Can a character with Mind Control powers be sympathetic and/or heroic?

I'm editing a story where the protagonist has mind control abilities. They can't completely override someone's free will, but they can plant ideas in someone's mind. Say they wanted to kill someone. They couldn't make someone else kill that person. However, they could plant the idea in someone's mind that the target deserved to die, which could lead to that person killing the target.

Now there's a particular scene in the story that I found a bit troublesome. The protagonist needs to distract a female character. He uses his powers to plant the idea in her head that he's attractive. This causes her to become fixated on him and ignore something that's happening nearby. This character appears a few more times in the story, where it's implied she still has a crush on him. Now, the protagonist makes no attempt to take advantage of her or anything, but it was still weird to read.

I'm curious, is there a way to make a character with mind control powers sympathetic? Also, what should be done about the scene where the protagonist causes a female character to develop a crush on him? Am I reading too much into the scene or does it make the protagonist come off as creepy?

It is possible. Through different routes.

1. Give the mind-control powers a horrifying backlash whenever they are used, such as pain, hallucinations, tinnitus, nosebleed, bleeding from the ears, hearing voices or other painful experiences, to empathize that the one holding the power, is seriously not using them whenever he feels like it, but only when absolutely necessary and even then, has to pay for it in pain whenever he does. Even more tragic if he enters situations where he is forced to use them and can't escape it in any other way.

2. Use a different distraction. Things like "This is not the man you're looking for" or "This man is already dead, no need to kill him again" or "Behind you.". Romance doesn't need to be the only option when you got mind-control powers. Perhaps even "Go home. You're too tired for this..."

3. Do it without the powers and let the guy try his genuine smooth-talking skills to convince her and serve as a distraction.

Just suggestions.

Any character can be made to be appealing, because that has to do with the characters personality, not powers. That said, making a woman have a crush on him is inherently troubling, because he is taking her agency away. But you can use that by making it troubling to the main character. His sense of guilt over doing it will keep him relatable to the audience.

agreed, make your mc feel bad about his powers or show some bad side affects

And even when you set aside the creep factor of him using his ability to effectively seduce a woman, it's a really, unbelievably stupid course of action, and it says not-great things about the character's view of women if that was the first thing that came to mind to solve that problem. If this is something you'd like to explore, as an opportunity for character growth, you could also go with the aforementioned option of him feeling guilty the moment he does it or later on, and then hammer it home by having the woman follow him and blow his cover, or lead enemies to him. It's the sort of lesson I could imagine having early in the story for a teenage boy or an immature man, if either of those descriptions are accurate for the character.

It makes me wonder why he didn't just mentally suggest that she needed to tie her shoes, or that she left the stove on at home and needed to leave right away.

This is why characters should be written as people and not lists of powers and quirks that say nothing about personality or maturity.

For example, just thinking that the main character is attractive does NOT make the average woman want to drag him off to a bedroom, let alone "fixate" on a guy in the absence of reinforcing influences. Unless her character is already established as being someone who might behave that way, maybe the author is taking away her agency more than the character.

The main character: is he fourteen, or forty-four? In general, age makes a huge difference when it comes to mental and emotional maturity. How common are mental powers in the setting? If the MC's the only person who has them, he's learning by making mistakes like everyone else - no exceptions - would. What he did could be anything from a panicked screw-up to mind rape, but if the reader has to ask such questions, the character and setting haven't been established well enough prior to the scene.

Other facets of Setting: If everybody knows that "These are not the droids you are looking for" works, that would be the go-to solution in the first place. Are there police in this world? If there are, "I'm so hot you want me now" pretty much guarantees that there is one witness who can give the sketch artist an exact description of the idiot who planted that idea in their head.

I'm thinking of a setting with a lot of heroic characters with mind powers, and one thing is they have a pretty strict code of conduct. There are others to keep them in line. And when they stray outside of what's strictly allowed, they generally realize why it was wrong, they feel guilty, and there are consequences. There are non-heroic characters in the setting with mind powers, but they don't have any of that.

I guess, think about what makes your character heroic and, maybe even more importantly, what keeps them that way.

I definitely agree with the discussion about thinking of your characters as people first. That's what's going to determine what they do with their powers.

I just have to stop in and point out that difficulty (via nasty side effects) alone CANNOT make a hero out of a mind-controller. I have a mind-controller character of my own, who has a disability by the standards of his species (overextension headaches if he tries to use his powers without looking, but others of his species don't need to look), and he's still explicitly evil. By all means, consider the option of nasty side effects if it appeals to you and makes sense in your story, but only in conjunction with at least one of the other suggestions concerning the character's maturity, morality, guilt, and other options for distraction — you've got a lot of good ones to consider already, and there might be more in the future. Edit: especially as I come back to this post and think of more to say.

Hear hear — my characters sometimes get an Inconvenient Attraction to a villain, usually it's weak enough to where they just fight as usual barely ruffled by the bonus eye candy, and even the stronger crushes are dealt with by finding a quiet place to Head Desk while chanting "Stupid hormones!"

That is something to watch out for, yes. Here is where knowing more about the main character and the lady he's distracting would come in handy for more detailed critiquing.

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Aug 23rd 2020 at 9:08:48 AM