10 Protagonists Worth Hating

Luke Fon Fabre is a clone of the real Luke Fon Fabre who basically does nothing but screw up the world. It’s a running joke that Tales series protagonists do more damage than Tales series antagonists, but Luke takes the cake by dropping entire continents into the poisonous ocean of sludge that exists at his planet’s core. In fact, he was pretty much designed to be a world destroying weapon, and while he could use this power for good if he really wanted to, he’s too busy whining like a spoiled rich kid to get his head on straight. This combination of ultimate power and childish whininess makes him on our list of 10 Protagonists Worth Hating.

Speaking of child whiners, it took a long time for the prince to grow up. Then again, his whininess kind of destroyed time itself, resetting it back to the original calamity where the Vizier unleashed the sands of time three or four separate times. So perhaps it didn’t really take that long at all for him to cut his hair and start taking responsibility for himself. It just took a few seconds that he had to live over, and over, and over again.

Big Daddys in the first BioShock were awesome monsters that protected horrible demonic little girls that would siphon genetic materials from corpses. This was certainly morally ambiguous enough to make most of us hate them, but Delta, the Big Daddy main character from BioShock 2, was far more hateable. What’s worse than a semi-sentient steampunk monstrosity with a drill for a hand? A steampunk monstrosity with a drill for a hand that is as fragile as a piece of paper.

Johnny Cage is one of the most important protagonists in the Mortal Kombat storyline… and he is a total douche. That’s not our opinion, that’s an honest to goodness fact. He tattooed his own name across his chest and he wears a belt with his last name studded in gold and diamonds. His special technique is a punch to the crotch. His entire plot revolves around how he thinks he is too awesome to lose and just so happens to prove himself right, saving the world in the process. If you don’t hate Johnny Cage, you should probably take off the backwards cap and drink less Muscle Milk, brozilla.

Raiden was hated for one reason and one reason only -- he wasn’t Snake. We booted up Metal Gear Solid 2 expecting to play another epic stealth game with a gruff bearded super spy and instead we got this blonde haired pretty boy that scored a solid 7-8 on the whine-o-meter. Metal Gear Solid 2 goes down as one of the greatest trolls in video game history, essentially denying an entire fanbase their favorite protagonist and replacing it with a much more hateable one.

The first family of Tekken, the Mishima’s have been the protagonists of the series since game one… and they are all detestable human beings. When they aren’t throwing their loved ones into volcanoes or off cliffs, they are busy being possessed by the devil and running huge corrupt corporations. There is nothing good about the Mishimas, and the idea that the family might have spawned a “good guy” is laughable. The whole family is deserving of their spot on our list of 10 Protagonists Worth Hating.

If you don’t hate Kratos, you might be a sociopath. Think about it. His solution to every problem is indiscriminate murder. Townsfolk, mythological creatures, gods, legendary heroes, and even his own family and love interests, none are safe from Kratos’s wrath. Not to mention, he isn’t particularly surgical with his murderings. Would you like a guy who rips out eyes and brains with his bare hands, just because he has a few daddy issues?

Alright, here’s the story. The love of your life sadly dies. You trek across the world to seek a power that can bring her back to life, but all you find is a mysterious temple with an ominous dark voice telling you to kill creatures that most of the rest of the world considered to be gods. Do you really take the advice from the ominous dark voice from nowhere? The main character from Shadow of the Colossus did, and he’s an idiot.

Spoiler warning!  Seriously if you haven’t played Silent Hill 2 stop reading this. Are you still reading? OK. James killed his own wife. Sure, she was sick and sure, he was sexually frustrated, and sure, she was essentially dead to him already, but he still murdered her. This act was so horrendous that he blocked it from his memory and the nightmare world of Silent Hill created a maze of monsters (*cough cough* Pyramid Head *cough*), for him to survive. While he is Silent Hill’s most loved protagonist, he is still a detestable human being.

HOLY HELL SPOILERS SERIOUSLY STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED THIS GAME! Finally, our last entry on our list of 10 Protagonists Worth Hating is Joel from The Last of Us. Why Joel you may ask? Well, The Last of Us asks a very important question. “What does it mean to be human?” At the beginning of the game it appears as if Joel has lost all his humanity. He has ceased to care about others and instead looks at life through a lens of constant pragmatism. Human life doesn’t mean anything to him. All that matters is making it to tomorrow. Then, when Elly is forced into his care, he does everything he can to get rid of her, despite the fact that she might hold the cure for humanity’s fungus borne zombie plague. However, the rest of humanity, every contact he has left, continues to tell him that Elly is his responsibility, and so he grits his teeth, protecting her, continuing to bring her closer to the fireflies in order to find the cure. But when it turns out that she has to die for the cure to be found, he refuses, murdering the fireflies and taking her away, even in spite of Elly’s own wishes. So perhaps it was Joel’s humanity, his love for Elly to the extent of dooming both her and the rest of the human race, that truly made Joel hateable. Maybe true humanity, is just selfishness.