I recently had a test reader tell me (of a certain character I’d created) that she ‘didn’t like him and couldn’t see how anyone could’, thus covering the possibility that this might be based on some kind of personal preference…she hated him, couldn’t imagine the human being walking around out there who might feel any other way, and couldn’t read a story with him in it.
Not exactly flattering, but I learned early on that you can’t please everyone and shouldn’t try…some people found Zoe Ott really unlikable, while others liked her the most. I have noticed though, as time goes by, that liking a character as a person matters to some readers while to others it doesn’t and I got curious about what the spread on that might be. I decided to use the snippet she’d read as a kind of test case.
I took the sample and distributed it to three others – not telling them why, just that I was looking for general feedback. Adding the three responses to the first, I ended up with basically four different answers (or maybe two gradations of two answers). They were:
Reader A hated the character and thus hated the story.
Reader B had no opinion of the character personally, but thought he was interesting and liked the story.
Reader C found the character off-putting but it didn’t stop her from liking the story.
Reader D liked both the character and the story.
To me the most interesting response came from reader B, who said ‘Did I like him? I didn’t really think about that, and I rarely do. I don’t have to like the main character personally to enjoy a book, as long as they are interesting’. I realized that for the most part, that described how I felt but there definitely seem to be more than one camp on this. In my house, my wife and I are on opposite sides of the spectrum. I almost kind of like an ‘unlikable’ character, as I often find them more interesting than likable ones. My wife, on the other hand, cannot enjoy a book if the main character rubs her the wrong way. I find this even more interesting because she loves the character of Dexter Morgan who, although he does murder and dismember people, is neat and polite and, well, likable. We also split on Lost‘s Jack Shepherd…we both hated him, but I thought he was a consistent, well-done character whereas she kind of wanted to punch him.
Maybe it’s a matter of immersion, and some people read at a distance while for others it’s like they’re meeting this person for real and so they judge them as they would a real person. I’m not completely sure, but I find the whole dynamic interesting.
So, I’d be interested to hear people chime in on this…I mean, Zoe will still be Zoe even if some people hate her, it’s just how I see her, but I’m curious about that divide.
How about you? Can you like a story but hate its characters?
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Sometimes hating a character is a good thing, since there’s room for development in which you can start to like them as the story progresses. I’m never really bothered about if I like a character so long as I am able to identify, sympathise with or understand them. An unlikable character has as little impact to my reading of the story as a likable one.
I think most everyone needs to like something about the character. What I hear the ones who said they didn’t like the character but it didn’t matter for their enjoyment of the story saying, is that there was something they liked about the character within the story itself. In other words, the character fit a plot they were interested in, and so they “liked” the unlikeable character in it. If they hated the plot or story arc, they would probably add that they didn’t like the character either.
And those who liked the character simply like unlikable qualities. Or found something in the character that they identified with, perhaps from their own past because they were unlikeable as a person maybe in high school. So they felt more sympathy for the character. That would be my best guess.
I’m not a big one on liking bad characters. Started reading Artimus Fowl not too long ago but didn’t finish it. In part because I didn’t care for the main character that much, and two because the story seemed a bit meandering. I think I like my stories to get moving and build toward something. Or maybe it is when I perceive that it appears meandering and not building toward something that I get bored with it because the pieces of the story don’t seem to have a real purpose to being there that I can feel.
If the story itself had gripped me more, perhaps I wouldn’t have minded that the character himself wasn’t totally likable. So I guess I’d be in that camp. A gripping story could allow me to endure a character I didn’t admire or like that much.
My favorite books are those where I like the characters so much that I dont’ want the book to end because I am really enjoying spending time with them. That’s not to say that I won’t enjoy a book if I don’t like or relate to the characters but it will require the rest of the story to be pretty amazing. The City & The City is an example of such a book. But I don’t think I could like a book if I actually hate the main character, or at least I can’t think of any examples where this has happened.
