Are awesome protagonists harder to write?

That's an inexcusable lack of self-awareness on my part. I certainly didn't intend to express such a sentiment, and I wasn't feeling cocky or anything. Far from me to propose that I have the writing ability to plot and flesh out such a thing; ideas are merely the easy part. Nevertheless, I'd appreciate it if you could use a less hostile tone before what amounts to a well-intentioned, innocent mistake.

Let me put forward a concept that already exists and is fairly established. The Bad Ass. Specifically, the Super Hero. Even more specifically, Superman. His major advantage is also his major problem is he is too powerful, and that his sense of morality compels him to use that power for what he understands to be the good of all. He must constantly hold himself back in a world that might as well be of cardboard. Thou Shall Not Kill conflicting with Joker Immunity and Cardboard Prison is the least of the moral dilemmas he has to face every day. He could unilaterally rid the earth of nuclear weapons altogether and thus erase the atmosphere of fear that pervaded the Cold War, but should he?

Here's another one: Lupin The Third. And, for that matter, Arsene Lupin. He is awesome in every possible way, save for the fact that he is a criminal. He is often more honorable than the people he robs, is funny as hell, and is almost always successful.

How about King Leonidas from Three Hundred: a man who the imposible and more for his people, laying his life (and many of his enemies') for them, and who has no flaws by the standards of his own culture.

How about El Cid, the coolest Real Life Knight Errant to have ever erred?

How about Magister Negi Magi, who is cute, a genius, a bruiser, an extremely moral person, and a Memetic Sex God?

How about The Legend Of Korra, the awesomest awesome girl to have ever awesomed?

So, yeah, writing an awesome protagonist is storytelling so basic and ancient it's almost forgotten in this era of Anti-Hero and Deconstruction.

I think the main pitfall is not to make them godlike awesome, because a protagonist is either a self-insert to identify oneself with (and therefore Standardized Leader and other kind of blandness occur, Tin Tin being a perfect archetype) or a charismatic figure whose story you care for and want to follow. Identification or Sympathy. You can have neither if the character is too unrelatabale.

So inhumanly beautiful things such as Kaleidoscope Eyes are to avoid, because they make the protagonist alien and unreachable. Excessive beauty (if it's made a big deal of for its own sake rather than as a narrative tool) or intelligence (if he flaunts it in such a way that the reader can't follow and isn't entertained, like in Stand Alone Complex; that's why it's often a villain trait) can have this effect. But raw power and strength, strangely, don't.

Neither does Having things in the story go too easily their way is also a hindrance to the story, but that's not the fault of the character but of the story's designer; it'd be like a videogame where the difficulty of the opponents is not calibrated to the stats of the Player Character. Then, it's not the character that's uninteresting, but the conflict.

So, yeah, if you want to give Frodo a Lightsaber, go ahead, but you should give Sauron a Death Star... or at least cause Frodo to worry about finding batteries, or cutting himself, or drawing attention...

The old Let's See YOU Do Better! argument? Sorry, but my time is taken otherwise, and even if it weren't, the fact that I manage to pull it off proves it can be pulled off, but the fact that I don't (most likely) doesn't prove that it can't.

Either way, it has no bearing on whether awesome characters can't be believably interesting, or even harder to write than lame characters. For now, I believe burden of evidence is on those who believe awesome characters are not workable as interesting, given the immense body of evidence to the contrary (basically every Bad Ass and every

So, harder to write than what, again? Lame characters? Those can be repulsive, and turn a reader off. Angst Aversion. Downer Ending. Suffering and mediocrity should be unappealing. The Everyman and other creatures of averageness? Those can be dull, boring, and bland. And turn a reader off.

Tropes Are Tools. It's all in the execution.

edited 27th Sep '12 4:00:13 PM by TheHandle

It was hard to not think that you meant it as self-promotion, considering the fact that there are (as you just reeled off) many other ways of proving your point without invoking your own nonexistent work. But I apologize for leaping to conclusions.

(Also, the tolerant reference to Men Act, Women Are set my teeth on edge, so I was going in with a negative bias anyway).

Well, I don't think I have a moral obligation to express outrage or repulsion to every questionable trope in existence. Part of the audience thinks Evil Is Cool (which I find idiotic to the extreme), but I don't complain about the trope or appeal for its subversion every time I see it.

Men Act, Women Are is a deeply ingrained cultural mentality, a Double Standard from the audience itself. Nowadays you can get away with a proactive woman if you play your cards right (and you probably won't get away with having her be terrible at attributes the way people like, say, Kratos or The Darkness are), but a man who is all attributes, no matter how beautiful, nice, generous, caring and so on he is, will raise some eyebrows at best. And while I myself am a determined equalist , I can't expect to be Preaching to the Choir on this topic on every occasion, and so I acknowledge the realities of the current panorama of fiction, while in no way endorsing them.

edited 27th Sep '12 4:09:00 PM by TheHandle

Well, I guess that makes us different, then.

The reason why people enjoy watching horrible people do horrible things in fiction is related to why most actors love playing villains: There is something exhilarating about letting your Shadow out to play, at least vicariously.

...Mmm, nope.

Villains have many aspects that can appeal to me; catharsis isn't one of them.

edited 27th Sep '12 6:21:02 PM by nrjxll

Not for me. I can't say I see the appeal. It's awkward enough when I allow myself to partake into the righteous fury of good heroes; Fist Of The North Star always made me feel horrible. But villains I just can't follow.

Back on topic, I present to you one of the ultimate examples of the mary sue done right: Medaka Box. The eponymous character is Always Someone Better personified, but it's deconstructed to hell and back. She also grows a lot throughout the series.

This character already exists. He is Diarmuid ua Duabihne of Irish mythology and Fate Zero. Whether he's awesome or not I leave to you to decide.

I'm a little disturbed by the fact that you said Negima is a memetic sex god, considering that I was under the impression that he was about 10 years old...

He seems like a rather cool guy. Thank you!

Nothing New Under The Sun, right?

I do think they are harder to write in some aspects.

To give an example Superman and Batman. I remeber Bruce Tim even admitting having issues with him to the point he had to nerf (super whimp) him.Smallville handled him well but they also over relied on kryptonite from time to time

Challenging batman isn't that hard in comparision.

edited 8th Oct '12 7:43:58 AM by FallenLegend

Just steal his contingnency plans.

OR have him fight Spider-man http://www.screwattack.com/shows/originals/death-battle/death-battle-batman-vs-spider-man