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limyaael's latest essay/rant, this one on writing likeable bastards, I realized something. I think there's a duality I'm always looking for in protagonists to love, especially male ones: that balance between vulnerability and strength, especially when applied to offbeat heroic characters like Harry, Mal (Firefly) or Y - The Last Man's uber-adorable Yorick. I also think this ties nicely into my preference for reluctant heroes, perhaps (to get all meta, I hate a 'yes' without a 'no' imbedded in it).
And on second thought, my favorite heroic characters also represent an interesting balance between being likeable & unlikeable-- frequently dipping into both but staying in neither long enough to become stale. Perhaps most important is that... property of vacillation itself, even. Heroes just aren't heroic (to me) if they're not bastards on their (rather frequent) off days; I dunno, it just doesn't seem realistic enough. Perhaps it's a question of identification, pure and simple: I know -I'm- a bastard, why aren't you?
If the main character is invulnerable or his arrogance is always borne out by easy success at every conflict, if he never doubts himself or says stupid things or acts just as bad as his enemies-- if he never fails as both a hero & a human being, he's not going to be interesting or sympathetic.
This is different from how the pure underdog character works, though, which is why I suspect a number of people don't sympathize with or dislike Harry: rather than being 'oppressed' by some outside force, this sort of hero is often his own worst enemy (which is both more realistic and harder for some readers to identify with). I think Harry's only unlikeable from the pov of a specific bias, though-- it's not that I actually think he's really a bastard type at all, and he does have certain characteristics of being 'oppressed', though he didn't really spend much time feeling sorry for himself outside of OoTP. It's only that he polarizes reader opinions at times.
Even his best friends couldn't help but want to whap him upside the head a lot of times-- and that's what makes me love this sort of character. He's... honest (or at least, honestly himself) in a way the underdog or the 'true paladin' or the 'regular guy'-- and especially the typical antagonist-- often isn't.
And in fact, a likeable antagonist (to me) is likely to have that same quality of being honestly himself, though with absolutely no apologies or regrets rather than just some very important ones that the hero would have.
However, if the character is always oppressed and eventually defeated by his own flaws and weaknesses, I get... itchy, I suppose, and I don't think they'd qualify for the Hero's position unless they went on a Journey to fix that and get a grip on themselves. This is why I'd always been obsessed with having Draco succeed at what he wanted (getting revenge on Potter), at least to some degree. Otherwise, he'd just never qualify as a true (even anti-hero-type) protagonist in his own right, as far as I was concerned. Meaning, I never cared what -side- he or any other character was on, as long as they knew who they were enough to -pick- one seriously.
To me, it's always been so elementary: if he never did it, he'd never realize he was wrong, and he'd never be able to go on a journey to eventual self-respect. (And little did I realize it was going to be JKR that satisfied me in this mainstay of Draco characterization with HBP rather than any H/D fic. Ahem.) That's partly why I disliked any characterization where he was secretly 'enlightened' or 'cool' or even gorgeous all along so very much-- that makes Draco being 'likeable' so pat and surface as to produce the opposite effect (kinda like why-- when I bother to-- I think Lockhart was a complete useless asshole that has none of my sympathy). Though I do find canon!Draco likeable for getting up & trying again after each defeat. That's its own sort of strength (or resilience, at least); it's ice-prince!Draco who is weak, you see, even if canon!Draco is more pathetic. If that makes sense.
It's canon!Draco's struggles that made him sympathetic in the first place; take that away and you have a... well. Let's just not go there (again), since I always get carried away (sorry! eep! I know everyone must like, roll their eyes at me, I swear.)
So yeah, as important as vulnerability and failure is to a heroic protagonist, it'd be hard to overemphasize the importance of strength. Though perhaps by 'strength' I really mean 'willfulness'; the driving urge to... do in accordance to who you are. In this sense, I am looking to contrast/combine the opposites of typically male & female behavior in the (generally male) protagonist-- the dominant nature of Will and the loving nature of Feeling.
By 'strength', I don't mean anything showy or obvious, of course, nothing too easily achieved-- no magic sword or secret scroll would fit the bill. The strength is just there as a balance to the vulnerability-- sort of like a reserve of oil that gets drilled deeper and deeper as the story progresses. True strength is often unexpected and intrinsically tied to a protagonist's character, and only truly emerges in response to intense trial (and error, naturally). A hero's greatest strength is usually a combination of endurance and sheer force of will-- the will to succeed, to get things done, to persevere, a sort of will that has a foundation of solid conviction.
