How can I make an unlikable protagonist likable?

[UltimaBahamut93]

I am working on a comedic fantasy novel where the protagonist is very selfish and manipulative, willing stab others in the back if it benefits himself sort of character. His main arc is finding value in friends and family and learning that loving and being selfless isn't a weakness. But how can I write a character that the reader can recognize is a bag of dirt, yet still want to read about their adventures?

I am taking a lot of inspiration for this character from a combination of Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean and Kazuma from Konosuba. I'm trying to figure out what makes the audience love watching these characters who are morally bad yet still root for them and love them.

What advice can you give me with this? I feel like this is a very important thing to understand because it can easily cause a reader to dislike the MC to the point where they put the book down.

 

[Orc Knight]

One of the biggest things is to have someone far worse as the antagonist. And having them be, well, not quite as terrible. Sure, Jack's a thief and pirate, but he's freed slaves (at least in the EU, I believe) and does have lines he doesn't cross. Which is another thing to have with the character. Limits. Be they for pragmatic or moral reasons. And charisma helps too.

Ciaphas Cain (of Warhammer 40k) is another one of those sorts. A self described coward who does his level best to run away from every conflict and battle he gets thrown into. Fairly selfish, but still a likable sort. But at the end of the day, he'll still face down a Chaos Marine with a chainsword in hand if it helps him run away from something worse.

 

[ThinkerX]

Give him style and a sense of humor. Have him fall flat on his face more than once. And have him get robbed/swindled.

 

[pmmg]

Look at dreamworks movies instead. Thats pretty much the idea to almost all of them.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

It's called giving your character a "Save the Cat" moment, and if you want to roll with unlikable protagonists you're going to want to master this one.

This is where the concept comes from... basically. It's been in practice for a long time, but Save the Cat does the best job of explaining it.
https://www.amazon.com/Save-Cat-Last-Screenwriting-Youll-ebook/dp/B00340ESIS/

Think about Jack Sparrow in the first few minutes as we meet him. He's stumbling around, messing with guards, being funny in a dastardly sort of way which works, but still doesn't win the sympathy of the audience. He needs more. He needs to Save a Cat. Sometimes this is literal. Think of movies - and books - where the negative protagonist or whatever suddenly does something positive and it changes how you feel about them. Think about Jack Sparrow.

His Save the Cat is when he dives into the water at risk to himself to rescue Elizabeth. That fast, he's got the audience. That's what you're trying to do with your protagonist.

 

[Jackarandajam]

It's called giving your character a "Save the Cat" moment, and if you want to roll with unlikable protagonists you're going to want to master this one.

This is where the concept comes from... basically. It's been in practice for a long time, but Save the Cat does the best job of explaining it.
https://www.amazon.com/Save-Cat-Last-Screenwriting-Youll-ebook/dp/B00340ESIS/

Think about Jack Sparrow in the first few minutes as we meet him. He's stumbling around, messing with guards, being funny in a dastardly sort of way which works, but still doesn't win the sympathy of the audience. He needs more. He needs to Save a Cat. Sometimes this is literal. Think of movies - and books - where the negative protagonist or whatever suddenly does something positive and it changes how you feel about them. Think about Jack Sparrow.

His Save the Cat is when he dives into the water at risk to himself to rescue Elizabeth. That fast, he's got the audience. That's what you're trying to do with your protagonist.

Truth! Remember too, they maintained his gray-character status by making him reluctant.
"Aren't you going to save her?"
"I can't swim!"
"Pride of the Kings navy you are."

Very "fine, i guess im it then." Not a hero-esque sentiment, but all the audience needs to see another side to the character.
They already wanted to like him (humor, charisma) and all they needed was a hint there's more to him if they stick around.

 

[Penpilot]

Think of likeable and unlikable as a scale. If you want the audience to like someone, you have them do likeable things. If you want the audience to dislike them, you have them do unlikable things. The more you put on one side of the scale, the more the audience will lean that way.

