How to Make People Fall in Love With Your Ridiculously Competent Hero

We all love characters who are skilful at what they ’re doing . Nobody want to root for someone who screws up invariably or walk into traps we can see a nautical mile away . But at the same time , it can be unvoiced to love someone who ’s too everlasting . So how do you make us consider in , and sexual love , a major badass ?

So I ’ve been working for a distich months on this essay about how to make a lineament competent and credible / relatable . And withthis calendar week ’s tempest - in - a - stormtrooper - helmet about whether Rey is somehow TOO competent , this return became all of a sudden timely . So here are the thought that I was already noodling on for the past several weeks .

The rise of the super(smart) humans

It ’s hard to abnegate that character reference in fable , and especially heroes , have been vex more competent over the past 20 years . There are a few reasons for this style .

For one affair , papa culture is full of “ competence porn”—stories where part of the enjoyment is watch out super - clever people solve problems and make decisions . If you regard procedurals ( on goggle box ) and techno - thrillers ( in ledger ) to be competency porn , then this is arguably the most important character of fiction there is .

At the risk of oversimplifying , we are in an age of information overload and technical miracle . We all have entree to immensely more information than our ancestors , and can do things with bioinformatics and robotics that would have seemed insane not long ago . Our boastful illusion is to be the unquestioned lord of our own initiation .

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We ’re also survive in the age of “ the smartest gentleman’s gentleman in the room , ” the Sherlock Holmes - inspired original of the dude who is always 27 jump out ahead of everyone else and is slap-up at everything ( except for social skills . ) This character is pretty much always a man — but because of his ubiquity , he raises the floor for all other characters , male and female person .

And ultimately , even most casual consumers of pop refinement are experience visitors to imaginary worlds at this point . We ’ve all been to Narnia and Westeros enough times to know what to wait . We would n’t corrode any fucking Turkish joy , because we ’re not assclowns . We ’ve incessantly dissected the dumb decision and failure of our fanciful Hero , and we want to discover with multitude who at least have a level of ball - treatment that twin our own familiarity . People complain whenever they calculate out key plot selective information in a account before the character do .

( You could argue this is also one reason why there ’s less “ portal fantasy ” and more fantasy about heroes who were born in the magical world and know their way around . But that ’s a topic for another Clarence Day . )

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And yet , even as audiences have more and more less patience with characters who do n’t forthwith get the hang of thing , there ’s a contrasting trouble , which threatens to turn the whole thing into a no - winnings situation .

It’s hard to identify with people who are too smart

At the same time as we demand characters who have a PhD in spaceships , we also have a hard time identify with case who are too brilliant . This is kind of a catch-22 , and it ’s probably more of a trouble with distaff characters than male fictitious character . ( Again , see “ the smart adult male in the room , ” who never has to be relatable as long as he ’s witty and cute . ) But even male characters risk becoming annoying if they ’re too sagacious .

Part of the problem is that we do n’t just want to look up to these brilliant characters — we desire to identify with them . That means that they have to be recognizably us , only much , much better at everything than we are .

You ca n’t really identify with a persona who does everything correct , or who never faces any insuperable challenge . And there ’s also a suspension of disbelief issue , if a character becomes so smooth and rush - ass that you start to doubt if such a paragon could actually live .

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So it ’s sort of like walking a narrative tightrope : You got ta make your main character(s ) good at their line of work , but not TOO perfect to consider in . On the one side : snapping crocodiles . On the other side : burning lava . But the good news is , this tightrope is more like a super all-encompassing bridge and there ’s a railing . So really , it ’s fine .

So how do you avoid falling into the lava?

The first , and most significant matter , is to recognize that “ competent ” does not stand for “ infallible ” or “ unvanquishable . ” you could be the most measured driver in the creation , signaling before making a tour even in there ’s nobody else on the route and tick your tire pressure on a regular basis , and all that good stuff , and still have an accident . We ’re not talk about omnipotence here .

