Literature / Alternative Character Interpretation

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Alternative Character Interpretation in Literature.

The following have been moved to a subpage due to length;

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Specific Creators

From the various series of Rick Riordan.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians
  - One that runs through all the series: just how much have the Greek Gods moved from being Jerkass Gods? It is clear they aren't all smiles and rainbows, but a fan can get a lot of mileage about wondering what their specific deal is. Have they become less jerkass over time, or have they become better at hiding it and pretending to be a lot nicer than they actually are? Do they have Blue-and-Orange Morality by human standards, so trying to go 'good gods and bad gods' isn't quite tenable? Are the Gods just so complicated they can be both loving and distant in equal, genuine measures? Fans can run with a wide variety of interpretations.
  - One for Zeus specifically: Does he have an Inferiority Superiority Complex as the source of his behavior? He quarrels with Poseidon over who their mother Rhea likes better, is paranoid Poseidon is constantly plotting against him, demands respect when no one respects him, closes off of Olympus due to wounded pride in a later series, and tries to blame others for his mistakes while downplaying his own. He massive ego and demand people respect and obey him comes across as at least partially trying to cover up his own mistakes and knowledge he is a failure that no one likes, particularly compared to a non-senile Ra and Odin, who don't get mocked or defied nearly as much as he does.
  - Luke, the main antagonist of the series. He was a well intentioned Anti-Villain, but just how well-intentioned was he? Was he justified in his revolt against the Olympians? Keep in mind that the gods leaving behind their kids causes serious problems for the kids (a concept explored more in The Diary of Luke Castellan). If he was, then was he also justified in trying to bring back Kronos to stop them? On the other side of things, was his Redemption Equals Death moment in the last book really a redemption or did he end up a Designated Hero on his deathbed?
  - Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Heroes: Being told by Percy, one can assume that the different ways the stories are told compared to their classic versions are Percy's own take on the situation, or that they are actually closer to the truth than the more known stories (As Homer, Ovid, and the like had their own biases, just as Percy does and probably heard about them in universe second hand). Among the more notable different takes on classical stories is the story of Kallisto, whose expulsion from the hunters is framed as less a case of 'you got raped, sucks to be you' to 'you did not tell me up front what happened, I wouldn't have helped you if you did'.
- The Heroes of Olympus
  - Hera/Juno. Her characterization in this series as The Chessmaster differs quite a bit from in the previous one. Though this is actually literal, considering that the gods change to suit their culture. Juno is LITERALLY Rome's Alternative Character Interpretation of Hera.
  - Zeus/Jupiter. For the first four books of the series he's portrayed as having his head up his ass regarding the Gigantomachy. In Blood of Olympus he makes a reasonable claim that he was trying to avoid locking the demigods into undesirable fates by holding off the Prophecy of Seven. Of course, this doesn't stop him from misappropriating blame when it comes down to it.
  - Like most things with this version of Zeus the excuses sound good until you really look at it. Several of the giants had already risen before Zeus closed off Olympus and Apollo has no control over when prophecies are spoken making the war inevitable. Zeus is using this to try and avoid the fact his pride was hurt that mortals saved the gods from the Titans and he was trying to say the gods did not need mortals. If they had followed Zeus' "do-nothing plan," the gods would have made no preparations and been destroyed.
  - Of course, this is totally in-character for Zeus, both of the original mythology and the series.
  - It's arguable how much of Nico's observations about his social standing are accurate, and how much were him projecting. While we do have evidence of him unnerving people, we also have many periods where no visible distrust to him overall was present. He may have also been unnerved by dealing with Camp Jupiter, which has a more open, and visible, distrust of children of Pluto/Hades and that may have colored his perception.
  - Due to Percy developing a lot of self-loathing views on himself while in Tartarus and how good of a friend or oathkeeping he was, some theorize that being in Tartarus caused him to be overly critical and harsh towards himself. Tartarus is a place of torture after all, and Percy values loyalty and being a good friend more than anything. This would also explain the change in personality observed by Orion in the Blood of Olympus and Helios in the Burning Maze in the sequel series.
  - Just how much the Gods differ between their Greek and Roman forms in personality and memories is up to the reader, and in turn affects just how much Jerkass Gods they are to the reader, particularly in regards to Dionysus/Bacchus (the later who acts far worse and more jerkasss than his greek self ever did) and Ares/Mars (in the opposite direction).
  - The final book's scene where the gods react to the question of why they need heroes. Is that how they really feel and Dionysus was just lying in the Last Olympian, or is that how they are 'supposed' to feel publicly and privately they have their own thoughts on the matter? Was it just the phrasing of the question, or would they react the same way even in a better phrased context?
- The Trials of Apollo
  - Apollo's memories offer further perspective of the relationship between individual gods, it is debatable if Apollo is just looking through them with rose tinted glasses or not. Both with or without this perspective on Apollo's perspective, the bits and pieces leads one to consider the possibility the Greek Gods are a lot closer to each other overall than we first thought, with their worst behaviors coming from a single Toxic Friend Influence: Zeus.
  - Hades using the helmet of darkness to spook Apollo, frequently, can lead one to wonder if he always as withdrawn and distant as we saw him in the series, or if something (like Maria di Angelo's death) drew him to become a lot more distant and withdrawn. Like his own son's views on the matter, it becomes a question of just how much of an outcast he ever was, and if it only really applies to certain members of the family (like Zeus, Demeter, and Hera) who particularly dislike him.
R. L. Stine's work frequently delves into this. A full list of murderers in his work whose victims were emotionally and/or physically abusive would be too long to list here, but the end result is a fandom that adores the people they're meant to hate. One of the worst/best examples of this is Snowman, the killer of a child-starving, verbally abusive wife-beater who was so vicious his own family constantly wished he was dead. We're supposed to hate him (just like we're supposed to hate every other R.L. Stine killer) but instead people love him. The fact his own father was incredibly abusive and he sees himself as helping people when he kills someone has cemented his position as a battered and broken Anti-Hero in fandom.
For Alternative Character Interpretation of the works of William Shakespeare, please see Theater.

