Is your character a good person?

Anti-heroes become more popular with each passing year. And I’m not referring to heroes with negative qualities like Tony Stark or Deadpool. That’s an example of a character who has personal failings, but still overall does heroic things.

No, I’m referring to characters who are bad guys. Dexter, Hannibal, Ray Donovan, The Joker. These are all characters who are not seeking to do good in the world but are hurting others based on their selfish wants.

Lots of bad guys are getting their stories told. And I love this, even if the execution isn’t always fantastic. The Joker was a fantastic movie. Cruella, not as much. But it was still interesting to see the world from her perspective.

While I wouldn’t be thrilled if my fiction content was full of bad guys, I do love that we are seeing more and more of this. I do think, however, it takes a bit of creative bravery and imagination to write these sorts of characters. Writing Jim Gordon is easy, and makes the writer feel good because he’s doing everything just like we hope we would do. Writing The Joker is harder because he’s doing everything we’re disgusted by.

So, this sort of character is worth some consideration.

Bad guys are cathartic

Still picking on The Joker, I mentioned that most of what he does is disgusting. But some of what he does is also cathartic. There’s a part of us that roots for him when he abuses bank owners and politicians. When he’s punching up, terrifying, and abusing people in power, that’s great fun. It allows us to get some of our anger out. No one’s too upset when The Joker is harassing Bruce Wayne’s rich buddies, I’m sorry to say. So, that always feels like a good time.

No one is ever the bad guy in their own life. Or are they?

Most of us would consider ourselves good people most of the time. But, not all of us. Some people genuinely do not like themselves. Some people feel like they’re trapped making a series of bad decisions over and over again. They’re hurting themselves and the people around them, and they do not know how to stop.

Even if you don’t feel like this all the time, we’ve all felt like it some of the time. We have all not liked ourselves. We have all made stupid, selfish decisions. We have all struggled.

In that case, a character who’s doing the same sort of thing can be inspiring, if they eventually pull themselves out of it. When that character who’s spiraling asks for help, goes to therapy and gets away from the life they’ve been living, that should inspire all of us. Because we can always choose to be better tomorrow. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

You can explore the different morality levels

There’s bad, and then there’s bad. One good example is the title character in Lucifer. He openly encourages people to give in to their most selfish desires. Cheating on their spouses, drinking too much, and gambling. All the things we know we shouldn’t do, but they feel so good in the moment.

And while this is damaging, there are worse things. Murdering people, for instance.

Bad characters can give an example of moral hierarchy. Dexter, in the first episode, killed someone who serially abused and killed children. Lucifer tracks down murderers.

I think these bad characters give a good example of bad things because they hurt us, and things that are bad because they hurt other people. While neither is good, one is worse.

Your bad guy can learn a lesson

This isn’t a necessity. I think some of the worst fiction is created under the guise of teaching a moral lesson. The story should come first, and you don’t have to give any moral lessons at all if you don’t want to.

But if you want to give a lesson, then using a bad guy character can be a great way to do it. Let them heal. Let them grow. Let them have a breakdown moment and come back a better person.

Let us see that, in this dark and scary world, someone really can get better. That’s going to be a genuinely uplifting story every time.

But what about the morality question

So, what if you don’t want your bad guy to be redeemed? Are you endorsing bad life decisions? What if your fiction encourages someone to do something bad or wrong? Are you responsible?

Honestly, this could probably be a post all on its own, but I’ll try to keep it brief today. Our society loves to blame fictional stories for actual atrocities. And I absolutely call bullshit on that.

The guy who killed John Lennon didn’t do it because he read Catcher in the Rye.

The shooters at Columbin didn’t do it because of violent video games.

Ted Bundy didn’t kill people because of porn.

These were people who were just looking for an excuse to do what they already wanted to do. And they were going to find one. We as artists cannot blame ourselves for the actions of others unless we are actively condoning and inciting violence in real life. Otherwise, if someone watches Rick and Morty and then thinks it’s okay to become an abusive alcoholic, they probably didn’t need that much of a push.

So write what you want to write.

In the end, remember that we are making art. We are making a character, not moral decisions for other people. We are not preachers, teachers, or advisers. Our job is to tell a story that only we can tell. And that means that your characters should be as bad, or as good, as you want them to be.

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