How do we feel about unsympathetic protagonists?

I think there's a difference between unsympathetic MCs and unlikeable MCs. As long as the author can give a good reason for character acting like a jerk (i.e trauma from being a minority like in your story) I can sympathize with them. I actually think these character flaws make for some of the best MCs.
The opposite is true too. There are some goody-two-shoes MCs that I can not sympathize with because the author never gave them good enough characterization.

That said, some people are really bad at characterization, and some jerk MCs are really annoying even with a sympathetic backstory, so I think it comes down to the execution

Hm… there probably are stories with unsympathetic protagonists that I do enjoy but the first story that came to my mind was Breaking Bad and I just can’t stand Walter. He’s so annoying and I couldn’t finish the series because of it. In my eyes he’s borderline villain though lol.

I guess the series is good as a whole but no, I can’t stand the protagonist

Maybe I can’t stand unsympathetic characters in general. I recall how irritated I used to get with Donald Duck, but what helps there is that there are so many other characters in the stories and Donald isn’t always the main protagonist hehe.

As long as the author can give a good reason for character acting like a jerk

I agree with this @river121693! But I’m not able to quote it from my phone lol. Walter is way out of line in my opinion hehehe.

There are some goody-two-shoes MCs that I can not sympathize with because the author never gave them good enough characterization.

And this as well since those type of characters often comes off as plain and boring.

I agree about Walter lmao. I mean I understand you're in an ego fueled spiral Walter, but like, just chill dude

Hahaha yes yes! Happy that I’m not alone

I understand this, and in my opinion villain-protagonists is really something interesting. As long as you are able to bring out something reasonable for their behaviour or thoughts etc, I feel that there is no need to really bring this out. We all have people with different personalities.
I'm just curious, does her being a social outcast make her feel like she is lonely? Perhaps she really wants someone to be like her. What's her intention of bringing such unsympathetic opinions and behaviour through this storytelling?
Just something to say, this is rather a one sided opinion from the main character, so this will be an unreliable storytelling

Sorry for the rambling

I think my main character's kind of interesting in regards to his sympathy, and his morals. The whole story of my main character Donnie, who's 16 for the record, is that he wants to resist the urge to hurt or kill people. At least in the beginning of the story, it's mainly because he does view hurting people, even the followers of his backwards dictator leader, as morally wrong, but doesn't actually feel sympathy (or empathy) for them, and not without reason.

While HE specifically isn't persecuted for the typical reasons you're probably thinking of, he knows many others in the country are, and it's how the country is run. However, despite his lack of any sort of sympathy or empathy or whatever for these people, he does know it's wrong. And he has faced many other types of humiliations and unfair treatment by the same system, just for different reasons. All of which left him in state of constantly wanting the harshest type of revenge of those who've wronged him. However, he still believes that a person SEEKING to take their lives, or make them suffer is wrong, in spite of all they've done.

If someone gets hurt through natural, or accidental events, he'd probably be happy about it. If someone gets hurt because someone SEEKED to make them suffer, he'll be angry the sufferer, but not feel any sort of sympathy, or blah blah blah for the victim. He'll only really feel sad about it if HE's the one who hurt them. Not because of sympathy, but because of knowing he broke his morals.

Again, his character has changed a lot since then, but this is pretty much what he was like at the beginning of the story.

I find unsympathetic protagonists quite interesting, especially when I can understand why they act the way they do. I think if you're aware of their flaws and why they are the way there are you can have a very layered and three dimensional character.

I know for me personally, I can get a bit bored when the main character of every story has to be this goody two shoes all the time and 100% moral because not everyone is born into a circumstance where they can always know or be able to be a good person. It really depends on the story tbh. I'm just a fan of flawed characters because there's so much cool stuff to explore

To me, more than how the protagonist thinks and acts, the narrative framing and how other characters react to that character's meanness are the really important thing.

I'm perfectly happy to read a story where the protagonist is kind of mean or frequently thinks ill of those around them, or straight up does unpleasant things.Tyrion Lannister was one of my favourite characters in the Song of Ice and Fire books, and while he is comparatively well adjusted by standards of that series, he's frequently selfish, mean and manipulative.
But in Tyrion's case, it feels understandable because everyone is mean to him; he's always at a disadvantage, and while he gets his occasional victories, he just as often faces painful defeats and setbacks. He faces consequences and criticism for the bad things he does, or he does bad things because he's in a bad situation either by necessity or in a way the narrative never condones as being good. If the character is mean but people react believably to it and there are consequences, or at least if the narrator is describing it all with a bit of snark to clue us in that we're not meant to think this is actually good... yeah, sure, I'm okay with it!

The thing that will immediately put me off is when the protagonist does nothing but complain and lash out at people, and does bad things with the excuse that the world is bad to them and people are awful, but there's nothing in the way other characters treat them or the way their life is to act as evidence of this. All the other characters in the story are falling over themselves with a genuine desire to help them, falling in love with them because they're perceived as attractive and charming by everyone for some reason, and then the narrative doesn't seem to frame this critically at all, but writes about it as if this is all very sympathetic. A lot of people criticise Bella from Twilight for this reason; she's moved to a town she hates because it's...not hot like the desert and also there are... things to do and people... unlike the desert (wha-?), she automatically assumes everyone in this new town will be stupid and will make fun of her so she goes to school and just kind of mopes... and then somehow a bunch of people come and make friends with her like "WOW! You're from a desert!? That's SO interesting! Come and sit with us at lunch!!!!" and then the hottest guy at school is immediately obsessed with her... and Bella learns no lessons from this, and the narrative tone is never even slightly critical of how judgemental and negative she was, because the narrator seems to believe that Bella is better than everyone else; she's right to think other people are stupid and shallow compared to her, and people should like her.
A lot of teenagers (and some emotionally immature or narcissistic adults) find Bella sympathetic because they also think that they're right to think that they're uniquely smart, mature, deep and interesting, not like other girls, but it can be really cringe to read with critical thinking, because Bella is actually being really small-minded and mean, and in real life, that'd probably actually leave her isolated. It's an indulgent Fantasy where a person's misanthropic opinions and behaviour are justified because they really are better than other people and everyone should just deal with that.

