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LOTLOF

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Absolutely. Sympathy is not an absolute state. You don't decide a certain character is sympathetic and have that status never effected by anything else they do. If a character does something the reader views as unforgivable they will of course lose all sympathy.

Fortunately, my goal as a writer is to get the readers to care about my characters. Whether they love or hate them is irrelevant, just so long as they aren't bored. I've actually had a few readers tell me they couldn't wait for the next chapter in a story because they were desperately hoping to see a specific villain brutally killed. As an author I count that as a success.
 

Tazlima

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In the story i'm working out right now, my character is very sympathetic throughout the story, however, there is a major point where he ends up betraying a group of people and gets them murdered for his own needs. The people that are killed will be a generally likable and sympathetic group that the King has been hunting for years... I'll leave some details out but that is the general idea.


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Does he have a good (at least in his mind) reason for his terrible action? The magic of rationalization can ease the sting of even the most horrible acts.

Before I even read your opening post, I immediately thought of Breaking Bad, specifically the scene where *Spoiler - Highlight to read*

Walter sees Jesse's girlfriend choking to death on her own vomit and just lets her die.

When I saw that scene, before I realized how things were going to go down, I actually spoke out loud to the screen. "Roll her over!"

Somehow, of all the horrible things he did throughout the series, that moment disturbed me the most, it felt like the point of no return for ol' Walter. Yet from the character's perspective it was a logical course of action (or inaction, in this case). I disagreed with what he did, but I also completely understood why he did it.

As long as there's a believable reason for the betrayal and perhaps a dash of remorse, I think your character could easily retain the reader's support.
 

LJD

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Hmm! I think what would be amazing would be to cause the reader to lose sympathy, via the single heinous act perpetrated by a liked character, and then to regenerate that sympathy through subsequent events. I don't have examples of this arc coming to mind, but I believe it could be done and would make a very strong story if done well. Make me forgive him for that horrid betrayal and I'm your fan for life.

Contemporary romance: Sugar Daddy and Blue Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas. You have to read both books to get that arc...
 

LJD

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And yes, a single act could totally make me lose sympathy for a character. It can be earned back...but it's hard.
 

Jacob_Wallace

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It depends on a lot of things. Why is the character doing what they're doing? What were the characters' actions before? If you have a character that would rather die than kill, and then kill a bus load of children, then that's stupid. However, if you had a character that has been having a slow fall to darkness and murdering a bus load of children was simply icing on his already evil cake, then that's believable. Personally, I thought ROTS was stupid the way it handled Anakin's fall. He goes from sympathetically wanting to save Padme to slaughtering kids because wrinkle face said so.

It also depends on the tone of the story. Evil acts are more 'forgivable' in a story that's already pretty dark. For example, in Game Of Thrones, almost any character can be forgiven for murder. However, similar tactics in a different story, like if Harry Potter killed Draco Malfoy for example, would be less believable/forgivable.
 
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It depends on the set-up, the fall towards the final evil act, and what about the character entertained me at the start. I love tragedies, and sin and redemption arcs, provided there is enough character and story logic behind it. But I have been turned off characters or books entirely b shoddy handling of the same.
 

StormChord

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I don't know about you guys, but I hated Anakin. Dude turned evil to save his girlfriend, then immediately turned around and killed her for no reason. That's stupid.

And I tend to get pretty pissed when the protag decides to go all morally damaged on me. If there was no other way, if he had to make a split-second decision, or if he did the best he could in a terrible situation, it's a little better - but I, personally, would lose all sympathy with your sympathetic hero if he gets a bunch of other sympathetics killed for his own gain.
 

thepicpic

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I'm afraid I'm going to have to join the 'Anakin's a whinging twit' group. Are there any refreshments, or anything?

You might want to check Burn Notice. Throughout the series, Michael Westen is repeatedly pushed into situations where he has to cross the line for various reasons and each time the consequences are pretty dire.

If he's killing them for his own gain, then you'll have to perform some pretty fancy writer gymnastics to get me back on side. If he has to do it to maintain a cover, save more people, best of a bad choice etc. I'll be more forgiving.
 

Pyekett

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Hmm! I think what would be amazing would be to cause the reader to lose sympathy, via the single heinous act perpetrated by a liked character, and then to regenerate that sympathy through subsequent events. I don't have examples of this arc coming to mind, but I believe it could be done and would make a very strong story if done well. Make me forgive him for that horrid betrayal and I'm your fan for life.

Stephen R. Donaldson tried to do this in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. In the first book, the protagonist is dealing with the side effects of leprosy and suddenly finds himself able to feel sensation again in what seems to be a dream, [spoilered] commits rape on a young woman who has befriended him , and then arguably spends the rest of the trilogy trying to atone for it -- still not knowing whether he was in a dreamworld or another reality.

This really did not work for some readers. It did work for others.

He was an anti-hero, but there was sympathy generated for him before that incident.
 
