Competence Tempered by Flaws

The key to an appealing, relatable protagonist: competence tempered by flaws. Without flaws, you get a Mary-Sue paragon of virtue.

Talent or competence is attractive. We like to see competent people do things competently (Sanderson), both in life and in fiction. Sports stars at the top of their game, singers hitting that high note, actors reducing the audience to tears. After a while, such perfection becomes tedious, false and unrealistic. What makes them relatable, rounded, human? Their flaws. These fill the tabloids and the unauthorised biographies. Somehow these flaws make our icons even more compelling.

So it is in fiction.

Mary-Sue and Gary-Stu

Cases in point: James Bond and Sherlock Holmes. Neither are especially empathetic or relatable; a stone-cold killer and a genius savant. Bond’s serial womanising, gambling, smoking and drinking aren’t attractive character traits. Duty and competence sum up Bond’s existence. Apart from the violin and a drug habit, there’s not much of interest in Holmes either. He is his talent for detection. Let’s face it, they’re a couple of smug Gary-Stu’s; so last century.

These days we’re more willing to call out the flawless Mary-Sue protagonist; attractive to both genders, skilled in everything, effortlessly sailing through every challenge. A fantasy figure in any genre. Tedious in the extreme. There’s a limit to how much competence we can take. Excessive competence makes for one-dimensional characters; see Galadriel in Rings of Power.

That’s why the Learning Arc is more compelling. We like to see the underdog grow from novice to expert in the course of a story. It’s the core of the hero’s journey or quest story. Think Luke Skywalker, Eragon; Cool Runnings. This is the core of every sports underdog story, ever.

But competence on its own isn’t enough. Where is the messy, fallible, human dimension?

Hooked on Classics

This isn’t a new problem. Take our favourite romantic heroine from classic literature. Lizzie Bennett (yes, collect a sticker) has her prejudice and a tendency to leap to judgement. Although her snap judgements are largely correct. And men keep hanging around, making marriage proposals. She’s lively and witty and snarky. She can play piano pretty well in front of an audience. Maybe she is a bit of a Mary-Sue? She’s only constrained by her social class.

Write Lizzie into a modern romance, readers will call her out right away. We love her right where she is in the origin of the romance novel, where Austen’s execution is everything. Lizzie pushes past her misbelief, and in the process, sticks it to the mean girls and the pushy rich Karen (Lady Katherine). We applaud the underdog. But the happy-ever-after kind of lands in her lap.

Emma Woodhouse on the other hand? Much more flawed; conceited, over-privileged, over-entitled, deluded. Emma’s match-making plans fail at every turn. In fact, she undermines all her core competencies throughout the book. Emma has more of a redemption arc. She succeeds when she stops trying and takes a good look at the world around her.

Epic Fails

Recap: Book Three of my fantasy series isn’t some precision-engineered, Alistair MacLean thriller where the hyper-competent protagonist overcomes every obstacle with unerring foresight.

In character terms, my protagonist, Jo, is hamstrung from the beginning. Her Second Sight is unreliable, yet she nails her whole plan to one vision that doesn’t even have an outcome.

Her temperament is volatile. She loses her temper with everyone in her crew. She starts a fight with the Emperor’s enforcers when she should stick to the mission and plays fast and lose with her disguise. Jo keeps secrets from her crew, she makes mis-judgements and mistakes. Worst of all, she gambles with all their lives, frequently, out of desperation. That same desperation drives her on when she has little confidence her insane plan will succeed. She repeatedly brings less competent and untrusted characters into the conspiracy. All her best intentions threaten to open a portal straight to hell.

Decline and Fall

Jo has a declining graph of competence. At the beginning of Book One, Jo’s competence is off the chart, but begins to break down. Luck and learning get her through at the end. In Book Two, her competence fails entirely at times. By Book Three, she’s at the mercy of Fortune. Every part of her plan is compromised. But she presses ahead anyway.

For all her heroic determination, Jo succeeds only by the competence and loyalty of others around her. If anything, she’s a catalyst. The time is right for the Empire to fall, the other players ready to fulfill their role.

Do I celebrate Jo’s  ‘competence tempered by flaws,’ or have I completely overwhelmed competence with flaws?