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Unlikable Main Characters

Black Dragon

Staff
Administrator
Is it important for the main character of a novel to be likeable?

Conversely, can you think of any examples of successful fantasy novels which featured unlikable protagonists?
 

Kaellpae

Inkling
Well if you like to hate them then that'd be good.
But they should be liked or at least relatable in some way.
 

Ravana

Istar
As to the second, easily: Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books; Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon; probably Moorcock's Elric books. Arguably, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books, depending on how you meant it: as a reader, you'll probably like the character, but as a person, you'd hate him if you ever met him.

As to the first: I'd say no—but readers have to be able to sympathize with or relate to them somehow. In the above cases:
• Kane is brilliant, skilled, and has his own moral compass (hard as he tries to pretend to be amoral), though it's a far different one from what we'd consider "acceptable," and his efforts are heroic, even if his goals aren't. So you love watching him do what he does, no matter what you might think of him as a human being.
• Elric is generally surrounded by people who are worse than him, so you end up rooting for him anyway. But he's not nice people, is often simply a jerk when he isn't busy rationalizing his actions, and tends to be whiny much of the rest of the time.
Mists is an amazing book: 900 pages of multiple-PoV storytelling… and I hate every single protagonist in it. There isn't a one of them that doesn't completely betray his/her own beliefs and morals at least once in a major way, several of them more than once; the balance of them are just hypocrites in general. (Though the rest would be more endurable if you didn't also have to deal with Gwenhwyfar, who you severely want to reach out and strangle.) I will never subject myself to this book again—to the point where I'd actually rather re-read…
• Covenant: an embittered leper (that part's excusable) who gets transported to another realm, discovers his condition cured, and celebrates by raping a teenage girl. He then spends the rest of the first book alternately trying to deny anything he's experiencing is real, refusing to accept responsibility for himself or his actions, and whining about how tough it is to be him, even though the things that made it tough have all been swept away and everybody around him so obviously has it worse. He doesn't get much better in the following two books, either. (The second trilogy sees him substantially improved, I will allow.) On the other hand, the supporting cast is generally quite good: the half of The Illearth War that doesn't involve Covenant at all, I loved.

So I guess the best advice is: if you're going to make the main character dislikable, don't surround him with others who are equally bad or more so. And give even the "bad" character some redeeming qualities.
 

Dante Sawyer

Troubadour
I know there's already a full thread on Sword of Shanara... but I honestly hated Shea (who, if you haven't read the book, is the main protagonist). He's annoying and, quite frankly, worthless. Yes he is the focus of major plot points, but I'd just as soon it be his adoptive brother Flick (who, while still annoying, adds to the band of heroes and helps them).
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I think a main character should have some redeeming quality that makes the reader interested in what he/she is doing. When I was younger, I liked to write horror stories about really disgusting people who had really nothing going for them. Now I write lots of stories with people who could be interpreted as anti-heroes. But even anti-heroes have to have something people like about them.
 

Telcontar

Staff
Moderator
Somewhat akin to what Phil said: for myself, the main character needs to be someone who I can root for. He doesn't need to be the best of people, but I have to want him to 'win,' whatever winning might mean in the story. There are certain stories, and especially movies, where things happen and I find myself wanting the main character to die, or lose, or whatever. Those don't work so well for me.

This can work with anti-heroes when they are pitted against something worse than themselves. In fact, in these cases, it's awesome. Nothing I love better than evil destroying evil.
 

Ophiucha

Auror
I've got a bit of background in literary fiction, so I am tending towards "no, you don't have to like them", simply because one of my favourite authors is Vladimir Nabokov, and I doubt many people were really rooting for ol' Humbert^2. Certainly, though, it would very much depend on the story. Lolita is about a character who wants to sleep with his preteen stepdaughter, so no, you don't need to like him. If your character is trying to save the world, though, they should probably be at least more likeable than the opposition. Really, though, you could probably get away with anything as long as the reader feels something for the character. I'll read/watch/play on if I would really like to see a character fail as much as I will if I want to see them succeed. It's that same passion. Just step carefully if you still intend to have them come out triumphant.
 

