Harry Potter. Rowling needed an editor badly, especially in the middle books, and the house elf stuff with Hermione was awful, cringy, and kind of racist.

Sam Vimes.

There might be another half-dozen Discworld characters before I move to any other books. No one made better characters than him.

In the comics, he’s just trying to get Lady Death to fall in love with him. (That’s why there’s that line about courting death at the end of Avengers.) He killed half the universe as a present to her. She reminded unimpressed.

In the movies, though, you are correct. He’s the embodiment of Malthusian stupidity. No matter how many times it’s disproved by history, people keep falling for it.

I’m not always 100% on-board with the message. The heart of the show is never in doubt to me, though. Divisions, no matter how understandable, are killing us. More forgiveness and understanding is absolutely necessary to heal things. Trey and Matt are such good people. The empathy required to capture and compassionately speak to the needs of society is truly magnificent.