Oh God... after reading through about three examples, I was horrified, and now ask... no beg you to add the option to kill it with fire, if that's permissible. I mean... there's just random video game protagonists listed for any reason at all.
Yikes is an understatement. Now I gotta go finish looking at all those examples.
It's a legitimate Audience Reaction otherwise there wouldn't be so many examples but yeah, no examples is a more reasonable approach to take than nuking. It might not be a positive reaction but it is one nonetheless.
Alright, I've set up the crowner here
. It's not too early for that, I hope?
From what I can tell from reading all the examples people have written, they all definitely have a couple things in common:
- The main character is less interesting than the supporting or side characters, and thus the protagonist becomes, primarily, a way through which the viewer can experience their stories.
- The story of the protagonist often involves little hardship or conflict, at least in relation to other characters.
- The protagonist may have few redeeming qualities or special skills that aid the rest of the party, or are, at best, a blank slate.
- On the flip side, the protagonist may have a lot of skills or knowledge, making them a Mary Sue. Both still irk viewers/players.
- The protagonist is undeserving of their status, either for in-universe reasons, or because of the above reasons.
Hope that helps a little bit.
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What Septimus is getting at is that while "rename (name to be determined)" tends to be acceptable, if you want to redefine it's generally better (and gets more votes) to decide on and specify what you're redefining to beforehand.
Sidenote: I've had some discussions that Audience Surrogate is too narrow for the name, but as it stands the two are definitely related.
The basic idea behind this page is that as a consequence of several other tropes (including Standardised Leader and Audience Surrogate, as have been mentioned), the main viewpoint character ends up being flatter or blander than the rest of the supporting cast. Even though they are ostensibly the character the audience is supposed to care about most (because they are the "most like you"). I think that's worth having a separate page on, but an examplesectionectomy, or at the very least very strict requirements, doesn't seem unreasonable.
ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NOI'm surprised nobody seems to have said this, but my assumption would be that a big part of the problem is the word "syndrome" in the title, which implies that this trope is Bad and which probably contributes to people abusing it to say, basically, "I didn't like this main character!"
To me, it's important to get away from the idea that this is a trope about the lead character sucking. The purest examples of this trope are when the author deliberately separates out the roles of "who the main plot is about" and "who the main focus of the action / humor / 'meat' of the work is." A prime example would be Beetlejuice — if you read a plot summary, the Maitlands are the protagonists (and Beetlejuice is really The Heavy), but it's plain who the movie is really about if you just look at the title.
I think there's a lot of examples of authors deliberately using a (somewhat) Flat Character protagonist for a variety of reasons, and that this isn't just a subtrope of Audience Surrogate; often this is done to make them an Audience Surrogate, sure, but sometimes it's to use them as a Straight Man, or just because it fits the needs of their plot. Sometimes it can also be the result of landing a star for a supporting role and rewriting the script around them during production without making them the protagonist (Pirates Of The Caribbean, say).
Of course, I don't know if it would be possible to work it as a non-subjective / non-audience reaction trope without having it overwhelmed by people who are just complaining (since trying to judge the author's intentions can often be tricky), so I'm not suggesting it could lose the YMMV tag. But at the same time, I do think there's a trope here in the sense of it being a tool that authors deliberately invoke to serve a narrative purpose, and it's probably important to at least establish that in the description rather than leave the impression that this is a Bad Thing that happens when your protagonist sucks.
I would personally prefer not to nuke examples, provided we can mostly distill it down to works where it seems to be mostly deliberately-invoked by authors, and make it clearer in the description that this trope is generally intentionally invoked and isn't just "I like this character more than that character."
Just Here for Godzilla is a related trope. This trope is omnipresent in horror, too, where you have theoretical protagonists who everyone knows is really just there to give the monster someone to torment.
edited 5th Mar '14 1:10:39 AM by Aquillion
I think your suggestion is pretty close to the idea a lot of us have had - there's something useful to say about a specific writing tool in this, it just needs to be reworked to not come off as "Main characters who suck!" and instead more of "Main characters that are flatter to enable other characters to be more outrageous around them."
