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Gabbi
Jul '22

A topic I keep thinking about when it comes to character creation is flaws, how many flaws you can add to a character, and where those flaws cross the line of being problematic for people.

I am 100% for flawed characters in stories. A character that doesn't have any flaws feels very unrealistic and honestly pretty boring.

Having a flawed character in your comic means that you have something to work with. They can fuck up and learn from it and get some amazing and satisfying character growth through the story. I especially appreciate a flawed character if they are the main character.

But sometimes I get the feeling that if a character doesn't grow fast enough in the story, they are instantly deemed as problematic, and often get hated immediately.
Sometimes despite people not knowing much about the character, their intentions or backstory.

This is more common for characters that aren't cis men, where there's almost this rule that if your character is anything else than a cis man they have to be portraid as "near perfect" or it gets problematic.
In contrast to many cis male characters whos flaws get romanticized in fiction.

Of course, a portrayal of a character CAN be problematic. Like when a flaw is being romanticized, or there’s too many stereotypes, or if a trope gets overused, or when a character's bad actions don't have consequences etc.
So I'm not trying to argue against the existance of problematic portrayals of characters.

But it also feels like people mix up a flawed character with a problematic character way too often and way too fast?

But these are just my musings.
What do you guys think about the topic?

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    Jul '22

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BoomerZ
Jul '22

This is more of a problem of people being offended by personality defects for anything but white straight males. Straight white males can be made to be absolute horrible people and no one will bat an eye. But write a black person (of any sex) as a homeless person with a drug problem (which do exist in this world) and you are opening yourself up to a very vocal minority of fans that will HATE you for writing that character that way. The main problem with this is it makes most black, brown, gay, etc characters boring, while the white male can be written in any way so they can run the spectrum of personalities. Everyone has personality defects, everyone. You need those to make an interesting character. Without allowing anything but a white male to have them, its cheapening them. It makes them less human and unrelatable.

Another think I personally hate is when the personality defect is just a advantage in disguise. "she is too caring", "he is too powerful" "she is too pretty". I usually don't read or watch anything with those types of characters.

Chaz
Jul '22

I believe all characters are flawed, whether in terms of storytelling or characterization. All characters need to be flawed in order to be realistic. It's what the characters do with their flaws that tell the audience who they are.

If a character is deemed problematic, then they are consumed with their flaws and refuse to change. Examples would be a supervillain who tries to conquer the world over and over again and a thief who steals from countless banks. They see their flaws as their defining traits.

TroyVSTheWorld
Jul '22

Eh...Ya'll ever play Metal Gear Solid? Giant mechs aren't cool if they don't have a weak point.

NickRowler
Jul '22
1

I think if you get most of your media criticism from social media, then yeah, you can easily cherry pick how someone doesn't like how a character is written.

If you are talking about people who are taking the time to analyze media, I think most of this criticism comes from people being sick of negative tropes and tokenism used for social minorities. Especially if these features have been used to demonize a group of people and lead to discrimination and laws being created to attack them. Because media does not exist in a vacuum and people do get influenced by it. There are people who use Silence of the Lamb and Sleepaway Camp as justification to hate transwomen in reallife. And I don't think white straight cismen are removed from this criticism. There has been growing discussion about predatory behavior in straight cismen who are suppose to be the "good guy".

I think a way to help tackle this is having a more diverse cast. Because I don't really see people being as critical of flawed female characters in media which has a large number of other female characters in the cast.

I also don't agree with white straight cismen characters are more interesting, if anything personally I find a lot of them to be sort of boring and bland. I feel like sometimes writers (usually men) will act like that is the default and think them simply existing is interesting in themselves. But I feel like I have seen way too many action movies with dull white male (usually skinny with some muscle definition) leads and the thing that is ultimately interesting about the films is the environment and side characters. Think of something like Mad Max: Fury Road, Max is probably the least interesting character in the film. Or Bruce Willis's character in the 5th Element.

BoomerZ
Jul '22

Max in the Mad Max series is the watcher (you), hence why he doesn't have a personality for the most part.

