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Good stories with bad protagonists

Last posted Dec 30, 2016 at 10:58PM EST. Added Dec 27, 2016 at 10:17AM EST
22 posts from 15 users

What are some examples of stories (from any media) you find to be otherwise good stories – be it in their world or messages or supporting characters – that have bad protagonists, either through their dullness or unoriginality? Sometimes you need the MC to be a relatively blank slate so that a reader can self-insert, but many stories don't do this while failing to give their main character any traits of notoriety or particular motivation.

I personally find the world and supporting characters in Harry Potter to be excellent, but Harry himself is rather dull. He doesn't have many discernible personality traits and even though JKR tried to edge him up a bit in Order of the Phoenix and add more layers to him, by the final book he's back in "default protag follows the whims of the plot" mode. I feel that the protagonist and their motivations/aspirations should be at the absolute centre of a story and "defeat the generic ancient evil because adults/my tragic past said to" doesn't really do it for me anymore.

On the other hand, while the gameplay is far from spectacular, I find Luke of Tales of the Abyss to be one of the most compelling protagonists ever to come from a Japanese-origin game. The story is constructed around him and his rather childish personality, and how many villains and even the other heroes use Luke's naïve but also childishly assholish nature against him. At a certain point Luke realises

he is an idiot with no real knowledge of the world who has been woefully misled about almost everything he knows, and begins undergoing a stark character shift.

At the same time the player realises that although Luke is a selfish asshole, it's because of his lack of knowledge in a world where everyone else, even the romantic female lead, is very manipulative. I think the writer(s) must have looked to classic theatre writing styles to construct this character because his flaws are the entire story. But measured up against the hypocrisy in which his society is mired, Luke ends up looking by far the lesser evil, least of all due to his innocence.

I figured this was best off in General rather than limiting it to specific things like books or TV or games. Remember: protagonist literally is derived from the Greek meaning "first actor" and refers exclusively to the "main" character.

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movie. People forget that Jack Sparrow was a side character. The protagonist was that other guy, what's his name. You've probably forgotten about him. He was played by Orlando Bloom who was the hottest and most popular actor in movies at the time. (checks IMDB) His name was Will Turner. Who cares about Will Turner?

Last edited Dec 27, 2016 at 11:34AM EST

I request a move to Media.
Also on the topic Neon Genesis Evangelion fits well. Shinji isn't a badly written character but he's a big coward and it's annoying when it constantly focuses on him. I more prefer it when it focuses on Rei or Asuka.

I've harped on this before, so forgive me for repeating myself. RWBY is a really good show. In particular, I consider the last half of season 3 to be one of the most impressive leaps in storytelling quality I've ever seen. That said, with each season, the alleged protagonist, Ruby Rose, becomes more of a non-entity. From a storytelling standpoint, it's a fascinating account of the amazing disappearing protagonist. Our first glimpse of Ruby came from the Red trailer, where she was one cool character. Without saying a word or getting needlessly edgy, we got some excellent storytelling right off the bat. Here is a troubled young woman. Unable to cope with the death of a loved one and the harsh reality of her world, she throws herself into combat. Over the course of the series, none of these qualities would be brought up again. Despite her trailer, her grim reaper visual cues, and her first two theme songs being about her mother's death, this aspect of the character is never developed. The next time she even brings up her mother is in season 3, and she seems pretty well adjusted. That early promise of character development was lost.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Say what you will about season one (and I've said plenty). At least the writers knew that Ruby was the protagonist and centered the story around her accordingly, except for a brief, misguided detour into Jaune-town. In season 2, most of the characters started getting fleshed out, deviating from their archetypes. Ruby didn't and the focus noticeably shifted to the other, more interesting characters. The best way I can spin it is that Ruby still played the role of protagonist, commanding her team and noticing the little things that moved the plot forward, but it was no longer her story.

For the first half of season 3, Ruby was barely a character, stopping in now and then to dispense a one-liner, then getting out of the way so more interesting characters could get screen time. However, the last half of the season did something interesting with the character: made her struggle. She failed to save a friend's life, summoned courage, barely won a fight, watched her teammates suffer, and failed to save another friend's life. It was a much needed combo of struggling, succeeding, and struggling again that made me hopeful the writers would actually flesh Ruby out in the next season by making her endure hardship. Plus, we got another great trailer that hearkened back to the angst and violence of the first. Then Ruby did nothing of note in the first half of season 4. Ouch. I mean, there's still time in the season to turn it around and it looks like the second half will be more Ruby-focused, but it's been three and a half seasons.

