Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Thoughts on Tomes. Check out the Goodreads group here.
It is sad to say, but sometimes the characters we loved as children or young adults don't age as well as we do. They don't hold the same charm for us for any number of reasons: we outgrow them, they look different in our adult eyes, etc.
This week's topic is featuring these characters that once upon a time we might have loved and now either hate, dislike, or are simply neutral about.
5. Harry Potter (Harry Potter series)
This character falls sharply into the neutral territory and is somewhat complicated. I still love the Harry Potter stories, make no mistake, but Harry Potter himself has lost a lot of his charm for me. As I've been rereading the books, particularly from Order of the Phoenix onward, I've realized that he's not the hero I always remembered him being. His heroics are not his alone and the people that help him don't get nearly the amount of credit they deserve.
4. Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
Ariel used to be my favorite Disney princess when I was younger. I was obsessed with mermaids and used to pretend that I could turn into one all the time. Ariel probably contributed to my love of swimming and that's a lovely thing. However, her character isn't the same for me as it once was. Watching the movie now, I realize that there are a lot of problems with her as a person that can be attributed to being a teenager, but she's glorified for it. This is even before we take into account the instalove situation with Prince Eric which is another thing that lost it's charm for me. It was cute when I was a kid, but it is now one of the most annoying tropes in film or literature.
3. Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables)
When I was her age and read this, I thought that her imagination was a wonderful thing. She didn't make sense a lot of the time, but that didn't matter to me at the time. I tried to go back and reread it lately, but I found myself disliking Anne. She wasn't the imaginative idol of my childhood anymore, merely an annoying child that prattles on.
2. The Tillerman Children (The Tillerman Cycle)
Dicey and her three siblings are decent enough in the first book, Homecoming, but for books two through seven I became disinterested in them. It might have something to do with the fact that not all of the books are strictly about them, so we miss out on some of their development, but also Dicey especially seems too self assured in some parts and then foolish in others. I remember loving these books years ago, but the only book I care to read now is the first one and pretend the rest don't exist.
1. Peter Pan and Tinker Bell (Peter Pan)
If The Little Mermaid was my favorite Disney film as a child, then Peter Pan was another one (these were both before I had seen Beauty and the Beast, which is my #1 favorite classic Disney movie now). Watching it now with my son, though, has shown me that Peter and especially Tink are a pain. They play off each other and that isn't a compliment. They've both got bad behaviors that grate on me now that I never really noticed or didn't bother me as much before, I haven't read Barrie's book yet and I'm curious what the original story is like compared to the Disney version.
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