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A protagonist who is distasteful or worse?
- Thread starter lpetrich
- Start date
^^^^THIS
Likeable and interesting are two completely different things. Protagonist don't have to be likeable but they have to be interesting.
I've written multiple characters who owned slaves. I hardly expect my readers to *like* them. I might ask readers to think of them as complex human beings, which is different. But what I really want is for my readers to want to read about them. As above, I want my reader to find the characters interesting. You might get into why/how people convince themselves that their morally objectionable actions/thought are either not morally objectionable at all ("slavery is a positive good! no, really, it's good for everyone!") or that it's excusable based on circumstance ("I was out of money, so I had *no choice* but to sell a child away from his mother"). That is interesting because we all have moral quandaries, and we want to see how other people handle their moral quandaries. If all protagonists either had no moral quandaries to navigate or always navigated them with ease and acted impeccably, then literature would be very dull indeed.
To offer another example - Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. A vile man, and I think a vile book, but it has sold millions, and many people take it seriously as a critique of toxic masculinity, or a hyper-competitive capitalist society, or any number of social ills. It can certainly be done successfully.
As I was reading this thread, that was who came to mind for me.
Patrick Bateman is an irredeemably horrible person in a book that is incredibly dark - and as it's written in the first person, you know he won't get his comeuppance. I read it more than fifteen years ago and it was so bleak that I struggled to finish it.
The thing is, as evil as the character is, he doesn't realise, because he's insane. As he goes about his business, torturing and murdering people on a whim, he doesn't question if what he is doing is wrong.
In the real world, truly evil people (serial killers, tyranical dictators, war criminals etc) don't believe themselves to be bad people. They believe what they are doing is right and that their victims are to blame for their actions. Whenever I have tried to write a character who is on the wrong side of the line, I've always tried to give some explanation as to why they are like that. Not to make the reader empathise, but to make it seem more realistic. Very few people are evil for evil's sake.
I did once simply as a writing exercise. It was hard so I ended up reading "Lolita" and discovered you can use an unreliable narrator. So I was able to bend everything to his perspective more. My character started to see his actions as a crime but not as abusive. Once I had him able to justify his actions, even if just to himself and others wouldn't agree, it was "easier" to write. But I also made him likable in other ways, even though that didn't overshadow his crimes, it did make my readers a bit more conflicted.
A very recent example (2016) was Lauren Groff's Fates & Furies. It's told from the points of view of a pair of narcissistic, pretentious, preening, and obnoxiously self-important main characters. I found it pretty awful living in their inflated heads, but it was well done for what it was.
I see your point ... to a point.
Yes, sociopaths never see what they do as wrong - either they justify or blame the victim. I shot that guy because he cut me off in traffic... he deserved it. I cheated on my partner because they were never there for me... they deserved it. But never get their comeuppance? Regardless of POV, it's your story, so whether they suffer the consequence of their actions depends on you.
Actually, IMO, using first person or close third could make those consequences more visceral and profound.
Just, that as he commits acts of incredible cruelty, you know he will not go out the same way. Which to me, was a little unsatisfying. I get the anti-hero thing, however Patrick Bateman offers so little to like (much less cheer for), that I spent the last few pages hoping that he might at least see the inside of cell or eat a bottle of sleeping pills.
Even Anton Chigurh gets a badly broken arm.
American Psycho is definitely visceral! However it's so bleak, with so little light, that it's the sort of book that (for me), it was hard to enjoy. It was because it is written in the first person, that as I read it, I grew increasingly sure that he would escape at the end. Which made it harder to finish. Although, in truth, I would have probably felt the same, even if he had slipped and fallen feet first into a woodchipper.
Hannibal Lecter escapes at the end of the series (and doesn't face punishment for his crimes), however I actually enjoyed those books and whilst he clearly is insane and evil, his not completely unlikable.
I don't think it was the use of first person that made Patrick Bateman (the protagonist in American Psycho) less likable, less satisfying, or more visceral. I also think American Psycho and Silence of the Lambs are apples and oranges.
Patrick Bateman was a stand-in for the time period, social commentary on the greed, excess, and amorality. Reading the novel you weren't meant to hold your breath in fear and wonder what happens next/hope for a satisfying ending, but rather hold your nose and squirm in disgust because he was a well dressed, cocaine encrusted train wreck. I didn't enjoy reading American Psycho, but in its way I think it's an important novel.
IMO Hannibal Lecter was the more terrifying character as far as evil protags go because he wasn't unlikable--for all of his acts of carnage he was a more fleshed out character, in addition to being smooth and charming--the charm, the brilliance, was the...well, if not likable, not unlikable part.
Patrick Bateman was a stand-in for the time period, social commentary on the greed, excess, and amorality. Reading the novel you weren't meant to hold your breath in fear and wonder what happens next/hope for a satisfying ending, but rather hold your nose and squirm in disgust because he was a well dressed, cocaine encrusted train wreck. I didn't enjoy reading American Psycho, but in its way I think it's an important novel.
IMO Hannibal Lecter was the more terrifying character as far as evil protags go because he wasn't unlikable--for all of his acts of carnage he was a more fleshed out character, in addition to being smooth and charming--the charm, the brilliance, was the...well, if not likable, not unlikable part.
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^^^THIS
Patrick Bateman is not supposed to be likeable to the contrary, you are not supposed to find him human or find him any redeeming qualities and you are supposed to feel dread in the pit of your stomach that he gets away with it all (the bleak moral here is people do terrible things and get away with it).
It goes back to the initial point of protagonists don't have to be likeable but they have to be interesting and in his twisted way Bateman is a compelling train wreck. He's that accident on the side of the road that you don't want to look at and still you slow down and watch.
I also agree that Bateman and Lecter are not comparable.
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I see... I thought you were making a comment about the first person POV. Or did POV influence your view of the character?
I think the first person POV really works, as I think the key to the story is being inside his head and hearing just how little he cares about the things he does. Without that, I think that it would be an even greater struggle to try and understand him.
However, because of it, I was sure mid way through that he would survive and, after "hearing" him describe the acts of murder, mutilation, necrophilia etc, and how much he had enjoyed committing them, I wanted him to answer for them, not continue his socialite lifestyle.