On Writing Horrible Human Beings

[arachnekallisti]

A question I've been considering for some time: how do you write flawed heroes, anti-heroes and villain protagonists without sounding as if you endorse them? In particular, how do you write characters who hold opinions and values that are utterly appalling by contemporary standards?*

It's fine line. You don't want to present their opinions too uncritically, and you don't want to make excuses for them, but at the same time you don't want to patronise your audience by making all the characters you don't agree with into puppy-kicking caricatures.

I guess part of the question I'm asking here would be: is there anything you can do to prevent/minimise the Misaimed Fandom problem?



Consider Rorschach. Alan Moore clearly meant him to be a deconstruction of a certain kind of quasi-objectivist superhero; he's highly principled, but quite willing to follow those principles off a cliff. He's intelligent and perceptive, but also a paranoid conspiracy theorist who's wrong as often as he's right. He's unfettered by society's restrictions, but to the point of being a horrible twitchy bigot who alienates everyone who tries to help him. He's what Bruce Wayne would be like without his money and his narrative protection. The point is clearly meant to be that there's a certain kind of superhero who you wouldn't actually want to know, but there's a disturbing number of people who think he's dead cool.

The movie version of Watchmen toned Rorschach's homophobia and misogyny down a bit, and I'm not sure if that made the Misaimed Fandom problem better or worse. On the one hand, letting Rorschach be even more of a horrible bigoted person might have made it abundantly clear that he was not meant to be a role model. On the other hand, you might have ended up with the fandom cheering on/making excuses for homophobia and misogyny as well.

Also, consider Gene Hunt. Now here, I think Life on Mars did end up playing into the Misaimed Fandom. In Series 1, Gene was quite clearly there as Mr Let's Not Sanitise The 70s - he's a bigoted thug who'll take backhanders and rough up prisoners. Now, he's a complex enough character that this isn't all there is to him, and there's also quite a lot of loyalty to his team and genuine desire for justice in him. There's also the fact that Philip Glenister was playing him with quite considerable charisma. This all ended up with a slide into minimising Gene Hunt's actual flaws, and kind of suggesting that his bigotry was on a par with the smoking, the drinking and the regrettable sideboards. Gene gets to be right a lot more in Series 2, and Sam calls him out a lot less often. That's part of the danger of trying to write flawed-but-sympathetic characters, that risk of ending up seeing them through their own eyes. They do not need the author on board with them.

Finally, consider the Dollhouse. All its employees are going through remarkable ethical contortions in order to sleep at night after working in a business that when you get right down to it, deals in slaves. They've all got their justifications, and they're all trying to pretty up the essentially horrible line of work they're in. The decor of the place says it all - it's done up like a rather nice spa, except there are no windows. I'm getting the distinct vibe that part of the idea of Dollhouse is to seduce you into almost-sympathising with various members of the Dollhouse staff, and then remind you just how horrible what they're doing really is. And that means, as prochytes put it, that some Dollhouse episodes make you feel a bit dirty, and others make you feel like you'll never be clean again.

I don't think I have an answer here. There's an awful lot of tightropes to walk here, and an awful lot of ways of screwing this up. Rorschach acquired a Misaimed Fandom despite Alan Moore's best efforts, although Gene Hunt might not have kept his if the writers hadn't started playing up to it. In Dollhouse, Misaimed Fandom is being used as a deliberate narrative bait and switch, and I'm not sure I like it. It feels kind of exploitative. Actually, I'm absolutely sure I don't like it, and I think that's the point.



*sparked off partially by wanting to write WH40K fic, and partly by this discussion here on "ironic" racism - I didn't want to hijack that discussion, so I've taken these issues over here.

Comments

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

I have this terrible suspicion that it's one of those 'I'll know it when I see it' kind of answers, like there's no things that you can do to make it more or less likely to work, but sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes a 'seeing the error of their ways' kind of narrative helps - and sometimes it's just hideously clunky.

I have the problem back the other way round, sometimes. How do you write a character who is trying to make the moral negotations around these issues without them becoming preachy or boring?