Theankh

Scribe
My main character is the sort that you wouldn't get on with if you met her, because she doesn't get on with pretty much anyone.

But as a character, the reader will mainly be seeing her through the eyes of the two other main characters, one of whom is in love with her and the other who has a less biased view, so although she'd be a horrible person to actually have to deal with, her redeeming qualities are shown through their experiences with her.

I think a main character can be unlikable, but you need other people to balance it out.
 
Unlikable characters can be done, but they do require quite a bit more skill to write them in a way a reader will be willing to stick with a character they don't like. I think there has to be a difference between people we wouldn't like to meet, and truly unlikeable. While someone might lack social skills, when the reader sees the character's inner desires and can understand why they don't get along with others, then we will sympathize with them. Now if your character is just rotten, captures and tortures small animals for the fun of it, and is all around a bad person, other than hoping for them to die quickly, it will be a hard sell to convince someone to stick around for a full novel with them.
 

cobrarosa

Dreamer
I think it depends on what goals you have for the characters in question. The concept of a story could be redemption, for instance; if you plant this concept early on in the story, and the reader follows the story in order to get to the point where the "bad" protagonist actually manage to redeem himself/herself, giving an incentive to keep reading regardless of his/hers questionable behaviour/actions.

Maybe you'll spark curiosity? Why is this character an a$$-hole? I remember reading a book called Monument where the main character was an ugly, mean brute all to the end basically. What kept me reading was that I wanted to know why.

So conclusively, for me, if there is a goal for the character, I think you can make any type "likeable".

Peace
Tomas
 

UnionJane

Scribe
One of the most skillful renderings of unlikable protagonists is by Joe Abercrombie, especially in The Blade Itself. The book starts out with a character who hates himself and hates what he has done--Logen Ninefingers--and spends most of the novel trying to void that fact. As the novel progresses, Ninefingers continues to do the very things he hates, and then feels awful about it. He can't truly explain why he commits the very acts he hates about his past. There's something magnetic about Logen from the start, though; perhaps it's his remorse. The characters Ninefingers meets throughout the story, however, are no better than himself, yet we like them too. It's an interesting twist to the protagonist the reader is supposed to love and cheer for unequivocally, and definitely adds an element of realism to the novel. There's nothing inevitable about the conclusion of the novel--most of the conflict was created by accepting the consequence of bad choices (and maybe that's what earned Abercrombie the "noir" tag).
 
Ninefingers continues to do the very things he hates, and then feels awful about it.

And this would by why the character works. It isn't the acts that make the character someone we don't want to follow, it's their reasons and motivations for them that determine whether or not we stick with it. The character feels bad, so there is hope he might change his ways.
 

Guy

Inkling
It's not really likeable. It's interesting. The character has to be interesting. The protagonist in the show House I find to be very intersting, but if I had to deal with the guy in real life I'd probably kill him. Then there are all those villains we can't help... well, maybe not liking, but enjoying because they're so deliciously bad. Alan Rickman usually plays an enjoyable antagonist.

As others have said, I think the main thing is a protagonist the reader can identify with. The antisocial outsider is a common character who probably isn't likeable, but a lot of readers can identify with this person. A lot of us know what it's like to be the odd one out.
 

Ravana

Istar
Then there are all those villains we can't help... well, maybe not liking, but enjoying because they're so deliciously bad.

Raise your hand if you've ever rooted for Hannibal Lecter.… ;)
 
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Kevlar

Troubadour
I like a good read with unlikeable characters, of varying degrees of unlikeability. Tyrion anyone? As much as you'd feel the need for a half-sized rack or iron maiden if you hd to spend a week with him, you can't help but love him, even if you don't like him. And then there's the Kingslayer. An affront to all my morals, and yet an enjoyable character to read about. Also, I think The Sellswords, by RA Salvatore, is better than any of the Drizzt books, and yet it focuses on two characters you've already been conditioned to hate.

