Comparing Three Protagonists that I Hate · 3:03pm Dec 23rd, 2014
On my brother’s recommendation/insistence, and thanks to the magic of Humble Bundle, I recently read the Hunger Games trilogy via audiobook. Were this a review, I’d rate them, in order, 4, 5, and 6.5. Not enough for me to recommend them, but in so far as YA goes, you could certainly do a lot worse (Or you could do a lot better and go read Brandon Sanderson’s YA stuff, or Pennyroyal Academy).
All in all, the books are okay, with a decent plot, some curious (if hard to swallow) world building, and a knack for creating interesting scenarios. There are however a bunch of inconsistencies in the plot, many of the situations are pretty contrived, and it loves to show the audience one thing, and then proceed to tell another, far more than what would be explainable by Katniss being an unreliable narrator. There is also some dissonance between books 1 and 3, in how what is essentially the first’s background becomes the central point of the narrative in the end, without proper build up being done for that. But really, they are by and large decent books, and I genuinely enjoy a handful of moments, the general concept, and the ending.
However, much of me not enjoying them comes from the fact that, during the whole thing, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I despise Katniss as a protagonist. That made me think back to the only two other protagonists I despise as much: Shinji Ikari, from Evangelion, and Siren Song from GaPJaxie’s Siren Song. Interesting enough, they all share a few characteristics:
1-) They rarely act, choosing instead to react, despite being shown as capable, often more than those around (great giant robot pilot, being a gifted magician, or a master archer/survivalist).
2-) When they do act, it is mostly against their own best interests, or completely ineffectual. See The Last Psych’s take for an interesting analysis of that in the context of The Hunger Games (Topic 2 of that article).
3-) All are young, and put in a position where a lot of trust is put on their actions, which they more often than not proceed to betray.
4-) More than young, they are emotionally immature for their age, and instead of growing into the position, or in reaction to it, seem to entrench themselves on their defects during the story.
5-) They tend to see all others with great distrust, even inferiority, all the while having their own inferiority complexes. Katniss, for instance, says at one point that “I don’t feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings”, all the while considering herself to be weaker than all others.
6-) In many ways, they probably have some serious psychological issues, which aren’t explored, or are the subject of the story proper. Siren Song is a sociopathic narcissist, Katniss suffers from crippling depression, and Shinji transits between absolutely everything.
7-) Finally, all are a lot less interesting than the rest of the cast, and less complex to various degrees.
There are many characters I enjoy that go through some of the above, but those 3 reunite all of these characteristics, which seem to combine to make me hate them as much as possible. However, while I consider them all to be unbearable in equal measures, each one of their stories fail or succeed in how they use that protagonist.
Evangelion, beside its many other issues, manages to make poor Shinji completely unsympathetic. The world is ending, and all we get are his abandonment issues and whatnot, which kinda rank lower than the extinction of the human race. There isn’t even much in the way of saying that, if he is our best hope, then we all are screwed. Also, the story likes to prop up Shinji as something more than he really is, a certain lack of perception of just how damaging his actions actually are.
Siren Song, on the other hand, is an amazing work. I have referenced it as “being trapped in First Class next to a screaming baby”, but really, the whole time there is a point for the protagonist being that way – something that seems to be explored in the sequel, which I have yet to read. After all, she didn’t find herself in that situation out of pure contrivance, and despite others believing that her actions may bring a positive outcome, she is often criticized for her ways. She is a raging narcissist with an inferiority complex, but that isn’t incidental, it is actually part of the story itself. In the end, the whole thing works not despite her, but because of her, no matter how little I would care if she got killed suddenly.
Which brings us to The Hunger Games. While it is overtly about kids killing each other in an arena, it is in fact a story about rebellion against oppressive governments. And Katniss is important because, as the second movie shows, she is a symbol for the rebels, the face and voice of the rebellion. Everyone loves her, needs her, and yet we are never shown why, only that she is a whiny teenager that just wants to stay in her room. This makes the whole story feels phony, cheapens the conflict, and all the tragedy that Katniss suffers feels lackluster. It turns a potentially very good story into a passable-at-best one.
At the end of the day, I think the lesson here is: be aware of your characters at all points. If the audience can’t stand them, it is quite possible that the characters won’t either. Also, that having and unbearable protagonist is okay, so far as they being unbearable is part of the story.
