10 Once Hated TV Characters That Made You Love Them

5. Zelena - Once Upon A Time

Why She Was Hated

Sometimes, you end up disliking characters because the part of the show they are most important to is just not all that great. Such was the case with Zelena (Rebecca Mader) and Once Upon A Time. Introduced in the twelfth episode of season 3, The Wicked Witch Of The West was something of a casualty of the Wizard Of Oz arc being a little uninspired.

Obviously, the character has always traditionally been a villain and then season four saw her posing as Robin Hood's dead wife after killing her to get pregnant by him. This is not the behaviour of someone you'd usually like and naturally, fans took to her as you'd expect.

But Then...

While the manner of her trying to become pregnant was obviously not particularly nice - or easy to sympathise with - when she becomes a mother, Zelena completely changed and she became vastly more likeable.

As she grew with the show and sought a relationship with her sister Regina - and had a brief relationship with Hades - it became clear she was one of the show's real break-out characters and Mader's performance went down as well with fans as well as it did critics.