frelling_tralk | Well Dawn made the list...

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Well Dawn made the list...

21 Most Annoying TV Characters Ever

I never got what people found annoying about Dawn in season 5 really, I thought that Real Me was an awesome intro for her character, but I've seen so many people talking about not being able to stand her from the beginning. Honestly I think that some people just hated the whole concept of a 'cute younger character' being added, they were coming at the idea from what they'd seen in other tv shows, and so were already predisposed to find Dawn annoying?

Hmm how would people have corrected the writing of Dawn if you were working on the show, or did you think it was fine just the way it was? I might have changed her age and made her more obviously younger, instead of 14/15/16 over the course of the show. I always thought that was waaay to close to the age that Buffy had been at the start of the series to then make such a big deal about how young Dawn was and how she needed babysitting. If they wanted to write her as such a little sister then I think it would have been a better idea to at least introduce her as 12 or 13 years old, it's not like the other actors were playing their ages either.

Also I think season 5 was Dawn's best season because she was such an important of the main plot, so maybe they could have done more with her powers as the Key after season 5, instead of immediately making her a normal teenage girl?

Oh and I really think her screaming is overstated, she yelled 'get out' just twice. I'm not saying that it wasn't high-pitched and annoying, but from the way people talk you would think she had been screeching like that at least every 4-5 episodes!

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Dawn was much less annoying than Harmony if you ask me. Sure, she was trying at times, but nowhere near enough to rank her up there in terms of "characters ever".

And Kennedy, really? Why?

Janice Soprano? I wouldn't call her annoying.

Bah to that list. Where's DJ Connor? Walter "Flynn" Jr? Dawson?

Some of the choices seemed odd like Janice from Friends, the whole point was that she was supposed to be annoying to the other characters

Exactly. I think there's a difference between being deliberately unlikeable and being annoying when the writing clearly suggests we're supposed to like a character.

That's Janice.

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That could have been a really strong storyline definitely. I think season 6 especially suffered from Dawn feeling a bit like an afterthought because she was younger than the other characters, and so couldn't feel like part of the gang in the same way. Episodes focused on Dawn like All The Way almost felt like their own spin-off because Dawn and her friends were part of a completely different social circle. Maybe she would have worked better as a recurring character after season 5, like Joyce. There just weren't a ton of interesting storylines they could use for a little sister character

Argh, that was me, posting with the wrong account. I'm gonna delete it - sorry for the threading confusion! (Deleted content here: IIRC Dawn was originally going to be 12 or so, but was aged up when Michelle Trachtenberg was cast. Unfortunately I don't think they always aged the writing up to match. Also unfortunately, I don't think Joss had any idea what to do with Dawn once Buffy jumped off that tower. I like Dawn, but sometimes I think that storywise, it might have worked better to have Dawn die in S5, and have Buffy's S6 depression be about her failure to save her sister.)

I'm a huge Dawn fan. She was annoying in s6...but who wasn't?

I do agree on Kennedy = HATE

Yeah i hated how pushy kennedy was

She was AWFUL.

I have mixed feelings on Kennedy. She wasn't very likable but she was the only Potential who had a Slayer's attitude. I hated the whole Potentials thing. They invaded the show and screwed up the in-group dynamic and we were never given any reason to care about them or be interested in them. And that trick of making you think Dawn was one and then revealing that she wasn't was both dirty and stupid. Had she been one it might have redeemed the whole Potentials nonsense. Major missed opportunity.

Edited 2013-04-04 19:42 (UTC)

Also, seriously, where was Nois :P

She has my vote :P

...my number one with a bullet ;)

Nois is clod Lois? She was pretty annoying.

I didn't find her so bad in later seasons, but the comic relief they kept forcing with her in seasons 4 and 5 was just so grating to me lol

I found her reminiscent of the stereotypical annoying frat boy, except female.

I like Dawn, but think she is annoying -- just like your own younger sibling, right? She's there to create tension. And a lot of the time I think it's obvious that she's being annoying on purpose -- a lot of her interactions with Buffy feel that way. You can see she's fighting for her own power and the only way she can think to do that is be a pain in the butt.

But I think her being annoying is funny. There's an implication when people say "ugh, Dawn, so annoying" that it's a flaw in the show, and that's where I don't agree.

She does scream a lot when startled or scared -- more of a yelp, really -- and it's very high-pitched, so it really stands out. I think that's what fosters the impression that she's always screaming. By season 5 the other characters don't really scream anymore.