And it can't be any kind of external conviction, for it to offer true strength-- as I think the difference between Draco and Harry shows-- it can't be for a cause, really. It has to be for yourself that you're fighting, even if you're fighting to protect others. If everything else is stripped away from a heroic protagonist-- if they lost all their supports, everyone they loved-- like Harry lost his parents and Sirius and Dumbledore and such-- they would still have to keep going. The source of their strength has to be squarely individualistic, even if the source of their success is dependent on others' help. And of course this treads into the ledge of self-righteousness and entitlement and all that, but that's what makes it interesting-- because at any moment, the likeable bastard can become unlikeable and unapologetically so even as they face the consequences, and they never 'grow out of' it or become 'enlightened', because that's who they -are-, and you either deal with it as a reader or you, well-- you get out of their way.
Also, I think it's important to add that I think neither vulnerability or strength (or the combination of the two) is in any way equivalent to either likeability or goodness-- in that you can easily have a villain who is both vulnerable and strong and, y'know, psychotic. And you can have a good, well-meaning person who's a weakling in the sense that they're always being used by others, whose motives are unpredictable at best and twisted at worst. A 'likeable bastard' would merely make his mistakes of his own free will (which is why it bothers me when people try to excuse/explain Harry's behavior by saying he's somehow been controlled by Dumbledore-- ahahaha...ha...ha).
Or at least, 'likeability' should probably be replaced in this instance with something like 'sympatheticness', but even that seems inadequate. What I'm getting at isn't any guarantee that a character would be liked by any particular reader, but that they would seem -believable- and understandably human to any reader who's not too prejudiced/biased to bother thinking openly about them.
Anyway, before anyone jumps me, I'm not saying this mix of strength & vulnerability (and by this we mean: tendency towards male-type idiocy and female-type emotionality) is 'good' or 'right' or how characters 'should' be (god, I hate that word)-- I'm just saying that's what I love and identify with. Somehow, if they're not idiots, I don't care about them, but if they don't kick ass, they just annoy me. Man, I really sound like I have issues, don't I, ahahahah. *coughs*
~~
In other news, I'm a middle-of-the-road liberal Democrat according to this test. Hmph. Also, I feel suspicious about the assertion that I apparently have a highly developed sense of Right and Wrong (I sort of hate calling things right or wrong, but I guess I was forced by the test.)
Also, I had something of a personal realization reading this article on personality typing-- "The Creative/Artistic personality type seeks harmony through conflict. They tend to stir up emotions and create disorder. They return later to smooth over situations that they may have created earlier." Man... that just... explains a lot -.- I really am so Type 4 it hurts. I mean, literally sometimes.
Basically, by themselves, I hate both harmony and conflict. I really do. It's only together that they seem... I dunno, right. Er.
To bring this back to my earlier point, I think the most interesting heroes (to me) are the "Omega" type personalities from that link (with all the omg-mesmerizing behavior charts), that are not 'dipolar' but rather are integrated and whole. How does this relate to being unlikeable? Well, I think whole people of this sort are... uh, not necessarily predictable or easily socialized. They would often enter into conflict based on their convictions & desires even as they'd compromise when confronted with the reality of things. Individuality breeds discontent, I guess.
EDIT - If you want to read the first issue of Y: The Last Man (and I know you do, trust meeee), here's the first issue in pdf format, courtesy of Vertigo. ♥ Um, also, here's a better review (or two). And yes, these are my ideas of lame-ass attempts to pimp it. ^^;;
limyaael's latest essay/rant, this one on writing likeable bastards, I realized something. I think there's a duality I'm always looking for in protagonists to love, especially male ones: that balance between vulnerability and strength, especially when applied to offbeat heroic characters like Harry, Mal (Firefly) or Y - The Last Man's uber-adorable Yorick. I also think this ties nicely into my preference for reluctant heroes, perhaps (to get all meta, I hate a 'yes' without a 'no' imbedded in it).And on second thought, my favorite heroic characters also represent an interesting balance between being likeable & unlikeable-- frequently dipping into both but staying in neither long enough to become stale. Perhaps most important is that... property of vacillation itself, even. Heroes just aren't heroic (to me) if they're not bastards on their (rather frequent) off days; I dunno, it just doesn't seem realistic enough. Perhaps it's a question of identification, pure and simple: I know -I'm- a bastard, why aren't you?
