Some writers really think they are subverting the 'alpha male' trope with their male main character/love interest, but they are actually doing the fandom treatment - take a pretty boy mysoginist arsehole, add a few decent actions, add sad backstory and bam! He's the best! Everyone wants a Zuko redemption or a Darrow of Lykos, but they just end up excusing arseholes because of bad writing. It's even more annoying when Zuko or Darrow get shit on, while their bland fave is a feminist icon.
YEP. I’ve seen too many books where this exact recipe was used.
The Ultimate Guide to Creating Your Own Epic Douchecanoe Morally Ambiguous Character
So you start by picking out a terrible personality. Maybe he’s an annoying prick, maybe he likes telling people what to do, maybe he does awful things to his love interest and then excuses it by claiming he did it all for their own good. This can include stalking, detainment, kidnapping, stealing, physical violence, manipulation, gaslighting, possessiveness, obsessiveness, scaring their friends and family away, and lying to their face.
I used gender-neutral pronouns for the love interest, because this loser shows up everywhere. If he’s heterosexual, it’s ruthlessly defended in the text, but with just enough of a feminine touch that the author/fandom can point at his black nail polish and say, “See, somebody with toxic masculinity couldn’t do that!”
The staunchly heterosexual version of this guy will pay lip service to feminism and women’s rights, saying things like, “My girlfriend can do what she wants”, because the author doesn’t realise that a man giving permission to a woman isn’t, in fact, the wokest thing ever.
In the same vein, if he’s dating a man, he’ll be the more traditionally masculine of the two, because nobody can escape gender roles. It is fo͠r͟b̡͡͝i̢͝ḑd͞͞e͏͠n͟͠.̕
He’s usually white or racially ambiguous, which allows the author and fandom to defend the lack of diversity with, “He’s not white, he’s tan!”
He’ll never, ever be average looking. Always handsome, beautiful, or pretty. Tends to have dark hair, but is occasionally blond. He’s often muscular, but when he’s skinny, it’s in an appealing starving art student way. If he wears any other colours besides black, they’ll be dark shades - forest green, blood red, navy blue, jet grey.
Short-tempered, tries to solve problems with his fists, occasionally unprovoked. The challenger will always lose, and always be framed as the one in the wrong. If he participates in strategy meetings, he’ll dominate them in a way the reader is meant to find attractive, but really he’s just making threats and screaming over people when they talk.
He’s probably wealthy, royalty, renowned in his field of expertise, or politically important (often all of the above). May have some sort of special power, and if many other characters also have the same or similar abilities, he’ll be the strongest.
If there are sex scenes, he’s got a big dick. He’s confident in bed and won’t make any accommodations for his partner. Often touches his partner in sexual ways without explicit permission, because he just can’t help himself, and the audience is meant to find that hot instead of horrifying.
But all of this is okay! No, seriously, it’s fine!
Because he’s sad all the time, because his parents hit him, his ex ghosted him, and everybody just wants him for his money. Nobody understands how hard it is to the literal king of everything, and he’s horny all the time but hasn’t met the right person to abuse love yet.
His redemption arc will be based entirely on his past suffering, even when it was well-deserved and/or self-inflicted. When he meets the right person, he’ll realise he doesn’t want to see them cry, and start doing the right thing (but for the wrong reasons, namely wanting to get in their pants).
We should all feel sorry for him and defend him to the ends of the earth!
And there you have it! Follow this simple guide and you too can write your own dodgy wanker!
TL;DR: these characters wish they had what Zuko and Darrow have. But that would require them to be a decent person, struggling with a complicated situation that leads them to make horrible mistakes, which are then acknowledged and punished severely by the text. And that’s just way too subtle.
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