Does Character Likability or Lack There Of Get in the Way of Enjoying/Appreciating a Story?

[shadowkat]

Have to go to the Porgy and Bess musical soon. Before take off for that, and get a bit of eat...stumbled upon the following juicy brain-bit courtesy of one of the people on my flist.

This is from:http://onlyifyoufinishedtfios.tumblr.com/

John Green is answering questions from his fans on the book "The Fault in Our Stars". And one of the fans asked this question about authorial intent:

Anonymous asked: I know you always say that books belong to the reader, but how much credit do you give to the author's intent? We were talking in English class a while ago about how the author wanted the reader to feel about a certain character, and whether or not that held up for us. Obviously, you had intentions when writing, but were your intentions to make us feel a certain way, or are feelings for the reader to decide?

John Green's response for the record is similar to the ones that James Joyce, Faulkner, Twain, and various others have given at different points:

John Green (Author of The Fault in Our Stars): I think trying to divine an author’s intent is generally pretty wrong-headed, although I guess it shouldn’t be dismissed entirely (and obviously I’m willing to answer questions about intent).

That said, it can be a way into an interesting discussion: whether you suppose I wanted you to like Margo Roth Spiegelman, for instance, is not an interesting question to me. But if you go from there to discussing whether characters in novels need to be likable for a book to be good, and whether reading experiences need to be straightforwardly fulfilling in order to be positive, and what (if anything) the point of reading and telling stories is, and whether we can be empathetic toward people we dislike, and if shared values are at the core of human connection or if it’s something altogether less noble, and whether we can reconcile ourselves to the distance between who we want ourselves and one another to be and who we turn out to be…well, that’s pretty interesting to me.

The portion in bold is the part that interests me as well. Authorial intent tends to be a bit boring to determine after a bit for the reasons Green mentions.

But how we relate to characters and how that affects our reading or watching experience fascinates me. It's why I did those Buffy Character Wars Polls and speculate on the responses. What is it that makes a character interesting in a fictional novel? Do we need them to be likable? Do we need them to validate our own values and moral perspective to be legitimate? Can we enjoy or find it interesting to read or watch an irredeemable character, who is clearly "unlikable", such as Walt in Breaking Bad? Or even say, Angelus in Buffy? Can we feel empathy towards someone we dislike? Is it more or less noble to feel empathy for a serial killer? Can we put a value judgement on such things?

Is it wrong to prefer Holtz to Wood? Or Darla to Willow? Or Spike to Faith? Can we even evaluate such preferences on a moral scale? Can we understand them from a moral perspective.

For the record I don't believe we can. I don't think you can make a moral judgement or place a moral value on how others view or enjoy a character - since you can't know their heart or mind on the matter. And I don't think you can place such a value on your own. The reasons to me seem...undefinable and various.

But I find it interesting...that people do. That I do. Wondering how someone can like Amy over say Faith or Willow. But I can see it...and I do feel empathy for Amy. In some respects as much empathy as I feel for Tara. Even though I have nothing in common with either.

I don't know. Yet..I'm struggling to like stories like Breaking Bad or Atonement...because I did not "like" the characters or found them to be "likable".

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sorry about you're fever, hope you feel better. No you didn't misread the question. I sort of put five-six different questions in there all at once.

And no...you didn't ramble.

Not sure Spike qualifies as a complete bad guy. As Jane Espenson, one of the writers even stated, Spike went from being a bad guy to a hero/good guy over the course of six seasons (he wasn't in S1). Sue Sylvester similarly isn't really a bad guy. At least not on the same scale as the Joker, Angelus, The Mayor, Warren, etc.

Also while people do tend to find the villain or bad guy to be more interesting than the hero - see Spike S2 or Loki in the Avengers, it depends on how they are written or the story. Few characters can rise above a poorly written tale. I think this is true of heroes too.
It's been said that a hero is only as good as the villain or bad guy they are up against. If the bad guy isn't interesting or stupid, the heroes tale is rather dull. Compare S1 Buffy to S2 Buffy...the biggest difference is the villains.

I'm not sure it's likability so much as the story surrounding the character or how well that character is written - which makes the difference.