# What makes you say "I don't want to read about this character anymore"?



## Feo Takahari (Nov 2, 2014)

This is probably best explained through an example. A while ago, I read a book called _I Am Not a Serial Killer_, the main character of which is a sociopath with violent impulses. He's clever, insightful, and even relatable at times, but he can also be a very uncomfortable character to read about, especially when he's fantasizing about doing something horrible. He's not a villain protagonist or anything, just . . . dark.

More recently, I picked up the sequels. Book 2 develops him into something resembling a heroic figure, but also removes everything that kept him under control. Book 3 has to deal with all the fallout of book 2, now that he's dropped his code against killing, he's willing to use innocent people as bait, and the one person who might have actually held him back thinks he's a twisted freak and no longer wants to talk to him. It got to a point where I felt physically uncomfortable reading the things this kid thought, and I wasn't able to finish reading the book.

What do you think makes a character unreadable? And what methods are available to work around it?


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## Steerpike (Nov 2, 2014)

The only real downfall for me is if the character or writing becomes uninteresting. Otherwise, I can go with it. The fantasy character Ballas, from Ian Gramham's Monument, has no redeeming features, but I enjoyed the book. Humbert Humbert, as we've discussed before, is thoroughly despicable, but Nabokov's skill in writing the narrative keeps you reading it. I'll go along with either a noble, gallant character or a thoroughly despicable one so long as the author can keep me interested with her writing. For the repulsive character, the writing has to be that much better.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 2, 2014)

It was a really long time ago, but I once read this book set in a post-apocalyptic world where a great plague wiped out all the adults, and only the children were left to rebuild civilization. One of the male characters (I believe his name was Tom Logan) was the leader of a gang of boys who offered to protect the heroine's faction as mercenaries. For some reason she refused his offer, and he ended up the main antagonist of the story. Given that the heroine had amassed a lot of food in a world where all the other children were starving, it seemed distastefully unfair that she would let Tom Logan and his guys starve even though they were willing to work for their keep. Ergo I lost all interest in the book.

Supposedly the whole book was written as a children's introduction to the themes of Ayn Rand's "Objectivist" philosophy. If its characterization of that philosophy was accurate, count me a disbeliever.


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## Penpilot (Nov 2, 2014)

Like Steerpike said, generally speaking, the only thing that would stop me from reading is if the character is becoming boring... and maybe stupid. Stupid as in doing stupid things because the plot required it. To me that's when the story becomes dishonest, and I can't stand that.

If a subject matter were uncomfortable to read, that might make me set the book aside, too, but it hasn't happened yet. Thought, I might have come close once or twice.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 2, 2014)

I once read a story where the main character was something of a spoiled brat, doing mean and stupid things for no good reason. I was quite young at the time and I had no way of identifying with the character, or related to what they did or understand why they thought being an idiot would be a good thing. I also didn't understand why the writer had chosen to portray them as the main character.
I don't remember if I finished it, but I probably didn't.

I believe that if a character got too offensive I might stop reading the book because of that, but I haven't encountered that yet.


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## Guy (Nov 2, 2014)

Characters that are either too stupid, too perfect or too annoying, and by stupid I don't mean low IQ. I liked the character Forrest Gump. No, I mean characters who routinely commit acts of such surpassing stupidity that the only reason I keep reading is that I hope to see them killed off. These characters seem to occur most often in horror flicks, soap operas and romances. Too perfect... just once I'd like to see Legolas get is ass kicked. Too annoying... From the Dragonlance novel Time of the Twins, Tasselhoff Burrfoot. I don't think I've ever wanted to see a character get squashed more than him. Crysania from the same book fits all three. She was presented as perfect, I thought she was a bleepin' idiot, and that made her bleepin' annoying. That was one of a few books I've read where I found myself pulling for the villain simply because he was the only one with any brains.


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## Chessie (Nov 2, 2014)

I rarely give up on a story, so I will have to agree with Steerpike in that it depends on the writing. I read one book not too long ago that made me give up. I hated it so much that it will remain unnamed. But I didn't understand what the author was doing. The character had killed someone at the beginning of the story...and still halfway into the book there was no emotional reaction from the character, no evolvement, she took advantage of people that helped her, and she still didn't have a damn name. It was so annoying I rage quit reading it. When I went online and read spoilers of how the book ended, I was glad that I had given up on it because it seems that the character never changed as a person. Does that answer your question?


