How "fatal" must a Fatal Flaw be?

I have noticed in the past 2-3 years that Fatal Flaw is used to trope important character flaws of characters. However, "a character has flaws" is most certainly Chairs, so are there any requirements as to how "fatal" it must be? The description doesn't read like there's any.

I don't know if I'd say flaws are really PSOC, since they usually play a part in conflict/characterization. That said, a hero that's flawed isn't always going to have Chronic Hero Syndrome or Detrimental Determination as...well, a flaw. Sometimes it just tells us "Oh yeah, given CHS/DD/what have you, it makes sense why they're flawed in general." Basically the key is the ubiquity of their flaw and how far they take it.

As for the "fatal" part, I think it honestly depends on how sympathetically it's portrayed, and whether the "tragic" aspect leads to a Fate Worse than Death for them or those around them. For Want Of A Nail dealt with the opposite to some extent (losing/gaining one thing, losing/gaining multiple things per people across the world or even vice versa), but the difference there is/was the fact that there's no real limit; fatal flaws are usually limited by what the person having them thinks their purpose is/how the flaws are any different from what hasn't killed them before.

TL;DR: You could say a Fatal Flaw is someone having a "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger" mindset and applying it to everyone, not just themselves. At least that's how I've always seen the trope.

Isn't a Fatal Flaw meant to be the type of thing that constantly gets in their way? It's definitely possible it's picked up misuse along the lines of "hero has a flaw", but the idea in general is that the hero either manages to overcome their flaw, or their flaw leads them to tragedy Greek theatre style.

Fatal Flaw needs to be an established character trait that either constantly sabotages them or serves as an Ironic Death. By "sabotage" it means something like a Complexity Addiction that always backfires on heroes Stating the Simple Solution, or a Neat Freak who can't function properly in a messy environment.

Yeah, I always thought the "fatal" meant it either literally ends up killing or ruining a character's life or constantly ruins a character's life.

Note that the Laconic says a Fatal Flaw "often leads to [a character's] doom". I've always perceived it as "a major flaw that is the source of many a character's problems". "A character has flaws" is pretty much Chairs, of course, but most examples that I've seen while browsing seem to use it correctly, specifying what the flaw is and demonstrating how it causes numerous problems for the character.

Yeah, a Fatal Flaw doesn't need to be literally fatal, but it does need to be a flaw that repeatedly causes serious problems. One example that comes to mind is John Wick's inability to let anything go or back down from a fight (the sin of Wrath), which, not that his various victims didn't have it coming, but it just keeps digging him into deeper and deeper trouble with the High Table. A normal person doesn't murder an entire mafia family over a dog, and might have listened when Viggo Tarasov tried to reason with him, instead of Rudely Hanging Up.

Edited by StarSword on Dec 28th 2023 at 8:20:13 AM

My interpretation from what I have seen is that the Fatal Flaw is the one a character has to overcome if they want to get their happy ending; if they undergo Character Development, it’s to eliminate or mitigate this flaw, while a tragedy results from them not doing so.

IMHO it has to cause failure of whatever the main goal is in the narrative. I think of the phrase "your plan has a fatal flaw" To me that means that it may cause the plan to completely fail.

That's not how it's defined as a term, though. Anywhere you look, it's gonna be the flaw that the hero must overcome, lest they fail. It doesn't have to lead to doom.

I've always seen Fatal Flaw as the flaw that will lead to a character's downfall unless they can overcome it. In tragic examples, they can't overcome it and their downfall happens. In other cases, the character is eventually able to either rise above the flaw or learn how to work around it so that it no longer hinders them... these changes being part of their journey of character development away from something that actively hindered them originally. It's therefore the flaw that leads to a character's downfall or development.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 30th 2023 at 1:04:10 PM

This. Marty McFly's refusal to be seen as a chicken in Back to the Future demonstrates both sides of this well. In the original 2015 shown in Part 2, it absolutely leads to his downfall both onscreen (it gets him fired from his job) and off (it's implied that his dreams were derailed by some stupid thing he did when someone called him chicken). The end of Part 3, meanwhile, he demonstrates that he's now willing to back down from stupid challenges, and the newspaper from the future describing his downfall changes.

I was also thinking of Marty this whole time.

By no means does the Fatal Flaw have to be taken literally but it sure comes out when the character's stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I assumed that Fatal Flaw was literal as something that causes a character's death. However I would be happy with "flaw that hinders the protagonist until they possibly recognise and address it" without changing the name. But it will need a real cleanup effort.

Does it? Nobody has identified a serious misuse problem.

Multiple Endings can also be a tool to demonstrate this, in which a character meets a bad end if they refuse to confront their Fatal Flaw while achieving a good end in routes where they overcome it.

I think "leads to their doom" is useful. It doesn't have to literally kill them, but it could ruin their life.

I think if there's a clear moment where they're destroyed, or nearly destroyed, by their flaw, it should count, even if they survive that destruction.

I generally see it as a flaw that is treated as detrimental, it might not always cause their downfall, but it's at least suggested things would be a hell of a lot of easier if it wasn't for that flaw constantly perking up.

For example, many characters are cocky, however if the character has an Awesome Ego and can always back up their bragging and still win effortlessly, it isn't a Fatal Flaw. That said if the character has at least one moment where their ego directly causes them to fail, get into a conflict, humiliated or otherwise proven they're not as amazing as they THINK they are, then I'd say it IS a Fatal Flaw.

Edited by Psi001 on Jan 4th 2024 at 1:10:39 PM

That is a good interpretation