Protagonist morals

[LittleStar]

Hi team,

I'm just musing aloud here, and it's not part of a project I have so I don't have any specific examples but do you think it's possible to have your main protagonists a morally bad character (in terms of our culture) and still have them as a readable, likeable and root-for-able character?

Some general examples I can come up with are being a willing slaver replete with the meanness and beatings, or cruel/evil to animals for no reason, or an active sexual predator. Even if it fits the setting, character or story, is there some things that a reader just won't acceept in our world?

I know there are stories from the point of view of murderers (I haven't read any though) which do similar things quite well and successfully, but I also know that in many people's eyes murder is the a lesser evil when compared with some of the above. There can be as many redeemable features of this character as you want/need, but is it necessary that the protagonist conform to our worlds morals and become the slave sympathiser or the animal rights activist etc.

I know there was a thread about good vs evil fairly recently, but I'm not sure it touched on this issue specifically.

Thanks for you time

 

[hopewrites]

I think there is a decided difference between a character whose morals are dissimilar to those of modern western society, and one that functions out side of a recognizable moral code.

If you express what this characters moral grounds are, show that they are a moral person (as far as their morals are concerned) then I would assume that it would be easier for readers to find ground with your character.

I mean, I could ask "Could I write about a guy with green toes" and would get the same answer from myself: What is the purpose of the green toes? What is this characters journey? Why does their toe color matter? How does it serve the story?

So if you've got a character with morals that YOU as a writer/reader don't agree with, what function do those morals serve? How do they inform the character? What choices does this character make that drive the plot forward? Why do we care about their story?

If they like to eat kitten entrails for breakfast, why does the reader need to know that? How does the society that the character lives in feel about their breakfast habits? Is everyone eating kitten entrails? Are there celebratory sponsors? etc...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Some times readers will keep on reading even though they hate the protagonist because they are hoping to see him get what he deserves. Or he might be so bad that every atom in his entire body is pulsing with evil, but if he is very, very interesting they might keep reading even if he revolts them.

But if there are other characters that readers can like and respect more -- even if those characters aren't perfect -- then they will take one or more of those characters for the protagonist, and if the slaver is in opposition to them readers will decide that he is the antagonist. Just because a character is the main point-of-view character doesn't necessarily make him the protagonist, at least not in the eyes of readers.

And if a character does truly hateful things for no reason and feels no remorse, then why would readers root for him? (Some things are considered hateful for a reason: they make you hate the person who does them.) They need to have a reason to root for him. In fact, most readers have to have a reason to care what happens to him (even if "caring what happens to him" means hoping he'll be stewed in bilge water and fed to sharks) to keep on reading. And as for rooting for him, it can't just be because the author has decided to make him the main character. There has to be some sense that there is something of worth inside him, something that might grow into something better. Or, it might be because the other characters are even worse, and he looks sort of good by comparison. Except if that is the case, if everyone is vicious and irredeemable, readers might give up reading in disgust.

 

[HareBrain]

Readable, certainly. All kinds of criminals have been protagonists. Readers vary hugely as to what behaviour they will accept, though obviously the more extreme the behaviour, the more readers will tend to reject it (though some readers might work in reverse of that, to some extent).

As for likeable and rootable-for, you tend to grow closer to rooting for someone whose POV you've followed for many pages, whether or not you agree with their morals. But what's most crucial here isn't that they are likeable, but that they are interesting. Many people would follow a fascinating criminal through a story; no one would want to read about a dull saint.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

As for likeable and rootable-for, you tend to grow closer to rooting for someone whose POV you've followed for many pages, whether or not you agree with their morals.

This is true, but generally when they start out looking moderately sympathetic and their immoral side is slowly revealed. Once readers give their allegiance, it can take them a long time to give up on a character. They keep thinking of excuses for what he is doing, sure that somehow it will all be explained and he won't really be that bad after all.

Think of Steerpike in Gormenghast.

Spoiler

He starts out being the persecuted kitchen boy. So obviously readers feel sorry for him. He does bad things but it's fairly easy for readers to convince themselves that he didn't mean them to turn out quite so badly. But then he does something equally awful and it's clear he did it on purpose ... except that really, he was that persecuted boy wasn't he? So he's not entirely to blame, is he? Is he? Until finally, finally he does something that is a deal breaker and the reader realizes that he was really that awful all along.

