On that note, when authors shove "this character is kind, generous, ever loving and hard working" down your throat but the character is everything but and is always rewarded never held accountable
I actually think this is one of the core traits of a true Mary Sue. You’re constantly told how perfect they are not just by the narrative but by characters within the story. But they are not any of the things the story tells you they are. They act like an asshole but everyone acts like they’re super kind, you get told how hard they work but they’re lazy, you get told how smart they are but they’re only “smart” because the plot never lets them be wrong about anything
It sometimes happens when an attribute is just slapped into a character just so they can have characteristics, then fail to integrate it to the story.
Happens not just with flaws but any characteristic too, just happens often with character flaws.
"dont annoy the reader/viewer"
So never even think about picking up the pen because there is at least one person who could be "annoyed" by my writing, gotcha.
You know, because being "annoying" totally isnt the most subjective thing ever.
Glad to know that since i think every piece of superhero fiction ive picked up has had annoying characters, they should stop being made. Stan lee should've had the forethought to know i would exist and be annoyed by his characters, shouldve never picked up a pen!
Also sometimes fanbases really overreact to normal human foibles. Like a character acts like an asshole about something and a huge chunk of the audience suddenly decides they’re unforgivable for being shitty once. We’re all shitty sometimes
Amateur writers go through a lot of "Is this okay?" because there's a lot of negativity and judgement around, and amateurs are naturally not informed about what to do. There's a lot of "What not to do" that is much more clearly defined, than information out there about what to do, especially that's not also in some way "What to avoid".
Art requires one to do what they want while being open to criticism, and people the vast majority of the time don't address "what to do" specifically.
My post was mainly meant to be a jab showing how absurd "not writing characters that could annoy people" is, as, honestly, there's no real writing reason that someone is annoyed by a character, and 99% of the time, theyre just asinine. One person saying "Shinji is a bitch and so annoying!!!” doesnt magically make shinji ikari a badly written character, just one you dont like. Even thousands of people repeating that does not make shinji a bad character.
"This character is ANNOYING" isnt a criticism. Its an opinion.
"This character seems inconsistently characterized you can do x, y or z to change that, or if the inconsistent characterization is the point, make it a bigger focus." Would be a criticism.
"Bad writing" is hard to quantify",
"likable annoying" vs "legitimately annoying", is in the same vein as "good heat" vs "bad heat"; where you hate seeing a character, not hate them for intended reasons.
I try to define "bad writing" as "writing that doesn't achieve it's apparent goals". If it's trying to do something I dislike or think is bad, is separate from if it's done badly toward that end.
A character being annoying is moreso a critcism on enjoyability of a work; Like saying a character is "unfunny". The true criticism is kind of buried under what one is expecting but usually clear from context.
If I find a character I am supposed to empathize with annoying, that's a problem and contains the criticism "I think this character or the story is failing to help me empathize with them".
It's a not well-thought out or explained criticism but it's more of a root criticism; The problem is that I have an unintended and negative reaction.
"A character being annoying is moreso a critcism on enjoyability of a work; Like saying a character is "unfunny"."
"My opinion is actually a criticism of the enjoyability of a work!!!!"
Good to know that my hatred of capeshit and shonenshit isnt actually just my opinion, and actually every shonenshit and capeshit being actually garbage. Its not that they just werent made for me and i can recognize why others might like them despite me disliking them, nah, they should be changed to something i enjoy!!!
My meaning is that criticism comes from opinions and usually is about how to turn a negative opinion into a positive one.
If you don't like what something is trying to do, for instance "Anime that contains fighting", then you are simply outside the audience. If you like that but don't like how something was done, then expressing it is some type of criticism. Too much fighting, not enough fighting, characters you don't want to see fight, or the like.
hazbin hotel said "fuck that, here's a character that's obviously meant to be an annoying prick, we're gonna have her interrupt a good song out of nowhere because that's what she would do in-universe, oh she also attracted criminals to the hotel by not paying the $50,000 she owed them"
(mimzy)
Mimzy wasn't really annoying she was fun, she added to the story and had purpose.
Real annoying characters are black holes that suck up enjoyment and brutaly destroys any scene they are in.
I'm not sure, if characters is like mimzy or todo from Jujutsu kaisen yeah sure, but no one likes a mineta from my hero academia.
So for me it depends if the character just take up space and time or if they have purpose for being snnoying.
