Is your main character likeable?

[jessiepolfliet]

I find that difficult to answer, I don't know if my main character is likable. He lives in a remarkable world were he 'was' the normal one. But as the story progresses he becomes more and more part of that interesting and new world. How do you define likable? Some people like jerks and others hate the good guys. I think it is matter of personal taste.

[Pyre_The_Kitsune]

I want to try and have my main character, Pyre, have both loveable and hateable actions, thoughts, moments, etc. throughout my comic. Will this work out? When The Spire was a pen and paper comic a friend of mine said he was a (I quote here), "Happy-go-lucky bi-polar idiot who is so naive with everything besides his own life he'd ask a black person who would be evil enough to burn them so badly." I was laughing so hard I projectile vomited all over my lunch, his lunch, and him. It did work however because he then couldn't make up his mind about hating him the next day. All the other people who read the paper edition agreed with the indecision, each with a different list of what they liked/disliked about him. So I'll try to not make Pyre look like a fool on the digital edition this time around.

[SpavVy]

I have four main characters but I will try my best to answer this.
I don't try hard to really make them "likable" when you try too hard to make them likable it tends to backfire and not everyone will like them anyway. That's just how it is.
I just try to make them somewhat realistic as people, my characters do make mistakes and sometimes really big ones that they sometimes cannot fix later on, especially my character Jack, he's done that twice. The two big mistakes he's made can be compared to squeezing all the toothpaste out of the pack and then trying to put it all back in.
My character Lucy has done some things she's not proud of either.
So both of thse characters have skeletons in their closets.
for my characters this could go either way probably :/
I could get readers that really like my characters for their flaws or some that may not like them because of their flaws or some that may just think.... meh.
It's all about personal preference.

For example
I hate Grell from Black Butler for multiple reasons, one of them being his attempts with suicide to bring humor to the audience and personally that puts a really bad taste in my mouth for reasons I'd prefer not to get into.
I would have liked him a lot more if he was just an insane grim reaper tbh.
A lot of Black Butler's audience really likes Grell though and I can see their reasons, but unfortunately I don't feel the same as they do about the character. I actually I find a lot of the characters in that show to be unlikable and I basically only watched it because I liked the art and my girlfriends kept bugging me to watch it. When season two came out so many people hated Alois but...I actually really liked him :<
Maybe I just have bad taste in characters xD

[TAMAnnoying]

Characters are people, people are jerks, people can be sad, people make dumb mistakes. Their "Likability" is within the audience ability to identify with them. Woody is identifiable because he was going through a change in his life that upset him and led him down a path he would not have normally gone down (as we see in the first few scenes he's very caring of the other toys) so to see him try to throw Buzz out the window and "kill" him was both shocking but interesting to see how he got to that point.

I don't know much about Scott pilgrim :v so i wont go into that one.

But thats the thing "likable" is a silly thing to say. Your characters like ability is just the same as why you do or do not like your brothers friends but he clearly loves his friends because he hangs out with them all the time. Liking a person is a very personal thing. Just like liking a character. If you don't like woody its because you don't like him or his personally (or because he's a creepy pull my string doll) but that wont stop other people from liking him.

I think people should strive more for Identifiable then likable. No one will be loved by everyone. Not everyone likes Buzz... not everyone likes Lewis Black, and some people don't like your next door neighbor. :v es just how things are.

NOW to answer your question of if my main character is likable? .... I got like... ten stories XD so hard question to answer. I like to think my characters are all messed up in their own ways and prob wont be liked from first meeting. But thats fine, they're not always friendly, so it makes scene. :v

[ErithEl]

I feel like this is a little difficult to judge for yourself.

As long as all of your characters, including the main character, are well rounded, they are bound to be likable to someone!

The thing that I have been going for for my characters is "real," not "likable." Several of my readers have commented that they like my main character because of a recent thing she did, but I know they may feel differently down the line as things change for her. But...that's the whole point: Character development. I would much rather have my readers hate my main character, then love her, then feel sorry for her, etc than have her remain likable to them throughout the story.

[AnnaLandin]

Masahiro is hardly likeable at the moment. He's a grumpy misanthropist, far more concerned with his own problems than with the problems of others. He's not a complete jerk - he doesn't abandon little bloodstained orphan girls when he finds them in the woods, because that would be a really jerk-y thing to do - but let's just say he's hardly anyone's ideal of a good person.

