On Balanced Characters

Another problem I often see. Unbalanced characters. Well, let's get to it then, shall we?


I. Flaws make the world go 'round, or, Why Characters NEED flaws

Flaws are a necessary part of any character. Really, get this through your head right now. It took me a bit. Flaws are an important part of any character. But flaws alone won't do it, mind. If you just give a character a short temper, or make them forgetful, that's not enough. Flaws need to be real, believable, and impact the character's personality. Let's use another example from popular media, shall we? Avatar (Shudder) and District 9, since examples help my thought and writing processes.

While here I'll be talking about entire species rather than individual characters, all the points will remain mostly the same. Let's start with a bad example, Avatar. In that movie, the Navi or Na'vi or N'avi, I don't really remember where the apostrophe goes, lack serious flaws. They're all a bunch of peace loving hippies who are perfect in every way and convince an ex-marine that their way of life is better than mankind's. Since they lack flaws, because they are 'perfect', they become imperfect as characters. They are shown to a number of the audience as shallow caricatures of perfection, they lack the ability to make the audience sympathize with them. The Navi then lack the ability to connect with the audience, and thus remain little more than cardboard cutouts.

However, District 9 provides a strong contrast to Avatar. The Prawns, the aliens of D9, are far from perfect. They are shown as troublemakers, criminals, not merely mischievous but violent. However, they are also shown as in such a state because of the effects of their environment, because of the situation they are in. Because they are downtrodden, because they are oppressed and forced into a state of poverty, ignorance, and powerlessness, where the government is hostile to their prescence and society at large hates them, they find themselves forced into such roles. As such, their flaws, their unsaintly actions make them more sympathetic instead of less.

This is why flaws are important to establish a character. Without flaws, a character will not seem real to an audience, they will appear as the saintly but ultimately meaningless cardboard cutouts of Avatar, rather than the troubled and sympathetic Prawns of D9. Without flaws, a character is not that - a character. Perhaps more importantly, however, while flaws in general make a character able to evoke sympathy by virtue of making them 'real' to the audience, specific flaws can evoke more sympathy than any amount of suffering or hardship spent in virtue. Take John Proctor from The Crucible. John is a adulterer, and this flaw is one of many that makes him human and thus able to be sympathized with. But it is his pride and his temper are two of the biggest contributors both to his downfall as a character and the sympathy that he evokes. It is his pride that allows him to stand up against the world, his pride, while a flaw, one that dooms him in the end, also makes him seem an upright character, someone to be inspired by, while his anger at the world, and at those he views as unjust makes him more sympathetic, for who has not looked at the world around them and felt dissatisfied with those around them?

Which brings me to my second point...

II. Flaws are not bad!

Now this might seem odd at first. "But Vae!" I hear you say (Or perhaps I am hearing voices in my head again), "Isn't the fact that they are flaws and not virtues make them bad?" This is true, to a certain degree. But virtues and flaws are both double edged swords. A man who holds onto his pacifism even in the face of death, violence towards him or those he cares about, or other such threats will be seen by some as a morally upright and willfull man who refuses to allow the injustices and sins of the world reach his own moral center. But by others, he can be seen as a morally weak man for holding onto his passive refusal to act for what they may see as good. They may view such a man as weak, as a coward or perhaps as simply too stubborn to do what they see as right. In the demostration of virtues, virtues can easily be seen as flaws.

Likewise, flaws may also be seen as virtues. Proctor's pride, while it is what damns him in the end, is also what makes him, in the eyes of many, a morally upright and strong man. His pride defines his character, causes his refusal to sell out his neighbors, and also what grants him a noble death. However, without his pride, he would also could have ended the entire farce of the witch-trial before it started, by outing both himself and Abigail as adulterers before the town. Seeing as that would have ruined his reputation and wounded his pride, however, he waited until it was too late for the accusation to have any real impact.

