When we discussed mediocre protagonists, some commenters thought we were referring to relatable protagonists. The difference is subtle but very important.
A relatable hero is one we can easily understand and see ourselves in. The term “everyman” is often used to distinguish such characters from the shining heroes of epic destiny. Despite the label, relatable characters aren’t actually gendered, but they are great for building attachment. Mediocre heroes, by contrast, don’t feel like they should be the main character at all.
Fortunately, you only have to understand a few things to ensure you get the first kind of hero rather than the second.
Relatable: Having Flaws
It’s a myth that all protagonists need to have flaws. What all protagonists need is a measure of spinach, and flaws are just one way to accomplish that. However, flaws are particularly valuable to relatable protagonists.
When a hero is flawed, it makes them easy to relate to because they seem more like a real person. Most fictional heroes can give an epic speech at the drop of a hat, so it’s refreshing for a main character to have highly relatable issues with public speaking. This effect works even if the hero’s flaw isn’t one the audience personally shares. Most Americans have never been in a battle, but we can generally empathize with a character who gives in to fear and flees from the enemy.
Flaws also offer built-in character arcs, as heroes struggle to overcome their flaws and grow as people. This process converts a character’s attachment into satisfaction. We’re attached to them because they’re so relatable, so we cheer for them to succeed. When they overcome a flaw, it’s a great moment for everyone.
A character who exemplifies this aspect of relatability is Deep Space Nine’s Kira Nerys. She’s a former resistance fighter who seriously mistrusts Starfleet, and who can blame her? She’s just finished a war to kick the Cardassian Empire off her planet, and now another galactic power shows up to “help”? Seems suspicious.
Except that Starfleet really is there to help, and Kira’s paranoia makes her job significantly harder, as she’s always eyeing the other characters for signs of betrayal. It’s easy for audiences to understand her feelings, as many people have worried their coworkers might sabotage them, even if it wasn’t in space. When Kira finally grows to trust Starfleet, it’s a kind of growth we can all relate to.
Mediocre: Excusing Flaws
Flaws become a problem when they manifest as bad behavior and the story doesn’t properly address them. The hero’s paranoia gets so bad that they ruin their coworker’s career, then they offer a Starbucks gift card by way of apology. Or, worse, the bad behavior may not be presented as a problem at all. The hero simply continues to blame their coworker for “looking at them funny.”
When the hero’s bad behavior is excused or goes unaddressed, it builds up a load of bad karma. No one wants the hero to win when they’re mistreating others and getting away with it. There might be some satisfaction in watching the hero crash and burn, but even that will be muted if the failure doesn’t seem linked to the original bad behavior. If the story goes far enough, it can even come across as endorsing the bad behavior.
Regardless, an author who does this is expecting us to cheer for their hero simply because of their main character status. That doesn’t work. It’s challenging to make audiences care about a protagonist at the best of times, let alone when the character is being a jerkass all over the place. Some heroes can still manage it, either because they’re likable in other areas or (more likely) because their privilege gives them unearned slack, but it’s not a winning strategy.
Hopper in season three of Stranger Things is a particularly blatant example of this mistake. Most of his time is spent either trying to control Eleven’s social life or badgering Joyce into dating him. He’s also very loud and aggressive toward both of them. While he occasionally apologizes, it’s never in proportion to what he actually did, nor is there any sign he’s going to stop doing it.
The writers aren’t actually trying to address the problem. They want us to like Hopper despite his bad behavior, or perhaps even because of it. They certainly reward him at the end, with Joyce confessing she does actually have feelings for him, and Eleven deciding he was a good father figure after all. That just makes it worse. Hopper doesn’t have the basic likability to be a good protagonist, leaving him thoroughly mediocre.
Relatable: Being Unready
Stories need tension, and a sure way to generate tension is by making the hero’s problems difficult to solve. This can be accomplished by making the enemy stronger or the threat more intense, but another option is to craft a hero without the relevant skills and experience needed to overcome the conflict before them.
This is fantastic for relatability. Nearly everyone has felt like they didn’t have the needed skills to do something important at least once in their lives. Heck, adulthood is basically a never-ending series of those moments. So it’s very easy for audiences to put themselves in an unready hero’s shoes.
