(Dicks, man.)
Not the body part, but the dude. You know the guys I’m talking about: the bad boys, the anti-heroes, the tools, the jerks and the mean boys. The guys you hate to see your hero hook up with, even though you can totally sympathize with the smoldering hot appeal.
But how much is too much? What crosses the line from Bad Idea Boy to Intervention Time? And where do you, as the reader draw that line? At what point does smoldering danger erupt into charred and blackened ruins?
In some ways, the phrase I love to toss around in my reviews–”unlikeable protagonist”–is inadequate to describe the ways in which protagonists can fail as characters and still appeal to a reader.
I tend to measure toolitude along two axes: likeability and interestingness. And this is going to be way easier with examples, so let’s get to it.
Bad Boy #1: Unlikeable But Fascinating
Look, there are plenty of truly great romances out there where one of the parties is a Grade A certifiable jackass, but the important thing is that the jackass in question is fascinating. He keeps you reading because you want to know what makes him tick; he’s not just Darth Vader in assless chaps, but a full-blown, three-dimensional human being, flawed and difficult but compelling to watch, nonetheless.
Case in point: Justin from Divas Las Vegas. Justin is self-centered, egotistical, high-maintenance, unstable and plays fast and loose with the truth and yet at the same time, he is fascinating. You can plop Justin down in the middle of the Sahara with a compass and a crust of stale bread and you just know five days later he’s King of Persia. And you will show up at his court to watch him be fed small sweet pickles by heavily muscled men, and you will be dying–dying!–to hear how he got there. Justin is just that kind of boy. You forgive him so much because he is so frequently a trainwreck in motion.
Another case in point: EM Forster’s Maurice. The title character is not very likeable at all. At all! He’s self-centered and conflicted and makes selfish and terrible decisions aimed at protecting his perch on the shelf at the top of the closet, next to the hat boxes. But at the same time, watching him come to terms with his sexuality and making an attempt to come to terms with his desires and the choice he has to make as to how he will lead the rest of his life–makes Maurice intriguing. Just like with Justin, you can’t look away, but for entirely different reasons. Watching Maurice grow is one of the rewards of the story.
Bad Boy #2: Unlikeable But Redeemed
If a protagonist is just being mean for the sake of meanness, or never gets past his meanness and moves on, I’m out. If he never grows as a person, if he never matures and locates the stepladder that lets him get over himself, he’s not gonna get my stamp of approval. But if he can pull it together? That’s an interesting guy.
For instance, in Twice the Cowboy, Twice the Ride, Manuel skates perilously close to Mean Boy territory a couple of times, but as the story unfolds, you learn that it’s wariness and cultural differences that are contributing to the appearance of meanness. That knowledge, and how Manuel communicates it to his partner, Jesse, and Jesse’s consideration of it–whether it explains everything and whether Manuel’s worth sticking around to watch mature–contributes a wonderful undertone of depth and realism to the love story. And yes, eventually Manuel does grow and try and really gets outside his comfort zone for Jesse, because they are in love. And it works.
Similar idea: Alec in Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint. I know it’s a time-honored classic, but come on, show of hands, who thought Alec was kind of a dick for two-thirds of the book? Hm? Hm?
And yet, during that last third, it’s like he cracks open his ribcage and rips out handfuls of heartmeat to throw at his and Richard’s enemies, and it’s not just redeeming, it’s an absolutely stunning act of redemption that breaks your heart. Especially if you read “The Death of the Duke”, the novella that’s currently included in the mass-market paperback version. Get your hankies out.
Both these guys, Manuel and Alec, are what I consider examples of The Bad Boy Redeemed. Without the redemption–
Bad Boy #3: Unlikeable and Unredeemed
–you get Cam, from K A Mitchell’s Diving in Deep. Now, I get that the reader’s supposed to understand he’s locked away from his feelings and deep in the closet and working manfully through his issues to be the boy Noah can take home to his family but…but but but, Cam’s a tool. If I was Noah’s friend and saw that relationship going down, I’d be taking him for some carbs and talking to him about Bad Choices With Nice Abs. I didn’t want the two of them to end up together. Really, I didn’t.
