History Main / HateSink

This is not the same as JerkAss or DesignatedVillain. The key here is in the story that the character comes from. The writers are giving you someone to hate simply for the sake of it, because they were probably sitting around thinking, well we need someone for the audience to say, "I hate that guy." But the character is sort of an afterthought to the actual plot.

** Let's go for King story number 3: Percy Wetmore in ''TheGreenMile''. You can't hate the racism in the '30s that put John Coffey on Death Row; you can't hate the system for making sure he'll die in the electric chair; and you sure as hell can't hate Old Sparky itself. But you can definitely hate Percy, who uses the fact that he's the nephew of the governor's wife to duck authority at every turn...even after ''roasting a man alive in the chair''. His comeuppance comes in the form of Mr. Coffey, who "uses him as a gun" to kill a slightly lesser HateSink in William Wharton, then leaves him catatonic.
** Wharton is just as bad a HateSink or worse. "Brutally raped and murdered two little girls" will do that for you.

* ''DieHard'': The reporter. The German terrorists/bank robbers have awesome accents and their leader is the perfect villain to love: intelligent, WickedCultured, and [[AffablyEvil compassionate to the hostages]], but swift and deadly toward the authorities and driven by greed. So who do you hate? The annoying reporter that ends up exposing who John [=McClane=] really is and that his wife is one of the hostages. Possibly the greatest comeuppance example: he is punched by Holly [=McClane=] at the end.
** The same reporter gets zapped with a stun gun by the same Holly [=McClane=] in ''Die Hard 2''. William Atherton seems to have made a career playing jerks we love to hate. Speaking of which...

This character is not the main villain and is usually not a villain at all. They are not causing the struggle the heroes must overcome, although their actions always make the heroes job more difficult. Their list of character traits usually include selfishness, stubbornness, greed, holier-than-thou contempt, and simply the inexhaustible ability to make bad decisions. Basically, they exist to be hated. Every action they perform and every piece of dialogue they utter, is designed to incite rage in the audience. They usually get their comeuppance in a very audience satisfying scene.

* ''SpongeBobSquarePants'': Plankton usually fills this role, although [[IdiotPlot Idiot Plots]] can induce this in a few others.
* ''PersonsUnknown'': We don't know who's behind the kidnappings of our main cast, but Bill Blackham, played by Sean O'Bryan, seems to be a repository for all the negative reactions one could have to being kidnapped and placed in a ghost town. Everything he does is selfish or irrational, especially his [[spoiler: forcing Janet's gas mask away from her (which [[HoistByHisOwnPetard backfires]]), trying to rape Tori, and blackmailing Charlie when he finds out about Charlie's possible MercyKill / serial killing of his wife]].

* ''ResidentEvilAfterlife'': Kim Koates plays the annoying Bennett, a movie producer trapped in an LA prison with a few other survivors. His character is the classic HateSink. It is utterly one dimensional, and can be lifted right out of the story. He is of course, rude, selfish, and disagrees with every other main character on decisions. [[spoiler:When things start to go wrong he shoots a fellow survivor and then escapes in a small plane leaving the rest behind. Then in the climax he does the bidding of the main evil character so that he is saved. But he get's his just dessert when the heroes, of course, kill the main villain and leave him to be eaten by some unseen horror.]]

* ''{{Titanic}}'': Billy Zane's character, Cal. Let's face it, you can't be pissed at the boat sinking, because you secretly can't wait to digest every detail of it. But you can hate this guy. He is designed to be hated. He is the anti-Jack. He [[ItWillNeverCatchOn disparages the Picasso paintings]]; he [[BastardBoyfriend verbally and physically abuses Rose]]; he [[MurderTheHypotenuse tries to have Jack killed]]; is exposed to care more about money than Rose; and finally cowardly escapes on a lifeboat using a small child. Although he survives, he is deprived of Rose in the end, loses his money through bad investments and ultimately puts a pistol in his mouth and that is the audiences' consolation.
* ''IndependenceDay'': The Secretary of Defense, Mr. Nimzicki. The aliens are inscrutable, have {{cool ship}}s and bring the MonumentalDamage and massive carnage that is [[JustHereForGodzilla the reason you bought the ticket]]. This guy knows about the aliens ahead of time but stays silent to give the President "plausible deniability." He continually pushes the use of nukes that are ineffective. He cockily celebrates victory too soon only to immediately be proven wrong. Finally he is the only person to disagree with the final plan that ends up working. His comeuppance is being fired by President Whitmore in person.

** Let's go for King story number 3: Percy Wetmore in ''TheGreenMile''. You can't hate the racism in the '30s that put John Coffey on Death Row; you can't hate the system for making sure he'll die in the electric chair; and you sure as hell can't hate Old Sparky himself. But you can definitely hate Percy, who uses the fact that he's the nephew of the governor's wife to duck authority at every turn...even after ''roasting a man alive in the chair''. His comeuppance comes in the form of Mr. Coffey, who "uses him as a gun" to kill a slightly lesser HateSink in William Wharton, then leaves him catatonic.

