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How To Make A Species With Limited Empathy And Apathy Relatable

ShadeZ

Maester
I have a species that come from mutated humanoids. Part of a result of the mutation is a severe lack of empathy and very high apathy. They can carry on happy conversation with someone, share ale with them, save someone's life, or kill them without caring one way or another in nearly all cases. How do I make a character like this relatable. They feel limited empathy and can feel some emotions, the older they become the less emotional and empathetic they are. They view this as a strength and often refer to young ones as "too much like a human" or as having "childish outbursts of emotion". They never fully loose their emotions and empathy but they do become very selective with it over time. They are still capable of all the fundamental "animal" emotions, they love their family, friends, and lovers. They are protective of those they love(often overly so). They feel hate not toward individuals but toward the actions and choices of an individual such as raiders or people who cause mass harm for personal gain. They have fantastic reflexive response and operate largely off slightly modified impulses and instincts (they hate cities for this reason and often live in the woods or with their own kind). They are primarily a combat race and this serves them well as warriors and hunters, however that doesn't exactly make their pattern of thought relatable

I've attached a scene that maybe helpful for giving perspective.

Vanya spoke her voice blank almost angry,"You think nothing of killing a taking life do you?" Robin busted out laughing,"How very human of you. Of course I think nothing about killing men and women who want to kill me and my family. I'm surprised you even need to ask. I wonder, are you going to question if I feel sad over killing my food next? Both are necessary for my survival. The cult want me and my family dead, so I kill them if I meet them. I am carnivorous so I need meat to survive, so I stalk and kill prey. Now tell me Vanya... how would it benefit me to be emotional under those circumstances? The way I see it feeling guilty or sad for enemies or prey would be a hindrance. To become a demiduur is to shirk off both your mortality and humanity to become something inhuman. I knew and accepted what I was losing when I became what I am Vanya. I question why you haven't. "
 
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A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
It will be pretty hard to make an entire race relatable, but you can do it with individuals. It's called "saving the cat," where you show your character has a softer side that readers can connect with. If this demiduur is something people become by choice, I would show why those choices are being made. What did they care about so much that they embraced becoming a monster? Do they still retain that problem? And, on a related note, how can these creatures function as a military unit without empathy for each other?
 

ShadeZ

Maester
It will be pretty hard to make an entire race relatable, but you can do it with individuals. It's called "saving the cat," where you show your character has a softer side that readers can connect with. If this demiduur is something people become by choice, I would show why those choices are being made. What did they care about so much that they embraced becoming a monster? Do they still retain that problem? And, on a related note, how can these creatures function as a military unit without empathy for each other?

They feel empathy for one another to an higher than human level. They are extremely loyal to their own species (forgot to mention it above). They usually become this way to have the power to stop a great threat or to prevent something that happened to them from ever happening again. Robin ^ was captured by slave traders as a kid since he was a sand elf and humans enslave elves. He became a demiduur because 1. He saw humanity at its worst and decided he didn't want it and 2. He wanted to protect the others of his village and 3. His father and elder sister were demiduur (Robin calls it "the family buisness"). A good example of their rare empathy is Robin's father Blake who's mate is a sand elf woman he fell in love with. They are known to rarely form connections with some unique individuals that are not demiduur. They are also known to adopt and they make great parents. However it is their thoughts and actions I'm trying to make relatable, they aren't monsters but they can come off as such sometimes due to their actions.

For example, Robin ^ fell in love with a human woman who turned out to be an assassin who tried to kill him. He ripped out her heart and left both the heart and thr corpse on her husband's doorstep. He knew the husband was also an assassin, he didn't know they were lovers. He spared the husband when he could very easily have killed him, since he didn't know they were married he believed leaving the corpse of an underling assassin on her superiors door step would make the husband realise hunting Robin was a huge and costly mistake and leave him alone. Naturally it looks like Robin is a callous and sadistic monster completely incapable of emotion or empathy for his enemies initially and his tactics here are very brutal however his intentions are to minimize the amount of casualties. This instance is all explained however it would become bothersome to explain like this every single time a demiduur does something.

