Least Favorite Characters in Tolkien's Writings

[Curufin]

I've seen plenty of threads where we talk about 'favorite' characters - this is kind of the obverse of that.

What are your least favorite characters in the works you've read of Tolkien's, and why? And they don't have to be 'evil' or 'bad' characters.

Don't forget the 'why' - that's the interesting part.

Me:

Lord of the Rings:
Frodo. I've never liked him. Sure, he has a heavy burden and all that, yadda yadda, but it's Sam that does all the hard work and gets none of the reward or renown. Frodo doesn't have much of a personality, and he can't even complete his task at the end. Curufin is not impressed.

The Hobbit:
I've only read this book once, granted, but Thranduil is a big jerk.

The Silmarillion:
Túrin. Probably my least favorite character in all of Tolkien. Conceited, pompous, arrogant (yes, he deserves synonyms), stubborn, self-indulgent, gratuitiously violent, refuses to listen to any counsel but his own, and is responsible for the fall of Nargothrond. So he killed a dragon. Big whoop-de-doo. This guy's a loser. Does anyone in all of Tolkien feel sorry for themselves half as much? You can say Fëanor, but he never made up uber-emo pseudonyms for himself. Blech! Somebody slap this guy.

[Earniel]

The Hobbit: Thorin, mostly. The Elf-King was a nuissance at times, but he had some decency going for him that he diverted his army away from the mountain to give aid to the people of Laketown. Whereas Thorin could be overly proud and arrogant as well. His refusal to give anything to the people of Laketown to rebuild and his failing to deliver the goods when he had promised, rather irked me.

Lord of the Rings: Boromir, definitely. He annoyed me at times. Oh, I'm sure he's noble, decent and brave on any other day, but I just didn't like him. And I have to say it therefor didn't quite bother me to see him dying on my first read.

The Simarillion: Túrin it is. I've lost count of the moments while reading the Silmarillion that I wanted to slap some sense into him.

[BeardofPants]

I don't think I can actually think of any that irked me enough to add to a least favourite list. I'll have to think about it & get back to you.

signed,
Turin fangirl

[Gordis]

The Hobbit:
The Eagles. Too easy way to solve problems.
Beorn - can't figure out what in Ungoliant he is...

Lord of the Rings:
Treebeard, definitely, and all his ents. Most boring creatures imaginable.
Huorns - as an easy shortcut to eliminating orcs.
Eagles - same reasons.
Tom Bombadil, because he is annoying, out of place, and again I can't figure out what in Ungoliant he is...

The Simarillion: Eru.

(And Turin is my fav. character. He didn't spend his life licking Elves's toes.)

[Willow Oran]

The Hobbit
I can't decide between Thorin, Bombur, or whichever nameless elf started singing the Tra-la-la-lally song. Thorin makes worse descisions, but Bombur is far more annoying throughout the journey and the Tra-la-la-lally song is a truly insidious evil.

Lord of the Rings
I can't say that I really despise any of the characters, but I definitely didn't miss Bombadil.

The Silmarillion
Sign me up for the Turin hate club. I wonder if Tolkien made him as loathable as he is on purpose...

[Curufin]

Looks like people either hate Túrin or love him - very little in the middle.

Wonder why that is?

[katya]

Yeah, it's interesting. I always liked him a lot.

[Aikanáro]

I like Túrin. I wouldn't list him as one of my favorites, necessarily, but he doesn't annoy me. These people do:

Lord of the Rings: Tom Bombadil. I find it very difficult not to skip his chapters, he is, as Gordis said, very out of place.

The Silmarillion: Thingol. Unlike Bombadil, though, I do think he adds a lot to the story, but he did annoy me, with all the bad decisions he made.

The Hobbit: Nobody I specifically disliked here, though I do think the number of dwarves could have been cut down without too much trouble.

Edit - and this is my 42nd post (if there are any Douglas Adams fans to get the significance )

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Gordis

Lord of the Rings:
Eagles - same reasons.

Spoken like a true nazgul. A bit bitter, perhaps, because they plucked you out of the sky in the final battle?

Originally Posted by Aikanáro

The Hobbit: Nobody I specifically disliked here, though I do think the number of dwarves could have been cut down without too much trouble.

I tend to agree the Dwarves could have been cut down story-wise. Some of them hardly say a word during the whole book. But plot-wise that would have eliminated the need to include Bilbo if they had less than thirteen to start with.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Spoken like a true nazgul. A bit bitter, perhaps, because they plucked you out of the sky in the final battle?

Nah, they didn't. We were recalled by Sau to fly to Mt.Doom ASAP. But for it, eagle feathers would have been scattered all the way from Emyn Muil to Morannon.

[The Gaffer]

Good choices, Gordis!

Don't agree about Bombadil though. Or the Ents.

Elrond is a bit annoying in the Hobbit, though less so in LOTR. And Imrahil is a bit of a plank.

[Curufin]

And Imrahil is a bit of a plank.

His daughter's one lucky girl, though...

Sorry. Must. Stop. Drooling. Over. Rohirrim.

[feawen]

i cant say i really like arwen that much, she just sits there looking pretty . get on a horse women and stand up for your gender! Oh she made a flag at the end of the return of the king big flipping woo, give me some thread and ill do that for you and im not an elf!

The hobbit, didn't like Bombur, he just eat alot, i liked the twins but no he kills them off and kills the moaning one why?

As for The Silmarillion i never liked Turins parents. Their daughter died and they just stop talking about her, now thats going to cause some mentle scars in grown life and his mums a right piece a work, hug your son more and he might not of gone on killed a whole elf city! Blame the parents!