Take a look at RWBY Chibi. Notice how much more screen time Ruby gets. That's because she has become a glorified comic relief character. As it stands, Ruby has remained a season 1 character well into season 4, with minimal flaws, personal problems, or opinions. It's a shame, considering how cool she was in that first trailer.

Mameme wrote:

I request a move to Media.
Also on the topic Neon Genesis Evangelion fits well. Shinji isn't a badly written character but he's a big coward and it's annoying when it constantly focuses on him. I more prefer it when it focuses on Rei or Asuka.

Unfortunately you can't post a thread in Media generally, it has to go in one of Video Games, Moving Images, Books & Comics, Music, or Websites. Since I want the thread to be open to all of the first 4 at least I thought it was best here.

KYFPMM wrote:

FFXII

Ah, Vaan. The protagonist that isn't, as far as some people are concerned. For me it's not even that he's bad, it's simply that not enough is done with him and he's fairly static in the story. There are a couple of places where Ashe has really important decisions to make that Vaan influences thanks to providing her with his perspective, but I wish the writing took this way further and did more conversation between the two.

The Great Gatsby is a great story with a terrible protagonist, and actually overall terrible and unlikable characters, which is the main reason such a great story has made for such terrible movies.

And this is true for just about everything F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote.

Colonel Sandor wrote:

The Great Gatsby is a great story with a terrible protagonist, and actually overall terrible and unlikable characters, which is the main reason such a great story has made for such terrible movies.

And this is true for just about everything F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote.

What about Benjamin Button?

WarriorTang wrote:

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movie. People forget that Jack Sparrow was a side character. The protagonist was that other guy, what's his name. You've probably forgotten about him. He was played by Orlando Bloom who was the hottest and most popular actor in movies at the time. (checks IMDB) His name was Will Turner. Who cares about Will Turner?

It's odd they made the blander character the main one

Colonel Sandor wrote:

The Great Gatsby is a great story with a terrible protagonist, and actually overall terrible and unlikable characters, which is the main reason such a great story has made for such terrible movies.

And this is true for just about everything F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote.

In a similar vein, most of Franz Kafka's novels and short stories. His characters aren't so much unlikable as pitiable, and intentionally forgettable. They're meant to be rag-dolls to be battered around by the unfeeling system.

I can't think of any great novels where the characters are unintentionally bad. They're just too integral a part of a novel's quality.

Thepyrowasaspy wrote:

It's odd they made the blander character the main one

I feel like that was the point. The main character was supposed to be unbiased and just experience the problems created by everyone else.

Watch_Dogs 2 was a major step-up from the first game in terms of main character.
The hacking mechanic is neat and fun, but Aiden was too serious for the first games own good. And he was a major asshat, can't forget that.
I also remember liking the premise to Digimon: Data Squad as a kid, sort of a Men in Black-esque setting with Digimon, but I just remember despising the main guy. I think all he did was yell and punch things.

Last edited Dec 28, 2016 at 08:40PM EST

Antibot wrote:

Re:Zero.

Even if I've never seen it, I've heard enough that the MC was fucking terrible.

I respectfully disagree and think that you should reserve judgement for things you've actually read rather than rely on hearsay. The story of Re:Zero is written with the intention of having Subaru overcome his flaws, so I think he makes for a pretty good protagonist. There are many people who don't like him because he hits too close to home for them and is a massive cringelord and creeper, but this is exactly the point that the author is making and after realising these things, Subaru begins (slowly) to improve. Subaru strikes an excellent balance by being an awful loser who has strong points like his charisma and kindness.

Subaru is an absolutely damning condemnation of nerds and nerd stereotypes, which makes him exemplary in a medium filled with terrible generic protagonists.

Characters with very deliberate weakenesses or unlikable personalities =/= bad protagonists. Many bad protagonists are very nice people – often too nice.

ballstothewall wrote:

I respectfully disagree and think that you should reserve judgement for things you've actually read rather than rely on hearsay. The story of Re:Zero is written with the intention of having Subaru overcome his flaws, so I think he makes for a pretty good protagonist. There are many people who don't like him because he hits too close to home for them and is a massive cringelord and creeper, but this is exactly the point that the author is making and after realising these things, Subaru begins (slowly) to improve. Subaru strikes an excellent balance by being an awful loser who has strong points like his charisma and kindness.

Subaru is an absolutely damning condemnation of nerds and nerd stereotypes, which makes him exemplary in a medium filled with terrible generic protagonists.

