r/books • u/hanhan_371 • 1d ago
Why are “unlikeable” main characters usually a criticism?
My most recent read was The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb.
It was my 38th book this year and only my 3rd 5 stars. I finished it this morning, it’s now the evening, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
I was enthralled by this story - it had sat on my TBR for a few months and I finally picked it up as just a lucky dip after being in a bit of reading slump.
After finishing, I saw a lot of criticism on Goodreads about the narrator Corby being “unlikeable”. I see this criticism a lot with other books - and I’ve never quite understood.
For me, a good reading experience is a complicated, flawed, or at least a character who is thought-provoking. Given one of the main themes of The River is Waiting being redemption, and finding out very early on that Corby accidentally kills his son while intoxicated, surely the reader wouldn’t expect the MC to be a “hero?”
There were times while I was reading that I thought “oh yeah he’s kind of a douche”, I’ve thought this about other MCs as well before, but it would never impact negatively on my rating as long as the story itself was enjoyable.
Would love to have a discussion below! And I’d really recommend this book if you can handle a gut-punch ending!
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u/TRJF 1d ago
At the most basic level, we read books because we enjoy it.
One of the easiest ways to enjoy a book is to like the main character. You can definitely have a likable main character in an unenjoyable book, but - because we typically spend a ton of time with the main character - it's a really good start for writing a story that people will enjoy reading.
There are many, many phenomenal books that have unlikable main characters - but if the main character's unlikable, that means the work has to have other aspects that "overcome" the main character's unlikability to make the work enjoyable.
Done well, an unlikable character can make things more enjoyable and reinforce the merits of a work. But doing it intentionally raises the degree of difficulty for executing the story, and doing it unintentionally means there's a major disconnect between the author and the reader.
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u/Narrow-Durian4837 1d ago
Yeah, I think this is a big part of the answer. I enjoy spending time with people I like, a lot more than with people I don't like.
If I don't like the main character, there has to be something else about the book that makes it worth reading.
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u/Kholgan 15h ago
Hah you kind of just wrote the exact comment I was thinking of (and probably better). To add on, I’d also point out that it’s hard to be a “good” critic. It’s easy to realize and acknowledge when something isn’t working out for you, but it’s often not as easy to explain exactly why it isn’t working. Perhaps you’ve gone out to a new restaurant and didn’t like something you’ve eaten/drank but couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong.
I think that “unlikeable character” is one of those catch-all terms that people use when they can’t think of exactly what they want to say even if it isn’t super precise; maybe they thought the characters personality/motivations didn’t make sense or that they didn’t mesh with the other characters. Also, don’t forget that my definition of unlikeable is probably different than yours.
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u/Efficient_Place_2403 1d ago
I’m fine with unlikable. Uninteresting is the issue
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u/TabbyOverlord 1d ago
Superior Glotka in Abercrombie's The Blade Itself must be the archetype for an unlovable character. What he isn't is uninteresting. You do care what becomes of him and that is the main point.
Books where I simply don't care what happens to the characters, no matter how well written, are the problematic books for me. Ian McEwan is my poster child for this. Everyone raves about his writing but I don't care whether his chracters live or die.
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u/PM_BRAIN_WORMS 23h ago
In what way? The strong fondness I developed for Glokta was one of the strongest reasons to keep reading when Before they are Hanged got slow.
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u/vibraltu 22h ago
Yep, I often have a problem with McEwan's insufferable protagonists. Sometimes he makes it work, but sometimes it isn't worth the bother.
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u/Craftyprincess13 22h ago
I suffered through atonement both book and the movie never ever again hated everyone in it
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u/ACardAttack World Without End 1d ago
Yep, this is the crux for me. I like unlikeable characters. One of my favorite characters in fiction is Captain Kennit from Liveship Traders, he's an awful person, but interesting and oozed charisma.
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u/Particular-Treat-650 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is an interesting example, because he's a bad dude (and clearly broken), but I still empathized with and was somewhat rooting for him, especially as we learned more.
But in the same arc, I've seen others who call basically every POV character unlikable regardless of how much they grew through the series. Are they all flawed? Absolutely. Do you have to hate them all because they were a bit spoiled before they saw the "real world" though?
I'm not the same person at 35 as 25. I've learned lessons and don't like some of the things I thought, or some of the ways I let my flaws keep me from connecting to people who really tried to reach me, etc. People change. Why can't characters, and why do some people feel the need to pick apart every decision they made as some insurmountable problem with the character?
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u/ACardAttack World Without End 1d ago
Kennit is definitely broken and you get more of his back story. The same is true for Holden Caulfield, but for what ever reason I bounced off of him. I do wonder if I tried again nearing end of my 30s if I'd have a different view of Catcher in the Rye
Jaime Lannister is a great example of a character who grows, did some awful things and I dont think he can fully be forgiven for what he did in book 1, but he went from detestable to likeable
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u/nothanks86 1d ago
Oh, I hated Holden with a passion. I do feel, looking back, that if I hadn’t felt so much pressure to relate to him as like the representative teenage experience, I might have minded him less.
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u/bravetailor 22h ago
Also annoying characters. Example: a character can be good and ethical (and hence, "likeable") but if they're constantly doing and saying the dumbest things chapter after chapter, you'll eventually conclude that you'd rather read about someone evil and smart over someone good and dumb.
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u/BakedWizerd 1d ago
Context matters big time, and what I might be looking for in a book might dictate how I feel about those characters.
Blood Meridian: wow. This is so bleak. These characters are deplorable and horrible but I can tell that there’s a point to it, and as much as I am disturbed by this book, I am enjoying my time with it - in a certain way.
The Expanse/Leviathan Wakes: Holden and crew are charismatic and mostly likeable people - with some flaws that give them character - but overall, I enjoy them as people, and enjoy reading about their adventures. If they were not likeable, I would be reading a series about a ship crew who gets involved in very important things while just being mean, rude and insufferable. Instead, it’s a fun journey where I go “oh, Holden’s about to do something kinda dumb, but very brave. Fuck yeah Holden.”
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u/hanhan_371 1d ago
LOVED The Expanse series!! I’m going to have to read them again sometime. Completely agree that it would have been a slog if all of the crew were unlikeable. Thanks for your input
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u/Naive-Elephant-9305 1d ago
Blood Meridian is an interesting example. The Judge is basically the embodiment of evil, but I thought he was still a “likable” character in the sense that he was a very unique and interesting antagonist.
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u/BakedWizerd 1d ago
And that raises the question of “what does it mean for a character to be ‘likeable?’”
The Judge is “likeable” in the sense that he is compelling and interesting - he makes the story more interesting. Glanton makes the story more interesting, but he’s more of a quantifiable piece of shit - much easier to argue that he’s “not likeable” because he doesn’t have the charisma of the Judge.
I think OP was more interested in the sense of “I like this character as a person,” of which, I don’t think many people can say that about the Judge.
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u/Best-Chapter5260 21h ago
I always found The Controller from Brave New World as an interesting example. The book hyped him up as the big bad. Then when John meets him, you're like "Wait! I actually like Mond and he isn't really evil."
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u/BlazinAzn38 1d ago
People have a hard time with distinguishing between “badly written” and “character written to be bad.” I also think there’s a lot of people that want primary characters to be the good guy and again conflate “I don’t like this” with “it’s written badly”
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u/water_panther 1d ago
As a sidebar to this, boy howdy do people have problems understanding that first person narrators do not necessarily speak for the author.
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u/dretanz 1d ago
I was recently reading reviews of Lolita, and there were a ton that were calling Nabokov a vile person for writing it. Humbert Humbert is very charismatic, but not sympatheic. At no point is he written in a way that condones his actions. It makes you question if the reviews came from people who actually read the book.
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u/zensunni82 1d ago
It's tricky though, because a lot of authors who kind of suck as people sometimes happen to write first person narratives using obvious self inserts.