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## acapes (Nov 3, 2014)

Guy said:


> *Crysania* from the same book fits all three. She was presented as perfect, I thought she was a bleepin' idiot, and that made her bleepin' annoying. That was one of a few books I've read where I found myself pulling for the villain simply because he was the only one with any brains.



Love those books, but I understand completely.

ETA: For me, if a character has no agency, that CAN be a dealbreaker, though not always.


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## George Lightgood (Nov 3, 2014)

For me, it is whether or not the character feels real. I can tolerate some weakness in the writing, so long as it does not become a distraction. In the same way I can have an interesting conversation with a relatively uneducated person. 

No amount of florid. pretentious writing, on the other hand, will make up for a weak story. It'd be like listening to Ben Stein _(who I like)_ lecturing on 17th century economics. Well spoken, but SNORE! Perhaps I'm just not literary minded enough.

In addition to real feel, I want the character to be unique, as well as flawed, in some way. Ian Fleming's original Bond was dark, conflicted yet heroic. Similar, would be Sherlock Holmes. The "cookie-cutter" characters that are too perfect, too evil, too pretty, too _too_ are boring.

Sometimes, characters who I enjoy cease to be interesting due to "burn out". Drizzt Do'urden is a good example for me. I devoured a whole bunch of the books, but then the stories got "tired" and I lost interest. It is testimony to the author that he could write as many interesting ones as he did.


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## BronzeOracle (Nov 3, 2014)

I am wading through To Green Angel Tower, book 3 of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams, and I have to say every time I read its Maegwin or Tiamak and I have to fight the urge to flip pages.  Both are characters completely lost in themselves and waiting for something to happen, their stories don't seem to drive the main story at all and I don't care what happens to them.  I think a character with a weak story thread just makes it boring, in my view its getting in the way of or diluting the main story.


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## Tom (Nov 3, 2014)

If the character is annoying in any way, I close the book. I define annoying in a character in several ways--passive, too perfect, idiotic, or just plain unlikable.

Example: _The Cup and the Crown_ (can't remember the author's name). The MC, Molly, was one of those horribly perfect female characters who also happen to be stuck-up brats. Toward the end, it was shown that one of her friends, a stableboy who had been lorded, loved her. She rejected him because she felt he was beneath her, _even though she was a scullery maid who had also been lorded!_ Come to think of it, the whole book was full of unlikable characters. The only one I could tolerate was the stableboy-turned-lord, Tobias.

Never could force myself to finish that book.


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## CupofJoe (Nov 3, 2014)

I tried and failed to finish a book where all the plot points seemed to be all coincidences.

"How are we going to get from London to Plymouth to stop our Father from boarding the ship run the evil Captain Greenfinch?"
"I don't know, brother, we will have to think of a way."
"Did I hear that you, young masters, would be wanting to go to Plymouth?"
"Yes we do!"
"Well, it just so happens that I am going to Bristol and can drop you off on the way..."

Okay I'm hamming it up a little but it was terrible... the bit about Plymouth being on the way to Bristol from London was actually in print and told me that the author had done absolutely no research or even looked at a map of England... it's 250 mile detour!

There was another "coincident" about the "heroes" needing 1000 guineas [an absurdly large amount for the time - sort of 18C England] and winning exactly that amount in a dice game behind a pub in one night... and no-one tried to kill them on the way home; as they walked slowly, their pockets full of gold, talking about how easy the game had been because their opponents had not been Gentlemen but merely street roughs... 
Had I been there I would have killed them just to have them shut up!
The money would have been no more than I deserved for the public service...


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## psychotick (Nov 3, 2014)

Hi,

Several things actually. The first is a lack of some sort of moral compass. The Men In The Jungle by Spinrad springs to mind. Between the rapes and the sensless sadistic violence I gave up early on. This is also why I gave up on the Game of Thrones books, and because the characters suffering were children, and every time I had a new MC to root for he or she was brutally murdered.