Hopefully that makes sense. Sorry for the long reply.
 

K.S. Crooks

Maester
Your initial description made me think of Vulcans in Star Trek. Because their emotions are so strong they choose to suppress them all. You may want to look at a few episodes to see how they deal with situations that would cause a human to be emotional. If I understood correctly members of the species will lose some emotions and be strong with others. Explaining in the story why the species is that way will help make them relatable. You may want to predetermine what emotions are present or lacking for the main characters. You can then create situations that emphasize those emotions. Hope this help.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
I've been thinking about this post a fair bit, and realized that the demiduur reminds me of, well, me. I'm autistic (Asperger's) and experience empathy in much this way - empathy for intimates and apathy for many other things. I feel it, but differently than neurotypical people do. Sometimes it's overwhelming, and sometimes isn't present and I have to perform it if I'm in public. It's complicated, but you do a very good job of describing the ins and outs of how I feel in this regard.
 

ShadeZ

Maester
I've been thinking about this post a fair bit, and realized that the demiduur reminds me of, well, me. I'm autistic (Asperger's) and experience empathy in much this way - empathy for intimates and apathy for many other things. I feel it, but differently than neurotypical people do. Sometimes it's overwhelming, and sometimes isn't present and I have to perform it if I'm in public. It's complicated, but you do a very good job of describing the ins and outs of how I feel in this regard.

Ae. It is modeled almost exclusively off my ADHD which has several very similar traits. Demiduur are something of a fantasy variety of ADHD. They have a number of the "superpowers" often associated with ADHD as well and others added merely for fun. Their sensory perception is quite high and they can't be in cities because the chaos of so many humans and such noise puts them in something of an instinctively "jumpy" state which often results in reflexive attacks if someone suddenly touches them. They can hear literally thousands of conversations at once and their brains attempt to process them all at once. They learn patterns and can very easily predict what non-demiduur will do to a nearly psychic degree based on body language. Like most people with ADHD wear "masks" (the performing in public bit) they actually shapeshift based on their environment. They can observe and nearly perfectly replicate any language, accent, and appearance of any humanoid of their same gender commonly known as "emulation" by the species.

There are a few downsides to becoming a demiduur. For one only 5% of all non demiduur have the needed mental resolve to hand the transformation. For another there is the apathy and lack of many thing humans consider to be core. For a third, their soul is anchored to them and they're near impossible to kill but can feel pain (newer ones feel pain even more due to the higher sense of feeling). Last they are wild and cant be tamed (for lack of a better word).
 

Toby Johnson

Minstrel
first off you can just write it as they have no empathy by describing them like the trolls in the hobbit. and how they talk about how they're going to cook and eat them, right in front of them.
also you could just say how they look. I know you cant judge a book by its cover but an entire species, it could be linked, their looks and their personality
 

ShadeZ

Maester
first off you can just write it as they have no empathy by describing them like the trolls in the hobbit. and how they talk about how they're going to cook and eat them, right in front of them.
also you could just say how they look. I know you cant judge a book by its cover but an entire species, it could be linked, their looks and their personality
Perhaps. But I did not find the trolls relatable lol. This species are feline in psychology their empathy is nonexistent for those WHO THEY SEE AS PREY. The do have low amounts of empathy for family and friend though. Now if you are a stranger being mugged they will intervene and probably try killing your attackers the reasoning ranging from you needed help so I helped to they pitied you for being human/not a good warrior.

Trick is, most people dont just condescend like a cat. So how does one make this relatable?
 
I was once told mix the familiar with the strange. Give them a familiar goal one that even we could understand. They may be a race that is brutal to others but treat one another better than humans do.
 
One thing I got from Brandon Sanderson's university lectures was that you can plot a character on 3 axis: how likeable they are, how active they are and how competent they are. Some characters score high on all 3 (at the beginning of the story), but they are usually not the most interesting characters. Superman is the prototypical character who scores high on all 3. He's a boyscout who can do no wrong (high on likeable), who is always busy saving people and he's the best there is.

