[Smaug]

Which character from a FANTASY novel do you hate the most? Not necessary the most powerful enemy, but a character that an author created that made you want to wish the worst possible thing to happen to that character.

A character that made you squirm and look/read in disgust.

Personally I absolutely hated one particular character.....C'Nedra from the David Eddings series Belgariad/Mallorean. She disgusted me to the bottom of my stomach. She manipulated all the men..and I hated that...because I think it is totally unrealistic as women in medieval times should be totally docile/tractable and have no influence...yet the characters in the books feared her and she was only a pathetic wiry red-haired girl. I nearly threw up every time she won a battle over a obstacle she faced. I wished her to die in the series starting from book 1!! (there were 10 books based on her). Unfortunately she survived and live happily ever after...(puke). I am gonna throttle David Eddings when I see him next time!! (Sorry Belgarion & Allanon!! - I know you both like Eddings....but he makes me squirm when he makes his female characters too powerful).

WOMEN in medieval times should be weak and pathetic. Housewife-based..they should be baking cakes with an apron tied around them and serving their warrior with glug (beer).

NO....female handles...I am not sexist but REALISTIC!!!!

[Walker Boh]

Ha Ha Ha ha.....Well said. I agree that Fantasy should be based on male characters with the usual paraphernia background (goblins, orcs, elves, trolls, hobbits, etc).

Female warriors are unrealistic and I hate any fantasy books that have female warriors who overcome any male warriors. TOTALLY UNREALISTIC.

Yes, women characters should be housewifes or maiden in distress shouting for help hoping that Prince Charming will come to the rescue. I can accept sourceress or any female witches. That okay in my book....I don't mind witches/sourceress overcoming male characters because they are using magic rather than strength to win battles/fights.

She-Ra was crap in the old cartoon series He-man and the Universe. So was that female side-kick in Conan the Barbarian (what was her name?..I think Brigitte Nielsen played the part).

So mate...I agree with you on this one....there should be no strong female characters in any fantasy books. IT IS A MAN WORLD AFTER ALL. There are no sensitive morals in medieval times.

[Bardos]

I like female warriors, and sorceres, etc... I don't have problem with women having the same roles as men. What I hate is this thing (Eddings does it): The author presents a man's world, and, all of the suddent, a female appears and she is smarter and more capable than any man in the book. That is foolish.
From my other post, you know I write (though I can't upload anything in this site, since my books are writen in Greek), and, generaly, in the worlds I create, women share the same roles as men (yes, female warriors in the army!), but there is an equality between them, i.e. I don't have man-haters (Jordan) and one all-of-the-suddent-Wise-Woman (Eddings).
I don't know why official authors (like Jordan and Eddings) do such foolish things. To impress? To appear feministic? Well, they appear only pseudo-feministic to me... and fools...

[Pluvious]

OOHHH...I hope somebody comes in here to defend women in fantasy. You might look around there are some women that can do things as well as men...

But I do tend to agree that women in our world are not as physically strong as males...but it is fantasy not middle ages. One thing I will say is that if you write about strong women characters I think you should make a point of illustrating why they are stong, and if it is the world or the woman is special in some ways.

Yes, I would find it hard to believe that a female warrior was the strongest warrior in the land in historical fiction...but this is fantasy with dragons and magic and...whatever.

Wasn't their just a post on being offensive somewhere? I thought I saw one? Oh well...

[Macros]

In an attempt to steer this back towards the original question, the characters I hate most are probably 99.9% of the female characters in the Wheel of Time. About the only good one was Moiraine and even she stretched the bounds of my patience.

[Rupert Avery]

All of the chicks in the Wheel Of Time I disliked.But then again they are a huge part of the over all story and just one of the reasons I dont like Jorden.
The Empire series written by Feist and Wurts was based around a female. Marra Of The Acoma
She was great,She was stong and in my own opinion one of the best females in Fantasy.


[This message has been edited by Rupert Avery (edited April 03, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Rupert Avery (edited April 03, 2001).]

[Loki]

My most hated characters would have to be everyone in the wheel of time other than that guy that Jordan copied from Donaldsons giants (thats why i like him) loial or something, hes funky.
What if it was a female dwarf, then i could understand a woman beating a man.

[Bardos]

Pluvious, women have, naturaly, less strenght than men, but more grace.
Though, yes, in a fantasy setting it is assumed that they have a bit more strenght than in reality, or else they wouldn't be able to lift swords, carry armor, etc. And believe me, I have a real sword home and I know its heavy...

[Metosblat]

I don't have any problem with women being physically strong in fantasy books. My one condition is they have to be very masculine(eg Brienne in ASOIAF). A woman who is physically strong, amazingly smart and amazingly beautiful all at once doesn't exist. I can accept a mixture of 2 of the 3 above but not all three.

Anyway my most hated Character is FAILE!!
I hate her with a passion! She totally destroyed Perrin as a character, because of her I'm starting to hate Perrin too.

[Shadowen]

Wow - (backs off to get a gasmask - all the testosterone floating around this board)!

There should be no strong female characters in fantasy books? Pray, why? While I agree that its unrealistic to portray all women as equal in strength to men(women naturally have less upper body strength, therefore would need to exceptionally strong and muscular, ie Brienne, to equal the men when it comes to armour and sword fighting) why would you say that all women have to be docile and tractable just because many of the books have a medieval flavour? Why should a good fantasy book not have a strong female lead character(Juliet McKenna, Robin Hobb, George Martin, Robert Jordan even (puke) Terry Goodkind)?

While I totally agree with you about Ce'nedra, no one could deny that Polgara was far from docile.

I personally like books that have strong and capable male and female characters, as well as male and female characters who are stupid, weak and flawed; that, after all, is what real life is like!