Flaws are what create a character, and should not be seen just as something one 'has to' tack onto a character in order to make them real. They should be taken and celebrated as an important aspect of the character, one that may adversely impact their life (In fact, it should adversely impact their life), but also one that grants the character depth and perhaps from time to time should be beneficial. A coward may be hated, and a coward may be a weak man who runs from conflict of any kind, but also a coward may be a survivor at all costs, a coward may be a man who knows that dying will not help him or anyone else, or in a non-violent conflict, knowing that coming into conflict with others may burn metaphorical bridges with the characters he comes in conflict with. Of course, it's hard for complete cowardice to be written as a 'noble' flaw (Ciaphias Cain, for example, is far from a coward, despite his claims, and fits 'Opportunist' or 'Survivor' more), but this does not mean one should shy away from the flaw. After all, while flaws can inspire readers to like a character more, they also can and should make readers like a character less. Flaws can be good in the eyes of the audience, but they should also be bad on some level in the eyes of the audience, and they should adversely impact the character's actions in the story.

Which, again, brings me into my next point...

III. Flaws in characters should impact them!

For God's/Cthulhu's/Jupiter's sake, do not make the mistake of creating a character with flaws, and then fail to demonstrate them, or make the flaws only come up in minor events. Flaws are a big part of people as any extended interaction with them will clearly show (There's my arrogance flaring up again), and should affect them when in major plot points are concerned. Don't give a character flaws and then refuse to have those flaws affect the story. Don't make a hot-headed character suddenly calm when in heated negotiations. Don't forget that he's got a temper. Make him Khrushchev! Let him get mad! If it spoils the negotiations, well, sometimes the author writes the story and sometimes the characters do. That's one of the little joys of creating interesting characters. Sometimes what they do is just as entertaining as any pre-planned even in the story.

Flaws in characters should always be present. They may not come up depending on the situation, but they should always be a part of the character no matter where he is or how important an event is to the plot. A flaw should never be ignored, but at the same time, they should not be overplayed. Which, again, leads me quite nicely to my next point...

IV. Flaws are not the only aspect of a character!

If there's one thing I don't want anyone to walk away from reading this (If anyone is reading this) thinking, it's "Well, obviously since flaws make a character, I should make a character with nothing but flaws!" If you claim that no one would read this and think that, I'm either a bad judge of my own writing and have already went over virtues and flaws well enough to have presented them both fairly, or you haven't read/seen/experienced enough bad fiction to understand that this does crop up from time to time.

Always remember that though flaws make a character interesting, virtues make a character interesting as well, and also that flaws and virtues without personality are like thumbtacks and posters without a wall. While a character's flaws and virtues are definitely part of his personality, they cannot be all that character is. A character also has life experiences, a character has memories and quirks that are neither flaws nor virtues, a character has views on life and relationships apart from his own qualities and vices. Always remember that a character is not merely a set of good things and bad things, but a person in their own right, with things to say and do that are not necessarily good or bad, but merely reflective of who they are.

Sin and Saintliness cannot exist in a vacuum. Both must exist on a person, a living breathing being, even if they aren't real and must be made so through a fiction of thought. Characters are not all good, and they are not all bad, they aren't even all a mix of the two. Characters are just that: characters. Sometimes with good aspects, sometimes with bad aspects, sometimes with aspects that don't fit any sort of postive or negative judgment, aspects that are just part of who they are, little things that make them just like you or me.

So, to recap as usual...

I. Use flaws to make your characters real! Don't ignore vice for virtue!

II. Don't add flaws just as something that you 'have to' do! Celebrate your characters' flaws! Revel in the good and the harm they do!

III. Don't add a flaw and then ignore it whenever it becomes convienent! Remember flaws are a part of the character, not a cheap device to be used only when they pose no threat!

IV. Don't add only flaws to a character, or only virtues or even only both! Characters are more than the sum of their parts, but they still need those parts! People have good parts, bad parts, and parts that don't fit in either category!