about how he had to take care of his mother and sister and how even then his mom barely appreciates him for doing that and even denies that her daughter is divorced, she just wants things picture perfect (no wonder Missy giggled when her mother got scolded by Penny). Sure, she does occasionally discipline Sheldon and does sometimes treat her other kids better but even then seeing how much she coddles and spoils Sheldon it overshadows her good moments. I swear I wish she died instead of George because she is the reason Sheldon is a narcissist, someone who never changed as the finale of Young Sheldon proved, I knew his Nobel speech didn’t mean anything. I suppose they were trying to paint Mary as a sympathetic parent just wanting the best for Sheldon but her attitude does make her hard to like, and as someone who’s dealt with a few overbearing “me me me” control freaks in my life (and I will admit to being one myself when I was younger), it makes me want to scream and just punch her. I praise Zoe Perry for doing well in acting so well in the role, she does succeed in making her annoying. Please parents, treat your kids equally and if you do you’ll raise them to be great people and you’ll have a great relationship with them in the future.

 

It's good to have a great villain or antagonist as a great foil to the protagonist, but sometimes it can be interesting to see that maybe the true villains are people we might’ve had the displeasure of knowing and this  can make them more unlikable than the actual villain, either for bad writing or hitting close to home, it can be good or bad when that happens but it is quite an impressive move I will say. That’s why these characters I talked about are great examples of the classic TV Trope, Jerks Are Worse Than Villains. Be sure to read my article about tricky protagonists to understand some of my points a bit more.

Are there any other fictional characters you find to be worse than the antagonists or villains? Feel free to share