I don’t know if this means I’m perversely ornery or what, but when a canon tells me that a character is root-worthy, to the point of slanting stories to show how sympathetic or wonderful or favored they are, I inevitably run screaming in the opposite direction. And sometimes, I even start rooting for whoever their enemy is. That’s not to say that any time a TV show has a fair-haired boy I’m against them…it’s just when the character is being insufferably painted as perfect and right. Nobody is perfect, not even if canon deems it so!

Case in point, Alles Was Zahlt‘s Stella Coretti. I just think she’s such a pompous snot. Sure, Jenny schemed against her and pushed Lars off the wagon, but there’s something infinitely more human about Jenny, because for all her scheming, not only does she have faults but she’s allowed to acknowledge them. Stella, who is now keeping a secret of her own (that she has diabetes), still acts like she can sit in judgment of everyone. (Okay, more specifically Marian, whom I adore.) Then there’s One Life to Live‘s Gigi and Rex, whom the show positioned as a root-for couple: soulmates, brought together again after years and years apart, blah bliddy blah. But good lord they’re prigs. And to have to say that about Rex is especially disturbing. Remember when he was interesting? When he was as dirty as they come? I’ve started cheering for Kim, Stacy and, by extension Schuyler, to take them down! Of course, that ultimately means sticking poor Sky with Gigi and I don’t know that he deserves that. (Rex, however, totally has the karmic payback of being stuck with Stacy coming to him.)

Probably the most significant case of me vs. whoever the show wants me to side with is General Hospital‘s Sonny and Jason. No, they’re not good and pure and right…but they’re good and pure and right mobsters — which, in and of itself, is ridiculous. They supposedly don’t traffic in drugs or hookers. What it is they actually do (how does the money they launder get so darn filthy?) has never been clarified. But darn it, they’re the heroes of Port Charles, keeping it safe from…from…uh, other criminals. Yeah, it’s kind of insane. So you know what? I loved Faith, I loved Jerry, and I love whoever the heck James Franco is playing, just on the principle that their raison d’etre is to make trouble for Team Sason.

A little demented? Sure. But much like Jenny or Kim or Faith Rosco, I’ve never claimed to be anything else!