First person or close third person POV makes it harder.

Life On Mars is difficult, because it's shown pretty closely from Sam's point of view. I think the point they were going for in season two is that for Sam, the 70s are being normalised, up to and including the racism and sexism and homophobia. In the end, he choses to stay. Despite the problems, he chooses to stay. It becomes acceptable to him, all of it - and that's not a decision that the narrative lets him take lightly, or consequence free. It, in some ways, destroys him.

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

I have this terrible suspicion that you're right, and there's no magic formula for it.

I reckon the best way to write someone seeing the error of their ways is probably to make the process slow, and painful, and riddled with occasional backsliding. Probably also best to make that a subplot rather than the main plot.

I thought at first that Sam chose to stay with the 70s not because he'd stopped noticing what was wrong, but precisely because of what was wrong. In the meeting back in 2006, you could tell that everyone else knew about proper procedure and community policing and suchlike, but Gene Hunt didn't. Sam went back to a time when he could feel like a hero rather than just another minimally decent copper.

On the other hand, the way he ended up calling Gene out less and noticing the flaws of the era less in Series 2 really does back up your take on it. You're absolutely right that letting the prejudices of the era become normalised for him puts him in a position where he can never go back, and effectively destroys his previous self. Interesting. I'm going to have to re-watch it now.

Re: via the metafandom:

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely planning on posting some WH40K fic here - I'm mainly working on a Who/WH40K crossover that ends up blaming the Time Lords for almost everything that's wrong with the galaxy. I'd be interested to see your WH40K fic, if it's visible anywhere? It'd be good to see something interesting in the fandom.

I was just talking to a friend of mine recently about how we wish we could find more WH40K fic dealing with civilians, in particular more women as central characters. I'm more interested in the ideological aspects of the various factions, and how their citizens justify themselves, than in the actual fighting.

[tears-of-nienna.livejournal.com]

Gene was quite clearly there as Mr Let's Not Sanitise The 70s

The Professionals, being an actual 70s cop show, has a lot of similar problems. One show (apparently unaired in the UK) actually plays like a Very Special Episode on racism, so we know that the show is aware that it's Not Okay, but the treatment of women on the show is...uh...yeah. And sometimes it's the heroes who do the mistreating.

My problem with it is that, while the show is a product of its times, etc., a lot of excusing seems to happen within the fandom. Of course the main pair do have to privilege their jobs over their girlfriends, and we see dates being broken many times. That's really just shows how much CI5 takes over their lives. But Bodie, one of our heroes, slaps two women over the course of the series.* He's also the one with racial issues, which once addressed are never brought up again (the show is not very big on continuity). The character has reasons for these things--but the fact that he has reasons does not mean they can't be completely fucking wrongheaded reasons. And to me, they don't make him a bad person or a bad character, just a flawed one. But it can be tough to write him.

I guess there are a few different routes a writer can take. They can show the characters as they really are, and hope that the readers understand the difference between character voice and authorial voice. They can write around the flaws, avoiding situations where the character might act in ways that we don't like. Or they can excuse the character's actions in authorial voice, which is where I start to get twitchy.

But I still love the show, in all its tight-trousered, handbrake-riding glory. I guess it's more of a case of loving it "warts and all," which doesn't mean ignoring flaws for the sake of steamy-hot mansex.


*I think the first instance actually does have a legitimate argument, since it's basically a decision between a slap and the messy explosion of all involved. It's still cringe-worthy. The second one? No excuse.

[loz]

Gene's history as a character construction's really very interesting --- and I agree with you that the writers played into the fannish devotion to him somewhat in series two (and to upsettingly ridiculous amounts in parts of Ashes to Ashes.) But, I think it's important to note that they'd sanitized him before they actually started shooting, since Gene was originally intended to be far more racist than he ended up being (and considering how racist he can be --- well.) It isn't all about Philip Glenister being remarkably charismatic; by the time they got to shooting, Gene was always intended to be a character that audiences could relate to. The writers didn't expect the magnitude of the attention and love winged his way, not even slightly --- they especially didn't anticipate his sex symbol status, nor the people who didn't see that a gigantic part of him is ironic --- but from the off, he was shown in a more sympathetic light than, say, Ray Carling.

