Flaws make a fictional character more realistic. I don’t think anyone is debating that point. Far be it from me to claim that making characters more human prevents them from being more human. However, there is a recent trend with which I do contend: the unlikable main character.
Now, before I go on, I have something thing to clarify: I don’t think all instances of the “unlikable main character” is negative. There are examples I can think of, such as Charles Dickens's Mr. Scrooge and Shakespeare's Macbeth, who either start out unlikable or become so. However, such instances usually present one of two cases: either it is a story of redemption for the unlikable character or the character starts out likable but gives in to temptation and becomes a villain. In one story, we realize we may need to change just as Mr. Scrooge did; the other is a tragedy, where we not only wish for the downfall of evil but also see how no one, not even a hero like Macbeth, is invulnerable to corruption. Both are powerful storytelling formats and deserve telling and retelling.
These are not the formats of which I speak. What I mean are the unlikable characters who start out unlikable and end unlikable. They don’t grow. They don’t fall. But often they win. “But who would read a story with characters like that?” you may ask. Well, not only is this not new (see Phantom of the Opera), but it’s even the character type of a very popular book right now. No. I don’t mean Twilight, though that is along the same lines. The character I’m thinking of is the main character of Suzane Collins’s The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen. By the way, there will be spoilers for a few novels, so please keep that in mind.
Now then, before I speak about Katniss, please recall to your mind the classic romance, Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. I like this story. It’s got an engaging plot with great characters, including two main leads where one, Elizabeth, begins likable and the other, Darcey, grows to be so as you learn more about him and his character. Now, imagine that, instead of Mr. Darcey, our main male lead was Mr. Collins, and not only that, imagine the story is also told from his perspective. Those who have read or seen Pride and Prejudice know just how obnoxious this man to be. From the start I disliked him, and then every time I thought I had reached the pinnacle of my hatred for him, he would say or do something that raised my bar to a higher level. Ironically, this revelation of how much I could hate a character settled Mr. Collins as my third favorite character in the story. Everyone with whom I have discussed this book has felt similar concerning Mr. Collins (excluding the “3rd favorite character” thing); I only wish I could show you some of the expressions I have seen just by mentioning his name.
However, even though he is hated, I don’t think I’ve met anyone who said he should have been removed from the tale. Yes, he is horrid, but he has a place in the story precisely as an unlikable character. Each page containing Mr. Collins is like trudging through sludge, but he plays an important role as a man who is clearly not worthy of admiration but is, overall, harmless, a sharp contrast to the wicked Wickham, who is more charming but much more dangerous, and Mr. Darcey, whose outward appears irritating but beneath possesses the true nobility and character Wickham pretends. In this relationship of contrasts, Mr. Collins is, in fact, important. But what if he was the main character? What is this man, who is so annoying and idiotic, were our “protagonist” and remained his same self the entire story? I wish I could also show you the faces I’ve seen by suggesting such a concept.
And yet, this is the type of hero in many popular, and even some supposed classic, stories. Coming back to The Hunger Games, Mr. Collins resembles the character of another Collins, Katniss. Consider the parallels. Both are inconsiderate, both are supposedly intelligent but act in very stupid manners (Really, Katniss? You seriously think you’re the one special person who can get out from the cornucopia what you want without a scratch despite your mentor, who has prior experience, clearly telling you to stay away?), both are totally, unbelievably blind about another person’s romantic interest (or lack thereof), and both are disliked by just about everyone around them. A main difference between the two is that Mr. Collins has so much pride that he can’t see that everyone dislikes him while Katniss has too little pride and just says right from the start that everyone dislikes her without really knowing why.
There are a few other flaws with Katniss I could mention, but I think it’s obvious my impression of her is negative. I can’t even describe what her personality is, just that she has a lot of flaws. Then, among all these flaws, she has pretty much no redeeming qualities, at least none of which I was persuaded. Supposedly she’s smart and resourceful, but, as I addressed in the previous paragraph, Katniss seems determined to convince me otherwise. She also supposedly cares for her family, but the lack of any substance in the opening chapters makes that hard for me to believe.
In my previous post, I mentioned how Beauty and the Beast depicts how it doesn’t take much to establish a believable familial connection, one which makes Beauty’s sacrifice for her father believable. Katniss, on the other hand, complains about her mother, who is really only there to make Katniss seem more resourceful than she really is, and talks about how everyone loves her sister, of whom we know too little to care. Actually, we learn more about her dead father than either of her living relatives, but he felt almost superfluous to the plot, and definitely to Katniss’s decision to act for her sister’s safety. Between Beauty and her father, there is love. With the Everdeens, there is nothing. Katniss’s familial love, the quality that was supposed to be her motivation, rings hollow.
With Katniss, she began unlikable, consisting only of flaws and unconvincing strengths, and the list of flaws only grew as the story went on. So as I read, I only grew in my dislike for her (though not enough to make her paradoxically endearing like Mr. Collins). I even wished that either Peeta or Rue win the Games, which would mean Katniss’s death. When the reader wishes for the main character, for whom you are supposed to be rooting, to die so that another can live, I think there is something wrong. Yet this is the character so commonly found in literature today.
Take as a contrast another popular character in recent fiction: Harry Potter. In some of the later books, Potter because near unbearable. I seriously wanted to slam the corner of The Goblet of Fire on his head. I was so mad, but one reason I felt so angered was because I knew Harry was better that his actions. I knew him to be above such treatment of other people and such foolish behavior. He had been established as a courageous, kind, caring boy, yet here he was treating his friends so poorly. I understood why he treated them as he did, but it was frustrating. I knew he was wrong, and he knew he was wrong, and his friends knew he was wrong, but we also knew Harry was more than the present person. They and I knew Harry better than to throw him away because of his flawed reactions, that there was a good person and a good friend who really does care about others beneath all that frustration and panic and hormones. Before Harry was unlikable, we saw his good qualities. I knew I could cheer for him, wish and call for him to repent and be redeemed, to turn around and reclaim what he knew was right and act like I’d seen him do before, with courage and kindness.
Redemption is the key of the unlikable character. Mr. Scrooge is redeemed. Harry is redeemed multiple times. Macbeth rejects all opportunity for redemption and eventually is destroyed by his own evil. Even Mr. Collins is redeemed a bit, though only through the exposure of Wickham as the truly despicable of the two men. Katniss receives chances to show character and to show reasons we should support her, attempted redemption if you will, but ends up, in her cluelessness, tripping over them and kicking them away without thinking. She acts like Mr. Collins but gets Harry’s results. That is the recipe for an unlikable disaster.
The Goblet of Fire (c) J. K. Rowling
The Hunger Games (c) Suzanne Collins
Macbeth (c) Shakespeare
Pride and Prejudice (c) Jane Austen
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