I like the suggestion of Beetlejuice there too. I think you nailed it :)
So what is the next action? We've agreed on the definition, so there's no point discussing it further at the moment.
Anyway, what does everyone think of the name? The fact that it contains "syndrome" implies that this is a bad thing, which is probably why it attracts complaining. This was already mentioned earlier, but I don't think we managed to get an actual consensus for a rename.
And what of the description? Is it clear enough to explain the definition already discussed, or would it need to be rewritten?
I don't get the point here. This is not a trope. We have a page that explains why this is not a trope. This is an audience reaction. You're essentially saying users do not have the right to say "I think soandso should be protagonist instead." As if varied opinions are wrong.
I mean, if an example is falsehood
- Blah blah from yack yack has no personality. Fans think Yadayadayada should the main character instead.
- No. Just... No, Blah Blah is motivated to finish school to follow his dreams, is a pervert, and likes to sing when he thinks no one is looking. Yack yack is just a blank slate people project onto.
...Well then just delete stuff that has no basis in truth, maybe leave an edit reason or put your explanation on the discussion page but does not seem like a repair shop problem.
Buldogue's lawyer
But Audience Reactions, while not exactly a trope, are valid pages, otherwise there's no point in having those YMMV subpages.
Complaining examples, like the one you've written should be cut, but doesn't mean the whole page should be.
According to the description (though it is obviously flawed) this trope is specifically meant to not be an audience reaction.
Perhaps Overly Generic Protagonist or Over Simplified Protagonist would be a better title, since Flat Protagonist seems like a title that will misused like how this one has been. There can be a requirement that this trope can only be applied to lead characters whose core concept can easily be described in one or two short sentences and remain completely accurate throughout the series, to show that they undergo little to no significant Character Development in the story. If an example is either too vague, don't talk about the actual protagonist or they go over the "short character summery limit" too much (unless it is explaining why it is a case of playing with the trope in some way) the "example" can be cut because the trope is clearly being misused.
I'm suggesting this since at least one example mentions that a poor adaption turned the lead into one of these because it over simplified the character too much or how a work played with the trope by making its lead appear to be a flat character archetype only to show they have a lot of Hidden Depths early on. Another common element is mentioning that some characters are shown to be "interesting" before they become a main character, after which they become flattened over time "reducing" them into one of these.
A possible new description:
These are supposed to be protagonists that are, intentionally or otherwise, flat characters meant to highlight the uniqueness of those around them while giving the creators and viewer a simple and easy to understand lead, like a Standardized Leader or an Audience Surrogate character.
Each can be identified with a single "core concept", like being an easy to understand and relateable The Everyman in a world full of Supers, or as a stereotype of an exceedingly common character archetype, like an Idiot Hero Hot-Blooded Shonen protagonist who never has any major Character Development, and they are like this specifically to give the creator a simple, consistent, and essentially blank slate to work with as a bouncing board for other more unique characters that their audience will encounter through this lead.
Since these characters need to be relatively flat by their own merit this is not about how popular they are with the Fan Base vs. some "alternative" lead characters within the work, or if the side plots appear more interesting than the main plot simply because of the individuals involved. That is just complaining about characters you don't like, which is not what this trope is about. Tropes Are Tools and having a lead who is a flat or static character isn't necessarily a bad thing if done right.
Not to be confused with Designated Hero, which is a character who the story plays up as being heroic, but comes off as being distinctly unheroic. A Pinball Protagonist may also result in this since the poor sap is simply being dragged around the plot by the stronger and more developed characters around him.
edited 6th Apr '14 7:29:18 PM by Lorealie
Lead You Can Relate To seems to cover a objective usage, something we could actually call "this trope" rather than "this reaction". Or do you all disagree?
I'm fine with cutting this, if it comes to it.
Buldogue's lawyerI think there seems to be a working definition somewhere in this thread. Can begin as ...
Designated protagonist: A character meant to serve as a narrative linchpin to highlight the actions of a group of characters. Or a character meant to contextualize the actions of/events surrounding another major character.
Crown Description:
The trope attracts too much complaining about "Protagonists some tropers don't like"

Well, how do we get a crowner added? Seems like the options are:
Nobody's suggested kill it with fire.