The audience was meant to like Gene. In the very first episode we had a Gene who was willing to listen and who, in a small way, protected Annie from the jeers of CID. In episode two we had a speech in which Gene revealed he did what he did because he loved his city. Episode four revealed he actually hated that he took backhanders. Episode six was a Gene who had a great deal of self awareness and understood that what he did wasn't for glory, because it was largely a thankless task. The great thing about him is that he really wasn't there only to be Mr Let's Not Sanitise The 70s (I would argue once again that this role falls heavily on Ray's shoulders.) You can love and hate aspects of him at the same time. I do not think we were ever meant to think of Gene as simply a horrible human being. He can be very horrible, though. I always find it hard to reconcile that with my "oh, but look, look at how great he can be!" inclination.

I think, unfortunately, if you want to write a character who embodies traits, beliefs or attitudes you abhor, you're going to have to accept that some people may well like them, or love them with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. You might think they've missed the point, but it's their choice to do so. Ultimately, you can't tell people how to react to your text, regardless of how hard you try. There will always be someone who reads it entirely differently from how you intended. So --- write their flaws, and give them a context for having them, and make it complicated, and if it turns out the majority of your audience responds the way you want them to and understand you are not your character, excellent. If they don't, at least you're not the first writer it's happened to.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

All I can do with this is say, "Hear, hear." Because all the author can do is her best, and that best has got to include complexity, moral ambiguity and shades of grey.

[scarlet-carsons.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. No matter how horrible a character is, there will always be someone who condones their actions, because the world is full of shitty people. I'm more concerned with whether or not the text condones the character's actions.

You can love and hate aspects of him at the same time.

I think that this conflict is exactly what makes a lot of horrible characters so compelling.

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

This is the thing - Gene really isn't a puppy-kicking caricature. He's a very complex character, in some ways admirable and in other ways really not. There's the very real loyalty to his team and his sense of justice, despite everything else. This doesn't make his flaws okay or excused, but it does mean you can love him and hate him at the same time.

Ray comes a lot closer to being a puppy-kicker, and I think you could make a good case for him being Gene without the good bits. It's made pretty clear when you start to see what kind of consequences there are for him trying to act like Gene without any of Gene's virtues.

[musicdiamond.livejournal.com]

I'm getting the distinct vibe that part of the idea of Dollhouse is to seduce you into almost-sympathising with various members of the Dollhouse staff, and then remind you just how horrible what they're doing really is. In Dollhouse, Misaimed Fandom is being used as a deliberate narrative bait and switch, and I'm not sure I like it. It feels kind of exploitative. Actually, I'm absolutely sure I don't like it, and I think that's the point.

I think you hit precisely the nail on the head with DH. On some level I loved the show because even though it got a lot of things wrong, I always got the sense that it was (the writers were) thinking about the choices they were making. Even if they were the wrong choices. I can't say I enjoyed watching the show because more often than not, I finished an episode feeling dirty, or, as you say, like I will never be clean again. But that visceral reaction would always shift to more contemplative analysis of why then, was I still watching the show? Certainly not for Eliza D's acting (although I am fond of her and her limited, but effective range). And it really made me think after the show--reflect on the way I felt about the action that had taken place, on the stuff that had made me uncomfortable, and the stuff that should have made me uncomfortable but didn't. And I don't know about you, but I rarely have that kind of introspective reaction to any piece of art (and I'm a pretty introspective person in general), much less to a TV show. And that is what I appreciated most about DH: the narrative bait and switch worked and it was vaguely unpleasant but it made me think and that is what I love for art to do. It's what I strive for in my work as well.