More modern protagonists often score high in 1 or 2 and move on the third during the story. Luke Skywalker starts very likeable, medium active and incompetent. He becomes more active and especially more competent as A New Hope progresses (and the rest of the trilogy). His journey is to become more competent. Han Solo on the other hand, starts fairly low on likeability, but he's very active and reasonably competent. His journey is to become more likeable during the story, which he does with the climax at the end where he returns to save Luke so Luke can destroy the death star.

Of course, characters don't have to move on these scales. It often means you don't have a big character arc in your story. James Bond is a great example here. He's very active and he's very competent, but he's not immediately the most likeable of characters.

For your species then, if you want to create reader interest, and they are unlikeable (they have limited empathy), then you probably want to make them very active and / or very competent. There's plenty of stories out there where we root for thieves. And that is usually because they are active and / or competent.
 

ShadeZ

Maester
For your species then, if you want to create reader interest, and they are unlikeable (they have limited empathy), then you probably want to make them very active and / or very competent. There's plenty of stories out there where we root for thieves. And that is usually because they are active and / or competent
This species are dragon slayers. They are regarded as powerful predatory creatures of myths and legends by the people. The book follows a human mage Coleson Moore who has gone north to study them. He encounters four young demiduur and travels with them on various assignments. He observes first off that they are callous and cold killers after raiders ambush them and they make a game of seeing who can tear the most raiders apart the fastest. Coleson also is forced to defend himself as the raiders were told to grab him as a bargaining chop if it all goes south. Coleson primarily incapacitated those that come after him and one of the slayers finishes them off. A human arm smacks Coleson in the fight and he looks down to find it is dismembered. After the fight Coleson is in shock that these four could do that and not care at all about it. However where all four couldnt care less about the raiders and are talking and joking around while absolutely soaked in blood minutes after the fact, they do each show care for Coleson and the fact he is in mild shock over this.

In terms of combat ability they are on a whole other level, and they have a habit of protecting and intervening in cases were the other can not help themself. They are especially protective of the young. But they are not empathetic the majority of the time and even when they are it is only cognitive empathy or the" I can understand from a mental POV why that sucks" view.
 
I would argue that making a game of who can tear the most raiders apart isn't done by someone who lacks empathy and is apathetic towards their prey. It's a symptom of someone who has buried their emotions far too long to do a brutal job.

If the Demiduur have no empathy for their prey, they would simply dispatch it in the most efficient manner possible. If they're making a game of (taking satisfaction from) tearing apart their enemies, something's going on.

Cats don't play with their prey because cats are cruel. They play with their prey to wear it down so it may be killed with little risk to the cat.
 

ShadeZ

Maester
If the Demiduur have no empathy for their prey, they would simply dispatch it in the most efficient manner possible. If they're making a game of (taking satisfaction from) tearing apart their enemies, something's going on.
The victor is whoever can slay the most raiders so they are being pretty effective. One of them is disqualified because half her "kills"arent fully dead.
 
That's not efficiency. That's competition. It's showing off.

You did say the Demiduur have emotions for each other and form bonds. In that light, I can see them competing. I see your point.
 

Alana S

Acolyte
First thought - don't make the species relatable, make a character that your reader will empathize with. You can do this by giving your character universal goals such as wellbeing of their family or desire for more wealth, greater talent and such.

Second thought - everyone relates to the feeling of not fitting in. It seems that this character would find themselves in a situation in which they are the subject of ridicule or censure and not understand why. Did their basic apathy cause them to lose an opportunity they wanted?

Third thought - take a note from the Orville, in it there is a character that is a robot who constantly reminds people that he is more intelligent than they are and has no emotions, but when it mattered, he acted against his basic nature in order to help his crew mates. (I highly recommend that show btw, it out Treks, Trek)
 
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