* You can't hate the titular [[EldritchAbomination eldritch abominations]] from ''TheLangoliers'' (especially since they're just [[HellIsThatNoise a creepy noise closing in from over the horizon]] for most of the story). And there's no one to really blame for stranding them in the past. But there's Toomy. Hateful, spiteful, assholish, with Freudian excuses and issues stacked high, who annoys, irritates and backstabs. Yeah, you can hate Toomy. You can't ''not'' hate Toomy. He gets eaten by the title ClockRoaches near the end of the movie.
** In a similar Stephen King example, in the live action production of ''TheMist'', the monsters are terrifying but you can't completely hate them because they don't appear to be acting with true malice. They're just following their instincts to eat and reproduce. But boy, oh boy, can you ever hate Mrs. Carmody, the shrill, hateful Jesus freak who looks down her nose at anyone who isn't as "righteous" as she is and whipped the mob into a religious frenzy that almost resulted in the murder of the protagonist's young son.
* Carl Anhauser from ''TwentyTwelve''...is a subversion of this, surprisingly. While he acts like a dick for much of the movie and occasionally lashes out at people, he's still trying to keep as many people alive as possible, and the movie never really paints him as a completely ''bad'' person.

* You can't hate the titular [[EldritchAbomination eldritch abominations]] from ''TheLangoliers''. And there's no one to really blame for stranding them in the past. But there's Toomy. Hateful, spiteful, assholish, with Freudian excuses and issues stacked high, who annoys, irritates and backstabs. Yeah, you can hate Toomy. You can't ''not'' hate Toomy. He gets eaten by the title ClockRoaches near the end of the movie.
** In a similar Stephen King example, in the live action production of TheMist, the monsters are terrifying but you can't completely hate them because they don't appear to be acting with true malice. They're just following their instincts to eat and reproduce. But boy, oh boy, can you ever hate Mrs. Carmody, the shrill, hateful Jesus freak who looks down her nose at anyone who isn't as "righteous" as she is and whipped the mob into a religious frenzy that almost resulted in the murder of the protagonist's young son.
* Carl Anhauser from TwentyTwelve...is a subversion of this, surprisingly. While he acts like a dick for much of the movie and occasionally lashes out at people, he's still trying to keep as many people alive as possible, and the movie never really paints him as a completely ''bad'' person.

* Carl Anheuser from TwentyTwelve...is a subversion of this, surprisingly. While he acts like a dick for much of the movie and occasionally lashes out at people, he's still trying to keep as many people alive as possible, and the movie never really paints him as a completely ''bad'' person.

** In a similar Stephen King example, in the live action production of TheMist, the monsters are terrifying but you can't completely hate them because they don't appear to be acting with true malice. They're just following their instincts to eat and reproduce. But boy, oh boy, can you ever hate Mrs. Carmody, the shrill, hateful Jesus freak who looks down her nose at anyone who isn't as "righteous" as she is and whipped the mob into a religious frenzy that almost resulted in the murder of a child.

* ''{{Ghostbusters}}'': Walter Peck, the bureaucrat. You can't hate ghosts. But this pencil pusher is pissed that someone has the audacity to be as cool as the ghost busters. So he shuts their containment system down causing the climax of the movie.

* ''IndependenceDay'': The Secretary of Defense, Mr. Nimzicki. The aliens are inscrutable, have {{cool ship}}s and bring the MonumentalDamage and massive carnage that is [[JustHereForGodzilla the reason you bought the ticket]] This guy knows about the aliens ahead of time but stays silent to give the President "plausible deniability." He continually pushes the use of nukes that are ineffective. He cockily celebrates victory too soon only to immediately be proven wrong. Finally he is the only person to disagree with the final plan that ends up working. His comeuppance is being fired by President Whitmore in person.

* ''{{Titanic}}'': Billy Zane's character, Cal. Let's face it, you cant be pissed at the boat sinking, because you secretly can't wait to digest every detail of it. But you can hate this guy. He is designed to be hated. He is the anti-Jack. He [[ItWillNeverCatchOn disparages the Picasso paintings]]; he [[BastardBoyfriend verbally and physically abuses Rose]]; he [[MurderTheHypotenuse tries to have Jack killed]]; is exposed to care more about money than Rose; and finally cowardly escapes on a lifeboat using a small child. Although he survives, he is deprived of Rose in the end, loses his money through bad investments and ultimately puts a pistol in his mouth and that is the audiences' consolation.

* ''{{Twister}}'': Cary Elwes plays the corporate-backed scientist Jonas. You can't rage at the tornadoes, right? They're a force of nature, and they inspire awe in the heroes and give them purpose. But this guy "sold-out" and got corporate funding, making him a puppet of TheMan ([[WallBanger and why would a scientist ever want funding?]]). His team travel in four sinsterly identical black [=SUVs=] compared to our RagtagBunchOfMisfits' ragtag assortment of vehicles, he's a hack that doesn't know the true science and just copies the heroes or relies too much on the instruments rather than the clairvoyant way that Helen Hunt just stares at the storm and knows which way it will go. Ultimately, his whole team is sucked into the storm when he arrogantly ignores the heroes' warnings.

