I don't know if Phyllis was ever polarizing until they forced that insipid Nick/Phyllis affair on us, turned Phyllis into a giggling housewife saintly woe-is-me stay-away-from-me-huzbind bitch and started writing Sharon as a slore to build Phyllis up.

Phyllis wasn't polarizing until her triangle with Nick. when writers tried to turn her affair into a love story on Sharon's back.

Polarizing Y&R characters

Jill

Victor

Jack

Michael

Ryan

St. Giggly

Cricket

Kevin

Victoria

Nina

Phyllis wasn't polarizing until her triangle with Nick. when writers tried to turn her affair into a love story on Sharon's back.

Wasn't that what I just said?! LOL!!

Wasn't that what I just said?! LOL!!

I was agreeing with you. Maybe I should have said, "like you said" at the end. But I assumed it wasn't necessary. I guess I was wrong. lol

Polarizing Y&R characters

Jill

Victor

Jack

Michael

Ryan

St. Giggly

Cricket

Kevin

Victoria

Nina

No one is the Baldwin/Fisher family seems polarizing to me. Everyone seems to love this family of thieves, attempted murders, and attempted/successful rapist.

I think characters like Evangeline, Blair and Téa on OLTL were largely only really polarizing in relation to their romances - they orbited around John or Todd/Victor, and that was the source of the polarization, the couples wars and how those characters behaved or were portrayed throughout those stories. Outside of that furor, nobody's gonna want to burn them at the stake. (I thought Evangeline was saccharine and uninteresting on her own and would have rather seen other characters of color in her place, but so much of her story and persona was tied to triangles that it's hard for me to have ever gotten a read on who she was without it.)

There's other characters who have more bone-deep, systemic reasons for fan polarization because of deeper issues or choices. Todd on OLTL, obviously. Carly and Robin on GH, who are polar opposites of morality and nuanced morality but have their reasons. Babe is one because of how the show handled what she did to people. I think Maggie Stone became one because they could never commit to who the character was re: Bianca. I think Liz on GH became one of those regardless of the whole Jason thing, just based on how some people perceived her personality years before she and Jason made it official. And I think on OLTL, Natalie was polarizing for a reason other than just the McBain wars - it all started with her introductory storyline. She was initially presented as the usurper to Jessica, erasing a mother-daughter bond and while the story developed and changed and things sorted themselves out (and IMO Natalie ultimately became the new heir to Viki's heroine throne, after Jessica's character had been totally compromised by the DID stories) there are still people, to this day, who don't like Natalie simply because of that whole beginning, who see her as having taken Jessica's life. And that's their prerogative.

I thought Evangeline was far more interesting on her own. Loved her more as a lawyer than I did in her romances. IMO, she was defined more as a character through being a layer than she ever was during her destined to fail romances (Well, not necessarily RJ and Chris but John nor Todd were ever going anywhere).

Edited August 31, 201411 yr by ajsp35801

I was agreeing with you. Maybe I should have said, "like you said" at the end. But I assumed it wasn't necessary. I guess I was wrong. lol

lol No biggie.

ATWT---Carly, Katie (especially after she cheated on Mike and then persecuted Simon out of town), and Lily. I'd disqualify both Emily and Meg. Outside of a RH fan war, I'm not sure either drove talk on the boards.

Oh, and Craig, as portrayed by Hunt Block.

How the heck could I forget KATIE! Between cheating on Mike, Simon and leading poor Henry by the nose..... Fans definitely were choosing sides. And, you're right, RH's arrival did cause a raucous. ATWT because it wasn't really a "board" favorite and never really have that kind of Stan posting fervor, so I guess i'm going on what people I know thought about characters like Emily. I don't know how I could've forgotten Noah! Ugh!