There are two shows that I currently watch that deal with extremely flawed characters that I actually mostly don't like (some I sympathize with, but I would never, ever want to know them in, say, RL): Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Both feature various gradations of morally questionable people doing morally questionable things without the easy superimposition of deux ex justice or a bad ending at the end of the episode. The good guys don't always win, the innocent victims sometimes get kicked in the face and don't get up, and the bad guys sometimes (maybe even often) get the girl. But I think both shows are good at revealing the sometimes hidden costs of the terrible things that morally compromised characters do: wives leave their morally deficient husbands, people lose friends, the big win that a character sacrifices their integrity for doesn't end up feeling as good as they thought it would.

It is absolutely a hard line to walk. In all my writing, I actually strive to imbue my "villainous" characters--or at least, the enemies of my protagonist--with real motivations and sympathetic or at least human traits. To me, it's a big win when a reader comments that they feel something for a villain that isn't pure hatred. I also try really hard to write my protagonists with traits and views I dislike or don't agree with, and I really aim not to hold back when they reveal the ugliness of certain parts of their personality. We're all simultaneously capable of beautiful and horrible things--even serial killers can love their mom, and someone who runs into a burning building to save an orphan can be capable of brutally torturing their an enemy.

Of course, I've never actually written someone that I would be disturbed to find out people think is dead cool, so maybe it's a lot easier to think of this in theory than it might be to experience it in practice.

[streussal.livejournal.com]

Echoing you on Dollhouse. ...and that pun wasn't intentional, but I'm leaving it in for my own amusement.

[blackmamba-esq.livejournal.com]

Just want to say I completely agree with your comment. This in particular.

We're all simultaneously capable of beautiful and horrible things--even serial killers can love their mom, and someone who runs into a burning building to save an orphan can be capable of brutally torturing their an enemy.

I think the problem lies in the attempt to portray these things as something other than what they are. Romanticizing and whitewashing is more damaging IMO than being unapologetic about who the character is. And Mad Men is the perfect example. Sometimes people are rewarded for bad behavior and sometimes they're punished for being a decent person. That's life, it happens every day. How someone interprets that is really impossible to control.

Random thoughts (from metafandom)

[alias_sqbr]

It's a difficult question isn't it? I was just thinking about this with regards to Damon from Vampire Diaries, who I feel is only a few steps away from (TV tropes warning :D) Draco in Leather Pants territory on the part of the writers which I assume means large parts of the fandom think he's the hero of the piece.

I'm writing a long Pride and Prejudice femslash fic. It hasn't come up yet but it would be pretty OOC not to make most if not all of the characters quite homophobic and I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that without making the reader hate everyone. And of course there's everyone's attitudes to class etc. The fact that my two main characters are women and one of them is disabled I think makes it more obvious that various character's sexism and ableism (including their own) is not ok, and I think that sort of thing makes a big difference. I mean one of the things that bugged me about Life On Mars is that it's all well and good for Sam to think all that sexism etc is ok as a white straight man working for the establishment.

I worry less about misaimed fandom and more that, for example, a working class reader will go "Wait, does this author hate the working class? :(", or that queer female readers will find the main character's internalised homophobia and misogyny too painful etc. I'd rather worry about not hurting my readers than being misinterpreted by the prejudiced ones, and hopefully the end result is similar :) This is easier to judge when you're in the group possibly being hurt.

Something I do sometimes is have the text clearly contradict the things people are saying in a humourous/mocking way, here's two examples from a fantasy comic I write/wrote:
http://comics.distantwisdom.net/acos/page.php?c=3&p=9
http://comics.distantwisdom.net/acos/page.php?c=3&p=12

But that's a particular writing style that doesn't suit everything and can get a bit repetitive.

Re: Random thoughts (from metafandom)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

And there's a bit of a tangent there-- Damon was literally the only person who appealed to me in the Vampire Diaries episodes I watched, because he was the only person who seemed to be having any fun. And I think the villains of the piece often get that-- they get to break the rules, say what they want even when it's horrible, and generally just have a fabulous time.