A-E

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:
- Did Alice actually go on an adventure, was it All Just a Dream, is she going insane, is she high, or are her parents and sister abusive? When she mentions that Dinah the cat will miss her, but not her parents and sister, does that mean they truly won't miss her and are thus abusive, or that she's just an Animal Lover and so zeroed in on Dinah?
- When the mouse tried to swim away at Alice's mention of cats, was he really offended like she thought, or was he just scared?
In Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, Patrick Bateman's lifestyle and social expectations within his yuppie circle has obviously made him unhinged. But how unhinged is debatable: He may have really killed his victims, or imagined all (or maybe some) of his horrible hobbies.
- The latter interpretation being supported in particular by his full-on police chase, where he escapes simply by running into a different building? A little too far-fetched to be real.
  - Literary critic John Sutherland observed that various references in the novel imply that the events of the novel take place around the stock market crash of 1987, the most traumatic financial event in a generation and one that even so narcissistic a Wall Street executive as Patrick Bateman ought to have noticed. Except that there is no mention of it whatsoever in American Psycho. Sutherland's conclusion was that Patrick Bateman has gone insane from too much stress and/or cocaine and has hallucinated the entire events of the novel.
Animorphs:
- Cassie. Is she The Empath who genuinely does not like to emotionally hurt people and persuades others to not hurt others as well, but did what she had to in a war where the stakes were humanity and Earth? Or is she a sadistic, hypocritical and manipulative bitch that will leap at the chance to put someone to the psychological thumbscrews if the opportunity arises? Or is she simply a bit of a moron struggling through the war?
- Tobias: Emo with wings, or The Lancer who, as he spends the first books unable to morph, is the only one able to objectively see the risks and benefits of each morph?
- Rachel, valiant and skilled fighter or unhinged psychopath (not so much alternate, as her slow drift into Blood Knight and PTSD is canon).
- Marco, The Lancer, tactical and strategic genius, or just an asshole who's only good for coming up with horrifyingly ruthless plans and complaining?
- Jake, skilled leader, hardened manipulator who use his friends as tools, or just some insecure jock who made everything up as he went along and led five child solders to their inevitable War-is-Hell mental breakdown? His decision to kill Tom is also open to interpretation: was it a Mercy Kill, was he putting aside his feelings for the greater good, or did he just want to get rid of his burden?
- David, a lost and confused boy who's had his life completely destroyed and doesn't know if he can trust his "saviors", or a ruthless sociopath who has no qualms about murder and doesn't give a damn about the human race as long as he's safe?
- And Taylor: Cold hearted torture technician or mentally damaged Broken Bird who can only express her bizarre love for Tobias by breaking the bird?
- Erek: admirable pacifist or manipulative hypocrite?
- Visser Three (aka Esplin 9466): Andalite-hater who wants them dead both because they're enemies of the Yeerk empire and because he's jealous of their natural freedom, or secretly an Andalite-lover who sees Elfangor as the one he admires most, plus harbors a twisted crush on Aldrea? Or possibly all of the above? Is he an incompetent villain that was only promoted because he got lucky and infested Alloran, or do his actions in the Chronicles indicate that he was once The Chessmaster with just as much ability to plan ahead as Visser One only for the power he gained when he infested Alloran to drive him to madness (or at least complacency)?
- How even was the war between the Yeerks and the Andalites? While most sources within the books claim them to be deadlocked and Earth as the keystone that will win the war, at least one article has claimed that there's a lot of clues that the Andalites were beating the Yeerks handily and Earth is more like their only hope for victory—if true, it definitely doesn't cast the Andalites in a positive light.
The Art of Racing in the Rain: Were Eve's parents Well Intentioned Extremists who believed that Denny wouldn't be able to adequately care for Zoey due to his career, or are they self-centered Jerkasses who wanted Eve's child all to themselves? The novel seems to sway towards the latter interpretation, given their rude attitudes towards both Denny and Enzo, as well as not providing adequate care for Zoey.
The first Artemis Fowl book deliberately aims for this by making sure that every time Artemis does the right thing, he can explain it away as Pragmatic Villainy. The psychiatrist who narrates the book argues that Artemis is a sociopath (though admittedly not a standard case by any sense of the imagination), and warns of the tendency to view him as more noble than he really is. Later books make him more of a hero, though.
- Him becoming a hero is explicitly stated to be character development. In the Eternity Code, just before the mind wipe, he says that he might become the monster seen at the start of the series. The next book reveals that he was right.
The novel Beetle in the Anthill by Strugatsky Brothers: is Abalkin really an innocent suspected because of bad luck and Sikorsky's paranoia, or has he indeed become Brainwashed and Crazy because of alien programming?
The Belgariad: Is Merel a shrewish, spiteful bitch who is making the worst out of a situation that could be a lot worse (which is what the characters believe) or a woman trapped in a marriage with someone she didn't want, who ends up bearing three children through what was certainly not consensual sex and who is treated like a spoilt brat by people who should be more sympathetic (which is what some fans believe)?
- Is Zakath a tormented person who was cruelly led astray, committed horrible acts and then later repents and becomes a good person, or a tormented person who was cruelly led astray, committed horrible acts, repents and then gets treated like someone who's made up for trying to commit genocide despite the fact that his army murdered thousands of people?
- Zedar. How in control of/aware of his actions was he while under Torak's control, and therefore how accountable should he be held for them? Was he a tragic character whose only mistake was thinking he could take on Torak on his own, as Zedar himself claims, or was he a Dirty Coward who used the mind control as an excuse to avoid facing up to all the terrible things he did? If it's the latter, then his final, And I Must Scream fate is Laser-Guided Karma, but if it's the former, then's both Disproportionate Retribution and cruel and unusual punishment on Belgarath's part. It certainly doesn't help analysis of his character that Belgarath, Polgara, and Beldin are all looking at him through an extremely personal and emotional point of view, and are therefore no way willing to look at him from any sort of charitable perspective, much less an objective one.
  - The story is at least somewhat aware of this, with Silk - no stranger to ruthlessness himself - being absolutely horrified by his fate.
The Big Brag by Dr. Seuss: Did the worm really have superhuman eyesight, or was he just lying to teach the other animals a lesson?
In Fred Saberhagen's Book of Swords trilogy, we are led to believe that Mark is the biological offspring of the Emperor, and that the idea presented in the First Book of Swords that Mark might have been the son of Duke Fratkin is just a red herring. If so, however, why did Saberhagen insert the passage about the hand-tooled leather mask, given the exact same description given as the one Mark's father wore the night of his conception, in Fratkin's castle? And why are Mark and Fratkin described physically in similar language: not very tall, of medium build, handsome, but not unusually so? What if the Emperor, needing a champion (or pawn, depending on how you look at it) to deal with the Swords, chose Mark because of his connection to Jord, and, in effect, adopted him? After all, presumably, the Emperor could extend to anyone the power to cast out demons.
In the second-last scene of A Canticle for Leibowitz, is Rachel a being born without original sin (as the book portrays her), a bizarre nuclear mutant with no understanding of the world around her, a hallucination caused by Abbot Zerchi's impending death, or some combination of the above?
The Catcher in the Rye: Holden Caulfield is either a tortured intellectual who is driven insane by the general falseness of people and his increasing isolation from them, or a spoiled, prudish, hypocrite, who doesn't know how to act properly in public. Or both? Or just, you know, a teenager?
- Another interpretation is that he is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to his brother's death of leukemia and his classmate's suicide while wearing his sweater. Holden does mention seeing his classmate's dead face several times, with little emotional reaction.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
- Did the naughty kids just accidentally have bad things happen to them, or did Mr. Wonka deliberately set them up to be punished that way?
- Did Grandpa Joe really recover from his frailty through sheer happiness, or was he faking it all along due to laziness?
A Christmas Carol:
- In the original story, Scrooge may have had a point with a lot of the things people take issue with. For example his admonishment to Cratchit to wear an extra coat rather than waste money on wood for the fire isn't actually an unreasonable demand, and in fact the UK government in 2008 advised people to do the same in order to save on fuel bills. Scrooge can be simply a pragmatic if somewhat hard businessman. On the other hand, Cratchit "boasted no greatcoat", meaning he couldn't afford one overcoat, much less two. It's Scrooge's responsibility as the employer to keep the office at a livable temperature, and he has ample resources to do so, but he doesn't (Dickens makes a point of describing it as very cold, not just less than comfortable).
- Scrooge's thriftiness was what allowed him to become a philanthropist at the end of the novel. He is deliberately contrasted with his well-meaning but impoverished nephew. As Margaret Thatcher once remarked, nobody would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he had merely had good intentions; it was because he also had the money to back them up that he was effective. (In Real Life, there are numerous examples of ruthless businessmen turned public benefactors: Lord Nuffield, Andrew Carnegie and, some would argue, George Soros and the Koch brothers.)
- Exactly how rich or poor is Scrooge's nephew? We have only Scrooge's perception to indicate that his nephew is "poor." Scrooge is so insecure about money, apparently, that he has a distorted idea of what "poor" means, since what we see of the nephew's household and lifestyle looks comfortably middle-class. Certainly nothing like the Cratchits' real poverty. And Scrooge's nephew does make a practical effort to help the poor in at least one instance, the incident in the Future segment where he offers to help Bob Cratchit's family.
  - In addition, one thing that often gets overlooked is that Scrooge is old—the story's set ca. the first half of the 19th century, and he'd easily be old enough to remember, and have suffered in, the economic hard times that came with The Napoleonic Wars and afterwards. Some Great Depression survivors exhibited behaviors not too dissimilar to Scrooge, although not so extreme. If Scrooge remembered those times vividly, he might have been tight with his money because he never lost the fear that they would come back.
- Was Scrooge really that old? In the last flashback where we see his ex-fiancée, Belle, it is set seven years before the "present" time, and she has a little baby. Even if Belle was around 45 when she had the baby, and assuming Scrooge was no more than five years older than Belle, that would put Scrooge's current age in his mid-to-late fifties. Of course, his constant scrimping on food, warmth and, presumably, medical care could have "aged" him...
- Additionally, Scrooge's visions may have been the result of a neurological disorder called Lewy Body Dementia, rather than an actual supernatural event. Or Scrooge could have been right and it could have really been hallucinations brought on by food poisoning or something. The events (and their story progression and chronology) are confusingly phantasmagoric in a drug-trip-like way and it's difficult to tell exactly what may really be going on.
- And then there's this, which... is probably intended as humor, though with the Von Mises Institute it's often very hard to tell.
- Before his death, was Marley just as bad as Scrooge, worse, or better?
- Were Scrooge and Marley just coworkers, or friends? If the latter, was Scrooge not removing Marley's name from the sign really just because of his stinginess, or was it for sentimental reasons and he used the expense as an excuse?
- Was Scrooge's father neglectful due to being too focused on his work, very poor (like Dickens's own father), or grieving his wife?
- When Scrooge and Belle were together, was he already starting to become greedy and she was neglected by him, or was he just worried about having enough money to provide for her and she was selfish and didn't appreciate that? Or else, did Both Sides Have a Point?
Even though Edmund Pevensie, from The Chronicles of Narnia, is a jerkass Anti-Hero that does a Heel–Face Turn in the first book, his personality is quite ambiguous and hard to define in the rest of the books and especially the movie versions. While he is on the good side in the second and the third parts, many factors like his Deadpan Snarker tendencies and his dark thoughts that seem to be brought to surface in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader several times still reveal traces of his Anti-Hero mode. He's the only character who has a page specially dedicated to his personality.
- At the end of the final book, is Susan Pevensie someone who lost faith and has become 'a rather silly young woman' as the creator himself said, or is she the only one who grew up and became an adult while the others a clinging to a childhood fantasy?
Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM! — Dirty Coward with gobs and gobs of luck — both good and bad — and a self-interest so enlightened you could illuminate a city with it, or amazing hero with a perverse streak of humility and a reasonable degree of prudence (which is a virtue, after all)?
- Or, he's a bit of both and the most pious Commissar in the history of the Imperium. Just look at how much he talks about "Emperor-botherers" and how The Emperor has much better things to do than keep an eye on him, and so he should do as much as he can to ensure his survival to allow The Emperor to focus His attention elsewhere, where it's needed.
  - Because of the POV of the novels, actually he could be anywhere on the continuum; it would be impossible to rule out any such reading.
  - Especially since the Shrug of God has occurred. Sandy Mitchell admits he does not know whether Cain is selling himself short.
Cobalt Blue: Do the ordinary citizens of Russia really love the Fury of Russia for reconquering the former Soviet states in spite of how he publicly engages in rape and murder? Or do they live in fear of an indestructible madman who can and will kill anyone who angers him? The Info Dump about the two super families and the state of affairs in Russia is in the form of a magazine article that reads like a Propaganda Piece, but then again, a lot of the stuff in that article is true.
Does Conan the Barbarian get bored of the Girl of the Week and dump her between stories, or does he try to make their relationship work even after he inevitably runs out of money and has to sleep in a ditch, at which point she says enough is enough and finds someone more stable?
- Or does he dump the Girl of the Week because he can't get close to anyone after losing his One True Love?
The Other Mother in Coraline. Some say her only desire to eat children's lives; others say she's a Woobie who truly wants to love and be loved but just can't control her hunger. Alternately, she might not see the difference between loving children and eating their lives. Just like how she doesn't see the difference between loving someone enough to know what's genuinely best for them, or giving them everything they want.
Count and Countess presents a fictional relationship between Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory that transcends the time standing between them. While both characters are accurately portrayed as vicious and amoral, it's a direct result of childhood traumas: Vlad served as a Janissary while held captive by the Ottoman Empire and Elizabeth is an invalid and forced into a loveless, even abusive marriage when she's barely a teenager.
Cthulhu Mythos: Nyarlathotep is manipulating humans and seems to be trying to destroy mankind, but why? Is he merely doing his job by fulfilling the whims of the Outer Gods, or is he just a cosmic jerkass who wants to see the world burn because it amuses him? Or perhaps he hates his task of serving the Outer Gods for all eternity, and takes out his frustration by manipulating and destroying mortals? He is never given much charcterisation in Lovecraft's writing, but from what we know, all interpretations seem valid (he is stated to exist to serve the will of the Outer Gods, he is shown to show disdain for them, and at least in Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath he is clearly a dick).
- Or Dream Quest of the Unknown Kadath is about a Lawful Neutral guardian of order desperately trying to keep the cement-headed hero from screwing up the cosmic balance. Yeah, it's kind of a dick move, but Carter had repeatedly shown he wasn't willing to listen to reason or get stopped by anything else.
- With the lengthy list of authors who have spent time in the Mythos playground, reinterpretations of basically everything in it have become surprisingly common. Multiple authors have built books around sympathetic Deep Ones, for example.
- Azathoth, the absolute, yet completely mindless God of the mythos. Sleeping at the center of reality, he dreams the universe and all of its residents, including the other Outer Gods, into existence. When he awakes, existence as we know it will come to an end. Is he actually a metaphor for the reader?
Curious George: What exactly was going on with the "sad little Besty" featured in "Curious George Goes to the Hospital?". Was she severely ill, or simply Afraid of Doctors?
A novel in the Dalziel and Pascoe series, Deadheads, features a lead character, Patrick Redpath, whose enemies have a tendency to have fatal accidents with seemingly perfectly natural explanations. He's either the luckiest man in the world, or an incredibly skilled psychopath.
Dangerous Liaisons:
- Are Valmont and Mme Merteuil just bored aristocrats who don't know when to stop, consequently ruining their own and other people's lives?
Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
- Greg often claims that his parents and grandmother favour his little brother Manny. However, is this true, or is it just that they baby him due to his young age and Greg perceives it as favouritism out of jealousy?
- Speaking of Manny, he's a Bratty Half-Pint but is it just a phase, a result of the aforementioned coddling, a psychological condition, or legitimate evil? A common point of debate is him turning off the power during a blizzard as the result of a tantrum in "Cabin Fever" — was he really malicious, or was it that, due to his young age, he didn't know how dangerous that would be?
- Albert Sandy's main shtick is telling Greg, Rowley, and other students wild, untrue things. Is he lying, or is he very gullible and actually believes his wild stories?
- Is the story Frew tells in "Old School" about his father forcing him to study against his will true, a lie, or an exaggeration?
Dinosaur Vs: Did Dinosaur wet himself at the end of "Dinosaur Vs.", and that's why it was a "close one" and "the potty won"? Or did the potty win by Dinosaur giving in and using the potty despite him not wanting to, and "close one" referred to him almost winning?
