Looking for advice on character motive / pathos

[Zedition]

I want one of my characters to fight against internal self-loathing but without falling to the level of insanity. I’m looking for some ideas for a good reason why this character hates himself.


Some background:
The character is a genetically enhanced human being, born as part of an illegal breeding program that begins several decades in our future. He has no superpowers, he's just top .1% of the gene-pool. So no ESP or kung-fu grip. He’s just one of “those guys”. He’s brilliant, a natural athlete, attractive, charismatic and even good with troubled children. You know, the typical romance novel unmarried guy next door.

Instead of embracing our new Aryan superman overlords, the rest of society decides we do not want the rich breeding children who were genetically perfect. Once the program was discovered it was shut down and the children were denied citizenship into any major nation. Many now live as scientists on city size ships that navigate international waters. One of these uber-kids comes down with influenza, which evolves into a super-bug deadly to the rest of us.

I have his self-loathing based on his feeling of being dangerous to others. If he gets sick, a lot of people could die. He also has issues due to a murder he couldn't stop. That’s a weak pathos. He doesn't hate himself, just thinks he's dangerous to others. I don’t want to Mary Stu the guy, but my vision of genetic supermen are all Mary Sue's. This character is the quiet spiritual leader of my cast, so I’m avoiding serious mental flaws.

What are some angles for giving this character good internal conflict without making him antisocial?

 

[SciFrac]

Has he made any mistakes in the past, eg. use his super-awesomeness in a way that hurt people? Maybe he just resents being denied a home and has to float in the ocean with the other rejects. Maybe he never lived up to the potential he expected of himself, or people didn't recognize what he had done. Could just be a perception problem.

 

[Abernovo]

Feelings of impotence after being unable to stop someone getting hurt is actually a realistic reason for a character to have feelings of self-loathing. Especially if it's 'I have all these strengths and advantages, and I still couldn't stop X from dying'.

If he broods on it, the feelings can grow. And, being a leader, makes it worse, as he IS responsible for people, so, having failed once, worries that he might fail others. You can add to that if the victim was close to him.

 

[allmywires]

I would take the genetically engineered angle and possibly have him have conflict over his identity -- he's been constructed rather than born and raised, (I assume) hasn't grown up like a regular child with a mum and dad. I would guess he would also not have siblings, or if he did they would be his brothers & sisters in the breeding program so it wouldn't be like regular sibling relationships. You could also plug into how he was raised -- was it a factory? Did he live in squalid/awful conditions? Does that haunt him? Obviously I'm making assumptions here about your story but there's a goldmine of stuff you could go on.

 

[The Judge]

A failed relationship? If the man/woman he loves has gone off with someone else, it will make him doubt himself, particularly if the ex said things during an argument which he takes to heart, whether or not they're true. If the ex has subsequently died, because whoever she ran off with put them in a dangerous position (or if he/she was also a super-person and was killed by jealous normals) that would aggragavte the feelings of responsibility since if he had been better the ex wouldn't have left.

 

[Zedition]

Could just be a perception problem.

I like the perception angle. He’s been living on an ocean city with thousands of his-kind his whole life. Everybody on the ship is Mr. and Mrs. Perfect. Only the crew and staff would be like the rest of us. The hero has a purposefully bland background to make him a blank slate. When the disaster hits, his kind take over the city and start killing the normal humans. So I can use the shame angle there.

Feelings of impotence after being unable to stop someone getting hurt is actually a realistic reason for a character to have feelings of self-loathing. Especially if it's 'I have all these strengths and advantages, and I still couldn't stop X from dying'.

If he broods on it, the feelings can grow.

I really like that take. A lot. My interlude involves him lost and drifting alone on an abandoned yacht for a proverbial 40 days and nights. That’s a very good fit with what I already have.


I hadn’t thought deeply about how the breeding program would have structured his childhood. Originally I was thinking militaristic setting, but I changed the program to be as elitist/capitalist endeavor. It makes sense that as a child, he would have been raised in a setting like a university-sized private school and given distant, fake, parents. Then that is all yanked away through no fault of his own, leaving scars of abandonment. That’s a great reason for him to take a mantle of a child’s protector; he’s trying to make up for his own shattered childhood.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

My take is that he was raised in an artificial environment but all the time he wanted to be like other kids. He wanted to run and play etc. But he was taught to hide his differences. Told always that he was different. All he wants is to be human, but deep down inside he knows he's not.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Perfectionism can easily lead to self-loathing and depression. When one is accustomed to being able to do everything without any effort, and something new comes along that has to be learned, it's very easy to fall into the trap of "I must be stupid because I can't do this right the first time." This could well apply to his being yanked out of the familiar environment and dropped into something different, and also to the illness thing, where he can't do anything about it.