Re: Random thoughts (from metafandom)

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is the flip side of the whole thing - quite apart from the risk of looking like you're giving support to the bigots, there's the risk of alienating the subject of the bigotry in question. I agree that I'd be less upset at seeing readers cheering for my villain than I would be at seeing readers going away convinced I hated them.

I'm considering the technique of trying to let the text obviously contradict the character's bigotry - say if A is mouthing off about how Group X are all thieving scum, you could cut to B is a member of Group X who is anything but. That could work pretty well in a longer work with multiple narrators or omniscient narration.

Here via Metafandom

[dreya-uberwald.livejournal.com]

I guess part of the question I'm asking here would be: is there anything you can do to prevent/minimise the Misaimed Fandom problem?

I really don't think that there's any way for an author to prevent misaimed fandom. You can, to a certain extent, make sure the narrative doesn't support what the character is question in saying/doing (though opinions frequently seem to differ amongst readers/viewers as to when or how an author is on board or not). However, it's impossible to dictate how people will react to your characters. Some readers will come to a story having very different values and opinions to the author, while others will find certain character characteristics more or less salient than you as the author wanted them to be. Many's the time I've taken a dislike to a character the author clearly wanted readers to like because some trait (clearly intended as a minor quirk by the author) was intensely salient to me, or taken a liking to a character the author intends for readers to dislike because their appealing traits are more salient to me than their negative traits. For instance, in the case of the Harry Potter novels, I'm very fond of Snape (a character obviously meant to be an unpleasant person who earns a few sympathy points because of an unfortunate childhood) but not very fond of Molly Weasley (who is clearly supposed to be a very likable individual). This is not to my mind indicative any failing on the part of J.K. Rowling's writing (and indeed many people perceive the characters the way she intended for them to be perceived), but rather a reflection of my very personal taste as a reader.

Of course, I can see that people justifying real-world injustices in order to exonerate a favourite character is a bad and deeply disturbing thing; however, again, I honestly don't think that there's much than any author can do to stop this as it's more indicative of the reader's ethical standards (or lack thereof) than anything else.

Re: Here via Metafandom

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

also here via metafandom.

I think the Snape vs Molly example is an interesting one, because as characters, I agree with you entirely. However, if I met those people in my actual life, I am certain I would feel differently; I know perfectly well that I would loathe Snape intensely. But as a character -- what a character, while Molly is rather dull.

Because I think part of the problem with Misaimed Fandom (assuming a competent author) is that you don't want your villain to be one-note, and as soon as you open up complexities, the character is extremely interesting, and people are going to hook onto things in that character that they wouldn't if s/he were a real human being -- at least partially because with real human beings, you tend not to know the same things you can know about a character. (For example, if you had an awful unfair abusive chemistry teacher at school, you are extremely unlikely to find out that his father was a drunk and he had to wear cast-off women's clothing to school as a wee mite and that he was accidentally responsible for the death of a loved one. You would just think he's a bastard and wish weasels would devour his penis.)

My suggested solution to the Misaimed Fandom problem is 100% not guaranteed to work, but:

1. avoid working with some kind of child abuse/daddy issues explanation of the villainy. If your guy is an OC, or someone without a canon background, don't make his dad spank him/her; don't orphan him/her; etc.
2. if possible, when delving into the character's background, make it ordinary, boring, and pleasant. (as a bonus, this allows you to have them commit some youthful act of horrible villainy against a cheery backdrop).
3. if another character calls them out on their bullcrap, have them resort to ad hominem attacks.
4. Related to #3, supply a woobie for the bad character to attack on a regular basis. Characters where this works pretty well, albeit in a humorous fashion: Dr. Evil (Austin Powers) and Mr. Burns (The Simpsons). (Sometimes, entertainingly, you can make the woobie ANOTHER VILLAIN. See: Smallville.)

If all else fails, you can give character an unattractive wart, or perhaps objectionable BO.

Re: Here via Metafandom

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

One aspect of how people react to characters in fiction is that, when they aren't real people that you actually have to spend time with, usually people who are a little (or a lot) twisted are more interesting. And you're prone to sympathize with/invest yourself into interesting people.

