Punching bag

For so long, Theon Greyjoy was the punching bag of Game of Thrones, a sort of shitty Charlie Brown who not only failed to kick the football, but would then be beaten savagely with it every time he landed on his ass.

The response was swift, and [Harold] Bloom became a punching bag for leftist critics, who valued literature’s power to deliver social and political messages for the underrepresented.