Much like character flaws, missing skills and experience create lots of plot opportunities. The hero must struggle to learn as quickly as possible either on the job or through a structured program. (Just be careful with that second option, as it’s easy for school scenes to get boring, even if the hero is learning magical sword techniques.)
This strategy is a major boon to Miles Morales* from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. His enemies are established supervillains, but he’s only just gotten his powers, and he barely knows how to use them. Not only that, but his allies are much more experienced. That sounds like a bonus for Miles, but he doesn’t always see eye to eye with the rest of Team Good, so he often has to overcome them as well. Watching Miles learn to do that is some powerful wish fulfillment.
Alternatively, an unready hero can discover that they need an entirely different set of skills to solve the problem than was first advertised. This is what makes Frodo Baggins work so well. Defeating Sauron sounds like it’ll be a battle of swords and martial strength, but Frodo’s most valuable skill is actually his ability to resist temptation for longer than anyone else. This lets the rest of us feel like maybe we do have what it takes to solve our problems, if we can just approach them in a different way.
Mediocre: Being Undeserving
As fun as unready heroes are, authors need to be careful with them. If taken too far, the hero stops being unready and becomes undeserving: someone who shouldn’t be the protagonist in the first place. When an invasion is coming, audiences expect one of the experienced generals to take command, not a farm kid who’s never seen a battlefield. If the theater troupe needs a new leader, it should be one of the veteran actors, not the new hire with stage fright.
From a technical perspective, an undeserving hero is contrived. Audiences will wonder why the other characters are putting their faith in someone so incompetent when there are better choices available. The longer this goes on, the more it will feel like the author is bending the story out of shape to accommodate their favorite character.
It gets much worse when a privileged character pushes aside more deserving marginalized characters. This happens in real life all the time, and to see it uncritically copied in fiction is infuriating. It’s still unfortunately common, due to unconscious authorial bias. Writers are simply more likely to notice that a protagonist of color is stepping on other characters’ toes than if a white protagonist does it.*
You can tell the difference between unready and undeserving characters with a simple test: Is there another character present who could do the job better? Frodo and Miles both pass this test easily. Frodo may not be a warrior, but a hobbit has to carry the One Ring, and none of the other hobbits are any better prepared than he is. Miles is just learning his powers, but he still has powers, which makes him better prepared to fight supervillains than almost anyone else. When other powered heroes appear, they either need Miles’s help or are making the wrong choice.
By contrast, Enterprise’s Captain Archer fails hard. He has no command experience, is confused by the concept of bio-contamination, and he chooses a chief engineer who can’t fly shuttles in a straight line. Plus, Archer has an irrational hatred of the Vulcans, Earth’s only ally. It’s impossible to believe that Starfleet doesn’t have a better candidate for command of its most important ship. In fact, we later meet Captain Hernandez, and it’s pretty clear she could have done the job much better. Archer is the show’s main character only by authorial fiat, the most mediocre of reasons.
Relatable heroes can struggle with their flaws and situations they aren’t prepared for. However, if they’re supplanting other characters or just being mean, they’ve entered mediocre territory. Keep that rule in mind, and you shouldn’t have a problem.
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Mediocre: Being Undeserving is a big reason, perhaps THE big reason that chosen ones are so popular.
Why is this farm kid who’s never seen a battle put in command? He’s the chosen one!
Why is this newcomer with stage fright chosen as head of the troupe? Because Prophecy of Melpomene.
Why is it that all these experienced, dedicated warriors are relegated to boosting the ego of some whiny little loser with no interest in their cause? None of them are the chosen one.
That is the biggest weakness of the ‘Chosen One’ narrative, though. The chosen one is chosen for a reason, clearly, so what is the reason?
The ‘chosen one’ state can and should push the chosen one into a direction they’re uncomfortable with, but once in that position, they will show the skill they already had and prove that they’re rightfully taking that place. That, however, means they are unprepared or untrained, not undeserving. Experience and training can be gained.
The underserving mediocre character, on the other hand, will never justify that choice, so they reflect badly on the person or deity or object or whatever making that choice in the first place.