It's also been because a character has taken too much. I want to like the MC, but sometimes - and here I'm thinking of the Gap Series by Donaldson, I want them to die simply because the amount of suffering they've gone through by the end of the first book is so great that they could never recover. In their shoes I'd want to die. There simply was no victory great enough to make up for their history.

I also hate it when characters, otherwise seeming intelliegent and reasonable in their manners, suddenly do unbelievably stupid things - too stupid to live as they say. I can't remember the book but there was one I gave up on three quarters of the way through because the MC, knowing his brother / false prince etc, was an absolute arsehole who wanted to kill him, had sent endless assassins after him, and were in the middle of a war where both sides had been slaughtering one another all day but had stopped for the night, decided to simply walk in to his camp and confront him directly and ask why are you trying to kill me. It might have been meant to be emotional or noble or something, but to me it was just stupid.

At the same time some characters are either too clever or have too much information which comes out just at the right point to turn the plot and which you as the reader had no clue about. Some of Heinlein's characters did that and it kept annoying me as it was the next thing to a deus ex machina.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 3, 2014)

It thinks its boring. When a character starts to either bore me I don't want to read about him or her anymore.


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## KC Trae Becker (Nov 3, 2014)

Let me start with the disclaimer that I try to forget books I didn't enjoy, because I don't want to be a killjoy. But some bad book experiences stand out and refuse to be forgotten.

Repetition of behavior patterns and too much predictability - BronzeOracle mentioned Tad Williams. I remember finishing the trilogy and wishing I hadn't bothered. Nothing happened.

Also too much chaotic behavior - Some Terry Pratchett books and characters are way too random to hold my interest.

Also, Psychotick mentioned Game Of Thrones - I got frustrated half way through book 3 and felt like the George R. Martin was untrustworthy to put any emotional investment into, because he built characters a certain way then totally screwed them over to make them the opposite of who they started out to be. If the author is the god/goddess of their created world, then Martin is a sadistic god. He writes well. He has great characters. But the cruelty he puts his characters through and the resultant cruelty they then display, fuels his cycle of cruelty. He likes to twists all things good to evil. Occasionally he twists evil to good, too, but far less often and less thoroughly.  Westros is no place this carefully molded optimist wants to spend her time.

Books are therapy for me, but not shock therapy. I want to come away from a book strengthened, not weakened, depressed and paranoid.


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## Ryan_Crown (Nov 3, 2014)

The characters I have the hardest time with are angsty/whiny characters. I also tend to have trouble with very dark, sadistic sorts of characters -- especially if they're being presented as the protagonist.

The bigger problem I generally have (as has been commented on by a couple others in previous posts) is when the author feels the need to have his characters behave in either an incredibly stupid manner, or in a manner that totally goes against either their personality or the expected character traits of their profession/character type in order to move the plot forward. I've often found that to be much more annoying and harder to stick with than just badly written characters. The point where you decide the only way to advance the plot is for your characters to take stupid pills is the point that you've probably lost me as a reader.


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## Tom (Nov 3, 2014)

Ah yes, the angsty character. The classic example of why I don't like much of YA fiction. It seems to be a staple of the genre.

Although Marion Zimmer Bradley has quite a corner on the angst market as well. I gave up a third of the way through _Hawkmistress!_ because of the angst. Oh, the utterly whiny, teenaged, manufactured, self-centered angst...


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## SeverinR (Nov 4, 2014)

Fatal character error.
Establish a character's personality and then they do something totally against their character for plot convience.

As I said in a military exercise that seemed to good for the "enemy", "Its not in script!"  Don't let your drive of the story destroy your character.
Characters are not simply puppets we dance for the audience. They must stay true to their personality or they are lifeless figurines doing a meaningless dance.


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## Steerpike (Nov 4, 2014)

SeverinR said:


> They must stay true to their personality or they are lifeless figurines doing a meaningless dance.



In real life, however, people sometimes do act out of character. I wouldn't say in fiction they always have to be true to their personality. An action against their established character or personality may be an important part of the character arc. But if it comes off as contrived for the purposes of taking the plot one direction or another (in other words, if it comes off as unbelievable) the author has a problem.


