Good Flaws, Bad Flaws

"There are certain acceptable negative traits that an audience will accept and sympathize with, and some that they won't."

— The Mysterious Mr. Enter on Family Guy

So you're working on a book, and you like your hero character so far, but he's just too... clean. How can you dirty him up a bit? You need to add some character flaws. Careful, though. The right flaws will make your character more accessible to your audience and bring him to life, but the wrong flaws will make your audience despise him no matter what heroic acts he accomplishes. There are good flaws, and there are bad flaws.

A list of currently acceptable "good" flaws includes:

• Alcoholism (except when it leads to violence.)
• Drug addiction (except when it leads to violence.)
• Tobacco use (cigars, cigarettes, and especially pipes.)
• Sexual promiscuity (As long as it doesn't involve children, animals or the unwilling, like rape, or necrophilia.)
• Reverse snobbery
• Being too cool to socialize.
• Being a klutz. Clumsiness can be so endearing that it's often the single flaw given in an otherwise perfect character.
• "Sticking to your guns" even when the odds seem stacked against you (Which some may argue isn't even a flaw at all, except when it results in Idiot Ball.)
• Being a Jerkass, but usually only if it's to everyone, out of misanthropy or cynicism.
• Emotional aloofness, especially with Cute Love Interests.
• Lack of self-confidence
• Holding ridiculously high personal standards^note (Take note: this is the most common and perhaps the only personal flaw ever written in a resume or job application.), especially with snarky comments.
• Being a Noble, Innocent or Tragic Bigot (Assuming they're a good guy of course), especially for people who grew up a long time ago or those with Police or Military backgrounds.
• A hot temper (except when it leads to violence.)
• Laziness
• Cussing (except in the presence of the clergy, monarchs, aristocrats, the elderly, children, and sometimes women.)
• Self-Deprecation
• Cowardice (except when failure to act causes someone else's harm.)
• Committing crimes like theft or swindling, as long as no one gets hurt.
• Weirdness and a lack of social norms, particularly in love interests.

While a list of flaws that are currently "bad" includes:

• Most forms of bigotry such as racism, sexism (misogyny moreso than misandry), or homophobia (depending on the author's culture or religion)
  • Straw Feminists are ridiculed, but a Woman Scorned with no ideological pretense typically gets much more sympathetic treatment.
• Lack of Empathy
• Genuine snobbery
• Domestic Abuser
• Compulsive Gambling
• "Evil" smoking (usually a cigar, or a hoity-toity lighter.) Encouraging children under the age of 18 (or now, with the changes in laws, 21) to smoke or blowing smoke in a more sympathetic character's face are two surefire ways of establishing your vileness.
• Obsessive meddling (no matter how well-intentioned)
• Hypocrisy (except when Played for Laughs as Hypocritical Humor)
• Self-serving phoniness
• Being a Dirty Coward
• Pedophiles and rapists (especially when male.)
• Religious Fanaticism or on the other end Frantic Nihilism and/or Militant Atheism.
• Greed and /or Flaunting Money.
• Arrogance and/or Selfishness
• Two-facedness
• Being unforgiving and putting justice and other abstract ideals above people, a la the Knight Templar.

A character who's addicted to alcohol is a helpless victim of a substance to which he is addicted. A character who chain-smokes is a rube who doesn't understand the dangers of smoking and ought to die of lung cancer for his foolishness (although, occasionally there are sympathetic smokers). The difference between drinking and smoking in this regard is that drinking is not addictive for the majority of people and provides a significant high, while smoking is addictive for everyone and its high, if any, is very weak. Drinking is therefore seen as the more rational action, although of course off limits for those who get addicted.

A character who has sex freely isn't always seen as flawed at all (and provides interesting plot opportunities...) while a genuinely racist or homophobic character portrayed in any kind of positive light whatsoever is a rarity in The New '10s (and perhaps the preceding decade or two). (A number of comedians will pretend racist/homophobic viewpoints for laughs, but also insist that they're only kidding. See Politically Incorrect Hero.)

Even the words people use will fall under these categories. Most obviously, shit and fuck are "good" bad words while nigger and faggot are "bad" bad words (whereas the opposite used to be the case). Bitch is a special case because its literal meaning is "female dog" and that's still an acceptable use.

Sixty years ago (that is, mid 20th century-ish) some of the entries on these lists might have been inverted because this is a cyclical trope. It is constantly changing as artists try to push the envelope and skirt the fine line of transgressive but not reprehensible. Who knows what will be seen as acceptable or not acceptable in another 60 years (mid 21st century).

