Summary
- The Walking Dead introduced and killed off multiple supporting characters, but the most hated were never as beloved as Hershel or Tyreese. They were satisfying to loathe.
- Some of the most hated characters were present throughout The Walking Dead's timeline, while others only appeared for a season or two but left a lasting impact. They often caused problems for the main survivors.
- The most hated characters in The Walking Dead were divisive, with some transitioning from hate to adoration. There were supporting characters that fans universally despised, regardless of their level of fandom.
The Walking Dead introduced — and killed off — dozens of supporting characters across its 11 seasons, but the most hated TWD characters were never as beloved as Hershel or Tyreese. Whether it's because they betrayed a series mainstay, broke a major character's heart, or were just a bit jarring when on screen, the worst TWD supporting characters all added to the show by being so satisfying to loathe. There's a definite hierarchy, however, and the most hated Walking Dead supporting character is almost universally despised by fans both casual and hardcore.
Some of the most hated characters were present for much of The Walking Dead timeline. Other contenders for the title of most hated TWD character outside the main cast were only around for a season or two, but they left their mark. While not outright antagonists, many of the worst minor characters on The Walking Dead were still thorns in the side of Rick, Daryl, and the rest of the main survivors. Many are divisive too, and some even went from being hated to adored over the course of The Walking Dead's 11 seasons. The most hated TWD characters on the show are a roster of the most divisive faces in the franchise.
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The Walking Dead: Dead City
The Walking Dead: Dead City brought in a few new characters that played off the main stars, Negan and Maggie. One of these was Ginny, and she quickly rubbed many fans the wrong way. Ginny had been mute since her father's death, and she spent almost the entire season silent. While some characters, specifically Connie, were able to emote a great deal while never speaking, Ginny wasn't able to do so. As a result, Ginny never really grew on fans and seemed like someone who was just there to provide a more sympathetic side to Negan - and that was even destroyed when Negan said he killed her father before sending her away in the end.
24 Laurent
The Walking Dead
It has always been tough to be a child on The Walking Dead because of the fandom. While most fans have fallen in love with Judith, everyone before her was almost universally hated. No one liked Carl Grimes until he was older and characters like Henry and Lydia have seen a lot of venom thrown their way. The most recent child was Laurent, the messiah figure from Daryl Dixon. He was sheltered his entire life and was raised to be a messianic figure who could save the world. He came across as precocious and seemed like a replacement for Judith when it came to kids Daryl needed to protect, and he brings little of value to the action.
23 Iris
The Walking Dead: World Beyond
Iris was one of the characters in The Walking Dead: World Beyond. This was a show that revealed more about the Civic Republic and how they have ominous plans that involve them killing anyone in their path. The main characters are teenagers who grew up only knowing the post-apocalyptic world and their desire to stand up to the Civic Republic, who want to hold onto the old ways. Iris is one of the main characters, a very smart student and aspiring scientist. However, she rubbed many fans the wrong way by being a little too perfect - highly intelligent, overly kind, supremely confident, and lacking any negative characteristics to round that out.
22 Chris
Fear The Walking Dead
There have been a lot of hated characters in Fear the Walking Dead, but one of the most despised on the show was Chris. He is a good mix of several other hated characters with bits of Lori Grimes (complaining) and Andrea (self-destructive) and ends up becoming worse than both of them. He is Travis's son, and he has an intense hatred for Travis's new wife and kids to the point where he actively sabotages everything they do to stay alive. He started killing people for fun and even looked like he was going to kill Alicia. Chris served little purpose and had no redeemable qualities at all, someone fans wanted to see dead.
21 The Croat
The Walking Dead: Dead City
The main villain in The Walking Dead: Dead City turned out to be the Dama, who wanted to use Negan to help her unite all the New York communities under her rule. However, through much of the season, it seemed the main bad guy was a former Negan soldier known as The Croat. The Dama being the main villain might be a good thing because The Croat really rubbed some fans the wrong way. He seemed like a copy-and-paste version of Negan, with his only purpose being to show a villain with Negan's tendencies for violence - but without the charisma and leadership skills that Negan possessed with the Saviors.
20 Jadis
The Walking Dead
Jadis was mostly known as the leader of the Scavengers, and she was not someone many fans liked from the start. Played by Pollyanna McIntosh, The Walking Dead was her real big break in America, but she ended up as one of the most hated Walking Dead characters who actually lived past the end of the series. Eventually, the audience learned about her traumatic past, and her real name — Anne. It gave her a chance for rehabilitation, but she ruined that.
Jadis refused to help Rick's survivors and almost caused his death in her junkyard. People liked Jadis even less when she escaped Simon's slaughter of the Scavengers and went to live in Alexandria, only to continue to hide her secrets. Even when she saved Rick's life after the bridge explosion, she took him to a possibly dangerous place and The Walking Dead spinoffs. The fact she is responsible for Rick leaving The Walking Dead secured her place as one of the most hated Walking Dead characters.
