LogFAQs > #950698135

#35. Kate Austen
<img src="https://kathrynmoody.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/kate_austen_.jpg">

I guess this isn't so controversial after all.

Easily the worst of the core 8 (or 9, if you count Claire) characters, Kate is simultaneously poorly written and flatly reprehensible. Let's start off with the latter by listing a bunch of really shitty things that our "hero" does throughout the series:

• Routinely lies and deceives her friends to cover her ass
• Cuckolds Jack with Sawyer and Sawyer with Jack, homewrecks Jack's relationship with Juliet and attempts to do the same to Sawyer, breaks up with Jack when he's having a mental breakdown, general trollopness
• Gets a US Marshall killed for merely doing his job with no semblance of guilt or sympathy
• Marries a nice guy, then drugs him and runs away when he books their honeymoon (instead of just saying that she has a fear of flying or whatever)
• Steals Claire's baby to raise him as her own, despite being on trial facing life imprisonment
• Pretty much destroys everyone's life she touches more than anyone else sans Jack

So yeah, Kate absolutely sucks as a person. But looking at this even deeper, as many have already mentioned, Kate is also pitifully underwritten for someone we are supposed to be cheering on for six seasons. She serves as both a damsel in distress and a Mary Sue whenever the plot requires it (seriously, how/when did she become a fucking Krav Maga expert?). She is thrown into various romantic subplots as ways to build cheap tension and drama. And for whatever reason, she is the one sent on every expedition and important mission because I guess she is too empty of a character to just have sitting around talking to other people.

All of this, and Kate is still something like the #2 character in terms of screentime. Biscuit mentioned above that we are supposed to feel bad for her. But I am not sure that is the intention. I don't even know what the intention is...are we supposed to be rooting for her to finally leave the Island and be free at the end because she came to the Island as a captive? In either case, they utterly fail, as Kate is probably the least deserving of a happy ending out of anyone remaining on this list.

Kate sucks.