The hero has a perfect physique. He is a master swordsman, or marksman, or starship pilot, or space marine. His teeth gleam a little in the sunlight. His hair looks like an ad for hair gel – never a strand out of place. His horse never goes lame, his vehicles always function (or he can repair or pilot them perfectly all by himself, even better than the mechanics can), and his weapons never fail.
The heroine is beautiful. She never has a bad hair day. Her teeth look like flawless pearls. She’s never burned a meal, if she cooks. Her credit card is never declined. Her clothes fit perfectly and never get stained so badly that her maid or the washer robot can’t save them. Everyone loves her on sight, and only the Mean Girls™ have problems with her. Oh, and the bad guy, but that’s why he’s the bad guy.
And I either 1) described way too many books these days or 2) bored you to death. A flawless from the start, “practically perfect in every way” character (aside from Mary Poppins), is no fun. There’s no growth, no challenge, nothing human* about them. Strong stories have flawed characters who meet challenges, sometimes fail and learn, sometimes succeed despite themselves and with help from others, and eventually win through. They are also a bit harder to write than the Perfect Character. And you can go overboard, and produce the dingy, slimy, postmodern protagonist who turns out to be almost as rotten as the purported bad guy.
There’s flaws and flaws. Sometimes it helps to go back to the Big Seven, aka the Seven Deadly Sins (Seven Mortal Sins). Lust, wrath, gluttony, acedia (sloth), avarice, envy, and pride. They are the seven cardinal virtues done to excess. They are also a good list to consider when making a flawed protagonist if you don’t already have a problem in mind. Or you can borrow from the FAA’s Least Favorite Five and look at the deadly attitudes (anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, macho, resignation.) You don’t have to go all out, but a combination can force your characters to learn, grow, and fall flat on their noses every so often.
In the current WIP, the protagonist inclines towards invulnerability, pride, and impulsivity. Add in an overwhelming sense of duty, and you can see where he’d going to race headlong into a mess, or hurt himself emotionally, or a lot of other things. His impulsivity nearly got him killed twice over (literally). So that’s been burned out of him. Now he’s edging on too cautions and restrained (almost acedia, almost). His pride keeps him from really sitting down and talking with the women he’s come to love, either of them, about things like financial resources and the future. He’s going to do it his way, on his own, period. Now, part of this is culture (macho) and part is, well, stubborn pride. He is going to prove that he can do it, dang it! This could lead to another “stepped on a rake” moment if he’s not careful, and if the ladies are not wise to the ways of men. He’s also 100% certain that he can take care of everyone, all the time, without more help than a trusted buddy.
Yep, you can see what’s coming a mile away. As Karen pointed out last week, sometimes you give ’em what they are asking for, giggling in an evil way as you type.
For a tragic hero, you make it a fatal flaw, a virtue that leads to disaster. Or a character flaw that leads her down the primrose path to disaster despite hints and warnings from others. In the Familiars series, Arthur’s pride and overconfidence caused him to lower his guard around a woman he had politely rejected and tried to avoid when possible. He assumed that his lack of interest would cause her to look elsewhere. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect**. And the rest is painful, terrible, tragic history.
Alas, too many traditional publishers seem to thing that a flawed her or heroine means that he or she is nasty, unpleasant, slimy, grubby, and/or unpleasant. This is supposed to be more “real” and “postmodern” and “authentic” or whatever the current hip buzz-word is. I’ve looked at a few of those on the bookstore shelves, and found myself rooting for a giant reptile to march in and eat everyone in the scene.
Image Source: Image by Elias from Pixabay
*If you are writing about the life of a deity, like Jesus or some of the avatars of Vishnu, it’s different.
**Which will not surprise anyone here, I’m sure.
Mad Genius Club 
16 responses to “Heroes with Flaws — Alma T. C. Boykin”
The character needs limits, much more broadly than flaws. A character cut down to human size without flaws is much more interesting than the impossible paragons described here.
Even the impossible paragons do better with limits, with things that their allies are better at they they are. (Because the allies specialize in those things.) The unnamed hero and heroine described here reminded me of Kimball Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougall, except for that the parenthetical bit about “even better than the mechanics can.” Kinnison is a really good pilot but not a Hank Henderson, and he’s a really good mechanic and engineer but not a “Thorny” Thorndyke.
But it is such fun to open the story with the heroine throwing up in her boss’s lap, and winding how the earth she’s going to get that out of her boss’s dress.
I understand why you chose your illustration for this post… Oh, but think of the lost opportunity to instead do “found myself rooting for a giant reptile to march in and eat everyone in the scene”. Sigh… munch, chomp, spit, munch.
I don’t have that particular reaction, but only because I have poor impulse control and the book is already flying toward the wall (or the bit bucket) at that point, and the Godzilla response would be too late (though rather more satisfying).
I do find that youth (aka ignorance) has enough imperfections on its own to keep the best-intentioned idiot in flaw-land. Such a one’s virtues are not in accomplishment (e.g., perfect hairstyles), but in rueful recognition, when it’s too late. It’s not the perfections a hero presents that are engaging, it’s his struggles — what he does about them.
Guilt is also a big one. A hero has to learn not to wallow in it — that’s almost a form of Pride, more than Despair.
I couldn’t find quite the right illustration, so I went with something sort of close. The obnoxious paladin from the RPG novel that Mercedes Lackey (I think) wrote would be perfect, but I couldn’t recall the title or author.
Which Arthur?
The elder or the younger one?
Master Saldovado. Art’s been warned by too many people about “a woman scorned,” and heard edited stories from his father and “Uncle Mike.”
Is this something that happened much earlier in his life or is this a “current-day” event?
In any case, I want to read it. 😉
So do I.
IIRC, it was much earlier, and I think it was tied to the events that cased the clan to emigrate to the US.
Far earlier, back in Argentina. And no, I cannot write it. To do so would take me places that I do not need to go, among other things.
“back in Argentina” was what I meant by “much earlier” and not wanting to write it is understandable.
“Alas, too many traditional publishers seem to thing that a flawed her or heroine means that he or she is nasty, unpleasant, slimy, grubby, and/or unpleasant.”
Oh, my fricking nerves. Isn’t that just so unbelievably true. I’m reading just the blurb, and already I’m rooting for the eldritch horror to win. “Get him with the tentacle!”
This is why my heroes are decent guys and girls trying to do the Right Thing in a f-ed up world filled with a-holes behaving badly.
Important to note that none of them are -forced- to do the right thing or Chosen One-ed into it, or in most cases even encouraged in that direction. They can do whatever the f- they want. They choose to do the right thing because its right. No other reason, and for sure no reward.
That type of thing is sorely lacking out in the media universe.
I’ve seen some cases where slightly flawed but very decent heroes were condemned by readers simply because they weren’t spending all their time Fighting Authority — and this in a romantic swashbuckling fantasy story. Or being despised because they were ‘bad’ to the villain, a man who was treacherous, selfish, murderous, and cruel. I really don’t get that last one.
Aristotle observed that we like our characters to be as good as we are, or a little better. While he included more than moral goodness, he did include that.
Speculation about reasons may ensue. . . .
*facepaw* I’d make an acid, uncharitable comment about readers who don’t quite grasp how the rest of the real world works, but that would be uncharitable.
Well, I never thought that Mary Poppins – or Bert – were anything but secondary characters. Who are allowed to be perfect. (Why is WPDE changing my carriage returns into SPACES???? Aargh. It is the villain for the lack of paragraphs.) Anyway… The Banks family, particularly the parents, were the real focus – and, boy howdy, did they ever have flaws.