Who Do you Think are the most Despicable Characters in Literature ?

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CYRUS

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Mar 30, 2017
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Joseph Heller's Catch 22 . There isn't one likable character in that book. The most despicable character in that book was Milo Minderbender who should have put in front of a firing squad.
 

CYRUS

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If we're gonna talk Dickens, gotta go with the loathsome schoolmaster Wackford Squeers from Nicholas Nickleby.

Also Mrs Squeers and Their Daughter and the Son. Three nasties right there. Then their's Ralph Nickleby the uncle who was probably the biggest creep in the book . Dishonorable to mention to Madame Mantallini whose dress shop was also a sweatshop and her no account husband Mr Mantillini .
 

Connor B

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May 24, 2015
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The Toomeys from The Langoliers. Not just Craig, but his equally nutty and cruel parents as well. I've never encountered a better advertisement for contraceptives in fiction.
Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.
The Ingsoc Party from Orwell's 1984.
Many characters from Voltaire's Candide count.
 

CYRUS

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From Charles Dickens book Hard Times

Mr Thomas Gradgrind who thought he knew so much about the world that he established his own school to to teach children to import his wisdom . motto " Teach them facts, facts, facts and not fancies " Arrogant and incredibly narrow-minded . Bitzer Mr Grad Grinds prized pupil who under his tutelage morphs in to a thoroughly heartless, unsentimental and ungrateful human being.
 

muskrat

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Nov 8, 2010
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Awright, I gotcha all beat. How about the title character (and numerous evil associates) of De Sade's Juliette? If you've slogged your way through all twelve hundred grisly pages of that foul tome, you'll know it doesn't get much more despicable than that. I did it without hip waders and I ain't been right since. Ol Julie makes Dickens' baddies seem like social workers, makes Dracula look like a vegan, makes Humbert Humbert look like Mr. Rogers.

Top that.
 

CYRUS

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From Game of Thrones let start with Gregor Clegane , The older brother to Sandor Clegane( the Hound) Gregor is about 7 feet tall, fearless and ruthless in battle and utterly devoid of any decency, conscience or humanity of any kind . He is a soulless murdering monster , redeemably evil. As a child he burned and disfigured his brother Sandor face because he caught him playing with one his toys. As bad as Gregor is the rare other in the series in who are just as bad if not worse then he is.
 

skimom2

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Eva was something else alright. Snobby and arrogant and just an all-around unlikeable person. Have you seen the film? Tilda Swinton makes her a lot more sympathetic.
Agreed. The movie slanted it toward the, "The kid was just bad from the beginning" end. The book was more ambivalent. It was interesting to wonder what was more potent in this case, nature or nurture. The thing was, if you read the interviews with Shriver (there were a couple in the P.S. edition I read), she is completely sympathetic with Eva. She, in fact, sounds like Eva (snobby, arrogant, and unlikable). That was one case where I wish I hadn't read the author pages, because I can't read anything else by Shriver now.
 

Zone D Dad

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Agreed. The movie slanted it toward the, "The kid was just bad from the beginning" end. The book was more ambivalent. It was interesting to wonder what was more potent in this case, nature or nurture. The thing was, if you read the interviews with Shriver (there were a couple in the P.S. edition I read), she is completely sympathetic with Eva. She, in fact, sounds like Eva (snobby, arrogant, and unlikable). That was one case where I wish I hadn't read the author pages, because I can't read anything else by Shriver now.

That's hilarious. I felt the same way the first time I read an interview with James Ellroy, my other favorite writer. I couldn't help but think "What a jerk". But I still love his books.
 

CYRUS

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Jack London's novel The Sea Wolf Ship captain Wolf Larson , tyrannical and viciously Cruel .

Thomas Mugridge the The cook on the Sea Wolfe slovenly , cowardly , thieving , untrustworthy and a sycophant.