i bet something here is not like the other

Okay, if you watch Big Bang Theory--is it wrong to still hate Leonard? I have a bad feeling that Leonard's biggest problem is that I want to set him on fire (metaphorically). I can't even figure out why, except it's like, he almsot embodies Nice Guy, in a geek variation, and--well, fire.

Kindle is not delivered yet, so I am kind of hyperexamining my life and my media choices.

Comments

[musyc]

Leonard gets on my nerves, but not as badly as Howard. I think I would be happy to lock Howard in a small room with his mother for the rest of his life.

[blackonice]

Honestly I wouldn't go as far as hate... but he could fall out of a window and I wouldn't probably bat an eye...

You lucky person who lives in a country with an amazon that actually advertises and sells kindle (and I'm not even going as far as saying Kindle Fire...) Amazon.es is still in diapers when it comes those matters *siiiiiiiiigh* (but at least we finally got Amazon. I was about time.)

[sapote]

He is really, really awful. He, um, kind of reminds me of the people who post on fandomsecrets being like AS SOON AS I GET A BOYFRIEND I AM LEAVING FANDOM TO HAVE A REAL LIFE.

[via_ostiense]

Hahaha one of the many reasons I love my +1 is that he understands and accepts that fandom is a significant part of my life, from my in-person social circle to my audioficcing to DW.

[via_ostiense]

I stopped watching BBT at the end of S3 for a few reasons, and one of them was Leonard. He is absolutely a Nice Guy and the show empathized with him and I got fed up with it.

[gumbie_cat]

My mother has recently become obsessed with this show, and she imagines it's the sort of thing I should love. In actual fact I vary between thinking it's ok and not being able to stay in the same room while it's on.

This is due in part to my having a ridiculously over-sensitive embarrassment squick (you should see me when somebody puts Faulty Towers on, I'm told it's hilarious for other people) and often thinking Sheldon is being perfectly reasonable at times when the show is making it clear I'm supposed to find him ridiculous. Endearing, sure, but ridiculous.

Which is sort of veering off topic, but she's watching up to four episodes a day and frequently asking me to explain things and I just have all these feeeelings on the topic, as you can probably tell.

One of which is, yeah, I totally hate Leonard. In the episodes I've seen it feels like he's just hanging out with these guys so he can feel like he's winning somehow, so he can be on top of the hierarchy when in any other social group he'd be at the bottom. Sort of the geek boy variation of the trope of a skinny girl having fat friends. It doesn't feel like he actually likes any of the others at all.

[out_there]

... often thinking Sheldon is being perfectly reasonable at times when the show is making it clear I'm supposed to find him ridiculous. Endearing, sure, but ridiculous.

Hee! I don't hate Leonard but I don't... care about him either. Raj can be a jerk, Howard's attitudes towards women adn sex are horrendous (and yet I find him oddly sweet with Bernadette) and Leonard seems to spend a lot of energy trying hard to be the least geeky of the group (he's... kind of bland?). Sheldon, on the other hand, is my absolute favourite. Because he might be a touch extreme but there's a huge part of me that thinks I could live with him without too much trouble. He's rude and insulting, but he's routined and honest about it. And his childlike joy when he understands something new melts my heart.

So, no, Jenn, I don't think it's compulsory to like/sympathise with Leonard. I think it should be compulsory to like/sympathise/secretly adore Sheldon, though.

[revolutionaryjo]

I have thoughts about Leonard. But I'm not sure if they are still relevant since I last left off at the beginning of season three. I dislike him too and the biggest reason is because he's always trying to apologize or cover up his geekiness rather than embrace it or just admit that it's who he is and what he likes. He comes off as disingenuous.

[seperis]

What weirds me out is that he's the type of geek I would never ever talk to about fandom. He judges himself so hard on even the mild geek scale that I'd be terrified of his reaction.