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Darkarma

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Gul Dukat in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. He is a villain most of the time and practically in every other episode. It's obvious he's a villain and yet you'll find yourself rooting for him at times as he struggles towards redemption.

Then there is Gerrak of the same series, who in his past its made clear he's something of a monster who has claimed redemption but is basically working for the side of good when it aligns with his purposes. However we see him several times casually kill people who didn't need to be killed but for the perspective of the character it makes sense.

The point for all this is that good or sympathetic characters can do evil things provided it actually makes sense for them to take those action. Sympathy though is purely optional. What matters is the character be interesting enough to keep people reading long enough that they can gain sympathy in the first place if that's what the story calls for.

However if your character begins taking pages from Hitler or Joseph Stalin to many times you can expect people will start realizing this isn't someone they should be supporting. Also it depends on your end goals, is this character going to rise above their evils or are you going to depict their fall into depravity?

If its depravity your going for you might want to try The Sovereign Stone by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
 

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I'm afraid I'm going to have to join the 'Anakin's a whinging twit' group. Are there any refreshments, or anything?

You might want to check Burn Notice. Throughout the series, Michael Westen is repeatedly pushed into situations where he has to cross the line for various reasons and each time the consequences are pretty dire.

If he's killing them for his own gain, then you'll have to perform some pretty fancy writer gymnastics to get me back on side. If he has to do it to maintain a cover, save more people, best of a bad choice etc. I'll be more forgiving.

I think the bar is serving a new drink called Jedi Tears.

I think another good example of a sympathetic evil character is Loki in the Marvel movies. He does evil things, but one senses that its because he's still off-balance with rage and pain. He's hurting himself as much as others (love that little pause before he says "you're not" when Frigga asks if she's his mother), because he's just so mad he doesn't care. Even if it never happens, one feels the wish that he would one day find his moral feet again.
 

Lord of Chaos

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Connavar in Sword in the Storm by David Gemmell is a good example for the OP of a character that does terrible things and is redeemed. You never forget what he's done, but you can accept him as doing the best he is capable of.

A similar arc happen with Bain in the sequel Midnight Falcon.

I agree with many here, though. The readers being sympathetic won't necessarily keep them around. If your character is built on people liking him, having him go out and kill puppies is a poor choice to keep people interested in him. However, if he kills someone in a fit of rage then spends chapters working through anguish and shame over his actions, readers will see his humanity and thus keep him in their good graces.

I can't remember where I read it, but characters have a redemption threshold. Every grey (or worse) action they take sends them further into the hole and the more evil the action (or more frequent the evil actions) the further they fall toward being unredeamable. Good actions counter this and help them climb out of the hole, but there is always one point where there is nothing they could do to redeem themselves and every action thereafter won't change their character.

Darth Vader was redeemable because the number of atrocities you witnessed him committing weren't enough to push him past the threshold. In the books you also see him struggle with an inability to maintain his hatred at all times even though he wants to do so. Emperor Palpatine on the other hand ordered the murder of billions and you feel nothing but satisfaction seeing him fall.

As for Walter White, he was a selfish prick who deserved far worse than he got in my opinion and he crossed the redemption threshold when he started cooking meth in an effort to save himself.

Also, yes, Anakin ruined Darth Vader's redemtion. Thank you for that George Lucas
 
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Mr Flibble

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Different people wil see different things as "evil"

But if I see a character doing something not just a bit naughty, but out right evil?

If he's your MC, you've lost me in most cases (ie unless you are a writing genius)

If he's a secondary character it's not so much of a problem as long as the MC is rootable for.


PS Place me in the Holden Caulfield hate camp.
 

RedWombat

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I gotta say, I don't know a single person who likes Anakin. People liked Darth Vader...but once we got a look at Anakin, ugh, no, thank you, yeccch.

Nobody likes him when he was GOOD, though, so I dunno if he's a good example.

People do love Loki, though. I think it's because he's not trying to be the good guy.

We'll root for a villain who we know is going to lose and who shows flashes of good, way before a good guy who goes evil. I doubt anybody thinks the world would be better under Loki's boot, we just think he's an awesomely sympathetic villain.

If Thor turned around and did any of the things Loki does, I suspect we would turn on him like a pack of fangirl wolves. We WANT Loki to save puppies to prove he's good, whereas we'd be horrified if Thor ate a puppy and proved he was evil.
 

Kevin Nelson

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I gotta say, I don't know a single person who likes Anakin. People liked Darth Vader...but once we got a look at Anakin, ugh, no, thank you, yeccch.

Then I should speak up: I did like Anakin, or at least I liked his character arc in the prequels. He was sort of whiny, true, but that's what made him different from the run-of-the-mill supervillain. I took the point to be that very petty insecurities can ultimately lead to grand evil, and I think that's a quite valid point.
 

Lord of Chaos

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I didn't have a problem with Anakin except for the lobotomy he was given to become evil, which I blame on George Lucas. His motives that would have driven him to evil were fine and everyone could clearly see the path he was on, but the world established in Star Wars made it clear going to the dark side didn't suddenly make you unable to take good actions like they decided to do with Anakin once he fell.

