(T/F)’Negative character traits are actually their positive traits turned up to 11’

senpai will notice that his subway sandwich has blood on it

I dont have a single word for it, but a sense of justice? it also involved punishing people but only those that do bad things. sadism is just hurting people for no reason and enjoying it

maybe protectiveness or loyalty? jealous is a type of possessiveness and the good form of that is normal love.

I'm definitely on board with the idea that "character flaws" and "character virtues" aren't necessarily different things. I've talked about this on other threads, but I personally don't give my characters "virtues" and "flaws"; I give them a set of traits which I view neutrally, as things that could be good or bad depending on the circumstances.

As an example, let's take Trash Girl herself, Rekki Lune. Rekki in the prologue is presented as a pretty heroic sort of lass, but by the main story, we have a much more negative view of her, but really her personality hasn't changed that much at all since she was a teenager, we've just seen how bad a negative outcome they can cause for everyone. Rekki is:
- Brash and impulsive: She will not hesitate to act.
- Puts others before herself to the point that she will throw herself into danger with little regard for her own safety.
- Takes responsibility for everything.
- Is inclined to trust authority figures over her own judgement, has low self-esteem.
- Desperately wants to be needed, valued and seen as useful.
- Straightforward and to the point, doesn't like complication.

Depending on the situation, Rekki could be called a brave and tough leader who makes hard choices and takes initiative, and who will reliably carry out the orders of her superiors rather than wasting time questioning them.... OR she could be a bad friend and dangerous loose cannon who doesn't consider the moral or ethical ramifications of her actions, values the praise of those in power over supporting marginalised people and who throws herself into things without thinking. The same traits can be good or bad without the amount of them changing, just the circumstances.

Every character in Errant is like this, even Urien, who is probably the worst human in the story, has traits that could be good in some situations... he's just been given unbelievable power that brings out all the worst sides to these traits.

Okay I'm gonna say true but only partially. I think negative traits should reflect the positive, and vice versa.
Like ... Some positive traits can just go wrong depending on the circumstances. Someone with a strong sense of justice might take things too far because they've had a bad string of events happen. And so they go so far as to decide their justice should be enforced on everyone, whether they agree or not.
Or maybe someone who's carefree doesn't take a situation seriously enough and they become seen as calloused.

I really think those positive traits should be given the potential to go horribly wrong, it adds tension. (In moderation, otherwise you'll get a cast of edgelords XD)

I also had issues in agreeing with the post I found earlier but this one is much closer to how I view character traits. Every virtue has its own variations of perception based on how much of it is expressed

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I've learned that emotions fall on range and people are often very quick to assign one name to what might be a myriad of emotions. I like the post @ar-ninetysix shared because it helps illustrate the range that emotions have. I have found that if you take the time to break down the "primary" emotion you are giving to a character, it becomes a million times easier to develop them.

For example. Anger - Anger is a very extreme emotion. Most people are never truly angry, they are at various degrees of frustration. True Hulk-like anger/rage requiring a lot of build up. If you have a character that's chronically labelled as "angry", you could twist the character so they are actually constantly frustrated by things they don't understand. (A lot of people with some form of mental illness experience this) With further character development, the character could be soothed by doing repetitive action and be awesome at some completely unthought of task that you never thought off.

Another example: Jealousy is often painted as a very toxic emotion. But, if you break down the emotion, the root of a lot of jealousy is fear. To twist it into more positive character development, your character could be afraid of losing someone they care about to some other entity. Despite their fear/jealousy, they could work extra hard to make their relationship work and communicate their feelings. The key is exercising some empathy so you can understand the emotion better before twisting it positive or negative.

In terms of applying this philosophy to real life morality, I'd say you should steer clear as far as you can from that sort of idea because that path leads straight to "Hitler just cared too much about Germany."

In terms of using it as writing advice, I think it's a pretty useful tool for making your characters have more depth and solidifying in your mind exactly what their motivations are and keeping yourself consistent on their characterization. It can make your villains a lot more sympathetic if you can tie their reprehensible actions to a more understandable quality of theirs and it can make your heroes feel more flawed and human if you can show how their admirable traits don't always mesh well when reality hits.

But again, I would not use this philosophy for media analysis or real-world moralizing - strictly as a thought exercise for writing compelling characters,

Anyway, I'll try my hand at your unworkable examples:

Hostility -> A trait of a survivor in rough circumstances who has had to learn to be suspicious of strangers. This would work best in a setting where such tactics can be easily presented as beneficial (e.g. post-apocalypse, dog-eat-dog world). You would need to present tangible examples in the story that show how this personality is more effective than a more polite form of suspicion. A non-apocalyptic example could be characters dealing with pushy salespeople/conmen - the hostile character shuts them down immediately and never budges, while the more polite-yet-still-suspicious person still leaves openings for the salesperson to target.

Cruelty -> "Cruelty" is a pretty vague quality as there are a lot of ways to be cruel. There's the sort of average level of cruelty wherein somebody simply doesn't consider other people's emotions when they act or they intentionally try to hurt another person's feelings with their behavior. To the former, I would tie that into the archetype of the "emotionless logicbot" who is very good at analytical and logical reasoning but performs so at the expense of empathy. To the latter, I'd go the opposite, this is someone who is typically passionate and emotional, which allows them to empathize easily with others and drive themselves toward doing good things - but it also gives them a temper and an understanding of what sort of things would be most emotionally impactful to others. If someone gets on their bad side, they could use their emotional intelligence to really hit them where it hurts and their short temper would spur them to actually do so.

