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Making an asshole protagonist enjoyable

Karkat Vantas

Karkat Vantas

Virile God-Snake Tower of Masculinity
Recently, I had an idea for a Pokemon fanfic that closely follows the plot of the games. The idea of it can be summed up like so: "What if Holden Caulfield was a Pokemon trainer?"

As you might have figured out, I'm having difficulty making him a likeable protagonist. He's going to be an interesting one, yeah, but that goes without saying. I need to figure out how to make him overly cynical and hypocritical without devolving into self-parody.
 
My favorite examples of enjoyable asshole protagonists would be Neku of TWEWY, and, rather relatedly, Atticus.

I don't think it's terrrrribly difficult. Asshole != unlikeable. Character development watching them become not-assholes is good!

I've never read Catcher.
 
I guess he'll become slightly more sympathetic as the story goes on, but I'm not too interested in making him be less of an asshole.

The reason I considered this idea in the first place is because of how fake and kiddy the Pokemon world is; there's so much material there to be mocked. I view Red in this story as less Holden and more the average outsider to Pokemon; cynical and mocking of how sanitized the Pokemon universe is.
 
The reason people follow a protagonist is because he has something to offer. Maybe he's a part of something big, or a witness to it. Maybe he is the something big. Whatever it is, he's an interesting read. Pretty much everything follows from that principle. Being an asshole is only one facet of one's personality; maybe he's a really stylish asshole, or one you just love to hate. Or maybe the people he's fighting are even bigger assholes. There's lots of different angles you can apply that help take the edge off an otherwise unlikeable character.

Remember that character development does not always entail a complete paradigm shift on the part of the developer. The stereotypical idealistic kid hero can be developed in many ways: Maybe he becomes embittered by the cruelty of the world and learns to give more of his trust and help to those closest to him, or maybe he simply learns to accept the flaws in his views and becomes a much smarter idealist, able to defend what he believes. A complete jerk may behave similarly. The key is not becoming the opposite of what you were before, rather a wizened, more discerning form of it.

Pentimento gave some good links. Study the different kinds of assholes in fiction and figure out what fits. The biggest thing to remember, I think, is that a total jerk is not always a total jerk, unless he's some inhuman paragon of jerkiness; he has soft spots, or times when he just doesn't feel the need to be in Jerk Overdrive. There can be times where more abstract emotions take over, like apprehension or determination. Make him a contemplative jerk, or a roguish jerk. Add more dimensions. Happy, sad, angry; whatever your character is, he/she could always use more dimensions. It's the same method, different template.
 
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