[lorax]

I only got through the first season, but I still found Leonard pretty damn unlikable and Nice Guy-ish. Though I didn't actively loathe him as much as Howard. (Or the laugh track, which I think helped kill the show for me.)

[laurajv]

See, this is kind of interesting to me, because like -- you hate Leonard, and I don't, and I hate Rodney, and you don't!

I went to school with HUNDREDS of Rodneys and Leonards and Howards and fifties of Sheldons and Rajs (and went on one date with a Raj, who I am actually still friends with, 17 years later). Can't stand Rodneys or Howards and have minimal tolerance for Sheldons (and do not get me started on the alarming prevalence of SHELWARDS at top engineering schools, you do not want to hear it, except let us say, the way a lot of people hate jocks, I hate Shelwards. Those fuckers can all die and I'll dance a JIG. I'll put up with 5 Rodneys if it gets me out of dealing with a Shelward). There were also a lot of Nice Guys(tm), and I don't think of them as Leonards -- though a lot of them were wearing Leonard-skin disguises.

What Leonard lacks that Nice Guys(tm) have is this: a sense of being _entitled_ to women's time/attention/sexual favors, by virtue of how Nice they are. Leonard is not Angrily Baffled that hot women date hot jerks and not him. He's more of a jerk than he thinks he is, for sure, but...of all of those guys (and women, including several Amy Farrah Fowlers!) I went to school with, I am friends with a lot of: Leonards, Amys. I am friends with a few: Rajs. (Possibly some Bernadettes, but it's hard to tell since we don't end up seeing a lot of Bernadette's intellectual or professional life on the series; I have a couple friends I think are very much like her but I'm not sure.)

[seperis]

I have been thinking why they differ for me, and one third of it is Leonard's utter lack of confidence in pretty much anything about himself drives me nuts. But I nailed it two comments up when I realized he's the type of geek I'd never tell about my involvement with fandom. And it's not because I think he'd make fun of me (other than playfully); I think his subconscious would follow along with his general shame of being geeky and look down on me for it (and that's true of a lot of geeks about fandom, but his comes wired with that extra special dislike of his own geekness would make it worse).

I have a really strong geek-girl reaction to that. I am not saying this is better than the guys who would openly mock on sight, but if I was on like, a third date and feeling we have a working connection and I'd feel him out, getting a rush of that geek-shame would be pretty much a slap in the face. I mean, I get where it comes from, but from him it would feel like a betrayal. It's an unfair standard, I know, but it's one he created fairly deliberately. Even as a friend, I would not at all enjoy the moment if a hot girl came up during say, us talking about the Master and Apprentice series and he throws me under the bus (automatically, not even malice, which is what makes it harder to deal with) because it's so ingrained to hide it, be ashamed of it, or be ironic about it.

so much tl;dr

[cesare]

I could only watch 1.5 seasons because despite loving Sheldon a lot of the time and really enjoying the actors, the setup and writing were really really not working for me.

I dearly loved the actor who plays Leonard back when he was Darlene's boyfriend David on Roseanne. So for his sake I really want to like Leonard, and I find a lot of what he does with the character to be funnier than I think most actors could make it. But I just can't get over the character himself.

While I agree with the commenter above me that Leonard doesn't display a Nice Guy sort of angry bafflement at Penny's dating choices, to me it's because Leonard is too busy whining and feeling sorry for himself-- while the show itself takes care of implying that angry bafflement and disapproval. When I was watching, it seemed like Penny's relationships didn't end because of normal incompatibility but because the hot guys treated her badly, like of course only Nice Guy Leonard is ever going to treat her right and any guy who's as stereotypically-attractive as she is will end up being an asshole.

Leonard doesn't have to display the repulsive entitlement because the entitlement is built right there into the show. It doesn't matter if Penny and Leonard have nothing in common and no basis for a relationship. She is The Hot Girl and Leonard is the main character, and since he's the protagonist and a Nice Guy, obviously, he deserves The Hot Girl. I hated that.

