Not Your Typical Hero

[Androxine Vortex]

Usually the hero (protagonist) is the good guy. But the MC in my story is actually quite different. He's an Orc who is part of a clan/tribe. Typical Orcs here: barbaric, war-like, savage, you get the picture. However I don't want to portray them as evil. I have based their culture off of Native American Indians (Very violent Indians!) They are shamanistic and are very "down to Earth" and I mean that quite literaly. They believe in the, "Old Ways" which dictate that they must be dominant. Raiding a human village to them isn't wrong; it would be asserting their dominance in the food chain and venerating their ancestors with glorious combat.

So I want my MC to be brooding, constantly negative, rash, etc. But I don't want the reader to hate him. I read a book once about a dark elf that was a truly horrible person. He killed people right and left for his own personal gain and sometimes just because he could. Yet at the same time I didn't dislike him. In fact, it was his personality that made me love him. Any tips on this? I want him to be all those things I listed above but I want him to be appealing and not just stereotyped as evil.


EDIT: Also I'm thinking of naming him, Mogruk. I'm kind of going along with the harsh sounding names for my orcs. What do you think of the name?

 

[Saigonnus]

So the Orcs have somewhat of a barbarian archetype (like Wulfgar from the Icewind Dale trilogy: R.A. Salvatore). I would think you would just need to come up with some sort of redeeming quality to offset the negative aspects of his culture, a quality that will endear him to the readers. An example I could think of is that he could be brooding, violent and rash and yet have a strange sense of "rationale"; perhaps exhibited in how he'll face grown human men in combat unflinching, but refuses to kill unarmed women or children when raiding the villages; unlike the rest of tribe. Maybe the other make fun of him for this "weakness" and yet he takes it stoically, believing he is in the right doing what he does.

 

[Lorna]

I don't know much about the native Americans but I can think of some exemplars from Celtic and Norse myth that might help you.

Cu Chulainn, the hero of 'The Tain' was renowned for savagery in battle. He used to undergo a transformation known as his 'warp spasm' where his body contorted to the point his legs faced the wrong way (how this helped I don't know), one of his eyes came out and blood spurted from his head. His temper was so hot he had to be put in a bath of ice to be cooled down. He was a notorious head hunter and killed his own son and best friend due to horrible twists of fate. In spite of all this I didn't end up hating him. To me he's a quintessential tragic hero and in the end he died a tragic death.

In the Norse myths there are countless examples of berserker warriors.

For dark heroes you might want to look at Moorcock's 'Elric,' 'Conan.'

The veneration of war-like ancestors and warrior gods or spirits would be one way to go, particularly if you've got one or more shamans who in contact with these beings. You'll probably need a code of honour.

One way of generating sympathy for your character will be sticking him a situation where everyone else is much worse.

If you're going to keep the sympathy you'll need to show his motivations are right- he believes he's doing good (by way of his code) even if his actions are 'wrong'. You'll probably find this leads to a pretty interesting exploration of morality.

 

[Chilari]

Dark and brooding has been done and can be rather tiring. If you want your readers to like him as a character, I think you'll need to give him two things: a drive, a goal that he strives towards, which is if not necessarily morally white, at least understandable; and something that gives him pleasure, that strips away the rash, violent, brooding parts of his character and makes him genuinely happy. Something he likes doing, something he enjoys which harms nobody and gives him peace of mind and a more optomistic outlook. You can later take that away as part of the story, giving him greater drive to achieve the aforementioned goal, but if you want readers to like him, you have to make him more than this dark brooding unpleasant character you've described so far. Maybe he likes climbing a particular tree and seeing the view from the top, or teaching his sister's kids how to fight, or something.

 

[JacobMGibney]

I tend to bore quickly of characters that are constantly downcast and pessimistic, it can be very repetitive. It can be difficult to warm to characters that are miserable.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

My character is sort of a "runt of the litter" type and from early childhood was seen as inferior. So all throughout his life he is trying to prove himself and assert his dominance among his kin. The main part of the plot is that he, along with his two brothers, are sons of their clan's war chief. He tells his children that his time as chief is nearing an end and that one of them will take his place but they must prove to him that they are worthy. So they are given one year to prove who is the most deserving. i guess you could say that would be his goal you mentioned. And yes they do have codes of honor. At first I want them to seem like your typical orc but then slowly throughout the novel you see that they are just a misunderstood culture and race.

 

[C.B. Jones]

I think that is a great idea. Not to many authors tell a story in the Orc point of view. I like the name.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

I think that is a great idea. Not to many authors tell a story in the Orc point of view. I like the name.

