vil-lian

Following on this, I also want to drop the heat down some and talk about stories where the main character is not a "nice person," or a decent, kind, generous, etc. person. In other words, can we make stories in which the main players are not really evil, but seriously flawed, or even slightly flawed. The answer is "Of course we can," but what I'm wondering is what are the advantages and disadvantages presuming that there is some imperative to make stories that are themselves life-affirming or some such shite. What might the purpose of making a story where the main character is a jerk, a self-satisfied, opinionated, self-serving, bad guy? I guess the question I trying to pull back to is even if you grant that there might be little purpose in writing a story that glorifies some heinous act, imagining that such could be done, and imagining also that it could be done without the readership providing an automatic correction in the process of reading, at what point does the main character's flaw become acceptable collateral damage given some other overall story of which this character might be the main but not the only element?

I want to have the discussion deal also with ordinary bad behavior as well as the grotesque bad behavior, to see what we think it's virtues are in primary characters. There Will Be Blood can be used in this discussion, but I'd like to do the guy/woman next door, too. And as primary as well as secondary character or villain.

vil-lain (vil'uhn) n.
1. a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.
2. a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.
3. VILLEIN.
[1275-1325; ME vilein, vilain < MF < LL villanus a farm servant. See VILLA, - AN 1]

[originally posted by Rick]