Likability, the Overrated Trait

Why do we care about being likable? When it comes to how we interact in everyday society it's fairly obvious. The more well-liked you are, generally the better your life becomes. You have more friends, more opportunities, and even life's problems tend to run smoother due to people willing to go out of their way for you. Everyone likes to believe that they appeal to others. But when it comes to our fiction, we’ve conflated likability with interest.

Think back to a history class and consider who you learned about. They were interesting, powerful, influential, but I doubt that you learned about how nice they were, how kind. Certainly some of them were known for their compassionate spirit or charitable work, but they didn’t make it into the history lesson by just being likable. In fact, many of them wouldn’t be likable if you met them in modern day, and a large portion of them weren’t liked within the time period they lived. They were known, not beloved.

Applying this lesson to fiction isn’t as much a leap as you might think. In today’s media many creators become concerned with whether or not their characters are likable. Will the audience care about what happens? Will they want to know more? But it’s important to note that those questions have little to actually do with whether or not the audience likes your character. Those questions have far more to do with whether the audience is interested in your character.

Let’s take Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet for a moment. He’s tragic, frustrated, and potentially mad. I find him to be incredibly angsty and whiny. I realize that may not be your opinion of him, but it’s not a rare opinion to be had by those who have had to sit through a class on him. He has every reason to be whiny, but that doesn’t change that I wouldn’t spend a single afternoon with him if I were given the option. I don’t want to talk to Hamlet, I don’t want to know what he sounds like as he goes on and on about his troubles, but I did want to see how his story ended.

A more modern example, Katniss from Collins’ Hunger Games. I realize this is a touch more contentious an example, but let's be honest. Katniss is a traumatized, emotionally unavailable, pessimistic pragmatist. She wanted nothing to do with the revolution, and would never have sacrificed herself were it not for her sister being called. She had no friends except for the boy who wanted to get into her pants, her sister who she was functionally mother to, and a mother who was more scenery than character. As a character, until well into the first novel, Katniss is not likable. The world around her is interesting, her thought process engaging, and the tension is high, but none of this made me like her. Obviously this worked out for Collins, but that is ultimately my very point.

Before you worry about whether your character is liked or not, make sure they’re engaging.