How To Make A Great Gazoo Character Not Annoying

In this superhero comic I'm working on, I have this reality warper character whose quite important, seeing as how he/she gives the hero the amulet which gives her her powers, though he/she won't be showing up too much. The RW comes from a race of mystical beings who are born out of the stories created by human beings.

The RW in question's (Name suggestions would be appreciated) main motivation is seeing how awesome a scene would play out. For instance, he/she might put the two greatest martial artists in the world against each other just to see the fight scene. Or create a supervillain just so the hero would have an archnemesis

He/she's not a malevolent character, never hurting people for fun. He/she's fun-loving and impish, kind of like Puck from Gargoyles

I know a lot of people find this kind of character annoying, so I 'd like to know how not to make him/her obnoxious. And if you greatly dislike this kind of character, what is it about them that you dislike?

Try calling him Kos. And you can base him on Xom from Dungeon Crawl - a chaos god who punishes just as easily on a whim as blesses adventurers.

Okay, this is just the first thing that popped into my head, but an easy way to make them non-annoying?

Give them an unpleasant boss. If their whole thing is creating awesome scenes, maybe they're the Reality Warper equivalent of an underpaid screenwriter or stunt coordinator, slaving away under the whims of a tyrannical director who is, of course, vastly more powerful than they are. They could still be fun-loving- I mean, there has to be some reason they don't quit the job- but it would make them much more relateable.

And if you need name suggestions, 'Puck' would work just fine, heh... the name's public domain (Gargoyles took him from A Midsummer Nights Dream), and it would certainly fit. He is part of the collected body of myth, and has a built-in nasty boss in the form of Oberon and/or Titania. Others that might work would be any of the various trickster deities (Coyote, Rabbit, Raven, Loki, Hermes... drawing a bit of a blank as I head East, but you get the idea).

Here's what he/she looks like of it helps

http://kamikamiya.deviantart.com/#/d4v6o2m

Write the character in a way that pleases you. How annoying or liked a character is is a very subjective issue and cannot be written in as a character trait. You can't control how the audience reacts. I for one never found the Great Gazoo annoying, or practically any reality warper for that matter, with one exception. The point is, you can't please everybody, so focus on pleasing yourself.

If he's more of a mythos figure, rather than one that needs to interact with the main cast, you could easialy have fun with this by not having him ever appear on screen, and just showing the chaos caused in his wake.

I think people hated Gazoo because he was an arrogant dick.*

Try not making him an arrogant dick.

edited 8th Apr '12 11:42:31 AM by Wheezy

^ Writing a good character is not about not making them an arrogant dick, it's about them not being immune to the inevitable dislike other characters will have for them and being called out, or at least it be clear to the audience that the characters behaviour doesn't make them 'cool'- for example a character your 'supposed to hate' Sounds obvious, but the prevalence of the Jerk Sue trope makes it seem that this isn't quite as obvious as it should be.

edited 26th Apr '12 8:24:23 AM by Mysterics

Inari is one to think on. Trickster all the way, but in a good way... well, most of the time. Inari tends to play around to prove a point. If you don't find the point, well, your fault for being think, no?

I agree with the suggestions and think they sort of divide into two main points:

1) You can make the character less annoying by making them genuinely likeable and pleasant, or at least compelling. That way even if they're overpowered the audience feels less resentment.

2) You can make them less annoying by giving them challenges and limits; even if your protagonists can't challenge them, make it so something can. Maybe a jerky boss like Chameleon said, or an 'order' themed counterpart, or some kind of curse, compulsion or inviolable geas to which they're beholden. Or just make it so they're visibly vexed or frustrated when things don't go according to 'plan', or when people call them out on their bullshit.

Ultimately I think what's annoying is when the audience wants to kick a character's ass but the story seems to be unfairly protecting them from the cosmic justice we're accustomed to. In a way that's kind of just us being childish though.

edited 26th Apr '12 4:57:23 PM by Kesteven

Personally, the reason I disliked gazoo and mxipltxppdkanfnabf (wots his name from the superman/DC mythos) was their Attention Whore tendencies. One could argue that Personality Powers makes this par for the course, but Q at least hid his lust for attention behind games and tests, however rigged they were.

Giving attention to a fun character is all well and good, but it can impede the actual plot and remove attention from the main characters.

Were I writing the imp type character id make them a bit more subdued/careful, less bombastic. Thats not to say energetic, loud characters cant be intelligent or thoughtful or even subtle, but I'd make it the main current of their personality. If it fits you could make it more "games with rules" rather than "tricks and pranks"

In summation- Q was an arrogant dick, but the way he was written kept the focus on the main characters, not necessarily on Q, which is why he's generally more fondly remembered than your other examples. If you want to make them "less annoying" don't let them eclipse the main characters/plot.

edited 27th Apr '12 6:34:04 AM by CleverPun

I was actually thinking of Q as an example of a super-annoying character, but ymmv I guess, I'm sure there are much worse. I agree with the point though, a trickster character should generally be there to support and highlight the main cast, not outshine them. Q's misanthropy, nonchalance and temper made him an excellent foil to Picard, who was the opposite.

Although it did help that Picard 'beat' him most times they locked horns, not sure I would have been able to tolerate him if it were the other way around.

edited 27th Apr '12 10:52:21 AM by Kesteven