And while he has some growing left to do, he won't ever be perfectly likeable - because honestly? I find that sort of thing a little boring. In some cases, a perfectly likeable main character can be pulled off - I really like it when a good person is contrasted against a terrible world, for example - but if the reader/viewer goes in knowing that this person is perfectly likeable all the time, a bit of the tension goes out of the story, IMHO.

[Jelw]

Hardly likable? …aha well oops

[AnnaLandin]

@Jelw Hahaha - it's alright if you like him! I'm happy that you do! But I'm also not surprised if people don't, right now; he's being kind of a jerk. I mean, the only reason why he's still got Akane with him is that she just won't stay put when he leaves her. XD

[igneriss]

In most comics I've read, I didn't like the main character. Or, I liked him/her, but it wasn't my fav character from the story. And I still enjoyed it. As long as there is one character that can become my favourite- be it main or side character- I'll probably like the story C:

As for my main character, I have no idea if she's likeable : o She's probably a bit annoying, haha~

[GlanceReviver]

I like to create characters who cause most of their own problems, or can't see how simple the solution to their problems might be because of their personality flaws. Like, a character who is a jerk because they feel rejected by others, not realizing that it's their being a jerk that is causing their isolation. You feel bad for them kind of like a puppy knocking its own water bowl over, and you want them to learn how to do the right thing.

[elixiadragmire]

Heres something that I'm currently trying to do is that I'm trying to establish TWO main characters to allow readers to have a choice of relatable character, if that works or not depends on how well I do this

[allenthomas]

I'm honestly not sure. The personalities of my two main characters seem to come across to my readers the way I want them to. I will say that one of them is a pretty reckless and almost irresponsible person. I often find myself almost feeling like I'm making him unlikeable the wilder he behaves and talks, but my readers seem to love him. I guess it's just a fine line that I will be walking on throughout the remainder of my story. To answer the topic I guess they would be likeable.

[TristanJensen]

I think that sounds really cool. I've seen other authors do that, mainly Rick Riordan with The Kane Chronicles which is from the perspective of two different people. I really enjoyed it there so I'm really curious to see how that works out

[maximumthemokona]

It depends on the reader. My sister for example can't stand negativity in stories and is unable to sympathize with a jerkass main character. Personally I'm kind of a jerk in real life so I have trouble believing characters who are nice all the time. I think it's good to have a jerk MC as long as they have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

[elixiadragmire]

I'm hoping it works! they've got conflict but similar goals too

[KriComic]

Whether a character is likeable really depends on whether or not they are relatable. I like to think our man character, Felix, is rather relatable, as he has no clue whats going on in his life after the events of the first few strips, and to an extent, neither does the reader. He also just wants to protect his friends, and cares deeply about them. I feel like anyone can relate to that.

I hope that most of our main cast is relatable to someone.

[Jelw]

Maybe he has a bit of a bad attitude, but he's got clear morals which makes a difference to me, and a lot of people a assume.

(General topic reply--)
Like a lot of people have mentioned, even a bad character in sense of personality can be likable with good writing. I think it's just part of human nature to want to understand things, otherwise science and other things wouldn't be as important in our society as they are.
That's why even a bad character can be liked if there are clear reasons behind their actions, or if they're shown to have morals of their own. Where as a character who may be pleasant and kind but lacks these things or is riddled with inconsistency is harder to see as a person, and is therefore harder to like.
I also think morals have a large part of making a character likable on a personal standard.

[martharpearson]

My main character thus far makes horrible first impressions. She's still trying to find what makes her likeable but heck that's part of the story and I'm having fun watching her freak out. Characters have flaws, characters have problems, and people end up rooting for the hero as they take that shotgun seat to watch that character overcome those problems, conquer that molehill and do whatever it is heroes do to become so endearing.

[AngieVX]

Mine are likable, but sometimes I try to show them in a different way. Also I try to give them some bad-boy(girl)-vibe, though it's hard to see in the first chapters. XD

[whydocowsfall]

I'm that rare example of a terrible person who, nine times out of ten, likes the main character best... Everyone has different opinions, but personally for me I can't stand characters who are just downright mean or spend too much time whining about how sad they are and how horrible their life is, as it just gets me really down too. I do like characters to be "nice" but, as most people would agree, that can be pretty darn boring if that's their only personality trait.

My main character... Well, almost everyone who's voiced an opinion seems to like Polyphemus so far! But I think that's because nobody's seen much of him yet so for now he's just "adorable" or "cute", and that's the only thing for people to judge him on. I don't know what people will think as the story continues? I think there's definitely potential for people to think either way, but I hope most people continue to like him. I certainly do. :')