When sympathetic becomes pathetic
Filed under Tips & Tools on August 19, 2008
Keywords: Farseer trilogy, FitzChivalry, Logan Shadowhand, Maiden of Pain, protagonists, Robin Hobb, sympathetic characters
Sympathy for the protagonist is a great tool for drawing readers into a story. If the reader can identify with the character’s struggles and desires, they become invested in what happens. That leads to late nights of anxious page-turning.
A sympathetic character has obstacles they must overcome. These can be internal or external, but the key is that the protagonist makes an effort to resolve the conflict. Characters that do nothing but suffer and whine, passively endure, or continually expose their incompetence are not sympathetic. They are pathetic.
Quit yer whinin’
Allowing the reader inside your character’s head is a common way to generate sympathy. The protagonist’s thought process often provides key insights into how the conflict affects them and what the stakes are. A resolution needs to be decided upon, however, or the whole thing quickly turns into a pity party.
It’s a fine line to walk. For example, in Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy, I felt the protagonist FitzChivalry was pathetic at times. He spent too much energy fixating on his sorry lot in life, how he was unable to do what he wanted because others dictated his actions. Fortunately, that wasn’t his only conflict, nor where there times when such bemoaning wasn’t appropriate. I found myself wishing Ms. Hobb would give the guy a break more often than I wanted to smack FitzChivalry and tell him, “Suck it up, emo-boy.” Still, I like my heroes with a little more assertiveness.
Thank you, may I have another
Another common device for creating sympathetic characters is to throw hardship after hardship at them. It’s important to recognize that the hardship doesn’t create the sympathy, but how the character reacts to the hardships. Readers don’t have much sympathy for a protagonist that just lies there and takes it.
Some of the reader feedback I received on Maiden of Pain focused on a lack of sympathy for Ythnel, the story’s heroine. I put her through a lot in an effort to make her sympathetic. What I failed to do was put a spotlight on how the abuse affected her. This lack of emphasis led to an impression that she just simply endured rather than taking action. I think the fact that the hardships were very physical and obvious, while Ythnel’s resolutions where spiritual (and a subtle realigning of her faith rather than a radical departure) also reinforced this view.
Can’t you do anything right
Struggles can only occur if your protagonist finds his desire difficult to accomplish. (This also allows for those all-important inner dialogues that reveal why it’s so important to him.) We identify more readily with a hero that isn’t perfect because we aren’t perfect. However, if something is important enough to us, we find ways to achieve the goal, whether that entails learning the necessary skills or discovering an alternate solution. Characters that meet with success through luck and coincidence, rather than their own competence, are annoying and pathetic.
My early efforts to make Logan Shadowhand sympathetic resulted instead in a pathetic protagonist. I tried to show that he was in over his head, a small town crook struggling to make it in the big city and finding himself involved in forces he didn’t understand and lacked the tools to neutralize. When I submitted the sample chapter to my college workshop, many of the comments I received pointed out Logan’s “bumbling”. Some people found it comedic, while others labeled him incompetent. Neither were the effect I was going for. I had focused too much on what he couldn’t do, rather than establishing his credibility as a thief first.
What makes you sympathetic to a protagonist? Is there a hero or heroine you found pathetic rather than sympathetic? What did the author do to tip the scale the wrong way in your mind?
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August 20th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I found that Rand was a sympathetic character in Robert Jordan’s first few books, but once he accepted who he was he got all emo and became rather pathetic. “Boo hoo, woe is me, I’m the Dragon Reborn, the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and there is nothing I can do about it.”
I lost the sympathy I had for this naive farmboy thrown into a world full of political turmoil and found him to be rather unlikeable. That was part of the reason I put the series on the shelf after the fifth? book (besides Jordan’s tendency to describe everything in boring detail, and to flesh out even the most minor of characters so much as to lose sight of the main protagonists).
Frank Herbert did a great job of toying with sympathies as well in his Dune series. Once Paul gained the powers he did, he was resolved to do what he thought was the right thing, and didn’t get all emo-kid like Rand has. His children also had this quality, and by the time you get to God Emperor of Dune, the fate of Leto is sealed. Sympathy for him is achieved by revealing that this is a path he has chosen to save humanity itself, even as he removes his own humanity. The balance is perfectly drawn. Almost all the characters have some sympathetic aspect to them, Duncan Idaho, Paul, Jessica, Leto, even Alia.
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August 20th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
hmmm….good thoughts & excellent points. I’ve run across pathetic protagonists far too often in my book-reading adventures. I hated it as a kid and always told myself that when I grew up I’d write the book w/ a kick-butt hero. So I grew up. I wrote the book. And then I realized: it was hard to empathize with him. He had no fear, no hesitation…no humanity. So I’ve been revising.
I think what sucks the most are whiney and selfish hero/heroines. I really enjoyed Kristen Britain’s The Green Rider series, but it did seem that Karigan was a little too resistant. The reluctant hero is all well & good to a certain extent, but ‘me thinks the lady doth protest too much’ after a thousand pages or so.