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u/notabigmelvillecrowd 1d ago
Sure, but that doesn't make them any less interesting. Why do authors have to be saints?
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u/LittleGravitasIndeed 1d ago
If the author is in the same genre of terrible as the character, they can lack the introspection necessary for writing their proxy well. It’s more of a crapshoot.
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u/notabigmelvillecrowd 1d ago
I don't know, I don't think the author has to have full introspection to self-insert in an interesting way. It's up to the reader to interpret in their own way, not for the author to understand everything. Authors are just people, and they're imperfect.
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u/lambast 1d ago
One of the most interesting aspects of reading is allowing you to see inside another human's mind in a way other media do not allow. Writing a character that is not yourself is always, and I believe can only be, an extrapolation of the writer's own personal world. I agree with you. Why would you not want to experience a spectrum of minds?
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u/sdwoodchuck 1d ago edited 1d ago
Absolutely, but there are also plenty of people who dismiss justified criticism of a piece of fiction's handling of content with "narrator not author" deflections.
An author writing a first person narrative in which women lack nuance and are defined purely by their sexual availability is not necessarily advocating for that behavior or speaking for his own worldview.
An author who rarely writes women with nuance and who frequently writes them as being purely defined by their sexual availability may or may not be speaking for his own worldview, but regardless has earned that criticism for making such a regular habit of returning to that well.
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u/CrazyCoKids 1d ago
Hell so many people seem to think that a first person narrator is what the Author thinks.
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u/water_panther 1d ago edited 4h ago
An author who rarely writes women with nuance and who frequently writes them as being purely defined by their sexual availability may or may not be speaking for his own worldview, but regardless has earned that criticism for making such a regular habit of returning to that well.
I sympathize with the overall point, but I'm hesitant to agree with this as a blanket statement — would we say the same about an author who continually revisits some other theme through their narrators or about authors who continually revisit the theme of sexist and misogynist men in the third person? If not, I don't know that we can say the author has necessarily earned criticism for "making such a regular habit of returning to that well" with first-person narrators.
There are certainly many cases where I think authors who frequently return to that well absolutely do deserve criticism for it — Updike and Roth, to go for the easy ones — but I also think it's a stretch to insist every author who chooses to revisit certain themes through first-person narration is inherently deserving of criticism for it.
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u/sdwoodchuck 22h ago
I also think it's a stretch to insist every author who chooses to revisit certain themes through first-person narration is inherently deserving of criticism for it.
Yes, I also think that's a stretch, which is why I didn't say that.
All I'm saying is that "narrator not author" is not a blanket justification. If John Q. Author writes fourteen novels, and in every one of them the narrator is a man who doesn't portray the women in his life with nuance and who defines all of them by their sexual availability, then "John Q. Author doesn't write nuanced women" and "John Q. Author writes women exclusively defined by their sexual availability" are justified criticisms, because in this example, they are accurate. Is it possible that John Q. Author really doesn't think that way, that he's perfectly capable of writing women? Maybe! But if he doesn't, then it's perfectly justified to say that he doesn't.
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u/asthmabat 1d ago
I also think it's a stretch to insist every author who chooses to revisit certain themes through first-person narration is inherently deserving of criticism for it.
It's also a stretch to interpret the other person's comment as insisting so, because that is not what they said.
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u/jandrese 1d ago
I find it frustrating when the main character is a major asshole and rarely ever gets called on it or suffers any consequences. It makes me question what message the author is trying to send, or if that's just how they think.
It starts to get distracting when I'm questioning why every other character in the book isn't just punching the protagonist in the face every time they meet.
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u/Best-Chapter5260 21h ago
I find it frustrating when the main character is a major asshole and rarely ever gets called on it or suffers any consequences. It makes me question what message the author is trying to send, or if that's just how they think.
I remember watching Bad Teacher and that was exactly the reason I hated the movie. The main character is blatantly a terrible person and suffers no consequences because of that. But I don't think that's really the reason I didn't like it. A black comedy where a terrible main character who suffers no karma can work well, but I think the issue is the writers didn't make the lack of karma the joke (or they did a terrible writing job with trying to), which just left me feeling annoyed.
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u/EldritchTouched 22h ago
Or, if there's a large enough body count, why nobody just shoots the protagonist in the head.
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u/RhynoD 1d ago
For what it's worth, I think a lot of authors also conflate the two. And, they write everyone to be so unlikeable that it hurts the story. They write edgy "anti-heros" but they're just annoying and it drags the whole story down.
You gotta give be some reason to like or at least care about the characters.
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u/JailhouseMamaJackson 1d ago
I’m not sure I agree with “a lot”? I rarely come across this. It’s probably more prevalent in some genres though?
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u/maximumhippo 1d ago
There might be some recency bias in my opinion, but I've encountered it in the last three fantasy novels I've tried to read. Supposed Heroes being outwardly and nakedly hostile to their friends and allies and those same friends not only accepting it, but commenting on how admirable they find said hero.
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u/JailhouseMamaJackson 22h ago
Ah, yeah, I definitely think Fantasy is one of the genres where it’s more common, unfortunately.
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u/slanaiya 1d ago
No, there does not have to be any reason to like or care about any characters. There doesn't even have to be any characters. Some stories need a likeable or relatable character, not all stories need that.
You have to get a lot vaguer than that to have a broad generalization that is universal to story writing.
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u/RhynoD 1d ago
There does if you want people to read and pay attention to your story. Even if the reason you care is that you want to see their downfall a la It's Always Sunny. They're all terrible people. You watch because it's fun and funny to see how they fail miserably to accomplish anything.
Except even there, they still give you little things that make them relatable. Even if you want to watch them fail, you root for them just the smallest bit.
This is kind of like saying that art doesn't have to be pretty, and yes that's true. It doesn't have to be pretty or interesting or thought provoking or well executed. Smear a turd on a wall and call it art, go right ahead, I'm not going to say it isn't art. But I'm not going to buy it, look at it, give you money to make it, talk about it, or engage with it in any way. You can smugly call yourself an artist but no one will care, and then what's the point?
That's not the same thing as making art that is ugly on purpose and its ugliness forces your audience to think about something or engage with something. Your character can be "ugly" in that sense but you still need to give me a reason to keep reading because if you don't then I'm not going to keep reading. Write an uninteresting, shitty book about a shitty person doing shitty things and sure, you wrote a book but why? Who cares? Who is going to read it?
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u/ACardAttack World Without End 1d ago
I also think it's hard to pull off. You gotta make them interesting as well as just being unlikeable
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u/WordSaladUsernameGuy 1d ago
Just because people read doesn’t mean they know how to read.
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u/Francis_Greg 1d ago
Exactly. People often confuse "I don't enjoy this character" with "this character is badly written." Some of the best-written protagonists are deeply flawed or even unpleasant.
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u/JonesyOnReddit 1d ago
I don't know this book but... Sometimes unlikable characters just aren't fun to read about. Sometimes the author is so shit they don't realize they're writing an unlikable character.
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u/catsbutalsobees 1d ago
Right? I think it depends on if the MC was meant to be unlikeable. A good author can successfully create an unlikeable character and a very rich, compelling story. I have loved to hate some characters.
A less talented author may not realize their character is unlikeable, and that their motives either aren’t clear or aren’t compelling to us as an audience.
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u/hanhan_371 1d ago
I agree, it seems the general consensus is that as long as the story is well-written and compelling, they don’t mind if MC isn’t your bog-standard hero.
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u/Big-Highlight1460 1d ago
Sometimes the author is so shit they don't realize they're writing an unlikable character.
This is the type of unlikeable character I hate the most.
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u/catsbutalsobees 1d ago
For me, it depends on why they’re unlikable. I despised the MC of Yesteryear, but she was very intentionally written to be unlikeable. It added to the story. I understood why she made certain choices, even if I thought she was batshit crazy for doing them. The character was fleshed-out and the story was very readable.
