"Arthur 'what a git' Dent" or "A few words to the late Douglas Adams"

Upon re-reading "A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (after watching that dreadful excuse of a film) I just had to write this essay. Now, don't get me wrong - I LOVE this book. I mean, come on, who can't love a book with sentences such as "The ships hung in the air in much the same way that bricks don't." (This is my second favorite Douglas Adams' sentence; the first is "The room was big enough to swing a cat, providing it was a particularily well tempered cat and didn't mind getting a few nasty cracks about the head.") But, what is the deal with Arthur Dent?! Can anyone really be that much of a galaxy wide, class A loser? At first, I felt sorry for the guy. Then, I got slightly irritated. Finally, I was pretty well hacked off. As more and more disasters began to befall poor Arthur, I started to daydream. I imagined a better Arthur, a stronger, more self reliant, confident Arthur. An Arthur, which, were there ever any Arthur judging contests in existence, would not only win first prize, but would be universally acclaimed as the Ideal Arthur upon which all subsequent Arthurs should be modeled. As Arthur stood trembling in front of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal preparing to tighly wrap a towel around his head, I wished, that this time, he would take take that towel, twist it into a rope and snap that towel right at the RBBoT. Ha! That would show it who's the boss!
Does Arthur have to be such a total knee biter to make the book work? Perhaps. Perhaps not. In the end, although I desperately wanted Arthur to just once, stand up for himself, I think Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged said it best when he said, simply, "You're a jerk, Dent."