WARNING: insufferable male protagonists
not "morally ambiguous/unlikeable characters", no I'm talking about I want to smack his incel ass-levels of dkhjfdbhjgj
created by Viettley
last updated September, 2026
Comments
ViettleyOP
honorary femcel mention: Girls against God [Jenny Hval]
I would add a Hungarian classic, The Man with the Golden Touch by Mór Jókai. The MC is a jerk who takes advantage of everybody he encounters, he is a cheater, a pedophile, and still keeps up the image of the ideal man (the original title literally means The Golden Man). This dude has been my no. 1 opp since I had to read the book in the 7th grade
Is it bad if this made me want to read this? I skipped most required reading in middle school, (also we got the Baron's Sons from Jókai, but the prose in the first 20 pages made me want to die) but I want to catch up with the Hungarian classics. And I reallyyy need a main character I can hate hate hate
Honestly that makes sense! It's fun reading something where the MC is an asshole. My main problem with this one was how my teachers kept saying how the MC is what every men should aspire to be etc., and we didn't talk about the very obvious issues with his character 💀 I didn't read The Baron's Sons yet, tbh The Man with the Golden Touch was my first and only Jókai, and it's safe to say I was pretty put off by it. But I know his work is very well liked, my mother for example really loves most of his novels! So I would go for it, if nothing else, it is for sure a good book to hate lmao
Our 11th grade teacher at least did say that Tímár is a "realistic character with flaws" lol. But she also spent a lot of time telling us how he just feels so bad about everything.🥺🥺 The woobyfication of toxic male characters isn't limited to online fandoms, my 60 years old literature teacher did it just like any good tumblr user would
Omg 😭 my hs teacher basically said that he is a role model for young boys, and we had to write an essay about why. Safe to say, I didn't have a lot of nice things to say about him 😭
delicious
Ich liebs
Holden being first on the list absolutely tracks lmao
ViettleyOP
sometimes I think about re-reading Catcher in the Rye but------ Holden
I love that Hamlet made this list. Thinking about it, he does remind me somewhat of my ex-husband....
ViettleyOP
genuinely can't fathom people thinking it's one of the best shakespeare plays
There are so many better ones!!
ViettleyOP
exactly!!! (also condolences bc of your ex-husband oh my---)
haha thanks :) all good, he's very very ex at this point lol. Also seeing Hamlet here helped me put my finger on the specific kind of navel-gazing, melancholic narcissism he embodies in a way I haven't been able to before. Now I can say, yeah, he was just like Hamlet, and that makes me laugh quite a lot!
ViettleyOP
Haha good for you!!!!
If you want three insufferable men, misogyny, and homophobia at once you should check out "Nacht, Mutter des Tages" (Natten är dagens mor) by Lars Norén. It was written for theatre and I had to read it for uni, hated every second 👍 (und ganz vielleicht...gibt es das irgendwo als pdf... 👀)