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## SeverinR (Nov 4, 2014)

But even in real life, there is a reason for the personality change. Some flaw that made the person do the unexpected.  To prevent being unbelievable, maybe hint at the flaw or reason. Maybe even have someone notice the hint, after the fact, to show there was reason behind the change, not just for the plot.
Sometimes we don't even know why we did it, but there is a reason why we do things, even if we don't know why.


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## MFreako (Nov 4, 2014)

SeverinR said:


> They must stay true to their personality or they are lifeless figurines doing a meaningless dance.



I think a more fitting expression would be they have to stay true to their character. There's a difference between characterisation and true character. 

Characterisation consists of personality, traits, quirks. It is how a character acts under normal circumstances. A construct. The mask we wear to fool ourselves and those we interact with into believing whatever it is we want them/ourselves to believe about us.

True character is how someone acts when the shit hits the fan. A soldier may believe himself a coward      (characterisation), but when the bullets start flying somehow he gets up and leads a charge (character). Or the other way around–he may act like a gruff, battle-hardened veteran, but when the shells start falling he curls up in a ball and cries for his mother.

Great stories often put characterisation and character at odds to give us complex protagonists. Example: Walter White, a man who does horrible things and justifies them by claiming he has the good of his family at heart, while in fact the only interests he serves are his own pride and greed.


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## Xitra_Blud (Nov 4, 2014)

When they're boring or whiny. I've read things where the main character wants you to side with them, but it's so hard because all they do is whine and the only thing you can think of them is they're spoiled and you  hope they don't live to the end.


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## Spacebar (Nov 4, 2014)

The thing I hate reading the most is a protagonist who is unable to respond to the nature of evil he encounters.  I have no problem with an antagonist beginning the story stronger, but if the protagonist is not en route to achieve a mental victory in the end, it really bothers me.  Generally it means that the author doesn't intend for the hero to grow as a person, and when he wins, it will be by yelling really loud and swinging his sword really hard.  Basically, the hero wins because he's too stupid to figure out why he's losing.


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## Vilya (Nov 5, 2014)

When they stop being proactive.  One of the things that will bore me faster than anything is a character who doesn't "do" anything.  In my opinion a protagonist shouldn't just be along for the ride.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 5, 2014)

> he may act like a gruff, battle-hardened veteran, but when the shells start falling he curls up in a ball and cries*, "Game over, man!"*


^fix'd


Well, not really fixed since it wasn't broken, but I was thinking of Hudson from _Aliens_ as I read that post.

I agree a character can change—and sometimes _should_—when facing a situation s/he never had to face before. As the reader, I need to believe the character would really act that way despite what I knew. As I read _A Song of Ice and Fire,_ I see characters chaining all the time because of the circumstances. GRRM is getting is butt kissed enough without my help, but what can I say? I enjoy what I read except for those moments that I want to hurl the book through a closed window. He does get me to care about the characters, so the book doesn't fly from my hand in those moments.



I can think of books I put down, but because the character didn't interest me right off the bat. If a main character's going to be a jerk, a slut, a sociopath… I need to be hooked by either a likable trait or a damned interesting plot. If I don't know what's happening and I don't care who it's happening to, I won't waste my time. (I have read great books in which the MC was a jerk, a slut, or a sociopath.)


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## BronzeOracle (Nov 8, 2014)

Vilya said:


> When they stop being proactive.  One of the things that will bore me faster than anything is a character who doesn't "do" anything.  In my opinion a protagonist shouldn't just be along for the ride.



Yes, actually that's my biggest beef with Memory Sorry and Thorn by Tad Williams.  The protagonist Simon/Seoman just comes along for the ride and kind of bumbles his way through, and ends up the King!  Perhaps the author is intentionally making a point that victories aren't always planned but I find it unsatisfying to read.


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## Guy (Nov 8, 2014)

Characters that are helpless. I understand the author is either trying to build suspense or they think a character who is not heroic is more relatable, but sometimes they go too far in that direction and end up with a character who's so unheroic as to be useless. I can't stand it when the protagonist finally confronts the bad guy after he's spent the entire book doing one reprehensible act after another, has his gun pointed at the bad guy, then can't pull the trigger, or spares him out of some misplaced sense of nobility, and the whole time I'm sitting there screaming "Shoot!"


