Hate Sinks

Hallo! Today is Epiphany! Or Three Kings Day! Share gifts! Wear a crown! Have a wonderful day today! If you don’t, then you’ll be thrown out of the window by royal decree. This is a True Fact. I don’t make the rules.

Anyhow I was thinking about Ted Faro for reasons beyond my ken, and this idea popped into me head.

On Hate Sinks

Okay, so the concept of ‘the Hate Sink’ is actually more difficult to nail down than you might think. The short of it is that it’s a character specifically and intentionally written for the audience to hate. Sounds simple, right? It’s not one of those characters that people hate, but aren’t supposed to–like Jar Jar Binks or Felicity Smoak, who audiences found annoying, though the creators didn’t intend that reaction. It’s someone you look at, and the writer looks at, and says, “That douchebag!”

I’m not saying that a Hate Sink should have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, though they’re always downplayed. I’m not against trotting out sympathetic qualities for a dramatic reason, though those have to be carefully applied. A good example of this is Brent in the final season of The Good Place, though that is admittedly a show about how everyone has the potential to become better, so it’s a rare exception that shouldn’t necessarily serve as a template.

TV Tropes has a bit of trouble with this one, as if you look at their pages listing examples, a lot of them are simply really detestable villain antagonists. But that’s not necessarily what a Hate Sink is; plenty of them aren’t the main antagonists at all, only a minor villain in the overall storyline. Some of them are, to be clear; it’s just not a requirement.

Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter. William Stryker in X-Men. Rawlins/Agent Orange in Punisher. Hammond in the Jurassic Park novel (though not the movie!). Richard in Knives Out. Gabe Ugliano in The Lightning Thief. Mr. Poe in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Agamemnon in many adaptations, notably in Troy (played by the same actor as Stryker!). Wickham in Pride & Prejudice. 

And the crowning example in my mind: Ted Faro from Horizon Zero Dawn and its sequel.

Ted Faro sucks. He caused the apocalypse, and even after that kept screwing over people, refusing to take responsibility for his actions, and doing everything he could to cover up his involvement in the end of the world. He goes to his bunker (filled with statues of himself) with his harem and his guru, and gets mad when they realize how badly he’s effed up the world and humanity’s chances of survival.

He is absolutely garbage.

Thinking about Ted Faro, and how much I hate him, I was wondering: what makes a good Hate Sink? Why does Ted Faro work so well as a guy who different players of different backgrounds can despise with no problem?

This took a lot more thought than I expected, but consider! A good Hate Sink should have:

-Ego - A really good Hate Sink should be egotistical. Nothing is more annoying to others than a person who is full of him/herself. Especially when these characters have no reason to be. When a character is spouting off information that we know to be incorrect (bonus points if the other characters all know it, too), not knowing or caring that anyone else knows that it’s incorrect, then it’s all the more aggravating. It’s like this guy (it’s usually a guy, let’s be real) is too full of himself to even consider that he might be wrong, or that other people have opinions other than his own.

-Applicability - It’s very good to create a Hate Sink who shows real-life qualities that ordinary people dislike. So it’s possible to throw in all the qualities that make this person unlikable that really tick you off personally (as long as it makes sense)! Doesn’t respect personal space! Is rude to retail workers! Talks about political situations in offensive and uninformed ways! Believes ignorant stereotypes! Remember, this person is a grade-A douchebag! It doesn’t have to be so specific that you’re writing real-life people you know into the Plot (I strongly suggest not doing that), but it has to be something that you know the audience has heard before and has had to deal with.

-The Not-Me Factor - I feel as if generally, unlike the sympathetic/well-developed antagonist or villain, a really good Hate Sink is not someone your audience could ever really imagine becoming. Yeah, well-written enough, you could maybe understand how this character became so horrible; still, the most people in the audience shouldn’t be looking at the Hate Sink and saying, “Wait, that could be me!” This is generally achieved with the Hate Sink being something like a sadist teacher, a malevolent billionaire, or a weird sadist, all things that (I hope) are unlikely to be common in the audience.

-Don’t Use Buzzwords in Place of Characterization - In the past few years, it’s been very popular to stick the words of former President Donald Trump in the mouths of villains. The problem is that very often these villains or attempted Hate Sinks don’t actually share any qualities with the real-life man. Season two of Supergirl has one of the villains declare that they’re going to “Make Daxam great again”, but those villains are alien refugees planning to terraform Earth into Daxam–or literally, illegal immigrants coming to destroy America. It doesn’t work to quote an anti-immigrant douchebag if your villains are literally the same people he claims are out there.

-Comeuppance - Of course, the Hate Sink has to get the comeuppance. They will get justice for being a massive jerk for the entire story. Otherwise, the audience is going to be very disappointed with how the story goes. I’m not saying this character has to be impaled or anything, because that doesn’t fit for every story. I’m just saying that it’s good if the story shows that no, this person isn’t going to get away with everything after all is said and done.

What do you think about the idea of a Hate Sink character? Are there traits I’m missing? Is it even good to have a Hate Sink character? I don’t know! You tell me.

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