She was supposed to be the annoying little sister for Buffy's character at first definitely, but for me as an audience member I was never actively annoyed with her. Or at least not often :P

I think the problem with the writing for Dawn was that there was a disconnect between what we were told was the other characters' level of investment in her--as far as they could remember, they had known her their entire lives and had a whole lifetime's history of memories and emotional attachment to her--and what the audience viscerally felt was OUR investment in her, because she just showed up on our screens and we were expected to respond to her not as if she were a new character, but a character who'd grown up along with Buffy and the Scoobies. But the show had never cultivated that investment in us the way it had with the other characters, through us getting to know them from S1-S4. In retrospect I can enjoy her more as a character and as a storytelling device, but I think at the time much of fandom rejected her because of this, because she was supposed to be important to us but the show hadn't bothered to make her important to us.

Hmm that's a good point, I know there was several times when I felt annoyed at the canon of the show being changed as we had previously understood it

Dawn was great. I can think of a bunch of Buffy characters that belong on a list of most annoying -like Andrew, Xander, Faith, Willow and Anya. But Dawn? She was great. She was relatable, sympathetic and funny. And she interacted marvellously with Spike, until the writers decided to destroy that. It really pisses me off when people do the big hate-in on Dawn. It's really a baselss hatred. And it's all the weirder considering the show really did have some seriously annoying characters, which people for some reason don't find annoying. BTVS actually had more annoying characters than likable ones, but Dawn wasn't one of them. She was one of the good things about the show and along with Spike she helped to raise the quality when it was declining in the last three seasons.

I would have definitely included Xander in any most annoying list *g*

And yeah I always thought it was a shame they they dropped Spike and Dawn's friendship after season 5, they had a really sweet connection that it would have been nice to see the writers continue to develop

It wasn't totally dropped in season 6, but they killed it in season 7. I thought the screen time they wasted on Andrew in season 7 could have been much better spent on a reconciliation scene beteeen Spike and Dawn.

Trachtenberg's character in Gossip Girl is in there too. Why don't they just come out and say they hate Trachtenberg? That show was shallow crap and Trachtenberg was the only good thing in the parts of it I saw that she was in.

There's an endless list of characters that should be included on that list. From the Buffyverse, the most purely annoying character by far is Andrew. I still cringe whenever I hear Tom Lenk's voice in a film. He turned up in Argo. I wanted a warning put on the dvd box. Tess from Roswell should be on that list. She annoyed me so much. And maybe DeRavin's character (Claire) from Lost should be on the list too, along with her boyfriend (whose name I luckily can't remember now, but the actor was a hobbit in LOTR). But the worst from Lost is a toss-up between the revolting Anna Lucia and that sanctimonious poser Sayid. Those two were HORRIBLE. Camelot was a ten-episode show, but its King Arthur (played by Jamie Campbell Bower) has to rank pretty high among annoying characters. He was the small-screen equivalent to Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker in the last two Star Wars prequels (Anakin was the main guy in Revenge of the Sith, the only Star Wars film you've seen). I wish I could add Anakin to the list even though he was not tv.

Edited 2013-04-04 19:32 (UTC)

I was surprised at Georgina being included, I always thought that she was pretty popular and that was why the Gossip Girl writers kept bringing her character back...

I thought "Real Me," and the revelations that followed, were awesome in the way that they played with the "suddenly introducing a younger character" trope. But I agree; Dawn was mainly annoying because she was supposed to be 14 but acted and was treated like a much younger child, and the audience had a baseline for how teenagers acted within the context of the show's universe. (I work with teenagers, and I can attest to the fact that Dawn is not an inaccurate depiction of a 14-year-old, but there's real life and there's what's actually entertaining to watch.)

I think that the writers were definitely too fixated on writing Dawn as the young innocent to be protected and shielded, the problem was the audience shouting that she was only one or two years younger that the scoobies were at the beginning of the show. It's a shame because they could have taken the opportunity of Buffy's death to mature the character a lot, I always fanwanked that she was extra protected in season 5 because of the monks wanting the other characters to feel that way about her, hence Real Me even drawing attention to Dawn being too old for a babysitter.. You got the feeling that Joyce had coddled her a lot and she had been protected from a lot of stuff, but you would expect her to mature fast after losing her mother and then Buffy. But then you get to season 6 with the others still babysitting her, Willow covering her eyes from Spike/Anya sex, Tara not wanting her to see a picture of a demon even, and it all just felt like it was going a bit too far when she was 15 and Bts had started with Buffy and co aged 16

Dawn never annoyed me. I got tired really fast of Kennedy, however. OMG! Pushy, better-than-you kinda girl... I get that she knows who she is and what she wants and she goes for it but.... sheesh...

I think Dawn would have worked better if she had been younger, like 12 or something as I saw mentionned. And after the s5 finale, she felt more filler in season 6 and then still kind of that in 7 so they made Potential and Him (I think those were the only one's) so it'd be more centered on her and they probably dropped the whole key thing a bit fast even though Glory wasn't there anymore. I mean, she was this big mystical green shining energy called the key for the Goddess and then, oh, you're just a normal teenager... I don't know... Too easy, maybe?

