Steve Harrington and 3 Other Comeback Characters You End Up Rooting For

This is the character, the Steve, the one you hate, then somehow fall in love with without ever realizing it was happening. I love this character. Not only is it fun to find yourself, against all odds, rooting for a character you used to hate, but it is the sign of a masterful storyteller.

That’s because this character is really hard to write. It’s all about balance. You’ve got to set up a character that annoys people, bores people, or even makes people hate them. You can’t make the characters too bad, because there is no way you are going to bring people around to a puppy-kicker, but they’ve got to be bad enough to make the change of opinion impressive.

And you do have to bring them around, usually with a combination of subtle character evolution and character revelations that make the audience realize they had misunderstood them before. And you usually have to do it without making your readers and viewers know what you’re doing. You want them to realize at the end, “Hey! I like this character! When did that happen?”

Let’s look at some characters that do this amazingly well. Oh yeah…spoilers ahead…

Steve Harrington from Stranger Things

This dude is definitely the most recent example of this phenomenon. We all hated Steve at the beginning and wanted Nancy to run as far away from him as she could. And somehow, by the end of Season 2, Steve became one of our favorite characters. He didn’t change all at once. It was subtle and believable.

I find myself wondering when exactly I went from anti-Steve to pro-Steve, but I can’t put my finger on it. Was it when we saw him pining for his lost love? When he decided to help Dustin out? When he left the school bus to potentially sacrifice himself for the kids? I’m not sure, but that’s what makes this character evolution so fantastic.

Severus Snape from Harry Potter

I can’t possibly make this list without including the ultimate comeback character: Snape. This character is different because we went along hating him right up until the end, until that painfully sweet chapter when we saw the real Snape and found ourselves feeling more for this greasy-haired git than we could have ever imagined.

Even though the 180 degree change wasn’t subtle at all, I still think it was very well done because it made us look back at every single Snape scene and see it in a completely different light. It changed everything we thought we had known. We know exactly when our opinion changed, but it was enough to make us read the whole series again with another perspective.

Mr. Barrow from Downton Abbey

Oh Thomas. I recently finished watching Downton Abbey (I know, I’m behind the times) and I was genuinely surprised to find myself rooting for Mr. Barrow by the end of Season 6. While I might not go as far to say that I fell in love with the character, I was definitely happy when everything worked out for him in the end.

This is, perhaps, the most surprising addition to this list because we spent six entire seasons hating Mr. Barrow and just wishing he would leave everyone alone. I never thought I would actually be rooting for him to stay with the family. But lo and behold, I found myself shedding tears when he said goodbye to the family and jumping up and down on my seat when they decided the best solution was to bring him back as the next butler.

Steris from the Mistborn: Wax and Wayne Series

I just couldn’t write a post about characters without mentioning one of Brandon Sanderson’s. Steris is one of his lesser known characters, but has, against all odds, become one of my favorites. The fiancé of the main character, Waxillium Ladrian, Steris seems stuck up, dry, fake, and boring. Readers wish Wax would marry her half-sister, Marasi, instead of her.

But somewhere in the second book of the series, we start to forgive her some of her annoying characteristics. And by the third book, I found myself truly hoping that Wax would get over himself and finally marry the lady. She does evolve as a character, but most of the change happens as her real character is revealed. She’s still not naturally likeable, but we find ourselves rooting for her anyways. Brandon Sanderson is famous for creating fenomenal, deep, well-rounded characters, and Steris is no exception.

Here’s to the comeback characters we come to love, and to the storytellers who create them!

Not to seem desperate or anything, but if you liked this list, feel free to give it some claps. And I’d love to hear about your own favorite comeback characters in the comments!