A Main Character’s Energy Isn't Always Good Energy

Teal Deer (TL; DR)

A Main Character’s Energy Isn’t Always Good Energy

I recently saw a social media post about The Pitt start off hesitantly like “I know we’re supposed to love Robby, but…” before launching into a mild criticism of something Dr. Robinavitch did in a particular episode. Here’s the thing: Are we “supposed to” love him? Is that what the narrative is actually telling us? Being a main character doesn’t mean being the moral voice or the root-worthiest person. And it doesn’t mean the character is above criticism! Dr. Robby’s a flaming mess who only gets messier in season two—hence kicking things off with him riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Is Breaking Bad’s Walter White the good guy because he’s the central focus? Tony Soprano? No! Were the showrunners and writers endorsing their behavior? No! They were just telling stories with very flawed protagonists. Just like the writers of The Pitt are. They know you might not like Dr. Robby at certain points and they know not wearing a helmet is bad. It’s all part of their goal as storytellers.

“I like this character and therefore everything they do must be justified” is such a trap. And it, more often than not, runs counter to what an author or movie director is really trying to convey. There are guys who think American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman and Fight Club’s Tyler Durden are aspirational—missing the satirical points of those two books and their movie adaptations entirely! Of course that also speaks to a larger issue with media literacy and comprehension. I had people answering “Are we ‘supposed to’ love him?” like it was a yes or no question and not a rhetorical device, telling me they’d marry Dr. Robby if they could. So how do you get beyond a hurdle like that to interrogate whether connecting to a character means excusing them?

Look, I get it. You think Kylo Ren is a hottie. You’re sad he and Rey didn’t live happily ever after. You will never convince me that him killing Han Solo was okay. I think this is also why a lot of dark romance falls flat for me—and how a reader’s self-insertion can go awry. It’s really perfectly okay to not like the protagonists, to not empathize with them. You do not need to be in those blood-soaked shoes to enjoy the story. Neither do you need to be the object of desire. Because once you start putting yourself in there, it’s like “Well, if he’s terrible, then I’m terrible for liking him, right? So that can’t be! He must secretly be redeemable!” And we get a lot of pretzeled-up justifications both in the books and from the wider community to make it okay for the writer to write it and the reader to read it. “He’s morally grey! He’d kill everyone but her! It’s fiction!” Yes, it’s fiction. That’s why I’m fine thinking he’s a homicidal asshole who doesn’t deserve his love interest. He’s not my boyfriend or my HEA. I’m going to close this book, go get a sandwich, and live my life.  

I just finished up a reread of The Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt. The titular duke, Valentine Napier, is awful. His love interest, Bridget, know he’s awful. He’s a villain from a previous book and he’s a villain in his own book! He murders people on the page (while he’s naked, no less!), he has very little use for anyone who isn’t Bridget, and the only thing that changes about his core personality over the course of the story is that he learns to love and be loved. If Hoyt had glazed him, forgiven him, and lifted him up as this great romantic lead, it would’ve been a much weaker book. Instead, you get the sense that every pot has a lid. This man is Bridget’s mess and she’s happy about it. Good for her! I was thoroughly entertained by his story and am glad I don’t have to date him! (See also: Bastien Toussaint from Anne Stuart’s Black Ice or Luke Bardell from her Ritual Sins.)

So, yeah. No one has to love Dr. Robby. (All things being real, a good chunk of people’s affection also stems from Noah Wyle playing him.) No one has to find the knife-wielding protagonist of a dark romance attractive just because he has one or two allegedly redeeming qualities. The goal of crafting a character shouldn’t always be to make them lovable somehow. Even in a romance! There are male main characters that other readers adore who I’d like to chuck out the emergency door of an airplane. That doesn’t mean the author failed! In fact, it’s more likely an indicator that they succeeded. As writers, we need to try to create people—fully realized main characters whose romantic arc is believable, regardless of whether we personally would bang them. They don’t need to be right. They don’t need to be good. They just need to be compelling.