And I think on OLTL, Natalie was polarizing for a reason other than just the McBain wars - it all started with her introductory storyline. She was initially presented as the usurper to Jessica, erasing a mother-daughter bond and while the story developed and changed and things sorted themselves out (and IMO Natalie ultimately became the new heir to Viki's heroine throne, after Jessica's character had been totally compromised by the DID stories) there are still people, to this day, who don't like Natalie simply because of that whole beginning, who see her as having taken Jessica's life. And that's their prerogative.

I think what you said here also applies to Liz back when I cared about GH. It's not that I disliked Liz because of how she was when she first came on the show. I didn't care about her at all, until she became this pseudo leading woman on the show with a similar backing to that of Carly for doing heinous things and then not having anyone on the canvas call her out for it. Ultimately there was a huge character shift for Liz during 2006, and that shift in story and plot was never accurately reflected and rectified with her previous good girl characterization. There was so a despondence between the two that you had so many female characters trying to make the point of how wrong her duplicitous actions were (Rebecca, Sam, Carly, Sibohan) but all of them ultimately wound up silenced, dead or muted for Liz's benefit and sainthood. It wasn't so much that she made a mistake. No one could ever acknowledge the fact that Liz could ever be wrong. Instead there was this insulting diatribe that Liz had every right to do what she did, because it was in the best interests of the other person she was actively betraying and harming, which was both insutling and endlessly nauseating from a viewer stand point. It was everyone else that was wrong and they should see how hard it was on Liz to do something that could never be classified as unsavory by another character. The wrong was never Liz's fault. It was this sickening "Mistakes Were Made" kind of writing that made you want to slap her around the set three or four different times. A specifically egregious and gratuitous example was when they tried to excuse one of Liz's actions away by using a 10 year old rape, to obfuscate the fact that Liz was making a cuckold out of Lucky for a second time when he did nothing to deserve that disrespect -- when he took Liz and her children in and made a family for them -- was so far beyond abhorrent I still seethe years after the storyline is over and done with.

Thank God JJ was able to lay a few smack-down's on her for GV's Lucky in the end. The literal only saving grace from that time period where Lucky finally got his pound of flesh for all of the wrongs Liz put him through. There was some satisfaction to that 4-5 year storyline.

JJ's Lucky confronting Liz in those scenes. They were awesome

Did anyone mention that Theresa slut from Passions? If not, I nominate her. She was the star of the show and had a legion of fans but man was she super hated at the same time. There really wasnt any in between with her. It seemed as if you either stanned her hard or hated her guts

JJ's Lucky confronting Liz in those scenes. They were awesome

I found those scenes so holier than thou mostly because Lucky never got called out on his actions in that way. But that was a big problem on GH with so and so woman is a slut diatribes constantly while the men get free passes.

Did anyone mention that Theresa slut from Passions? If not, I nominate her. She was the star of the show and had a legion of fans but man was she super hated at the same time. There really wasnt any in between with her. It seemed as if you either stanned her hard or hated her guts

By the end of Passions Theresa, Ethan, Gwen, Luis, Fancy, and Sheridan seemed to be the only characters people were really watching for while everything else was filler. And all 6 of them were polarizing.

I found those scenes so holier than thou mostly because Lucky never got called out on his actions in that way. But that was a big problem on GH with so and so woman is a slut diatribes constantly while the men get free passes.

Disagree. GV's Lucky had to gargle glass and kiss hot pokers to get Liz back all the while continuously being deemed not as good as Saint Jason, which made the whole reunion quite unsavory during that time period. GV's Lucky was Guza's favorite whipping boy.

Disagree. GV's Lucky had to gargle glass and kiss hot pokers to get Liz back all the while continuously being deemed not as good as Saint Jason, which made the whole reunion quite unsavory during that time period. GV's Lucky was Guza's favorite whipping boy.

Agreed.

Everyone had their shots at Lucky and he rarely got to get the upper hand or anything like that. He got called out ad nauseum on every little thing he did and Lizzie was ALWAYS right and ALWAYS too good for him.

I loved GV's Lucky and it was hard to watch a genuinely good but very flawed character get put through the wringer like that.

Queen.