Characters you love that everyone else hates

I was talking with a friend about the latest episode of Friday Night Lights,and how a lot of the fan reaction to a certain character was a little lost on us. It seemed that Julie Taylor (Aimee Teegarden, pictured), Mr. and Mrs. Taylor’s snarky teenage daughter, wasn’t particularly liked among fandom: she was toowhiny, she was too bratty, she was too selfish. These complaints completely escaped us. To be honest, it was one of the aspects that we loved about the character, she was acting in a way that made the show so darn effective in the first place: she was acting like a real teenager.

As we discussed this further, me and my friend figured something out. Something terrible.

We were those fans.

Youknow the kind, the fan that always found themselves liking charactersno one else liked, for the exact qualities that made them unpopular inthe first place? The further back we went in our mutual fandoms, themore characters we discovered: Dawn in Buffy, Connor in Angel, Helo in Battlestar Galactica. It just kept going. And the reverse was happening too: Everyone seemed to love Angela on Bones but I couldn’t stand her. Every FNL aficionado was digging Matt Saracen’s puppy dog eyes, but it was beginning to grate on her nerves.

I was that fan.

So my question to you, fellow PopWatchers, is have you ever been that fan?Has there ever been a character you love (or don’t, you know,vehemently hate) that no one else seems to be able to stand? Has thereever been a character you couldn’t stand that everyone seemed to love?Spill your secret shame here.