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## Feo Takahari (Nov 9, 2014)

@Guy: Ever seen Blood Plus? "I'm scared; I can't fight! But I have to fight! But I'm scared! Oops, I just killed almost all the characters on my side, but now I can fight! No, I suddenly have moral qualms and can't fight after all!" Realistic, maybe, but I felt like the MC had made no real progress after about twenty episodes.


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## Guy (Nov 9, 2014)

No, never heard of it. Sounds a little... I don't know. Unfocused?


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## Addison (Nov 9, 2014)

To quote David Rossi "One man's logic is another man's crazy.". Not everyone will see the protagonist in the way the writer did. So the likeable, hero of a story can change between readers. Not everyone who reads Harry Potter sees Harry Potter the same way. Some prefer Ron, Hermione or Hagrid. Some people even root for the villain. I read a short story in an anthology called "Under My Hat: Tales From The Cauldron", in the story by Ellen Klages called "The Education of a Witch", in the story a little girl sees Sleeping Beauty for the first time and she falls in love with Maleficent. She cries when Maleficent is killed and, at the toy store she buys a Maleficent puppet and in the end she apparently develops small powers with which she makes another pre-schooler's nose bleed and the story ends with her ready to unleash her powers on her new baby brother. 

So don't think that everyone will accept your story or characters the way you saw them. Like in real life not everyone will like your characters.


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## James Chandler (Nov 19, 2014)

Interestingly, the author of the Serial Killer novels was pretty disturbed by his character, too. That may not be a good reason to finish the series, but it interesting that he persisted despite that. 

Two characters come to mind, though. Walker Boh in the Scions of Shannara and Richard in the Sword of Truth novels. I finished the SoT novels out of sheer stubbornness, but I came to despise Richard Rahl. The author made this super-powerful character, then delighted in repeatedly rendering him powerless. That wouldn't be so bad, except all his power was completely useless. He couldn't even use his greatest power most of the time. The problem with Walker Boh wasn't that he was filled with self-doubt, it was that the narration repeated his concerns over and and over and over again without making any progress. It started to feel like the author was cutting and pasting the internal monologue. Even though i didn't stop reading, I find I am completely intolerant of any character that shows similar tendencies.


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## Feo Takahari (Nov 20, 2014)

James Chandler said:


> The problem with Walker Boh wasn't that he was filled with self-doubt, it was that the narration repeated his concerns over and and over and over again without making any progress. It started to feel like the author was cutting and pasting the internal monologue. Even though i didn't stop reading, I find I am completely intolerant of any character that shows similar tendencies.



I've seen this a lot with stories that try to have a "realistic" portrayal of psychological trauma, especially when that trauma is linked to a current issue that's hot and trendy in the public consciousness. The character has opportunities to grow a little and slowly work past their issues, and then they backslide, and then they grow a little more, and then they backslide a little more, and eighty chapters later, they're basically the same as they were at their lowest point. Fantasy characters or historical characters generally have a little more room to make permanent gains, even small ones, because the author doesn't feel the need to prove that they're not trivializing how hard it is to overcome trauma.


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## BronzeOracle (Nov 20, 2014)

James Chandler said:


> Two characters come to mind, though. Walker Boh in the Scions of Shannara and Richard in the Sword of Truth novels. I finished the SoT novels out of sheer stubbornness, but I came to despise Richard Rahl. The author made this super-powerful character, then delighted in repeatedly rendering him powerless. That wouldn't be so bad, except all his power was completely useless. He couldn't even use his greatest power most of the time.



I watched/read an interview with Raymond Fiest where he was talking about his super-character Macros the Black in the Riftwar series, and he had the same problem as Richard Rahl.  Super powerful characters just wreck story as they remove obstacles, so you have to create reasons why they can't act.  Raymond Fiest mentioned how this plagues superman - in every story with superman the author trying to invent some reason why superman can't just fly in and solve everything ridiculously easily.  It's also the reason why the king is often weak, mad, evil or absent and society divided / fractured in so many fantasy stories - if the king is strong and/or society united then they would bring their might to bear on problems and solve them quickly, and what then is left for the protagonist to do?  Its made me very wary about creating super characters even though they press some emotional buttons.