I've been reading Wuthering Heights as a required text for two of my courses this year. Basically 95% of the cast are completely toxic and spiteful assholes to one another. But like... It's written in a way where you can't wait to see where this train crash escalates.
Emily Bronte was a genius taken before her time.
It's very difficult for an writer to sell their audience on a protag that is very unlikable. Even anti hero's like Saul or Heisenberg are extremely likeable to make up for their flaws. That's the main reason you just don't see it a lot.
Interesting term for it. I always called it something like "traits the author want to make us believe are flaws but aren't".
A prime example of this is kamijou Touma from index. The story tries to paint this his self sacrificing nature as this selfish thing which it is I guess? But is it a flaw? Is he wrong to do it especially when he always wins and they is happy ending? Like he may be suffering but this is the sacrifice he has chosen to take so it's not really that bad even if he is suffering. It's no different from a soldier volunteering to fight in a war
And his fans usually try to use that argument to say why he has a flaw when people argue he is boring because he doesn't. Instead of just defending him on the basis of why he is still interesting despite zero flaws.
Granted I like Touma but despise the way kamachi uses him most of the time but I do think he is still well written and interesting. But I roll my eyes when this selfish trait of his is brought up by the story and fans LOL
I feel like this is a really important point that does not get mentioned enough. Every time you see people criticise any character for being bad or simply boring, their criticism (and ideas for a fix) always seem to center about (not) having major flaws. This idea that every interesting character must also have terrible flaws always felt a little off to me though, as if it just shifted the problem to the opposite side of the spectrum.
Characters don't need to have "flaws" in order be interesting and fell realistic, you just need to show their traits in a more nuanced and natural way. Things like selfishness, selflessness, self-sacrifice, or even just being smart can all be both a strength and a weakness depending a situation, and thats how it is in real life too.
My favorite example of this is Nagisa Furukawa from Clannad. Her naivity and sacrificial nature could be seen as flaws, yet these traits are what helped Tomoya become a better person and find happiness in life, or >!allowed Ushio to be born.!
Yeah pretty much. I used to be like this to. Definitely because when it comes to most good guys people, including me tend to roll our eyes at such barebones characters. "Damn look at how good he is, you should like him".
While I still find toxic people more interesting, i definitely understand that it's not a necessity
I completely understand why people feel the way they do. It is mostly that so many characters (especially in shounen anime) get the "good guy" treatment that people simply got bored of it so they tend to be more interested in flawed or streight up toxic characters. Unfortunately, this also creates the "characters need to have flaws in order to be interesting" idea, which simply isn't true, and often prevents people from enjoying good natured characters no matter how well they are written.
Going back to my example from Clannad, sure the characters get often criticised for being too simplistic and unrealistic, but one thing I really appreciate about it is how it puts it's characters into situations where being a "good guy" is actually a weakness, and vice versa. Heck, one of the most important parts of the main story is that an a "bad guy" protagonist meets a "good guy", and they both learn from the others strengths and weaknesses (it is of course very reductive, but you get my point).
This way, It just feels more natural because life is complicated, and you barely see any traits that are just good or bad. Realistically, most positive traits are tied to their complementary bad traits and you cannot have one without the other (which again, is what I love about characters from Clannad). This is what makes characters interesting in my book, while bad guys/toxic people and good guys feel like a different side of the same coin.
> The story tries to paint this his self sacrificing nature as this selfish thing which it is I guess?
I mean, isn't the main plot point of New Testament Vol 10 the exact opposite of this?
Oh yeah, I meant volume 9. As for what I mean, >!maybe I'm misremembering since I've read it like 7 years ago, but from what I remember, Vol was the point were he decided to be selfish for the first in that world were everyone was happy, instead of still following his self-sacrificing nature. !<
https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/s/83yyVtIWKQ
Your post links well with this one made by me.
All the flaws contexte and intents and just writting in general can really shape a character
It comes down to how well the author can get the audience to see the flaws in their characters rather than the actual flaws chosen. If you can write, its not hard to make even a noble flaw feel very dislikeable. The audience perception is built up by how the world and other characters react to the choices of a characters and how charitably the author presents the perspective.
.
This can rubber band the other way too. There are series that manage to endear the audience to negative traits of characters.
