Leading Roles

ME (the other guild master) and I were discussing an interesting idea, main characters.  We were trying to understand why some main characters are so wonderful while others fall flat.  Here are a few of our conclusions.

Is the character too mundane?  Reading a book or watching a movie is only as entertaining as the main character.  If the main is blah, the story could be just as blah and who wants to read that?  Now everybody has a story to tell, but is it just history?  The character has to be significant in some way or the story has no reference point or reason.  Blah characters tend to do things in a blah way.  Example: let's say you are playing a video game and you never move the character forward with the story.  Was that a fun game?  Can you become engaged in a story that the character doesn't want to engage in?  Mundane characters don't want adventure, romance, action, thrill or anything else a story offers and if they are thrown into it, they try to get out or are removed from the story.  The point: dull characters make dull stories.

But here's the next one: is the character too special?  Harry Potter was special.  He was a wizard first and a history breaking one at that.  But on the whole, he was still just a dumb, lost kid trying to survive school.  He still had some qualities that made him normal.  He was a mundane character with special power and a drive to follow a trail.  But would the story have been as interesting if he had been able to survive year one and go on the hunt, destroying Voldemort before the diary incident?  Would it have been as much fun if he were as smart as Hermione AND as powerful as Ginny to go with his guts?  Super characters can be fun, but they are hard to relate to and can't show the growth needed to engage the reader.  Oh sure, the story was fun, but it was unreal.  The point: Super powered characters distance the audience for the story.

Main characters have to be likable.  It doesn't matter how despicable a character might be, there has to be a likable quality present or the character is a flop.  For instance, Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean is a goofy character who is absolutely horrible.  I can't stand him.  Jar Jar Binks.  Same thing, but luckily, Jar Jar isn't the main character, but how many people like that movie?  Frodo Baggins (either the book or the movies) is a character that you just want to throttle.  Thankfully Samwise is there to balance him out (mundane in a special way).  On the other hand, Po of Kung Fu Panda is a character that could easily be annoying, but isn't.  Now I will say that not everyone has the same taste in characters, but consider for a moment that idea of why you like some and dislike others.  Does it matter how good a story is if you don't like the main character?  The point: if the audience doesn't like the character, they won't like the story.

The long and the short of it, main characters can make or break a story.  Know your character and the story will be that much better.

Happy storying
The Mighty Q