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## Feo Takahari (Nov 20, 2014)

BronzeOracle said:


> I watched/read an interview with Raymond Fiest where he was talking about his super-character Macros the Black in the Riftwar series, and he had the same problem as Richard Rahl.  Super powerful characters just wreck story as they remove obstacles, so you have to create reasons why they can't act.  Raymond Fiest mentioned how this plagues superman - in every story with superman the author trying to invent some reason why superman can't just fly in and solve everything ridiculously easily.  It's also the reason why the king is often weak, mad, evil or absent and society divided / fractured in so many fantasy stories - if the king is strong and/or society united then they would bring their might to bear on problems and solve them quickly, and what then is left for the protagonist to do?  Its made me very wary about creating super characters even though they press some emotional buttons.



This might be getting off-topic, but there's always the question of powerful in _what_. The hero of Maoyū Maō Yūsha can outfight pretty much anything, but that doesn't fix the social problems that lead to war in the first place. Preventing another war requires a grasp of economics, something he's inexperienced with.


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## glutton (Nov 20, 2014)

Feo Takahari said:


> This might be getting off-topic, but there's always the question of powerful in _what_. The hero of Maoyū Maō Yūsha can outfight pretty much anything, but that doesn't fix the social problems that lead to war in the first place. Preventing another war requires a grasp of economics, something he's inexperienced with.



Yeah, this is important. The Hulk is insanely powerful, but he hardly has the power/skill set to solve every problem.

In my current WIP the heroine is a nearly unbeatable warrior who can kill even monsters that are basically King Kong with armor plating and 'angels' with just her sword... but when the male MC's best friend loses his arm and his dreams of becoming a noteworthy warrior because of her flakiness, all she can do is stand there watching him cry and feel bad.


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## Mythopoet (Nov 20, 2014)

James Chandler said:


> Richard in the Sword of Truth novels. I finished the SoT novels out of sheer stubbornness, but I came to despise Richard Rahl. The author made this super-powerful character, then delighted in repeatedly rendering him powerless. That wouldn't be so bad, except all his power was completely useless. He couldn't even use his greatest power most of the time.



Interestingly, I stopped reading those books for a completely different reason. I came to despise Richard because he got so damn preachy. Yes, ok, we get it, COMMUNISM IS BAD. I just wanted to grab Terry Goodkind by the collar and shake him around while screaming "Stop shoving your personal beliefs into the character's mouth and get back to telling a frelling fantasy adventure story! That's what I bought the books for!" Of course he couldn't manage to do that so I never finished the series. My husband, who also finished it out of sheer stubbornness, told me the last few books were just awful. Of course, Goodkind later said that as far as he was concerned he wasn't writing fantasy, he was writing IMPORTANT LITERATURE. I wish I'd never given the man any of my money.


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## BronzeOracle (Nov 20, 2014)

Feo Takahari said:


> This might be getting off-topic, but there's always the question of powerful in _what_. The hero of Maoyū Maō Yūsha can outfight pretty much anything, but that doesn't fix the social problems that lead to war in the first place. Preventing another war requires a grasp of economics, something he's inexperienced with.



Yeah good point, makes me think of Watchmen when Rorschach says to Dr Manhattan 'you could have stopped this' and Dr says 'I can change almost anything, I can't change human nature'


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 20, 2014)

Dr. Manhattan and his lame excuses.


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## BronzeOracle (Nov 21, 2014)

Haha yes, he could have tried just a bit harder!  Like 'OK everyone I've just destroyed all your nukes, now be nice or I'll make you go splat'.  If only a more active person had got stuck in that molecular destructor thingy and turned blue - perhaps Dr Phil or Oprah??

Sorry everyone this has got way off topic.  I have two more character types that turn me off.