There are some fans who believe Carrot Ironfoundersson of the Discworld books is actually the Chessmaster, playing a long (if not unfriendly) game with the Patrician. The fact that, unusually for a Discworld character, we hardly ever hear his thoughts but must rely on the perceptions of others, does make you wonder...
Divergent:
- Is Tris a brave, compassionate, sharp but self-doubting heroine who is worth rooting for, or is she an angsty, self-absorbed person with little human decency despite her upbringing, and some sort of constant mild concussion that blinds her to the bleedin' obvious?
- Was Eric's eulogy to Al a sincere Pet the Dog moment, or was it a lie simply to make himself look good? While Tris thinks it's the latter, Living Lie Detector Christina didn't point it out.
In Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan, the author reinterprets the (in)famous Anti Heroic The Casanova as a Cosmic Plaything who is so handsome, it's a curse and gets screwed over by dozens of women, some with less than admirable motives. (The author could sympathize with his hero on that.)
Don Quixote: In part II, chapter XI, Don Quixote found a car carrying several actors dressed as devils, angels, emperors, death, Cupid, etc. When they explain that they are mere actors who are dressed to represent the play of 'The Cortes of Death', Don Quixote says: "By the faith of a knight-errant," replied Don Quixote, "when I saw this cart I fancied some great adventure was presenting itself to me; but I declare one must touch with the hand what appears to the eye, if illusions are to be avoided. God speed you, good people; keep your festival, and remember, if you demand of me aught wherein I can render you a service, I will do it gladly and willingly, for from a child I was fond of the play, and in my youth a keen lover of the actor's art." Several critics have toyed with the idea that Don Quixote never lost that passion for theater and behaves like an actor: he does not believe himself to be a knight, but pretends to be one, as if he's on stage.
- Or, perhaps since others do not "touch with the hand what they see with the eye", Quixote isn't mad at all, he really is a knight, and They Might Actually Be Giants.
- The actors themselves can have an Alternate Character Interpretation applied to them. Are they actually actors and Quixote is mad, are they actually actors and Quixote is sane, or are they malevolent (or just eldritch) spirits who think it's great fun to mess with him and his associates' view of him whether he is mad or not?
- The Quixote has as many as humanly possible. Here are some of them:
  - Sancho is pretending to believe Quixote and following him out of his own interest.
  - Sancho is as mad as Quixote.
  - The Quixote is not really mad, he's the only lucid guy in the book. After all, he is the only one who realizes that he is a fictional character. He is just in the wrong genre.
  - On the author side, one of them states that Avellaneda, the guy who wrote a sequel to the Quixote before Cervantes did, was actually Cervantes himself, writing a horrible sequel of his book on purpose.
  - And don't get me started on Dulcinea or the narrators.
The Dracula Tape presents the events of Dracula from the eponymous vampire's point of view, suggesting that he was actually a good guy who, due to various misunderstandings and the active maliciousness of some, keeps being hounded by the 'good guys' of the original novel.
In Dragaera: Sethra Lavode: Evil Enchantress prone to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder or Fairy Godmother and Guile Hero always looking out for the good of The Empire? Adron e'Kieron - The Evil Prince or a Well-Intentioned Extremist? These two are actually brought up by Paarfi.
- Just don't mention that first interpretation of Adron to Aliera or Morrolan. Unless you enjoy being dismembered. And Sethra... well, Sethra may well be both, particularly given the fact that we know some aspects of her personality have reversed completely several times over the course of her very, very long life and unlife.
- Kind of a weird example since the more negative interpretation comes from the narration of that character himself, but Brust recently produced a story narrated by the Dzur Telnan, found here that presents a quite different picture of him than the one that was presented in Dzur. Unlike the Telnan in Vlad's narration who was a harmless ditz (with some Blood Knight qualities), in his own narration, Telnan is still kind of quirky, but he's also frankly kind of Ax-Crazy. The story is about how he came across his Great Weapon, which is a being of pure evil that wants nothing but wanton slaughter. Telnan wins it over by convincing it that he's a kindred spirit and that if it sticks with him, it will get plenty of opportunities to kill (the two compromise- the sword wants to kill innocents; Telnan promises it the "less than fully guilty").
Paladine in the Dragonlance novels is ostensibly the god of majesty, law, and nobility, but this can just as easily be seen as a long-running con played by the trickster god who is really the patron of outsiders, exiles, rebels, and forbidden love. Consider that every single one of his mortal champions have been outsiders, misfits or damaged goods; that his mortal avatar is an apparently-senile pyromaniac wizard who is in fact the past-master of Obfuscating Stupidity; and that his dragon-mount at the end of the War of the Lance is senile, nearly deaf, and nearly blind.
- This interpretation gets a boost in "Test of the Twins," when one of the characters asks what Paladine was thinking, giving Crysania the power to help Raistlin open the Portal. By the standard interpretation, it's a damn good question and the answer given is weak at best. But if Paladine is the trickster patron of outsiders and rebels, well... Raistlin is the ultimate outsider-rebel, isn't he? And back in the Chronicles, Paladine and Raistlin always did seem to get along amazingly well...
- His avatar most definitely is a big trickster. So, what he did in Tymora's Luck (Forgotten Realms/Planescape novel) is very, very in character.
On the subject of the gods of Dragonlance, are the gods of evil really evil at all? Is Takhisis really the goddess of tyranny, for instance, or is she simply the matron of order, law, community, and self-discipline, in opposition to Paladine, who is clearly the god of freedom, rebellion, and individuality? Likewise, is Sargonnas really the god of vengeance, or of strict justice, in opposition to Mishakal, who is the goddess of mercy and compassion? Chemosh and Morgion are the gods of death and disease, respectively, but aren't those a part of life with their place in the natural order? Hiddukel is the god of greed, which is be destructive and productive, for without it, would people strive to improve their lot in life? Zeboim, as the goddess of the sea, can certainly be tempestuous and destructive, but, again, isn't that the nature of the sea, and necessary in various ways for life? As for Nuitari, as the god of dark magic, is he really the patron of evil wizards, or of wizards who are more willing to pursue knowledge in any form, even that which some would prefer be forbidden? In support of this interpretation is the simple fact that no less an authority than Paladine says that balance between the gods of light and darkness is necessary, and that life could not exist without both sides.
- Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman (who wrote the original Dragonlance novels, even if they didn't create the original D&D campaign setting) went on to write the Rose of the Prophet trilogy, where the 20 gods were divided into "good", "evil" and "neutral", each embodying 3 different good, evil and neutral attributes which they shared among themselves. It was a very complex system which fits this topic extremely well.
- There are some fans who believe that Raistlin was a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wanted to make the world a better place by overthrowing all of the gods.
  - The standard depictions are either that he's a spiteful chronic betrayer, incapable of love, interested only in his own power who abandons people to their deaths without a thought once they're no longer useful to him and considered himself high above humanity even before going on a quest to become an actual god - or he's a former bishonen nerd in a world that didn't appreciate that sort of thing, who was bullied all his life, including having people trying to burn him at the stake at least once, who tirelessly worked to aid the poor, downtrodden, and 'unspeakable' members of society without but met with nothing but suspicion and hatred. The Conclave of Wizards then tried to teach him "compassion" by making him even more set apart from humanity so that he was surrounded by death and decay at all times - so eventually, he goes Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds on them.
- Nuitari shares a home with the other two, at some weird three-realms demiplane — it's not like they can't stand the smell of each other's kitchen or something.
In-universe example in The Dresden Files: A pretty good chunk of the White Council isn't sure whether Harry is an insanely badass superstar slayer of evil with a propensity for doing stupid things or some sort of Magnificent Bastard playing them all for chumps and gathering an absurd amount of power for his eventual rebellion, since he was trained by a warlock, bends the Laws of Magic, defies the Merlin, takes another warlock as an apprentice, started a disastrous war with the vampires, and the like.
- Or, Harry Dresden, the weapon all too likely to go "bang"? Raised and taught to be a thug, skirts the Laws of Magic, draws his strength from his own terrible anger, tends to leave a wide wake of destruction behind him. Most people are afraid of him, but there are a few - Lara Raith, Mab, the Merlin, Uriel - who are all too willing to point him at their enemies and pull the trigger.
  - As the series went on, Harry's actions and narration began to spawn more out of universe discussion, too; this wasn't helped by his Unreliable Narrator tendencies and eternally pessimistic view of himself and the world. At this point, fans can argue he's good, evil, or any point in between.
  - He's a essentially good, if insecure, Determinator who's struggling against A Fate Worse Than Death ( the Winter Knight mantle), the trauma of almost being murdered by his adoptive father, and the deadly, paranoia-inducing Crapsack World he lives in. This is hinted at through the encouraging words of his True Companions- but they may well be biased- and the actions he takes to help people throughout the novels- though he could simply be lying about his motivations, or doing it to increase his own power over Chicago- and dialogue from a reasonably trustworthy source stating that the Mantle would warp anyone's desires to psychopathic extents, no matter how compassionate they were.
  - He's an arrogant, sadistic Blood Knight who manipulates everyone around him for his own purposes, is only tolerated for the magical protection he gives Chicago, and verges on rape twice in Cold Days. This is supported by Harry's inner narration, in which he is always quick to point out his flaws or possible pragmatic motivations; the conversation he has with Mab in which Harry acknowledges he may be The Svengali to Molly, and the fireball scene in White Night, depending on your opinion.
  - He's a Chaotic Neutral who cares for his friends and daughter and would sacrifice his soul to save them- but doesn't care all that much about other people. Verges on Well-Intentioned Extremist sometimes.
  - He's a male Broken Bird and his actions in Changes were done out of a desire to die and end his pain. Unfortunately, it didn't work.
- The White Council is itself subject to this, both in universe and out. Are they, as Harry believes, a bunch of reactionary elders who occasionally mean well, but generally do more harm than good; the only thing protecting the world from demons, monsters and dark wizards (as Morgan believes); a group of cowardly weaklings who neglect the world (as Harry's mother thought); or is their purpose simply to preserve the balance by preventing magic-users from intervening openly in everyday society (Luccio's view).
- Does Lasciel really care about Harry or is she just manipulating him?
  - This actually answered in universe. There are two separate beings: the fallen angel Lasciel who's just interested in using Harry, and Lash, the psychic imprint of her left in Harry's mind, who Harry is able to change enough that she genuinely does care about him.
- Another one that's debated in-universe is how much free will Nicodemus has. Most of the Denarians end up as slaves to the Fallen Angels they serve within only a few years of taking up a coin. However, Nicodemus has had his for at least 1,500 years and seems to have maintained his own will. Nicodemus himself claims that he and his Fallen, Anduriel, work in concert, and Nicodemus is such a Magnificent Bastard that Anduriel trusts him to run things on his own. Michael, on the other hand, believes that no Fallen Angel would ever submit to a human, and Anduriel simply controls Nicodemus through more subtle means.
It's hard to argue that Cathy from East of Eden is despicable, but in many forums the question arises: what was her Start of Darkness? Was she really rotten from the beginning? Or was she Molested for Real in that shed (with boys; she is described as being in genuine shock then) and her later promiscuous (and destructive) behaviour stems from this? Or, as many conclude given modern understanding of psychology, was she a victim of Parental Incest, and her behaviour in the shed was just reenacting the abuse? The latter would make her killing her parents later to run away and become a prostitute much more plausible.
A number of readers suspect that Eleanor "from Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine" is on the autism spectrum.
Ender of Ender's Game: misunderstood victim of forces beyond his control, or tiny naked Hitler?
- The above article makes some interesting points, but largely glosses over the fact that Ender is a pre-pubescent child throughout the original novel. For all his intelligence and maturity, he's still just a kid and, unlike Bean, unaware of the full context of his actions until it's too late. Not only that, he wasn't given enough information to even be able to comprehend the consequences of his actions. He was lied to, and didn't know that he was actually commanding real men in a real war. He was so disgusted with himself that he went into a comatose state for a few days, at least, and spent the next 3000 years trying to repent. He abhorred violence, despite the fact that he was very good at it, and was also devastated after his fight with Bonzo. The later revelation that aliens had been dissecting his dreams and trying to enter his mind for weeks leading up to the big moment, and that the military officers running the show did everything in their power to hide the truth from the kids for the specific reason that they needed the little tactical geniuses to never hesitate over loss of life (Human or Formic) during a battle (the officers claim that key battles were lost during the previous wars when commanders hesitated to order soldiers to their deaths, because the Formics don't). The article also makes it sound like "to be a killer, you must know you are killing" is a bad thing, even though it's what most people would think anyways. The claims that we never get a chance to find out the motives of Bernard, Stilson, Peter, etc. only Ender's, is somewhat moot when you remember that in all of his acts of violence Ender was acting in self-defence, while those bullying him were attacking out of jealousy. The claims that Ender committed genocide is highly suspect when you remember that the buggers are a hive-mind, meaning most of them aren't even sentient, so at worst it was large-scale animal cruelty, at best Ender caused a power outage. So yeah, Ender kinda is a victim.
- Oddly enough, this debate takes place inside the story's canon. Ender, the poor kid who saved the world, or Ender the Xenocide? It goes both ways depending on where you are in the timeline and how the Formics are perceived—which, itself, is a plot point.
- The point of the article is that the plot is a series of incredibly contrived circumstances where Ender can commit what, to the reader at least, feel like sublimely satisfying revenge murders, and yet always somehow walk away looking like a plaster saint because he's innocent on a technicality (even if that technicality is just that "he didn't enjoy it," or "he only meant to cripple them," or "he didn't hang around to watch the children he'd beaten to death actually die"). In-story, Ender feels guilty, but we the readers get to simultaneously enjoy a couple of savage murders, and then get the added bonus of feeling indignant that Ender would even blame himself for deaths that are clearly never, ever his fault. It's the ultimate revenge fantasy, getting to beat your persecutors mercilessly to death with your bare hands, and yet be magically blameless for the deed. The article argues that this is not a good fantasy to indulge in.
- Complicating the matter with Ender's killing of Bonzo and the first bully (who are the only people Ender killed directly), Ender would use excessive force in attacking them and (in the case of the first bully) kept beating them after he'd already won. At the same time, there was no intent to kill either of them, only badly hurt them, which makes the question of Ender's guilt in those issues much blurrier.
Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic
- Martin's habit of letting things go quickly when they are gone. Is he legitimately carefree and made it a habit not to get upset about these things, using them to not grieve over his dead wife or is he sociopathic with no empathy for anything that stays with him, including his family. Even Lorelai wonders if this is the case when musing on how he didn't seem all that affected. In the flashback around Molly and Lorelai's memory, it was shown that he did love his wife, and the feelings seem to have been mutual. But with Molly knowing how tired and stressed her mother was, Calliope might have been a Stepford Smiler to deal with the business and the idiocy of her husband. However, the series creator stated that the two of them balanced each other as people and parents, and Martin was the only person who could calm Calliope down. It’s equally possible that Calliope overworked herself because of her workaholic nature, and Molly just saw her having a bad day when she was overworked, which had nothing to do with Martin.
- Naven's true nature. It is implied his chauffeur is a member of Bliss Ocean, so is Naven in the dark about his bodyguard's true nature, or is he fully aware and a secret member? While being held hostage, he remains calm and manages to emotionally break Lorelai when he tells her he knows that she might have been responsible for her mother's death.
Mr Hoppy from Roald Dahl's book Esio Trot. A shy and loving man? Or a selfish Karma Houdini who blatantly lies to the woman he loves and remorselessly kidnaps her beloved pet?
In K. A. Applegate's twelve-book Everworld series, the witch Senna is often subject to this, helped in no doubt by her mysterious nature and withdrawn personality. Some fans perceive her as an emotionally complex Jerkass Woobie who was never loved, leading to her becoming an antisocial outcast who uses power as a substitute for the love she'd never gotten. Some fans perceive her as an unstable, amoral, murderous psychopath and a sadistic tyrant who savors tormenting and controlling others, incapable of love, trust, or true friendship, driven by an egomaniacal god complex to gain ultimate power at any cost. Others view her as a bold, intelligent, diligent, charismatic, empathetic, badass anti-heroine, a master of the human psyche, and a realistically portrayed emotional girl who genuinely cares about Everworld and wants to help the people there by removing the corrupt rulers in place, and who's only vice is maybe enjoying what she does a little too much. Whatever the case, she makes for quite an interesting character and a definite Ensemble Dark Horse.

