Chrissie gets the blame plenty and within the context of the show, she is supposed to be a villain. The character that always escapes blame is Robert who is basically getting rewarded for having an affair and killing someone.

I agree ( except if course the bit about Cain and Ross). As a feminist I argue that women can be equally horrible and we should blame them as much as we do men

I think Charity needed to be brought down to her lowest ebb. With a bit of luck, she's all come out of this period of hardship a better, more interesting character. I really hope she does, I find her hugely entertaining and she could even become likeable. It's just a shame that it was Road of all people who delivered the final blow.

On the other hand, Chrissie has turned into a nasty piece of work, only interested in her inheritance. Robert is also a horror but I think Ryan Hawley is quite good at the Panto villain role. I find it hard to swallow his complete redemption all for the love of Aaron. With Cain it was shown as a mixture of things IMO: maturing; the attack on him; being a loving son, brother,parent, uncle and grandparent; loving Moira and taking on the Head of the Family role. With Robert it all seems to be about Aaron and the Great Romance I suspect TptB are doing anything they can to facilitate that very popular romance and turn Robert into the hero of the hour, even to the extent of making Aaron look a bit pathetic sovRobert had to be the hero of the hour.

Interesting about how violence gets used. They do use it way too lightly, though I think Rakesh's disintegration meant it was something he would do - and we were never meant to be cheering him on.

Mind you, I did cheer for Demelza. Maybe it was because it was the 18th century and married women didn't have any other forms of power. Plus he had just behaved like a colossal prick to her and was practically unrepentant. I also hope he will be sleeping in the pigsty for the rest of the series.

End of Poldark digression.


Just me, but I'd say no. I preferred her when she was human, but brought our her inner bitch when she needed to get back on top. What they've done with her is way too broad, and it's a bit of a shame. Still rather watch her than St Robert though.

But she isn't standing in the way of Robert and Aaron being together and hasn't been that character for a long time and she only became a 'villain' after Robert and Aaron were together and loved up so why would they need to to turn her into a villain to facilitate Robert and Aaron being together? It's not like fans were all that mad at Robert and Aaron for cheating on Chrissie in the first place and their popularity both together and individually has always been high.

They turned her into a villain because they thought it would be fun and it suited her hairdo. I don't think her actions are supposed to be justified because obviously she framed an innocent man and that's going to have soap world consequences eventually i.e she'll be exposed , but she was given motivations for her actions we're supposed to understand i.e she's been hurt repeatedly by the men in her life and is now lashing out and also wanted to protect her son and protecting your children at any cost if often treated as a forgivable trait in Emmerdale.

I didn't say that it doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen anywhere near as much. It's not about liking or disliking a character, it's about how much criticism and name calling the female ones receive for having sex.

Look at Katie in ED. Barely a post was made about her without the typical "her legs are always open" type comments, yet no one made those comments about Andy, even though he had about the same amount of partners. If he were female, his nickname would be Slagden.

So many male characters basically get away with sleeping around and cheating, yet female ones don't.


Even his financial problems have been blamed on her, which makes no sense. It's like people forgot that he brought everything on himself, for the sake of calling Chrissie awful names and even demanding that he should've hurt her even more.

Re Charity what annoys me, when she gets the ' slag' comments is that people forget she was a fourteen year old prostiture. She was a sexually abused kid, no wonder she hasn't t grown up entirely well balanced, in fact it's s a wonder she' s come out as well as she has!

Andy is referred to as thugden due to his violent behaviour but you choose up ignore that in your quest to accuse everyone of being mysoginistic.

I am usually in agreement with your opinion on other parts of ds but I think in this case it's unwarranted as every character on the dates is criticised and judged.

What are your thoughts on violence perpatrated against men in soaps or on tv by the way?

I agree with all of this I think people do forget that and plus her mum and dad chucked her out when she was 13 and pregnant maybe if her parents didn't chuck out at 13 and supported her she could have been a good mum from the start and turned out better.

... That's not what I said.