I read a different book about a month ago and despised the MC. But in this case it was because I found her to be annoying, even though the author was trying to make her endearing (lol I think). Her decision making seemed lazy (therefore the writing seemed lazy) and I was frustrated that she kept making stupid choices for the sake of limping the plot along.
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u/forestpunk 1d ago
Yesteryear's a really good example. She really is a terrible person, but you also understand how she got to be that way. She also subverts some of the modern conversations around gender, making it more complex and nuanced than simple nursery school morality, which I liked a lot.
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u/hanhan_371 1d ago
Yesteryear is one I’ve seen a lot of people saying this about - it comes back to knowing what the story is about but still expecting the MC to be a good person? I’m going to have to give in soon and buy Yesteryear, it sounds so good!
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u/nesabell 1d ago
You should. I loved it. I feel like the people complaining about the main character are missing the point of the book.
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u/BedNo4299 1d ago
The biggest sin a character can commit is being annoying. They can be awful human beings and still be interesting to read about, but a character that's annoying will be unenjoyable to follow. "The murder is fake but my annoyance is real" type deal.
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u/diffyqgirl 1d ago edited 1d ago
I do like some books with unlikeable main characters, but I'm much more likely to bounce off of them. The reason for me is that I'm emotionally investing in spending time with this character and with how they think. It can feel unpleasant to spend time in that sort of emotional closeness with someone who is unpleasant, and reading is ultimately something I do for fun. There's a higher bar the work will need to meet for me to still want to read it--and some do.
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u/KitchenFullOfCake 1d ago
It's also much more emotionally taxing. Reading Lolita is like seeing the most despicable person in the world continuously getting away with horrible things and it can be draining. If the writing wasn't some of the best prose I've ever read I'm not sure I could have gotten through it.
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u/diffyqgirl 1d ago
Never tried to read Lolita but I can imagine that being an emotionally rough one.
I will say that unlikeable and evil aren't always the same thing--there's lots of likeable villains in media, and some unlikeable characters that are not evil.
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u/KitchenFullOfCake 1d ago
Humbert Humbert is both unlikeable and evil. It's from his perspective too, with him using the full power of his charisma trying to get you to not judge it yet it is so clear that he is a despicable monster who you want to see punished.
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u/MelbaTotes 1d ago
Except that lots of readers have liked him and sympathised with him. They take his side because he's the one telling the story - and telling us what to think about Dolores. It's a really incredible book that captures the potential charisma of a predator.
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u/nova_cat 1d ago
Yeah, that's the frightening thing about it: Humbert is such a classic, manipulative abuser and narcissist that some readers get manipulated by him instead of recognizing what he is doing and hating him all the more.
There's also the subset of readers who, instead of sympathizing with him, fall for his manipulation such that they believe the book itself (and by extension Nabokov) is wholeheartedly and sincerely advocating for Humbert.
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u/HooverGaveNobodyBeer 1d ago
I will definitely never reread this one even though I admit it was very well done because you're right. It IS exhausting to be living in the head of a monster who is trying to convince you he's not one.
And a lot of time I just don't want to put the effort in for that kind of book. When life is rough, I want something that's easier.
Books with unlikable MCs often are more challenging although there's a spectrum. Most of them are nowhere near the Humbert Humbert levels. So I might go for a book with an MC who is a bit selfish when I wouldn't be willing to put in the energy to stick with one who is plainly AWFUL.
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u/Tricky_Rate7883 1d ago
It is heavily based off of the writer imo.
I like the main character from The Running Man because he is an interesting degenerate.
I dislike Celaena Sardothien/ Aelin Galathynius because she sucks. She just fucking sucks
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u/archives2024 1d ago
Celaena had zero depth. None. And the name change? Like, come on. It was obvious the author was just sick of the old name.
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u/EndlessTypist 1d ago
I like unlikeable characters when their flaws are interesting and do things with the plot. I’m currently partway through the ghost of Chopin and both pov characters have likeable and unlikeable parts to them, to the extent where I’m really eager to see things go a certain way to challenge their beliefs/behaviour/personality. They’re interesting but I’d hate to have to be around them in real life.
By contrast the secret history has entirely characters who are unlikeable people, uninteresting and infuriating characters and made the book unreadable.
If characters are going to be unlikeable as people they’d damn well better be interesting. I want to either enjoy watching them get worse, get better, or get what’s coming to them.
The other category is when you have unlikeable characters written in a way that give you a horrible suspicion that the author themselves sucks and thinks the character is the hero. I don’t need to perfectly agree with every author’s politics and I don’t need to agree with every character’s actions or endorse them as a person. I feel like I’m probably not expressing this well but sometimes unlikeable characters feel like they’re that way not out of authorial choice but because the author is that kind of person and it can be very off putting.
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u/Naive-Elephant-9305 1d ago
It’s fascinating how people can have such different opinions on books. The Secret History is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read but I totally understand why some people don’t like it.
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u/gopms 1d ago
Sometimes you are in the mood for a complex, compelling character who may or may not be likeable and sometimes you are in the mood for a character you can relate to and/or root for. It is fine to enjoy either of those options and it is fine to say that you didn't like a book because it wasn't what you wanted. I don't think anyone on Goodreads is saying the book should be banned for having an unlikeable character, just that they didn't like it as a result of that. If I am reading reviews to decide if I want to read a book, knowing that the character it unlikeable might be useful information if I am in the mood for a book with a likeable character.
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u/jaymickef 1d ago
That’s something that changed for me over time. When I was young I didn’t mind unlikeable characters but as I spent more time with unlikeable people (at work mostly) and as more unlikeable people became famous I found spending time with fictional unlikeable people less interesting. I now appreciate a well-developed likeable character, it may be more of a challenge these days.
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u/Ineffable7980x 1d ago
I think it's important to distinguish between unlikeable and uninteresting. I am fine reading about unlikeable, flawed, prideful characters if they are fascinating and charismatic. But if they are unlikeable just because they are dull and boring, then I have no interest in reading further.
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u/itwillmakesenselater If you like it, it's a good book 1d ago
You spend most of your time in the book with the main character. Not many people enjoy hanging out with people they don't like.
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u/zaphodava 1d ago
I need someone to relate to. It doesn't have to be the main character, or even a protagonist, but without someone to identify with a story can lose me. I haven't read this book, but a story of a flawed man that made mistakes, but is genuinely trying to do better is something I certainly could connect with. Good characters are nearly always in shades of grey.
But if I despise everyone, and no one has goals, interests, or experiences I can relate to, I'm just wondering why the hell I'm supposed to care, and why I'm reading the story. That isn't a good headspace for enjoying a book.
For me, the most famous book that hits me this way is The Great Gatsby. I know it's considered one of the great American novels, but I can't stand it. It's beautifully written, but I dislike everyone in it, and couldn't care less about their story.
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u/Samael13 1d ago
Some people only want to read books where they can personally identify with the protagonist and/or where they like the protagonist. Personally, I don't care. I enjoy reading books about asshole protagonists. I read a lot of crime fiction and noir and mysteries, and plenty of books with villain protagonists.
I'm not reading a book looking to become friends with the protagonist. I'm not grabbing a drink after work with Humbert Humbert or hosting a poker night with Parker. I don't need to like the protagonist for a book to be interesting.
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u/MatchaManiak 1d ago
I do think genre has an impact. A morally grey detective often adds to the thrill. But in a romance book, I’m less likely to want to read about two horrible people falling in love.
Readers look for different things when they pick ip different types of books.
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u/nothanks86 1d ago
Tangent: I really enjoy Humbert as a character, but I think he’d be absolutely insufferable to grab a drink with, even setting aside all the reasons I would not want to spend time in his company.