F-I

Fangirl: Cath and Wren’s mother, Laura. Is she a well meaning woman who Married Too Young, did the best she could with two little girls and a mentally ill husband but ultimately couldn’t handle it, and is now trying to make things right after ten years, but having a hard time figuring out how? Or she a selfish person who can’t handle adult life and motherhood, blamed her problems on her family (Cath mentions that she told them to stay away from college boys when they were under eight years old); and instead of stepping up to the plate, took the easy way out for ten years and is now only talking to them to get rid of any lingering guilt? Her leaving Wren in the hospital implies it’s the latter, but in the end, it’s still ambiguous.
- Is Wren’s roommate Courtney a ditzy but good person or a bad friend to Wren? Wren already had issues with alcohol in high school, but they worsen with Courtney to the point of hospitalization and her father staging an intervention. When that happens, Courtney doesn’t help her in any way, and their relationship becomes increasingly strained after Wren recovers, to the point where they go their separate ways after freshman year.
The Fault in Our Stars:
- Some readers dislike Augustus, claiming that his grandiose mannerisms and his love of metaphor make him grating and pretentious, but others argue that he was meant to be written that way, because wanting to be impressive and memorable is an established character trait of his.
  
  There's also the interpretation that he's mainly interested in getting Hazel into bed. He's a teenaged boy knowing he might die (and for the majority of his time with Hazel knows he's going to die) and he's only pursued girls he knows were dying, suggesting to some that he's not interested in a relationship (and that he perhaps hopes they will be easier to get into bed since they know they won't get too many opportunities to try it). This interpretation seems common among readers who found his courting of Hazel shallow and the relationship itself lacking in depth and being mostly about two hormonal teenagers finding each other attractive. Also there's his comment to Hazel that he hopes bringing her to Amsterdam might get him laid, which some interpret as not actually being in jest. As to why he doesn't dump her once they've done the deed, it can be argued that as his illness progresses he wants to keep her close because she offers him comfort, or that he hopes he will get to sleep with her again.
- Some readers also dislike Hazel, feeling that she holds herself to be better than everyone else, is very judgmental, puts down other people's emotions instead of showing empathy and that she is extremely self-entitled. The way she tells Gus to be appreciative of the life and people around him rubs these readers the wrong way, as it comes across to them as her invalidating his (perfectly understandable) desire to have a larger life than what he got. On the other hand, Hazel does have a right to be a little offended since Gus is implying he doesn't feel their relationship is important.
- There are also readers who think Van Houten's behavior is pretty sensible to a Reclusive Artist whose privacy has been disturbed, especially since his experience makes him unlikely to extend politeness to Hazel and Gus just because they're used to Cancer Perks. On the other hand, he had all but promised to see them, and Hazel and Gus had no way of knowing that, and he was still inexcusably mean and insensitive.
- Monica's mother going back inside to allow Hazel, Gus and Isaac to egg Monica's car. Does she just not want to argue with the teens who have eggs? Does she give them a pass because they have cancer? Or does she also think what her daughter did was a dick move and feels this is a worthy comeuppance for her?
- Monica herself as to whether she should be sympathised with or not. On the one hand, she's just a teenager who had a panic that was at least understandable. On the other, it was insensitive of her to make a promise she didn't end up keeping. Everyone else doesn't really get mad until after Isaac's surgery when she hasn't even contacted him at all - which is what prompts Augustus to egg her car. It's hinted that even the girl's own mother is disgusted with her.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Are Duke and Gonzo wacky Counter Culture heroes sticking it to The Man and the squares, or a pair of selfish, irresponsible jerks?
Fifty Shades of Grey
- Christian Grey- Troubled, but Cute ideal man who loves Anastasia but has issues stemming from his past that make it difficult for him to get close to her? Or crazy Stalker with a Crush with severe control issues who is just using Ana for sex and to fulfill his urge to hurt others, and only uses his tragic past as a form of emotional abuse to keep her under his thumb?
- Anastasia herself- clever but naive young virgin who explores her sexuality for the first time with her true love? Or Domestic Abuse victim, nearly brain-dead poster child for Virginity Makes You Stupid, and someone pathologically threatened by blondes?
- Do Ana and Christian really love each other, or are they just each using the other to get something they want (a victim for Christian, wealth and sex for Ana), and don't really know each other or care about the other's personality?
- Grey's former sub Leila. Is she mentally unstable, dangerous, and obsessed with Christian, or is she merely an unfortunate victim of Christian's jealousy who was unjustly committed to a mental institution and became The Ophelia as a result of going among mad people?
Flowers for Algernon:
- When Algernon (a mouse) dies, does it mean the treatment killed him (and if so, does that mean Charlie will die too, or that it's more dangerous for mice than humans)? Or did he just die of old age?
- At the end, the "d" in "backyard" trails off, and the last few pages are blank. Does that mean Charlie died, or that he's now even dumber than before and is illiterate?
Frankenstein: There are two ways to see Victor Frankenstein — either he is a tragic and naive scientist who — in his enthusiasm — bit off more than he could chew and paid a horrible price and suffered too much for it and has every right to be emo OR a selfish asshole who tried to keep his PR clean by abandoning the monster and got what was coming to him and he's being whiny about it.
- There is a third way: he's a self-centered coward who ran from his creation not long after it was finished (the equivalent of a parent abandoning a newborn), and his agonizing over the course of the book is nothing more than an evasion of any and all responsibility for what he's done.
- And the monster is either a far bigger woobie than Vic could ever hope to be, abandoned by the only person he could possibly consider a parent, or a creature that really shouldn't have ever been created in the first place, and his pleas for sympathy are actually a sign of Manipulative Bastardry.
- Or the monster is a creature that shouldn't have ever been created in the first place, but it's not like that's the monster's fault, and he really just wants somebody to work with him to resolve what they all know to be a terrible situation instead of shunning him for existing, which is again not his fault. As you might expect, this rational and considerate attitude is met with fear and horror by everybody. The monster may not be a nice guy, but he did nothing wrong. An evil man who has yet to commit a crime is still innocent.
  - Nothing wrong but murder a child (William Frankenstein) and frame an innocent woman for it.
  - Presumably this interpretation only applies to before that point in the book.
- Or, yet ANOTHER way to look at it, the monster had the potential to be one of the greatest men to ever live (both a brilliant mind capable of learning to speak by listening to people from another room, and amazing physical abilities), but gradually lost any will to be a part of human society, and then eventually turned outright violent against it. If you interpret it this way, then Walton is there to provide irony: He nearly got his men killed trying to reach a place the monster could have WALKED TO. Imagine if he had become an explorer.
- Another interpretation is that the Creature never actually existed, and all the things that Victor claims were its actions were, in fact, his. This means that Walton hallucinated or dreamt the section where he meets the Creature, but some argue that this is more probable than the alternative.
  - That seemed to be the interpretation of Thomas Edison's film.
- Or yet ANOTHER way to look at it, both Victor Frankenstein and his Creature are tragic heroes and both mirror the fall of humanity. Victor Frankenstein starts out as a highly intelligent, well-meaning, and charismatic individual, but with no common sense. He is driven to create life and upon witnessing what he has done heartlessly abandons his creation, thus sealing both his own fate and the Creature's. The Creature starts with a Tabula Rasa that instinctively leans towards good (Rousseau Was Right?) but turns evil when he experiences discrimination at the hands of humanity. Neither is innocent; Frankenstein toyed with the forces of creation and then callously abandoned his creation, while the Creature murdered several innocent individuals, but neither is unsympathetic; after all, both lose everything until all they have left is to torment each other until they die.
The book Deconstructing Penguins applies some Fridge Logic to The Giver and points out that people don't lie unless they know what they are doing is wrong. The argument escalates until "Jonas is no longer running away from a place where everyone believes the same things and he's different. He's running away from a place of terrible corruption that desperately needs him as the one person who might be able to make things better." In-story, this is explained as the reason The Giver stays, and Jonas does not. One must leave for the memories to return, and the Giver is not as hale and is more experienced with comforting people.
Gone series:
- In both the fandom and the series, one of the most controversial questions is whether Astrid is a troubled but well meaning heroine who tried desperately hard to be the good guy or a manipulative, sanctimonious Icequeen who thinks only of herself, as Sinder put it. Like when she pushed her little brother out a window was she trying to save 200 children and bring back 200 more, or was it a selfish act when she should of been there for her defenseless little brother? Or did she genuinely love and care about Sam or was she just using him as protection? Did she think telling the whole town about Mary's bulimia was so she could get her some support and help and keep the littles safe, or did she do it because she saw Mary as a threat and wanted to distract from her own faults? Debatable stuff.
- Did Caine genuinely love Diana or was he just a manipulative dick who used her for sex? Who knows, as it's constantly being contradicted in Caine's POVS. one minute he's thinking about nothing but how beautiful and smart she is and how he wants to marry her, etc, etc, and the next he's dismissing her as a object or pawn, so to speak, with no interest in her emotions or well-being. Either way, it's riled many heated fan debates, especially after the elusiveness of Plague...
  - Light answers this question quite overtly. It would seem, yes, he sincerely did care for and love Diana. He just doesn't understand the concept of love without abuse. May be a darker take on the Tsundere.
- Was Howard manipulating Orc to get him money and protection, or did he have genuine concern and understanding for Orc?
- Fear spoilers; Is Gaia the premature corpse of Caine/Diana's daughter being possessed by the soulless gaiaphage, or is she still human somewhere deep down who is simply a victim?
- Was Mary Terrafino euthanized or the victim of divine intervention by the gaiaphage?
- ...Some fans believe that Diana pushed her mother down the stairs, and that it was not by any means a accident.
Gone Girl: Does Amy's difficult childhood give her a pass for all of the horrible things she does? Is she 100% insane, or is there still enough humanity left for her to potentially change? What about Nick? Is he crazy for staying with her, or is he nearly as bad as his wife? And perhaps the most difficult question of all... Do Nick and Amy genuinely love each other?
Gone with the Wind: Is Scarlett an amoral, greedy manipulator trying to steal someone else's husband and make herself rich, a pragmatic woman willing to do anything to survive a brutal world, or a repressed, bitter-yet-generous Broken Bird who suffers constantly from trauma/unrequited love/the shock of nearly starving to death? The debate over this is one of the oldest in American literature.
- Is Melanie really as naïve as Scarlett thinks, or does she know about Ashley's attraction to Scarlett and trust him not to act on it?
- Why does Scarlett envy Melanie so much? Is it because she's married to Ashley, the man Scarlett loves...or because Melanie embodies the 'perfect Southern lady' archetype that Scarlett was trained to be but could not live up to? (Canon uses the first option.)
