Unintentionally Unsympathetic / True Blood

• Bill Compton. Part of the reason he's so controversial in the fandom is because there are numerous moments when the show tries to frame him as sympathetic but instead achieves the opposite effect. Most of that has to do with Bill committing some pretty vile acts over the course of the show, and intentionally screwing people over for petty and selfish reasons (which results in those people either getting hurt or killed), and yet the show continues to present him as a likable character the audience is supposed to root for in spite of that.
  • In Season 1, we're supposed to applaud Bill for kicking Malcolm, Liam, and Diane, a trio of bloodthirsty vampires out of his life because their behavior is disgusting. This falls apart for a couple of reasons: The first is that Bill still had these vampires over at his house despite knowing what kind of people they were, and only seemed to have a problem with it when Sookie freaked out after coming over to his house and considered dumping him. This makes it look like his reasons for cutting ties with the trio isn't because he had any moral qualms about what they were doing, but because they made him look bad in front of Sookie, which forced him to save face with her. The second problem is that in the previous episode, Bill told Sookie that when he first turned into a vampire, he only ever killed a few humans on accident. Yet this episode reveals that not only did Bill lie about that, but that he was an active participant in this nest going all the way back to the 1930s, and he still continued to hang out with them behind Sookie's back despite claiming he's a mainstreamer. At best, this makes him look like a Hypocrite, and at worst, it makes him look untrustworthy. It also calls into question whether he's actually genuine about mainstreaming, or if this is just an act for Sookie and he secretly has a hidden agenda.
  • The graveyard scene in season 1 between Bill and Sookie. According to Stephen Moyer (the actor who plays Bill), Bill's intention was to rape Sookie in that scene. Where the "unintentional" part comes into this is that the show tries to sell this relationship as romantic (and that Bill has truly fallen in love with Sookie at this point) yet he is still willing to force himself on her regardless of whether or not she gives consent. This leads to ugly implications about how this relationship is being portrayed. Season 3 only makes this scene worse when it's revealed that Bill let the Rattarays beat the shit out of Sookie so he could feed her his blood (which has been described as an aphrodisiac and a powerful drug that messes around with a person's mental and emotional state), and use that to manipulate her during their relationship. So not only was Bill trying to force himself on Sookie, he was doing it after he deliberately drugged her and while his blood was still in her system.
  • We're supposed to have sympathy for Bill in his flashbacks when he cuts ties with Lorena (his maker) and see it as him reclaiming his humanity despite being a vampire. While there's no question that Lorena was a truly awful person, the issue has to do with Bill's motivations for finally dumping Lorena. He claims to be disgusted with her and says he wants "No more bloody beds; No more cruelty for sport." However, the moment he gets free from Lorena, he immediately joins up with Malcolm, Liam, and Diane (three vampires who were shown to be just as cruel and bloodthirsty as Lorena) and participates with them in their sadistic escapes while still affiliating with them at the beginning of season 1. We also find out later that he's been employed by Queen Sophie Anne for 35 years to procure humans for her and force them into prostitution on her behalf. It doesn't help that during a conversation between Lorena and Bill in season 3, it's revealed that Bill took just as much delight in the carnage and suffering he caused with Lorena, and that she didn't force him to enjoy it. In addition to how disingenuous and hypocritical it makes Bill look when he claims to care about humans, it also gives the impression Bill only cut ties with Lorena because he grew tired of her and not because he was morally revolted with what they had been doing for 70 years.
  • Speaking of which, the reveal that Bill works as a procurer for Queen Sophie Anne counts. In season 3, Russell finds out about this and has Bill go to a strip club to procure a human for them to feast on. We're supposed to feel bad for Bill here because he appears reluctant to do this, and because he apparently sympathizes with the woman he procures. The problem is that Bill has been doing this exact same thing to other humans for 35 years, with his actions being forced prostitution at best and Human Trafficking at worst. And unlike with Russell, it's stated Bill was specifically employed by the Queen for this job, which means he was getting paid to do it. Furthermore, we later find out at the end of season 3 that the entire reason Bill came to Bon Temps at the beginning of the show was because he had been sent by QSA to procure Sookie, which means he was still in the Queen's employment during the period of time he claimed to be mainstreaming. All of this makes Bill's reluctance look insincere. And then there's the entire matter of the woman he procures: The show tries to frame this as a Mercy Kill on Bill's part since the woman is depressed and feels like she has nothing else in her life to look forward to. In addition to this scene being laced with Unfortunate Implications, the problem is that what Bill is doing is eerily similar to those mission-oriented Serial Killers in real life who target vulnerable people: He goes after the most broken, beaten-down person he can find in that club who has no family and friends (and therefore no one would miss if she disappeared) and uses the fact that's she's already suicidal as a justification for why it's okay to procure her for Russell. Given that Bill has been procuring humans for the Queen for decades, it's implied that he used similar rationalizations when he found humans to hand off to the Queen so she could use them however she wanted to. Not only is this despicable, it makes Bill's behavior look downright villainous instead of sympathetic.
  • The ending of season 3 drops the twist that Bill had been sent by Queen Sophie Anne to procure her, and that in order to get into a relationship with Sookie, Bill intentionally stood by when the Rattarays were beating Sookie up so that she would have no choice except to take his blood (which was a powerful drug and an aphrodisiac) so he could manipulate her feelings. This is pretty heinous on its own, but the issue is the show tries to make it out like Bill is the victim when Eric reveals this information to Sookie as a way of breaking apart their relationship. The problem is that, regardless of whether or not he developed genuine feelings for Sookie, Bill had multiple opportunities to come clean about what he had done. Not only does he refuse to do this, he attempts to have Eric and Pam killed since they know his dirty secrets, and tried Gaslighting Sookie into believing he was killing people to protect her when the reality was he was trying to protect himself and had zero intention of ever telling Sookie the truth. Furthermore, the revelation not only makes Bill look like an abusive boyfriend, it paints his entire relationship with Sookie in a more horrifying light: He let Sookie get beat up, drugged her, used that to get into her pants, and was manipulating her at various points during the relationship. Because of this, it's hard not to see an enraged Sookie throwing Bill out of her house as Laser-Guided Karma.
