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What are your favorite and least favorite character archetypes?

The "Perfect Protagonist" and/or the "Perfect (2 Dimensional) Love Interest" are honestly grating to me.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind that the protagonist is special or chosen or what have you. Although I do love it when authors play around with the "non-special" or "non-chosen" characters as protagonists as well. And who doesn't love a good anti-hero, right? (Well, sometimes me depending, actually.)

Anyway, my issues is with when they're just default accepted as perfect by all the other characters around them, as being able to do absolutely no wrong whatsoever, while other characters are somehow judged more harshly in the same context.

The perfect love interest archetype tends to be especially annoying because they are almost always pitted against a far more fleshed out and complex rival character who suddenly and inexplicably will become intolerable as if to justify why the protagonist should definitely go with the other.

4 comments

a_mac_and_con

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I know archetypes are tropes, but I find if a character is too much of an archetype I just don't like the character at all. Regardless of what the archetype is.

Maybe because I keep getting burned by some flanderization. In some media, you have characters which have some form of depth. Multifaceted. Fantastic. Then as the series continues, certain aspects are made to be more and more important. Fit characters into these archetypical boxes. And I hate it. So I can like or dislike any sort of archetype, but it depends on how it is written. And two dimensional anything I can despise.

Like the Perfect Protagonist? I can enjoy that if it is explored what it means to be perfect. When it is shown that the character is actually doing things that would make all of these different people think they are perfect. Explore why another character might do the same and be judged more harshly.

This might explain why I honestly couldn't think of any archetype off the top of my head when I looked at the question, but I could think of ensemble archetypes. Because I love comparing dynamics. Usually because it doesn't completely define each character themselves, just their place in a group. I feel like that has more flexibility when it comes to labelling a character.

Have the Cynic, the Optimist, the Realist, and the Apathetic? Doesn't mean the Optimist is the happiest person around. It just means they are the most optimistic of the group. Put the person in a different group and they could look like the Cynic instead.

I guess this comes down to how I don't like there being a single word which can sum up a character, so if one word fits a character too well I get antsy.

avividtale

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That makes sense. I think what bothers me about the archetypes listed is that they are so often two dimensional. We're sort of just told they're special and everyone around them responds to them as if they are special but they don't...really have much character exploration at all.

I love exploring the dynamics between characters. I hadn't considered it, but I like your example of the role of the optimist in the group and how their position is relative to the others comprising it.

a_mac_and_con

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Agreed. The archetypes you've listed are often done shallowly. There's potential for them, but not a lot of people explore it. It's easier just to tell and not show with perfection and love.

I never realized how much I used those ensemble comparisons until now! There is a character who, in her immediate friend group, is one of the Cloudcuckoolanders. Yet with some of the other characters I write her with, she becomes a lot more grounded, because the other characters are even wilder than she is. XD And it is great to explore her in those contexts.

borzoiteeth

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Have to largely agree with a_mac_and_con & avividtale on this one. However, I do have a few preferences. Some kinds I have a super low tolerance for..

The major one that jumps to mind is the tsundere. Often no reason is properly established to why a character has to be an outright arse to another. But worse, when a reason is created it is nearly often a stupid sexual-bent misunderstanding. And done to a character who if is better defined, is usually smart, quick and will look for answers for any other situation. But this one person they are a twit to is the "exception". They never bring this weird exception, this supposed "character flaw" into any other kind of situation unless it's for "comedy".

When I notice a tsundere is in a cast, my assumption is that the writer doesn't know how to write a story without one of the main cast being outright antagonistic. And that gets sealed when the rest of the cast is fine with this and allows this abuse to fly.

Yet I was introduced to a refreshing example of a tsundere: Ichigaya Arisa from Bang Dream. Because she puts her foot down when she feels anyone steps over a line. It's not reduced to a dumb sexual/crush thing. It's not reduced to one person. She has a lot of (I want to say clinical) anxieties over many things, and its super important (to the point I like headcanoning her as autistic) that she has fixed habits in her life that she needs to help her stop feeling so overwhelmed.

I can't think of an outright favourite. Because the more I like something I get even more picky over how it's done. Like the Over-Powered character. I think a character who is able to disable and dismiss a certain kind (or many) trials is exciting to me because we cut out all of the "oh no how do we win" filler and now we have more time to explore the worldbuilding and character interactions.

But that's the issue. Most people who want to write OP characters actually want action (or whoops, can't write without conflict). So they come up with not great excuses to return to the more classical status quo. Because if they don't, they would have to explain why their setting was what it was in the first place, why it can't change, and why we can't observe how everyone changes/adapts to the new world setting.