On Alias, for example, Francie was the nicest and most normal person on the show, which, in show purposes, meant she was really boring compared to Sloane or Jack Bristow. The latter two are characters you'd probably run screaming from in real life, but removed from that they're the best characters on the show.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom.

One of the reasons I can't watch House regularly is the normalization of House's personality-- he's an asshole and IMO his characterization makes perfect sense, but the fact that most of the narrative just sighs and goes along with it maddens me.

I stopped watching Dollhouse because the normalization of sexual assault may have been part of the point, but that didn't mean I had to choose to watch it every week.

And then there's my forever fandom, Saiyuki, where the lead characters are not bigoted mostly but are a bunch of loudmouthed assholes-- their primary antagonists are kind, loving, and mutually supportive in a way the protagonists will never, ever be. But the amazing thing is that the author walks that tightrope perfectly-- she shows us how the characters got to be who they are, the weird things they do that express affection and acceptance, and how sometimes their assholeness and coping strategies fall short.

And part of the trick, I think, is to have the narrative itself call the characters on their bullshit when needed-- have the verbal abuse blow up in their face, have the homophobic remark hurt someone they care about, have their racism lose them a contact or opportunity. You can't always do that in a short story, of course, but I do think it's an effective tool.

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

And part of the trick, I think, is to have the narrative itself call the characters on their bullshit when needed-- have the verbal abuse blow up in their face, have the homophobic remark hurt someone they care about, have their racism lose them a contact or opportunity. You can't always do that in a short story, of course, but I do think it's an effective tool.

That's one of the things Life On Mars did do very effectively in the first season - it had Gene's prejudices threaten the investigation and put innocent people in danger at times. It's a good tactic if you can pull it off subtly, I reckon.

Here via MF.

[scarlet-carsons.livejournal.com]

The movie version of Watchmen toned Rorschach's homophobia and misogyny down a bit, and I'm not sure if that made the Misaimed Fandom problem better or worse. On the one hand, letting Rorschach be even more of a horrible bigoted person might have made it abundantly clear that he was not meant to be a role model. On the other hand, you might have ended up with the fandom cheering on/making excuses for homophobia and misogyny as well.

I think that it made it worse. To me, the movie's omission of certain aspects felt like whitewashing.

In the movie, there were still small suggestions of Rorschach's unpleasantness (he keeps his 'whores and politicians and liberals and intellectuals' rant, he still makes a snide remark about the Silhouette, and he accuses Daniel of being too trusting with women), but the comic had a much stronger message of 'holy crap, this guy is a conservative dickwad and almost everybody hates him'. So movie!Rorschach might have appealed to a wider audience, but as his flaws were made to be more subtle, I suspect that more people would unthinkingly ignore or condone them. (And subtle forms of bigotry can be much more dangerous than obvious ones, because they're harder to fight.)

That said, I always get a little antsy when people talk about Rorschach's misaimed fandom, because I've previously encountered the attitude that anyone who likes Rorschach is either condoning his views, or missing the point. (Hell, I suspect that I had that attitude myself a few years ago.) There are plenty of people who like Rorschach even though we know that he's a nasty douchebag, and we wouldn't want to downplay his flaws because, in doing so, we would be erasing aspects of his personality that are intrinsic to his character.

I think that Adrian Veidt is a character in a similar position (ie., he's a git, but people like him anyway), although I've noticed that people generally seem to be less sympathetic towards him than they are to Rorschach. I suspect that this has a lot to do with the fact that Rorschach has had a very rough life, whereas Veidt is extremely privileged. (Which ties in to jacquez's comment about villains with abusive backgrounds.) I have seen fanfic writers give Veidt a tragic past in order to make him more sympathetic.

Re: Here via MF.