• Sookie. and usually to her own best friend and others who are trying to help her! Throughout the show, she manages to anger and hurt a lot of people around her for her own selfish needs, ususally involving whomever she's screwing at the time. In season 2, while Tara is still dealing with the trauma of having witnessed the corpse of the woman who gave her and her mom an exorcism that turned out to be a fraud, Sookie makes Tara talk to the police, which leads to her seeing her estranged mother yet again abusing Tara.
  • In the beginning of Season 3, Sookie confesses to Tara that she helped Eggs, Tara's ex by death, remember everything he did with Maryann when she put a spell on the entire town. Tara is understandably upset, seeing as that was her boyfriend. What really drives this home is that Sookie has the nerve to tell Tara that they're in the same boat because Bill is gone too.
  • Another egregious example is in Season 3. When Tara is kidnapped by Franklin, after escaping—which, mind you, Tara orchestrated while Sookie was crying in the next room over Bill, Sookie actually gets mad at Tara for having not-so-friendly thoughts towards Bill, who could have saved her if he really wanted to, but chose not to. Despite Tara's repeated and understandable reaction after being raped by Franklin for quite some time, Sookie is extremely unsympathetic to Tara. She even has the nerve to call her insensitive as they carry Bill's almost dead body into the getaway truck! In the same season, Sookie forces Alcide to take her to a bar so she can get whereabouts on Bill, although Alcide is fresh off of a breakup with his ex, Debbie Pelt and probably does not want to hang around the gang who associates with her new man. After Jason tells Sookie that he killed Eggs, Sookie demands that he tell Tara, her best friend who literally just got done being raped repeatedly by a vampire on a plantation no less so that he's not lying to her. But this isn't because she genuinely cares about Tara's feelings. It's because she is speaking for herself, since she doesn't trust Bill at the time. Jason even lampshades this by telling her that nobody can lie to her. Sookie responds by saying that vampires can, which shows us that she wants Bill to tell her the truth about why he's being so secretive when it comes to her supernatural genetics. This has nothing to do with helping her best friend who literally just dealth with a boatload of trauma. She also misses work so much that Sam constantly has to hire new bartenders, yet expects to have a job when she returns from her latest vampire drama just because her boss is in love with her. Also, in the last season, Sookie, after ignoring all of Sam's advances for years, actually has the nerve to run back to Sam and ask him to be with her! Seeing Sookie almost die on numerous occasions almost feels gratifying considering everything that she puts her friends and family through!
  • In Season 4, Sookie begins dating amnesia Eric despite the fact that Eric tortured Lafayette for weeks and almost killed Tara! She also invades the privacy of her friends' minds whenever she feels like it, although they have explicity expressed that they do not like that.
• Hoyt falls into this for some fans during his relationship with Jessica, like dumping all responsibility on Jessica (like demanding she cook him dinner) while being dismissive of her (like when she tried to heal him), and then blaming her for the relationship deteriorating without accepting any responsibility on his part. Even after the break-up, he doesn't really try to mend fences with Jessica, and just expects her to take him back after being nasty over the break-up. Even if what happened wasn't okay, it's not like Hoyt doesn't deserve some blame for his acting incredibly self-absorbed.
  • Hoyt's behavior in season 5 deserves special mention here: While it might be understandable that he feels hurt over his breakup with Jessica and Jason getting together with her, the way that he behaves in the aftermath is less understandable. For one thing, despite having been cruel towards Jessica during their break-up and throwing her out of his house, there is never an instance where he apologizes to her for this or tries to talk with her about what went wrong in their relationship. Instead, he continues to act like he's entitled to Jessica even though they're no longer together. At one point, he expects her to take him back even when Jessica makes it clear that she's done with him, and gets angry with her when she refuses to do so. Later on, Hoyt gets picked up by a hate group and proceeds to trash-talk Jessica to them. Keep in mind that when this is going on, he had just witnessed this group kill a vampire right in front of him in the previous episode, which means he's perfectly aware of who these people are and that they're targeting innocent supernaturals. Instead of recognizing that they're a bunch of dangerous psychopaths that need to be reported to the police, Hoyt proceeds to join this group (including willingly going with them on one of their hunts) and verbally expresses a desire to see Jessica dead. To accommodate him, members of the Hate Group kidnap Jessica, take her to their hideout, bind her with silver, and give Hoyt a gun to kill her while they leave the room. Rather than recognizing that Jessica's life is in danger and immediately helping her, he proceeds to sit there with her for several hours (even when she begs him to take the silver off), slut-shames her for sleeping with Jason, tries to justify why it's okay to kill her, holds a gun to her head, and only asks why Jessica broke up with him when she's tied up and not in a position to argue with him. While he does eventually let her go, it's still doesn't change the fact that he nearly endangered Jessica's life: If one of the members of the hate group had come back into the room and stayed there to make sure Hoyt followed through, it's very likely Jessica could have been killed. Even after letting her go, he still tells her to go fuck herself before leaving. Several critics and fans have pointed out that not only is Hoyt's behavior deeply unsympathetic, it makes him look like a misogynist who has no respect for Jessica. Even when he comes back in season 7, there is no instance where he ever apologizes or owns up to how nasty and hateful he became.