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Replying to Robin because she sums up the latest points in the thread. Also, don't take my rant personally. I'm not lambasting anyone in particular. That is not a nice guy. That is a wuss. A pussy. A spineless weakling. It is a grave and most unfortunate mistake to confuse disgusting meekness and cowardice with "niceness." It is very possible to have a nice person that donates to charity, helps old ladies, loves dogs, cats and children, and snarks the fuck out of you if you provoke him. You merely need to use good old fashioned logic. After all, a complete doormat does not get through life with such an attitude unless he makes friends who take care of him, or suffers a nervous breakdown. Why? Because people will use and abuse doormats until there is nothing left of them but a empty, soulless husk. That is simply the way the world works. If the doormat does not have a solid circle of friends, family and loved ones to shelter him from the worst parts of the world, then people WILL drain every single drop of humanity from them. Because, again, that's what most people do. Now, logic tells us that either the doormat had a breakdown and hardened (learns how to say no, develops a way to get rid of moochers, learns to avoid toxic relationships, etc.), or we get a cast of people who swing between trying to help the doormat help himself, using him for their own ends, and coddling him all the time because he's just so sweet and they don't want that good-natured innocence to fade or be tarnished by the cruel outside world. And guess what? All of this? STORY FODDER. A FUCKING PLOT THAT COULD SPAN CHAPTERS. And this just a take on your average doormat. Like I said earlier, you can have a nice person with a dark side, or just someone who has steel-hard ethics and will NOT take crap from you or anyone else. He will help you in your darkest hour and if you so much dare to be an ungrateful bitch or bastard to him, he will verbally smack you down so hard your ass will end up facing the goddamn sun. To sum up: THINK, BITCHES. Don't take the lazy way out and write some random douchebag because you can't be bothered to come up with a real person. Fucking mother of shit. As an aside that really doesn't concern the thread, but might prove to be mildly interesting food for thought for anyone, I have been mulling over why people are so attracted to villains and assholes. I think that it all comes down to most people being... how do I put this mildly... "cowardly," I think, is the least insulting term for it. There's a vast amount of people who have enormous fear of peer pressure and social repercussions, so they spend a lot of time censoring themselves and repressing their less savoury impulses. The problem is that they don't do this because they realize that they are morally wrong (and I mean 'morally wrong' with an actual logical thought process that leads the person to understand why it is wrong, not just an empty label), but because they fear the consequences of their actions. Therefore, they are in reality quite frustrated at their inability to express their deepest desires, which leads to them living vicariously through those who do. Which are, of course, villains and assholes. To me, evil is banal and mind-numbingly boring. Not to mention that 99.9999% of villains are actually very, very stupid. If a random peasant schmuck can defeat them, they are not very smart in the first place. A smart person does not wave their hand scornfully at the notion of the Power of Love, much less when there is actual evidence of its existence! A smart person says "All right, this is worth investigating. How may I use this new resource to achieve my ends?" And even if we take a "genius" (and fucking shit, do I ever use that term loosely when referring to villains...) whose methods are intelligent and pragmatic, there is always the logical massacre that is their set of goals. Truly, for people who are allegedly super smart, they sure seem to forget very basic things, like sociology, biology, psychology and who knows what else. I mean, really. Killing people to make a point? Sure, that will go over well with the public. Blowing shit up? That will get you ADORING FANS (and yes, I am aware that they do get adoring fans at times. Those people are retards. I am talking about the general populace). World domination? My god, pick up ANY history book and read about the HUNDREDS of leaders who have tried that. Revenge? That one is especially good, since apparently thinking about the consequences of one's actions is a lost art. Screwing over everyone to get some selfish goal? Right, society will get very far with people like that. You BETTER not complain about other people being assholes, with the example you're setting. But I think that the point that grates on me the most about villains is how they go against the very nature of biology itself. Life wants one thing, and one thing only: to survive. How does it achieve this? By two means: it multiplies and it improves. The last bit is the one that most villains seem to ignore. Improving means becoming better, overcoming one's flaws to develop new strengths. Selfishness, and its manifestations thereof (screwing over others, hoarding resources, etc.), is actually detrimental to the survival of the species. It might do wonders for the survival of the individual (and that is why all individuals are innately selfish, to give them a strong survival tool), but it is very detrimental to the improvement of society. The reason we have ethics and morals in the first place is because we must curb down the selfish impulse (and the anomalies, such as psychopaths and the like) so that we can improve as a species. Villains, assholes and idiots are hindrances to society. They must be reeducated or removed from a position in which they can do harm. Of course, I'm not saying that villains are useless! Far from it. What I am saying is that liking villains is akin to liking the big piece of lead that's making you row extra harder. It provides conflict to the story and it is most interesting when villains are actually intelligent (though I am personally a fan of mindless, nigh unstoppable forces as antagonists), and not drooling imbeciles. But that's just my take on this issue. That is all. Class dismissed. EDIT: And there goes the ninja wench, summing up my entire point with such elegance!

Sometimes nice guys are boring, until you hit them with something that pushes them past their limits. No one's ever nice all the time. Everyone has triggers, and if you can realistically portray how they react to those, nice guys can be a hell of a lot of fun to write. Having said that, I prefer a little edge to my male characters. I find snark incredibly sexy, and a battle of wits amuses the hells out of me. I don't like men that are doormats, and I can't write men that are doormats, unless they are slated to die horribly in the very near future. But total bastards amuse me even less, unless I'm allowed to use them for target practice. Honestly, it's even harder to make a complete gobshite's redemption believable than it is to write a nice guy with limits. But that's just me...