 

[Stephen4444]

I want one of my characters to fight against internal self-loathing but without falling to the level of insanity. I’m looking for some ideas for a good reason why this character hates himself.



What are some angles for giving this character good internal conflict without making him antisocial?

There is a good article on How Our Brains Stop Us From Achieving Our Goals here.

http://lifehacker.com/5928698/how-our-brains-stop-us-from-achieving-our-goals-and-how-to-fight-back

My suggestion would be that... he is so good that he is trapped within one of these:

"Your brain can hurt your goals by fantasizing too much

Your brain procrastinate on big projects by visualizing the worst parts

Your brain will "abandon ship" at the first sign of distress

Your brain loves mindless busy work disguised as progress

Your brain is not good at "winging it" when it comes to planning...ever!"

and I like some of the comments to this blog

"Hello. I am an addictions counsellor and although a lot of what this article states is true, it is missing one huge factor. Our subconscious minds are developed when we are children. How this affects the presented argument is that it is our subconscious minds that drive our conscious minds. So if we act in ways that end up hurting us, it is because we have been "programmed" to act in this self-defeating way on some level. We want to hurt ourselves on purpose because it is what is familiar to us. So at the end of the day, if you are acting in a way that is not to your best result, it would be very beneficial to ask yourself how that behaviour is serving you."

I can take the above information and twist it three ways from Sunday to give your character a flaw.

 

[Sapheron]

In a given situation the 'correct' option might not necessarily be one everyone will celebrate you for. It might not be the one you're glad you did in the long run. If you walk past the burning orphanage to stop the world being destroyed then the fact you saved the world might not stop you feeling bad next time you walk past the remains of the orphanage. However awesome you are you can't be everywhere and do everything.

 

[Brian G Turner]

What are some angles for giving this character good internal conflict without making him antisocial?

Feelings of impotence after being unable to stop someone getting hurt is actually a realistic reason for a character to have feelings of self-loathing. Especially if it's 'I have all these strengths and advantages, and I still couldn't stop X from dying'.

If he broods on it, the feelings can grow. And, being a leader, makes it worse, as he IS responsible for people, so, having failed once, worries that he might fail others. You can add to that if the victim was close to him.

Indeed - Zedition, you've already described a personal conflict and Abernovo highlights it.

You don't need a character to be airy-fairy existentialist to be conflicted - simply feeling that a significant part of you is wrong in a way you cannot address, I would suggest as a general basis for personal conflict in a character. And you've already provided it: superhuman, feeling impotent.

 

[MstrTal]

Question here but just to be clear, he is going to be out among the "Normals"? If so than just being himself will lend a sense of isolation and detachment.

This is going to sound odd but for individuals with high IQ's, even if they can "fit in" on a surface level with everyone around them, they always feel a bit cut off. There is always a little bit of a feeling of trying to dumb themselves down so that they do not make others feel stupid or confuse others. On the flip side while they catch on quickly they miss a lot of the little common things at first so they are always a little out of step so they are always covering themselves in social situations.

At least the individuals I know who posses IQs ranging 4 to 5 deviations above the common Mean claim this is how daily interactions are for them.

 

[Mark R]

I think someone who has the surefire knowledge that they are "better" than 99.9% of other humans would likely feel that even their best efforts fall short of what is excepted of them. They're grading themselves on a very steep curve, all the time, and whereas everyone else has the get-out clause of simply working with the hand they've been dealt, he was given the very best cards possible. Shouldn't he always be winning?

 

[Zedition]

Question here but just to be clear, he is going to be out among the "Normals"? If so than just being himself will lend a sense of isolation and detachment.

Yes he'll be among the rest of us in the second half of his tale. But it's also a post-apocalyptic setting, so everybody is going to coping with a world turned upside-down. The idea for his character came a little bit from Heinlein (Lazurus Long) but also a couple of investment-bankers I worked with in my previous life. The banker’s had won the genetic lottery, from intellect to good-looks and charisma. They were not at all like the common nerd you find as a college- professor, or a genius with Asperger’s-like traits.

 

[nubins]

If he is living amongst other perfect humans, is he likely to be all that different to the rest of us? How long has he lived with them? If from childhood, he is unlikely to feel "different" especialy if normal humans are a minority where he has grown up.

If everyone around him is special, then noone is.. from his perspective. If that is the case, you could have his ego shattered by the barbaric actions of his supposedly superior society as they butcher or mistreet normal humans. A shattered ego and a realisation that he's just an animal like everyone else could be a good cause for some self doubt.

That's my somewhat simplistic take on it