19 Ed
The Walking Dead
Ed was one of the first true villains on The Walking Dead. It is easy to hate a man who abused women, and when the woman he beat was the beloved Carol, he was the first human that most fans wanted to see eaten by zombies. Played by Adam Minarovich, his only mainstream notoriety was from his role as one of the most hated Walking Dead characters.
It's fair to say that nobody was sad to see Ed die. Ed may have been one of the reasons that Carol is such a strong character, but that does not excuse the way he treated her, as well as how he treated the other women in their camp. Ed's death was deserved, but the satisfying moment was when Carol put down his reanimated corpse with a pickaxe, getting a little measure of revenge.
18 Father Gabriel
The Walking Dead
Father Gabriel was one of the most hated Walking Dead characters from the moment he made his first appearance. He was a minister who let his entire congregation die, so he could protect his own life. When the survivors showed up, he didn't want them there and tried to betray them the second he met Negan. He was a coward and put fan favorites in danger constantly on the show. Seth Gilliam played Father Gabriel after roles on critically acclaimed HBO shows The Wire and Oz.
Father Gabriel grew in strength since that time and became a legitimate fighter, but with all his past sins, his death in the comics seemed perfect. He was stuck, hanging upside down from a water tower, and Beta killed him. He has since become a leader on the TV show, but for most of his life, he was one of the most hated Walking Dead characters. By the end, though, he lived and proved to be a better man thanks to his experiences.
17 Rosita
The Walking Dead
Rosita was, at one time, a beloved character on The Walking Dead. She showed up with Abraham and Eugene and was as tough as nails. It was nice to see a strong and dominant female joining the group, and she wasn't someone to mess around with. Things changed when Abraham died. She was doubting herself and becoming less of a strong woman and more of a liability for the group.
In the comics, she ended up with her head on a spike in the war with the Whisperers, while pregnant. It was a tragic moment that made fans mourn her loss. On the TV show, she lost that sympathy, but she had a chance to gain it back as a member of the army in the Commonwealth. Played by Christian Serratos of Twilight fame, she ended up rehabilitated by the end and Rosita had one of the most depressing deaths in the series finale.
16 Eugene
The Walking Dead
When Eugene first arrived, it was easy to hate the survivor. He was a weak link in the trio of him, Abraham, and Rosita, and the tough Abraham took the obligation to protect him. When it turned out he lied about a cure to make Abraham protect him, he was even more despicable. He was cowardly and often gaslit people who actually pulled their own weight. Played by Josh McDermitt, it took a long time for Eugene to prove himself.
Eugene found his footing by the end of The Walking Dead, but it did little to fix his reputation with many in TWD fandom. Between making the bullets that almost killed the main group to getting them captured by the Commonwealth, he was far too unforgivable a liability in the eyes of many. Eugene somehow survived to the end of TWD, despite his lack of decision-making skills. While he was no longer one of the most hated Walking Dead characters by the finale, he held that role for longer than almost anyone else.
15 Aiden Monroe
The Walking Dead
Aiden Monroe was part of the Alexandria community when Rick and his survivors showed up. Along with his brother, Aiden's stubbornness and paranoia meant he wanted to condemn Rick to wander the dangerous world outside the walls. While their fears were correct that Rick and the group planned to take over, these brothers went about it the wrong way. Neither Aiden nor his buddy Nicholas knew how to deal with The Walkers anyway, and their mistakes cost lives in the end.
What is amazing about the level of hatred audiences had for him was the fact that Daniel Bonjour was only around for two episodes. However, that was really all it took to make fans hate him, and when he died, it was a moment that mostly was met with a shrug because he really deserved his fate. After TWD, Bonjour went on to star in Frequency and took on a recurring role in iZombie.
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Fear the Walking Dead is finally over, and based on how The Walking Dead spinoff ended, attempts at new crossovers may prove to be very difficult.14 Bob Stookey
The Walking Dead
Bob Stookey was someone who came around with fans by the time he died. That was a great moment where he was able to let Terminus know that he was bitten and infected while the cannibals were eating his leg. His death was sad, but for most of his life, fans were not Team Bob. He was a liability, his drinking problems put everyone in danger due to his ineptitude, and he was one of the most hated Walking Dead characters.
He was also not a team player, and his death actually made the group stronger in the end. Much like Seth Gilliam, actor Lawrence Gilliard Jr. also starred in The Wire before taking on the role of Bob and then went on to star in another HBO series, The Deuce, after that.
13 Milton
The Walking Dead
The Governor on the AMC series was much better than the comic book version. While the Governor in the comics was a sociopath and a real villain, he was much more well-rounded in the TV series, and it helped that fan favorite David Morrissey portrayed him. However, his right-hand man Milton was not someone that fans bought into, and he was easily one of the most hated Walking Dead characters during that storyline.
