Does every story need a good character?

[STING]

I have read a lot on these forums about evil, villains and their motives as well as heroes and what they must and mustn’t do etc. My question is a more fundamental one: do we always need good characters?

I have a story that centres round the struggle for power between two evil characters without a good character thrown in. How each character wins or loses a series of battles in the run-up to the final war is what keeps the story going. I am elaborately portraying one as worse than the other, giving both clear motives. I am also attaching some virtues to each by way of self-justification of motives to make them believable and natural since I think even bad guys have some good sides.

Must a story have a hero whom the reader sympathises with? If the two main characters are bad guys – I don’t even have a minor character who is good - whom does the reader sympathise or identify with? Who would the reader want to win the struggle? (In this case, neither is a clear winner.)

Is a story incomplete and flawed without a good guy?

 

[Anne Martin]

The short answer is no. However, you need a character that will strike a chord with your reader, someone to identify with even if they are evil or pathetic. Remember, even good/heroic characters can/should have flaws to be believable.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

There are no good guys and bad guys, just protagonists and antagonists. Remember that both would believe their actions to be 'good' or at the very least justified, i.e. serving a purpose that will benefit what they want to achieve. I wouldn't have a problem if there was no knight on a white horse.

However, I'd think that through the course of writing it you, like your readers, will identify more with one of the two (and this may not necessarily be the one that you have made 'less worse' than the other. Whichever one this is will inevitably become your protagonist, as you will unconsciously bring that out in your writing, and your readers will pick up on it too.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

"Evil" is an invention of religion. Substitute "inhumane" and re-think.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Protagonist does not = goody goody two-shoes.

But a protagonist must be accessible to the reader in some way so that they can empathise and sympathise with them.

A protagonist who is a rabid neo-nazi who spends his time beheading children and raping goats might not go down too well with a general audience.

But there are plenty of examples of amoral or disturbed protagonists in fiction - Raistlin in Dragonlance Chronicles and John Constantine in Hellblazer both come to immediately mind.

In fact, you might find the modern reader become easily bored of a white-than-white law abiding wholly moralistic protagonist - unless done with a degree of satire and clever development as per Corporal Carrot in Terry Pratchett's Guards books.

 

[Toby Frost]

I agree. Although people can and do root for people they wouldn't like in real life, there is a point at which nobody is worth saving at all, and the story may become boring pretty quickly after that. But then the "good guys" don't have to be witless do-gooders: take Sherlock Holmes for instance.

 

[Tonk Rivers]

Good and evil only exist to complement each other and are contextual.

I guess we would need to hear more about your characters, but from the sounds of it you are portraying a good guy in a sense as one character is portrayed as less evil.

It's the context. Tarantino and Cormac McCarthy good guys are more villainous then Disney bad guys, if you get me.

 

[Interference]

A strong character, perhaps; even should that character be an undefined menace or ethereal presence for good. I don't think the character (good or bad) need always be human or even sentient, as long as most of the rules of story-telling are satisfied: Goal, Conflict, Twist, Resolution etc.

I'll wrack my brain for examples, now

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Readers usually identify with and sympathize with the first character they encounter. They are receptive to that character's view of things because they don't as yet have anything to counter it. The only exception is when the character is first seen doing something so heinous that he or she is immediately marked down in the reader's mind as the villain. Readers also respond sympathetically to characters who are in trouble or pain. (Which is why they don't bond with that character who is first seen raping children or torturing innocents. The people that character is hurting arouse the readers empathy instead.)

And once readers bond with a character, they'll forgive an amazing number of things that would appall or disgust them in real life. Because they have already invested in that character, they'll want to believe that those actions are justified, and they'll accept almost any excuse. If the antagonist is even worse than that character, then readers are almost certain to maintain their first allegiance. (Unless they become so disgusted with the whole thing that they say, "A plague a' both your houses," and stop reading. That is a risk you run.)

So my advice would be to start out the story with your less "evil" character, present his viewpoint, and if possible put him in an uncomfortable situation. That should establish that he is the character to root for, even when he turns out to be a total b*****d.

 

[Brian G Turner]

That's a very good point, Teresa, definitely worth underlining - if you want to push a reader into sympathising with a character, start that character in a situation that causes physical or mental anguish. The reader will then immiedately and involuntarily bond with that character.

Some books do this very well at the start - one that immediately comes to mind is Orson Scott's Card Ender's Game.

An addendum to this is that a "hero" is simply someone who overcome's adversity to achieve something worthwhile. Putting them through pain at the start immediately starts that journey.

Later on, pointlessly malicious characters inflicting suffering on a protagonist are a sure fire way to keep the audience riveted behind that character.

It doesn't have to be anything world-shattering - it just has to feel unfair, and the reader's natural desire for justice will do the rest.

If you're clever with your writing, you will try and leverage that to your advantage, intentionally or no.

In fact, off to tweak my first chapter now.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Evil, done properly, can be a more sympathetic character than good. I'm thinking specifically of Piers Anthony's "For Love of Evil" in the Incarnations of Immortality series. The reader's sympathy is firmly in the court of Satan in his battle against God, who hardly appears at all in the book except that we know he is there.