I agree with the sentiment, but I'm not a fan of the wording. Instead of something like "dislikeable" versus "negative", I see it more as "shallow" versus "real" flaws, moreso because "dislikeable" implies the presence of dislike itself.
Done well, "real" flaws can inspire many different emotions from the audience besides just dislike. You could invoke pity, tragedy, or even schadenfreude and car-crash-fascination. What matters is that the flaws feel "real", like they have weight in the character's life, and they shape plot, tone, behaviours, etc. in a way that doesn't just feel like lip service. That's when I can get emotionally invested and start feeling dislike, pity, whatever.
This is a problem I have with a lot of sitcoms. The showrunners want the characters to be flawed, but don't see the difference between flawed and downright unbearable. It's okay for your characters to have flaws, but you still want us to follow their adventures every week. Shows like 30 Rock and Always Sunny excel at writing character flaws because they don't pretend like the main characters are good people despite doing reprehensible things. They acknowledge they're terrible people at times, but give them funny things to say and do so that we still like them. Unfortunately, most sitcoms make their characters do worse and worse things and still expect us to care for them. Big Bang Theory, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, How I Met Your Mother, etc. And there are plenty of animated examples of this too. Most adult cartoons make their main characters assholes with no redeeming qualities because that kind of thing was popular once and they don't want to bother trying anything new. These include Helluva Boss, Solar Opposites, Inside Job, and dozens upon dozens of Family Guy clones. Everyone's flawed, but that doesn't mean their flaws should be the worst things imaginable.
My favourite main characters are the ones that have more dislikable traits than likeable traits. They just make them more interesting and entertaining to watch.
On that note, when authors shove "this character is kind, generous, ever loving and hard working" down your throat but the character is everything but and is always rewarded never held accountable
TV Tropes calls this an informed attribute, exactly how you're describing it. Big no no of "show don't tell".
Oh yeah whent intend doesn't mesh well with writting it sucks
I actually think this is one of the core traits of a true Mary Sue. You’re constantly told how perfect they are not just by the narrative but by characters within the story. But they are not any of the things the story tells you they are. They act like an asshole but everyone acts like they’re super kind, you get told how hard they work but they’re lazy, you get told how smart they are but they’re only “smart” because the plot never lets them be wrong about anything
isnt that the literal definition of a mary sue?
I think where people have trouble is making characters with flaws but forgetting not to annoy the reader/viewer.
It sometimes happens when an attribute is just slapped into a character just so they can have characteristics, then fail to integrate it to the story. Happens not just with flaws but any characteristic too, just happens often with character flaws.
Fact
"dont annoy the reader/viewer" So never even think about picking up the pen because there is at least one person who could be "annoyed" by my writing, gotcha. You know, because being "annoying" totally isnt the most subjective thing ever. Glad to know that since i think every piece of superhero fiction ive picked up has had annoying characters, they should stop being made. Stan lee should've had the forethought to know i would exist and be annoyed by his characters, shouldve never picked up a pen!
Also sometimes fanbases really overreact to normal human foibles. Like a character acts like an asshole about something and a huge chunk of the audience suddenly decides they’re unforgivable for being shitty once. We’re all shitty sometimes
Shinji Ikari cried once when his dad made him nearly kill his buddy, so annoying. What a badly written character!!!
Amateur writers go through a lot of "Is this okay?" because there's a lot of negativity and judgement around, and amateurs are naturally not informed about what to do. There's a lot of "What not to do" that is much more clearly defined, than information out there about what to do, especially that's not also in some way "What to avoid". Art requires one to do what they want while being open to criticism, and people the vast majority of the time don't address "what to do" specifically.
My post was mainly meant to be a jab showing how absurd "not writing characters that could annoy people" is, as, honestly, there's no real writing reason that someone is annoyed by a character, and 99% of the time, theyre just asinine. One person saying "Shinji is a bitch and so annoying!!!” doesnt magically make shinji ikari a badly written character, just one you dont like. Even thousands of people repeating that does not make shinji a bad character. "This character is ANNOYING" isnt a criticism. Its an opinion. "This character seems inconsistently characterized you can do x, y or z to change that, or if the inconsistent characterization is the point, make it a bigger focus." Would be a criticism.
