Young Writers Society

I was wondering... how do you accomplish making bad main characters that you like?

I know some examples are Jack Sparrow (albeit its from a movie) and Artemis Fowl, but it seems that they're both on the humorous side. Are their any other examples?

Thanks ahead of time .

Rorschach aka Walter Kovacs, of the DC graphic novel Watchmen is a very good, non-humourous example of what you're looking for. Crazy, yes, but on the technical side of "good."

I recommend studying him, and other characters of Watchmen fame. They're all anti-heroes, in a way.

[plus the movie is coming out in March. Fangirl squee.]

-:pirate3:

Hmm... I know what you mean. I don't know if I could accomplish it myself, but when I saw the title of this thread, I automatically thought of Nathaniel (and maybe to a lesser extent Bartimaeus) from Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy. (Though I guess Nathaniel's more on the unlikable side of the scale, especially in the last two books....) Anyway, those might be two good examples, as well as being totally fantastic characters in a totally awesome book that totally everyone should read. *ahem* Sorry. I guess Bartimaeus is closer to the examples you've given, but is more on the humorous side, and it seems that's not what you're looking for... Nathaniel, though, is a more serious version of the not-all-that-nice protagonist, to the extent that, for all intents and purposes, he's the main antagonist of the second book... at least, that's the way I thought of it.

Eh, probably not what you're looking for, but worth a try, I guess.

First, make sure they have a motive! Nobody will do something bad for no reason.

Now, the motive is where the sympathy comes in for my villians. For the most part, before the motivational event comes in, the motive is a normal, typically happy person. However, everything is turned upside-down and soon the villian is seeing red. This is where sympathy comes in: Because they lived normally, like the reader, before the bad things set upon them, the reader pities the villian for this.

So basically, make sure that their actions are very realistic for their position. Then the readers will think "That's what I would do." and sympathise.

A decent anti-hero will always show into sharp relief a flaw, not in himself, but in the world around him.

"Well, I guess the schooling system, parents and eurasian butlers just arent equipped to raise a child-prodigy as a well rounded kid....especially in ireland"

"Well i guess the british navy was a bit hard on people out in the caribbean, especially on ol' scallywags like Jack."

"Well, I guess science shouldn't go making golems out of corpses" (um, everyone else finds Frankenstein's monster loveable right? I mean he's like a ten foot tall teddy bear....made out of dead people.)

"Hmm, you probably shouldn't blame a kid if he's the result of a rape, he might come back and burn down your civilisation" (Adrakis Trilogy)

Style is a must have for the villain. An explanation, as Thunderdude illustrated, is also crucial; he has to be understandable.

So yeah.