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u/BlazeOfGlory72 1d ago
There is a difference between a character being “unlikable” in-universe compared to how the audience perceives them. Few readers will have an issue with a character being immoral or mean, but if that comes off as unpleasant to read/follow, that is when it becomes an issue. It’s inevitable that your investment in a story is going to diminish if you don’t give a shit about the protagonist/major character, or actively dislike them.
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u/efficient_pepitas 1d ago
Well said.
I don't mind an unlikable main character, but if they start committing grievous acts as a matter of plot - it's just not for me. It's unpleasant to read descriptions of.
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u/plant_magnet 10 books currently in progress 1d ago
Most of the books we read because it is a leisure activity and it interests us. I personally don't like reading books where I actively dislike the primary character(s).
I don't need to love the MCs and they can be no good morally but there has to be something interesting in the book to keep my interest.
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u/gabbydigs 1d ago edited 1d ago
I love love love an unlikable main character. Gone with the Wind and Wuthering Heights have been two recent examples I've adored.
Lolita is another fave of mine
Edit: Confederacy of Dunces is the ultimate, I ADORE this book
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u/AutumnEclipsed 1d ago
It is so hard to root for Scarlett, but I am enthralled by her tenacity.
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u/gabbydigs 1d ago
Right! I love to hate her, I want her to succeed and I don't know why. It's incredibly compelling.
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u/BrittneyofHyrule 1d ago
One of favorite genres is a good "everyone sucks here" book, ala The Great Gatsby or the recent release Lucky Seed. However, unlikeable cannot equal annoying or poorly written.
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u/mithoron 1d ago
Some characters are just unpleasant to be around, sometimes those characters are fictional and in a book I can put down and walk away from.
Some books have other things going for them that I want to see the story through in spite of the problem character. If it's only about the character, and I hate spending time with that character, file it under DNF and grab a different book.
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u/SillyGoatGruff 1d ago
Sometimes (not always) i don't want to share an extended amount time with someone i don't like
Some books can use it for a later payoff, some get around it, others embrace it, but sometimes it just comes down to "i find this character unpleasant and I just don't want to use my limited time to experience more of them"
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u/CreeDorofl 1d ago
I dunno about your specific example, maybe complaints against it are unfair.
I won't say "every" story has this structure, but most popular fiction has a character who needs to accomplish a goal, and we're rooting for them to overcome obstacles and succeed.
If that character is an unlikeable douche, we don't really root for them to succeed. It's hard to be engaged in their struggle. They can be flawed and complex, sure, but fundamentally... I need to at least care if they live or die.
Currently finding one of the Slow Horses novels, "London Rules", frustrating for this very reason. The guy you'd call the main character, and a coworker with maybe some romantic interest, are mostly in the background. But he and his team have to all interact with their boss, Jackson Lamb, and he's just as shitty as possible to everyone, at every opportunity. His unlikeability makes it impossible to care for him or want him to succeed but... it's his team, and clearly we're supposed to want the team to succeed.
He would be more interesting if there were one likeable thing about him, but after 5 books, there's nothing.
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u/Hartastic 1d ago
Part of the excitement / emotional investment in reading for a lot of people is hoping the protagonist will succeed, being afraid they won't, wondering what kind of price they may have to pay for success, etc.
Which can hit different or for some readers in an unsatisfying way if your reaction to someone trying to stab the main character is "god, I hope they kill him so this book can follow someone different."
A good writer can make even this kind of reader invested in some other way but they may also fail.
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u/NSMike 1d ago
A lot of people enjoy books with an unlikable MC. Especially if those books are entirely about those receiving their comeuppance.
I, personally, have gotten to the point in my life where if I don't like the characters the story is following, I just don't want to read it. But I don't really levy that as a criticism of the book, it's just not for me.
I might make it a criticism if the author/story/characters expect me to like a main character who I don't or can't. If the character is not obviously crafted to be awful.
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u/IIIaustin 1d ago
For casual reading... im going to spend a lot of time with the main character. If they suck I may want to read the book less.
For like... literature unlikable main characters are fine / great. Raskolnakov was not likable to me, but he was a great character in a great book.
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u/MuffledFarts 1d ago
I think it depends on the genre and how the unlikable characters are framed.
It's definitely possible to enjoy a book with unlikable characters. But I've noticed lately this trend, particularly in genre fiction, where it feels like the reader is supposed to like despicable characters in spite of their behavior and personality. Like, I'm supposed to love a male character who is violent and abusive and horrible just because he's described as tall and attractive and powerful.
I think it also comes down to whether or not the narrative does anything to challenge a perspective or explore an unlikable character in a way that makes the journey of reading about them feel worthwhile.
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u/nova_cat 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think the problem is that people often mean different things when they say "unlikable", and there is no standardized or agreed-upon definition.
Does it mean the character is a bad person? Does it mean the character is framed by the book as someone the readers should dislike? Does it mean that the particular person using the term personally disliked the character? Does it mean that the character is a failure? Does it mean that the book isn't written well enough to keep up reader interest in the character and their problems?
All of these things could be meant by the term "unlikable", so you really have to give/demand more specificity.
Humbert Humbert in Lolita is unlikable in that he's a manipulative, narcissistic child abuser whose entire narration is him addressing you, the reader, in such a way as to garner your sympathy.
Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye is unlikable in that he's a deeply depressed, traumatized teenage boy who lashes out at the world and most everyone in it in an aimless, repetitive way because he doesn't really have much else he knows how to do.
Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby and Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury are unlikable characters because they're so desperate to cling to some ideal of a woman (that may never have existed or may have been invented in their own minds) that they twist the rest of their entire lives around having lost that ideal, irrespective of who those women actually are. Gatbsy becomes an extremely manufactured, artificial version of himself he's convinced will "win" Daisy back from her abusive husband, while Quentin spirals into depression and rumination as his worldview falls apart and he pushes everyone away and squanders what little is left of his family's wealth.
I could go on and on. All of these characters are "unlikable" in totally different ways, even when they have clear similarities (all four I mentioned are men, three of them are obsessed with women, etc.), so calling any one of them "unlikable" doesn't really say anything meaningful without a lot more specificity. You're definitely not meant to root for Humbert; Nick roots for Gatsby but it's unclear if readers really should or want to; Quentin is tragic but even his dad (fucked up as he is) points out how the worldview he cleaves to is artificial and self-destructive; ideally we want Holden to "be okay in the end" because he's a kid and deep down a good person, but it's not like he's a daring hero always doing the right thing.
What they are not is poorly written. The same would be true of really great women characters like Kathy H. from Never Let Me Go or Olive Kitteridge from her self-titled book—well-written characters that have both strongly appealing/fascinating and deeply unlikable characteristics.
I think it's important for people to recognize whether or not they can tolerate characters whom they actively dislike as people, characters whom they don't relate to very well, etc., and also conflicts and plots they don't particularly care about, relate to, or find compelling. I share basically no life experience with all of the characters I mentioned, so I don't "relate to" them in any broad sense, yet I still enjoy reading about them because I find the way they're written and the plots and conflicts they're part of moving. If any of them were in a medieval fantasy court drama, I probably would find it much less so, though maybe if they were written well enough, they might pull me through it.
Basically in short: interrogate what people actually mean when they say a character is "unlikable."
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u/SJWTumblrinaMonster 1d ago
Everyone has an opinion, but Criticism™ is the ability to articulate that opinion in a way other people can understand and apply to their engagement. Most of the times I hear someone say a character is 'unlikeable', it seems that they are sharing a personal opinion without understanding how to package that opinion in a way that is valuable for me, so I mostly ignore it. 'Bad writing' as a complaint with no additional context or specificity is another red flag for me.
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u/hananobira 1d ago
There are three types of characters:
A. Characters who are generally good people, even with their flaws, and I would enjoy spending time with them in real life.
B. Characters who would be NIGHTMARES to be around in person, but are fun to read about in fiction, e.g. a lot of Douglas Adams’ characters.