Characters with very deliberate weakenesses or unlikable personalities =/= bad protagonists. Many bad protagonists are very nice people – often too nice.

Ah yes, one of aspect of Mary Sues is their niceness and purity, either being laid on too thick, or is just lip service with their actions being the opposite.

Would it be fair to list Silent Protagonists as bad then? They are deliberately designed to be so generic that the player has to project onto them. Which might work well for games with Grand Theft Auto or Terraria. But, in games witch are confined to an actual plot like recent Pokemon games or Dragon Quest or would be hard to handle without coming off as an empty shell.

(I was gonna mention Undertale, but I think its use was pivotal in both endings)

After Shock wrote:

Ah yes, one of aspect of Mary Sues is their niceness and purity, either being laid on too thick, or is just lip service with their actions being the opposite.

Would it be fair to list Silent Protagonists as bad then? They are deliberately designed to be so generic that the player has to project onto them. Which might work well for games with Grand Theft Auto or Terraria. But, in games witch are confined to an actual plot like recent Pokemon games or Dragon Quest or would be hard to handle without coming off as an empty shell.

(I was gonna mention Undertale, but I think its use was pivotal in both endings)

No, I think silent protagonists have a place. They are usually not great but there's certain media where they work quite well such as Undertale like you mentioned.

I think it comes down to execution, obviously there are infamously bland characters but there's a place where the MC needs to be a blank slate or more open interpretation.

Last edited Dec 29, 2016 at 06:45AM EST

Antibot wrote:

Re:Zero.

Even if I've never seen it, I've heard enough that the MC was fucking terrible.

I’ve heard enough that the MC was fucking terrible.

"A main character does not have to be likable, relatable, or sympathetic. They have to be understandable and interesting" – Pan Pizza/RebalTaxi in Top 5 HALLOWEEN HIDDEN GEMS (@RebelTaxi) Vol 2 10:14

If you make Kirito Reinhardt MC then you got yourself a terrible protagonist.

Last edited Dec 29, 2016 at 08:26PM EST

FF XII: Mostly becuase vaan has zero relevance in the story and he is a background character in some cutscenes heck even temporary party members did more things in the story and his goal was literally " i want to be sky king pirate"

Pirates of the Caribbean movies: Seriously i thought Jack Sparrow was the main character instead of Will.

Mortal Kombat: Liu Kang he's just terrible.

It's kind of funny that the title character of Madoka Magica is by far the least interesting. Nearly every other character has more to offer in turns of personality and skills. But in this case, it is artistically justified. One of the great mysteries of the series is why Madoka has such potential. Even she acknowledges how boring and unskilled she is and becomes confused that everyone is paying so much attention to her. As the series progresses, the slow revelation of how her personality declined and her power increased tied in perfectly to Homura's backstory. What's more, like seemingly everything else in Madoka Magica, her lack of presence could be seen as a critique of magical girl protagonists. Sailor Moon herself was an incapable airhead in the early episodes and would have been lost without her more competent teammates. Madoka is just self-aware about her weakness. Lastly, despite her deficit of personality, Madoka was still around in most of the important scenes, watching and learning from everyone else. In essence, the whole story of Madoka Magica was about the character learning what it means to be a magical girl by studying the example of others. By the end, she comes to embody the entire concept of the magical girl. Instead of being a single character with a distinct personality, she is the vessel which carries the whole character type.

Like Madoka, the protagonist of Magical Girl Raising Project, Snow White represents the ideal magical girl, but it just isn't handled as well. Snow White isn't there. Lots of interesting, thrilling adventures occur, but Snow White is usually far away from the action. Entire episodes go by where she has nothing to do. MGRP is more of an ensemble show, so we get plenty of time with all the more interesting characters, but Snow White only plays a role in a handful of episodes. I guess what the writer was going for was that Snow White has her ideals and romanticism tested by the vicious behavior of the more belligerent magical girls. This would have worked better if she had actually been present for more of the story, reacting to all the betrayal and sorrow. Still, she was pretty cool in that last episode, using her power to reveal Fav's weaknesses. It was a good show, but the protagonist isn't important. Ripple would have been a better main character.

Hmm. It's been years since I last saw Evangelion, and I get the feeling I'd have a mostly different take on it now that I know much more about anime. From what I recall, I didn't have a problem with Shinji because it was nice to see a teenager in an anime act realistically insecure and afraid for once, instead of the confident and adventurous super-teens we normally get in anime. Plus, he had good reason to complain considering the pressure he was under. One slip up and the world ends.

Last edited Dec 30, 2016 at 10:59PM EST
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