- Rhett: A caring, politically progressive man unafraid to speak his mind, or a greedy, unashamedly manipulative rapist? Canon is clear that he's an Anti-Hero and The Trickster, but that doesn't really confirm anything about his morality.
Fandom portrayal of the angel Aziraphale from Good Omens fluctuates between "naive, easily flustered fop" and "good-natured being who's more cunning than he lets on" in fanfic, depending on how much the Fan Fic writers emphasize or downplay his canonically hinted-at devious side ("Just because you were an angel didn't mean you had to be a fool"). This also affects Crowley, who's either depicted as skilled in flustering and/or tempting Aziraphale, or having the tables turned on him by a more subtly manipulative Aziraphale (though for the greater good).
- Crowley also gets some varying interpretations. The most common interpretation is that he's a Noble Demon who genuinely enjoys doing evil deeds, so long as they aren't too evil, but an alternate one is that he only does evil because it's his job and secretly loathes the creature the Fall forced him into being (it's stated in canon that his Fall was unintentional).
Green Eggs and Ham: Is the guy refusing to eat green eggs and ham despite never having tried them before just being stubborn and childish, does he think the food is dangerous because it's green, or is he refusing to eat it because he (as he admitted at the beginning of the book) dislikes Sam?
Hell's Children by Andrew Boland, gets a lot of this, mostly due to most, if not all, the characters including the book itself, suffering from a mental illness, of sum sort.
How about The Hobbit, particularly the climax of the story? Thorin is frequently described as a 'jerk' given his actions there, but isn't he justified in refusing to negotiate under duress with Bard and Thranduil's armies camped outside? (Bard himself admits that Thorin has a point.) Likewise is Bilbo really whiter than white in this? He finds and pockets the Arkenstone without a word to Thorin, even admitting guilt to himself (okay, so the terms of their contract said he could choose his fourteenth share, but Bilbo admits he doesn't think it was meant to extend to the Arkenstone, and, considering its value it could be said that he took more than his share), then as soon as the going gets tough and he's feeling the loss of home comforts he betrays Thorin by delivering the Arkenstone to his enemies so they can blackmail the gold out of him. Likewise Bard who is otherwise the sole reasonable party in all this somewhat spoils it by suggesting a pre-emptive strike on the forces of the newly arrived Dain. The Elven king, who is supposed to be a good guy, first imprisons travellers who accidentally wandered into his realm, and then, when he hears of their demise, sets out to help himself to a share of their treasure, which he has no claim to whatsoever. You have to hand it to Tolkien that he gives a glorious ambiguity to all those involved in that debacle.
The Horatio Hornblower novel Lieutant Hornblower invites it with the perpetually-unanswered question of how Captain Sawyer fell down the hatchway. Bush considers that both Hornblower and young Mr. Wellard, abused by the captain in different ways, had motive and opportunity. Wellard is obviously pale, shaken, and nervous in the aftermath of the fall. Hornblower maintains a tellingly wooden demeanor whenever the question is put to him, even months after the fact. The subsequent board of inquiry hushes it up because they don't want the public to know that Sawyer was removed from command and died insane. The reader is left to ponder over whether or not it was in Hornblower's character as a young man to Shoot the Dog by incapacitating an unfit captain to prevent the necessity of mutiny, if Wellard took the opportunity to get back at his tormentor, or whether it really was an accident.
An inter-medium example appears in The Host (2008), in that the invading race of Puppeteer Parasite think of themselves as a race whose particular hat is being a Messiah, but the humans beg to differ, for obvious reasons.
The Hunger Games has quite a few of these.
- Was the anguish Cato expressed over Clove's death a Pet the Dog moment or was he just furious that he lost his last ally? Or is it both? Some think it's likely both.
- Katniss: Determinator or Sociopathic Hero Villain Protagonist?
  - In the last book, was Katniss's approval for the Capitol Games a Batman Gambit to catch President Coin off guard or was she geniunely vengeful after Prim's death?
- The Career Tributes in general: were they human sacrifices raised to die and thus the most tragic of casualties?
- Foxface's death. Many people suspect it was no accident but a deliberate suicide. Since she knew she was no match for the remaining four tributes, they opt for the quickest, most painless way to go and did it in a way that their family at home wouldn't get in any trouble.
- Peeta Mellark: Devoted star-crossed lover or obsessive Stalker?
- President Coin: Evil or a revolutionary leader doing what she felt she had to in order to keep a new prospective country stable?
  - The book itself seems to stress the Full-Circle Revolution nature of Snow and Coin, showing that they're both equally evil but Snow is worse than Coin in certain areas while Coin is worse than Snow in other areas. And the Capitol Games proposition seems to reinforce that if Coin got her way, nothing would really change. It would be the exact same world but with the Capitol and Districts' positions reversed. Coin, while possibly having a good excuse for it, was ultimate very power-hungry.
- During the talk at the beginning of Catching Fire President Snow seems for a moment genuinely concerned about the implications of a new war for the (relatively) few remaining humans, and he did promise not to lie. Of course his concern could always be more about his own hold over said humans than their lives themselves, and Snow has been known to lie: just not when he makes a promise, in which he is always bound to his word.
- Johanna: Flavours of Jerk with a Heart of Gold or Alpha Bitch? A good chunk of the narrative displays her negatively (in Catching Fire anyway), but many of her words and deeds suggest otherwise. At most, she's intentionally portrayed as a Broken Bird.
- Gale: Tragic Unlucky Childhood Friend whose long friendship with Katniss entitled him to believe a romance was possible, or manipulative Dogged Nice Guy who had no right to be pissed about Katniss "only" being his best friend?
- Madge: Was she in love with Gale or not?
A good many people see Patch from Hush, Hush as an abuser who breaks down Nora's will and mentally and spiritually rapes her with his hallucinations and when he possesses her at the end. Similarly, there are a lot of people that argue that Nora's love for Patch is just a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
Mia from If I Stay is actually a Spoiled Brat with a complete Lack of Empathy, who doesn't care about her parents, her brother, her boyfriend, or anyone else. A person who only actually cares about getting into Juilliard.
- She has angst about the fact that her parents don't "get her" when they not only used to be rockers (normal children often have dreams like wanting to be a writer when the entire family wants them to have a serious profession like being an accountant), but her parents literally put their dreams aside so she could afford to play her instrument, and all basically the coolest parents ever. How does she repay them? By acting gloomy, as if she has some horrible life. Her boyfriend pretty much loves her, her friends love her, and she in turn acts standoffish and cold. Her boyfriend says that he cares about her, and will miss her, she gives him a quick peck on the lips and walks in the other direction.
- When the crash hits, yes she certainly seems to be upset. But she has neither the decency to die and join her family, nor to really fight to live for those who remain alive. Instead, she seems to hang on indecision for the better part of 90 minutes, torturing her loved ones who clearly want her back. Her grandpa is on her deathbed begging her not to go, her various friends/relatives will adopt her (not to mention crying in front of her), and her boyfriend swears her will visit her if she goes away. None of this actually changes her mind. Even the memory of spending time with all her family and friends makes no impression in her decision. But being accepted to cello school? Life is worth living again! ^note
- I think you guys have the book and the movie confused. In the books, it wasn't confirmed Mia got into Julliard until the sequel, and her parents stopped being rockers after Teddy was born, a few years before Mia even got into the cello.
In The Iliad, Odysseus' character floats on the Manipulative Bastard line; sometimes it's good (with Thersites) and sometimes it's bad (with Achilles). Later Greeks (and Romans) were much less kind to the character. The Athenian tragedians tended to portray Odysseus as an amoral sneak. Euripides even blames him for throwing Hector's young son Astyanax off the walls of Troy, an atrocity more traditionally attributed to Achilles' son Neoptolemus. Both Sophocles (and Ovid later in poetry) rake him over the coals for destroying Ajax, though it's possible that Homer would have as well.
- Whether you consider what Odysseus did re: Achilles in the Iliad bad or good depends on whether you think the latter's egotism (wanting his allies to be hurt because of a perceived insult to his pride) is admirable. In the Iliad Odysseus is generally presented as one of the few Greek leaders who puts the common interest before the quest for personal glory, which is why Greek and Roman philosophers, quite unlike the Athenian tragedians, saw him as a positive role model. The Stoics in particular saw Odysseus as the symbol of a wise man who could not be worn down by misfortune. In later times, William Shakespeare presented Odysseus/Ulysses as the Only Sane Man in the Greek camp in Troilus and Cressida (which also presents a brutal Alternative Character Interpretation of Achilles as a coward.
- The Odyssey is a story about a man's fantastical journey, facing down creatures of myth, all on a quest to get back home, right? Maybe. Odysseus is established as the sneaky trickster of Team Greek. While there's a lot of low-key fantasy (Athena shows up and gives someone advice, Calypso's ever-youth), all the over the top stuff happens only in flashback, specifically, as Odysseus is trying to entertain the court of the noble he's just washed up in, telling the story of how he got there. After that, the poem shifts back to old-fashioned mayhem. So, Odysseus: great adventurer or Unreliable Narrator?
  - Actually, the salient points of Odysseus' account had already been confirmed by Homer's narration and the testimony of Athena, Calypso and Zeus himself in the early books of the Odyssey, so there isn't that much leeway for alternative stories without outright saying that Homer was lying. And seeing Odysseus as The Trickster may already be an alternate character interpretation.
  - Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, responds to Odysseus with [paraphrase], "Some might accuse you of lying. I say you tell the truth as a poet might." ... Which is tactful ancient Greek for "Dude, you're a DAMN good liar". The Greeks liked a good story, and never bothered believing it. Inverting that, when (at a dinner hosted by Menelaus for Telemachos and his friend, a son of Nestor) Helen tells a story how, while in Troy, she really, REALLY missed her home, Menelaus responded with another story of Troy, in which Helen told stories of home while walking around the Trojan horse (making Achaian soldiers weep with homesickness and almost cry out) with Daiphibus (your second Trojan husband, that handsome man). In short, she told a lie and Menelaus called her on it. The Greeks love their extended metaphors. Or similes. Fuck it, they love the subtext.
- One interpretation is that it took so long more because he simply didn't want to return. After all, given who he is and what he was through, what sort of a trade is ruling some sleepy town and a bunch of villages? Could the great trickster hero, after a chat with a goddess and the song of Sirens, be eager to settle on pigs' voices and drunk mumbling for the rest of his days? He has no choice but to evade his return as long as possible. Otherwise he would suspect he's a special guest of Hades already. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson was a fan of this interpretation and wrote a poem on it.)
Anti-fans of The Inheritance Cycle love to find new interpretations that subvert the good/evil conflict. So far, sites such as anti-shurtugal.com have concluded that Eragon is a sociopath, the Varden are terrorists and the original Dragonriders were a racist military junta.
Some of the characters in It's Okay to Say No are a bit ambiguous as to whether they were actually child molesters, or if the kids just didn't like how they were behaving (such as the milkman who put his hand on the girl's shoulder).

