Why Do People Hate Warren?

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

Forgive me, but i don't get it. I don't know about you all here, but ive traversed many a discussion board on facebook about buffy and everyone seems to loathe Warren. I appreciated him as a character, thought he was wonderfully developed from this dork who meddles with the wrong stuff (like his robo-girlfriend) to becoming this corrupted young man who loses all compassion and morality.

I also think he was quirky, funny, and just a great character.

Why is there so much hatred towards him? I just really want to understand.

[Kemy]

Well, this is a tough one. And being a W/T shipper my judgement is clouded on this one so...

As a character he had to be developed, can't just have 2D villains and Joss doesn't skimp on making some compelling characters, even the bad guys.

But Warren was written to have no redeeming qualities, he wasn't meant to be understood or forgiven, he was always going to do something unnecessarily horrible to the Scoobies, so in this case they made a villain that wasn't a Demon, wasn't Souless, didn't have to do what he did. Simply killed out of a very insecure and violent immature side of himself.

Even when he faced death look at the way he yelled such misogynistic things at Willow, the way he treated Katrina, he wasn't above abusing women in the worst ways and for no reason other than egotism.

So unlike other characters who were evil when they killed and redeemed later or were forced to do what they did, Warren was a person with a Soul. People aren't willing, and have little reason to, forgive what he did in any way.

[GATEGOD]

eh? He killed Tara... which I'm not saying is a bad thing, but he was the worst evil there could be. He was a human, who was a murderer, a control freak, and the fact that the first took his form to kill the Great Johnathon only furthers my dislike towards him. Yet he was just trying to take down Buffy, and in his own sick twisted way he the big bad of season 6. Which gets him points. But after all he was an abusive, mean, inconsiderate, selfish, greedy, power hungry character, so no I didn't like him.

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

im not disagreeing that he was terrible... but as a character i think he was just well done and all and i appreciate him a lot for that. and i dunno, a part of me liked him and maybe not necessarily could forgive what he did but i almost feel bad because... i dont truly think he wanted to be the way he was. he was hesitant in the beginning to do those "big bad things" and yes he gave in... but being that he DID have a soul makes me believe there was a little bit of hope in him i guess.

[GATEGOD]

The only time I liked him was when we see him/willow together in the scene in The Killer in Me, and even then he wasn't Warren he was Willow.. So I never really liked him all that much. But he was a good nemesis.

[Keanoite]

His only good mpoint for me was the line...we're you arch nemeses..sis..sis!

[GATEGOD]

His only good mpoint for me was the line...we're you arch nemeses..sis..sis!

lol and when he was running for his life, I laughed ... alot :lmao:

[Kemy]

Yeah and he doesn't even have the sense to see the door is open first :lmao:

[Blondie Bear]

As a character, Warren is VERY well done, and you can tell BECAUSE we hate him. The writers and actor did an amazing job.

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

what i dont get is that people love other baddies... the master, glory, the mayor... and they were just as bad (Worse, even). I know the argument is he's human he has a soul so we can't like him.... but i dunno. I found his personality witty and intelligent. I just must be the super-minority lol.

[Edmund Blackadder]

Because Pople are stupid!

What you need to get defined is whether they hated the character or hated his actions because as much as I hated his actions, his character was truly intriguing to watch and follow.

i dont truly think he wanted to be the way he was. he was hesitant in the beginning to do those "big bad things" and yes he gave in... but being that he DID have a soul makes me believe there was a little bit of hope in him i guess

I don't think you understood the character. From the moment we meet him, we see he is devoid of basic human qualities and your 'belief' is misplaced I'm afraid. Joss and Co spent so much time telling us there are NO redeeming feature of this guy, in essence that sometimes the worst 'demon' in the world is in fact a human.
Warrens acts were far worse than anything done by other 'big bads' on the show because he was human. Even Faith showed remorse before season 4 Buffy, but Warren only ever felt 'bad' when he was going to be in trouble.
He was a despisable, despicable picture of the worst kind of human being, however with all that said and done, he was a great character.

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

you know, you're right about me possibly misinterpreting. i will have to look closer the next run through season 6. see, its so funny though, because i never really felt bad for faith even though she was remorseful. i had more anger towards her than ever at warren because she was so stupid in what she did i guess, so blind to repercussions (in fact, i didnt like her at all when i first watched the show, and only through my second viewing on dvd did i love her) and i guess maybe because warren just was the way he was... i dont know.

i have a warped head maybe?

[Blondie Bear]

you know, you're right about me possibly misinterpreting. i will have to look closer the next run through season 6. see, its so funny though, because i never really felt bad for faith even though she was remorseful. i had more anger towards her than ever at warren because she was so stupid in what she did i guess, so blind to repercussions (in fact, i didnt like her at all when i first watched the show, and only through my second viewing on dvd did i love her) and i guess maybe because warren just was the way he was... i dont know.

i have a warped head maybe?