I actually liked the protagonist of Siren Song, but I get your dislike. She's not a very nice pony on several levels. As for the Hunger Games, I thought the first book was pretty good for what it was, and the second and third book were just kinda bleh. Also remember that every success Katniss has was either given to her, or was something someone else told her to do. There is almost literally nothing she actually accomplishes or affects by her own will. I did enjoy the first movie though, and I'm kind of looking forward to how they pull off the third.
Have you seen any of the new Evangelion movies?
I would still take any of these protagonists over fucking Eragon. Eragon is the kind of protagonist who is an asshole to a degree that the author shows no awareness of (see also Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker). He is an antihero at best and the story wants me to see him as a classical Luke Skywalker type, bending the story's morality to suit his whims and creating a jarring dissonance that forms the centerpiece of a stew of inexperience, imitation and incompetence that is the Inheritance Cycle. I am baffled that these books have not been roasted over the coals to the extent that the Twilight Saga has been. Am I wrong? Have you read these books and can you tell me you interpreted them differently?
Also, as someone who's familiar with the Hunger Games only through the movies, I am not at all seeing how Katniss is the least complex character in that story. What is there to any of the other characters in that series, except maybe Peeta or Alma Coin?
2673310 I actually like the Hunger Games movies a lot more than the books, even if it misses the critique of Reality TV by a mile. I think that has to do with how the actress made me less annoyed by the character.
As for the New Evangelion movies, I think that they are a massive improvement. Shinji is a much better character (if not exactly great), and the story is much more concise and focused, which helps a lot in hitting the thematic points that they wanted. Also, the animation is absolutely gorgeous – Ghibli level gorgeous even. I need to re-watch the third one though, since I saw it on release day in Japan, and my poor Japanese couldn't make me understand more than 20% of the movie.
2673508 Eragon is a piece of shit, but at least he is an effective piece of shit. He is also too boring a character for me to get angry. Quite frankly, I believe the only reason that series (or "cycle", ugh) don't get nearly as much hate is because the movie failed way too hard, and the whole thing thankfully disappeared from the public eye, unlike Twilight, which should stay an important part of popular culture for years. Get ready for the exciting Jacob/Renesmee spin-off coming some day!
Also, as cliche as Eragon is, at least we get the Roran chapters. Taken on their own, they are miles above the rest of the book, enough for me to doubt they were even written by the same person.
The Hunger Games movies focus really tightly on Katniss, but many of the supporting cast, like her mother, Prim, Peeta, Haymitch, or even her make-up team get neat character arcs, development, and many other things that she completely lacks.
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I'm still really fucking angry over what happened with that girl he cursed and again, the disconnect between how we're supposed to feel about this character and how she actually comes about. Things like that keep the story from getting boring to me. And I'm not counting Eragon as "effective" because it's too easy for him to be effective when he learns unrealistically fast and everything just happens to work out for him.
2674262 That passage is just despicable, specially how the whole time Eragon is made to be the victim (poor guy, he is suffering so much from ruining her life!). But really, Eragon is such a non-character, that I can't get more mad at him than, say, a toaster that always burns bread, or more appropriately a misfiring gun.
Okay, so I actually finished reading the entire trilogy recently, and I'm kind of miffed at your assessment of Katniss. You neglected to mention that Coin and Plutarch are dirtbag motherfuckers who totally deserved to get "betrayed", and Gendo Ikari probably belongs with them. Anyone from that fic you mentioned fit that particular bill?
Also, that quote you mentioned about Katniss is kind of melodramatic out of context, but when I realized it came when she was legitimately trying to kill herself after she discovered her sister was killed by the people she thought would never sink to that low (the people who you said were betrayed by her, remember), the worst I was thinking was, "That line is ham-fisted and kind of spoiling the mood a little," not that Katniss is a selfish misanthrope by default.
In general, I'm really not getting the vibe that Katniss is more of a sociopath than I am. Do you just not like characters who are insufficiently heroic or empathetic? I remember Katniss being criticized for being an ass, and I also remember her rethinking her harsh thoughts on people like her mother or her prep team. Are you basing this assertion that she "has no arc or development" to her falling into suspicion and that she doesn't become stronger but pick up mental scars?