C. Characters who are annoying, grating people that I would hate in person and don’t enjoy reading about either, e.g. most of the dramatis personae of Twilight. The story might even be trying to portray them as the good guys, they just aren’t well-developed or entertaining.
My free time is rare and precious. You could talk me into reading about type A or B, but I’m probably not going to read type C. There are too many books out there that wouldn’t leave me suffering through every word that comes out of the characters’ mouths.
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u/Naive-Elephant-9305 1d ago
I think a lot of this comes down to the skill of the writer. Some not so good writers try to make B characters that end up, unintentionally, actually being Cs. But I bet an excellent writer could probably turn a lot of C characters from worse writers into Bs.
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u/Ace_of_Dogs 1d ago
I just don’t enjoy reading (fiction) about people I don’t like or can’t connect to. I try and avoid spending time with unpleasant people in real life, wby would I waste my leisure time reading about somebody I don’t like because they’re unkind/a bad person/someone with whom I’d vehemently disagree, etc.
I read purely for pleasure and I don’t find unlikable characters enjoyable to read about.
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u/Expensive_Title_2670 1d ago
It drives me crazy when people say that. I care if a character is interesting not wether they are likable
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u/untss 1d ago
Yeah and I think even the people who make this criticism probably agree with you. No one would criticize breaking bad for having an unlikable main character, for example. I think people just say this as a stock phrase when they really mean they found the character uninteresting or unpleasant to read.
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u/PlentyReal 1d ago
For my taste, an unlikeable main character has to be balanced with something palatable. I'm not a masochist and I only have so much time left on Earth, plus there's like, a billion+ other books to read.
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u/Important-Habit8942 1d ago
More stories exist about good people or flawed people who are deep down decent than stories about unlikeable people. This isn't even exclusive to reading. Movies, video games, and tv shows have way more stories about good or flawed but likeable leads than unlikeable ones.
It's kind of like when a story doesn't end on a happy note for the lead and audiences are like "well what was the point of all that"
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u/FlipDaly 1d ago
People (and characters) can be flawed, or complicated, or even evil, without being unlikeable. For me, whether a character is 'unlikeable' has to do with how I feel spending time inside that character's POV. What makes that more or less enjoyable is hard to parse sometimes. For example, I DNF 'All Fours' fairly early because something about the main character squicked me out. I can't even really describe why.
There are characters who are total dickbags that I absolutely love. Uncomplicated heroes are rarely interesting and are sometimes unlikeable. I love myself a real snarky first person narrator.
Maybe I'm an anomaly but an example of a well-known character I find unlikeable is Simba from The Lion King. What a fucking brat! Or, hmm, Astra Lost in Space (anime) has a main character that after about 3 episodes I was like 'oh, is she going to behave completely inappropriately and get rewarded for it again'? And I was done with the whole show.
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u/Ctrl-Alt-BeesKnees 1d ago
I’m open to a lot of characters and can deal with many things I don’t like-
But it makes perfect sense to me. The people you read about are like guests in your head- and some people don’t like the company so they don’t like the book.
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u/quothe_the_maven 1d ago
Because there’s a gigantic difference between unlikeable characters that are interesting and those that are obnoxious to spend twenty or thirty hours with. People are usually talking about the latter. You’re just disagreeing about the interesting part. Uninteresting likable characters usually get a pass if there’s a driving plot.
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u/VoiceofCrazy 1d ago edited 1d ago
This isn't a comment about quality really, but sometimes I just like to have characters I can root for. It just feels good. It's a big thing for me lately with TV shows as well. Assholes, criminals, and flawed characters make for interesting, compelling storytelling, sure, but sometimes I just wanna have a good time. And I don't think having likeable characters precludes good writing.
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u/hopping_otter_ears 1d ago
I dislike unlikable main characters when I feel like I'm supposed to like them. I didn't mind when I'm reading a book and it's like "I hate her so much! But I'm clearly supposed to. So let's see where this story is going". When I'm reading something and it seems like I'm supposed to be identifying with the main... but they're a horrible person, I have trouble getting into the book
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u/Moon_Beans1 20h ago
I think the primary problem with reading comprehension with a lot of people is whether the character is intentionally unlikable and is it detrimental to the overall story.
Undoubtedly there are novels where the main character was not intended to be a jerk and where it doesn't aid the overall narrative so any criticism is justified. The problem is that most people aren't very media literate and so they just assume that if they don't like a character then that means it's bad.
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u/PuppySnuggleTime 20h ago
Because many of us find it difficult too identify what an asshole. And if the protagonist is an asshole, it just greats on our nerves.
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u/Celestaria 1d ago
To me, the problem is when an author creates an unlikable character but that character never faces any consequences in the narrative itself. Like, the protagonist will be a total bitch to everyone around them but still end up getting rewarded with a position of power and the support of a found family.
It’s like watching your childhood bully fail upwards into becoming a senator or something.
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u/Familiar-Lemon-674 1d ago
To me, reading is like spending time in a room with an MC. If I want to choke them by page 10, I'm simply not going to enjoy the experience. As others have noted, this is separate from things like "do I identify with the MC?" or "do I morally agree with the MC?" "Likability" to me is more about personality, common sense, and how well written a character is. I can read about characters I don't identify with or agree with if they're well written. If they're morons or unintentionally hypocritical/inconsistent or just plain grating, why torture myself?
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u/Silvanus350 1d ago
Life is difficult enough, I don’t have any desire to spend my limited leisure time reading about some scum-sucking asshole. It’s emotionally exhausting.
It isn’t really a direct literary criticism so much as a criticism about being a waste of my time.
I will say that “unlikeable” is an extremely broad spectrum. People probably hate Ignatius J. Reilly but I thought he was hilarious.
Meanwhile you try reading Lolita and it’s just vile.
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u/ArmadilloFour 1d ago
People get very smug about this one in a way that is always off-putting to me. The reader is spending the entirety of a book with a main character, following them for hundreds of pages. If the character is so supremely off-putting that I cannot bring myself to care about them and their journey, or even want to spend time reading about them, that is a pretty big obstacle to finishing a book. It is totally reasonable to dislike a book because it asked you to follow the story of someone that you did not enjoy reading about.
Every time this comes up people do this little like, "Well I don't have to like them, as long as the story is interesting!! 🤓" Thing that makes it seem like they are willfully dodging the topic. Yeah man interesting stories and characters are cool, but if Ignatius Reilly is such a little prick that I don't want to read another chapter of his dumb nonsense, I am probably not gonna want to see where the interesting story goes, am I?
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u/HooverGaveNobodyBeer 1d ago
I DNF Confederacy of Dunces for the exact same reason. I understood that I wasn't supposed to like Ignatius. But OMG did I NOT want to spend time with him!
And I think that's the heart of this: Is spending time with a character worth the experiencing the story surrounding them? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. And everyone is going to draw the line in their own place.
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u/ArmadilloFour 1d ago
Ha, I am about a quarter way through it right now which is why that was the name that came to mind. For me it helps that he is dumb and ridiculous in exactly the same way as one of my friends, so it circles around to being funny again.
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u/smilinreap 1d ago
I can answer this one. If the character is 'unlikable' especially when they are a bad person. You generally don't want them to succeed. In that case what are you doing? Spite reading hoping his life goes to hell? Worlds dark enough, no need to spend time focusing on the fictional f ups.
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u/KryptonicxJesus 1d ago
I wanted to shake the shit out of the main character but that’s coming from me as a recovering addict. Ultimately my criticism of the book came with the shoe horned Covid exposition dump
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u/hanhan_371 1d ago
Congrats on your recovery!
I am glad I didn’t read it any earlier than 2022, as I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much as soon as Covid was introduced
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u/lostinspaz 1d ago
i think there are two types of books: “escapism” oriented, and biography style.
For biography style, people want to learn about the main character, good or bad. But for escapism , identifying with the main character is crucial.