Keep in mind that different acts will have different weights associated with them. Things like hurting children, animals, and the elderly, are a tremendous weight on the unlikable side of the scale. And you are going to have to write your butt off to tilt the scale if your character does any of this. Depending on what they do, it may be impossible to tilt the scale back for some. On the flip side, being kind to children, animals, and the elderly, can win a lot of brownie points and do a lot to tilt the scale towards the likeable.

In addition humor and competency in certain areas are admirable traits that can tilt the scale towards the likeable side of things. How many funny expert thieves do find in heist stories?

If you're starting the story with the character being a figurative bag of dicks, you probably want to quickly establish what the character's limits are to what they will and will not do in terms of dick baggery. Some stories use a formal code they live by.

But if you want to make them the worst of the worst without revealing any redeeming qualities in the beginning, you have to make them interesting. If they're not interesting, the audience won't want to stick around.

It doesn't hurt either if you can let the audience in on why they are the way they are. Understanding a character's motivations can make the character more relatable. If the audience thinks under the same circumstance, they would do the same, that can open the door to them liking the character or at least not outright dismissing them as someone they'don't want to follow around in a story. As long as the audience is willing to follow them around in the story, it's possible to change their opinions.

 

[The Dark One]

My most successful novel featured an MC (1st person so you're always in his head) who is an absolute scumbag. People always love him by the end but there are plenty who like him straight away given the fact that he's very smart and very funny (in a very dark way).

The reason everyone likes him by the end is that there is a profound revelation that makes the reader understand that he has been through significant trauma and has always meant well (despite that being very hard to appreciate in the first two thirds of the book).

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I think the important thing I learned in my own similar thread about this.
Characters like this who are intended to be 'liked' in the end. Always have some redeemable trait.
Even if it's something as simple as saving a cat from a tree or giving the lil english boy extra money for shining his shoe.
Also they need a good reason for them to be this way. Like if they're distrusting of others and stuff, give a legitimately good reason for it.

Also as others said the golden rule is to always have someone who's worse. Preferred an irredeemable villain character. That's why Cruella Devil is such a fun rewrite of her character in the remake. Cruella herself is so mean/twisted, but she has standards and principals, so the actually evil person in the movie is hated more.

My favorite characters like this are the ones where yes, at a glance they're scummy ass holes but when the chips are down they prove that yes, they can be good people when they give a shit.

 

[Jackarandajam]

The GOT show is both a study on how to do this and how not to.
How to do it, because the show drags characters from villain to hero to villain all through the seasons.
How NOT to do it, because one of the reasons I quit watching was the amount of characters I wished death on for things they did earlier trying to be made suddenly sympathetic.
Basically half the series is a running study on understandable villains and unlikeable heroes. I don't think they pulled it off as often as they wanted to, but they certainly tried.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I'm with A. E. Lowan that save the cat is a big one.

Then it's also good to know that people in general like the main viewpoint character just because he's the main viewpoint character. It sounds silly, but you can get away with a lot, as long as he's the viewpoint character. Just look at stories which feature con-artists or thieves as protagonist. There's no reason why we're rooting for Danny Ocean in Ocean's 11. And yet we do.

Humor is a great one. People like funny people. Competence is another.

If you can competently stab someone in the back while you're in first person POV, then it matters little what other qualities the character has, people will like him.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Prince is absolutely correct. We have this happen with our fan favorite MMC, who's a faerie knight who rides a Harley and has a potty mouth. He is one of our most problematic characters, is about 1000 years old and acts it, and yet this is the Book Boyfriend. Between him and the Actual Pattern Killer we're meeting in this book, I seriously fear for our entire readership as a whole and women as a people.