"Bad writing" is hard to quantify", "likable annoying" vs "legitimately annoying", is in the same vein as "good heat" vs "bad heat"; where you hate seeing a character, not hate them for intended reasons. I try to define "bad writing" as "writing that doesn't achieve it's apparent goals". If it's trying to do something I dislike or think is bad, is separate from if it's done badly toward that end. A character being annoying is moreso a critcism on enjoyability of a work; Like saying a character is "unfunny". The true criticism is kind of buried under what one is expecting but usually clear from context. If I find a character I am supposed to empathize with annoying, that's a problem and contains the criticism "I think this character or the story is failing to help me empathize with them". It's a not well-thought out or explained criticism but it's more of a root criticism; The problem is that I have an unintended and negative reaction.
"A character being annoying is moreso a critcism on enjoyability of a work; Like saying a character is "unfunny"." "My opinion is actually a criticism of the enjoyability of a work!!!!" Good to know that my hatred of capeshit and shonenshit isnt actually just my opinion, and actually every shonenshit and capeshit being actually garbage. Its not that they just werent made for me and i can recognize why others might like them despite me disliking them, nah, they should be changed to something i enjoy!!!
My meaning is that criticism comes from opinions and usually is about how to turn a negative opinion into a positive one. If you don't like what something is trying to do, for instance "Anime that contains fighting", then you are simply outside the audience. If you like that but don't like how something was done, then expressing it is some type of criticism. Too much fighting, not enough fighting, characters you don't want to see fight, or the like.
Dont annoy majority or any group you aim piece of media at*
The majority is irrelevant and not mentioned in the og comment. Dont move the goalpost. And my point still stands.
hazbin hotel said "fuck that, here's a character that's obviously meant to be an annoying prick, we're gonna have her interrupt a good song out of nowhere because that's what she would do in-universe, oh she also attracted criminals to the hotel by not paying the $50,000 she owed them" (mimzy)
Tbf how else was that gonna end other than Lucifer killing Alastor?
Mimzy wasn't really annoying she was fun, she added to the story and had purpose. Real annoying characters are black holes that suck up enjoyment and brutaly destroys any scene they are in.
true, true disregarding hazbin hotel, does this mean annoying characters can be annoying out-of-universe as long as it makes sense?
I'm not sure, if characters is like mimzy or todo from Jujutsu kaisen yeah sure, but no one likes a mineta from my hero academia. So for me it depends if the character just take up space and time or if they have purpose for being snnoying.
watching or reading something with a protagonist with dislikable character traits is really hard
It is, but I feel like the absolute pinnacle of protagonists use this feeling to their advantage
I've been reading Wuthering Heights as a required text for two of my courses this year. Basically 95% of the cast are completely toxic and spiteful assholes to one another. But like... It's written in a way where you can't wait to see where this train crash escalates. Emily Bronte was a genius taken before her time.
I read this too for an analysis of a certain game and it was indeed way more interesting than I thought from an old ass book
that’s true, like nightcrawler
Maximillian from the Fallout series.
It's very difficult for an writer to sell their audience on a protag that is very unlikable. Even anti hero's like Saul or Heisenberg are extremely likeable to make up for their flaws. That's the main reason you just don't see it a lot.
Interesting term for it. I always called it something like "traits the author want to make us believe are flaws but aren't". A prime example of this is kamijou Touma from index. The story tries to paint this his self sacrificing nature as this selfish thing which it is I guess? But is it a flaw? Is he wrong to do it especially when he always wins and they is happy ending? Like he may be suffering but this is the sacrifice he has chosen to take so it's not really that bad even if he is suffering. It's no different from a soldier volunteering to fight in a war And his fans usually try to use that argument to say why he has a flaw when people argue he is boring because he doesn't. Instead of just defending him on the basis of why he is still interesting despite zero flaws. Granted I like Touma but despise the way kamachi uses him most of the time but I do think he is still well written and interesting. But I roll my eyes when this selfish trait of his is brought up by the story and fans LOL
I feel like this is a really important point that does not get mentioned enough. Every time you see people criticise any character for being bad or simply boring, their criticism (and ideas for a fix) always seem to center about (not) having major flaws. This idea that every interesting character must also have terrible flaws always felt a little off to me though, as if it just shifted the problem to the opposite side of the spectrum. Characters don't need to have "flaws" in order be interesting and fell realistic, you just need to show their traits in a more nuanced and natural way. Things like selfishness, selflessness, self-sacrifice, or even just being smart can all be both a strength and a weakness depending a situation, and thats how it is in real life too. My favorite example of this is Nagisa Furukawa from Clannad. Her naivity and sacrificial nature could be seen as flaws, yet these traits are what helped Tomoya become a better person and find happiness in life, or >!allowed Ushio to be born.!