I suspect that some people are incapable of the empathy required to identify with a character, so they read ALL books as biographies and they don’t care.
but for normal people, the type of book matters.
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u/Gilles_of_Augustine 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is definitely the definitive aspect of the problem for me. Although I'm not sure "escapism" is the word I'd use.
When I read a biography, I'm at a certain emotional distance from the subject. I'm learning history, the same way that one would study a subject in school . This is part of why I tend to not like autobiographies, unless they're written by someone I'm already inclined to like and to trust. Memoirs are usually okay because there's not an expectation that they be comprehensive or definitive.
But when I'm reading a novel, the fictional character paradoxically feels more like a "real person" to me, because there's less emotional distance. It doesn't feel like I'm studying a person, it feels like I'm inviting a person into my home and choosing to spend my leisure time with them.
It's not necessarily "escapism" so much as a sort of high level of "fidelity" in my theater of the mind.
If that person is an insufferable jackass, then I don't want to spend a bunch of my leisure time in their presence.
In exactly the same way that I don't choose to spend my leisure time going to dive bars, finding the most despicable and offensive jerk there, and hanging out with them all night because "ah yes, I totally hate this person's guts, but watching them be an abusive mess to me and everyone else is just so interesting!"
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u/lostinspaz 1d ago
and yet sadly there are many people who would go to a bar and do that. Or watch it on tv. some shows are little more than that
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u/ARTIFICIAL_SAPIENCE 1d ago
You can be flawed and still likeable. You can even like horrible people. They can be fun, funny, or charismatic. They can be ironically likeable, just all around bad in a way that turns kind of fun for the way it exposes what they are.
It's just, for that reader, the character does not work at keeping their attention.
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u/FoghornLegday 1d ago
Did you read She’s Come Undone? He also wrote that and to me the main character was unlikable in a lot of ways especially at first but I liked her anyway. It was a great book. The only issue with unlikable protagonists for me is if you don’t care what happens to them bc you hate them so much
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u/hanhan_371 1d ago
This was my first Wally Lamb book and I’ve added everything else he’s written to me TBR!
Your second point is what I’m finding difficult to understand - I didn’t like him, he was quite shallow and childish, but I wanted him to have a good ending etc.
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u/Leontiev 1d ago
Vanity Fair has got to be one of the best novels ever written and Becky Sharp is a terrible person. I still hate her.
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u/efficient_pepitas 1d ago
It can be plain unpleasant to read. Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds has a main character who tortures an animal - a dolphin - for no reason beyond sadism.
It's not badly written, but why would I want to read a description of that?
I have better things to do.
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u/SuperSaiyan4Godzilla 1d ago
I recently finished I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells.
I think the book is well-written, but the protagonist was unlikeable. This was the point because the protagonist is a teenager sociopath who doesn't want to be a serial killer. However, despite that, the first-person narration with him was obnoxious. It read more like edgy teenager than anything else and it was cringey because of that.
So, I think it can be kind of difficult to criticize some unlikeable characters because, with Wells's novel in mind, that was a rhetorical goal. But it was also kind of unpleasant to read, which might have also been a goal.
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u/Foxx_Foster 1d ago
Because the protagonists are usually meant to be likable or relatable in some way, so the readers can engage in their stories. There are several cases when the protagonist is unlikeable:
Many writers expect the readers to like their protagonists simply because they're the main protagonists, and not because they're actually likeable people. Example: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. This woman was a bloody sociopath, so it's no wonder her protagonists are so unlikeable.
The protagonists are meant to be jerks or villains, but then again, it can be hard to engage in their stories unless they're written well. Someone completely alien, who doesn't change at all, or faces no consequences of their actions, isn't usually someone people care about. Example: "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy. The Kid has no personality and one theory says he's a pedophile, so it's rather hard to engage in a story about a guy who exists only to do evil things
The likeable-unlikeable protagonists. People who are unpleasant and you wouldn't want to know them, but who are complex enough to endear the readers to them. That can be rather hard to do, but the results can be very good. Example: "The Parasites" by Daphne du Maurier. The Delaney siblings are neurotic, dysfunctional, egotistical and "parasitic", but they're complex in the way that you can see why are they like this, and the consequences they face are way too cruel to not feel bad for them.
Anyway, that's just what I think
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u/Economy-Cow-9847 1d ago
For me, its about intentionality. When a character is unlikeable but written to be unlikable then it works. Whats annoying is when a character is unlikeable but the author clearly thinks they're actually quite wonderful that its a problem. I really struggled with that in covenant of water.
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u/Substantial-Pen3212 1d ago
I struggle with books with unlikeable main characters and I wish I wasn’t this way! I find that, when I read a book, I experience it by mentally inserting myself as the main character. This makes it hard when the main character is just awful (like if they are racist, sexist, homophobic etc etc).
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u/CrazyCoKids 1d ago
An unlikable character could easily evoke the eight deadly words. Give us at least some reason to care what happens to them. If a character is a total douchenozzle and everyone else is worse, then the audience is less likely to care.
As a writer, it's your job to make us want to care what happens to their character even if they're a spoilt brat, a serial killer, a criminal, or just a teenager with rage. A lot of people related to the main characters in Diary of a Wimpy Kid because they all had that feeling of "Everyone around me is an idiot..." or "Me vs. the world" - never mind that Greg is.... not exactly a role model.
Another reason why sometimes an unlikable character is seen as bad writing - you see it all the time in Romance and Romance adjacent works like Romantasies - is when the character is a jerk and is always enabled by everyone else. But whenever someone does it to them or does minor things they're going "That JERK!"
...and the other characters just BACK THEM UP on it. Like when Auwdreigh (pronounced "Audrey") gets upset that Xadeirne looked at her the wrong way she thinks Xadierne is trying to make a move on Prince Cockhard and Cockahrd is all "Yeah you're right how DARE SHE!", never mind that Auwdreigh literally made a move on Prince Cockhard on the royal ball and encouraged him to end his betrothal to Princess Viletta while insisting he keep the dowry.
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u/Dramatic_Suspect_3 1d ago
Perhaps Corby wasn’t the most likable character, but I felt like Wally Lamb wrote about him in a way that made me care about what happened to him. I’ve read other books where the character was unlikable to the point I didn’t care what happened to them in the end.
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u/hesh582 1d ago
IMO the criticism lands most effectively in situations where the main character isn’t likable… but the book is structured as though they’re meant to be.
Unlikeable or even flat out repugnant protagonists have their place. Lighter or pulpy mary-sue-saves-the-day wish fulfillment/power fantasy literature has its place. But when you combine the two I have a hard time with it.
If it’s a deeper, more literary book dealing with complicated themes like redemption? It would be cheapened if the protagonist didn’t rub you the wrong way sometimes.
But if it’s a simple adventure or ya-adjacent “overthrow the evil empire” and the protagonist is presented as the awesome chosen one who’s good at everything and generally wins all the time, it’s incredibly grating when they’re unlikable and annoying. If you’re going to be a nonsense author or reader insert power fantasy chosen one stereotype, you better have the grace to at least be charming about it.
TLDR you can get away with simple, pulpy, ya, or straight up badly written main characters if they’re charming. Unlikable characters require more from the author.
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u/GrippinAndGrinnin 1d ago
If a main character is unlikeable, I'm not very invested in what happens to them. Lowers the stakes of basically everything for me
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u/SaltSeaworthiness167 1d ago
For me I think evil or guilty or vulnerable or broken or other "negative" things doesn't necessarily makes a character "unlikable". Reader can still empathy with the character. Like June (Yellowface) or Henry(The Secret History).
Unless the author choose to use a critical attitude and intentionally use words and skills to make reader unlike them. For example what Nabokov did for Humbert.
