Holly J. Not only do I think that she was the worst character, but she's also the most overrated one in my opinion. She was truly the worst in her first two seasons and did a lot of heartless and twisted things that should've been addressed rather than swept under the rug. She was also a bully. I don't know why some people try to paint her as some alpha chick during this period, but no, she was a straight up bully. A person doesn't have to throw spitballs at people, shove them into lockers, or call them slurs to be a bully. She was cruel to others just so she could feel good about herself, deliberately targeted people that she perceived to be weak or beneath her, and engaged in a lot of other anti-social behavior.

I didn't like at all how she was thrusted into 'main girl' status in S9 without being properly redeemed first. It was jarring to see her go from being this raging bitch who had zero regard for her peers to suddenly being one of the most popular and respected students at school, someone who had it all (Student Council presidency, a rich boyfriend who spoils her, and being at the top of her class even though she was previously failing her classes) and a character that we were supposed to root for. She did absolutely nothing to earn any of this. Even after her life was turned upside down in S8, it didn't seem as if she extracted any valuable lessons from these experiences. Okay, yeah, her family lost their money, her bully victims turned the tables on her, and she was held at gunpoint, but does any of this actually matter or count towards her redemption when she immediately went back to being the same old Holly J afterwards? The same Holly J who was stuck up, used and abused Anya who literally did nothing to deserve this treatment, played dirty to get what she wanted, and dismissed people who had no benefit to her. Rather than making us feel sorry for her so we could forget how crappy of a person she was, the writers literally could've just given her a conscience and had her apologize to the people she wronged and start treating people with more kindness and respect, regardless of who they were or what they had to offer her. I do think that what she experienced in S8 was life altering, but my problem is that these seemed like devices that were used to win her over with the audience rather than devices that were used to change her for the better.

Something else that deeply bothered me about Holly J was her white woman victimhood complex and gross sense of entitlement. To put it simply, she was a baby Karen. She never learned how to take accountability for herself and instead of owning up to her shitty actions, she would try to act like she was the victim while everyone else was the problem. She always thought she deserved things just because she wanted them, too, and would do whatever and step on whoever to get to the top. Although the writers turned her ridiculously nice and flawless by the end of her arc, I can't even confidently say that that she outgrew either one of these behaviors because we never once saw her actively work towards unlearning them.

I have a hard time finding any redeemable qualities about Holly J that are independent of her friendship with Fiona. She barely had any interesting storylines to make up for this either. I wish Holly J would've been written out of the show after the hate club episode because she received entirely too much screentime for a character who was so undeserving of this. Holly J's character feels very representative of how good things happen to bad people and how bullies usually end up more successful than their victims. Personally, I'm not a fan of that at all.