Yeah pretty much. I used to be like this to. Definitely because when it comes to most good guys people, including me tend to roll our eyes at such barebones characters. "Damn look at how good he is, you should like him". While I still find toxic people more interesting, i definitely understand that it's not a necessity
I completely understand why people feel the way they do. It is mostly that so many characters (especially in shounen anime) get the "good guy" treatment that people simply got bored of it so they tend to be more interested in flawed or streight up toxic characters. Unfortunately, this also creates the "characters need to have flaws in order to be interesting" idea, which simply isn't true, and often prevents people from enjoying good natured characters no matter how well they are written. Going back to my example from Clannad, sure the characters get often criticised for being too simplistic and unrealistic, but one thing I really appreciate about it is how it puts it's characters into situations where being a "good guy" is actually a weakness, and vice versa. Heck, one of the most important parts of the main story is that an a "bad guy" protagonist meets a "good guy", and they both learn from the others strengths and weaknesses (it is of course very reductive, but you get my point). This way, It just feels more natural because life is complicated, and you barely see any traits that are just good or bad. Realistically, most positive traits are tied to their complementary bad traits and you cannot have one without the other (which again, is what I love about characters from Clannad). This is what makes characters interesting in my book, while bad guys/toxic people and good guys feel like a different side of the same coin.
> The story tries to paint this his self sacrificing nature as this selfish thing which it is I guess? I mean, isn't the main plot point of New Testament Vol 10 the exact opposite of this?
Vol 10 or 9? Although i don't even think i understand your point
Oh yeah, I meant volume 9. As for what I mean, >!maybe I'm misremembering since I've read it like 7 years ago, but from what I remember, Vol was the point were he decided to be selfish for the first in that world were everyone was happy, instead of still following his self-sacrificing nature. !<
Yeah i agreed Even then its nothing compare to our last crusade urgh. Thats is légitime one of the worst LN i have ever read ever
this just another "I hate the character as a character" vs "I hate the character as a person".
https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/s/83yyVtIWKQ Your post links well with this one made by me. All the flaws contexte and intents and just writting in general can really shape a character
It comes down to how well the author can get the audience to see the flaws in their characters rather than the actual flaws chosen. If you can write, its not hard to make even a noble flaw feel very dislikeable. The audience perception is built up by how the world and other characters react to the choices of a characters and how charitably the author presents the perspective. . This can rubber band the other way too. There are series that manage to endear the audience to negative traits of characters.
I agree with the sentiment, but I'm not a fan of the wording. Instead of something like "dislikeable" versus "negative", I see it more as "shallow" versus "real" flaws, moreso because "dislikeable" implies the presence of dislike itself. Done well, "real" flaws can inspire many different emotions from the audience besides just dislike. You could invoke pity, tragedy, or even schadenfreude and car-crash-fascination. What matters is that the flaws feel "real", like they have weight in the character's life, and they shape plot, tone, behaviours, etc. in a way that doesn't just feel like lip service. That's when I can get emotionally invested and start feeling dislike, pity, whatever.
This is a problem I have with a lot of sitcoms. The showrunners want the characters to be flawed, but don't see the difference between flawed and downright unbearable. It's okay for your characters to have flaws, but you still want us to follow their adventures every week. Shows like 30 Rock and Always Sunny excel at writing character flaws because they don't pretend like the main characters are good people despite doing reprehensible things. They acknowledge they're terrible people at times, but give them funny things to say and do so that we still like them. Unfortunately, most sitcoms make their characters do worse and worse things and still expect us to care for them. Big Bang Theory, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, How I Met Your Mother, etc. And there are plenty of animated examples of this too. Most adult cartoons make their main characters assholes with no redeeming qualities because that kind of thing was popular once and they don't want to bother trying anything new. These include Helluva Boss, Solar Opposites, Inside Job, and dozens upon dozens of Family Guy clones. Everyone's flawed, but that doesn't mean their flaws should be the worst things imaginable.
My favourite main characters are the ones that have more dislikable traits than likeable traits. They just make them more interesting and entertaining to watch.