I think it depends on what role the character plays. You don’t generally expect to like the antagonist. But if the protagonist has no redeemable qualities or acts amorally, then I’m less likely to finish the book. So I like Dexter Morgan because he only kills bad people, but couldn’t stand Thomas Covenant from Stephen Donaldson’s series because he felt nothing about raping a girl ‘in his dreams’. When I want the protagonist to fail I can’t read the book. But if the character’s mildly annoying or there are several characters and only one’s annoying and the story is interesting, I’ll keep reading.
I don’t remember having a problem with Zoe when I read STATE OF DECAY. I don’t think she was my favourite character, but she was interesting and the others were pretty cool.
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I can’t quite think of instances where this worked for me in literature, although it certainly has, but there are times in film when I will absolutely loathe a character (usually a sidekick or bad guy, but sometimes the main character), and yet can’t get enough of it. I think having characters that you love to hate is a good thing.
That said, I don’t know how well it works for main characters, since that’s the character people expect to root for. I would guess that a lot of readers don’t read for complexity in character so much as adventures through characters they identify with.
I don’t much care for “Humbert Humbert” but Lolita is still a favorite book of mine.
Great responses all – absolutely fantastic…these are exactly the kinds of insights I was hoping for. Jessica, your comment (specifically the rape reference) made me realize I have my own kind of line in the sand for that type of thing…I don’t mind at all if a character is unpleasant toward others as long as he/she is interesting, but certain things…yeah…if things start getting too misogynistic I can even drift out of the ‘love to hate’ camp, so I guess I’m not immune either…
My almost immediate response was that I don’t have to like the character. But then I caught myself because that’s not exactly true. I think it might be more accurate to ask if about character interest over likability but that might not be what you’re asking.
I had to think about that a lot, because I tend to like the bad-guy hero main characters. I started to think about books I didn’t finish over books I just thought were ok, or didn’t particularly like but didn’t hate them enough quit them.
Almost every time there wasn’t something that appealed to me about the main character, or at least one of the secondary ones, I won’t finish. It’s kinda a given that flat or overly cliché’ characters go hand and hand with a bad story.
As I ponder this, A Sad Tale of the Brothers Grosbarts by Jesse Burlington came to mind. I got bored with that book and never finished it, but it is a very well written and an original story, but I really didn’t like the Grosbarts. They murdered some children right from the start and that’s one thing, ever since I became a parent, that’s one thing in books I really don’t like reading about. It’s one thing if the foe of a story that does it but if it’s the character the story revolves around and said character is remorseless about it, I’d say I don’t like that character and won’t read the book.
But that’s not exactly true because I love Logen Ninefingers of Joe Abercrombie’s books, and when he goes berserk he’s likely to kill anyone. And what about the Comedian of Watchmen, which I just read? He was a rapist and murdered a woman he got pregnant but I kinda found him interesting.
So I guess I’d have to say there has to be something that I just find cool or relatable about some of the main characters, if not the main one him/herself. When that is the case, I’ll mostly, at least finish the book and find some enjoyment in it even if the story itself has been done to death. But if it’s the most unique and interesting story I’ve ever read but no characters I find interesting, I might finish that one book, but probably won’t stick with me or it’s a series I probably won’t continue with it..
The Comedian is a terrific example…I can not like him, and I can not feel any sympathy for him, but I really have to admire him as a character – not as a person, as a character. He was really well written, and who he was served the story well. The other characters can forgive him if they want, but I wouldn’t…and I feel like that’s fine. Then again, I didn’t feel like I was being steered toward liking him personally or being asked to forgive him or anything…I don’t think authors should do that anyway – that’s probably a topic for another post though.
[...] Hard to Love: James Knapp wrote an interesting blog on the relationships between characters and their readers. [...]
Since I read this blog yesterday, the topic keeps popping-up in my mind. I really can’t think of a single book I’ve liked that did not have something I liked about at least a secondary character, if not the main one.
On the flip of that, I can think of at least one book that is considered a modern Sci-fi classic that I didn’t like mostly because I found nothing that interested me about the main character; Dune. Except for Dune seeming a little slow-paced to me, Herbert’s creation was/is amazing. But Paul Atreides was just such a wimpy rich kid to me and I never could get past that.