Obi Wan was hard headed and stubborn and prone to shooting from the hip in his younger years and Qui Gon Jinn was clearly considered a rogue by the Jedi Council who they really didn't trust completely considering their opposition to most of his plans. These were the same qualities you saw in Luke and Anakin.

What failed was the second Anakin chose to make a decision from fear, he went from "I need to save Padme" to "I need to kill Mace Windu or Padme will die". The two ideas were not neccessary for each other. He could have tried to stop Mace without choosing to cut off his hand out of the blue and still gotten Mace killed and then him suddenly going "oh no, I was partially responsible for Mace dying! Well, in for a penny, in for a pound; I might as well join the Sith and help kill all my friends."

Then having him decide to strangle Padme after supposedly doing all of this to save her makes no sense on any level. With him it was simply, one moment a whiny but decent man and the next he's an evil monster without morals.

That was my problem, and it unfortunately ruined Anakin Skywalker for me completely.
 

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I think for me, it would depend on the greater context. If it's a character I love, I can actually forgive quite a lot of d-baggery as long as it's not supported as being the "right" choice by the narrative. If it seems like the author legitimately believes the actions or views presented by the character are right, when they would be morally reprehensible in the real world, I'll drop the story like a hot brick. If you can avoid that, you're probably writing exactly the sort of character I tend to fall in love with even harder.
 

Twick

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I didn't have a problem with Anakin except for the lobotomy he was given to become evil, which I blame on George Lucas. His motives that would have driven him to evil were fine and everyone could clearly see the path he was on, but the world established in Star Wars made it clear going to the dark side didn't suddenly make you unable to take good actions like they decided to do with Anakin once he fell.

Obi Wan was hard headed and stubborn and prone to shooting from the hip in his younger years and Qui Gon Jinn was clearly considered a rogue by the Jedi Council who they really didn't trust completely considering their opposition to most of his plans. These were the same qualities you saw in Luke and Anakin.

What failed was the second Anakin chose to make a decision from fear, he went from "I need to save Padme" to "I need to kill Mace Windu or Padme will die". The two ideas were not neccessary for each other. He could have tried to stop Mace without choosing to cut off his hand out of the blue and still gotten Mace killed and then him suddenly going "oh no, I was partially responsible for Mace dying! Well, in for a penny, in for a pound; I might as well join the Sith and help kill all my friends."

Then having him decide to strangle Padme after supposedly doing all of this to save her makes no sense on any level. With him it was simply, one moment a whiny but decent man and the next he's an evil monster without morals.

That was my problem, and it unfortunately ruined Anakin Skywalker for me completely.

I think that this actually illustrates the paradox from the opening post. Darth Vader is the villain, but he is more likeable than Anakin.
 

CrastersBabies

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Jaime (and to some extent Theon) are brutalized in order to pique our sympathies. I feel like Martin was a bit heavy-handed on these things.

With Jaime, yes, I felt bad for him losing his hand, but he didn't win me over as a character until I got into his head and learned his motivations, saw history through his perspective. That made him interesting, not sympathetic.

Theon, it was more pity. I just pity him now. Not sure I root for him much, but I feel bad for the chap. I don't particularly find him interesting, either. Mostly because he's mentally shot by the time I (kind of) forgive him for some of his heinous acts.

As to the original question, it will depend for me. If he's like, "Oh, la dee da, I'm gonna kill some peeps for no reason today." I'm out, then.

If there is an internal struggle within the character that I can see and believe and even feel to some extent, then I'm going to be more forgiving.
 
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I think it might depend on how much has been put into the specific traits of the character. Obviously if they are written in such a way to show them as being benevolant, altruistic, or overall good person then something as you suggest would seem out of character unless it was necessary for a greater cause (i.e. give them up to die in order to save thousands from a war or something to that effect). Sometimes tough choices have to be made which, I think as a reader, I am willing to accept and incorporate into the character. An outright evil act of betrayal for nothing more than a selfish, self-serving act would not diminish my views if they were somewhat evil to begin with. A good person committing such an act, without justification, would be a major shift downward in my view.
 
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WriteMinded

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In the story i'm working out right now, my character is very sympathetic throughout the story, however, there is a major point where he ends up betraying a group of people and gets them murdered for his own needs. The people that are killed will be a generally likable and sympathetic group that the King has been hunting for years... I'll leave some details out but that is the general idea.

So, can a main character go too far and make you dislike them?

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I've been reading Mark Lawrence's trilogy, The Broken Empire. I do not like the MC, Jorge. He does horrible things through three long books. Yet I read on, expecting more of the same.

However, what you are wanting to do, is make a MC, who has been a good man throughout the story, suddenly do something horrible, something far out of character. That would make me hate the book, never mind the MC. So, the answer to your question is, yes.

You would do yourself a favor if you made his betrayal a hard choice between two evils, instead of something he chooses to benefit himself.

Just MHO.
 
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