Yeah I wasn't sure about the name. They use their tribe's name as a surname so his full name is Mogruk Grim-Skull. I know it sounds kind of cheesy and I did that on purpose because typically when I write fantasy I don't use orcs, elves, dragons, or most of the mainstream fantasy elements so with this project I decided to change it up.

 

[KC Herbel]

If you want us (the readers) to empathize with your MC give him some traits we can empathize with. Is he a family guy? Is he honorable/ethical? Does he brood over the things which are black-and-white wrong?
You may want to think along the lines of the more empathetic mobsters of modern TV. These guys are ruthless and bloodthursty, but at the end of the day, we know what they did was motivated by loyalty, their own twisted sense of honor and manhood, and most importantly family. They can torture or kill someone and we'll squirm, but we keep on reading/watching if they can show us they have some redeming quality that motivates them. This works well for cops too. We will forgive the cop who beats a perp within an inch of his life if we understand or come to understand later that it's because his father beat his mother and this criminal was abusing a woman. The hero (or anti-hero) must be justified in his actions -- to us! It cannot be so removed from our own world view that we can't empathize.
Remember to let us see that the MC feels something. We can all of us empathize with someone struggling with their feelings, especially if it envolves violating some personal or traditional code.
Lastly, I would also remind you to give your MC a character arc. Something should happen that changes them.

 

[The Dark One]

If it were my character (and obviously it's not) I'd lose the 'brooding' but definitely make him set apart from his community. That will immediately start to garner sympathy from readers - especially if they deplore some of the actions/philosophies of the majority. What about something like...a great ancestor has set the tribe a riddle and they think they have solved it, and that is the underlying basis for their violence and harshness. But somehow the MC gets a different insight into the riddle and he realises that the whole tribal cosmology is tragically flawed. He can see a way out of it but his (apparently heretical/treasonous) approach would totally jeopardise the tribe. He becomes an outcast but manages to save the tribe and change the tribe just as their fundamentally wrong approach to the riddle was about to have really serious consequences.

I dunno...no doubt some will see some cliches in there. So many books have been written.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

If it were my character (and obviously it's not) I'd lose the 'brooding' but definitely make him set apart from his community. That will immediately start to garner sympathy from readers - especially if they deplore some of the actions/philosophies of the majority. What about something like...a great ancestor has set the tribe a riddle and they think they have solved it, and that is the underlying basis for their violence and harshness. But somehow the MC gets a different insight into the riddle and he realises that the whole tribal cosmology is tragically flawed. He can see a way out of it but his (apparently heretical/treasonous) approach would totally jeopardise the tribe. He becomes an outcast but manages to save the tribe and change the tribe just as their fundamentally wrong approach to the riddle was about to have really serious consequences.

I dunno...no doubt some will see some cliches in there. So many books have been written.

Although I greatly appreciate your suggestion, and it is a good one too, I don't think it would fit well with my plot. And when i say brooding I don't mean that he is depressed or anything. I just want him to have a negative personality, as with most of the orcs do. They might threaten or insult each other but to them it's all in good heart. It's just part of their society and their aggressive behavior.

 

[KC Herbel]

Sounds like you are describing the great apes. You may want to look up Dian Fossey's work (ala Gorillas in the Mist) and see what are the tribal/family dynamics. I'm not suggesting you make them apes, but there might be some nuggets there you can use.

 

[Helen]

Usually the hero (protagonist) is the good guy. But the MC in my story is actually quite different. He's an Orc who is part of a clan/tribe. Typical Orcs here: barbaric, war-like, savage, you get the picture. However I don't want to portray them as evil. I have based their culture off of Native American Indians (Very violent Indians!) They are shamanistic and are very "down to Earth" and I mean that quite literaly. They believe in the, "Old Ways" which dictate that they must be dominant. Raiding a human village to them isn't wrong; it would be asserting their dominance in the food chain and venerating their ancestors with glorious combat.

So I want my MC to be brooding, constantly negative, rash, etc. But I don't want the reader to hate him. I read a book once about a dark elf that was a truly horrible person. He killed people right and left for his own personal gain and sometimes just because he could. Yet at the same time I didn't dislike him. In fact, it was his personality that made me love him. Any tips on this? I want him to be all those things I listed above but I want him to be appealing and not just stereotyped as evil.


EDIT: Also I'm thinking of naming him, Mogruk. I'm kind of going along with the harsh sounding names for my orcs. What do you think of the name?

I think if you establish motivation clearly, it'll work. It's like Tony Montana in Scarface - we're glued to him.

Or anyone in Sopranos. They'll chop you up but they love their mothers.

 

[KC Herbel]

Spot on, Helen! Sopranos! That's what I was thinking in my first post on this thread.