In fact , I ’d argue that people desire to put in , and calculate up to , character who are really , remarkably , good at what they ’re doing — so that they can then see those characters make mistake and deal with vast setbacks . Nobody is ever going to revel a story where the plot abstract translate , “ And then nothing bad ever happen and everybody drink hot drinking chocolate in front of a nice fire , the final stage . ”

The interesting part is not follow jailer - ups screw up , but watching incredibly smart people make fatal misplay . And as luck would have it , most fresh people are highly wrongdoing - prostrate , so this is not a huge stretchiness .

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the great unwashed can make mistake for all sorts of reasons . They can make speechless choices due to emotion , or their own unreasoning spots . you’re able to be good at all sorts of things , but still make bad determination in the moment . And this does n’t just have to be a case of a normally level - point person making a sudden rash conclusion — sometimes , hyper - competence can be its own ruin , because you’re able to actually be too cautious or in control . Also , being excellent at many things be given to make one overconfident .

To get personal and a bit ego - promotey for a arcsecond , there are parts of my novel , All the Birds in the Sky , where the dramatic play would have been massively heightened if my character were just a bit obtuse . If they were less skilful at handling themselves , or if they were slightly easy to falsify . I toyed with pushing them in that instruction — but every time I did , it felt like I was going against the grain . My witch fictitious character , Patricia , and my demented scientist character , Laurence , get to be the protagonists of the story in part because they ’re among the good at what they each do . And they ’re clever people . But then I feel that because I had head off throw my Hero too easy confused or duped , I was even more able to torture them in other ways — and it was that much more emotionally sprain when they made horrible , totally avertible mistakes .

Most people are bad at some stuff

Also , there is not a simple cristal - Y axis between topnotch - competent and unqualified . Most multitude are good at some thing and bad at others . To pick on this week ’s shibboleth , The Force Awakens gain a self-aggrandising deal out of the fact that Rey is big at shooting a chargeman , and never quite gets the hang of it . She ’s also not particularly big at negotiating with Simon Pegg .

you’re able to also make the great unwashed miss the obvious , while being hyper - mindful of hooey that everybody else has missed . you’re able to leverage their goodness at sure skillsets and not at others by showing how their blindspots conduct them into bother . One easy fashion to make someone believably competent is to make certain we see them being bad at unrelated stuff — the usual go - to example is make . No competent supporter knows how to fix , except for Robert B. Parker ’s Spenser . But it could also be blab , driving a elevator car , or sex . As long as they ’re bad at something unrelated to the plot , we can forgive them being abnormally practiced at their chief accomplishment .

you could also produce a team of people , who together add together up to one competent soul . This is what a muckle of procedurals seem to do , and it ’s also a thing in superhero comics . That way , there ’s plenty of fault and mistakes to go around , but the group ego - corrects because each appendage has one core power that compensates for the weaknesses of the other member .

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Also , unlike wiz and giant robots , competent citizenry subsist in real life . There really are people who are better at computers , or operating theatre , or rockets , than pretty much everybody else . These citizenry are out there , and you’re able to consider them , albeit peradventure not up close . There are habit of thought process , and ways of preparing , that go along with being really adept at stuff — not saying that it ’s a personality case , or that all smart characters need to be socially awkward or emotionally keep out down , but that there really are multitude in the world who are reasonably deft .

And finally , the most crucial enigma of making characters into living , breathing citizenry whom the consultation can deal about is just ensure they have enough of all the other stuff that quality postulate . verify they want something . Don’t let them all talk the exact same fashion . Give themmemorable machine characteristic unrelated to their plot utility . Make indisputable you’repicking the chief character who has the most at stake . And so on .

But anyway , once you ’ve get a believable character who ’s also absurdly chic and secure at what they ’re doing , then you’re able to get down to rack him or her decently . And that ’s where the playfulness begin !

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