Can You Overdo Victimhood in MTS?

gothicangel

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I am currently reading The Land of the Living (Nicci French), which is currently making me wonder whether you can overdo the victim status of an MC. It's a psychological thriller (first person), the MC has escaped from her abductor, but then it is revealed that her boyfriend has been knocking her about. I'm not sure what the effect was meant to be (make me sympathize more with her? Let us be honest, being kidnapped is as brutal as it gets for me) but it's making me like the character less (now verging on irritation).

Thoughts?
 
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Ari Meermans

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Yes, a writer can overdo victimhood . . . but it really depends on how the character arc is handled: how well the character recognizes how they got there via their own poor choices, where the resolve to change their trajectory comes from, stuff like that. The writer's handling of those areas can make or break the reading experience for me.

I found The Land of the Living to be a page-turner and one of the duo's better books (though I haven't read a bad one). Where the novel didn't take me where I wanted to go was Abbie's suddenly becoming resourceful without any apparent reason, or at least it wasn't apparent to me. She'd shown little agency up to the point where she decided to figure out the why of what had happened. I would have liked to have been prepared for that resourcefulness, even in a small way.
 
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gothicangel

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I found The Land of the Living to be a page-turner and one of the duo's better books (though I haven't read a bad one). Where the novel didn't take me where I wanted to go was Abbie's suddenly becoming resourceful without any apparent reason, or at least it wasn't apparent to me. She'd shown little agency up to the point where she decided to figure out the why of what had happened. I would have liked to have been prepared for that resourcefulness, even in a small way.

I'm about 160 pages in and I think that I'm starting to struggle to maintain my suspension of disbelief. Loved the first 50 pages, but then the hospital scenes just made me think does no-one in this book understand safeguarding? (I work for the NHS :flag:).
 

hopeful09

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Yes, a writer can overdo victimhood . . . but it really depends on how the character arc is handled: how well the character recognizes how they got there via their own poor choices, where the resolve to change their trajectory comes from,

I agree with Ari. I think repeated instances of victimhood can be used for characterization, to show the consequences of their actions and inaction and why this character is the person they are. But I also have the same problem as the OP ... too much of it makes me want to shake the victim (and feel like utter rubbish for it) and tell them to wake the heck up and take care of themselves! It probably is meant to develop sympathy for the MC, but I also think it's possible to overdo it.
 

Biffington

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A cardinal sin I see all the time is a first-person mystery where the protagonist has to show the readers enough clues to solve the mystery before the protagonist can solve it. Often by the time the protagonist bumbles into the solution, I'm practically yelling at the book, upset at how stupid the protagonist feels. When a character is too victimized or too anything, readers can feel like that.

So yeah, if you're reading a story and feel like the character is a moron and unlikable, it might be because the character is a moron and unlikable. It's subjective, as some people will find a character relatable and others obnoxious. The only way to know if your story feels that way to others is to have others read it.

If it's their choices that led to their problems, you can get away with it if you show why your character suddenly decides to not be a victim anymore. Or if they learn what was causing them to be a victim.

Then again, The Color of Magic sold tons, even though Rincewind was the worst, most victim protagonist ever.

In other words, you're not wrong, but it's all subjective.
 

onesecondglance

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Then again, The Color of Magic sold tons, even though Rincewind was the worst, most victim protagonist ever.

Him being a cowardly victim was part of the parody though - he's a complete inversion of the fantasy hero archetype. I'm not saying he wasn't annoying, it's just that was the point.

Likeability is a tough one - very few of the characters in the mega-hit bestseller Gone Girl are particularly likeable, but the story is still compelling. Persistent victimhood can make a character less "likeable", but I'd say the problem here isn't that - it's that it feels like piling on the tragic backstory is actually undermining the overall story. In a way, this is the same problem as having your hero cop be *too* heroic - when a particular element is overemphasised, it can become a distortion that warps the storyworld and makes it seem less plausible.

(As an aside: there's something slightly problematic about all this because in reality, even hugely capable people fall victim to crimes. People don't cry out or fight back, and they hate themselves for it after because fiction has told them they should be able to fight back. And when people read about those real crimes, they don't have sympathy for the victims because they didn't do anything, again, because fiction says so. As always, reality is unrealistic.)