Is my protagonist too good to be true?

[phantmoftheomsi]

I've encountered an unexpected problem while drafting a story based on real law enforcement officials from Medieval China and it has me thinking I should switch protagonists.

The story is about a judge who embodies the ideals of impartiality and fairness, and a police official who stops at nothing to frame and extort his personal enemies, including the judge. The lives the historical personages are compelling, but the judge in question lacks a fatal flaw and never seems to be pushed beyond his breaking point. He appears to have begun his career in public service already self-actualized, based on how eloquently he speaks of the law and how justly he rules even as a young man. The police official, on the other hand, has numerous traumatic incidents from his past that inform his abject cruelty and these links make his narrative arc super interesting.

This normally wouldn't be an issue except that the judge is the main character, and while the story presents him with personal challenges to overcome, this lack of trauma in his past deprives him of a certain dimensionality. I'm of course at liberty to fabricate something, but nothing I've discovered yet feels organic. I've become convinced that the proper choice is to make the police official the main character, but this would change almost everything in the game, from gameplay mechanics to the plot itself.

All that being said, a friend of mine told me this may be an advantage in a VN. If the player assumes the role of the protagonist, a little ambiguity in their personal motivation might help the player fill those emotional gaps in on their own. I can see the validity of this point, but feel uncomfortable moving forward with the plot until I as the writer at least know what motivates him beyond "Truth, justice and the Tang Dynasty way."

What do you guys think? Is this ambiguity a feature rather than a bug? Would you play a VN where the main character had interesting puzzles to solve but their fatal flaw was that they cared too much?

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Well, the main thing to remember is that in any good story the protagonist needs to be the one driving the narrative forward.

It is their decisions and actions that propel the story forward - a bad story is one in which the protagonist is just reacting to events that are happening externally to themselves.

And yes, it's not uncommon for authors to discover over the course of writing a story that the viewpoint character (protagonist) needs to be switched. Keep in mind that protagonist and antagonist are not synonyms for good guy and bad guy. A protagonist is simply someone trying to achieve a goal, and an antagonist is the person who is getting in their way and preventing their success. It is entirely possible for the two characters to have competing goals and thus serve the role as antagonist to each other.

If you feel like you should switch the main character, you are probably correct to do so.

I wrote a story I really liked one time and for most of the novella and the months I spent working on it, a woman who had been brought back to life was the main character, and a pivotal turning point was her discovering that her trusted partner had killed her, all because of pressure from the shady company they both worked for. It was . . . alright. A dramatic twist with some nice fallout for a third act, but it didn't 'click' for me.

Then I rewrote the story from the perspective of the partner, and revealed very early in the story that he had been the one to kill her, and the emotional turmoil of the guilt of working with her again tearing him up from the inside as it looked like things were converging back to him being forced to silence her again. It was a MUCH better story, and none of the external plot points changed, but the switch of character perspective - trading a shocking twist for an emotional slow burn - made all the difference.

If in doubt, try writing your story both ways and see which one is working better and resonating more strongly with you.

[Lochana]

A protagonist being non ambiguous is not a problem. If anything non ambiguity allows the reader to self insert more. Why would you think otherwise?

[Mutive]

The lives the historical personages are compelling, but the judge in question lacks a fatal flaw and never seems to be pushed beyond his breaking point. He appears to have begun his career in public service already self-actualized, based on how eloquently he speaks of the law and how justly he rules even as a young man.

I'd argue that even if this is true in the tellings of his story, almost certainly this was not the way the character was in truth. No real person begins their career fully self-actualized (even if they later make it seem that way). We all have some stumblings. It's part of being human.

And even a person who might be perfectly just would have to deal with ambiguity. Is it better to risk letting an innocent man be judged guilty or let a dozen guilty men go free? (I don't know the answer to that and different legal systems have had different answers.) Is it okay to commit a crime if the reasons are sympathetic? (Think Robin Hood stealing from the rich to feed the poor, or Valjean stealing a loaf of bread.) Should bad laws be disobeyed, overthrown by force, or challenged in the legal system? I have no great answers for any of those questions, and could probably find real life scenarios in which I'd argue either side.

So yes, I would argue that if your character appears as a judge on day one, fully formed, and never deals with any problems that contain nuance, he's going to be boring. Because, honestly, that's not realistic. Almost all interesting problems contain nunace and we all evolve over time.

Would you play a VN where the main character had interesting puzzles to solve but their fatal flaw was that they cared too much?

I think a character caring too much would make for a really interesting fatal flaw, TBH. Justice and mercy tend to oppose one another. (e.g. "let the bad guy off because he had sympathetic motives, but with the knowledge that he may well do the bad thing again") But there do need to be consquences from this flaw or else, again, it seems unsympathtic. (If he's too merciful, we need to see the problems this cases. Similarly if he's too just. And if he works too hard, probably he's going to have a grumbling wife and kids and a pretty dull social life.)

[phantmoftheomsi]

A protagonist being non ambiguous is not a problem. If anything non ambiguity allows the reader to self insert more. Why would you think otherwise?

I'm not sure what you mean by non ambiguity. It's the ambiguity of his motives I'm attempting to resolve.

If a character's motives are not defined, it's as though you're telling your audience to go long but don't indicate which direction you're throwing the ball. It will feel like something is happening, but in the end they will feel like their effort was wasted because there will be no moment of satisfaction. That's what I'm attempting to suss out, the longing the judge is trying to satisfy, which appears to have occurred in his youth.

[phantmoftheomsi]

I'd argue that even if this is true in the tellings of his story, almost certainly this was not the way the character was in truth. No real person begins their career fully self-actualized (even if they later make it seem that way). We all have some stumblings. It's part of being human.

Certainly there are spurious accounts of his life, given most of the biographical information we have was written well after his death. It's not so much that I'm hoping to divine what actually motivated him, but rather find what motivation could have created the insightful and fastidious judge we see in the historical record. I have no issue with his character as depicted, but I plan to break him down and grind him into the dirt and whatever oozes out needs to be authentic and fulfilling for the audience.

[phantmoftheomsi]

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback.

After mulling it over a little more, I think the judge in question is a good candidate for a messiah complex. He became emotionally invested in a case early in his career and lost his impartiality and issued a harmful ruling. Since then he has been very strict about remaining personally and emotionally distant from cases, which allowed him to do his job fairly and prolifically. But then, in our main narrative, he encounters a case so difficult and personal he has no choice but to become emotionally invested, and learns the thousands of just rulings in his career have not been enough to ameliorate his feelings of guilt.

How does that strike you? Is that a character players can get behind?

[Mutive]

It's not so much that I'm hoping to divine what actually motivated him, but rather find what motivation could have created the insightful and fastidious judge we see in the historical record.

I inherently think this could be interesting (and I'm not sure he needs to be broken down or have a traumatic past or whatever. There are a LOT of reasons why someone might feel that it's important to be an insightful and fastidious judge, including a sense of mercy to those who are powerless, an intense sense of fairness, a belief that the world runs best when laws are laws and rules are followed, even just a belief that the world needs good judges and runs best with them, to just a belief that he's pretty good at the law and would probably do better than most other people he's seen practicing it). None of this requires a simplistic or unnuanced depiction. There are good and bad aspects to *any* system that humans design.