Do you need to sympathize with characters to enjoy them?

[Ivy]

Today I was puzzled by some statements in the thread about fictional characters and type. The character being discussed was House, MD from the American TV show of the same name. Now, I happen to think House is one of the most fascinating characters on TV. He's complicated, frustrating, and not really all that likable. He's a puzzle, wrapped up in an enigma, smothered in a conundrum, like some kind of mysterious burrito.

But he's not a nice guy. He's not friendly, and sometimes it's hard to be sympathetic with him because he's constantly digging his own interpersonal holes. Sometimes you think maybe he's just a tender curmudgeon with a creamy nougat center, but then he does something really super dickish and you wonder if maybe he's just basted in ass for an assy flavor through and through.

(Fucking food metaphors. I hate dieting.)

Anyway. I didn't really want to start another House thread, since there is one already dedicated to him and he comes up frequently in other threads. But I have been turning this over all day. Some of my favorite characters, in any form of media, are NOT very sympathetic. Or, maybe more to the point, not immediately and apparently sympathetic. But they are still very compelling characters. A totally good or totally bad character is flat, but one with both flaws and redeeming qualities stands up on the page/screen (especially if the redeeming ones are hidden away).

Some examples:

Darth Vader, the Star Wars saga
Starbuck, Battlestar Galactica
Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver
Ben Linus, Lost
Humbert Humbert, Lolita

What about you? Do you need to be able to approve of a character to appreciate him or her?

 

[miss fortune]

intresting thread idea!

I like the flawed characters the best- they're usually more complex and interesting than the heroic good guys/gals- I actually can't stand any character who is too good- there's no understanding there with them If the character is trying to push others away or be unpleasant to them, it usually means that there's more there to figure out, which makes them more fascinating, which means that I like them more!

I suppose that may be me disapproving of the good guy though- which sounds warped I've always been the one who likes the villan in the movie (with some exceptions- I dislike racist/sexist/homophobic villans) because I could identify with them being human more... the same applies to House actually (or Dr Cox and Dr Kelso on Scrubs )- I can't trust a character who I wouldn't be comfortable having a few drinks with and chatting about our lives

 

[Clover]

I do have a tendency to prefer villains over heroes, or more often than not the antagonist over the protagonist. I wonder why? I mean for some reason I adore characters who really have no redeeming qualities, who just cut down everyone in their path without a hint of remorse... Of course I might create my own idealized versions of them in my head for fantasizing purposes, haha.

 

[disregard]

Not at all. I am extremely busy at the mo, but I will say that the reason I love fiction is because of the antagonist.. I don't always sympathize with the antagonist (Achilles, Ender's Game; Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter) but I certainly can identify with them a little bit. The villains just seem more honest about themselves and their motives. They're not trying to impress, they just know what they want and are set out to get it.

 

[Athenian200]

I can enjoy most characters, actually... although I prefer ones I can can sympathize with. The only characters I dislike are vulgar/tasteless ones... I prefer a refined, civilized villain to a crude/vulgar, roughneck hero. What does that say about me?

 

[Varelse]

*agrees with Whatever*

I can't sympathize with a character that's too perfect. Don't know anyone like that. Seems utterly unrealistic.

Someone who is a mess is much more understandable. More human.

 

[The Ü™]

The ideal human being is a drone who does what they're told.

Writing characters in fiction is the closest one can get to effectively controlling others.

 

[Mort Belfry]

Sometimes it's enjoyable to watch characters be held completely at the mercy of thier writers. One of my all time favourite sitcom characters is George Costanza and though I like him and have an understanding of him, I still enjoy watching him getting hurt and ridiculed by the plot. Sometimes on these kinds of shows it seem like the writers are actively trying to punish the character and the audience loves it.

In the show Tom Goes to the Mayor, Tom Peters is nice, friendly and thoroughly sympathetic, but you still get a sadistic glee from watching him getting tortured.

I'm guessing the question in the OP is asking more about sympathising with a character's intentions and actions, but I think the fact people enjoy wanting to see their characters get hurt show that sympathy can be pretty removed from enjoyment of the fictional world.

 

[Totenkindly]

No, I don't need to approve of a character to appreciate them.

