Someone once said, "what you hate in other people, is what you hate in yourself,". Now I have literally no clue who actually said that, but I do know that that phrase is completely true, especially when it comes to least favorite characters.
Draco Malfoy, Tony Stark, JarJar Binks, we all hate them! Or, at least have some general distaste for them. But why? Why do we dislike these fictional people that never existed? Maybe it's because we see a reflection of ourselves in them.
I the first part of this series, I talked about how we like characters because we see ourselves in them, so why am I now saying that relating to a character makes us dislike a character? Well, in protagonists or likable villains, we see positive traits that we have in common with them, we see difficult situations that we see them overcome and think we can do the same thing. But with antagonists or irritating character, we see bad habits turned evil doings, dark paths that cannot be followed back to the light, and dark hearts that cannot be redeemed.
As I said last time, we could be subconsciously projecting a character's life as our own. So, if we see horrible villains with similar traits as ourselves, we could just be thinking we're headed down the same path and are irredeemable.
But, you could also hate an antagonist if they are hurting the protagonist you see yourself in. What you're saying could be, "hey! Stop bullying Harry Potter! He's great!" but what you're really meaning is this: "hey! Stop bullying me! I'm not that bad!". It's an internal longing to be accepted or liked, or to possibly stop being picked on.
What characters do you see the most of yourself in? Are they good or bad? Do you like or hate them? Which character is the most accurate mirror that gives you a look inside?
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