Case Study: A Whole Lotta Grey

Can we have a well-rounded protagonist with bad views? I have found that over the years, how we shape our characters, and our worlds and its beliefs are focused on what the world thinks is right rather than what we think is right. Especially in a world where everyone's thoughts are so accessible, everyone seems to just swallow their true feelings.

I used to be puzzled as to how the United States isn't the country with the freest speech, but it makes sense. In the beginning, all the rich white dudes (and their wives if they were lenient) were the ones who could speak. They called the shots. If a black person was writing, they were either taught how to (and later paraded and celebrated, as in the case of Phyllis Wheatley) or they found ways to make it happen (like Frederick Douglass). As the world has changed, who gets to say what they feel has changed. Melanin and estrogen have been added. Colors and rainbows are embraced. If you're against that, prepare to assimilate or die. But can someone still be "well-rounded" and be a terrible person?

Let's try this with some controversial thoughts. Let's say Amy is an Asian woman living in Connecticut. She has a husband who was her high school sweetheart and they have three young daughters. She works as the manager of a bank and has excellent customer service. The story has nothing to do with any of this. Her middle daughter has been kidnapped, and she is now thrust into all of the strain of a woman who is trying to find her child, keep her family together, and deal with her own feelings in private. We have all seen this in every low budget movie from this end of the world to the next. It could be suggested that adding that she is extremely xenophobic or racist would add a layer of depth that those movies don't have. Adding that she suspects her daughter's Salvadorean ex-boyfriend Harold has something to do with it and she endlessly harasses young Harold to the point of driving both of them insane would skyrocket this from low-budget "I already know how this ends" to maybe the level of "Get Out".

Or, a more white example, how about we look at Linus, a total troll online. He is more antisemitic than Hitler and often posts pictures of Confederate flags, guns, and military photos on his fourth Facebook (since the other three got taken down). He even has a white sheet in his closet, which he pushes aside to pull out his slacks and his button-up shirt. He goes home to greet his wife and his two young sons, eats breakfast with them and drives to the school where he works. Despite his beliefs, he can stand in front of a melting pot and torture them with AP Chemistry. He grades tough but fairly because no one should get knocked down more than life already has hit them. His backstory has everything with this story because a black student (one of the top grades in his class) is going through things after her youngest sister is killed in a drive-by that happens in her neighborhood. Even though he doesn't like other races, he can sympathize with her because that's what humans do. Her sister was just a year younger than his son, played sports like his own kids, and had dreams. Plus, it kills him to see this kid struggling and to see no one else taking charge. Is he still bad?

I think we should take "bad" and "good" out of our vocabulary in this study completely because honestly, people's character and their worth are ever-changing depending on who you ask. We can look at the man who walks into a mosque with a loaded gun like a monster while his parents may still see the little boy that couldn't say his own name correctly because of his lisp. We may see a politician as the answer for the future of our world, and his maid can look at him as the man that raped her. We may listen to the plight of the survivor of a school shooting and see a hero before us, but the shooter could still see a girl that was continually turning him down. None of the above have to be portrayed as villains.

Art has been known to change how people think. Whether it is Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" or another book that I haven't read but was told was revolutionary, books can change how a nation looks at people. It feels like a lot of that change is being stifled because of how easy it is to hear other people's opinions and how quickly a career can be ended by saying something controversial (just ask Roseanne or Paula Deen). But, the trick to making a well-rounded character isn't making them perfect. It isn't making them dynamic. They don't even have to change. Did Holden Caulfield change at the end? (No seriously, I'm asking. I didn't understand the end.) Will readers be emotionally hijacked if Linus, after trying to help this girl with her personal life, still doesn't take his white bedsheet and flag and go burn them? Probably. But who cares what readers think?

If every writer cared what people wrote, half of the books written during the Civil War, all of the Modernist writings (fucking William Faulkner included), and about half of the really bad sitcoms that didn't survive past a season wouldn't have been written. The message should still be there. Even if the protagonist sucks, the person keep coming back to read it. For example, "The Cask of Amontillado" (yes, I'm dick riding. I love this story) is iconic because Fortunato is so pissed. He is killing Montresor for all the bad things he did to him. But what the hell does that mean? This man is deranged just for having the idea to build a wall around his enemy (and have the enemy pay for it!) But then to not even know why this man is so pissed off is the icing on the cake. However, unlike a certain political plan, it is so masterful just because of how the emotion is evoked.

That's writing. It's iconic because we don't give a damn if Montresor was screwing Fortunato's wife or was continually making short jokes. There is climax and tension, it's just everything. I think we should start approaching writing (specifically these damn sitcoms and Netflix shows) like they did before. Mike illegally came into the United States, is sleeping with his own sister, kicks kittens and you are still going to love him (or at least read until the end) because Mike is more than an undocumented, incestuous, cruel character. He's just as good of a protagonist as Shelley, who is a vegan who eats pineapple pizza. Though pineapple pizza is kind of unforgivable. Which is why Shelley (plot twist!) is the antagonist. That and she is murdering incest committers. It could be a shitty story or have a really cool message at the end. The answer to that should rely on the writer's talent and not the basic set up of the characters.