Bad Flaws can be Easily Forgiven if the character casts them off and becomes a better person. The Atoner atones for them. The Big Bad may just have worse flaws. Sometimes they can be given the sympathetic point of view — there's good reasons why they have this flaw. Laser-Guided Karma also assists in forgiveness, as long as they learn from their punishment. If your prejudiced hero learns about other ethnic groups over the course of his journey and, at the end of the book, decides that he can now accept people of different ethnic groups as equal to himself; well, he was an egalitarian all along, just waiting for the right experience to let him grow, wasn't he? (Less idealistic works might have the hero retain his bad habits, but still strive to do the right thing in spite of himself.)

A Jerk with a Heart of Jerk will be marked by both types of flaw, and might use the "good" ones to deliberately mask the "bad" ones. See also: Good Smoking, Evil Smoking, for an in-depth discussion of tobacco as a signifier of morality, and Good Victims, Bad Victims, which examines the connotations of different types of victimhood.

This list of tropes and examples is not meant to be static or exhaustive; this is very much a descriptive trope rather than a prescriptive trope, so feel free to add or change things as popular values change with time. Do note that because this is so constantly in flux, there are likely to be very few examples that are perfectly Played Straight.

Note: Please try to keep Fantastic Racism to a minimum unless it is very clearly supposed to be a direct analogue to real-life bigotry. The hatred of Orcs and the hatred of human ethnic minorities carry very different connotations in media (for some reason).

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Delicious in Dungeon: Captain Mithrun appeared to be The Ace, but the incident that briefly made him a reality-warping Dungeon Lord and left him a near-Empty Shell exposed his deep alienation and seething Inferiority Superiority Complex. His subordinate Milsiril muses that she couldn't stand being around someone so cheerful and perfect, but now she could see them getting along.

Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
  • Donald Duck suffers from a bad temper, arrogance and vanity, but has his heart in the right place.
  • Scrooge McDuck is thrifty and heartless at times, but shows compassion towards others when necessary.