J-M

Jane Eyre:
- In Jean Rhys's prequel ''Wide Sargasso Sea' which is told from Bertha's POV, it is implied that Bertha didn't go insane until Rochester locked her up. Rochester became suspicious that his wife wasn't completely white and then played mind games with her until she cracked.
- Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?: More Puzzles in Classic Fiction by Sutherland discusses many literary details like this. The relevant chapter paints a very black picture of Rochester. Here Mr Rochester really thought that nobody knew about his wife and really thought that he could marry Blanche. After his brother-in-law scotched that (simply by threatening public exposure which would make the marriage impossible) he picked someone handy who was beneath the brother in law's radar, i.e. Jane. The brother-in-law found this out by coincidence. Then when we consider his treatment of his first wife (locking someone up in the care of an alcoholic is not going to help them recover) and the fact that after the war his injuries may be more heroic than disfiguring, we are meant to fear for Jane's future.
  - If she really was crazy and violent, perhaps keeping her in a clean, comfortable room with regular food and someone to watch her (most of the time), only physically restraining her when she became physically violent, was a better alternative than keeping her tied up all the time and feeding her scraps, as they may have done in some of the mental institutions of the day. It wasn't as if they really had effective treatments.
- Also, there is some speculation that Jane's unusual interactions with people are signs of her having an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (most likely Asperger's because of her skill at art).
"'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" from the Jungle Books is either a furry little hero who saves an innocent family from a trio of evil snakes or he's a thinly veiled metaphor for colonial forces taking over land that isn't theirs and killing any natives who resist. After all, the cobras were there first and were only trying to protect their eggs. Reptiles Are Abhorrent and What Measure Is a Non-Cute? at their best.
- Depending on how you read "The White Man's Burden", it's possible that he was intended to be a furry little hero by virtue of killing the natives who resist British.
- The "native" snakes were perfectly willing to kill the family to get rid of them and Rikki and ensure the safety of their own young, as well as be "king and queen of the garden", which is often left out of the "just trying to protect their family" bit. After Nag the cobra is killed, his wife attacks the family purely for revenge, instead of trying to move her eggs somewhere safer. Appeal to Inherent Nature doesn't work, because even Nag considers Rikki his natural enemy, who will eventually kill him and his family. Casting the cobras as the heroes of the piece requires a lot of...selective reading.
  - But even then, there comes the issue of What Measure Is a Non-Human?. In the universe that the story takes place, animals are at the same level of sapience as humans are, and yet "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" still places human beings at the highest level of worth. Considering that cobras lay several dozen eggs per brood, you could argue that the need of several dozen intelligent, sapient cobras outweighs the need of three intelligent, sapient humans. Nagaina was definitely the more twisted cobra of the pair, but what can you say about Rikki, who crushes dozens and dozens of the reptilian equivalent of a third-trimester human baby?
In-universe example in The Land of Stories. Conner’s presentation on The Boy Who Cried Wolf has this, with Conner stating that the boy was just a little kid who didn’t know any better and should have been supervised by his parents in the first place.
Left Behind's primary villain, the Antichrist, is constantly shilled for his speechmaking and diplomatic prowess, but in practice, this comes out as a massive Informed Ability (one of his more notorious speeches consisted primarily of listing the countries of the UN). This has led to a common interpretation of him being that, as the Antichrist, he has a Compelling Voice, and his poor speechmaking is just him seeing what he can get away with - he could walk up to the podium and fart the alphabet, for all he cares.
- He's also even more bound by prophecy than everyone else in the books - his actions are all spelled out by the authors' particular interpretation of the Bible. So does God have the right to send him to Hell for playing his part in the divine plan?
In The Legends of Ethshar series, is Tabaea in Spell of the Black Dagger the villainess of the story, or the heroine? Is she a sociopathic serial killer with a megalomaniacal need to dominate others, or a basically decent person who genuinely wanted a more just, egalitarian government that would uplift the poor and downtrodden of Ethshar? On one side of the ledger, she did cold-bloodedly murder a whole bunch of innocent people just to gain power. Then when she took power, she badly injured a harmless, senile old woman who just wanted to sit in the "pretty chair" that Tabaea had just claimed in the name of the poor and downtrodden. On the other hand, she also abolished slavery, and really did try to save the city from the Seething Death. There's also the fact that, before she killed any people, she killed several animals first. On the one hand, that's exactly typical of a sadistic serial killer: they start by torturing and killing animals before moving to people. On the other hand, Tabaea had never even thought about killing a person until she killed some animals, and she herself speculated that she might have absorbed the predatory instincts of the animals she had killed along with their superior senses and reflexes. Was she wrong? And why did she become bored with ruling Ethshar? Was it because she's a narcissist, and narcissists are generally prone to boredom, or was it because she never really wanted power in the first place? Maybe she just wanted to be loved and cared for. This is a woman who was neglected and effectively abandoned by her family at a quite young age, who never had any friends, and who never really found a place in the world. Was she just a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds? Or a Complete Monster who showed her true colors the moment she had any power?
- For that matter, what about Sarai in the same story? Heroine who liberates her city from a madwoman, or privileged child of an oppressive dictatorship who defeats a liberalizing revolution and restores the regime? Good detective or ruthless inquisitor? Consider that it comes as a complete surprise to her that an invitation by the Minister of Investigation and Acting Minister of Justice delivered by armed soldiers might come across more as a command than a request. Is she oblivious to how others see her because she is so privileged and powerful, or just because she's young and inexperienced?
Les Misérables:
- Fans argue endlessly about whether Eponine lured Marius to the barricades and then took a bullet for him for selfish or noble reasons. The musical has the Thénardiers, the villains of the book, being the comic relief, with Eponine as the tragic heroine. The 1998 movie version deems Eponine so unimportant to the story that she barely features at all.
- From Javert's point of view, Valjean's near-superhuman strength and history of bad behavior (theft, escape attempts, breaking parole, consorting with prostitutes, child trafficking...) potentially make for a very dangerous individual. Maybe he's just being a good cop in trying to keep a public menace off the streets.
- Enjolras: Asexual, gay, just focused on the revolution or something else entirely? And then there's the question of his opinion of/feelings towards Grantaire...
- Is Marius heroic or just a wuss? Is Javert good or bad? And opinions differ wildly about Cosette (usually depending on how people view Eponine).
Like Water for Chocolate: Many different characters
- Mama Elena. Is she really a cruel Evil Matriarch? Or is she just scarred and having trouble loving because of the death of the girls' father, and has hardened herself only because it's the only way she can protect the family and its land from the roving troops of federales and revolutionaries?
- Rosaura. Is she a brat who deserves everything that comes to her, or is she a Woobie who suffers a lot of misfortune (and neglect from her husband) so that Tita (who, granted, has many sympathetic moments) can be happy?
- Pedro. Is he a victim of society who married the eldest sister to be close to his love as a last resort? Or is he a weak, weak man who just want to obtain wealth and the woman he wants (he never even tries to elope with Tita)? Laura Esquivel may aim for both interpretations.
Linked:
- Is ReelTok withholding information he has about the tagger just to get more viewers for his channel, or does he have some grudge against the past and/or present townspeople as Dana briefly suspects?
- The Reveal that Pamela is the main Swastika tagger and is indeed motivated by racism raises some questions about what kind of subtle negative influences she might have over her circle of friends. Is her influence the reason that Michael thinks her longtime boyfriend Jordie is somewhat racist? And is it just a coincidence that her group of friends are enthusiastically involved in pranking a group of scientists whose number happens to include a Jewish couple and an Asian man while viewing their kids as outsiders?
Little Women: Jo — or Joe — March as a trans man. This comic makes a pretty good case for it. This does add a Fridge Downer Ending to the series, though; it's quite depressing to think of Jo(e) being trapped in a female identity for the rest of his life.
Lolita may be the preeminent example of this. While the general consensus is that Humbert is an emotionally manipulative man who words his abuse of Lolita in such a way to try to make the audience treat him with sympathy rather than as a sick pedophile, some interpretations posit that his narration is actually accurate, and that Lolita is an Enfant Terrible who takes advantage of the poor, weak Humbert.
- It couldn't possibly be that Lolita is an Enfant Terrible manipulating an emotionally manipulative pedophile?
  - "[Lolita is] not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child." — Robertson Davies, in support of the author's preferred interpretation.
- Given how Humbert manipulates everyone in Lolita's town, and how Lolita plays with him, the subtitle could be "What happens when an emotionally manipulative pedophile falls in love for a preteen who is even more manipulative?"
- When Humbert describes his "nymphets", it's pretty clear he's mostly attracted to young girls who have already been abused, quite possibly including Lo herself. This point of view can add a multitude of interpretations to her actions.
Love You Forever: Did the protagonist's mother actually die on-page, or is she still alive, but on her way out?
The Maze Runner: Is Teresa truly in love with Thomas and is sorry for what she did in The Scorch? Or is she actually a sociopath who manipulates Thomas' feelings for her to her advantage? She doesn't seem to realize that Thomas would be upset with her actions, opting instead to declare that she's done apologizing and he should get over it. It doesn't help matters when she goes over to Thomas acting all cuddly when he obviously wants his space. And also, was her Anguished Declaration of Love genuine, or was it a final mind screw to hurt Thomas since she's dying?
"The Metamorphosis": Some scholars have interpreted the story as though Gregor hasn't actually transformed into a bug, but has instead gone insane. His family would thus not be reacting to his transformation but instead to his bizarre behaviour and insect-like sounds. Supporting evidence for this interpretation includes the fact that the family's reaction to his apparent transformation is quite subdued (they treat it as a burden rather than an horrific and traumatising sight), as well as the fact that Kafka was adamant that Gregor's transformation never be depicted visually.
Miss Marple uses Obfuscating Stupidity — it's widely recognized by those who know her within her stories that she has a sharp mind under her innocent old-lady looks. But that's only if you don't include Nemesis. Nemesis is the only novel Agatha Christie wrote that depicted Miss Marple through Marple's own POV, and she comes across as a Genius Ditz there, at best.
- Nemesis is, however, written with Miss Marple as a very frail, very elderly woman, so she is aware that she's no longer as sharp as she once was.
- The Mirror Crack'd is also largely written from Miss Marple's POV, and she's as sharp as a pin.
Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal". The most common interpretation is that it's one of the most incisive satires ever written. There are those, however, who take it (and its solution to the problem discussed) completely at face value - some are Ax-Crazy, while others just fail at critical thinking. There is one small camp, though, that just believes that Swift meant it seriously because he was suffering from dementia - while he didn't develop full-blown dementia until later in life, arguments can be made that he showed some symptoms of it earlier.
- Or it's about eating babies.
- Clearly they were reading a different essay from me then, presumably one missing those paragraphs at the end where he lists all sorts of alternate solutions and declares that they couldn't possibly be implemented, with a tone so heavy on Sarcasm Mode it's a wonder the page didn't dissolve.
  - The clear interpretation is that he wrote most of it in a fugue, then revised it during a lucid period in which he realised how effective it would be.
The Mortal Instruments:
- Jace: Jerkass Woobie, or just plain Jerkass?
- Clary: Plucky heroine dealing with being thrown into an unfamiliar world, or Jerkass who only defends her best friend when she feels like it?
- Simon: Loyal best friend or Extreme Doormat?

N-Q

German epos Nibelungenlied attracts this. Just to name one, "Hagen" by Wolfgang Hohlbein (countering the Big Bad description that Hagen got in modern times).
- Interestingly enough that was an ACI from The Saga of the Volsungs, where Hagen seems no more villainous then Gunther, is also Sigurd's blood-brother and is the one killed by the Huns on Gunther's orders so he can't reveal the location of the treasure to them. And when he dies he faces this incredibly heroically, laughing as his heart is cut out.
- Meanwhile in The Ring Cycle Hagen is a Bastard Bastard and along with killing Siegfried kills Gunther to get the Ring of Power, before drowning in a last attempt to get this.
No Country for Old Men's Anton Chigurh: Ax-Crazy nihilistic psychopath who randomly kills for no reason... or a divine instrument who does what has to be done in order to serve God's will, be it bringing divine justice to people involved with drug money, or sacrificing seemingly innocent people in accordance with a higher purpose. Check out an argument for the latter here.
- He could be both. There's at least one villain out there like that.
Harvey of the Origami Yoda series is often the Butt-Monkey, and viewed as obnoxious. Harvey's peers even use the phrase "being a Harvey" as synonymous for "being obnoxious". However, some fans think that he's not actually bad, but rather misunderstood. The 3rd book, The Secret of The Fortune Wookiee, even suggests this directly: Tommy notes that even though Harvey's words sound harsh and awful, he himself isn't that bad. He just doesn't know any better.
In-story and out. The message of Paper Towns is how we look at people as mirrors rather than windows.
- Q could be read as a romantic adventurer or an obsessed tragic figure. Q even claims that Captain Ahab is the hero of Moby Dick. (That said, he outright admits he never actually read the book and just wanted to get his final paper done, so he probably went off the website summary and wrote from there; a time-honored tradition among people who leave things until the last minute.)
- Others go as far as seeing Q as a pathetic creep who emotionally neglects his actual friends for the sake of the off chance of scoring with his stalking victim.
- Real life sociopaths have said that they can relate to Margo pretty well since she, herself, can be identified as a sociopath.
  Margo growing up in the movie had few friends, and ran away from home five times on impulse. She would also always leave clues just to toy with people she left behind. Later during high school she seemed to act quite impulsively, and liked to live on the edge as she described it. When she found out her boyfriend cheated on her she had no problem cutting off him and her friend group, getting a quick revenge, then leaving town again... [1]
Many people read Satan in John Milton's Paradise Lost as a badass Byronic Hero railing against an unjust God. Many readers decide that Strawman Has a Point when they notice that Satan is fighting against a totalitarian autocracy in the name of such evil ideas as democracy, freedom of speech, egalitarianism, and free will.
- "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it." (William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which is itself a massive Alternate Character Interpretation of God, Satan, and Christianity).
- On the other hand, one could easily argue that Satan isn't truly fighting for "democracy", "freedom of speech" and "egalitarianism", he's fighting so that HE can be equal to God — perhaps even above Him. Satan even admits he is only ruining things for humanity out of spite.
- Consider The Book of Revelation, the anti-Christ is an instrument of Satan/Lucifer's will, the anti-Christ insists humanity worships him and puts everyone to death who doesn't, Satan lunges out to attack God when the world has been devastated. You could say that's the same thing about the heavenly side of the conflict, considering what they knowingly started by opening the seven seals.
Louise Glück's poem "Persephone the Wanderer" invokes this. The poem touches on the various interpretations of Persephone and her agency through the centuries, and the author questions how she feels with her present arrangement. Is she unhappy in the house of Hades? Does she miss her mother? Have her actions all along been understandable?
Quite a few people who think the title character in Peter Pan is evil have no idea that early drafts of the novel have him as the villain, taking children away from their parents.
- This was the basis for the comicbook series Fables' main villain, The Adversary. Captain Hook would have actually been a hero trying to get the children back from Pan AKA The Adversary, but the copyrights on him from the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London keep him from public domain.
  - Numerous fan fiction novels have been published in the last few years, without official approval; Karen Wallace's Wendy and Peter David's Tigerheart. Maybe they can find a way to do The Adversary too.
- Peter Pan is a surprisingly complex character, and he definitely has quite a few issues, mainly because of Parental Abandonment. The kid does absolutely act like a sociopath, making very selfish decisions, kidnapping children, killing people on simple whims, and having an extremely high opinion of himself. But since Peter ran away from his parents (and all conventional authority figures), it's not so much due to any kind of malice or evil on his part, but simply because he's a little boy who never has anyone around to tell him these things are wrong.
- It's also interesting to question how unfounded is his arrogance? The book makes it quite clear that he possesses quite a lot of power in Neverland; his return at the beginning causes life to return to the island and the sun to rise, and later it's shown he can create things simply by thinking them up. Likewise he's managed to continually defeat his opponents with apparent ease. So does a young boy who can continually outthink and outfight adults, with godlike powers, really have so little right to be arrogant?
  - On that note, could this really be considered arrogance or would it be more appropriate to refer to it as justified extreme confidence mixed with egotism?
- One theory says that The Lost Children is a metaphor of dead children.
  - Peter could be seen as a ghost. After all, his "origin" is that he simply flew out of his window one night, and when he returned, he hovered outside and saw that his parents had a new child and seemed to have forgotten about him.
Is Christine attracted to The Phantom of the Opera, or is she motivated by pity and a desperate need to keep her Stalker with a Crush from going even more Ax-Crazy than he already is? The original novel (while somewhat ambiguous) skews towards the latter, fanfic overwhelmingly prefers the former, and in the musical it depends on which actress you see. And that doesn't even get into the various interpretations of Erik himself...several decades of adaptations does that to a guy.
- There is also an interpretation of Christine as borderline Idiot Savant in her childish naivety, and extreme, but uneven talent, who is hopelessly lost without her father, and latches immediately onto the first person who reminds her of him, the mysterious "Angel of Music". Some go even further, and see her as a subject of sexual abuse from her father, which she failed to recognise as such, and fed to her confusion about relationships, mixing ideas about romantic and paternal love in her relationship with the Phantom before The Reveal.
- There is also some speculation that Andrew Lloyd Webber imagined himself as the Phantom and wrote the part of Christine specifically for Sarah Brightman because he was in love with her.
  - Somewhat Hilarious in Hindsight is the fact that the 1989 slasher film reimagining of the novel, with Robert Englund in the title role, is actually one of the closest adaptational portrayals to Leroux's Erik, retaining the sadistic nature which most adaptations tend to downplay. Some consider the Phantom's malicious deeds and stalker-esque actions as those of an agonized man trying to find love, but even Christine saw otherwise.
The Poisonwood Bible: Leah, as a child, practically worshipped the ground her very distant fundamentalist Baptist father walked on and was the most devout Christian of the four sisters. However as he goes off the deep end, she abandons him and his religion for good. She marries a local man named Anatole and becomes just as passionately devoted to him and his cause (liberation of the Congo) as she was to her father and his religion. Anatole treats her really no differently than her father did, being physically and emotionally distant. You’re supposed to see Leah as a “strong female character” who genuinely had a change of heart but she can also be seen as a subservient child in a grown woman’s body who needs a man to boss her around because of her raging Daddy Issues.
In Pride and Prejudice, Caroline Bingley can be read as the most sympathetic character — she's clearly in love with Darcy, and then Deadpan Snarker Lizzie strolls in and steals him from her. Most people see her differently as a sort of Regency Alpha Bitch, but maybe she was just meant to be the kind of clingy flirty girl that Darcy wasn't into just to contrast with Elizabeth.
- It's easy to sympathize with Caroline in her relationship with Darcy, but much more difficult when you factor in her treatment of Jane. She was the Alpha Bitch there, manipulating Jane's feelings as well as her brother's.
- Some readers and audiences sympathize with Lydia and much of the blame of how she turned out could be placed on Mr Bennett's favoritism towards Jane and Elizabeth and his disregard of her and the fact her mother obsessively enforces the idea to marry. So when she does run off and get married to Wickham, she doesn't realize the consequences of her actions because she is simply doing what she was always taught.
  - Except she doesn't get marrier to him. She lives as his mistress for an extended period of time until Darcy steps in and forces the issue. Her mother, for all her faults, never encouraged any of her daughters to behave in a fashion that in those times would have been considered prostitution.
- Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham are vampires. Think about it.
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Darcy-Vampyre-Amanda-Grange/dp/1402236972
In The Queen's Thief series, there are a few different views of Eugenides running around the fandom after he is revealed to be in love with Irene and marries her in book two. Is it an egregious case of Stockholm Syndrome, a pitiful and obstinate remnant of a childhood crush (“calf love”), a difficult but necessary move in his ongoing game of Xanatos Speed Chess, or a shining example of unconditional true love that deserves the fans’ wholehearted Squee? Characters are even confused about it in-universe—Attolia’s Queen’s Guard debates whether Eugenides is a pitiable sap who’s just doing his duty to his queen, or a power-hungry Manipulative Bastard.
- This technically applies to Attolia Irene too; is she a cruel and sadistic bitch who enjoyed torturing Gen to hurt him and Helen, or was she just pushed to the edge, forcing her hand?