She matured a lot in season 7, though, gotta give props for that and I didn't dislike her at all. There actually wasn't enough after season 5 to really form a true feel of her, if you get my drift.

Kennedy was way worse. And Harmony. But then, I felt bad for Harmony. She's a follower... a sheep, as Cordelia once called her. I liked her better in Angel, as weird as it sounds even though there wasn't all that much aside from "Harmony".

Anyway, I kinda get how Dawn could be on a list like that but at the same time, I really don't. Okay, she came in way late in the series and she was kinda there to have people be iffy about her until the big reveal but then she was left in the background again... She did get better and I like her.

Babbling done *laughs*

Edit to add: if they had had some sort of flashbacks of memories the gang felt about Dawn, it might have helped the majority understand more. What everyone felt towards her was different for us, the viewers because she only showed up fr us in season 5 while she felt lways there for everyone else. IDK.

Edited 2013-04-04 23:16 (UTC)

I really thought they took the writing of Kennedy way too far when she was immediately hitting on Willow and making comments about I've swapped arrangements so we will be sharing a bedroom, don't hog the covers. And wtf she had no idea of Willow was even interested in her at that point, waaay too pushy. And then after she became drill-sergeant with the other potentials and started bullying and name calling them, I was done with her. Least favourite Buffy character by far

And they did have a quick flashback of Buffy pushing Dawn on the swings in Blood Ties, and also Buffy in Weight Of The World remembering meeting Dawn as a baby, but those were pretty brief. It would have been fun if they had tried to insert Dawn into flashbacks of old scenes and rework them kinda, but they probably couldn't afford to pay for the computer effects I guess?

Yeah, I was thinking flashbacks with Willow or Xander, given she had a crush on the guy and Xander acknowledged it and all. It would have been fun to see. They probably didn't have the budget for that, seeing as ASH wasn't much in the last 2 seasons (I know that was also his decision to move and all). And Dawn as a baby and Buffy pushing Dawn on the swing was really nothing lol

Yep, Kennedy... ugh!! How did Willow ever fall for her. She's totally contrary to Tara and even Oz. And Xander. Just... ugh.

Yeah the swings flashback was kind of lame lol. Random but I also hated how they gave little Buffy super blonde hair in season 5 in photos and the WOTW flashback, that's not how she appeared in season 1 of Buffy... It was always obvious that she bleached her hair for season 2

And the only logic behind W/K seemed to be that there were two lesbians in the house, obviously they would both be attracted to one another :shrug: Kennedy really had nothing in common with any of the type of people that Willow had been attracted too in the past

I read that SMG had to ask permission to cut her hair in season 6. Either that or her cutting her hair has made them all rewrite Gone.

Totally off topic... lol

She probably had to do something with her hair after the show got picked up. It didn't really matter for season 1 but season 2 was major. IDK.

For the flashback at the swing, that was totally useless. They could have done soooooo much better with that.

And W/K, I agree. Willow turned gay for Tara and now she was gone and they HAD to give her another love interest so I guess they just plucked Kennedy in there and why not make her a potential for extra special? They couldn't make Willow be bi now, could they? That would have been fun I think. Some would not agree I think. I don't hate that Willow's gay, at all, but it would have been a cool twist anyway. Kennedy was... convenient... I haven't read the comics so I don't know if they stayed together long or not... I'm happy Willow found someone new but Kennedy?

I agree that the disconnect between Dawn's age and they way they wrote her age is the biggest problem with the character. I can't say I ever had any particular problem with her but it was annoying how the writers used her in season 6 to drag Buffy down. I'm sure they would have found another way to keep her down since that is where they wanted her but Dawn was a convenient plot device for that.

Yes, season 6 was really the only time her character bothered me as well, and I suppose it was partly because she was used as a way to add to Buffy's burden. It used to annoy me in As You Werre that she just tells Buffy it's garbage day when surely she was old enough to help out herself and share chores with Buffy

Heh. I have an eight year old. Dawn was PLENTY old enough to help out.

The writers were set on portraying Buffy more as a mother figure I guess, instead of two sisters working out an arrangement for themselves after the loss of their mother

They should have either cast a younger actress like they originally planned, or they should have upped the age of the character in the writing. I don't find Dawn annoying, but I am annoyed by the weird disconnect of how the show treats her and how the show treated the Scoobies when they were only 1-2 years older (depending on what season of Dawn you're talking about).

Yeah, like I was saying to sabotabby, it doesn't bother me as much in season 5 when Dawn has just been created by the monks and is extra sheltered by Joyce for reasons I can fanwank, but it gets awkward when she's 15 in season 6 and gets treated more like a ten year old in the writing much of the time, even though Buffy and her friends were pretty much saving the world at close to that age. I mean seriously what's with Tara asking if she wants her pancakes made into funny shapes, she's not eight for goodness sake

Edited 2013-04-05 03:19 (UTC)

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Well Dawn made the list...

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