What do you do when your audience hates a character?

This one that's been with me for a while. It was heavily inspired by how Masashi Kishimoto handled the character Sakura Haruno.

Basically, the audience really, really hates a character. Maybe it's because of how they were written, or maybe something they did just triggered people and reminded them of an real life issue they have.

Maybe it's a shipping thing, or maybe there are just other characters they like more and for some reason that results in them just hating the other guy by default due to being in the way.

Whatever the reason, I wonder what should be done? Should you stick to your guns and keep the character around (if they are important)? Should you toss them out to put an end to the issue?

Should you brutally kill them to appease these angry people? I'm curious as to how you guys handle this issue, since it's something that comes out a lot.

I feel this is one of those situations that doesn't have a specific "one size fits all" solution.

For example, let's go with the traditional "We wanted to make a likable character but they instead come off as a sleazy jerk" scenario. There are quite a few ways to solve this, and mist of them don't need to involve killing the character off.

The first woukd be to simply retool your character, ironing out their flaws and making them better fit how you originally intended them to be.

Another would be to take that criticism the audience had and roll with it, making the character into a clear antagonist, if not outright villain.

Or you could pick a third option and have your character go through a character arc where they become a better person. In other words, it would be option one but this time acknowledged in universe.

So, as you can see with this option alone, there are many ways to handle a character who's unliked by the audience.

Edited by 1upmushroom on Jun 30th 2020 at 7:36:18 AM

If it's a mystery story, make that person the red herring and play up their dislikability, then reveal a more likable side to them during the climax :)

One thing that may be worth consideration is the question of whether the audience at large dislikes the character, or whether only a vocal minority does.

That said, if the audience at large does indeed dislike the character, it may be worth asking whether that's a problem: If the audience dislikes the protagonist, then that might be an issue. But if they dislike a side-character, do they actually dislike said character enough that it actually hurts the experience of reading the story?

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jul 1st 2020 at 1:06:54 PM

Make the character turn out to actually be disguised Adolf Hitler. As in, the actual mustache man. Regardless of whether he even exists in this setting. If he didn't before, well, he does now. It's fine if the readers hate Hitler.