Also, Prim was absent for most of the series and then is basically set up to be killed for maximum pathos without sufficient showing (as opposed to telling) that she's interesting or compelling. That's not an arc, that's a Purity Sue. Peeta and Haymitch are better characters, but the narrative is so tightly tied to Katniss's every thought that it's really difficult for me to perceive or remember their own character trajectory. I'm not inclined to count Peeta's memory tampering altering his personality as character development, because it's too similar to Katniss's crippling depression which, by your own words, doesn't count as an arc or development.
If Siren Song isn't being exploited and manipulated by superiors for reasons that are both for the greater good and for the superiors' selfish benefit at the same time, and if her usefulness is actually because of merit and not because of coincidental details like circumstances of birth or luck, then it seems incongruous to me that she's a part of this comparison.
Forgive the fragmented nature of this post. I'm feeling passionate at the moment and wanted to do this before I forgot.
2765933 I meant the betrayal in a more general sense. Sure, the authority figures in all of those are terrible people, but you also have all the people of District 13, or of New Tokyo, and they really trust in the protagonist. In fact, Katniss killing Coin and Plutarch is probably the only point of the narrative where she actually lives up to the expectations put on her.
And I really don't think that Katniss changes all that much during the books. Yes, that phrase is said in a very low point for her, but it isn't that different from her usual mindset. She shows her dislike for everyone right from the beginning, acting like the people on District 12 are terrible, while considering herself worse than everyone else. Even as she goes through more and more trauma, that core outlook never really changes. I could easily see an alternate version of that story where she goes through the stuff on the epilogue right after chapter 1, and I don't think she would act any different. And by not changing, it really removes the significance of all that she went through. And I don't think that she is a sociopath.
And I do believe the other characters change. Peeta learns how to be more assertive and prioritize what he wants to protect. Prim starts to look at others around her with empathy, and while her usage on the narrative is the most manipulative thing ever, she is a different person than before. The mother is able to face her past mistakes, and for the first recognize and apologize for what she has done.
Oh, and Siren Song finds herself in an apocalyptic city, and gets stuck as the most important piece in many people's games. She is important due to her connection with Celestia, but is also relied on due to her unique position of being a new person on a society in a stalemate, with considerable magic training. However, she will often depend on someone, promise to help them, shows herself capable of helping, but then refuses to do so for selfish reasons. The fact that she will often know she won't do anything in advance is why I would say she is a sociopath.
It isn't a single thing. I can name characters that fit most of the above, yet I don't hate.
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This all makes sense. The feelings that I felt reading that series spilled over to that last comment, so I felt it maybe got a bit too heated.
The thing about Katniss and me is that I see a lot of myself in Katniss, but all of that are things that I know aren't healthy and I wish I could get rid of. As much as I try to be optimistic about humanity's future in general, I have a fear or mistrust of a lot of strangers. I have mean thoughts that I suppress and sometimes they get shared with other people. So when other people have said that this character is loathsome, it makes me confused and angry because what does that say about me?
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The main thing about Shinji is that he doesn't grow, whether by becoming more scarred, or more competent. In fact, my favourite point in the series is when Shinji simply decides to go away, not caring about the world. That he turns back feels actually significant – but then, the show doesn't follow up on that, and his fundamental dilemma between wanting to help and be away from his father/troubles is very well stabilished here.
I attribute much of that to Evangelion's need to fill 26 episodes. It has the classical problem of most filler, namely having to freeze certain characters' mindstates just so something planned for the future can take place. Sure, you get lots of things happening to the other characters, but Shinji himself is just there after a while. Even on his next big moment, namely when Kaworu shows up, such things are just brushed aside.
There is also the factor that, at the end of the day, there are many other capable pilots – only they are never actually utilized. Yes, the EVA program is about using traumatized children, but why Shinji specifically? He isn't more capable than Asuka, is notoriously unreliable, and there are plenty of others ready for the task. Yet, he is where NERV puts their hopes?
What you are saying was much better shown on the Rebuild versions. There, you get an added tension between his father and Shinji that helps sell not only his trauma, but his reason to stay. The original series could never quite strike that balance between making Shinji rebellious and traumatized, to the point that his actions felt more random or script dictated than natural.
(Also, thanks for the follow!)