If the main character is invulnerable or his arrogance is always borne out by easy success at every conflict, if he never doubts himself or says stupid things or acts just as bad as his enemies-- if he never fails as both a hero & a human being, he's not going to be interesting or sympathetic.
This is different from how the pure underdog character works, though, which is why I suspect a number of people don't sympathize with or dislike Harry: rather than being 'oppressed' by some outside force, this sort of hero is often his own worst enemy (which is both more realistic and harder for some readers to identify with). I think Harry's only unlikeable from the pov of a specific bias, though-- it's not that I actually think he's really a bastard type at all, and he does have certain characteristics of being 'oppressed', though he didn't really spend much time feeling sorry for himself outside of OoTP. It's only that he polarizes reader opinions at times.
Even his best friends couldn't help but want to whap him upside the head a lot of times-- and that's what makes me love this sort of character. He's... honest (or at least, honestly himself) in a way the underdog or the 'true paladin' or the 'regular guy'-- and especially the typical antagonist-- often isn't.
And in fact, a likeable antagonist (to me) is likely to have that same quality of being honestly himself, though with absolutely no apologies or regrets rather than just some very important ones that the hero would have.
However, if the character is always oppressed and eventually defeated by his own flaws and weaknesses, I get... itchy, I suppose, and I don't think they'd qualify for the Hero's position unless they went on a Journey to fix that and get a grip on themselves. This is why I'd always been obsessed with having Draco succeed at what he wanted (getting revenge on Potter), at least to some degree. Otherwise, he'd just never qualify as a true (even anti-hero-type) protagonist in his own right, as far as I was concerned. Meaning, I never cared what -side- he or any other character was on, as long as they knew who they were enough to -pick- one seriously.
To me, it's always been so elementary: if he never did it, he'd never realize he was wrong, and he'd never be able to go on a journey to eventual self-respect. (And little did I realize it was going to be JKR that satisfied me in this mainstay of Draco characterization with HBP rather than any H/D fic. Ahem.) That's partly why I disliked any characterization where he was secretly 'enlightened' or 'cool' or even gorgeous all along so very much-- that makes Draco being 'likeable' so pat and surface as to produce the opposite effect (kinda like why-- when I bother to-- I think Lockhart was a complete useless asshole that has none of my sympathy). Though I do find canon!Draco likeable for getting up & trying again after each defeat. That's its own sort of strength (or resilience, at least); it's ice-prince!Draco who is weak, you see, even if canon!Draco is more pathetic. If that makes sense.
It's canon!Draco's struggles that made him sympathetic in the first place; take that away and you have a... well. Let's just not go there (again), since I always get carried away (sorry! eep! I know everyone must like, roll their eyes at me, I swear.)
So yeah, as important as vulnerability and failure is to a heroic protagonist, it'd be hard to overemphasize the importance of strength. Though perhaps by 'strength' I really mean 'willfulness'; the driving urge to... do in accordance to who you are. In this sense, I am looking to contrast/combine the opposites of typically male & female behavior in the (generally male) protagonist-- the dominant nature of Will and the loving nature of Feeling.
By 'strength', I don't mean anything showy or obvious, of course, nothing too easily achieved-- no magic sword or secret scroll would fit the bill. The strength is just there as a balance to the vulnerability-- sort of like a reserve of oil that gets drilled deeper and deeper as the story progresses. True strength is often unexpected and intrinsically tied to a protagonist's character, and only truly emerges in response to intense trial (and error, naturally). A hero's greatest strength is usually a combination of endurance and sheer force of will-- the will to succeed, to get things done, to persevere, a sort of will that has a foundation of solid conviction.
And it can't be any kind of external conviction, for it to offer true strength-- as I think the difference between Draco and Harry shows-- it can't be for a cause, really. It has to be for yourself that you're fighting, even if you're fighting to protect others. If everything else is stripped away from a heroic protagonist-- if they lost all their supports, everyone they loved-- like Harry lost his parents and Sirius and Dumbledore and such-- they would still have to keep going. The source of their strength has to be squarely individualistic, even if the source of their success is dependent on others' help. And of course this treads into the ledge of self-righteousness and entitlement and all that, but that's what makes it interesting-- because at any moment, the likeable bastard can become unlikeable and unapologetically so even as they face the consequences, and they never 'grow out of' it or become 'enlightened', because that's who they -are-, and you either deal with it as a reader or you, well-- you get out of their way.
