Do we like them?

Do we like Annie Wilkes?

A character from Misery (1987 (novel), 1990 ()

Our score: 0 out of 10. Absolutely not. She calls herself his biggest fan, but she's controlling and dangerous, and no one should be left alone with her.

Annie Wilkes lives alone in a remote Colorado farmhouse. When bestselling novelist Paul Sheldon crashes his car in a blizzard, she pulls him out and takes him in. She tells him she is his number one fan. At first she seems warm, old-fashioned and kind, and she nurses him back to health.

Her kindness is conditional. She is obsessive and her mood can swing from sweet to furious in a moment. She is deeply attached to the characters in his books, and she reacts badly when the story doesn't go the way she wants. She is polite and prim on the surface, but she is menacing underneath, and that contrast is why she is so unsettling.

We give her a 0. She is one of Stephen King's most famous human villains. Her fandom is the story's central horror, because it turns admiration into ownership. Whatever sympathy her troubled mind earns her, she still causes real suffering and has no interest in changing.