Except that there actually are readers who stay loyal to him until the bitter end. Every lie he tells Fuchsia they believe it. Snare readers early and they will rationalize and rationalize rather than give up that first sympathetic impression.

 

[Luiglin]

The Covenant books by Donaldson are a great example of a main character that is far from perfect, a character that is so full of faults they come across as more human than most fantasy leads. When I first read Lord Foul's Bane I wanted to scream at him but at the same time I was hooked.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Those are quite strong examples of immorality. I think cruelty to animals is something most readers would find unforgivable [practically the only pure virtue I gave Sir Edric was that he genuinely cares about his horses].

It's entirely possible to have a 'bad' character with whom the reader sympathises, or even likes.

 

[Brian G Turner]

It's not their morals that make a protagonist interesting, but their struggles. An evil genius plotting to take over the world is already potentially far more interesting than a jailer who does nothing more than punch inmates.

There are a lot of sympathetic antagonists in fiction - characters whom the reader can empathise with precisely because they are interesting; flawed, but driven. Glotka in Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy, Raistlin in Dragonlance, Rorshach in Watchmen, possibly even Tyrion and Jaime in Game of Thrones (both of whom are despised by other protaqonists, but who are revealed through their own POV's to be complex and engaging.)

 

[Boneman]

Hannibal Lecter, anyone? Though he wasn't the protagonist, stricty speaking. Jorg Ancrath, now there's an interesting bad character...

 

[WaylanderToo]

I guess you could look at Waylander - an amoral man who brought down a kingdom but then the rest of his journey is finding redemption. In fact many of Gemmell's characters are all about redemption or the bad guys having redeeming features (indeed the 'good guys' being somewhat less pure than the driven snow). All makes for 'more realistic' and interesting reading - shades of grey (no not that!!!)

 

[Hex]

There's the mc in Perfume, and the mc in John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure, and even Humbert Humbert in Lolita or the narrator in The End of Alice. They're all thoroughly unpleasant and morally bankrupt characters doing bad things, yet their stories are fascinating.

BUT, it occurs to me, in all those examples, the prose sings.

 

[Luiglin]

I talked to David Gemmell once at a book signing about these sort of characters, together with his perchant for killing them off.

His reply was simple. Where was the incentive to read a story where the main character remained the same throughout and where you knew they'd still be alive and unblemished / unchanged at the end despite all the rubbish they'd just been through.

 

[Hex]

Yet there are books where the apparent mc doesn't change, but the people around them do Bleak House and The Go-Between, for example (although those are not evil and immoral characters, but simply largely unchanging ones)

 

[Boneman]

Yet there are books where the apparent mc doesn't change, but the people around them do Bleak House and The Go-Between, for example (although those are not evil and immoral characters, but simply largely unchanging ones)

Jack Reacher... Harry Dresden (to a lesser degree, because he is changing by slow degrees as the series progresses)

 

[Droflet]

Dirty Harry, anyone?

 

[Mirannan]

The main character (not the protagonist for a number of complicated reasons) of my WIP is considerably more violent, less forgiving of the failings of others and less considerate than a story's hero normally would be. The reason is basically because she's an anachronism (among other things) from a time when such behaviour was routine.

Similarly, historical characters are likely to have a much harder attitude about all manner of things than modern-day people (in general) do. Even in a story written in the present day. Of course, stories written in earlier eras by people living then betray attitudes in the writer that many might find unacceptable today; H.P. Lovecraft is the most recent example I can think of.

Dirty Harry and his ilk are an interesting case from cinema. Such characters are basically good, but have no sympathy for criminals - at all. Does that make them bad? I don't think so, especially as the lack of sympathy makes them more effective. (Whether such a person in RL actually would be more effective is another question.)

 

[tinkerdan]

An important feature of this question becomes: For no reason.

Some general examples I can come up with are being a willing slaver replete with the meanness and beatings, or cruel/evil to animals for no reason, or an active sexual predator. Even if it fits the setting, character or story, is there some things that a reader just won't acceept in our world?

If we include the behavior as actively abusive, violent and criminal along with the for no reason, then you are beginning to describe the criminally insane.

It would seem that that would cross boundaries that would be difficult at best and you'd have to ask yourself; for what reason.
There is no problem understanding that those types of people exist, but there is a problem understanding why I'd want to follow someone like that; not to mention getting into their head.

The problem is that these characters might feel like they have total agency; but that's an illusion because of the Active nature of the acts without reason; they become a ticking time bomb that has no agency and revels in removing agency from all of the other characters they interface with.

