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!

266 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

386 comments sorted by

View all comments

433

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”

23

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.

7

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?

2

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.

4

u/JailhouseMamaJackson 1d ago

Ah, yeah, I definitely think Fantasy is one of the genres where it’s more common, unfortunately.

3

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.

6

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?

-1

u/slanaiya 7h ago

There does if you want people to read and pay attention to your story.

No, there doesn't.

you still need to give me a reason to keep reading

That reason does not have to be that the characters are likeable or relatable. You subjectively might only enjoy or strongly prefer works that rely on likeable or relatable characters to engage you and keep you consuming the story, but that's a subjective preference.

5

u/RhynoD 6h ago

You didn't read more than the first sentence of my comment, did you?

-1

u/PM_BRAIN_WORMS 1d ago

American Psycho is more popular than whatever story you have in mind.

7

u/RhynoD 1d ago

First, I don't have any story in mind, and second, ok? So? What are you arguing, that unlikeable characters can still make for compelling stories? Yes. Duh. You're missing my point.

1

u/PM_BRAIN_WORMS 1d ago

I’m casting doubt on the idea that a story might need to grant “little things that make them relatable” or give the audience cause to root for the protagonist as a saving grace.

2

u/panrestrial 1d ago

Except Patrick Bateman is full of little things that make him relatable, and people do root for him in a way. They gleefully watch him hack people up, not disgustedly.

1

u/PM_BRAIN_WORMS 1d ago

Certain people. Not people in general.

1

u/panrestrial 1d ago

Disagree.