R-U

The Railway Series: Is Wilbert's story of Sixteen really about a different engine, or is he describing his own backstory?
Ramona Quimby:
- In "Beezus and Ramona", Ramona cries when her older sister Beatrice, better known as Beezus, finds out that she put her doll into Beezus's uncooked birthday cake. Was she crying out of guilt or fear of getting into trouble?
- When Henry agrees to play Joseph in the Christmas play despite being busy, is he just being agreeable like he usually is, or is it because Beezus, who he's occasionally hinted to have a crush on, is playing Mary?
- In "Ramona Forever", Hobart teases his nephew Howie and Howie's best friend Ramona, calling them boyfriend and girlfriend and singing a love song about a woman named Ramona. Was he deliberately trying to get a rise out of Howie, or was he just being Innocently Insensitive?
- In "Ramona Quimby, Age 8", Ramona throws up in class (later revealed to be because of stomach flu), the taxi driver is described as looking "doubtful". Is he worried she'll throw up again and make a mess or is he afraid of contagion?
- Is Davy dyslexic or just a slow learner? Also, when he draws his house and it's described as looking like it was badly put-together, does that mean he actually lives in a badly-made house, or that he is bad at drawing?
The Raven:
- A man is grieving his girlfriend or wife, who was named Lenore, when a raven flies into his house. He asks it questions, including whether he'll see Lenore again in Heaven, but it only responds with "Nevermore". There are several possible interpretations: 1.) The man is going mad and hallucinating, 2.) The raven is implying that the man will never die, that there is no afterlife, or that either the man or Lenore is going/went to Hell, and it's right, 3.) The raven is implying one of those things, but it's wrong, or 4.) The raven is just an ordinary bird, who learnt the word "nevermore" and is mindlessly repeating it. Even Poe himself said that the poem was up to interpretation.
- Why is Lenore described as "nameless"? Is it because she's never talked about anymore since she's long dead, or is it because the narrator is too sad to say her name (since he does later mention he'll no longer talk about Lenore as he's too sad)?
Rebecca. There are many debates on the true nature of Maxim and his late wife, their relationship, how much of the backstory is the truth and whether the protagonist and her husband should be viewed as heroes or villains or something in between.
The critic R. W. Stallman pointed to supposed Christian imagery in The Red Badge of Courage, particularly the death of Jim Conklin, and argued that by the end of the novel Henry has gone from a Dirty Coward to a true hero. Over the course of four rewritings of his initial work on the subject, he changed his mind and declared the whole thing ironic, with Henry convincing himself of his own redemption but really being just as much of a coward as before. (The last paragraph, cut in some versions, supports Henry's redemption, whereas the sequel no one ever reads supports the latter interpretation. Word of God just calls it a psychological examination of fear.)
The whole point of the book The Red Tent, which retells the story from The Bible about Jacob and his daughter Dinah from Dinah's point of view. In this story, Dinah's affair with Shechem is a consensual relationship and not a rape, but her brothers see it as a rape because they aren't married at the time.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms mainly presents the Shu kingdom as the "good guys" of the epic, but many of the characters portrayed as heroic or villainous can easily be seen as the opposite of what was intended:
- Was Liu Bei really the great protector of the Han dynasty he claimed to be, scheming for power under the guise of humility and using the situation and his (admittedly distant) connection to the royal family to his advantage, or little more than a pawn in Zhuge Liang's plans?
- As far as Zhuge Liang is concerned, is he simply a reclusive but talented and insightful man who was loyal to Liu Bei's cause or the Man Behind the Man using Shu as a jumping off point for his personal campaign for power and glory? Were his campaigns against Wei truly the result of determination and loyalty or was he just trying to continue conflict whenever the three kingdoms were starting to settle into the new norm.
- Was Meng Da a victim of circumstance who surrendered to Wei after the tragedy at Fan Castle who legitimately wanted to return to Shu or an opportunistic backstabber who defected to save his own skin only to try and come back when he wasn't getting the praise or glory he hoped for with Wei?
- Did Wei Yan truly plan on rebelling after Zhuge Liang's death or were the circumstances that lead to him doing so make him feel like he had no other choice and that he couldn't trust Shu anymore? Given most of these circumstances were set up by Zhuge Liang ahead of time it's hard to tell if this was a case of very well thought out foresight or an engineered downfall of a wild card Liang couldn't control.
Sam, Bangs & Moonshine: Is Sam actually just imagining Bangs can talk, is she hallucinating that he's talking, or can he really talk? At one point, she says, "Wouldn't Father say that a cat's talking was moonshine?", which seems to suggest that she doesn't know whether she's making it up or not, but on the other hand, the story seems to imply she is indeed making it up.
Second Apocalypse intentionally challenging in the way the sociopathic and superhuman Kellhus is characterized, leaving many interpretations open for how he can be read:
- A scheming Villain Protagonist out for himself alone
- A Sociopathic Hero doing the right thing for the wrong reasons
- A Sociopathic Hero doing good deeds with evil tactics
- A master manipulator bending the world to his will or just another piece in another manipulator's game.
The Rules of Survival has an in-universe example with Matthew's aunt, Bobbie. She helps Matthew and his sisters get away from their abusive mother Nikki (her own sister) and later takes them in. He later learns that Nikki was the mean and manipulative one during her and Bobbie's childhood and would always get Bobbie in trouble for things she didn't do. Although Matthew loves his aunt, he privately wonders if part of her motivation for helping them get away from Nikki was to finally get some revenge on her evil sister for ruining her childhood and enjoy watching her life fall apart due to her own actions.
Serge Storms:
- Rachael, Serge and Coleman's abrasive companion throughout Atomic Lobster, has two aspects to her character with multiple interpretations.
  - Since Rachael spends most of Atomic Lobster high on cocaine, it can be hard to tell whether some of her angry or violent actions throughout the book, such as being eager to throw her old dealer off a bridge or trying to knife Serge and Coleman in the climax shortly after learning about a dark incident in their shared past are a result of cocaine highs or are done consciously.
  - The climax reveals that Rachael is the younger sister of Serge's early victim Sharon Rhodes, and both are cocaine-addicted strippers with poor social skills and little empathy for others. Are their unpleasant traits In the Blood, or did Rachael turn out like Sharon due to having a case of big sister worship while being too young to understand the negative aspects and impacts of Sharon's lifestyle?
- In Shark Skin Suite, Brook's bosses Ken Shapiro and Shug Blatt talk about how they hope that Brook is wrong about the other side murdering one of her fellow lawyers before assigning a bodyguard to "watch her back." It turns out that their firm is working with the other side and the bodyguard is setting Brook up for a Bodyguard Betrayal, but that conversation makes it unclear whether they were both Locked Out of the Loop about the murder by their colleagues or if one of them knows about the murder and the corruption and is putting on a show but the other is completely innocent.
- In Mermaid Confidential, after drug cartel higher-up and The Atoner Mercado is assassinated, he leaves behind detailed instructions about what to do when he dies, some of which are only viable in the short-term. Given his youth, he wouldn't have expected to die of natural causes anytime soon. Was he merely Crazy-Prepared? Or did he know about the specific plot that killed him and allow his own assassination due to guilt over his past crimes, his difficult current position in life, or the knowledge that his murder would backfire on his killers?.
Sherlock Holmes gets a number of differing interpretations for the titular character, and The Watson.
- Sherlock Holmes has Attention Deficit Disorder.
- Holmes is bipolar, alternating frenetic activity and overwhelming ego with near-catatonic lassitude that even heavy stimulants cannot rouse him from.
- Holmes has Asperger's Syndrome. This one is interesting as Arthur Conan Doyle is speculated by some to have had Asperger's himself.
  - Which is why he struggles to communicate with his neurotypical clients, and so needs Watson as a sort of translator. Watson's natural modesty and admiration for his friend's virtues causes him to assume the persona of good-natured doofus, but he occasionally lets the truth slip - as when he reports Holmes' comment that "I am lost without [you]" in ''A Scandal in Bohemia.''
- Holmes has some degree of sociopathic tendencies.
  - "High-functioning sociopath."
- One professional novel has Holmes as Jack the Ripper. Watson discovers his identity when he finds the preserved fetus of Mary Kelly in a bottle in Holmes's dresser drawers.
- Either Holmes or Watson are women, disguising the fact to not outrage the Victorian public. (This may suggest a certain amount of Artistic License – History, as female private investigators were actually fairly common in Victorian London.) Alternatively, it's increasingly common to interpret one or both (especially Holmes) as transgender men.
- Sherlock as an aromantic asexual.
- The men are in a homosexual relationship, and Watson's wife or wives (Doyle wasn't too consistent with the details) are either Watson's attempts at denial, paid actresses, or wholly fictional (and mentioned in stories to put people off the scent, since homosexuality was illegal).
- Holmes is homosexual, but Watson is not. This theory is bolstered by the fact that Watson repeatedly refers to Holmes as "bohemian", which in the 1890s was a well-known euphemism for "homosexual".
- The real reason Holmes retired from sleuthing to become a beekeeper is because either 1) Holmes got tired of Watson constantly refusing his advances or 2) Holmes was tired of Watson's constant advances.
- The two men are in a very destructive co-dependent relationship, with Holmes as the abuser.
- It's Watson who's the detective, and Holmes, being the natural actor he is, more than willing to play the charade (used in the film Without a Clue).
- Holmes practices a bit of obfuscation on his part and deliberately creates the Bunny-Ears Lawyer persona in a combination of luring potential enemies into underestimating him and being able to get away with some pretty scandalous behavior — because "He's Holmes, sure he's daffy, but he's brilliant."
- Holmes's arrogance and tendency to get short with others is because he genuinely has no idea that not everyone has his amazing intelligence and observational skills.
- Is Heathcliff a Murderer?: Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-century Fiction reinterprets "The Speckled Band" suggesting that the sisters were also sexually abused by their stepfather. For example Holmes calls the sister Miss Roylott (her real name is Stoner) and when we see that the stepfather has beaten her she gives the standard excuse given by wives of abusive husbands. The idea is that Holmes sees this but Watson is too innocent to notice.
- There is a theory in the book Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles by Pierre Bayard that Sherlock Holmes didn't catch the real murderer in that adventure. It would not be Jack Stapleton but his wife Beryl in revenge to be cheated with Laura Lyons. According to Bayard, Charles Baskerville's death was an accident. Beryl use this accident to create fear and lure - the easily impressionable - Holmes and Watson to suspect her husband and then kill him without anyone caring. Also, Holmes acts like a Jerkass in that story toward his only friend Watson.
- Interpretations of Holmes's drug use vary widely, from "he only takes cocaine in mild doses that probably weren't even very harmful" (or even "he never took cocaine at all, he was just messing with Watson's head") all the way to "he's a raging addict who spends all of his time when not on a case (and some while on a case) in a drug-addled haze."
- His feelings toward Irene Adler have also been the subject of much debate, with opinions ranging from "he admired her intellectually and absolutely nothing else" to "they had a passionate affair during the Hiatus and she later gave birth to his child."
- Holmes is straight and perfectly capable of being in a romantic relationship — he simply chooses not to be, sacrificing romance for career. And regrets the decision at least somewhat, later in life when he's alone in retirement.
  - One long crossover series takes this idea and runs with it, as do the authors Aleine Skyfire and Riandra in some of their other works...
- Manly Wade Wellman's Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds (which is... well, exactly what you'd think it is) does this with Mrs. Hudson, Holmes's widowed landlady. She's never really described or a major focus of any of the stories, so most adaptations and interpretations tend to default to a matronly late-middle aged woman. Wellman instead casts her as an attractive young woman engaged in a secret romantic affair with Holmes that Watson is just a bit too dense to spot. Among other things, this handily explains why a supposedly elderly woman is not only still alive in later stories set around Holmes's retirement, but also why she chooses to uproot her entire life and join him there.
Sir Apropos of Nothing - filthy undeserving hijacker of someone else's destiny, or The Chosen One the whole friggin' time?
The reasons for Kai's abduction by the title character in "The Snow Queen" were never stated, making this very very easy to pull off. Depending on the adaptation, the Snow Queen is a heartless villain and is defeated by the power of love. Or, she is an Anti-Villain trying to save Kai from himself or wanted someone to rule with her, or in an elaborate plan, was under a curse and being unable to die or break it herself, set up Gerda's quest because she could have broken the curse. Mercedes Lackey's The Snow Queen actually makes her into a Fairy Godmother, working for the good of the Northern Kingdoms, with a Tough Love agenda that is just a bit more elaborate than most Godmother schemes.
Slaughterhouse-Five: Is Billy Pilgrim really Unstuck in Time, or is he suffering PTSD flashbacks and hallucinating aliens as a coping mechanism? There's actually quite a lot of subtext supporting the latter interpretation. The Tralfamadorians look like the aliens from one of Kilgore Trout's stories, and the idea of being abducted by aliens and placed in a zoo was also in one of Trout's stories. Billy also views a porn movie with Montana Wildhack, and it's noted that she disappeared awhile back; his mind could have constructed their abduction. Additionally, when Billy is first captured, he sees an American being kicked around by a German soldier. The American soldier asks, "Why me?", and the German replies, "Why you? Why anyone?" This exact exchange is repeated when Billy is captured by the Tralfamadorians, with Billy as the American and the Tralfamadorians as the German. And so on. The book even says near the opening that it's just reporting what Billy says happens to him; the entire book could be told from the perspective of a hidden Unreliable Narrator.
The title character of The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries: Is she a Broken Bird who's been "Crazy Ol' Sookie" for so long she's only now learning that she can be something else, an unmotivated lump who drifts through life with as little effort as possible, only standing up for herself when backed into a corner, or a Professional Victim who enjoys being "Poor Crazy Ol' Sookie" and actively rejects any efforts to improve herself and her station above her guaranteed victimhood?
- All of these interpretations are generally seem to be inspired by Misaimed Fandom that likes to portray and interpret her as a Damsel in Distress despite the fact that there's not a single book where Sookie doesn't rescue herself, almost always others, and she's never once failed to stand up for herself under duress or otherwise. A lot of the Damsel in Distress Alternative Character Interpretation seems to come from Die for Our Ship fans who are more focused on her love interests than her Snark and mystery solving and complain that she isn't choosing one or the other fast enough, never mind that she has very good reasons for not wanting to hook up with most of them, often involving her own survival. She's actually more like an Action Girl — how badass is killing someone with a garden tool or breaking somebody's knee with a baseball bat just to get them to back off. The death and violence freaks her out at times, but when it comes down to it she always fights back.
- The (relative) ease with which Sookie recovers from her torture and rape. Is Sookie a badass with a good support network? Was the author too lazy to show her having a more common reaction, skipping ahead to the interesting parts regardless of consequences? Or has Sookie's experience with being raped by her pedophile uncle and being mocked and harassed by the townsfolk taught her how to suppress and deny unpleasantry, making her a Stepford Smiler trying to Become The Mask?
  - Is Sookie a girl who wants to really get around? She will flirt with almost any guy as quickly as possible in the first few books to get Bill jealous. At several times, she seems rather addicted to vampire sex and when he disappears on her, she quickly latches on to the next handsome male and starts actively lusting after him because she hadn't gotten laid in a week. While the guy is handsome and her boyfriend is neglecting (and possibly cheating on) her, it's still a quick whiplash when only the book before she was madly in love with Bill. (Never mind his rapid change from 'wonderful if reasonably flawed boyfriend' to neglectful jerk...)
In Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, modern readers tend to interpret Werther's unrequited love interest Lotte as either a vain airhead who leads Werther on needlessly and then accidentally helps him kill himself by lending him a pair of pistols, or else as an intelligent woman who tries to strike a balance between being kind to her Stalker with a Crush and getting rid of him.
Meursault, the narrator of Camus' Existentialist novel The Stranger, is supposed to be an example of someone who's come to understand the absurdity and meaninglessness of human existence; to some people, he just comes off as a sociopath.
- In particular, the murder he commits, which he presents as motivated by nothing at all makes perfect sense if Meursault is a racist.
- Another possible interpretation is that he is not an existentialist, but just a Straw Nihilist.
This Is Not a Werewolf Story: When Vincent helps Tuffman steal Raul's clothes, trapping him in wolf form, is he in full control of himself or is he subject to Tuffman's hypnotic naming power? (For that matter, does that power work on normal people or just shapeshifters?) To the extent that it was willing, how much of it was petty vengeance compared to legitimate fear about Raul being dangerous? When exactly did he begin to regret what he'd done, and what did he do to make Mary Anne dislike him?
- Tuffman invites plenty, especially since The Reveal of his backstory throws a lot of his earlier claims into question. He's supposedly Raul's great-uncle, but the fact that he was born in the 1700s seemingly invalidates that. He does have some connection to his mother, though, and claims to have cared for her like a little sister in the past; is that true, or just a lie to manipulate Raul?
The wolf from The Three Little Pigs: an evil carnivore who wants to leave three little cute pigs homeless, kill them, and eat them or a hungry guy who just wanted dinner and had his pants set on fire because of eating meat. What Measure Is a Non-Cute? at it's worst.
What exactly was the "big problem" in Tillys Big Problem? It's kept deliberately ambiguous, and it could have been anything from something very serious (such as depression or anxiety) to something that's hard to deal with but ultimately not so bad (such as a parental divorce).
Tim (Tiger in the English version) of TKKG can either be seen as tad bit overprotective but essentially a good guy or as a budding psycho who resorts to violence at earliest possibility.
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs: Is Alexander Wolf telling the truth when he claims that he simply wanted sugar, had a cold, sneezed the pigs' houses down, they died in the destruction, and he ate their bodies to clean up? Or is he lying to try to get out of jail?
The way Louis depicts Lestat in Interview with the Vampire is a lot different from the way Lestat depicts Lestat in the other Vampire Chronicles books.
- Is Louis so tortured because, deep down, he still believes in human morality but is forced by his vampire nature to live at odds with it, or is he so self-centered that all he can see is his own pain?
- Does Louis actually have no choice or way of stopping the events that lead to disaster or does he claim passivity to manipulate others or because he's afraid to take responsibility for the fact that he could have done something and didn't?