Films — Live-Action

• Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino is one of the most sympathetically portrayed racists in modern media, although even he learns his lesson about racism by the end of the film.
• On the "reverse snobbery" thread, you also see this a lot in high school movies. If the popular or cool kids play a prank on the unpopular/uncool kids, it's wrong and malicious. If unpopular/uncool kids play a prank on the popular/cool kids, it's a funny comeuppance.
  • Though set in a college Accepted is a prime example of this: at their first meeting, before he has any personal reason to dislike them, Bartleby goes out of his way to insult Ambrose and his fraternity. It's portrayed as an underdog sticking it to some rich jerks.
  • Of course, the cool kids are often portrayed as doing it out of spontaneous malice, while the uncool kids are often seeking Revenge for either another prank or some other malicious act, which does introduce a moral difference beside whodunit.
• James Bond has given up smoking (and even claims it was a "filthy habit" in Tomorrow Never Dies^*Note that he then went and smoked a cigar in Die Another Day) over time but has always been a connoisseur of alcohol and other vices.
• As Good as It Gets: Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) manages to spout all kinds of rude remarks throughout the course of the film and still not drift into Villain Protagonist territory. Of course, the filmmakers do an excellent job of tempering his character. For starters, his character is an older man, even though he occasionally is nastier than the average Racist Grandpa. Second, Udall is a New Yorker, and people from New York are stereotypically expected to be rude anyway. Third, the film is to a large extent a comedy, and a Cringe Comedy at that. Fourth, Udall does fairly often get called out and even publicly humiliated for his politically incorrect behavior. Fifth, his behavior does improve as the film goes along. And sixth, and most importantly, Udall is a misanthropic romance novelist with obsessive-compulsive disorder, for the most part peevish toward everyone in the world (with specific bigoted remarks toward each of them according to their categories-i.e antisemitic toward Jews, racist toward blacks/Latinos, homophobic toward gays, etc.) and really well-meaning deep down if not for being a Jerkass Woobie.
• Ray Levoi, the FBI-agent protagonist of Thunderheart (1992) manages to be a consistently sympathetic character despite having more than a casual contempt for Native American culture from the outset - something that was rare even in The Golden Age of Hollywood. Being young and good-looking helps (Levoi is being played by Val Kilmer in his early thirties, after all), as does his Punch-Clock Villain status when the FBI sends him to a Sioux reservation to investigate a murder and basically requires him to harass and interrogate suspected political radicals (at one point even pulling a Sioux out of his tepee during a religious ceremony, prompting the arrestee to demand if he'd ever arrest a Christian while that Christian was praying in church). Most crucially, however, Levoi is part Sioux himself. While this doesn't grant him N-Word Privileges (though the full-blooded Sioux characters seem to have this, derisively calling Levoi the "Washington Redskin"), it does make him supremely confused about his identity and ambivalent toward the memory of his ne'er-do-well half-Sioux father. He's also naturally resentful that he's been assigned to this case specifically because of his heritage, and doesn't want to be on the reservation in the first place. Finally, Levoi does fall in love with a full-blooded Sioux woman, manages to get over his prejudices and reclaim his roots, and ultimately solves what proves to be a Chinatown-level mystery marked by corruption Inherent in the System.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • Wolverine's fondness for cigars and rough exterior (complete with lots of rudeness, drinking, and profanity) are part of his macho image.
  • X-Men: First Class:
    • Although the writers wanted to present Xavier as a very different person when he was young man, they can't give him too many negative traits because the character is still the Big Good of the franchise, so some of his "good" flaws include being a womanizer, being vain, and somewhat flaunting his wealth (though he's still very much an Uncle Pennybags to his friends).
    • Hank McCoy, who we learn in X-Men: The Last Stand is one of Charles' closest friends (and therefore his personality can't be changed too drastically), gets lack of self-confidence as one of his primary faults.
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Past Xavier is no longer a cad like we saw in First Class, but he has developed additional "good" flaws such as alcoholism, drug addiction, cynicism, and cussing. The guy is utterly messed up, but the writer was careful not to make the character too "bad" (Charles has to eventually become an All-Loving Hero, after all).
• Some of the comedians interviewed in The Aristocrats (which is basically a feature-length analysis of the so-called "filthiest joke in the world") argue the inverse of this trope, contending that good flaws are bad and bad flaws are good if you're actually trying to be offensive; being "good-bad" just won't get the desired level of outrage. Since many iterations of the "aristocrats" joke involve defecating, for instance, they point out that if you defecated in public nowadays most people wouldn't really care and react with only an eyeroll; but if you took the fecal matter into your hands, smeared it all over your face, and did a Blackface gag, people would be very angry.
• Selma: MLK's adultery plays a part in the film, contrasting with his civil rights activities.
• Trading Places: In the opening scenes, Louis Winthorpe and the Dukes are introduced in a way which shows the wealth in which they have spent their life surrounded by and how cold it has made them. However, a key distinction is shown in that Winthorpe is capable of being somewhat cordial to his butler Coleman as well as employees at Duke & Duke Commodities Brokers, while the Dukes don't say a word to any of their servants as they ritually greet them, in a manner which heavily implies they have been forced to do so, or even look any of them in the eye. This shows that Winthorpe isn't totally a bad guy, just snobby and cut off from the world, while showing how awful the Dukes are.

Literature

• Sam Vimes from the Discworld books claims to be a racist and a speciesist, but aside from the fact that he would risk his life for any of his citizens, he is a raging misanthrope so any racism/speciesism is just an extension of thinking everyone is a bastard. Even his outwardly promoted reverse snobbery doesn't prevent him from marrying Lady Sybil, heiress to one of the richest estates in Ankh-Morporkh, and having the title of Duke being bestowed (albeit unhappily) upon him. He's also a very heavy drinker who used to drink to forget, but has since forgotten what he was trying to forget, so he keeps drinking so he won't remember. Interestingly enough he's been moved off Alcohol and onto cigars by his wife.
• William Laurence from the Temeraire books, is a Napoleonic Era Naval Officer, with the ridiculously high standards expected within that service. He moves to the Aerial Corps, which is a much more laid back affair and allows this to be an excellent hook. In some ways it's possible to consider the Aerial Corps as a pocket 'modern' society within the early 19th Century setting.
• Haymitch from The Hunger Games is an alcoholic. At the beginning, this is presented as just further proof of his incompetency- until it is revealed that he drinks in order to mask the pain of losing everyone he loves, and failing to protect children in the arena, year after year.
• Horatio Hornblower is terrified of heights and prone to sea-sickness, a pair of traits one might consider unusual for The Captain in a series about Wooden Ships and Iron Men. The sea-sickness is eventually revealed to be something the crew accepts without comment ^note the only sign that they know about it is that the Marine sentry outside his door has a mop and bucket, and Hornblower deals with the acrophobia by making a point of climbing the masts to see for himself whenever a sailor in the crow's nest announces that they've spotted something.
  • Also, he is very emotionally detached and calculating. Played positively, these traits make him a tactical genius and very good at cards, played negatively, and he ends up having a terrible time dealing with other people short of being very manipulative.
• Anthony Burgess was inspired to write A Clockwork Orange because he found it fascinating that Nazis during World War II would relax from a day of killing people by enjoying the beauty of Ludwig van Beethoven's music. The very idea that vicious criminals could appreciate beautiful innocent art was the reason Alex DeLarge became a Beethoven admirer.
• Played with in military thriller Victoria. The protagonist, former Marine captain John Rumford, smokes like a chimney, is a bit of a loner, a perfectionist and often extremely cynical—all traits that are not only acceptable, but almost expected, from someone with his military background. However, he is also very old-fashioned and politically incorrect by present-day standards, to the point of being a Politically Incorrect Hero.