NickRowler
Jul '22

But not everyone wants to be that kind of self-insert character or find connection to that type of character. I am not a straight cisman and I don't want to be one, so to me I am just watching a bland character.

It's similar to how male readers were far more critical of Bella Swan from Twilight. If you are not a teenage girl, than more or less you are just reading a story about a boring character.

BoomerZ
Jul '22

Take a minute and read what you just wrote. You are also not a fantasy knight, superhero, grade school student, or a space smuggler. Does that mean you don't want to read those adventures/stories? I'm not a female but I read stories with female leads and still put myself in those situations and enjoy it. If all you can do is put yourself in characters shoes or empathize with them if they are exactly like you, I feel feel very sad for you. And if the only thing that makes a character not bland to you is if they are attracted to people the same way you are, that is very sad.

NickRowler
Jul '22

I think you are misinterpreting what I wrote.

I like Homer Simpson and he is a straight white cisman. But I don't like him because I want to be like him, I like him because I find him funny and I like the hijinks he gets into and sometimes he is a heartwarming father. He isn't a self-insert character, the creators don't want people to project themselves onto him. I observe him the same way I would observe the side characters in the show.

I just prefer characters like that over bland self-insert male leads that tend to be in most action movies.

migxmeg
Jul '22
BoomerZ

Damn, dude - Nick's comment was in reference to bland self-insert characters. Even if it wasn't it's a little much to declare it sad over someone's entertainment preference.

migxmeg
Jul '22
NickRowler

Well oops XD my comment seems irrelevant now. But me too - I couldn't give less of a crap about Max Mad in particular, whole movie felt boring because I really didn't care if he lived, died or did whatever.

Re: main topic, I love flawed characters! I also enjoy fiction where bad actions are not punished and other characters romanticize flaws. I realize there are places where those stories aren't appropriate but I love them and enjoy it when authors are exploring those things that happen in real life/not making stories that need to abide by some sense of morality.

river121693
Jul '22
13
Gabbi

I generally agree with your comment about allowing marginalized character flaws, but I can't think of a significant trend where writers are criticized for creating flawed marginalized characters. If anything, the opposite is true-- marginalized characters are overwhelmingly criticized for being strong, smart, powerful or just being a part of the main cast. Look at the way fans treat any Femme/ POC characters who're part of the main cast in Star Wars or MCU.

Many "perfect" marginalized characters are in of themselves bad stereotypes-- the Model Minority Asians, or Magical Black people for example. The Mary Sue trope is in itself a double standard.

I do think that CIS/White writers are often afraid of giving flaws to marginalized characters because they're not sure where the line between flaws and tropes/stereotypes lies. I also think that marginalized people distrust White writers who are writing flaws with ties to tropes/stereotypes because there're already an overwhelming amount of misrepresentation of marginalized people by CIS/White writers which caused real-world harm to our communities. Often times, these writers do not have the lived experience, do not do enough research, or didn't hire a reader to help develop marginalized characters to be beyond the stereotypes. This feeling of distrust have always existed, just more amplified now; the feeling is usually justified imo.

I do agree that sometimes CIS/ White writers are unfairly criticized and that the level of online mobbing can go too far in comparison to a writer's mistake. However, much of these mobs operate on bad faith, many of them are themselves White (such as with the case of Lindsay Ellis) trying to stir the pot, virtue signal, or profit in someways.

And again, these criticisms are in relation to tropes/ stereotypes. I'm hard press to think of a criticism to just "character flaws."

I have received a few of these criticisms. To me the key is to know enough about what you're writing to avoid replicating stereotypes and tropes, provide the appropriate answers, let readers know your plans, and accept good faith criticism gracefully. Remember that Webtoon/Tapas allow for 2-ways communication:

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TheLemmaLlama
Jul '22
1
NickRowler

I do think white straight cismen are given more leeway to be interesting though. Of course there are also lots of boring white straight cis male characters, but the mere fact that there are a lot of them and the way they're written isn't policed as closely means the most interesting characters happen to be white straight cismen.