Not warped. Normal. You were angrier at Faith because you could see her redeemable qualities and wanted her to be a good person. Warren doesn't have any redeemable qualities and therefore doesn't warrant the same kind of anger. Think about it: if someone you know and like does something stupid, aren't you angrier than if it's someone you barely know or don't care about? Or even actively dislike?

[Kana]

What I found interesting about Warren is how he parallels with Willow. Both were insecure and unpopular and used magic/intellect to gain esteem which got out of control. When everyone else found what Warren did with April repugnant, Willow actually understood how he felt. How ironic that she ended being the one who hated him the most.

[Buffy obsessed fan]

The main reason is because he killed Tara, I hated him before that though, I mean, he was a well portrayed character, just he was intent on killing Buffy...and for what purpose...? I just don't GET him.

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

Because...if he was aiming for world domination (hee hee, such a silly idea, maybe thats also why i liked him) obviously you cant have the slayer around. Especially her, who knows them better than a new slayer that would be called would.

[Blondie Bear]

I think the main reason he went after Buffy in particular is because he's a misogynist and she's the embodiment of female power. They're polar opposites. He can't stand the idea of a woman having as much power as she does (I think she even says at one point, "You've really got issues with strong women, don't you?" or something similar). At first, it was just to get her out of the way for Sunnydale-domination, but then she became a personal threat to his worldview--in which women are toys, nothing more--so of course he had to try to take her out personally, the same way he did Katrina, because she showed that she had a mind of her own, which he couldn't control or dominate. So of course she had to die. It's been happening throughout human history; men who are used to being in power can't stand women having or gaining power, so they react violently (not always physically violent, either; sometimes it's verbally or politically violent).

[Buffy obsessed fan]

Oooh, that makes a lotta sense, thanks =]

[Xin Rong]

He was a sad pathetic geek who hurt people and was obsessed with power because he was immature and stupid...
honestly whats there to like

[ILLYRIAN]

So, just guessing here, he wouldn't be on your christmas card list, huh ?

[Rowan Hawthorn]

Only the ones that explode when you open'em...

[ILLYRIAN]

I take it you don't mean explode into song ?

[Kemy]

Explode as in taking off more than his skin this time. :P

[Rowan Hawthorn]

Vaporizing him for real.

[Kemy]

Well I was thinking more of redecorating the walls with him in one go but I see you're going one better :p

[MLLamble]

I'm not sure why people hate Warren. It was interesting to watch his descent into evil, as well as his quirky geekery. However, he did kill Tara, who was one of my favorite characters. I think that people might dislike him because he made an unimposing villain. He had no real power other than being smart, he wasn't a threat to the world, he was really more of an annoyance.

[Blondie Bear]

he wasn't a threat to the world, he was really more of an annoyance.

He was a threat to everything the show stood for: feminine power most of all. It's a feminist show; Warren's a misogynist. So maybe, on a grandiose destroying-the-world scale, he's small potatoes, but he nearly destroyed Willow and Buffy and DID destroy Tara, who were the most powerful women in the series.

[Rowan Hawthorn]

Well, let me clarify my position here a little: It's Warren, the Character I don't like, not Warren As A Character. Warren As A Character brought lots of fun stuff to the show (and lots of not-so-fun stuff I wouldn't have missed, as in some dramatic twists that hurt to watch, since they brought lots of pain to characters I loved.) Warren the Character, however, was a despicable, low-life little pr*** who deserved what he got at Willow's hands.

[Werewolf]

He shot tara and buffy.

[Keanoite]

A better question...Why do people like Warren?

[Werewolf]

^ yes, he is a perverted geek who is a dumbum!

[VisionGuy]

You mean people actually like Warren?

*leaves thread and slams door*

[Randy Giles]

I like Warren as a character who drives the plot but I also completely loathe him, and all the reasons for that have been mentioned here already. I had no sympathy for him whatsoever when Willow tortured and killed him.

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

I never said i had sympathy... i just... like him. i dunno.

[Dlou444]

Well, as has been mentioned, there's the whole Tara thing, which may have scarred me more than anything else I've seen on TV. Granted, it was probably one of the ONLY unintentional things that he did....but still.
I took most of my issues with how he treated Andrew and Jonathan, (and perhaps Katrina and the robot girl.) How he treated Buffy, Willow and society at large wasn't good, but it was that he had NO loyalty to even the people who were supposed the be the ones close to him....it really leaves nothing to like.

