Too much of a woobie?

The protagonist of my version of Beowulf is written to be extremely unsuited for the society he lives in. Life in ancient Scandinavia requires competence on the battlefield and/or the strength to do manual labor, of which there is a lot. AB!Beowulf has neither. There is a lot of emphasis on being macho in this society, and Beowulf is not macho at all, nor does he have any real desire to be.

Naturally, this means that most of the people who live with him often don't like him, are embarrassed of him, and even feel pity for him. His father, who truly understood him and tried to find ways to work around his shortcomings, died when he was a child.

The character himself doesn't have a whole lot of self-esteem and has delicate feelings.

His encounters with Grendel and Grendel's mother do not make him Take a Level in Badass by having him turn into a physically competent Action Guy, rather, in a more subtle way by making him develop more self-confidence in spite of the fact that he hates what he went through and would never go through something like that again.

I just can't help but feel like I'm veering into dangerous territory, especially since a hysterical, emotional male like this guy may quite possibly be viewed as a scrappy by some of the audience (evidently we haven't actually changed much since ancient Scandinavia), that there'd be too much wangst, or whatever.

Since I'm not planning on changing Beowulf's character or other characters' opinions of him, how do I pull this off without veering into Scrappy territory?

You sprinkle him with some awesome here and there while highlighting his mental and emotional state at all other times. For further examples, see Shinji Ikari.

I'll admit there's a serious risk of running into Scrappy territory with this guy.

If there was no Character Development in this story I'd eventually come to hate him as a Scrappy too. (I'm leaving benefit of the doubt to you that there is character development.)

The example mentioned above Shinji Ikari is the perfect example of how to make a supposed Woobie too far and too much of a hateworthy character.

Something you could try is give him something that he's good at so that he seems useful in addition to letting him shine with that talent of his. He will need Character Development to be liked at all, I think, even keeping the other things that've been mentioned in mind.

He's unique for the world, yes, but I would hate him too if he didn't do anything, and question why he's there at all.

He has an excellent singing voice, a way with verses, and skill at playing the lyre. The great thing about this is that he can actually have a respectable role at feasts as a skald/scop.

Some of the things he already does in the story that may be considered awesome:

• His uncle King Hygelac invites him on an expedition to invade the French as a way to get him exposed to such things. Beowulf openly refuses to go and criticizes his decision to invade the French (in front of the entire gathering of Wederas, even).
• Somehow, he is able to convince Hrothgar and his entire company (save for Unferth) into believing that he participated in an overseas swimming contest and slayed sea monsters underwater. With his storytelling talent, of course.
• In response to his criticism, he humiliates Unferth by telling the true story of how he is directly responsible for the death of his brother. Unferth challenges him to a holmgang for it, but still.
• He faints at the sight of blood. What does he do to circumvent this? He blindfolds himself.

A battle of wits between him as a skald and the local thyle could be awesome.

Yep. While Beowulf does win the argument with heavy ad hominem by bringing up his responsibility for his brother's death, you still got to hand it to him. You got like half of Heorot patting him on the back there.

Back to this thread since I observed some troubling woobie-ish relationship between himself and his family:

• First off, his dad is dead, and has been dead for twelve years. Apparently he was a great guy, and would have been able to raise Beowulf as his own brand of respectable young man if he hadn't gone and died.
• Beowulf's mother is essentially a couch potato. They're royalty and have servants so she can get away with lying around, but she is unimpressed with Beowulf and is incredibly brutal about raising him up "properly". (Actually, she isn't the only abusive woman in this story. There's the crazy Valkyrja later on, and then Grendel's mother.)
• His first cousin Heardred is embarrassed to be related to Beowulf, but he takes care of him by doing stuff like hunt for him and tries to keep him out of trouble.

There are more relations. To be continued...

I think the best woobies are the ones that dont openly complain about their situation, you can still have your character be an emotional woobie, without Wangsting, take Luna Lovegood as an example.

Well if you look at the example of Shinji, one might think that Shinji is The Scrappy, but because he wasn't meant to be a cool character that one could relate to but rather a horrifying mirror for the audience, this is okay. I would consider Neon Genesis Evangelion a more literary work anyway, and that's why this is reasonable. In normal primetime television, one probably wouldn't be able to get away with a character like this.

So I think a better question is what you're trying to accomplish with this character. You say woobie. Do you want him to be a lightningrod of sympathy like your typical woobie? Or do you want, or are willing to try, something else?

Anne isn't here anymore, so closing this as requested.