Why You Hate That Character That Everyone Else Loves

Brandon Diehl
4 min readJan 8, 2022

Identifying with fictional characters is a double-edged sword.

About four episodes into Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building”, I stopped watching for a little while. It wasn’t because the show was bad; it’s very well crafted. After some thinking, I realized the biggest obstacle I had was this guy:

Martin Short as Oliver Putnam (Source: Hulu)

I absolutely could not stand watching scenes that featured Martin Short’s Oliver Putnam. Don’t get me wrong, Martin Short does a fantastic job portraying the eccentric, financially unstable theater director, so it’s no fault of his. The issue was that I found his eccentricity and financial irresponsibility very, very annoying.

My girlfriend and I watched it together. I remember saying, “God, I just can’t stand this guy.” She gave me a shrug.

“I don’t really mind him.”

I sat there, trying to get through it, thinking to myself how annoying Oliver is, how I would never hang out with someone like him, how irresponsible he is, and how I couldn’t see how the other characters could bear interacting with him.

This led me to a haunting conclusion.

The things I don’t like about Oliver are the very things I don’t like about myself. There isn’t an “Oliver” in my social circle because I’m the closest thing to the Oliver.

At first, this made me dislike him even more. Why would I want to watch a mirror that only shows me my insecurities?

He is impulsive. He discovers a real murder and immediately wants to start a podcast. It’s a horrible idea, and no normal person would come to that conclusion. But, it’s a bad idea that he’s committed to.

I share similar impulses. When I was in middle school, I suddenly had the idea of writing a zombie apocalypse novel: Outbreak. I watched a couple episodes of “The Walking Dead” and very quickly jumped up, ran to the computer, and started writing.

It was not good. Yes, I was in middle school, but even by my own standards back then, it was pretty bad.

It was Oliver’s flashbacks to his original musical “Splash!” that got me thinking of that story. He was so excited; he pitched the show to his partners and family knowing in his heart that it was going to be a hit, much like I asked my mom to read my zombie story expecting her to think it was the best story since Pride and Prejudice.

Both “Splash!” and Outbreak were failures. My zombie story may not have caused three bankruptcies and two insurance investigations, but to 12 year old me, it was my big break.

Despite the outcome, Oliver never says he regrets it. That’s when I realized, I don’t regret much either.

No matter how impulsive, no matter how reckless or risky or temporary a new venture is, I always enjoy the process. It doesn’t matter if the outcome is positive or negative or if I waste time or money, I never regret giving it a shot.

My perspective on this character changed. Almost instantly, I warmed up to him and he eventually became my favorite character on the show.

In rooting for his success, I was rooting for myself. And in realizing that the people I care about don’t find Oliver annoying, I realized they must not find me annoying either.

Yes, I pull my friends in and out of my new hobbies so often you’d think they’d have whiplash and in certain moments I can be very eccentric and talk at lengths about things that nobody else around me has even heard of. But despite the fact that I look down on myself for those things, others don’t.

I imagine my friends often feel like Charles and Mabel (Source: Hulu)

After some more thought I was able to apply this to many other characters that frustrated me in the past, like the exceptionally miserable Harry in Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf or the somewhat dogmatic issues of Captain America.

Obviously, these realizations have not cured me of all insecurity, and I can’t say my perspective on it is even correct. It doesn’t have to be.

You can’t only relate to characters when they show good qualities. Characters are human, just like you, and in order to truly understand them you may have to look inward and embrace your own character.

The final barrier to realizing that my loved ones accept me, especially the impulsivity, was broken by maybe the only profound thing Oliver said in the entire season.

“No one who promises big things knows what’s gonna happen. But, it’s the ride that counts.”

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