(I think I did mention Michael from "Lost" -- I despise him... but at the same time I think he was one of the best characters in the show, because it was clear what was driving him, and he relentlessly pursued his goal even at the expense of others. Wow.)

Or the entire cast of American Beauty, for example. Some of them are really awful human beings (such as Ricky's father)... Maybe that is different, I still empathize with Ricky's father because I can see the chains he has bound himself on and he has become a pathetic shell of a man.... sort of a self-victim. But he still does dreadful, horrid things. Yet I appreciate him as a character -- he is representing something truthful about the human condition (albeit the darker end).

Or the characters in The Prestige. Robert Angier is such a bitter, awful human being -- he does "terrible things" to the man he refuses to forgive. Yet he is such a strong, vivid character that embodies the results of certain types of behavior in human beings. He says something truthful about people just by living.

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

I think the reason that people can enjoy the character of House is that although he might be a dick, he's a dick in service of saving people's lives. That's his redeeming quality. He's a dick, but people would die if he were nicer. I guess the popularity of the character is an embrace of "the end justifies the means".

 

[CzeCze]

Perhaps I have been reading too many of Sass's posts but --

I think the reason people glorify assholes in pop culture and the media is that secretly (or not so secretly) a lot of people want to be assholes. Same with 'the bad guy'. Everyone fantasizes about being the one who can beat the system, get the girl, and the cash, and ride out into the beautifl sunset.

Or people fear they will always be victims and figure it's better if "you can't beat 'em (jerks), join 'em". Or else they are so honestly puzzled by assholes and find them fascinating, both IRL or better from the comfort of the couch.

I also think people wish there were redeeming qualities about assholes. Like rewriting your bullies from childhood traumas into 'fleshed out complex human characters' and basically making them likeable and not as scaryin some way. Anything so you can wrap your mind around it and feel comforted.

Some of this is understandable, some of it is just BS IMHO. Asshole glorification just ends up propping up real life bad behavior in individuals and more over entire systems of...um...undesirability?

Jerks in pop culture tend to follow very similar archetypes meaning stereotypes, like womanizing misogynists who are actually sensitive loving men with trust issues sick: ), ball busting bitches who are too strong to be loved by men and just want to be held like a woman sick, hateful racists who love their children and their dogs sick Brilliant priveleged white men who just can't understand people beneath them sick etc. etc. etc.

I hate assholes. I hate caricatures. I hate people who revel in their privelege. And I hate bad writing.

I especially hate that society in general can't step up and just call people on bad behavior and always have to make excuses, find 'good points'. It's like we somehow became a nation of enablers and cowards.

So....no, I'm probably not one for identifying with "complicated jerks" in popular media. Do I like the benign bad guys? Or the bad guys with cool character design and costumes? Sure. I like Bizarro Superman and that cheetah girl (rooowr -- Wonder Woman's nemsis in Justice League). I generally automatically dislike any bad guy that you are supposed to like, unless they are really campy (like

In fact, the reason I continue to watch Nip/Tuck is just to watch horrible things happen to the two main characters. And I don't even care enough to follow it regularly. I got sick of their antics midway season 2. They are both self-indulgent, self-abosrbed, pompous, hypocritical assholes who hurt everyone around them, feel sorry for themselves, and mess up people's lives and then feel more sorry for themselves. Especially Troy. How can you not love to hate a walking veneral disease of a misogynist?

I think there is a lot going on when it comes to why people like villains that goes beyond just sympathizing with characters. I generally have not seen nor do I see myself in any characters in TV or movies, I think partly this is due to the fact I'm not really a visible part of pop culture in general.

People also glorify serial killers IRL as well, I think the reasons why people do that and why people like 'bad guys' in entertainment overlap, probably in complicated ways that make people look not so flattering way.

When I do like 'bad guys' they generally really are the bad guys and not meant to be sympathetic at all. I basically hate the stereotyped, smarmy heros and want them to meet a tragic completely un-Hollywood ending but this will not happen. Which makes me hate them even more. I'm rooting against stereotypes, against all the institutions and people invested in the status quo and Hollywood, and rooting for the underdog.

 

[Ivy]

No, I don't need to approve of a character to appreciate them.