Unforunately I haven't read about enough unlikeable characters. Which is maybe why some of mine have their unlikeable traits. One will be easy to hate. Another will be easy to sympathize with, because his bitterness and angryness stems from the rape and murder of his family - and the fact that he killed his first three men on that day, at the age of seven. So killing has become easy for him, even if he remembers every single one he's made. Another is simply an ass half the time. And another is possibly a sociopath. All current or future POV characters.

Personally I love unlikeable characters, they're always more complex and enjoyable than the typical hero type. They make me think things like: Why the hell is Drizzt being so nice to these racist asshats... again? Why doesn't Aragorn just kill Bill Ferny already? Come on Gandalf, stick Glamdring in Saruman's throat. You, Ned Stark, are an idiot, and almost as much to blame as Sansa or Jeoffrey for Baelor's Sept.

Of course Ned is a great character too, possibly because he is, besides maybe Robb, despite his lapses, the only traditional hero type in ASOIAF. Of course, by all appearances Ned has a bastard son, so we can't say his record is clean. And Aragorn was fun to read about because he set the standard for the hero type.

Isn't Conan an unlikeable character too, and yet one of the most famous?
 

Guy

Inkling
Why the hell is Drizzt being so nice to these racist asshats... again? Why doesn't Aragorn just kill Bill Ferny already? Come on Gandalf, stick Glamdring in Saruman's throat. You, Ned Stark, are an idiot, and almost as much to blame as Sansa or Jeoffrey for Baelor's Sept.
This is an interesting point and one of my pet peeves: characters who are too good; being merciful towards enemies who either don't deserve it or, even worse, are just too dangerous. Could've saved the Shire an awful lot of trouble if Gandalf had just stepped up and done what needed doing, and even after the scourge of the Shire they were still going to let Saruman walk away! WTF? Reminds me of that line from Spaceballs: Evil will always triumph because good is stupid.
Isn't Conan an unlikeable character too, and yet one of the most famous?
No, I like the big lug. He has his own sense of chivalry, perhaps not as polished as others, but there are lines he won't cross.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
My idea of an unlikable character is not really the character's fault. I mean the writer made him that way. Usually, it's because the character isn't necessarily doing things that are "bad," it's more like they're not doing ANYTHING. And I've read books where the main character is so passive that it's like "What was the point of writing this?" These type of characters are unlikable. Characters who kick babies and spit on old people aren't really likable either, but at least they are doing something.

Conan is likable because he just does whatever he wants. And lots of readers like to live vicariously through him.
 
Hmm...if you like the character, wouldn't that make them likable, not unlikable?

I think the point is this, if you make your character in a way that the reader doesn't like them, then they probably won't stick around to follow them for an entire novel. If they are likeable, no matter what they do, or how they act, you like them.
 

Meka

Scribe
I personally don't think its crucial to have a likeable main character. In fact, I think having a very unfavourable character as one of the main characters in a story can be really interesting. For example, Inquisitor Glokta in Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series is one of the most sinister and cruel characters I can think of; his actions and attitudes could make him unlikable, but the reader can feel sympathetic towards him because of his history and the circumstances. I think, if your going to use an unlikable character as a main character who will drive the plot, he must have at least one or two more attractive qualities to keep the reader interested in what he / she is doing.
 

Kevlar

Troubadour
Hmm...if you like the character, wouldn't that make them likable, not unlikable?

I think the point is this, if you make your character in a way that the reader doesn't like them, then they probably won't stick around to follow them for an entire novel. If they are likeable, no matter what they do, or how they act, you like them.

When I think of unlikeable characters it has nothing to do with my feelings about reading about them. In my opinion an unlikeable character is one you wouldn't like in real life. If you don't like reading about the character, though, then the character is simply uninteresting. I don't have to like a character's personality on a personal level to become emotionally attatched to them. Basically, to sum it up, liking the person and the character are two different things. If you don't like either its an 'unliked' character. If you like the person but not the character they're probably boring, useless, or poorly written. If you like the character, but not the person I see that as 'unlikeable.' And unlikeable is interesting.
 
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