If you ever really want it brought home how weak the writing is on BBT, try watching a couple episodes of Better Off Ted as a chaser and compare how geek scientists Phil and Lem are written compared to the BBT guys. It really brings home how much of BBT's humor is just stock sitcom jokes dressed up with sciencey words, or for Raj and Howard, stock jokes with the cultural identifiers swapped to Jewish and Indian references. Leonard has the same voice as most sitcom protagonists on the Chandler-Ross continuum. Whereas... this didn't air for obvious salty language reasons, but otherwise it's typical Phil and Lem: Better Off Ted - Formula for Insults.

[language_escapes]

I loathe Leonard. LOATHE. I've never really forgiven him for his behavior towards Penny when her father was in town. I think he's manipulative, but not in an interesting way. Just in a regular, every day person sort of way, and I don't like those characters.

While I frown mightily in Howard's direction, it is Leonard who earns my wrath. The latest episode did nothing to encourage me to like him again, either.

[aivilo_18]

It's never wrong to hate Leonard.  He's the Dawson Leery of BBT.

[seperis]

...oh, that's genius. Yes. And I ship Sheldon/Penny dammit. And likely Penny/Amy/Sheldon, because hell yes, Penny is that goddamn awesome.

[nafs]

The more I watch Big Bang Theory the more I hate Leonard. This season I tend to react to each new episode by hunting down Sheldon/Penny fic.

[seperis]

...but I do not see recs anywhere? *looks around sadly* You forgot to add links to fic here!

It's okay, I forgive you. I'll wait.

C&P'ing Some Recs:

[strina]

Warm Gulf Wind (Penny/Sheldon) [The Big Bang Theory] - "Penny is thirty-four the year she begins again."

The Suspension Bridge Experiment (Penny/Sheldon) [The Big Bang Theory] - "Penny/Sheldon, but secretly Penny/Career" = I HAVE A NEW OTP, FANDOM.

I love that there's a whole pining angsty side to this story that we NEVER SEE, because that is ALL SHELDON COOPER, GUYS. Penny's just over here, bein' awesome and successful and oblivious to his ridiculousness. IT IS GREAT.

Maybe I'm a Lion (Penny/Sheldon) [The Big Bang Theory] - Of course Penny survives the zombie apocalypse. Penny is amazing. I kind of want the story where she ends up with a Final Girl background, btw.

More Links:

[strina]

The Hokum Hierarchy Determinator
Yours (The Earth And All That's In It)
Two Times Sheldon Kinda Met Leonard Nimoy and One Time He Really Did
The God of Clockwork & Strings

All Sheldon/Penny.

[wildestranger.livejournal.com]

He has no geek pride - he still thinks not being a geek is cooler than being a geek. Also, apparently he is supposed to be the non-geeky-looking and therefore hottest guy (I am informed by my non-geeky friends). Neither of those things make sense to me.

[littledrop.livejournal.com]

It's perfectly okay to hate Leonard because he is a) a Nice Guy, and b) unfunny.

[not-sally.livejournal.com]

No, I agree with you completely. He seems like a perfectly nice guy, if a little needy, until he morphs into this douchebag date-rapist asshole.
Fire seems like a perfect solution.

[shei.livejournal.com]

Saddest thing for me is I used to like him but this season has made me hate him.

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

Well I've only seen one episode so I had to go look up IMDB to check which one Leonard was, but he turned out to be the character I liked least in it. He sighed at the others a lot, it annoyed me.

[zelempa.livejournal.com]

The Nice Guy thing is definitely a problem. He feels entitled to other people being attracted to him. In the last episode, he straight-up admitted to Penny that he was only ever nice to her as a getting-into-her-pants strategy.

