20 Most Hated Characters In TV History

There are few characters in television who’ve been more definitively hateable than Janice Soprano, Tony’s older sister. She’s got the same innate selfishness, the same ability to pretend friendship and loyalty on the surface with people she despises; she’s volatile, and doesn’t listen to dissenting opinions.

But where Tony arguably has redeeming features - or, at least, aspects to his personality that could be considered admirable, like his work ethic, his strength of will and his careful ambition, all of which tie into his idea of family and being able to support and improve their lives - his sister is lazy, weak, and selfish.

Tony is selfish too, and just as hypocritical with it: but despite his mistresses, his lies and his temper, he genuinely loves his family. He doesn’t abandon them, no matter what happens to them or to him. Janice, on the other hand, soaks her family for all they’re worth and then disappears.

After graduating high school, she leaves her kid brother to the horrifying ministrations of their domineering mother, and runs away to the other side of America, becoming a latter-day hippie in Los Angeles before travelling the world. Avoiding learning a trade that might pay her way, she lived off others - friends, boyfriends - in a pattern that would recur for her entire adult life.

Janice claims benefits for disabilities she doesn’t suffer, finagles her way into relationships with wealthy, powerful men as a way of appropriating that affluence and influence for herself without having to do anything to earn it. And, to cap it all off, she’s got that ugly, violent Soprano temper… just with nothing positive or constructive to anchor it to.