How to write a manipulative protagonist that the audience can connect with
I've created a manipulative sort of protagonist, one who enjoys mind games, blackmail, systematically destroying people who've wronged her, that sort of thing.
I personally find her very interesting, but I'm not sure how I should write her such that an audience would connect with her - how to make a character who acts in this manner be sympathetic rather than abhorrent to the reader, and not in a fake "pet the dog" kind of manner either. How could I go about doing that?
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The core of this problem may be the misconception that the reader needs to identify with a character. That is oft repeated, but simply not true. A story creates an experience. One way to enter into that experience is to identify yourself with one of the characters in that experience. But it is not the only way, nor is it a necessary way. We are (some of us, at least) interested in people other than ourselves. In some cases we enjoy their company without wishing to be them. In some cases we rubberneck the disaster that is their lives the way we rubberneck an accident on the highway.
So, don't get bogged down by the idea that the reader has to identify with the character. It is enough, and often better, that they simply regard the character with fascination or even horror. Make them interesting and we will follow them like we follow the kind of celebrity trainwrecks we would never want to be like but, for some morbid reason, can never seem to quite avert our eyes from.
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To add to an excellent (in my opinion) answer by @LaurenIpsum:
There might be a case when your protagonist has to manipulate/blackmail an innocent person, who had done nothing to wrong her, and yet still be forgiven by the reader–when it is done for a greater good.
First thing which comes to mind: "If you will not step forward and testify against the thug who raped you–because you are ashamed to admit it publicly–I am going to go ahead and expose your secret anyway, so it is for you to decide if you are going to be known as the person who did the right thing, or as a coward, blah-blah..."
You might also show her reluctance to resort to such method, yet having to go ahead with it, because she has no other means to achieve that greater good of putting the rapist behind bars so he could not hurt anyone else.
Try to make the reader understand the motivations of your protagonist and agree with the necessity of her actions.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27329. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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If you want people to sympathize or identify with a character who does awful things, then the people she's doing those things to have to be worse than her. They have to deserve the manipulation and destruction.
Think of an anti-hero taking down villains. Dr. House deflating officious bureaucratic Vogler or obsessed detective Tritter, the Leverage team ruining profiteering scammers and corrupt politicians, Sherlock insulting idiotic pathologist Anderson, Spike killing demons, that sort of thing.
We woud find her abhorrent if she's manipulating innocent people for her own gain. We'll cheer if she's manipulating a racist to expose his disgusting beliefs in public so he gets shamed and fired.
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