I don't like reading when a character gets dragged through the mud too much, it wears you down after a while.  So Theon becoming Reek in GOT, after a few torture scenes I just wanted to fast forward his parts.  OK I get it some people suffer dis-proportionally in conflicts and in paying for their decisions, but after a while its too much.  Another one is the character who suffers nobly through trial after trial and bad guys keep picking on them - eg Bates in Downton Abbey, my wife and I enjoyed the show but we got sick of him very quickly.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 21, 2014)

In the context of the OP and to reply to the above, nothing in Watchmen or GoT got me to stop wanting to read about (or watch) the characters. There were characters who PO'd me (P'd me O?), but not in a way that ruined the story. It's okay to hate a character and love a story, and Watchmen and GoT are probably the two most successful stories when it comes to having that effect on me.
*
Watchmen* - I hate the character Dr. Manhattan, but that's part of what makes the story fascinating.



Spoiler: Watchmen



The second strongest hero is making gazillions marketing himself and is arrogant enough to think that killing millions to save billions makes him a savior. The strongest just wastes his power falling in love with his own delusion of godhood. That's just my take: he declares himself a god simply because he's evolved beyond his fellow humans, and he doesn't even connect with people emotionally. Killing Rorschach is done with some hesitation, but he does so. I see that as part of his arrogance. Sparing Rorschach is an admission to his fallibility.

I've read comments/reviews that refer to Rorschach as a sociopath and anti-hero. Dark as he is, he's the most heroic of the bunch. Uncompromising, incorruptible... I don't care what it means for his journal to be published. That was vindicating.




*GRRM* - Theon was such a jerk, so seeing him humbled and broken didn't bother me.



Spoiler: GoT



Same with Jaime, though in his case he became stronger. Weaker as a swordsman, of course, but a better man. Theon's experience seems to be a similar turning point. (Too bad for all those people who died horribly during Theon's "healing process.") Brienne is the one I worry about most. She's the one I consider "least safe" on my top five list... and in fact she's on my top ONE for favorite characters.

The closest I came to "stop reading" --and even in the moment, I knew I'd pick up the book again-- was the final Brienne chapter in Feast of Crows. I did put the book down, but only to find out if that was a death or not. I admire Martin's writing, but I think it's a cheap move to be in a character's head and to not know if the character is dead or alive. It creates suspense, but I don't like asking "what the ---- just happened?" Believe me when I say it's my only criticism of his work, and even at the time I thought, "I'm only pissed off because he got me to care that much about his character." I think every writer wants to have that effect on readers.

Still, when's book 6 coming? I gotta know what that girl's up to?




(I'm not sure where those spoiler tags should have started, but better safe than sorry.)


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## Penpilot (Nov 21, 2014)

BronzeOracle said:


> Yeah good point, makes me think of Watchmen when Rorschach says to Dr Manhattan 'you could have stopped this' and Dr says 'I can change almost anything, I can't change human nature'





Legendary Sidekick said:


> Dr. Manhattan and his lame excuses.



I think there's a subtle way his actions are explained. Dr. Manhattan sees his whole life outside the normal flow of time. He's removed from time in a way, and sees his life in a single moment. Every decision and action he will ever make or do, he knows at every point during his life, from point he becomes Dr. Mahattan. This foreknowledge puts him in a position of knowing but being unable to change what is meant to be.

Trying to skirt around religion here, but it kind of plays of the theory that if capital G God knows everything that has happened or will happen, then we really don't have freewill (lets not spiral into a debate about what is freewill, etc.) to choose otherwise. We would be living in a deterministic universe where everything is predetermined to unfold in a certain way, so even though Dr. Manhattan could do something, he is predetermined to do nothing.


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## Writeking (Nov 22, 2014)

Interesting point, Penpilot.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 22, 2014)

Interesting, yes, but it doesn't explain his inaction toward the one person who abuses his power to kill millions of innocent people, but then he does kill the one person who refuses to keep the dark secret. If he knows everything, then he should know killing Rorschach won't stop Rorschach from telling the world.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with the way the story was written. I'm pointing out how I can hate a character without it ruining the story.



PS- If you click the Awesome Warrior link in my sig and use the "find" command to find "Dr. Manhattan" (or "blue"), you'll see I actually commented on this character in an interview with Phil Overby. Let's just say _Watchmen_ made quite an impression on me!


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