Top Ten Tuesday | Characters Who Deserved Better

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Top Ten Books With Characters Who ___'. I wasn't sure what I was going to do for this at first, but a previous TTT topic got me thinking about the characters out there who deserved so much better than what they got.

Some of these characters were the victims of their circumstances, and others were just treated terribly by their authors. Only one of the people on this list is a man.

Frankenstein's Monster from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: A lot of the stuff this guy does is very bad indeed, but when you read this classic it's difficult not to empathise with him, even just a little.

Susan Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis: I will forever be unhappy with how Lewis treated Susan, with how he criticised her for wanting to grow away from Narnia. She is described as "no longer a friend of Narnia" who is "interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations". Lewis himself said: "The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there's plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end." When we're younger it's easy for us to dislike Susan - why would anyone want the real world when you could live in the world with centaurs and queens and talking lions? - but when we grow older and we see the religious aspects to Narnia, this view on Susan becomes rather sinister. How dare she like lipstick when she could have Jesus!

Bertha Rochester from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: If someone told me to choose between Mr. Rochester and Heathcliff I'd choose Mr. Rochester in a heartbeat, because Heathcliff is a whole other kind of messed up. But Rochester's hardly a catch himself. Yes he's educated and wealthy and, let's face it, quite sassy, but when he asks Jane to marry him he fails to mention he's already married, and his mentally ill first wife is locked up in the attic. Real husband material. I suppose we can argue that it's something of a mercy that poor Bertha wasn't sent away to an asylum, but locking her up in the attic was hardly a good idea either.

Elinor Mompellion from Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks: Despite including her on this list, I can't say a lot about Elinor without giving too much away. All I will say is that something is revealed near the end of the book which infuriated me, but kudos to Brooks because I didn't see it coming!

Margaret Prior from Affinity by Sarah Waters: Yet another character who I can't talk about too much without spoiling the ending of Affinity. Let's just say that Affinity is probably Waters' gloomiest novel, and those of you who've read it will know why poor Margaret made this list.

Agnes Magnúsdóttir from Burial Rites by Hannah Kent: Here I'm talking about Agnes the character, because for all I know the real Agnes - the last woman to be executed in Iceland - really was a violent murderer. The Agnes that Kent writes, however, just breaks your heart.

Nancy from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens: Nancy is one of the few decent people in Oliver Twist, and the person who gets dealt the worst hand. I had an illustrated version of this book when I was a little book and when I first read it, the scene where Nancy is murdered terrified me. Her death has haunted me ever since.

Sirius and Regulus Black from the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling: We could probably argue that pretty much every single one of the Marauders deserved better, but the Black brothers make my heart ache like no others. Poor Regulus's courage was practically forgotten, and Sirius, the most loyal friend anyone could ask for, had to spend thirteen years of his life imprisoned for something he didn't do, only to be confined in a house full of horrid childhood memories when he escaped until he was eventually killed. I just have a lot of feelings about these boys, and I'm never going to be over Sirius.

Tess Durbeyfield from Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy: Alec d'Urberville and Angel Clare are both awful human beings and I hate them both in equal measure. That is all.

Katniss and Primrose Everdeen from The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins: Don't mind me, I'll just be over in that corner. Weeping.

Who made your list?