Top Ten Tuesday: Bridget's Top Ten Most Frustrating Characters EVER

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1. Mrs. Norris - Mansfield Park, Jane Austen. Mrs. Norris must be one of the most flat-out evil characters in all of literature--but not in a Count Dracula or Pennywise kind of evil. The petty, mean, horrible-person-but-totally-human kind of evil that Jane Austen so excels at writing. Every time she opens her mouth I want to punch her in the face, and the reason she’s so frustrating is because I CAN’T PUNCH HER IN THE FACE BECAUSE SHE’S A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.

2. Fanny Price - Mansfield Park, Jane Austen. Fanny is almost as frustrating as Mrs. Norris because of her refusal to stand up to her! Ugh, I just want to shake her sometimes. But of course I can’t because, you know, she’s fictional.

3. Katniss Everdeen - The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins. Katniss gets on my nerves for a lot of reasons. First, she’s resistant to be the symbol that all the districts need to unite against the capital, which I understand, but come on, girl, your people need you. Second, she then spends her time agonizing over which boy she wants--which, again, understandable since they’re constantly competing for her affections (and, of course, there’s the whole keeping-up-the-image thing with Peeta), but she really should have sat them both down and been like, “Guys, lay off, we’re like sixteen and we’ve got saving of the world to do. SO CHILL WITH THE HORMONES.” Cause yeah it’s nice to be adored and all but COME ON. And third because (SPOILER ALERT!!!) she winds up with Peeta in the end. Not that I wanted her to be with Gale, either, though. I wanted her to just be badass and awesome for the rest of her life, and maybe find someone who matches her in badassery and awesomeness. Peeta’s too wimpy and Gale is too underhanded. Sigh.

4. Stanley Uris - It, Stephen King. Okay, before I say anything else, I’ll just have you know that I LOVE everything about this book, even the characters that drive me a little crazy. Stan definitely does that...if not because (AGAIN, SPOILER ALERT) he commits suicide at the beginning of the book, but because while they’re kids, it takes him so much longer to get his ultra-rational, future-accountant’s mind around what’s happening right in front of his eyes. Compared to the other kids, he just seems weaker. But I do love his sense of humor so I guess he’s not SO frustrating.

5. Ma - Room, Emma Donoghue. As far as Room goes, I believe it deserves all the praise it gets, but one thing that really irritated me was how (again...SPOILER ALERT) when they actually escape, the mother just seems to completely give up on life rather than trying to help her poor son assimilate into a world that he has never known and doesn’t understand. Obviously she went through a hell of a lot of trauma, but it struck me as really selfish that she should retreat into herself and ignore what’s going on around her.

6. Rachel Creed - Pet Sematary, Stephen King. Due to some early trauma concerning a very sick sister, Rachel is ultra-resistant to any talk of death and insists there is “nothing natural about death,” despite her doctor husband striving to make her see that death, like everything else, is a part of life. As a pretty rational person myself with little patience for such irrationality, Rachel really annoyed me. I personally felt that the trauma she experienced only excuses her own fear of talking about death; it does NOT excuse her insistence that their young daughter be shielded completely from ever learning about or experiencing death, because that can be just as crippling as a traumatic early experience like Rachel’s.

7. Harry Potter - The Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling. I’m really only referring to the angsty teenage Harry we see from about Order of the Phoenix on, where he’s all “OMG, nobody tells me anything! I’m going to go sulk in a corner!” I mean, most of the time I understand where he’s coming from (especially when I was first reading these, since I was an angsty teenager myself), but it got pretty frustrating at times. (For those of you who haven’t seen it, you need to check out Wizarding Angst by the Potter Puppet Pals people. It’s amazing. But my favorite will always be The Mysterious Ticking Noise.)

8. Maxim de Winter - Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier. I just finished Rebecca the other day and WOW, it was amazing. I loved every word, but Maxim de Winter definitely frustrated me a bit, especially with his general refusal to explain his moodiness to Mrs. de Winter, until the truth about what’s bugging him has the very real potential to destroy them. (On a side note: it was also really frustrating that you never learn Mrs. de Winter’s name!!)

9. Almost everyone - Mile 81, Stephen King. For those of you who haven’t read it, Mile 81 is a short story/novella by Stephen King about an evil car that basically (sorry...SPOILER ALERT) eats people. It’s part of King’s charm but also super frustrating that every damn person from every damn car that stops to see if the muddied up car sitting at the Mile 81 rest stop needs help gets eaten by said muddied up car, until (of course) a kid figures out how to vanquish it.

10. Scarlett O’Hara - Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but most of my dislike of this book is due to my dislike of Scarlett. I didn’t find her to be a sympathetic character at all: I found her to be a whiny rich girl who pouts when she doesn’t get her way and who doesn’t deserve the love she desires from Ashleigh OR the love she gets from Rhett, or from anyone else, for that matter.

Phew. Who do you guys think are the most frustrating characters ever?? Add your links below!