One of my most controversial characters is Pablo from Birthplace. I’ve talked about this before: how I try not to create likable characters, and instead write them as honest as I can make them.
I’ve also written a few “anti-heroes” so to speak: Enosh Tar’elian coming to mind. This is the sort of character who is selfish, and over the course of the story, learns, at the very least, how this selfishness affects the people around them.
I love these characters. I think a lot of people do, too. But I’m still surprised at the reaction of others at times. When a character does questionable things (like say, try to sell off a girl who likes him and he’s also interested in to a powerful lord for business purposes), they recoil.
I mean, I’m not trying to excuse what these characters do: far from it. I agree with the readers who say that they don’t know what to think about what a character did, or that, to put it bluntly, they find him a douche. To me, though, the beauty of these characters is just how much they can open your eyes to a point of view that may not be politically correct, or commonly accepted. They’re especially eye-opening for me. I like bending the rules of morality, and exploring why a character may choose to kill, or run away from a big battle, or basically do things I wouldn’t do. I also like reading about these characters.
The cockiness? Well, it can go so many ways. There’s characters who use the cockiness to hide their insecurities, and others who are just naturally cocky. And they’re fun. If you’re going to hate a character, you might as well enjoy watching them fuck up.
“I wish I could tell you this was the first time I woke up tied to a bed,” Enosh said.
-Sapphire’s Flight
Read The Agartes Epilogues and enjoy all the stupid shit Enosh does. Because really, that’s about half the fun of this series.