I said that the character is hated by a large majority.
I also said a lot of that hate stemmed from the fact that she was seen as an obstacle to Robert & Aaron back in the day when he was cheating on her.
I then said that turning her into a bitch was hardly going to endear her to anybody and that it has only served to increase the hatred of the character. So I do not buy that she was turned into a bitch as a means to make her popular.

Exactly. I can understand why she couldn't turn to Cain, not least because he was so young himself but it's s a shame no one else could help her. Charity, Cain and Chas all had a horrible start in life and didn't t have anyone to help them. That was very typical of the era though, and their parents probably had just as bad a time! When I think of it, I would have been too scared at fourteen to tell my Dad I was pregnant (I' m Charity's s age). My Mum would have been angry enough, but my Dad would have been furious.

I actually never realised charity's backstory was that sympathetic, I thought she was in her 20's and more of a willing escort than the way you have described it. It doesn't feel right to sneer at her for this, especially from some pathetic little boy like Ross who grew up on a farm with a doting father and will have had a fairly middle class upbringing but still wants to act like some hard done bad ass from da streets. Who were charities parents?

I don't t know who her parents were but there's s an episode in a hotel room, after Cain and Charity split, about six years ago I think, where they dissect their relationship and she opens up about her first experience of selling sex. It' s got joking, fighting, heartbreak, compassion all in a few scenes! I thinkCain, Charity really had a rough time as kids but as I say, it was typical of that era that what was going on was ignored and they just had to put up with it.

Indeed, they make the perfect couple.

Not everyone has to dislike the villainous characters, they are the ones who create the most drama. So if people like Ross' dark side, you can easily understand why they would think his character may be ruined by becoming too nice.

Following Cain being evil and Zak caving his head in, they've made a real effort to give him some actual character development. He's far more interesting now, despite the 'knitting ' gags.

I'm hoping that Charity's 'mid life crisis', for want of a better phrase, is the start of similar growth foŕ her. Emma Atkins is fine actress and she'd be fantastic.

But I still don't see why the show would need to turn her into a villain just to deliberately make her more unpopular so Robert and Aaron could be more popular especially when she was no longer an obstacle for them and as you say people had no problem with them even when they were cheating on her. That makes no sense. The fact that she still may be disliked doesn't mean the show intended for the audience to dislike her except maybe in a love to hate her kind of way. It's not like Emmerdale doesn't have form for popular female villains/bitches. This thread is about one. Emma's crazy seems to have its fans. Kim Tate went from nice to villain and that was the making of her character so why wouldn't they hope to do the same for Chrissie by instead of her being the victim of the men in her life making her the instigator. The fact that it might not have been a success in her case doesn't mean the intent isn't there. I think the part of the problem is they started too ambitiously. They should have started smaller and built up to her framing people for murder.

Surely leading to a who's the daddy between Ross and Cain. They have ruined Ross, should have kept him as a bad boy rather than turn him into a homewrecker. I mean has anyone tried keeping count of the amount of women he has been with?

If Charity was pregnant, it would be completely out of character for her to keep the baby.

I don't get how that ruined his character, its pretty typical of a "bad boy" to go around doing what they like. It took two to tango, Debbie was as much to blame as he was. He couldn't just be nicking cars and having sex with random girls forever, we have seen his psycho side, his nice side, and his cheeky side. Now its about deciding which side of him they stick to, either push him to the limit and have him kill someone, or revert back to the bad boy or tone him down completely.

Not if she can see it as a way of trapping Cain, pretending that its his kid.

True. Would be an awful storyline though, they should give Charity some proper character development instead of another baby plot.

Yeah, I doubt they would dump another kid on Ross aswell.

I didn't say I disliked the villainous characters.

They're both as bad as each other really. He was 100% right but almost everything he said applied to him as well. Along with the nasty Robert and tedious Cain, they're the worst characters on the show.

For the majority of the time Ross has been a good dad to Moses. I'm going off Robert, and I'm sort of indifferent towards towards Cain.