It would be interesting to see if you could make the character interesting enough to get people to follow his path of mayhem and destruction - for no reason.

 

[LittleStar]

Interesting discussion, it seems like it might come down to the redeemable qualities or the reasoning behind their actions. I'm sure there are other discussions about 'how far is too far', so I don't want that to take over nessecarily.

@tinkerdan you are right, though perhaps 'for no reason' was mis-worded on my part, that's not was I was aiming for. Exchanging in reason for said cruelty another example:

I've heard tell of a milk farmer from a person who used to work there (they drew the line i think and quit though), that would allegedly kick and beat the cows to get them from the fields, and not just nudge, actual wallops... Now I don't know about the business, maybe that is normal, but if not would someone like this be acceptable as a MC? Time is money, grumpy old man, doesn't care about the animals, or even doesn't think they have feelings, all stand as 'reasons'

We've discussed the redeemable features, and perhaps even rooting for them to get what's coming to them, and maybe that is the way to go. But, Is this something that has to fit both plot and character for it to be deemed useable for an MC? (by which I mean does the lack of moral have to link to a redemption arc/vigilante or can it just be as part of the setting/character?).

@Teresa Edgerton i haven't read Gormenghast, only watched the BBC production, but I felt I was qualified to be allowed to view the spoiler. That is a fantastic way of getting around the issue of an unlikeable character, I would never have thought of that.

 

[Parson]

've heard tell of a milk farmer from a person who used to work there (they drew the line i think and quit though), that would allegedly kick and beat the cows to get them from the fields, and not just nudge, actual wallops... Now I don't know about the business, maybe that is normal, but if not would someone like this be acceptable as a MC? Time is money, grumpy old man, doesn't care about the animals, or even doesn't think they have feelings, all stand as 'reasons'

Not an uncommon action. There have been a few cases that I know of where the farmer killed the animal, accidentally, with a hammer because he was so enraged at the animal's (in this case pig's) actions that he was trying to teach them a lesson. --- I do feel that this kind of behavior would be often tolerated in a protagonist because it could both be in character and a flaw which any good protagonist will have several, without being a fatal flaw or beyond the pale.

I have been reading a serious of books about a very damaged heroine (abused repeatedly when young) who has become a vigilante, I have been giving her a pass due to her past up until the latest book that I haven't been able to read because it indicates that she and her detective agency is about to cross the line and start killing the perps, so that justice is done. For me that's a step too far. Revenge in a moment of anger, I can tolerate. A cold hearted execution of criminals without due process is a different animal for me, and has at least so far been a line I refuse to cross.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I haven't read Gormenghast, only watched the BBC production, but I felt I was qualified to be allowed to view the spoiler. That is a fantastic way of getting around the issue of an unlikeable character, I would never have thought of that.

I figured you would read the spoiler, because it partly answered the question you had posed. Being the curious type I almost always read them myself.

I've heard tell of a milk farmer from a person who used to work there (they drew the line i think and quit though), that would allegedly kick and beat the cows to get them from the fields, and not just nudge, actual wallops... Now I don't know about the business, maybe that is normal, but if not would someone like this be acceptable as a MC? Time is money, grumpy old man, doesn't care about the animals, or even doesn't think they have feelings, all stand as 'reasons'

But that brings up the question of why readers would feel there was a reason to keep reading. A grumpy old milk farmer and the way he treats his cows isn't interesting. With an even more violent and cruel person who was nevertheless fascinating to readers it might well keep them reading. Not all of them, of course. Some would be put off by brutality (I would), but depending on how fascinating the character and gripping the plot plenty of readers might keep reading and even admire the book enough to read a sequel and recommend the book to friends. (There is probably not much chance of a sequel about a farmer. A slaver, maybe, depending on what he does when he's not transporting slaves back and forth.)

However, there is a problem justifying something in a story by saying that people had different ideas about morality during that particular period. Because sometimes there were significant numbers of people in that same time period who did not share those ideas, and even those who did did not always do so to anything like the same extent.

So quite often the explanation "that's how people were back then" doesn't hold up. Sometimes, depending on the idea, there are people right now who feel the same way, but that doesn't make it typical of our era or less repugnant to those who disagree. In the same way, it is not always fair to characterize everyone living in a particular time or place by the disgusting thoughts and actions of the few.

Also, in a fantasy world there is no "back then." There is only what the writer has decided to include in his or her world.