(I think I did mention Michael from "Lost" -- I despise him... but at the same time I think he was one of the best characters in the show, because it was clear what was driving him, and he relentlessly pursued his goal even at the expense of others. Wow.)

This is pretty much how I feel about Locke. I have serious problems with his actions, which just seem to be getting more and more tunnel-visioned as the show goes on and he loses his center and perspective. Yet, it is those very things that make him a really awesome interesting character.

 

[TenebrousReflection]

Some of my favorite characters, in any form of media, are NOT very sympathetic. Or, maybe more to the point, not immediately and apparently sympathetic. But they are still very compelling characters. A totally good or totally bad character is flat, but one with both flaws and redeeming qualities stands up on the page/screen (especially if the redeeming ones are hidden away).

I can relate to that idea. Some of my favorite TV characters are the ones where I have to watch them a bit to understand the motivation of the character, then I can understand their point of view and see that they are doing whats right through their eyes. I've only watched House a couple times, but that is an example of a character where I can watch him and feel that hes doing what he perceives right within his internal moral framework - he is being true to his own beliefs regardless of how it affects others around him. I think I do need some degree of sympathy to like a character (it may be a strange disconnect, but I can like a character for the role they play int he story even though I would despise such a person in real life (I think "appreciate" may be a better term than like in this case)), but I also find it pretty easy to sympathize with most characters if I can get a sense of whats motivating them and what their values are (even villains have personal values - they might be negative values like power or greed tho).

Two other examples that come to mind (both minor characters from CSI)
Conrad Eckley and David Hodges

Aside from examples like that, most of the characters that I find most likable are ones that I see bits of myself in and/or are more like what I'd like to eventually be more like. The only one that comes to mind that I suspect may be an INFP is Megan Reeves from Numb3rs. The rest of the ones I think are NTs like Gil Grissom (xNTJ?) of CSI, Charlie Eppes (INTP?) and Larry Fleinhardt (ENTP?) of Numb3rs. Basically, I think strong displays of Ne, Ni, Ti, or Fi are what make me like and relate to a character.

 

[TenebrousReflection]

When I do like 'bad guys' they generally really are the bad guys and not meant to be sympathetic at all. I basically hate the stereotyped, smarmy heros and want them to meet a tragic completely un-Hollywood ending but this will not happen. Which makes me hate them even more. I'm rooting against stereotypes, against all the institutions and people invested in the status quo and Hollywood, and rooting for the underdog.

(if you have are familiar with these) Where would you put these in the villain scale...

Keyser Soze from "The Usual Suspects"
Magneto from X-Men movies and comics
Joneleth Irenicus from Baldur's Gate II (computer game)

Those are examples of some of my favorite villians. I can't really sympathize or relate to Keyser Soze, but like him for just how clever and devious he is. The other two, I can relate to somewhat and its easier to sympathize with.

 

[disregard]

Ah, yes.. Keyser Soze was an incredible villain.

 

[Tallulah]

I always liked the obnoxious characters that I'd never want to be around in real life. Two of my favorite tv characters of all time are Mrs. Oleson on Little House on the Prairie and Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It's fun to see people that are just completely self-absorbed and get to create a little havoc in the lives of the sometimes boring lead characters.

I always gravitated towards the villains and the outcasts, too. I think it really all boils down to the question of who is the most interesting character, and not their function in the story. Another thing is, sometimes you can sympathize with a character and not necessarily approve of their actions from an across the board moral standpoint. But you understand how they got to that point. I remember taking a lot of flak in college classes for sticking up for Hedda Gabler and Madame Bovary. :rolli:

 

[Seanan]

What about you? Do you need to be able to approve of a character to appreciate him or her?

That's a tough one actually. Usually, yes but not always. And then, I don't have to approve but I do have to relate on some level. There has to be some facet of the character that I can connect with enough to appreciate not them but whatever is being played out by them.

Kevin Costner's "Mr. Brooks" comes to mind. Who can relate to a serial killer? Certainly not me. But, I can relate to being addicted to something or someone that I disdain. I know that struggle. As an involved party, I've also been through the fear that a child would inherit a trait from their parent.

I think what I experience that way is the same as the actor. I've heard many say that they have to find some part of the character they can relate to in order to play them.