Yet more reasons why Kung Fu Panda is the best chosen one narrative ever!
I can detect no lies in this statement.
I only speak the truth!
Revali was right and I will fight anyone on this.
Revali is the best character in Breath of the Wild and I will die on this hill.
“Revali is the best character”
I see no lie in this comment.
Ah, a person of fine taste I see.
He’s the only backstory Champion I like.
“bUt He WaS sUcH a JeRkAsS” My dude spent his whole life working hard to overcome obstacles both external and internal so he could earn greatness only to be told he could only be a sidekick because destiny pointed at elf boi instead, I’d be miffed too.
More generally, this is a problem I always have with chosen one stories with mediocre protagonists. There’s always this rival character who looks down on the protagonist and thinks “I should be the hero, I’ve been training and practicing and working hard and have actual investment and stakes in the conflict, why should YOU be the hero?”. And the story always portrays them as a jerkass for it, even though they’re totally right.
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. It was recommended to me by a friend whose opinion I trusted. Trust*ED.* But no longer. Good lord, Peter Grant was an undeserving, mediocre asshole in the middle of a deep pool of more competent and more personable candidates, the closest being a woman, a woman Peter resented. Of course. I wondered for a minute or so whether the point of the story was to force Peter to grow the hell up, but I didn’t care enough to slog through the series and find out.
You had a article on fake spinach once – I wonder if there’s also such a thing as fake relatibility.
In fairness to Archer, shuttle flying isn’t the foremost requirement for chief engineer. I can’t remember how good Trip was at engineering, but I do seem to recall he also disliked Vulcans, so Archer probably chose him for that.
It strikes me that another difference is that relatable characters see opportunities and/or volunteer
-Frodo doesn’t want to carry the ring, but it has to be done, and he steps up.
-Kira could quit rather than work with Starfleet, but she’s at least willing to give them a chance.
while mediocre characters get candy dropped in their laps and/or are volunteered, often by virtue of being (you guessed it) the chosen one.
-Scott Lang in Ant-Man is treated as the only candidate to use the suit, even though there’s no reason given.
-Neo in The Matrix gets told he’s the one and immediately appointed leader of a cause he didn’t know existed until now and has no investment in.
In The Matrix, they really had me going when the Oracle said Neo wasn’t the one – I thought it would turn out to be Morpheus.
My reaction to that was the same as when Neo got gunned down by the agents: “Hey Wachowskis! You’re not fooling anybody!”
The Wachowskis were so intent on playing all their tropes and cliches completely straight that I couldn’t see them doing anything unexpected. Even Neo getting gunned down just happens because the Jesus figure has to die and rise again.
I really hope the cop from Stranger Things dies for realsies in the new season. I doubt he will, but a man can dream.
I would just add that all main characters don’t have to be “models to follow”, they also can just be human beings with some toxic behaviors (we all have some, like we all have qualities). And while it’s not ok from the author to excuse/find artificial justifications for this toxic behavior and act as if nothing was wrong with it (or, worse, that it’s in fact a cute behavior #EdwardCullenStalkingBellaInHerRoom), I think it’s trully ok to say “my character does act this way, the audience will judge”.
They can be, yes. To be main characters, though, it must be clear why they take that spot. They must be uniquely suited to be a main character, show the right skills to solve the conflict. If they do, they can be inexperienced or otherwise ‘unfit’ at first glance. If they do, they can have flaws and display bad behaviour.
Hypothetically speaking, where do the limits of a mediocre hero go?
Like say, can a mediocre hero be prepared, yet excused in their flaws, or suitable, yet undeserving?
Also, can a character start as a mediocre hero, and then redeem themselves, or is the definition of a mediocre hero that they stay that way till the end?
Yeah, it’s possible that a character could have some traits of a strong or relatable hero and some traits of a mediocre hero. I don’t think it’s binary.
I think “mediocre” in this sense refers to a specific problem with character writing, not a functional role in the story. So yeah, a character could maybe start mediocre and become more deserving or interesting as the story goes on. But that would be a case of a story fixing its mistakes, not a growth arc planned from the beginning.