You must, by definition, have a "good" presence lurking out there in the mist of your plot, somewhere. Otherwise, these two "evil" characters would have no reason to be fighting for the upper hand in their realm. But I don't see any reason that you would have to have an actual "good" character -- the reader will choose his hero, the (ha!) lesser of two evils.

 

[STING]

So my advice would be to start out the story with your less "evil" character, present his viewpoint, and if possible put him in an uncomfortable situation. That should establish that he is the character to root for, even when he turns out to be a total b*****d.

Thanks Teresa. This seems like a good thing to do. But I don't know how to do it at the moment. That's because right now both are equally evil. Sorry if I didn't make that clear in my first post.

I am elaborately portraying one as worse than the other, giving both clear motives.

I didn't mean one character is worse than the other one. I meant each is worse than the other.

 

[STING]

However, you need a character that will strike a chord with your reader, someone to identify with even if they are evil or pathetic.

Thanks Anne. Does this mean a story with more than one protagonist won't work?

 

[GreenKidx]

I recently mentioned this in another thread but I will say it here too. The one novel that I have read with no "good" character was Ian Graham's Monument. The protagonist, Ballas is a truly horrid detestable character. He is selfish, vile, lazy, a liar, a cheat, a killer, ungrateful, prone to violence and many other nasty habits. But still you end up rooting for him. Even though he only sets out to save himself, you want him to get away. Perhaps it is because what TE mentioned because the first time we meet him he has been beaten to a bloody pulp a left for dead. Its only after he is saved and recovers somewhat we learn the beating was earned . And Graham doesn't give you a choice of who to identify with. Ballas is the only character that is around for any significant time... it is an excellent novel that showxws just how much 'bad' readers will except in their 'hero/protagonist'.

 

[Anne Martin]

Thanks Anne. Does this mean a story with more than one protagonist won't work?

No, but you've got to be careful who you invest in as the writer. If you are writing 3rd person, and flit around from character to character too much, you risk becoming too diffuse for your reader. Invest too little in each character and you loose control of your plot.

I'm currently reading the second book of Stephen Donaldson's Gap series, and he has two protagonists: 1) an essentially good person involved in subterfuge and lies, and 2) an evil person, captured by a corrupt police force, who refuses heroically to divulge a secret that will condemn the good person, even to the point of being frozen for his crimes. We spend more time inside the head of the first, but the latter is presented as a hero (unlike in the first book). Who is the real protagonist? We will find out later ... possibly.

 

[MstrTal]

In A.E. Moorat's Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter, while Queen Victorian is the main protagonist there is a second lesser protagonist, whose name escapes me at the moment, that is a vile, hedonistic, cretin, immoral Nobel who amongst his many other vices enjoys whore mongering, pornography, gluttony, murder and the creation of zombies who he is then forced to feed live victims to sustain. While he runs the gambit of intentions he does in the end both help to doom the empire temporarily and save the queen. Is he evil, good or just a right dastard?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's an interesting idea having a protagonist and an antagonist who are equally evil, but I have to say that there is a very real chance that it will backfire. Once readers stop caring who wins, they're likely to stop reading. I think you would do better with a protagonist who is ruthless in achieving his ends, but if the antagonist isn't just that much more ruthless and cruel that readers can see a difference, there may easily come a time when they lose interest in the outcome and give up. Or, if the antagonist strikes their fancy (which bad guys sometimes do), then they'll switch their allegiance. I said that they will forgive a protagonist an amazing number of horrific deeds once they bond with him, but that doesn't mean they'll do so forever and in spite of everything.

A reference was made earlier to maintaining reader empathy with a character by arranging for him to be persecuted by persons who operate out of motiveless malice. As a reader, I rapidly lose interest in a book where that happens. To me, the hand of the author becomes far too apparent and I am no longer immersed in the book. Every character ought to have a clear motive, even if it's not a pleasant one. It can be prejudice, anger, ambition, a personal vendetta, or whatever, but there needs to be a reason. Otherwise, you have cardboard characters, and that's just bad writing. Even minor characters should have their own reasons for doing what they do, which have nothing to do with making the plot work for the writer. They don't know about the plot. They're just living their own despicable lives.

 

[Mouse]

In A.E. Moorat's Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter, while Queen Victorian is the main protagonist there is a second lesser protagonist, whose name escapes me at the moment, that is a vile, hedonistic, cretin, immoral Nobel who amongst his many other vices enjoys whore mongering, pornography, gluttony, murder and the creation of zombies who he is then forced to feed live victims to sustain. While he runs the gambit of intentions he does in the end both help to doom the empire temporarily and save the queen. Is he evil, good or just a right dastard?

Quimby, I think. And Perkins, his manservant.

 

[MstrTal]

Quimby, I think. And Perkins, his manservant.

Right!

I much preferred these characters to his presentation of Victoria. Maybe I am just twisted but they seemed much more developed and their motives and characterization seemed to flow better. They where more believable and real for all their fualts and immoral quirks and in the case of the manservant undead status.

 

[Mouse]

I liked all the characters, really. Made me more interested in the Royal family too!