How do we do it? How do you buy that specific reaction? Make him "bad but he does it so well." He needs to be hot, and there are only a couple of things hotter than confidence - the others involved holding puppies or babies... or both. Prince is right. Funny helps a lot. And best, funny helps with just about every character you want to make more attractive. Just be cautious. Funny can be hard writing, and there are only two results: Nailed It or Death.

But, and this is crucial, he can be a bad boy but he has to be a good man. The whole thing, all the advice all the practice, comes down to making the character worth rooting for. Giving the reader reason to hope that they aren't wasting their emotions on a character who doesn't deserve it. Best quote I heard all week came from a writing video on this. "As writers, you're basically just drug dealers who deal in emotions." I couldn't have said it better.

Also, this applies to female characters, too. And in the same amounts. Fierce women are powerful attractive.

 

[skip.knox]

If a character is genuinely unlikable, then that's it. If you can make them likable, then they were not unlikable. Otherwise the words lose meaning.

What you're asking is how to make someone be repugnant in some ways but attractive in other ways. That has been answered on this thread.

I like Lowan's use of "a bad boy but a good man." It's interesting though. Change the gender and it does not reverberate in the same way. "She is a bad girl but a good woman". And it gets even more interesting with someone not cis.

I acknowledge stereotypes and the power of tropes and all that, but to me none of it becomes interesting until you get down to individuals. How do I make _this particular character_ repugnant in certain ways yet attractive in others? Even more, how do I do this for this particular character in these particular circumstances? And how do I create those effects not so much for the reader but for the other characters in this particular story?

Only then can I get down to cases and do actual writing.

 

[Finchbearer]

You want the recipe for a Jack Sparrow type? AELowan pretty much sums it up - he’s what men want to be like and who women want to be with. He’s a ‘bad boy’. He will appeal to those who like the idea of rebelling. Is that the kind of character you want to create?

Otherwise the broader question is not really a question. Why make a character who is meant to be unlikable, likeable in the first place?

 

[Prince of Spires]

The interesting thing about Jack Sparrow is that he s actually ridiculously competent, even though he doesn't look like he is. He's funny and stumbles through life. But he always comes out on top. That combination makes him so attractive to many people as a character.

Already his first introduction does this. He sails up to the harbor, on a sinking ship, getting to the dock just in time to step off before the ship is gone. It's funny, but it also works somehow.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

The interesting thing about Jack Sparrow is that he s actually ridiculously competent, even though he doesn't look like he is. He's funny and stumbles through life. But he always comes out on top. That combination makes him so attractive to many people as a character.

Already his first introduction does this. He sails up to the harbor, on a sinking ship, getting to the dock just in time to step off before the ship is gone. It's funny, but it also works somehow.

This is actually a whole trope thing called "Competence Porn" which I just adore. Competence Porn - TV Tropes Both positive and satisfying, not to mention just a great venue for outrageous fun. Think Home Alone meets The Lord of the Rings.

 

[Prince of Spires]

This is actually a whole trope thing called "Competence Porn" which I just adore. Competence Porn - TV Tropes Both positive and satisfying, not to mention just a great venue for outrageous fun. Think Home Alone meets The Lord of the Rings.

I didn't know it had a name, though I'm not surprised in the slightest that it does Thanks!

With Jack Sparrow they sort of try to hide it behind is comic behavior. Which is a different approach than some other very competent characters (like the already mentioned Ocean's 11 team, or the older A-team).

 

[Ned Marcus]

I don't know if it'd work in your case, but James Cagney, in White Heat, played an evil character who was unlikeable in every way. A brutal murderer. But he was given one good characteristic: he loved his mother. This gave some small connection to the vicious killer.

Perhaps giving one good characteristic to your character may help.

 

[skip.knox]

Also, he had those headaches, so you could also sympathize that he was suffering from some malady. But boy, what a character that was! It's on my list of Movies I Make My Kids Watch.

 

[Ned Marcus]

But boy, what a character that was! It's on my list of Movies I Make My Kids Watch.

Yes, the character and film are unforgettable.