[Edmund Blackadder]

Well, as has been mentioned, there's the whole Tara thing, which may have scarred me more than anything else I've seen on TV. Granted, it was probably one of the ONLY unintentional things that he did....but still.
I took most of my issues with how he treated Andrew and Jonathan, (and perhaps Katrina and the robot girl.) How he treated Buffy, Willow and society at large wasn't good, but it was that he had NO loyalty to even the people who were supposed the be the ones close to him....it really leaves nothing to like.

...as a person BUT as a character he really was great.

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

thank you Bored of the Dead, thats exactly what i mean.

And also, as ive posted in a separate post about Tara, wasnt big on her. I was indifferent to her character so her death didn't mean as much to me as it did to others (that won't justify what warren did but... it doesnt make me hate him with an evil passion either).

[justanotherjen]

I agree. I detested the person he was. He was despicable--the way he manipulated Andrew and constantly antagonized Jonathan. But the character was great. I guess, maybe we are both warped. I thought he was a great character and wished he had stuck around a little longer or given him a better plot line then his silly, childish vendetta against Buffy. It seemed below him...should have just been a starting point to bigger, badder things but instead it became an obsession.

He's one of those characters I love to hate. As a person I would have to smack the smirk off his face if I ever met him and felt nothing when Willow flayed him. Well, I sat there slack jawed and shocked, but the grief I felt was for Willow because she had just crossed a line that many don't come back from.

[definition of insane]

Absolutely someone you can love to hate, misogynist little barstool. Couldn't get a girlfriend so he built one and didn't understand why that was wrong. Couldn't really understand why Katrina wouldn't want him back so he warped her head. Couldn't cope with the fact that Buffy got the better of him so he shot her. It was almost like a simple equation with diabolical solutions.

Adam Busch did a fantastic job with him....it was just practically creepy how he almost seemed like he didn't get why everyone had such a big problem with the way he was.

[Aussie]

I just dont like him coz of the scene in Season 7 when jonathon and andrew are in the new sunnydale high looking for the seal of danthalzar ( I think its in conversations with dead people but i cant be sure) when andrew shines the torch on warren in the basement. It is the spookiest scene ever!! He's always creeped me out since then.

[JCC]

Well if you didn't hate him, Whedon ****ed up on making him the villain of the season.

[Dlou444]

I think why I didn't like him was BECAUSE he was too good. Joss is always so good at showing "both sides" of people.
There are rarely in humans that he just creates as evil. (Other than that kid in Angel that was souless.) I think the best part of the show was showing how everyone does things for their own reasons and if you look close enough there is usually SOME PART that even if you don't agree with, you can see how they got there.
And it always bugs me that I can't find anything in Warren that makes sense. It would have helped me with two things.
I think it wouldn't have made Warren's actions seem so POINTLESS at times. He really just seemed to be bopping from one weird thing to another. Like going from the freeze and invisiblity ray to the weird "mind rape" ball.

And it would have helped me see more why it was BAD for Willow to go after him. I never wanted her to get Andrew and Jonathan, but I was cheering on the edge of my seat when she went after Warren. If he had been SLIGHTLY more likeable...or if he simply had "his side of the story" I would have still been hurting for Willow but able to see why hunting him down like a rabid bunny was so horrible.

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

JCC, thats not true. there are plenty of villians we love.

[Elithustra]

Dlou - I don't see how Warren was good, I really don't. If anyone from the Trio was any good, it was probably Andrew, and even then only because his own shadow scared him most of the time.

Warren, as a 'bad guy' was rather unexpected. After Buffy battling so many actual demons and whatnot, to have her battling an actual human, that was unexpected and refreshing. Yet I also feel the entire Trio thing was drawn-out and, for me, pointless as such a large storyline. But thereagain, that is just me!

[Legate Damar]

I think that Warren was an excellent villain for Season 6. He (and really, the whole season) was about a being changeup after 5 seasons of fastballs.

After fighting an ever-more-powerful Big Bad each season, Season 6 was about living a normal life. Buffy's arc was about all the trivial difficulties that accumulate to overtake you when you're not paying attention. And the Trio was the villain version of that. They weren't ever dangerous, they were just annoying and prevented Buffy from doing more important things (like come to terms with the fact that she's alive and healthy and the world got by without her.) Even after all of their tech/magic/demon hijinx, the only damage that the Trio ever actually does is when Warren buys a cheap gun. It's like if Superman beats all of his arch-nemesises consecutively, then dies because of a blood clot.

I think Warren's character actually did progress (albeit in an evil direction) as becoming ever-more-obsessed with proving his own potency. Whereas Jonathon has a moral compass (once he's reminded of it), Warren never stands a chance. At no point can he ever defeat the slayer, but in each appearance and after each defeat, he gets incrementally more militant in his need to defeat her (and thereby prove his own value to himself.) I also think it's interesting to watch him slowly corrupt Andrew by simply having a more powerful personality than Jonathon.