* In the ''MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' novel ''DeadhouseGates'' the Chain of Dogs (a massive host of refugees marching across the continent) is constantly being attacked by enemy armies, but our viewpoint character for these sections of the story never gets more than a few glimpses of the enemy leaders. Without a face or personality to put to them, it's hard to dislike the armies of the Apocalypse on a personal level. Instead we're invited to vent our loathing upon a group of whiny nobles within the Chain of Dogs, who protest the CanonSue's actions at every turn, are openly cruel to their servants, and get a lot of their fellow refugees killed.

* ''IndependenceDay'': The Secretary of Defense. The aliens are inscrutable, have {{cool ship}}s and bring the MonumentalDamage and massive carnage that is [[JustHereForGodzilla the reason you bought the ticket]] This guy knows about the aliens ahead of time but stays silent to give the President "plausible deniability". He continually pushes the use of nukes that are ineffective. He cockily celebrates victory too soon only to immediately be shown to be wrong. Finally he is the only person to disagree with the final plan that ends up working. His comeuppance is being fired.

* You can't hate the titular [[EldritchAbomination eldritch abominations]] from ''TheLangoliers''. And there's no one to really blame for stranding them in the past. But there's Toomy. Hateful, spiteful, assholish, with freudian excuses and issues stacked high, who annoys, irritates and backstabs. Yeah, you can hate Toomy. You can't ''not'' hate Toomy.

* ''ResidentEvilAfterlife'': Kim Koates plays the annoying Bennett, a movie producer trapped in an LA prison with a few other survivors. His character is the classic HateSink. It is utterly one dimensional, and can be lifted right out of the story. He is of course, rude, selfish, and disagrees with every other main character on decisions. [[spoiler:When things start to go wrong he shoots a fellow survivor and then escapes in a small plane leaving the rest behind. Then in the climax he does the bidding of the main evil character so that he is saved. But get's he just dessert when the heroes of course kill the main villain and leave him to be eaten by some unseen horror.]]

* ''{{ResidentEvilAfterlife}}'': Kim Koates plays the annoying Bennett, a movie producer trapped in an LA prison with a few other survivors. His character is the classic HateSink. It is utterly one dimensional, and can be lifted right out of the story. He is of course, rude, selfish, and disagrees with every other main character on decisions. [[spoiler:When things start to go wrong he shoots a fellow survivor and then escapes in a small plane leaving the rest behind. Then in the climax he does the bidding of the main evil character so that he is saved. But get's he just dessert when the heroes of course kill the main villain and leave him to be eaten by some unseen horror.]]

* ''{{ResidentEvil:Afterlife}}'': Kim Koates plays the annoying Bennett, a movie producer trapped in an LA prison with a few other survivors. His character is the classic HateSink. It is utterly one dimensional, and can be lifted right out of the story. He is of course, rude, selfish, and disagrees with every other main character on decisions. [[spoiler:When things start to go wrong he shoots a fellow survivor and then escapes in a small plane leaving the rest behind. Then in the climax he does the bidding of the main evil character so that he is saved. But get's he just dessert when the heroes of course kill the main villain and leave him to be eaten by some unseen horror.]]

* ''{{Twister}}'': Cary Elwes plays the corporate-backed scientist [[NostalgiaCritic JONAAAASSS!]] You can't rage at the tornadoes, right? They're a force of nature, and they inspire awe in the heroes and give them purpose. But this guy "sold-out" and got corporate funding, making him a puppet of TheMan ([[WallBanger and why would a scientist ever want funding?]]). His team travel in four sinsterly identical black [=SUVs=] compared to our RagtagBunchOfMisfits' ragtag assortment of vehicles, he's a hack that doesn't know the true science and just copies the heroes or relies too much on the instruments rather than the clairvoyant way that Helen Hunt just stares at the storm and knows which way it will go. Ultimately, his whole team is sucked into the storm when he arrogantly ignores the heroes' warnings.

This character is typically found in stories that do not contain a really evil villain that the audience can channel their dislike toward. Examples include disaster stories where there literally is no villain behind it all and certain action movies where the villains are just too cool to hate.

* ''{{Twister}}'': Cary Elwes plays the corporate-backed scientist [[NostalgiaCritic JONAAAASSS!]] . You can't rage at the tornadoes, right? They inspire awe in the heroes and give them purpose. But this guy "sold-out" and got corporate funding making him a puppet of TheMan ([[WallBanger and why would a scientist ever want funding?]]). His team travel in four sinsterly identical black [=SUVs=] compared to our RagtagBunchOfMisfits' ragtag assortment of vehicles, he's a hack that doesn't know the true science and just copies the heroes or relies too much on the instruments rather than the clairvoyant way that Helen Hunt just stares at the storm and knows which way it will go. Ultimately, his whole team is sucked into the storm when he arrogantly ignores the heroes' warnings.