Is hate reserved for people/things which exist, or can we hate fictional people/things?

I hate Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter. That should be proof enough.

Yeah, sorry, but this utterly failed to capture and present the complexities of HC's original question. It's like one bottle of lite beer, next to a case of 24 of the real stuff... :-)

The missing part is, of course, can hate for a fictional character really reach the full width and depth of the hate that one feels for a true evil person, whose evils actually happened, and thus actually resulted in many real people dying. For myself, that answer is no.

Hate is a personal feeling. You may love or hate any one or anything- real or fictional.

BOOOOOO! *hisss* Get off the stage you hack! What is this, amateur hour?

A little fictional hate for your mangled version of my brilliant post :p

Hate is an emotional that causes everyone to be unhappy, including the hater himself.