[Amber Benson]

Okay. When I read the topic, the first thing that comes to mind is that I hated him because he killed Tara.

But after actually thinking about it... I didn't mind him... most of the time... the thing I hated ABOUT him was his misogynistic way of speaking... how he said 'baby' all the time... I've always hated that term of endearment... makes me cringe lol

I actually think I hated Kennedy more than Warren... weird.

[Hello Cutie]

The whole point of Warren is that we're supposed to hate him, and the fact that you're asking why so many people hate him is a perfect way of showing that Joss and co got the character perfect in every way!

Warren is the epitome of alot of the bad things that man can be in real life. I love that the as a bad guy, he's real and believable, in the sense that you could quite easily meet a Warren while walking down the street. I dated one for a year, and the character of Warren and the way they made him was perfect.

While he hates women, he fears them, and this is where his misogynistic tendencies come from. He has no real love for women, beyond a desire to control, which is what's shown first with April ('I was made to love you') and then subsequently in 'Dead Things', where he enslaves Katrina against her will. He didn't love her, not in the normal sense of the word, but loved the idea of having power over her, having a woman who he could get to do everything he wanted.

He becomes increasingly unstable as the season continues, as his life starts to unravel and people realise what he's really like (i assume that up until Dead Things, Jonathon and Andrew had no idea what Warren was really like, as he probably went to some trouble to come across as something different, or at least make his misogynism 'cool' and probably somewhat harmless).
So Buffy, to him, represents everything he hates in women- she is stronger than him, both physically and mentally, she can't be bullied or intimidated (which is sort what they are trying to do when they test her in 'Life Serial') and to be honest, she's not scared or put off by him and is little group in the least (where she asks if they've banded together to be pains in her ass).
He can't deal with that (I guess alot of men would have a problem with a woman being so much more powerful than they are... even Xander has made reference to it every now and then, and has had slight struggles with it) and so he becomes more unhinged, eventually going to any length to 'cut her down to size' as it were, showing he has the power and he can do what he wants, she can't stop her, and he is basically, better than her; and so shooting her, and accidently killing Tara in the process.

So basically, he's created to be the epitome of a person you could quite easily find in everyday life, and I think alot of people (concious or subconciously) pick up on that, and that's why the hatred for him goes deeper than with alot of the other villans in Buffy... I certainly hate him the most out of all the villans for that reason, anyway.


[sorry that this was such a long post.... i get carried away sometimes!]

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

first, ican't believe this thread has carried on so long heehee. second, i dunno, im drawn to the insanity that is warren. like i said, maybe its because he IS such a well done character, that i like him. Not necessarily liking what he stands for but... i dunno it's hard for me to explain. He's one of my favorite characters though because i think he is one of the best constructed.

[Hello Cutie]

maybe its because he IS such a well done character, that i like him.

He's one of my favorite characters though because i think he is one of the best constructed.


i completely understand why... do love him because I think he's possibly one of THE best constructed characters they ever did in Buffy, and definitely one of the most realistic.
But as a character I hate him for the way he is (it helps that he epitomises alot of what ive been out with previously, so i can pour my hate into that character :P) and its because i hate him so much that i love him... does that even make sense????

[disco biscuit]

He just annoyed me for some reason. But mainly, I don't like him because he killed Tara. X( And his chest is just nasty. Ewww.
But I love Andrew! And I loved Jonathan, too, but he got worse over time.

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

yeah Jonathon got quite...shifty as time went on. even the spell he did in Superstar... i understand his plight but he put so many people in danger, not to mention played with the entire world in essence.

Always loved Andrew.

[SMGfan17]

I don't hate Warren-- he kind of made for an interesting character. He was also that particular season's "villian". I didn't like him obviously because he shot Buffy-- but other than that he was okay.

[TheHeartist]

In essence, he is responsible for triggering the near end of the world. And the whole sniveling (sp?) coward thing isn't really going for him that well!

[Vicariously]

I dont think I hated Warren. He just lacked in comparison to big bads like Glory and Caleb. He wasnt as fun to watch maybe thats why so many people prefer those big bads. The mayor was alot like Warren I think. An excellent charcter yes but not compelling to watch in my opinion. But I think the writers and actor did there job. They wanted us to hate Warren and most of us did. I know I was kiddy when he was killed. but I was when all the big bads where killed. but Glory was just so compelling to watch. She was my favorite big bad because she was just fantastic and fun to watch. And Warren and the mayor where just kinda boring.

[UlaGan]

I just don't like Warren as I don't like Glory or the First. I can't find any sympathy for him.