History YMMV / Hollyoaks

* MemeticMutation: Gabby stomping across a tiled floor, Noah banging on a door.

* MagnificentBastard: {{S|erialKiller}}ilas. He manages to get away with murdering his wife and three young girls while coming across as a lovely old man, and makes it look as if [[HospitalHottie Lynsey]] is going mad for trying to rightfully out him as being a murderer. He set up cameras in her home to watch her every move, and was GenreSavvy enough to remove them before the police searched the place. When Lynsey knocks Silas unconscious in the woods, he even manages to make out that he's been in France all morning. He then gets Brendan arrested for the murders, because he was starting to suspect him, and had warned Silas to stay away from Lynsey.

* HotterAndSexier: Definitely averted with Kurt Benson on his recent return from the dead - he is far less shapely and far more wrinkly than during the days when he was arguably the show's leading stud.

** Any and all characters who come between John Paul McQueen and Craig Dean will get this, even if they are beloved before as poor Ste Hay can protest. This is probably the reason why whenever either of them briefly return to the show and depart, it will be written as the couple getting back together.

%%** [[StraightGay John Paul]]/[[IfItsYouItsOK Craig]], even after various attempts to break them up. They became one of the show's SuperCouple and even have a separate article about their relationship on Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}. When John Paul return in 2012 by breaking up with Craig, fans either declare FanonDiscontinuity or ask ''when'' (not if) they will be back together.

* EpilepticTrees: If one imagines Hollyoaks is [[WildMassGuessing actually]] an alien recreation of an extinct humanity, based entirely on salvaged copies of Heat magazine and Hello, it's surprising how much the [[IdiotPlot plots]] and characters start to make sense.

** Similarly in 2020, the depression and suicide storyline involving Darren Osbourne and Kyle Kelly prevented at least one person from commiting suicide and encouraged them to seek help.

** Leanne Holiday. Fans hated her for breaking up the liked relationship between her ex Lee and Amy Barnes, which she [[KarmaHoudini never got comeuppance for]]. However producer Paul Marquess considered her his favourite character. When a poll was run on who fans' favourite new character was from the 2010 class, she came last with 7%, and the next year when a poll asked who fans wanted to see fall victim to serial killer Silas Blissett [[note]]This poll featured just about every young woman in the cast[[/note]], she got nearly 60% of the vote.

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** The streetlighting on the set - which does not, as far as we know, appear in Cheshire.
** Kevin, the friend of Elliot who claimed to be an alien, created a Beacon to signal Proxima Centauri... which is located in the ''Southern Hemisphere''.

* {{Narm}}: Some of the storylines tend to feature this;
** Jacqui's repeated declarations of "E' Raped Me!" during the Gilly storyline, Steph using "But I've got Cancer!" as justification for pretty much ''everything'' and Myra's hysterical wailing "But I'm ''dying!''" when she actually ''wasn't''.
** NarmCharm: [[spoiler: Texas']] tragic death by defenestration. Due to the magic of slow-motion, the three seconds it ''should'' take to fall from a second storey window, gets stretched out to nearly half a minute and as a result, accidentally goes from horrifying to almost ''hilarious'' in how over the top it's played.

* FoeYay: Walker seemed to enjoy his various revenge plots against Brendan, a little ''too'' much.

* CompleteMonster: Laurie Shelby is a serial rapist and abuser who carries out a several months long campaign of sexual harassment against a colleague, while at the very same time gaslighting and isolating his wife, who he also rapes more than once. He then attempts to force himself on Diane Hutchinson after she calls him out on his actions and is only stopped by being thrown off the school building.

* FanPreferredCouple:
** [[StraightGay John Paul]]/[[IfItsYouItsOK Craig]], even after various attempts to break them up. They became one of the show's SuperCouple and even have a separate article about their relationship on Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}. When John Paul return in 2012 by breaking up with Craig, fans either declare FanonDiscontinuity or ask ''when'' (not if) they will be back together.
** A good number of fans want Lily to get together with Tom, rather than with Prince.

** Darren & Nancy, at least [[WhatDoesSheSeeInHim to some]].
** Callum/George has its fans.

** Glenn Donovan might have been a villain, but he was still a particularly charmless, unpopular one who had an affair with his son Adam's wife Maxine, later murdered Adam and made sure his body was dumped in front of Maxine. Glenn was also a domestic abuser towards his girlfriend Grace. Glenn was even a Scrappy in-universe, as a large chunk of the village population grouped togeather to plan to kill him! He was eventually killed by serial killer Breda.

** Jude Monk McGowan as Liam Donovan. His version of the character lasted a bit longer than the first actor Maxim Baldry, and had a much more interesting personality and was more involved with storylines and had more of a fanbase.

* TheWoobie: Too many to list!

** Hannah Ashworth definitely qualified. She suffered from an eating disorder and tried subtly to talk to her friends about it, but they didn't notice. She was deeply in love with her boyfriend John Paul, but he was struggling to come to terms with being gay. Hannah later befriended Melissa, another girl with an eating disorder, and saw Melissa die right in front of her. Then there's her being sectioned, finding out about her best friend Sarah's death, almost dying herself in a fire... and that's not even a complete list! More recent examples include Doug after contemplating suicide, and Carmel during her facial scarring storyline.

** Sid Sumner. His mother died when he was a child, he was mostly raised by his father Stuart, who was a far-right extremist who beat Sid. Sid ended up pushing Stuart off a cliff to stop him from killing Ste, but that ended up killing Stuart, which traumatised Sid. He was them homeless for a bit. He's been mugged several times, his cousin Jordan got him into drug dealing. Sid was deeply in love with girlfriend Juliet, only for his heart was broken when she turned out to be a lesbian, but he was still completely supportive of her. He often tried to get Juliet and Jordan out of trouble, but would end up getting hurt himself. He overdosed on ketamine after several problems got on top of him, which led to him being in a car accident which meant his leg had to be amputated. Jordan, Sid's only remaining biological family member, was murdered, and Sid himself ended up being stabbed while trying to get evidence to the police to bring Victor down and get Juliet out of prison. Not only is this not the full list, everything after his father's death happened to him in JUST OVER A YEAR!

** Tom Cunningham. In order, his father, mother, baby niece, older brother[=/=]surrogate father figure, and sister-in-law[=/=]surrogate mother figure all die, his parents within weeks of one another; his widowed sister-in-law's second husband & Tom's second surrogate father figure is accused (But eventually cleared) of rape, but leaves the village anyway following the {{Retcon}} that he did commit rape. And all before he's hit puberty. Then another potential father figure, Darren, is tricked into believing he's nothing but a little pervert and a liar, and left him for a long time, which only really ended after what could have escalated easily into an attempt on his life and his being kidnapped for months due to finding out that Sienna wasn't really pregnant. Then the girl he has a crush on gets a brain tumour and refuses to have surgery, although he [[ThrowTheDogABone sorts that one out]]. Made worse by the fact that, unlike most characters, the only really bad thing he's other done (frame Sienna for stealing a baby, with the fairly understandable motive that she was let off on bail after kidnapping him) he went to the police and owned up for (also denying Perri's involvement, as she wouldn't have had any real excuse) it.