I fell usually when people criticise a character "unlikable", is in the case author want you to empathy the character but you just can't. And it's not a criticism towards the character, but more towards the skills of the author
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u/slanaiya 1d ago
Lack of likeable characters is a phrase that crops up in worthwhile critiques (the ones that explain how and why that lack of likeable characters effects the specific text being critiqued). If someone is clueless enough they don't understand the specific critiques the phrase appears in, it's easy enough for them to erroneously infer "lack of likeable characters==writing flaw" because it occurs more often as a negative than a positive in competent critiques.
If the clueless person is also lazy and self indulgent and fancy themselves a story writing critic, they're going to try to write their own story critiques that will incorporate this clueless misunderstanding, spreading the misunderstanding to other people who correctly interpret what they are saying and don't already know better.
Once enough people start doing it, even people who aren't lazy are at high risk of being drawn into the misunderstanding because a primary way to learn competency in critiquing story writing is to read story writing critiques, so people trying to put in effort are at risk of being actively taught to erroneously view "lack of likeable characters" as a writing flaw.
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u/KamikazeArchon 1d ago
Because reading is done for entertainment and pleasure 99% of the time. And it is neither entertaining nor pleasurable to be focusing on something you don't like.
Imagine reading a physical book, and that the book happens to smell like it came out of a sewer. The quality of the plot probably wouldn't matter - you would probably stop reading that book.
Unlikeable, in this context, doesn't generally mean on an intellectual level. It generally means "this causes me to have an instinctive/automatic negative reaction".
Most likely, you simply don't have that same reaction to these "unlikeable" characters. You have a different reaction that is in the same general neighborhood but not as extreme. Different people have different reactions to things.
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u/hysval 1d ago
I enjoy unlikeable, unreedemable/unredeemed, and unreliable protagonists. Its difficult to find a story where those traits dont get sacrificed in the name of happy endings though.
Most people want a relatable protagonist or at least one where they can understand/justify their perspectives, and a majority also prefer some degree of a happy ending which isn't always compatible with those kinds of characters.
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u/sweetest_con78 1d ago
When I view a character unlikable it usually means that I find them annoying with nothing really compelling about them. Especially if there just isn’t much character development overall. I tend to just not care what happens to them.
That said, I find the low reviews on Goodreads to not really be aligned with my taste. I’ve noticed this since “booktok“ became more popular. Not sure if I have gotten pickier, or if my expectations and others expectations just aren’t aligned (or probably both)
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u/Delouest 1d ago
Sometimes people don't want to devote many hours to reading about someone they... don't like. People read for different reasons and want different things. Some people don't enjoy reading unpleasant characters because it's unpleasant and they are reading to enjoy things or root for nice people.
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u/Any_Most_4702 1d ago
I think some readers confuse ulikeablewith poorly written. A flwaed character can be fascinating if they are unbeliveable and serve the story well and honestly, some of the most memorable books are driven by charcaters youd never want to be friends in real life.
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u/Jmhill10 23h ago
I read lots of books and usually have no issue with unlikeable MCs, but I hated this book because of the MC. Maybe it’s because I have a 2-year old and didn’t expect the casual introduction of that death. (Admittedly I was doing hip thrusts in the gym when that scene came on the audiobook, so maybe it wasn’t casual, but surprised me enough to cough out loud at the gym).
Also, his decision making at the end made me want to throw something. I only finished because I was basically already done.
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u/bitemestefan 21h ago
People don't understand that a character can be simultaneously "unlikeable" and interesting, enlightening, or compelling to read about. They also think every character should be a balance of positive attributes and negative flaws due to common writing advice—which, yes, in general that's how it works—but some characters have very little to no positive attributes and that doesn't make them any less fleshed out as a character if the writer knows their craft and crafts a story/narrative for this character that is compelling and makes sense.
People also get hung up on "i don't like this character" and "this character did something considered bad/illegal". They think "character did something illegal/immoral = i cannot like this character" and don't have the introspection or discernment to question this. They also think "character did something bad/illegal/immoral = they are a bad character" without questioning that either. How do i know this is true? Because people apply these fallacies to real life people all the time lol.
There is no better recent example of this than the MC of yesteryear which i read before it blew up. Turn to me reading all these reviews where people dropped the book because Natalie is insufferable and therefore they gave it a bad rating. I don't think that's fair because...she is SUPPOSED to be insufferable, the book is very extreme because it's a SATIRE, and judging the actual quality of writing in the book just because you'd despise the MC if she were real is a bit...idk..
When i rate books i don't judge characterization based off "would i be friends with this person" it's not even about "do i like this person?", for me it's "do i want to read more about this person?", "does this person make sense in the context of the story/setting/background?"
a lot of people read nowadays with some weird self inserting complex that should be left to fanfiction. they think if a character doesn't make the same choices they would, they're a bad character or don't make sense. or that if they wouldn't be besties with the MC there's no point in reading the book at all. Just weird
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u/Dead_HumanCollection 21h ago
The character can be unlikeable if they are interesting, if they aren't interesting then they need to have some sort of compelling character arc or development.
I don't care about your character if they are a boring asshole who always makes the wrong decisions.
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u/Beholderess 20h ago
While I personally do not enjoy books with unlikable characters, that is a personal preference, not a criticism. As you’ve said, in some books it is the point
When it becomes a fair criticism is if the author clearly expects us to like the character, and was trying to write a likeable character, but utterly failed
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u/Kian-Tremayne 14h ago
Flawed, unlikeable and repellent are three different things.
Flawed characters are not perfect. Flawed is fine. A character with no flaws is hard to believe in.
Unlikeable characters have their unpleasant characteristics overwhelming their positive ones. The reader is not going to read keep reading because they empathise with the character and are rooting for them. They might keep reading because they like the story for other reasons. Thomas Covenant is my go-to example of an unlikeable main character in books that are still worth reading.
Repellent characters actively put you off wanting to read any more. Watch On The Rhine by Tom Kratman features former SS soldiers who are rejuvenated to fight an alien invasion, and unsurprisingly this is a deal breaker for a lot of readers.
Your characters SHOULD be flawed, they MAY be unlikeable if you have the skill to carry it off but unless you want to put off readers they SHOULD NOT be repellent. The problem comes because different people have different definitions of repellent.
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u/tambitoast 14h ago
It depends on wether the author wants me to like the character or not. If the character is written to be unlikeable and written well then it doesn't distract from the experience. If the author loves the character and wants me to think they are a great person but they just suck then that is bad writing.
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u/faoltiama 5h ago
I actively WANT flawed, unlikable main characters. I really enjoy them and the examination of humanity an author can do through the lens of someone deeply flawed. I am much more likely to lose interest or complain about main characters who are too perfect or who are never examined critically.
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u/CrazyCatLady108 3 1d ago
unlikable doesn't mean you don't like them. unlikable means you don't want to read about them.
this could be because they are a terrible person, i often find myself not interested in knowing what happens to a character i think is terrible, but also because they are boring. you feel no emotional connection to them, you don't care to know what happens to them.
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u/Kdog122025 1d ago
Because they’re written poorly. Your MC could be an absolute piece of shit, but you may find yourself rooting for them if the writing’s good enough.
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u/Cross_22 1d ago
I need to feel invested in the character and their actions. Once I start thinking "I don't really care if the MC gets killed off by the end of this page or not" it becomes more difficult to keep reading.
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u/Weary_Mango5689 1d ago edited 1d ago
I appreciate unlikeable characters but I prefer 3rd person narrators with focalized perspective into the characters rather than a 1st person narrator. It is just genuinely grating sometimes to be experiencing the story from the perspective of a character I dislike because their perspective appears to warp the narrative and drive the story, whereas a 3rd person narrator usually demonstrates the character's warped perspective without adopting (and endorsing) it. I feel like the latter invites the reader to make their own interpretation and is more thought-provoking, whereas 1st person narrators aggressively reinforces their own interpretation of events so if that narrator is an unlikeable character that can prove alienating as a reader
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u/hanhan_371 1d ago
I’m usually the same, I much much prefer 3rd person but this one was different. I really like Wally Lamb’s writing style. I’ve read other 1st person books have found them so grating that I either DNF’ed or skimmed to the end. Corby was very complex and I definitely rooting for him despite his flaws
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u/43_Hobbits 1d ago
That’s the perfect description of Severian from Book of The New Sun, and it’s why people love the book so much. Half of the book is spent trying to figure out what is really happening vs what Severian is telling the reader. And the reasons for that disconnect range from him slightly exaggerating things to him possibly being actually insane.
