Recently I read M.J. Engh's excellent book Arslan, and I was at once entertained and disgusted. The eponymous main character is an Asian dictator who has recently taken over the majority of the world. Imagine for a second that Hitler and Stalin raised a child to be worse than both of them, and you will have a good idea of what Arslan brings to the table.
Now you may be asking why anyone would want to read a book about such a horrible person, but Arslan is a great character study of a very flawed person. And if the celebrity magazines and Tabloids are any indication, then people love to see flawed humanity.
One of my favorite characters of all time is Rodney McKay form Stargate: Atlantis. True, hes not a character from literature, but he is a character with a whole bunch of-well, character. He is the most arrogant and condescending person on the show (and that's saying something considering some of the villains), always putting others down and never owning up to his own mistakes. Throughout the show he was portrayed as a hypochondriac, a coward, a bigot, and all around sleazeball. Would it surprise you then to know that he had the most screen time of anyone on the show? It doesn't surprise me.
The fact is that we are drawn to people who are most like us. Yes, I just went there. If we are going to be honest with ourselves, we are all flawed in some way, and its these things that make us interesting. I have read books before with characters in them that seem to be too perfect. Charles Dickens had some sickeningly perfect characters, take a look at Tiny Tim. He may have some physical defects, but he has absolutely no character defects. To be perfectly honest, the whole story could have been told without even including Tim. Or at least give Tim some sort of human characteristic. I would have loved to read the scene where Tim derides his father for not standing up to Mr. Scrooge, or maybe curses Scrooge for what hes done. Any human reaction would have been preferable to the Pollyanna attitude that we get from Tim.
But is there a limit? Going back to Arslan, I wonder if a character can be too flawed. I have often heard people talk about saving the cat. Every bad character is supposed to have a save-the-cat moment (like rescuing a kitten from a tree) where we see that they are not so bad after all. Our favorite example would be Darth Vader. Sure he was a really bad guy, but he did sacrifice himself to kill the emperor and restore balance to the galaxy-so there was a glimmer of hope there. Even Darth Vader had a save-the-cat moment! Arslan never had this moment. In fact, I hated him even more at the end of the book than at the start-something I didn't even know would be possible! But despite my disdain for the character, I understand him. Maybe I understand him more than I really wanted to, but that seems to be the whole point of the story. And even worse yet; I can relate to him. Not that I have conquered nations, executed millions, or set up a oppressive dictatorship in my time-but given the chance, I might. Because we are all human-and suffer from the human condition-we are all susceptible to the same follies. We may stand in judgement of others at times, but who is to say we wouldn't make the same
mistakes given the opportunity?
This is (in my opinion) what make truly great speculative fiction though; showing the human condition in all of its glory. When I read a book, I want to see flaws in the characters whether protagonist or antagonist. Maybe showing flaws of the protagonist is actually more important, because we want to see them overcome the odds- and what odds could be greater than your own human nature? So here's a toast to the worst of humanity; may you forever entertain us with the worst you have to offer!
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