Of course not. How could you possibly write a character
everyone would like? No one likes everyone they meet, and the fact a given
person doesn’t like another person isn’t even necessarily a commentary on that
second person’s character. It’s just that some personalities are incompatible.
It boils down to personal preference.
I saw this question debated in a fantasy writing forum,
spawned off a conversation I had on Twitter following a #writetip I posted. I
was sad to see most of the writers who commented did so on the basis of their
own personal experiences, characters they did and did not like, and how that
impacted their liking of the book, instead of taking a more objective and
analytical view.
I suggest this is the wrong question. The right question is
‘does your character need to be likeable?’.
How do we distinguish a likeable character from one we like?
Liking someone (including a character) comes down to your
own personal preferences of qualities and characteristics you find desirable in
a person. Essentially you are asking would this character be your friend, if
they were real. Likeable, on the other hand, means capable of evoking empathy
or sympathy.
One commentator on the forum observed they didn’t like
Frodo. I can’t say as I especially like Frodo either. If I listed my all-time
favourite characters, Frodo wouldn’t be on that list. Does that mean he’s not
‘likeable’?
I don’t think it does. Frodo’s character isn’t repellent,
disagreeable, nasty, or otherwise have elements which would make a reader
actively dislike him. In general, his character has the potential to be liked.
Whether you do or don’t like him comes down to your personal preferences. Given
the definition of likeable I’ve mentioned above, to avoid confusion it may even
be better to say ‘relatable’.
When we rephrase the question ‘Is Frodo relatable’ I think
the answer is a resounding yes. He’s a little guy, bowed down by the weight of
the world’s problems, venturing out from the only safe home he has known, to do
battle with demons he can’t comprehend. You can easily take the fantasy out of
the context by making the demons and the problems figurative instead of
literal. Who can’t relate to that? To some degree, nearly all of us will have
some sympathy for his plight – even if we don’t like him, personally.
Why is it important to make your character relatable?
Bearing in mind I am only talking about genre fiction here
(literary fiction being a different kettle of fish), your character should be
relatable because they are driving the action. In many cases, the reader keeps
reading because they want to see what the character does next, how they solve
their problems, how they overcome conflict, how their decisions make things
better or worse. If we don’t have empathy
or sympathy for the character, if we don’t care at some level what
happens to them, if we aren’t invested in that character, then why would we
keep reading to learn any of these things?
The short answer is, for most, they wouldn’t. Once upon a
time, I probably did, and I learned I wasn’t the standard, but nowadays my time
is too precious. If I don’t care, I won’t bother to find out.
The problem is exacerbated if the main character is actively
unlikeable, pathetic, whiny, or any one of a number of undesirable qualities,
because really, who likes to spend any amount of time in the company of someone
like that?
A few case studies to consider:
- Dexter – basically a serial killer, but we like
him, or empathise with him, why? Because he has ‘The Code’. He only kills
people who deserve it. Vigilante justice, but ‘good’ resonates more with us
than ‘lawful’ in many cases. What he’s doing may not be strictly right, but we
understand it, we relate to it, and, secretly, we probably applaud it;
- Rincewind from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld – a
pathetic, useless and cowardly wizard who can’t perform magic or, for that
matter, even spell the word ‘wizard’. Why do we like him? His cowardice is
brutally pragmatic, and when you listen to him, he starts to make you question
the intelligence of all those ‘heroes’ who rushed in against insurmountable
odds to rescue the princess. Not only is Rincewind often right, but he’s funny
– his insights are clever, and entertaining. Everyone likes the funny guy –
even if often Rincewind is the butt of the joke;
- Riddick in Pitch Black – this one is a little
less obvious, and harder to explain. Riddick is very much a ‘dark hero’. Why do
we relate to him? A little bit, because we understand where he’s come from, and
the tough circumstances he’s had to survive. A little bit, because he could
have killed the other survivors at any time – and he didn’t. Surely he would
have had a better chance without them, so why did he ever saddle himself with
the burden of saving their lives? We have to ask the question, and suspect an
answer. Even at the end, when he did make a break for it, and looked out for
himself, he couldn’t go through with it. It’s that part of him, the good buried
deep inside, that we relate to, and we follow the story to find out which side
of him wins out.
As well as being relatable, no character should be
irredeemable. Would Riddick work if we believed he was a bad apple all the way
through, if he had abandoned everyone to die? No, of course not. Would
Rincewind work so well if he didn’t save the world? Though he may be dragged to
it, and forced against his will, at the end Rincewind accepts his fate with
weary resignation and does what he can, little though it may be. If neither
character showed any compassion or concern for others, they would fail
completely.
You don’t need to like a character. But I do believe
you need to understand and relate to characters in genre fiction, and
most especially the protagonist.
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