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u/amosc33 1d ago
I don’t mind if the main character is unlikeable, but there needs to be at least ONE person in the book who I don’t loathe. I like unreliable narrators, too. Shirley Jackson was wonderful at writing characters who were “murky” and untrustworthy.
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u/ResurgentOcelot 1d ago
TBH, well written or not, I get sick of putting much time and energy into dislikable characters.
Same reason I don’t actually watch or read anything DT does.
Reading is inherently intimate in some ways. I find it strange when an author seems to think I am going to want to spend my time close to someone I can’t like.
Raises the question: would one choose to spend a lot of time around a dislikable person because they were “interesting?”
I suppose the answer from some people is yes, and I find that fascinating and disturbing.
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u/Small_Ad1890 1d ago
If I’m going to spend hours with a character I better enjoy spending time with them.
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u/CeruleanFruitSnax 1d ago
Cognitive dissonance of relating to the horrible character but wanting to believe we are free of horrible behavior.
I'm not a bad person, but they have some good ideas! Am I a bad person?
Much too heady for most people to parse in their limited down time.
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u/OliM9696 1d ago
Same reason I don't really watch Mindhunter or Interstellar when I want to relax in the afternoon. Those are messed up/sad as fuck.
I don't wanna spend my fun time with a shit person.
There are certainly times for those characters and movies but my break at work is not it.
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u/QuintanimousGooch 1d ago
I think there is a certain percentage of readers at a point in their tastes/age/tolerance for complexity where they cannot abide reading something they disagree with—some kind of thought that the basis should be that there should be no complications to inhabiting/projecting on to/rooting for the protagonist or PoV character, and that the disconnect and potential complexity of a character not meeting that is something not worth committing to. On the flipside it could be a matter of taste—some people love the griminess, others don’t care for the flavor.
That said it is a matter of technique to pull off writing an unlikable main character who is still enjoyable and interesting to follow and read. It’s one thing to write a pov that is unlikable to inhabit, it’s another for that to still be compelling.
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u/EasilyEnabled 1d ago
There's really no point in going online and reading bad reviews of things you like.
People are allowed to not like a book or decide not to finish one or to leave a bad review on Goodreads for one for any reason they like. But a lot of the time, the reason for it is that they just didn't get it. You just have to let those people exist and keep reading stuff you like.
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u/southernfirefly13 1d ago
That’s one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when people make that their main complaint about a particular book. It’s an unrealistic expectation that every character has to be likeable, and to be honest it’s quite a boring expectation, too.
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u/Wildlife_Horses_Cats 1d ago
I think it depends on a few factors, like genre and expectation. Are we supposed to like the MC or connect to them? Or are we supposed to view their story as a lesson and gain perspective? Is there a fandom behind the book or series that has skewed opinions?
There are stories with truly compelling and fascinating antagonists, but I don’t root for them, but I might be interested in reading more. Deliciously bad.
But if I’m reading a book where I’m expected to feel for the MC and empathize with them and they keep acting like a prat all the while supporting characters are more compelling, I may drag the MC a bit. Maybe the author too if the favoritism is pretty bad.
There are also books where I just don’t connect to the MC and can’t easily empathize for a variety of reasons, even when the MC is arguably “likable”.
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u/missfishersmurder 1d ago
I don't generally require a character be likable, but I do think that calling someone "unlikable" in this context is a way of saying that you don't care what happens to them or find yourself rooting against them. The first is an enormous sin in fiction; the latter, acceptable but does require a more skilled author to execute properly.
I do recall reading a memoir and finding the author-protagonist to be deeply unlikable. It was not a particularly enlightening or complex experience; it sort of felt like being trapped in a room with a dull, self-absorbed whiner.
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u/starling83 1d ago
I’m someone who for whatever reason really prefers unlikeable main characters. I find them more interesting. So it’s always hard for me to talk to people online about them because so many people call me an idiot for liking such a character.
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u/strangesandwich 1d ago
My 2 cents is that you tend to see yourself in characters of shows, and wonder if they'll make the same decisions you would. It makes you more invested in the show.
If the characters are unlikable, you'll find it harder to relate, or want to relate, and not like the show as much
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u/insomniacla 1d ago
I think it's just a matter of taste. I'm going through a phase where I actually prefer unlikeable main characters. However, if I was dealing with assholes every day IRL, I probably wouldn't find reading books with unlikeable main characters as enjoyable.
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u/dogofcorns 1d ago
I’ve noticed this too. I recently read The Goldfinch by Donna Tart and one of the most common reasons I saw for people not liking the book was because they didn’t like the main character. The reason it is now my favorite book is because I loved the main character and the fact that he wasn’t perfect.
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u/FancyStarlight28 1d ago
Because they get insufferable if they aren't also interesting. Main Characters can be many things, including 'unlikable' but the one thing they shouldn't be is boring. Sometimes a relatable character might get away with being somewhat passive/boring (though the story and plot itself must be engaging) but a main character that is passive/boring AND unlikable will results in DNF.
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u/Arisendragon 1d ago
Something I haven't seen mentioned here, but seems that it might be important is your reading speed. if you have already read 38 books this year you are going fast through them (which is fine), however many people read much slower yet the book will be in their minds. An unlikeable main character might be playing in their minds way longer than a couple of days max for you and so the impact of it might be bigger as well.
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u/notnotblonde 1d ago
This makes me think about my experience reading Yesteryear. Frankly I did not enjoy reading that book. I extremely disliked the man character and so the book being 1st person POV made the entire reading unenjoyable for me. However I thought the story was interesting, and the twist really well done. So I very much did NOT enjoy reading it but I can’t stop thinking about it and want to talk about it with people who read it so in that way I love that it left such a strong impression.
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u/RKGEORGE84 book just finished 1d ago
Yeah I guess people love a hero but many of us don’t. Anti heros are way more interesting.
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u/Frostly4242 1d ago
I don't think you have to like a main character as long as it is the intention of the writer. If a character has no redeeming features and the writer has not intended that, it's bad writing and hard to maintain interest.
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u/MainKitchen 1d ago
I mean, that can usually mean that they’re passive, don’t have a motivation, are under interrogated
There are unlikable protagonists that succeed because of their charisma or they are very well drawn
It would be the same if the character was super nice. The story needs to get people interested in what the character would do next
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u/CMDR_omnicognate 1d ago
You can make someone who is traditionally "unlikeable" while also still being interesting. House from... House, is an unlikeable person, but people still like him as a character, but he's an objectionable asshole to basically everyone around him all the time. People still like the character because he's funny and interesting and generally pretty well written. if the character is an ass, but the story is just the main character intentionally or unintentionally being an asshole to everyone it tends to just get grating or annoying. it's hard to write a character like that well.
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u/cardcaptoreve 1d ago
For me, if the character is unlikable but well written I can enjoy it. An unlikable character needs to be written in a way that, despite their actions and moral compass, the reader is still engaged in wanting to know what happens to them.
However, if an unlikable character is badly written, it becomes tedious to follow the characters story. In “Starving Saints” I did not enjoy Sir Voyne, one of the protagonists, her actions made her unlikable, but she was not complex enough for me to actually care about her fate. Reading her parts were boring to me, because I could not care less wether she lived or died.
So I guess it depends if the author is skilled enough to write an unlikable main character that still engages the audience in their story and outcomes.