21 Fictional Characters Most Deserving of Pity

In most stories, there are two kinds of characters: those you root for, and those you root against. This holds true even for media whose dynamics are a little more complicated than good guys versus bad guys. We still root for antiheroes like Walter White, and we should root against supposedly redeemed villains like Professor Snape, even if there’s a lot of wizard Nazi fanfiction out there.

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But some characters, you just feel bad for. You can’t root for them because they have no chance of succeeding, and you can’t root against them because they haven’t done anything wrong. Like bystanders in a superhero movie, they and we can only stand helplessly by as the world inexplicably shits on them. It was these characters who Reddit recalled, eyes slightly haunted, when user weeklygrind asked r/AskReddit, “What fictional character do you feel bad for the most?”