Then there's physical cruelty, something you would be more likely to see in an action series or something, where the character might enjoy inflicting harm on others. I'd return to the passionate, emotional character for this who is only driven towards cruelty when it comes to those who hurt the ones they love. For example, Gohan from Dragon Ball Z after turning Super Saiyan 2 is extremely cruel to Cell, but that stems from his pent-up emotional turmoil and the fact that Cell was an active threat against everyone he loved. Audiences liked that Gohan was a lot more emotionally involved than his father, but that emotionality was also the reason his anger could make him do harmful things.

Rudeness -> Again, "rude" can manifest in a lot of ways, but one way would be the sort of person who kinda dominates whatever social interaction they're involved in. This could be portrayed as exaggerated assertiveness, like you mentioned, show that this person is generally successful and their ability to always control the conversation is what led to it. They develop a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense sort of leader and the respect earned from others gives them a justification to continue acting in this way.

Sadism -> I would tie this in with the cruelty entry.

Just because the idea of "punishment" isn't inherent to sadism doesn't mean it can't be part of the background of why a character became sadistic. For example, in the Netflix adaptation of Daredevil, Matt Murdoch has a strong sense of justice that drives him towards beating up criminals who evade the law. However, he also derives pleasure from inflicting pain on people he thinks "deserve" it and it's very much portrayed as a flaw of his that ties into his greater noble goal. It leads to the complex question of "Does Matt use violence to appeal to his desire for justice or does he use the concept of justice as an excuse to satisfy his desire for violence?"

Jealousy -> Someone jealous of another's successes/privileges/accomplishments can have that tied into a generally ambitious personality that drives them towards achieving great things. The #2 fighter who's always jealous of the #1 guy is driven by their desire to surpass their rival, but it's still admirable how they put so much hard work into their achievement and this jealousy-driven ambition allows them to be strong enough to battle the bad guys.

I definitely think that flaws and positive traits can be two sides of the same coin--because often you can't have one without the other. I don't know if I agree that they have to be opposites, but I do think that all the traits in a character have to make sense as part of the same web. Like all the traits should relate to eachother.

I agree with Doki. While I do generally agree with the philosophy, saying that ALL negative traits are just exaggerated positive traits is a bit absurd. Some negative traits are just negative traits.

Honestly, I find the whole "positive vs. negative traits" thing to be a bit overstated. Sometimes a trait can be positive or negative just depending on who you ask—e.g. Character A might admire Character B for their bravery in combat, while Character C thinks of them as a heartless killer. I just give my characters traits and let context decide which ones are positive or negative.

The true/false binary is too limiting as a response to such a question because the answer is not binaric, but I went with true because the philosophy which inspires it is mostly true. Though that school of philosophy deals with too much and too little of a trait!

(By the way, you may find the philosophy in question - Aristotelian virtue ethics - fascinating! It's my favourite, and is easily applicable to modern life.)

Aristotle argues that most traits in excess can be bad, and that we should instead strive for balance. Think of positive and negative extremes as weights existing on a set of scales. For instance, courage. Too little, and you are a coward. Too much, and you are reckless. But if you balance the scales, there lies true courage.

I'll try to apply this to your examples.

Rudeness/Bluntness: In many ways, rudeness is honesty taken to an extreme. You're not wrong in suggesting assertiveness either, since you need that in order to be truly honest. But, if a person has too little of either, they become a doormat who can't be honest in voicing their true feelings about something.

Jealousy: The word 'jealousy' has two meanings - the desire to have what others possess, and the desire to guard what belongs to oneself. (We really should have two words!) Both meanings stem from selfishness, and indicate a lack of generosity. If a person is overly generous, they may ultimately undermine their ability to maintain their own livelihood. They are also easily taken advantage of. If they are not generous enough, often because they jealously guard what is 'theirs', they become greedy, and through this, undermine the livelihoods of others.

Cruelty: Cruelty is the opposite of kindness. Too much kindness, you can again be easily taken advantage of, to the detriment of your own wellbeing. (Notice the pattern here, that tilting the scale too far to one side typically harms the self, while tilting it too far to the opposite typically harms others.) Too little kindness, however, makes you cruel. (This is treating cruelty in its passive form. Active, deliberate cruelty done for pleasure is...)

Sadism: Sadism and cruelty are twins. While cruelty can be passive, or at least emotionless, sadism is active and deliberate cruelty inflicted for pleasure. So I would argue that sadism is merely the deliberate embracing of an imbalanced extreme (cruelty) for personal pleasure, and therefore is on the scale of kindness.

So, to summarise, the traits you couldn't find answers for within the framework of the question you posed were because they are symptoms of a trait turned down, with the exception of rudeness. But, while they may not fit neatly within the question you posed, but they do fit within the philosophy of virtue ethics, which is the philosophical 2300-year-old bedrock inspiring questions like these.

This is exactly a story I have planned specifically the overprotectiveness, it's a story focused on the mental health of the main character and how they justify their escalation and obsession to protect, its a slow burn trying to convince the reader that the main character is being logical the entire time but their actions begin to contradict their beliefs towards the end.

Depends on the trait. Negative character traits can be just traits that specific people don't like or get along with. It could also be bad traits that the character thinks are good and places value in.

As an example of potentially both simultaneously: I'm the kind of guy that questions things. I'm very skeptical and if something you say sets off my bells a bit I won't just agree with you or move on, I'll point it out. I'll also do my own short research into it or expect you to explain to me why I should believe whatever the thing is that you say. I don't mean anything negative by it. I'm interested in truth and will admit when I've been shown wrong without any negative feelings. Problem is that most people don't take it that way whether or not they know my intent. It can come off as abrasive. I find value in this. Most people do not. I also probably do it too much.

Maybe this is a positive trait turned up to 11. Maybe this is a negative trait that I find value in. Maybe it depends on who you ask. I've spoken to people with all 3 viewpoints about myself. It depends on the person's perspective.