This was a case where I simply couldn’t find the redeeming qualities underneath the thick layer of tool. And Cam really wasn’t as fascinating as Cam thought he was, regardless of how many coffee tables he destroyed using Noah’s admittedly ecstatic person. Cam was so mean. So mean. Noah might have forgiven him, but I never did.
But that isn’t to say Diving in Deep is a bad book; on the contrary, it features some of the hottest sex I’ve ever seen (did I mention the coffee table? I need to mention the coffee table. And the desk. Holy moses). An unlikeable protagonist is in no way a death knell for a book. But a bad boy left unredeemed is something that requires a very strong workaround.
I mean, even while I wanted Noah to leave Cam’s ass, I could respect why Noah stayed; Cam’s unredeemed dickness and Noah’s addiction to it were both realistic, and the strength of the rest of the storytelling is actually enough to support that. It’s a daring move, and one Mitchell made pay off.
Bad Boy #4: Unlikeable, Uninteresting and Unread
But sometimes, nothing can save a protagonist. Take, for instance–yes, I’m a horrible person–John Simpson’s The Ghosts of Stanton Hall. Fantastic premise: man inherits haunted manse complete with on-site crematorium (oh come on, like I’m the only one who thinks that would rock), sleeps with butler, lawyer and the ghost haunting the ancestral mansion. Now, I’m sorry, John, but Ryan could’ve decided to fuck a doorknob and it wouldn’t have made him any more likeable or interesting. He is dry, selfish, shallow and not particularly intelligent. We’re told he’s handsome, but then again, so’s a well-made pair of shoes, but it doesn’t make you want to have sex with them*.
Then there are the good guys who make bad decisions. They’re a whole separate breed.
Bad Boy #5: The Temporary Bad Boy (Good Man, Bad Brain)
There’s definitely something to be said for a guy who comes across all gleaming teeth and perfect abs, then makes a major mis-step. It humanizes him somehow, to see a soft, squishy fallible underbelly.
In Chris Owens’ Bareback, when Tor did That Thing (look, I’m not going to spoil it for you; go read the book, it’s outstanding. Five stars) was there anyone who didn’t wince? I bawled like an infant. Seriously, my partner came flying in from the other room to see if I’d been injured. And while it hurt to read about what he and Jake went through, at the same time, I loved watching how they handled Tor’s misstep. I understood why he did it and how much he had to grow to move past that moment and be the man Jake truly deserved, so that I could love the sequel, Natural Disaster, that much more. (Seriously. Five more stars! Love those books.)
Sarah Monette’s The Bone Key is a haunting and thought-provoking collection of ghost stories with a somewhat wishy-washy protagonist, Kyle Murchison Booth. And Kyle really only became fully real to me in the story “Elegy for a Demon Lover”, where he lets an incubus into his home.
You and I know full well that that’s a horrible idea, and so did Kyle; right from the start he knew something was off but he was so desperate for the contact, so anxious to keep having the guy all to himself that he prayed his instincts were wrong. That they weren’t, of course, lends the story nearly all of its punch. The remaining impact is driven by Kyle’s heartbreak and loneliness both before his incubus’ arrival and after, when his departure leaves Kyle alone in his sumptuous but ultimately empty apartment.
They’re good men who toy with terrible ideas but ultimately emerge from their experiences with the same essentially likeable and loving personalities they went in with. And who doesn’t sometimes wish their good guy was, well…a little bad sometimes?
Next time, lest we get all tangled up in dangling genitalia: unpleasant lesbians! Come for the frigidity, stay for the hair pie!**
*Unless it does, in which case I am going to respect your informed, consenting choice from over here. *shoefucker powerfist*
** Show of hands, who needs that on a t-shirt for an ex-girlfriend or two?