So I guess for me, the line is "Does it feel like the writer is indulging in a Fantasy where they, through the protagonist, are "oppressed" and therefore justified in mean opinions and selfish behaviour while also simultaneously being showered with love and support, not really being even inconvenienced by the supposed "oppression" they say they face (the "bullies" never actually do much), and succeeding at everything?"

Haha really? But I can understand not liking Mickey too much though. I felt like Goofy was a more balanced character, nice and a little goofy hehe.

I mean in the latter seasons it was more apparent that Walter was supposed to be the villain but still, I couldn't stand him.

But there definitely are unsympathetic and narcissistic characters who I do find very interesting, like Tyrion for example:

Yeah, I'd say your protagonist sounds sympathetic. Like, you're supposed to understand where they're coming from and come to the conclusion they're not a terrible person. People sympathise hard with some of the meanest characters because they really feel what drove them to act the way they do.

An unsympathetic protagonist would be if you totally botched the execution; for instance, if everyone who excludes her are generic bully types who are obviously there just to be mean to her and anyone that actually 'matters' is nice to her. I mean, it would still suck if you're actually in that situation, but to the audience, it's not like '95 people are mean to you and 5 people are nice to you', it's more '5 people are nice to you while there are 95 props giving you the stinkeye in the background'.

I do think an intentionally unsympathetic protagonist could work; like if they're unapologetically mean and have no sympathetic backstory to 'justify' it (either it's completely unexplained or there is an explanation of their behavior but it's not supposed to make you go 'oh, would I have responded any differently if I were in their situation?' but rather 'I totally would've reacted differently in that situation, what a jerk! But they're a realistic jerk. We all know one person just like that, smh'). It is pretty rare though; these characters tend to be side characters or antagonists

But an unsympathetic protagonist of the 'was supposed to be sympathetic but the execution was lacking' variety ... tends to annoy readers :'D I've never seen these go down well, or accidentally become the 'entertaining' kind of unsympathetic XD

The first comic that came to my mind while reading this was the main character of Teppu3. She comes off as someone you really wouldn't want to be in a room with for long and can be pretty sadistic in how she goes for what she wants to achieve once she wants something. She is literally like the anti shonen protagonist and she knows she is seen as a villian. I absolutely love her. I do feel she becomes more sympathetic as time goes on, but you gotta go through quite a few chapters to get that lol.

Much to what @river121693 was saying, there is a difference between unsympathetic and unlikeable, You can have an absolute jerkwad of a character that folks love to hate and that's skill right there. Bc being flat or falling into plain annoying is the pitfall.

I love characters that break popular narrative tropes though XD!

I'm fine with unsympathetic protagonists if they were supposed to be that way and other characters acknowledge they're jerks and maybe even call them out on that. If they're unsympathetic accidentally, then we have a problem... xD

For example I'm fine with people finding one of my protagonists annoying, since he's supposed to be a stubborn jerk, who's supposed to work out his issues. Actually one lengthy comment criticizing his actions os one of the best comments I've ever received. xD

Dude. This is a really great thought/concept/question. And, while it SOUNDS complex about how to feel about it, it really isn't. The only thing complex about this type of thing is the character development and story being told. That's how good stories are written. While it may lose some readers at first, it will attract the right crowd of readers--and that's way more important. You're not thinking the wrong assumption necessarily, you just need to be confident in your story and how you tell it! :}

For a while, a buddy of mine was under the impression that, as a story creator, our jobs were to hold hands with our reader and lead them through with morally sound characters. They had called me out for having my main character be a teenager who smokes cigarettes. My reaction? "A reader doesn't wanna smoke because Parker smokes. They wanna smoke because they wanna smoke--and for probably more embedded reasons than you or I could fathom. I'm not responsible for others. Also, I'm not going to assume my audience is stupid, because that's an insult to them."

Your main character is flawed and that's good. It can be relatable for some, unrelatable to others who will later see the dimensional value that it adds to the story.

It mostly depends on if they’re written as unsympathetic on purpose or if it was an accident.

This is probably unshocking for me to say lol but! Yes, I love an "unsympathetic" protagonist. I definitely recognize that I'm a flawed person and most people are, I even love seeing characters with flaws that are way more exaggerated than mine. I don't always love the characters but I think a good, unsympathetic weirdo adds some flavor to a story. I think the term 'unsympathetic' is pretty open to interpretation & pretty subjective- but I believe I know what you're getting at here & I think I agree with you.

I think a lot of reasons people find very small, realistic flaws to be unbearable in characters is because they are realistic though, is the tricky thing. People are more likely to get annoyed at things that they encountered in real life, so if they see a protagonist that acts like their annoying neighbor, or the kid who bullied them in high school, or that boss they dislike . . . they're going to direct that anger towards your character, usually.

What you are describing sounds like a very real thing for an insecure kid around that age demographic to do, I think it's worth it to put the moment in. I think it especially helps that she eventually becomes her friend- it sounds like this moment will really heighten that character arc and make it more impactful.

And, obligatory mention of my own stuff here but! I really liked writing Charlotte personally because I felt it was a lot easier just to go absolutely ham on making a very selfish and hypocritical character. I did base her partially after myself when I was a kid- she has all those wonderful 13-year-old me flaws, with all the comedic possibilities that entails. (Though she is 28 so those flaws are . . . understandably, probably not considered as sympathetic by my audience LOL.)