All his getting-into-people's-pants strategies are off. He's apparently cast himself as the normal one/straight man in the hopes of appealing to non-geeks. But no matter what your specific interests are, would you rather date a guy who no-holds-barred genuinely enjoys whatever it is he enjoys, or who makes a big production of it being stupid and childish while still secretly longing to do it? With all his sighing and eye-rolling, he just comes off as a boring, unfun stick-in-the-mud. AT BEST. At worst, he is actively mean to his friends. Why do they like him?

Since season one I've been waiting and waiting for the rest to give on on Leonard and embrace Penny in his place. She lacks Leonard's extensive background knowledge on, say, Warhammer, but she's a better sport.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh my God so much this. I love Penny. And she kicks everyone's ass gaming.

But no matter what your specific interests are, would you rather date a guy who no-holds-barred genuinely enjoys whatever it is he enjoys, or who makes a big production of it being stupid and childish while still secretly longing to do it?

The stick in the mud analogy is so true.

In the last episode, he straight-up admitted to Penny that he was only ever nice to her as a getting-into-her-pants strategy.

That last ep is where I was trying to give him hives with my mind. Smug, self-satisfied, icky and soo goddamn annoying I wanted to slap him.

[nix-this.livejournal.com]

Argh, Leonard's Nice Guy-ness and Howard's blatant skeeve factor made that show unwatchable for me. And it didn't feel like it was a show by geeks for geeks so much as yet another show to mock geek culture in the same tired ways. IDK, I liked Sheldon and Penny but haven't watched since S1.

[(Anonymous)]

Kindle is not delivered yet, so I am kind of hyperexamining my life and my media choices.

Maybe I am totally misinterpreting your dilemma here, but it's not too late to name it Meredith (Merry for short!)

:D

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

SO MUCH FIRE. I want to kill him all of the time. Usually I prefer fantasizing about cliffs I could push him off, but I can see flames, sure.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

YOU ARE COMPLETELY CORRECT. I love Big Bang Theory and detest Leonard (yes, he completely a Nice Guy TM). I enjoy any pain the show gives him to a probably unhealthy extent.


(Sheldon <3)

[welfycat.livejournal.com]

My main problem with Leonard is that he has such shame of his geekiness and kinda derides it in order to appear "normal". Well, that and he's a dick to Penny. Which, just isn't cool on a show that is supposedly about geekiness being fun.

I don't know, my biggest problem with BBT is Amy. Or, rather, is how they treat/write Amy. And Sheldon to some extent, but mostly Amy.

I sometimes (often when it comes to Amy) get the feeling that she (and Sheldon) aren't supposed to be the "relatable" characters on the show. That they exist in order for the audience and the other characters to laugh at. My biggest problem is when it's things like Amy expressing excitement that she has friends and that she is trying to enact the "girl" things that she didn't get to do when she was young. I don't know. Maybe the show writers think that no women who watch their show won't relate to her? Maybe they think that all women had friends and experienced the things that Amy so badly wants to do now that she has friends?

I'm sure I'm just missing the point, but I don't think it's such a funny thing that Amy wants someone hug or cuddle her when she's sad.

TL;DR: I liked the first seasons better, when it was mostly just them running around being geeky (the time machine ep is one of my favorites), and there wasn't so much of this obsession with romance. Good for Sheldon for refusing to be dragged into it.

And yes, Penny is kick ass.

[baby-jeans.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I kind of hate Leonard. He treats Penny like she's a status symbol and not a PERSON. I mean, jeez, when Sheldon probably knows her better and treats her more respectfully, you know you're being an ass. I don't think Leonard has ever ONCE vocalized something he really liked about her that didn't involve her body. Not a single time. And he has blatantly indicated on more than one occasion that he doesn't respect her in any way at all and kind of looks down on her, (in regards to her intelligence and career) he just does it in a way that's not as obvious as, say, Sheldon would. Classic Nice Guy behavior.

Every time in the early seasons when he talked about how she only dates assholes who are only after her cause she's hot and don't even like her as a person, I was like, "Yeah, I agree, that's totally why she's gonna go after you eventually." What a dick.