W-Z

Warrior Cats has Ashfur. Were his actions in Sunset and Long Shadows driven by mental illness and a cruel rejection by Squirrelflight, or nothing but wangst and pettiness? The Broken Base can't decide!
- It doesn't help that neither can the authors.
The Wheel of Time: given that the entire world is locked in an endless cycle where the same mistakes get repeated again and again, and civilization rises just to fall so it can rise again the next cycle, the Dark Ones desire to unmake the Wheel and thus break the cycle could make him a Well-Intentioned Extremist. After all, unmaking and remaking history would release everyone from the cycle of rebirth to a (very) flawed world, allow the flaws to be corrected before resuming, and is quite in line with most other characters being knight templars quite willing to do anything for their goals. Also, the only time we actually see the Dark One in person he's angry for being unable to rescue/resurrect a servant who was killed with balefire, as he has been doing for others.
- The fact that the Dark One explicitly goes for sociopaths, nihilists, the Ax-Crazy, and the generally monstrous in his/its handpicked minions makes arguing that case a bit harder...
- A Memory of Light, the Grand Finale of the series, makes the case essentially untenable. Rand sees three visions of what the Dark One might do to the world- two are horrifying dystopias, the last is an empty void. Though the Dark One's continued existence is proven necessary for existence as a whole to function as we know it, the entity itself is plainly evil. Oh, and Word of God confirms it doesn't care one whit for its followers- it just gets ticked off when someone else kills them.
- Aviendha. Prickly, "strong-willed" tsundere who is genuinely in love with Rand, or an Armoured Closet Gay who is going through an identity crisis? The Maidens of the Spear are a rather butch, feminist group, who swear they're married to their spears and generally avoid men. Most of the members form very close bonds with each other. Aviendha was very at home there, and protested vehemently when she was supposed to become a traditionally feminine Wise One. She latched on to being a Maiden because it allowed her to remain a normal, accepted member of Aiel society without having to marry, or face who she really was. When she was forced to become a Wise One, her sense of self was turned upside-down, showing her insecurity and the fact that she didn't have much she identified with beyond being a Maiden. Later, she gloms onto Elayne immediately, and seems to view her as the paradigm of what a woman should be: feminine, strong, beautiful, etc. She stays by Elayne's side at all times, and constantly gushes about how wonderful she is, and bonds her as her "sister." She "fell in love" with Rand, but acts like she hates him, and refuses to see him, using ji'e'toh as an excuse but never explaining why exactly she has toh to him. So, she dislikes men, acts butch, is insecure about her identity, and likes to hang around another woman who she views as an angel descended from heaven. Armoured Closet Gay?
The premise of the children's book Who Wet My Pants? is that a bear named Ruben wet his pants but accuses his friends of doing it and then later claims his pants are "broken" and have "sprung a leak". Is he too embarrassed to admit that he wet his pants, or does he genuinely not realise that he did?
Winnie the Pooh: In "Tigger is Unbounced", did Kanga really want some fir cones, or (since Tigger and Roo were knocking chairs down, in Roo's case on purpose), was she just trying to get them out of her hair?
The Witches: When a witch says that she and the other English witches "can't possibly" kill all of England's children, does that mean she doesn't want to, or that she thinks it's impossible?
Grace and Sam from Wolves of Mercy Falls Series are supporting protagonists. They spend most of each book ignoring their problems. Most of the major conflicts in the series thus far are resolved by others, most notably Isabel. In Shiver, she comes up with the idea to cure lycanthropy. In Linger, she's instrumental in helping Cole find eventual redemption by saving Grace's life.
Woodwalkers:
- Is Carag an Idiot Hero who tries his best to fight against Big Bad Andrew Milling or against other racist characters like the bully Jeffrey or is he a hypocrite who Wants a Prize for Basic Decency while doing too little to actually to something about his enemies?
- Andrew Milling. Is he a racist who just pretends to help his allies so he can avenge his family more easily or a Well-Intentioned Extremist who truly wants to help woodwalkers?
- Rebecca Young. Is she a liar who just made up the stories about the woodwalker-gods or is she just a racist woman with an A God Am I-attitude who is unable to accept that the past is over?
- How much Jeffrey has changed after the events of the last book is also up to interpretation.
It is generally assumed that in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Boq and the Good Witch of the North are mistaken when they initially assume that Dorothy Gale is a witch, but Dorothy summons the vortex that brought her to Oz in the first place, she gives life, or the semblance thereof, to a scarecrow and an empty suit of armor, she converses with and commands wild animals, and she takes control of the winged monkeys, before finally using the power of the silver slippers to transport herself back to Kansas. There's also the book/play Wicked, which is about the backstory of the Witch herself. In the book at least, both Dorothy and the witch are sympathetic. Though by the time Dorothy arrives, the Witch is... not so sympathetic. Although Wicked expressly contradicts information about the witch of the west's backstory given in Baum's original novel. When you are actually rewriting the plot and origins of a character, you've gone beyond just alternate interpretation.
- Likewise, the character of Oscar Diggs, the titular "Wizard," is all over this. He's set up as a con artist and humbug who is, nonetheless, a Gadgeteer Genius (the fifth book had him inventing a crude, but functional cellular phone). And while he often seems harmless (especially in later books), his actions point to Magnificent Bastard. He lands in Oz just as King Pastorius dies, and using a cross of bluff and parlor tricks, all but forces the four most powerful magic users in Nonestica into a stalemate. He then takes the true heir to the Oz throne, the infant Ozma, and sends her to be enslaved by a two-bit sorceress up in Gillikin Country, bespelled as the wrong gender, so he can rule unchallenged. When Dorothy (an American midwesterner like he is) shows up and screws up the balance of power by killing the East Witch, he assigns her an impossible task, taking out the other threat to his power. If she gave up, then he was still unchallenged. If she got herself killed or permanantly imprisoned, she wouldn't be a challenge, either. If she managed to do it? Well, that was one less threat on the table. It was only by pure, dumb luck he got exposed and had to flee, putting an alleged dimwit on the throne to take the fall. The question here boils down to motive; was he just a flim-flam artist who stumbled into the con of his life and never meant any real harm (and maybe didn't even know what a nasty person Mombi was when he sent away Ozma)? Was he a malicious schemer who later became the mask to an extent? (Oz the Great and Powerful runs with the Becoming the Mask idea, though Diggs was more foolish instead of malicious in that interpetation). Was he trying to do what he had to to prevent four mages from wreaking world-destroying havoc? Or was he, as Greg Maguire proposed, a power-thirsty, greedy bastard who sought power for power's sake and used the existing divisions within Oz to keep everyone fighting with each other so they did not challenge his quest for utter domination?

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