You could maybe have a growth arc where an unskilled or unimpressive person (“mediocre” by dictionary definition) is thrown into a position of power and responsibility and then needs to adapt to it. But you’d need to carefully make sure it doesn’t feel contrived, and should probably show the negative consequences of their initial mediocrity so it doesn’t look like you’re excusing it. It’d also help for this character to be a woman or person of color, to avoid the trope of mediocre white guys being more important than anyone else.
If the story should have a “mediocre” MC that gets better, the author should make it clear or at the very least hint heavily that the flaws/lack of skills are actually flaws and not something they endorse or ignore.
For example in The House In The Cerulean sea (which I highly recommend btw) the main character is gullible and a cog in a harmful machine at first. But there are clear hints from the beginning that he is wrong or at least questionable in those situations. That’s what made me enjoy reading about this character. Otherwise I’d have resented or possibly even despised him for being uncritically supportive of a harmful beaurocracy that oppresses magical children.* But with those hints, like side characters questioning him or mumbling disagreement or expressing surprise at his faith in the organisation, I enjoyed the character from the start and looked forward to his moment(s) of change and growth. I was not disappointed :)
But that character also has humble but significant skills and admirable qualities from the start. That’s important to justify why he is the protagonist and also to build attachment. But they wouldn’t have been enough for me if the narration had given me the impression that he wouldn’t grow or his flaws wouldn’t be challenged.
*yes it has oppressed mages but it worked for me, because the mages in question were children with often useless powers or just looking different, who were caught up in a system that pretended to be benevolent that tought them from early childhood to suppress their differences and assimilate. That part is relatable as a queer person. It’s a very well handled analogy in my mind, because there are also basically no straight characters in it.
The adult characters all have compelling reasons why they couldn’t use magic successfully earlier. I also felt that the turning point handled the decision of wether or not and how to use them very well.
There is such a hero already, hence I asked.
Evelyn Wang, the MC of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once certainly starts out mediocre, or at least non-heroic. She possesses little to no skills, is queerphobic, racist (disapproving both on her daughter Joy having a girlfriend and said gf being white), possibly a believer in patriarchal standards (or depends on how you view her not appreciating her husband Waymond acting as a conciliator), and tends to blame others for her failures in life.
There’s also been talks here on how being undeserving correlates with the Chosen One trope, and it certainly applies to Evelyn. Turns out that there are several Evelyns across the multiverse, and the MC Evelyn is apparently living the worst life out of all of them. However, it turns out that because MC Evelyn passed by all the opportunities to success, she can tap into the lives and skills of her more successful counterparts, which there are a lot of.
I think I’m not going to spoil the rest of the story just yet, but let’s just say that there’s a lot of growth involved in the story on Evelyn’s part, especially in regards to her family.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m planning to in a couple weeks, so I might come back to this.
Well, I for one recommend it.
Let’s see in a few weeks, where this goes.
Okay, I have now watched Everything Everywhere All at Once. First, great movie!
Second, Evelyn is basically a superhero, which is a very different kettle of fish than what we talk about in this article. She needs to solve the problem because of a special power she has just because she has it, whether she deserves it or not. At what point this becomes the “chosen one” trope is highly debatable, but whatever the case, it’s a different context than what I cover in this article.
Third, Evelyn is not (mostly) a case of unaddressed or excused flaws. Instead, Evelyn is a bigot who learns better. The movie has Evelyn learn that she was wrong and make amends, as opposed to Stranger Things, where Hopper’s misogyny is explicitly endorsed at the end. The exception is that the movie acts like Evelyn was justified in fat-shaming her daughter at the end, which is way gross!
We don’t usually recommend the bigot who learns better either, for a number of reasons: https://mythcreants.com/blog/why-you-should-avoid-bigoted-heroes-who-learn-better/
This movie mostly gets away with it by keeping Evelyn’s bigotry fairly mild, by giving her lots of sympathy so you feel sorry for her anyway, and by casting a very charismatic actor to play her. I still think this all could have worked without her being homophobic, but this is far from the most egregious example I’ve seen.
Sounds like a premise that could easily go wrong, all the more interesting that they apparently made it work!