From Skyler White to Joffrey Baratheon, here are the most hated TV characters of all time
Sometimes television shows and the actors who star in them do almost too good of a job with creating characters that people love to hate or just downright loathe. And as such, a list of the “most hated” TV characters making the rounds online is causing no shortage of controversy.
The list, recently compiled by Ranker, includes over 100 of the most hated TV characters of all time to see which ones were most “universally detested.” The ranking is then powered by users who upvote or downvote the selections, with nearly 240,000 votes at the time of this writing.
However, the author notes that while the list includes some of the most vile characters, others aren’t necessarily vile because they are bad or evil, but “simply because every time they come on the screen, you wish they’d just go away.” They also may not necessarily be characters people “love to hate” – though, a few certainly fall into the category, regardless – but those that are unpopular, disliked, and even just so annoying that people “absolutely can’t stand” them.
While the list itself is ever-changing due to user input, the Discussing Film account on X, formerly Twitter, grabbed a snapshot of the top 10 on Sunday that has subsequently gone viral.
HBO’s Game of Thrones snagged the top two spots with Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) and Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon), as well as Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) landing in number five. Breaking Bad also got two mentions with Skyler White (Anna Gunn) in third, perhaps unfairly, and Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemmons) extremely fairly a few spots down in seventh.
Also making a showing was Shou Tucker (Chuck Huber) from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood in fourth, Livia Soprano (Nancy Marchand) from The Sopranos in sixth, The Governor (David Morrissey) from The Walking Dead in eighth, Caillou (Annie Bovaird) from the animated children’s program Caillou in ninth, and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) from Glee in 10th.
Not surprisingly, even over a decade since Breaking Bad has been off the air, the bulk of the discourse has involved Skyler White, who was a least favourite among outspoken fans during the series original run. However, others felt that the character – who played the pregnant wife of Bryan Cranston’s meth kingpin Walter White – was given a bad rap and jumped to defend her.
“Y’all hate Skyler White for the most misogynistic reasons. she doesn’t even belong on this list,” wrote one user, while another added, “Skyler being so high is actually crazy.”
But in either case, it seems that absolutely no one objected to the most hated villain of all time, who has received nearly 10,000 votes and counting, and we’re not surprised.
