Have you ever come across a fictional protagonist that you just can't stand?

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

35. Two protagonists from the same author, Steven Donaldson

He wrote a series of science fiction novels, "The Gap". I read the first one, The Real Story, and loathed it. Thermopyle, the protagonist, is not a flawed hero, nor really an antihero. Rather, he is an unmitigated bastard with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He is a thief, murderer, thug and rapist. He destroys the only friend he ever had for no apparent reason. When Thermopyle gets into trouble, Morn, a woman whom he has repeatedly beaten and raped, feels sorry for him; making it blindingly obvious that Donaldson has never known any women who have been raped. The reader is also supposed to feel sorry for Thermopyle, even though Donaldson has not given the reader the slightest reason to feel sympathy for him.

Donaldson is also the author of the Thomas Covenant series. Covenant is unpleasant because he feels guilt. He goes on and on, page after page, book after book, kvetching about his guilt. At one point, he feels guilt about what a different character has done. In the second series, Covenant is unconscious for a couple of hundred pages, making me think "Thank God I do not have to listen to him whine about his guilt."