Also, I think it's important to add that I think neither vulnerability or strength (or the combination of the two) is in any way equivalent to either likeability or goodness-- in that you can easily have a villain who is both vulnerable and strong and, y'know, psychotic. And you can have a good, well-meaning person who's a weakling in the sense that they're always being used by others, whose motives are unpredictable at best and twisted at worst. A 'likeable bastard' would merely make his mistakes of his own free will (which is why it bothers me when people try to excuse/explain Harry's behavior by saying he's somehow been controlled by Dumbledore-- ahahaha...ha...ha).
Or at least, 'likeability' should probably be replaced in this instance with something like 'sympatheticness', but even that seems inadequate. What I'm getting at isn't any guarantee that a character would be liked by any particular reader, but that they would seem -believable- and understandably human to any reader who's not too prejudiced/biased to bother thinking openly about them.
Anyway, before anyone jumps me, I'm not saying this mix of strength & vulnerability (and by this we mean: tendency towards male-type idiocy and female-type emotionality) is 'good' or 'right' or how characters 'should' be (god, I hate that word)-- I'm just saying that's what I love and identify with. Somehow, if they're not idiots, I don't care about them, but if they don't kick ass, they just annoy me. Man, I really sound like I have issues, don't I, ahahahah. *coughs*
~~
In other news, I'm a middle-of-the-road liberal Democrat according to this test. Hmph. Also, I feel suspicious about the assertion that I apparently have a highly developed sense of Right and Wrong (I sort of hate calling things right or wrong, but I guess I was forced by the test.)
Also, I had something of a personal realization reading this article on personality typing-- "The Creative/Artistic personality type seeks harmony through conflict. They tend to stir up emotions and create disorder. They return later to smooth over situations that they may have created earlier." Man... that just... explains a lot -.- I really am so Type 4 it hurts. I mean, literally sometimes.
Basically, by themselves, I hate both harmony and conflict. I really do. It's only together that they seem... I dunno, right. Er.
To bring this back to my earlier point, I think the most interesting heroes (to me) are the "Omega" type personalities from that link (with all the omg-mesmerizing behavior charts), that are not 'dipolar' but rather are integrated and whole. How does this relate to being unlikeable? Well, I think whole people of this sort are... uh, not necessarily predictable or easily socialized. They would often enter into conflict based on their convictions & desires even as they'd compromise when confronted with the reality of things. Individuality breeds discontent, I guess.
EDIT - If you want to read the first issue of Y: The Last Man (and I know you do, trust meeee), here's the first issue in pdf format, courtesy of Vertigo. ♥ Um, also, here's a better review (or two). And yes, these are my ideas of lame-ass attempts to pimp it. ^^;;
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 05:29 pm (UTC)Does that conversely mean he's only likeable from the pov of a specific bias, then?
(I guess those descriptions could really cover any character from any fandom, either way, at any rate...)
Guess who I liked best in Firefly?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 05:41 pm (UTC)The Operative? (Did he have a name? I had to look that up on imdb, and there isn't one.)
Jayne, Zoe and Wash seemed okay, too. Didn't care much for Kaylee, River or Mal, though. (Too similiar to BTVS/ATS characters for me.)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 01:09 am (UTC)Er... I just.... thought it was wanky ^^;;; And with the fic, I think I kinda snapped & decided to post on my website when I, uh, redesign it, 'cause apparently Movable Type costs money. Who knew??
no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 01:15 am (UTC)The only thing wankier than making wanky posts is deleting them afterwards.
Anyway, I was going to say I didn't comment in the fic because I couldn't understand what was going on. Yes, I realised it was going backwards, but even with this realisation, it still confused me. For the record, I don't think you should stop writing H/D, but I just didn't like the fic because I couldn't follow it.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 01:26 am (UTC)I figured a lot of people may not get it... um... I just thought -someone- would, I guess? Not being understood is just something that happens to me a lot, so I'm a bit obsessed with knowing -what's- unclear, or how, or to whom, or... something. I dunno. Possibly I'll just get it beta'd and repost -.-
no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 08:59 pm (UTC)(Though maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit, but. Argh, the Eros & Sapphos site needs pre-approval and Movable Type costs money and I'm too lazy to code every fic myself and. Meh.)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 09:22 pm (UTC)It's funny, though, because the 'promise'-- I did have Draco say 'Promise me you'll be there after-- afterwards.' :D So Harry was actually trying to keep him safe. See what happens when I try to be a little romantic :))
no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 11:53 pm (UTC)...Though I'm always wondering (slightly) why most of my stories have people asking me what comes next :> (Maybe it's like compulsive omission except I don't know what I'm omitting...)