How to make a Misanthropic Character likable?

Drunk, nrj, I don't suppose you could continue this debate in P Ms? It has gone past off-topic twice over.

It has become a bit dominating. I'd like to say though that I'm still not convinced. We have this guy, and everyone around him sucks, so he forms a belief that everyone in the universe sucks. Then he meets someone who doesn't suck. Initially, he clings to his original belief, refusing to believe they're good, and suffers for it. Then he adapts his view and accepts them, and benefits from it. The moral is essentially a caution against premature inductive reasoning. His mistake was thinking 'everyone sucks', rather than 'these guys suck': Humanity as a whole turns out to be better than he thought, because some of it, rather than none of it, is good. That seems acceptable to me.

Also it's true that many JerkassWoobies are wangsty, but I don't think it's necessary that they have to be. Wangst is whiny angst; a character can be sympathetically troubled and that's fine as long as they don't go on about it. Best of all, have them be completely unwilling to ever complain or admit they have any kind of problems, despite obviously being driven by unfulfilled emotional needs. Taken to extremes that too may be a bit on the dark and gritty side but my point is a balance is possible, someone can have problems that make them lovable without being especially dark or annoying.

edited 17th Oct '12 12:21:45 PM by Kesteven

I'll admit that I'm coming from a preexisting disdain for the 'woobie' phenomenon here.

Eh, you can take it too far. I don't much care for characters whose primary purpose is to be pathetic, but a dash of pathos is a good ingredient for a sympathetic character to have and to achieve that it can be useful to take a page from the woobie manual.

Look at Red Forman in That 70s Show. A Jerk with a Heart of Gold with Hidden Depths.

Also Squidward.

Don't have him all in your face about it. Just have them like any other character.

To be likeable he could hate all people for the things about people that tick all of us off. If the reader thinks to themselves "oh I HATE it when someone does that" then they can perfectly empathize. What comes to mind is Mr. Smith from Shoot Em Up and Chris Rock's line "Who's more racist, black people or white people? Black people,you know why? Because we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people!"