Played by Dallas Roberts, Milton was the scientist who was trying to figure out what the risen dead were really about, but he ended up as a wishy-washy character to the end when he finally killed Andrea. While Andrea was far from universally loved by fans of The Walking Dead, the fact he killed one of the cast originals made him even more unlikable.
12 Richard
The Walking Dead
Negan was deadly, and even when he left, the Saviors remained a thorn in the side of the survivors afterward. On the TV show, there was one among Rick's survivors who heightened the tensions between the two groups — Richard. He wanted to take the battle to the Saviors, and he thought he should be a martyr to the cause. Richard even failed at his goal of being a martyr, and Morgan ended up killing him to stop any further deaths.
His story on The Walking Dead was a sad one, as he saw his family die and wanted to get revenge against anyone he saw as a threat. However, his actions made him one of the most hated Walking Dead characters in the end.
11 Enid
The Walking Dead
While the heads on a pike in The Walking Dead comics were tragic and shook up fans when it went down, the version the AMC show revealed was nowhere near as effective. That is because the people who died were not characters the fans were really invested in. Enid was one of those. While she had a nice introduction on the show when her parents died, she went downhill quickly. Played by Katelyn Nacon, Enid is someone who is self-sufficient and reliant and ends up changing drastically after joining the survivors.
Enid went from being a strong survivor to simply being turned into a love interest and putting beloved survivors at risk one too many times for fans to accept her into the group. When her head ended up on a spike, no one really cared, and she went down as one of the most hated Walking Dead characters. No one really seemed to care she was gone after her death, and even if she's not the most hated supporting character on The Walking Dead, she is also one of the most forgettable.
10 Sam Anderson
The Walking Dead
Sam Anderson was one of the many kids who showed up on The Walking Dead that fans wanted to see gone. His mother was Jessie, who became a love interest for a short time for Rick Grimes. Sadly, Carol was partially responsible for turning Sam into one of the most hated Walking Dead characters when she scared him into keeping quiet about her gun. She threatened to kill him, and his psyche never recovered.
After this, Sam went into a very dark place and became scared of everything, quickly becoming one of the most hated Walking Dead characters. When Rick tried to save Sam's family, he wouldn't shut up in the middle of a zombie herd, and that was what caused him and his mother to die at the hands of the walkers. Plus, his brother shot Carl in the eye in revenge, making him even worse.
9 Lori Grimes
The Walking Dead
When Rick Grimes woke up from his coma in the first episode, his only goal was to find his wife Lori and son Carl. He set out, and fans anxiously wanted to see him reunited with his family. He found them with his best friend Shane, and Lori had already moved on until Rick showed up, and she changed her mind, returning to her husband. However, after this, Lori became the generic nagging wife.
Played by Sarah Wayne Callies (Prison Break), Lori never understood that Rick was trying his hardest to keep everyone alive and do what he could to protect them, including her and their son, Carl. She complained so much that fans didn't mind when she died giving birth to Judith as one of the most hated Walking Dead characters. Her death almost destroyed Rick, but fans seemed happy to see her gone.
8 Lizzie
The Walking Dead
Lizzie is the second child on this list, and she is an extraordinary case. Carol had lost her own family, and now she was playing mother with Lizzie and her sister Mika. However, as the show moved on, she became very annoying, especially since she was the voice that tried to tell everyone that people were probably dead when they were just late returning. Her pessimistic attitude took a startling turn when she started to identify with the zombies more than with real humans.
Played by Brighton Sharbino, Lizzie wanted the survivors to stop killing zombies because she believed the humans were still in there. She tried to prove it by killing her 10-year-old sister to show that not all zombies were evil. Carol ended up taking her out to see the flowers and put a bullet in her head to save fans from having to see and hear from her anymore.
7 Andrea
The Walking Dead
There were two characters in the comic books that switched places on the TV show. In the comics, Carol was a clingy and emotionally stunted woman who took her own life, while Andrea was tough as nails and lasted longer than almost anyone, even falling in love with Rick. On the TV show, Carol overcame her struggles and had one of the most satisfying character arcs whereas Andrea was one of the most hated supporting characters — despite having an incredibly significant role in the show's early seasons.
Played by Laurie Holden (The X-Files), Andrea always wanted to die, and when people kept saving her, it prolonged the pain fans had, watching her on the show. She finally took her own life while a prisoner to The Governor by allowing a turned Milton to bite her. It was a tragic ending and one which really didn't live up to the Andrea character in The Walking Dead comics.
6 Spencer Monroe
The Walking Dead
Several of the most hated Walking Dead characters are from the Alexandria community. It is almost sad since they were a safe, self-sufficient community until Rick Grimes and his friends showed up and decided to take over for themselves. One person who took it badly was Spencer Monroe, whose parents were initially the leaders.
Played by One Tree Hill's Austin Nichols, the main reason most people hated Spencer was that he was a coward who had everything handed to him. He hated the idea of having to work under someone when Rick showed up and made life hard for everyone. Even Negan had no time for Spencer and killed him in the streets when he realized Spencer was a liability to everyone around them.