On ‘Likeable’ Characters

On the piece I wrote for Tor called Finding Unwrapped Sky I wrote this: “None of the characters is particularly likeable and each does questionable things. In fact, I’m surprised when readers express a desire to ‘like’ a character, as if they’re considering them as friends. I’d much prefer to find them to be interesting and flawed.” Well, perhaps this is a bit of an exaggeration. Each of the three characters – Maximilian, Kata, and Boris – have good traits and each does kind things. Still, there are reviewers who have objected to the characters’ unlike-ability. More interestingly, there are those who suggest they have had trouble ‘connecting’ with them, while there are those who say they think they’re complex and well-rounded (or words to such effect).

What are we to make of this?

The first thing to note is that readers read for different reasons. Some read for escape or comfort. Some read to challenge themselves. Some read for ideas, for work or to analyse the book as the production of a particular ideology. Some read for all these reasons, or for some of them at particular times and others at other times.

What makes someone connect with a character, then? The same applies, I’d suggest. Different readers will find different things to connect with. Some genuinely want a character to ‘root for’, in which they can project themselves, and I want to examine this for a moment, and how a writer achieves it. When I was a teenager, I would often read in this way. I’d see myself as a particular character. I’d want to be them: let’s say someone like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. Aragorn is a good guy, but he has had his troubles. When we first meet him – as Strider – he is alone, weathered, deprived of his rightful throne. He has a clear-cut definable goal to achieve.

This is a good beginning to build a ‘likeable’ character. If you want to build up sympathy or empathy with a character, it helps to put them through particularly bad experiences, tough events, especially at the beginning of a novel. The trick is they should be unfair. No one likes to see a character suffer unfairly. It piques our rage – it reminds us of the time we were treated unfairly.

In this kind of reading – reading as projection – the reader also likes people who are good at things – things we wish we were good at. This is a particular hazard of comic books and thrillers, in which the character is preternaturally skilful as a warrior. Strider is mean with a blade, but he’s also special: he’s a man of noble ‘bloodline’. He’s genetically superior to the common folk.

We also like characters who are charming. Think of Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones – always ready to throw out a quip. Strider has too much gravitas for quips, so he loses out there, but sometimes we wish we had Tyrin’s wit.

So all of these imply a certain kind of identification with a character, one I’m not completely comfortable with. Characters who are little more than wish-fulfilment tend to leave me cold. You’ll find some of the above elements in the characters in Unwrapped Sky, but only a few, and not thoroughly consistently. I’m not sure people will be wishing to be Kata, Maximilian or Boris too quickly. Part of the reason is that they also do things which are – as I said above – questionable. But this is essential for the kind of book I’m writing, in which the good guys can be bad and the bad guys often good. For me, this reflects the state of the world much more closely, because the world is complex, more complex, I’m afraid, than Tolkien would allow. Who among us hasn’t done bad things, perhaps for good reasons? Who among us – in a world struck down with environmental destruction, poverty, war – can claim to be completely un-compromised? To do the best we can, that’s all we can ask of ourselves, knowing that too often we will fail. It’s not exactly the kind of message a reader looking solely for escape or comfort will enjoy. You can’t find much wish-fulfilment there. But you can find, I think, something interesting.