Most Popular Character 2022

[Slade]

2 hours ago, pembie said:

The write up for Marilyn is amusing haha was has a daughter that she pretended never existed for 27 years poor sexy Heather the cliffhanger to that story though before the break was sooo cheesy though 

Yup.  Having read some of more recent posts in the UK Discussion thread, I did wonder about the neutrality towards certain characters.

"Did people sympathise with her being condemned to an unhappy childhood? Or just enjoy watching Leah and Marilyn get knocked out and tied up?"

And up three places from Number 7, we have Marilyn, whose popularity apparently hasn’t been damaged by the reveal that she had a daughter and pretended she didn’t exist for twenty-seven years. And many found her “nasty” chemical-poisoning-induced personality more entertaining than the real one!

So with Irene and Marilyn not winning either, can Alf do it?

[JamesC10]

I'm glad Irene hasn't won the poll - she did quite well to be in the top four but Irene hasn't been relevant for years but congratulations to her on a good placing anyway. 

[adam436]

5 hours ago, JamesC10 said:

I'm glad Irene hasn't won the poll - she did quite well to be in the top four but Irene hasn't been relevant for years but congratulations to her on a good placing anyway. 

Agreed. But I think she's spanned across multiple eras, so she's someone that fans of the current show and fans of the late 90s/early 2000s era, when she was at her peak, can vote for. 

I think Alf will win for that reason. Dean and Ziggy are popular, but only fans watching post 2017 will know them. There are many exclusively Early Years fans who would have voted. I am curious to know how close the points will be though

[Dan F]

And there we have it, the Top Three have been announced. Click through for our news story where we recap on the Top 20 before revealing the final result.

Big thanks once again to @Red Ranger 1 for his commentary, and to those that voted in our tenth Most Popular Home and Away Character poll.

 

[pembie]

I’m surprised about Ziggy I don’t really think she has much going for her character wise all she seems to do is judge people in my opinion and moan

Dean his ok but not that interesting really to me

Alf he vanishes for months nowadays so not my top three but these polls are quite interesting so I hope they carry on

[~Lynd~]

I knew Dean and Ziggy were popular but I had no idea they were that popular tbh.A little overhyped in my opinion but here they are.

Alf winning doesn't surprise me.He's a cranky old man while being a warm blanket of comfort at the same time.

The Haydn Ross sass reminds me that kid me literally named her cabbage patch doll after him.Adult me has no idea why but it's a nice memory lol.

[Red Ranger 1]

There might be a full list of regulars who didn't get votes along at some point but a few quick notes on those who've disappeared since last time.No Curtis, who as mentioned is the highest place character from last time to disappear.No Scarlett, who's the most recent character not to get a vote.No Lynn, who can usually be guaranteed a place in the lower stages.But actually, as with last time, there's been very few lost in transition (which is perhaps not surprising when you remember there was 60 more characters in this poll than that one!): I think the next highest place character to have dropped out was Karen Dean, and judging from the comments, someone might have voted for her and forgot to include a surname.

[CaptainTed84]

I think it's brilliant that this was the overall outcome

If anything it's a pretty accurate portrayal of the direction of the show nowadays which is that history is basically ignored and forgotten about pretty quickly. In saying that, if Alf Stewart the man who has been there since the start and never left, wasn't number one then he would have been robbed. But as a Dean stan very glad he is number 2, wouldn't have guessed that going into the voting but when you think about the last 2 years, we got to see both River Boy Dean, hero Dean and Dad Dean in action. 

Say what you want about his Mangrove River connections, but they make for entertaining scenes. The River Boys ambushing Paul and Leon's guys was a brilliant scene, as was when they essentially made a citizen's arrest on Nathan for his murder of PK. Both were pretty dark and totally not something you'd want to be doing in real life but for a TV show, awesome. 

And then probably the best part of 2022 for me, Dean and Karen finally reconnecting on screen. The beautiful moment when Karen met her grandson and they kicked the footy together, followed by the hilarious storyline of her finding love

[SandsResort]

@Red Ranger 1 Thank you for the brilliant commentary as always. It's been full of spot on, wry observations about the show. E.g. "He was one of those that came in as a bit of a jerk and had the magic of Summer Bay make him…less of a jerk"; "Belle suffered the fate of anyone who decides to leave the show before the other half of a golden couple".

You're also great at coming up with funny, snappy descriptions for each character ("managed to take the virginities of two of his classmates, then shot his teacher").

Thanks also to Chris and Dan for compiling the poll.

[Chris J]

So I'll hold my hands up – Karen Dean should be in there 

I'd mistakenly assigned her points to Karen Thompson when I was cleaning up the results, confusing myself after a couple of people voted for "Karen Dean's mum".

She actually received two votes, both as the voters' fourth choice. She scored four points, landing her in joint 139th place.

Karen Thompson only got 11 points, meaning she moves from position 92 to position 109.

I've added Karen Dean to the results column, and she'll be added to the actual results pages once I've double checked that everything is correct – obviously it's affected the numbering of some of the other results as well. Oops!