Unlikable TV Characters: We hate them because they really deserve it

Petra Solano – Jane the Virgin

It’s all the lying and scheming that makes Petra so hard to like. It’s like she just can’t help it. Even when she’s trying her best to do the right thing, she still lies incessantly. She probably thinks that she’s doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, but her dishonesty makes everyone’s lives even harder.

Compared to the show’s protagonist, Jane, whose morality and personal values are a central theme to the show, Petra doesn’t come out looking good. In fact, she looks awful, and I can’t really defend her on some of her most egregious crimes. She stole her ex-husband’s DNA in order to impregnate herself, without his knowledge. She posed as her twin sister to do all sorts of nasty things, and she was part of a kidnapping plot that put a man’s life in danger.

All in all, Petra is not really a bad person, and she really does try, in her own way. But it’s incredibly tiresome to see her lie herself into all sorts of precarious situations. Being a pathological liar makes it really hard for anybody to trust you, much less really like you. And it’s a real shame, too. I want to like her, I really do, but she’s actively working against me at every turn.