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

Generally, I agree with you, but I do think the remark about Silhouette actually seemes a lot worse in the movie. Instead of saying that she was kicked out 'in disgrace,' he actually blames her for her own murder, and, coming from someone whose whole raison d'être is punishing criminals, it seemed hypocritical as well as bigoted. (Certainly, watching it as someone who hadn't read the GN beforehand, my immediate reaction was a giant FUCK YOU RORSCHACH, and my dislike from the character stems more strongly from that than anything in the GN.)

Having said that, I agree with pretty much everything else you've said. (And I do feel that the way the movie failed to really mention that the New Frontiersman was a nutjob fringe publication took away some of the sadness of the ending, too.)

I suspect that this has a lot to do with the fact that Rorschach has had a very rough life, whereas Veidt is extremely privileged.

This makes a lot of sense, too. Ozy's paternalistic attitude to the world in general really only makes sense coming from somebody with huge class privilege, and I guess even though he's the Designated Villain or whatever, sympathizing with his actions seems like siding with The Man. Or something.

Re: Here via MF.

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

That said, I always get a little antsy when people talk about Rorschach's misaimed fandom, because I've previously encountered the attitude that anyone who likes Rorschach is either condoning his views, or missing the point.

Good heavens no! I tend to fangirl villains, myself - favourite characters of mine have included Servalan, the Master and Magneto. I understand how it's possible to find a character utterly fascinating without feeling like they're justified or like you'd actually want to know them in real life.

I'm more of a Veidt fan than Rorschach, myself. C. S. Lewis once said something along the lines of how it's easy to excoriate other people for sins you personally haven't been tempted by, and I think there's something of that going on here. If Rorschach is what happens when Kantian ethics go too far, Veidt is what you get when you take utilitarianism to the bitter end. I've found utilitarianism a seductive enough idea in the past that I can see where Veidt's coming from rather more. He's the sort of evil I could see myself going, and therefore more interesting to me.

[dingbatz7.livejournal.com]

I...don't think I have an answer, either. It depends on the audience, really.

but at the same time you don't want to patronise your audience by making all the characters you don't agree with into puppy-kicking caricatures.

...This. This, so much.

[daphnie_1]

This is a really interesting question and I think it boils down to the individual writer. I don't know if you know Doctor Who at all? I went through a stint of writing fics about the Master and, you know, I had a particular way of dealing with it.

What I tried to do (and I don't know if I managed) was to try and stick as close to canon as I could with the character. I told the story through his eyes so in some respects I did have to take a flippant attitude to some of what he did (I use a POV that's very tied to the characters) and trust that what he was doing would speak for itself as being something horrible.

I never - as far as I was aware - actively tried to get people to side with the Master, or premote his viewpoint as right (because as far as I'm concerned it's NOT) I just told the story.

I guess it also helped that I wrote Doctor/Master so I always had that contrasting viewpoint, one that was clearly in the narrative, saying how wrong his actions where. The Doctor is a very very principled character and it was pretty IC for him to comment.

Rorschach is...an odd one. I think one of the best (and worst) things about Watchmen is that it has very little narrative objectivity when it comes to Rorschach. He's pained as a very...questionable character but I do think the narrative tries to force you to side with him and in a way you *have* to. The only objectively 'good' character (Dan) is painted as ineffective. It's an awesome piece of writing but I know it made me feel very uncomfortable.

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I do like a good Master-centric fic. He's a very interesting character. Is your Doctor/Master stuff up on your journal? If so, I may have to friend you and go and read it.

I think you're right when dealing with villain protagonists, the best you can do is just to write from their point of view and trust the audience to tell that you are not the character. I wonder if you can make that work even better by making your point-of-view even tighter: the more distinctive the villain protagonist's narrative voice, the easier it is to tell that this is not an authorial/omniscient point of view. That could work pretty well with the Master, as his narrative voice is going to be pretty distinctive.

I think the narrative in Watchmen has something of a love/hate relationship with Rorschach. There really are no effective good guys, and so Rorschach is... kind of a least worst option? Then again, Veidt is also, debatably, the guy who saved the world. I reckon whichever one of those you end up siding with is your own personal ethical inkblot test*.

*Pun intended. Sorry.