Just take a cursory glance at any 'favourite villains' threads on the internet, and it happens that my favourite characters also tend to be skewed towards cis men who at the very least aren't openly represented as queer in canon (I feel weird thinking of them as 'straight' because of all the fandom shipping :P), and from the dominant culture of wherever their media of origin was produced (so often white, but also like Japanese guys from anime etc.)

Maybe we're just racist/sexist/queerphobic etc, but you can see why I'd think there's a lack of interesting non straight white cismen in fiction, and believe it's because non straight white cismen are held to higher standards of non-problematicness :sweat_02:

Rai_Muffin
Jul '22

I don't necessarily believe that a character "needs" flaws to be interesting, but it certainly helps.
A lot of flawless characters are Paragons in one form or another and can be fodder for amazing stories.
It feels like a combination of a story written around that flawlessness, and a shift in focus from reliability to inspiration.
Just look at Superman; nobody can relate to the guy, but his attitude inspires people, myself included because his stories take advantage of his flawlessness and are written to accommodate.
Personally, I prefer flawed characters, but one of my favourite characters of all time is the Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3, and she's lacking in flaws from my perspective.

The issue of problematic flaws feels more rooted in stereotypes than the flaw itself (NickHowler had a good point about this).
I guess it comes down to the person and the flaw.
For example, let's say you write a Jewish character whose very stingy with money. This plays on a stereotype of the money-grubbing Jew and is problematic as a result.
But apply that flaw to a black character and it doesn't hit the same way; because being a cheapskate isn't a typically black trope it feels more like a personal flaw than a critique on black people as a whole (I'll know if this stereotype exists depending on how many people start hating me for this post).

I agree that CIS white male characters are allowed to be flawed a lot more; that to me feels rooted in the fact that there aren't a lot of hurtful stereotypes about us.
And I agree that it's treated as the default way too often; I think a lot of that comes down to this law of marketing where "the person in the advert is the target audience", and because Producers or casting or whoever treats the film as a giant advert they go with lead characters who they assume to represent the majority of their audience.
Wanna hate advertising?
Study advertising.

NickRowler
Jul '22
TheLemmaLlama

I think it goes back to what I said here

When you only have one female character in the story, I think it causes people to be a bit more critical with the intent of why that character was written that way

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Like how in the promos for the first Avengers movies, people were critical of Black Widow's butt pose. This is not people saying that female characters are not allowed to be sexy. It's more people noticing female characters being tight casted into being the "sexy one" with very little diversity in the cast to showing women who aren't that. Add that male characters don't really get the same treatment, hence why the meme was created. Also, this film was heavily marketed toward children which also makes it a little weird.

kitkatxk
Jul '22

I agree wholeheartedly. People have been mixing up flawed and problematic characters. It's almost desperately deteriorating expectation in society for the younger generation. Romanticizing horribly problematic themes and making them and the people doing these acts "desirable". It's god awful. There is such a huge disconnect in the real world application that you can love someone despite being slightly flawed. Vs loving someone through their erratic and horrid behavior on the verge of criminal. I am no t saying that doesn't happen. There are plenty of people who love murderers and other bad people. But that should be an exception not the rule. And the fact that people are blurring the line between maybe loving someone who say used to be a bully. Or hates you having hot friends. To flat out. Hey this person is stalking me. Now holding me down against my will while I beg them to stop. How romantic.
It's a genuine problem with media right now.

TheLemmaLlama
Jul '22
NickRowler

Yeah, totally agree that the stereotype isn't as jarring if the character isn't a token and there are other characters of the same demographic that don't fit the stereotype :] Though the OP also acknowledged a lot of the 'problematic' criticism is because of harmful stereotypes

I do still feel though that cis white straight man get more leeway, even if we take out the stereotype factor. For instance, in (straight) love triangles, a female rival for the affections of the protagonist's crush tends to be demonized by the audience if they just act kind of catty and jealous while a male rival for the male protagonist's crush is only demonized by the audience if they're portrayed as straight up abusive.

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