Live-Action TV

• For sympathetic characters with regular snobbery, you have Frasier and Niles, chiefly via Character Development. Frasier was originally written as a Romantic False Lead and eventual Ensemble Dark Horse on Cheers, where the whole Slobs Versus Snobs angle was very much Played Straight.
  • Similarly, Charles Emerson Winchester of M*A*S*H. Though he started off as mostly an antagonist, he gradually became an Anti-Hero and never completely overcame his snobbery. He even had his biggest Pet the Dog moment through his snobbery during the Grand Finale when a North Korean military band is taken prisoner and he finds their playing to be horrid. So he teaches them to play classical music well.
• Johnathan Quayle Higgins on Magnum, P.I. is very snobby.
• House gets away with all kinds of offensive remarks because it's clear he actually hates everyone regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc., and just says whatever he thinks will offend his target the most. As Cameron says in one episode to defend him after he says something sexist, "[He's] a misanthrope, not a misogynist."

Podcasts & Radio

• Ghost of True Capitalist won't deny that he has a Hair-Trigger Temper, but accusing him of being racist, abusive, sexually deviant, or a brony is a sure-fire way of triggering his temper.

Video Games

• Jonathan Ingram in Policenauts makes homophobic, transphobic (using the phrase 'so-called women' to describe transwomen who'd undergone a sex change at the genetic level) and sexist (oh, let's not even start) comments throughout the game, as well as exhibiting Fantastic Racism towards the Frozeners. It's used to draw attention to how his attitudes are bigoted and old-fashioned by the standards of the era, but he never really gets over them and is yet portrayed consistently sympathetically.

Webcomics

• A lot of characters in Bittersweet Candy Bowl have these. Flaws like Lucy’s abrasiveness, Daisy’s insecurities, Paulo’s multiple relationships, David’s lack of grip on reality, etc.

Western Animation

• Amphibia: Of the three main human characters, Anne and Marcy have "good" flaws, irresponsibility/self-doubt and clumsiness/poor social skills respectively, while Sasha has the "bad" flaw of being a [1]. These were present even when they were friends, before Sasha started helping the villains.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Zuko exhibits some of the good flaws such as having a hot temper, a determination that borders on suicidal at times and is quite emotionally aloof a lot of the time until his character development starts kicking in at season 2. Interestingly enough, his sister Azula shares similar, acceptable flaws such as self-depreciation. But she also has negative flaws that she never outgrows like her snobbery and control freak tendencies.
• The entire list in the article description is practically a laundry list for Bender B. Rodriguez's entire personality. He gets away with it through Refuge in Audacity and Rule of Funny, with a good dose of Karma Houdini to dodge plot-related consequences.
• The Simpsons: Bart Simpson constantly gets into trouble for playing pranks on teachers, family members and random people in the street. Though some of his behavior ranks from just being an annoying kid to juvenile delinquency, he is generally shown to have guilt or remorse kick in at times.
• Eric Cartman from South Park is a horrible bigot, and is portrayed absolutely unsympathetically. He still has his fans, though.

Real Life

• Even more intractable is the tendency to attempt to psychologically scan a historical subject to see if he (and it usually is indeed a "he") harbors any sensibilities that are currently abhorrent, Values Dissonance be damned. This can be tricky for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that individuals who weren't particularly political or weren't social critics probably didn't put forth that many substantial opinions. Also, said person may merely be speaking or writing to others who do harbor those views, and pandering to them. Finally, despite what many seem to believe, irony and sarcasm were not twentieth-century inventions.
• Most criminals and other people with an "evil" reputation will have a good side to them. For instance, some psychopaths who absolutely feel no remorse towards torturing, raping and killing human beings will feel appalled whenever someone hurts an animal.

---