[Ingwe]

Silmarillion: Off to the Turin hate club for me. Happy Hour starts at 4 PM. Also, the Elves who hunted the Petty Dwarves down and killed them for sport. Sure, they were a nuisance but I'm sure they wouldn't have been so evil if the Elves hadn't have shot first. I'm an Elf myself but don't agree with 90% of what they've all done, especially in the first age. Feanor meant well but swearing in oath using Eru as a witness - it's using the name in vane (which is the literal meaning of a curse word or phrase). "As God is my witness I will recover the Silmarils." Things like that usually don't turn out so well. I'm glad most learned from that mistake, most.

Hobbit: Grr. Thranduil. He was a jerk. Just gave the Dwarves another reason to hate the Elves. Thankfully his son Legolas was able to make friends with Gimli even after Thranduil imprisoned his father and others amongst him.

Lord of the Rings: Gollum/Smeagol. I didn't realize that the Ring would debilitate its wearer by making them have multiple personality disorder. Fortunately it's only two multiple personalities, but still, wow. I liked how cunning it made him though. I thought he was quite intelligent in some ways, he really had Frodo going. That's another one though - Frodo. Of course, if Frodo had not trusted Gollum, Frodo and Sam woulda went to the cracks of doom and Frodo would have put the Ring on anyway, and Sam may not have stopped Frodo. Gollum was possessed by the Ring to the point that he was a very formidable opponent (despite his very very small size). Gollum destroyed the Ring, so Gollum > The Ring > Sauron > Gandalf > Balrog (apparently). Everyone > Frodo. Even Turin, and that's saying a lot. Sam was one of my favorites though. If Aragorn would have died at the Morannon, I would have made Sam the King of Arnor (including the Shire) and Gondor, to heck with the Dunedain by that point.

Pippin ticked me off in the first book, he led to Gandalf's demise. But of course, without Pippin, you'd not have Gandalf the White. I think Gandalf yelling at Pippin also had a lot to do with why the enemy heard them. Pippin became awesome though. He helped rally the Ents, he fought in battle, he whooped a lot of butt, and he kept his lovable Hobbit nature even after all that! That's pretty good. Most people come home from war changed. He really didn't seem to change at all.

On the opposite side you have Frodo who didn't really go through all-out war. He got stabbed by the Witch-King and stung by Shelob and so forth, but the spider incident was his own fault. Let's go into this tunnel with spider webs the size of houses, yea, good going. Some survival instinct he had.

Then after it's all over, oh, he had to leave his friends almost immediately, well a couple of years after it was done. I guess all's well that ends well. I don't see Frodo being Thain of the Shire material anyway. But he had his courageous moments. He was just too darned sensitive.

I feel bad for some of the things Turin went through, but a lot of it he put on himself.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by feawen

As for The Silmarillion i never liked Turins parents. Their daughter died and they just stop talking about her, now thats going to cause some mentle scars in grown life and his mums a right piece a work, hug your son more and he might not of gone on killed a whole elf city! Blame the parents!

Morwen is practically the only mother in Silm who cared for her children.

Look at Rian, Tuor's mother and the widow of Huor. She had just given birth to her son and then "departed from Hithlum, and going to the Haudh-en-Ndengin she laid herself down upon it and died". OWWW- how tragic!
She had a baby to care for, dammit!
This attitude always seemed most "inhuman" and quite selfish to me.

Contrast it to Turin's mom, Morwen. She must have believed her husband dead and lost forever, but she lived for her children - even on occupied territory, even sending Turin away to safety. She is the one to admire.

Elwing is even worse than Rian - abandoning without a second thought her two little sons to the bloodthirsty sons of Feanor - just so that they don't get the Silmaril! To save her children, ANY normal mom would have given away all three Simlarils and all the 20 Rings and all the Seven Palantiri to boot!

[Willow Oran]

I tend to agree the Dwarves could have been cut down story-wise. Some of them hardly say a word during the whole book. But plot-wise that would have eliminated the need to include Bilbo if they had less than thirteen to start with.

Actually there is a way to cut half the dwarves and still keep Bilbo's addition numerically symbolic. When we did it as a play we only had six dwarves, and then with Bilbo they became seven which is a lucky number, so it still worked. Of course... we kept some of the wrong dwarves.

[katya]

Originally Posted by Ingwe

Pippin ticked me off in the first book, he led to Gandalf's demise. But of course, without Pippin, you'd not have Gandalf the White. I think Gandalf yelling at Pippin also had a lot to do with why the enemy heard them. Pippin became awesome though. He helped rally the Ents, he fought in battle, he whooped a lot of butt, and he kept his lovable Hobbit nature even after all that! That's pretty good. Most people come home from war changed. He really didn't seem to change at all.

I'd have to disagree there. I thought Pippin changed a lot. At first I didn't like it- I didn't like the idea of him becoming a soldier. I don't mind now though. Anyway, sure, he does stay lovable little Pippin through and through, but I think he matures a lot.

[feawen]

i still dont like morwen! i dont care i dont like her!

[Curufin]

After reading Children of Húrin, I decided I don't really like Morwen either. She's arrogant and awful, just like her son. All his bad traits, he gets from his mother.

[Kennashi]

All these hate messages towards Túrin are a bit ironic since Turin's the one that kills Morgoth in the end, thus saving all of us. But anyway...

The Hobbit: Pretty much all of them annoy me, in different ways, but all in the same amount...except for Bilbo, since the dwarves and Gandalf effectively forced him out of his hole and the poor hobbit didn't have much choice in the matter.

Lord of the Rings: Aragorn. Why? Because the guy is so damned perfect, and pisses me off with his....perfection. Tom doesn't bother me much. He's very significant in my mind in the sense that he's the only one that can resist the ring...and that has to mean something special.

Silmarillion: Túrin. Yes, I'm a hypocrite.