At another level, I think that stories of redemption must have a protagonist that is more than just "likeable". After all, such a story doesn't work at all unless the readers want the protagonist to be redeemed, eh? So I don't think such a story works well if the protagonist is just a plain nasty guy.

Scrooge has one very important redeeming trait at the beginning of A Christmas Carol. He's deeply unhappy, so much so that any person with the compassion necessary to desire redemption for anyone desires it for Scrooge. The same thing is true of the guy in As Good as it Gets.

In a sense, it is an important thing for any protagonist to be tormented in some way. In the more straightforward drama, the Hero is tormented by something outside himself and must overcome this external enemy. In the redemption story, the protagonist has to overcome those elements of self that cause torment. And in the tragedy, of course, the hero does not overcome.

Torment might not be the best word, since not all dramatic conflicts rise to the level of torment, really. Most really interesting ones do, one way and another, but it might not be best to use that particular word.

http://www.harryflashman.org/flashypapers.htm

"These stories will be completely truthful; I am breaking the habit of eighty years. Why shouldn't I?

When a man is as old as I am, and knows himself for what he is, he doesn't care much. I'm not ashamed, you see; never was -. So I can look at the picture above my desk, of the young officer; tall and handsome as I was in those days, and say that it is the portrait of a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat. Since many of the stories are discreditable to me, you can rest assured they are true....."
George Macdonald Fraser

I can read about a flawed protagonist that maybe is a little on the bad side, but there needs to be something redeemable that the reader can connect with.

and he never "really" redeems himself. he still beats himself up about his reprehensible behaviors all the way up to the end if i remember correctly.

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This is film, but "As Good As it Gets" is, I think, an example of what you're talking about.

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Ah, but he still had redeeming qualities from the beggining. Remember how he writes women so well?

"I think of a man, and I take away reason, and accountability."

To me, that's at least one good characteristic

But seriously, he is a good writer. Not that that adds to his actual character.

Anyway, I've used the Hitler example in another thread. If you read a biography of Hitler, you can stay interested the whole time, not because you like Hitler, but because his life is so fascinating.

In my opinion, the best novel with this kind of character is Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. It's very hard to like Raskolnikov; he's a base man, bordering on madness, with a Nietzschean ethic of the Superman (even though Nietzche wrote after Dostoevsky), and yet Dostoevsky is able to make you feel empathy for the man, and even, at times, real tenderness. So much so that you want to see Raskolnikov redeemed. That's the other part of it--you have to set it up in such a way that the reader wants the protagonist to be saved.

Jaime Lannister is a character (George RR MArtins "A Game of Thrones") that you despise in the first book.

In the second book you begin to care about him and even like him, because you begin to understand him and his motivations.

I personally like the idea. I like a well done bad-good guy. Perhaps he has done some things in the past that he isn't proud of, but he redeems himself or someone else in the process. I have a character that I am working on right now that fits this bill perfectly.

I've not worked on the story concept yet, but I have a great bad-good guy. She's a good guy who got some bad-mojo in her (aka a demon), so now when she even THINKS violent thoughts her demon half starts showing...

Punisher
The Authority
Wanted (really good example)
Bloodhound

Any of those has a pretty nasty protagonist that you still root for, since they are attacking even nastier folk.

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Perhaps he has done some things in the past that he isn't proud of, but he redeems himself or someone else in the process.

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An anti-hero is still a good guy, he's just the opposite of a classic hero. He's not the superstrong, supersmart, super proud hero of greek myths that carried on into moddern stories. He's weak, flawed and has poor self-esteem. He doesn't always do the right thing, and his biggest enemy is himself.

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I've never seen a better description of Elric. Elric was a product of his evil environment, but tried to be a good person in that context. He wasn't entirely sucessful, but I wouldn't think of him as a villain. Tru is right on the money with this one.

It is most certainly possible to have a thoroughly nasty protaganist that everyone roots for. It is even possible to have a thoroughly nasty protaganist that has his own way in the end, is in no way redeemed, and is nontheless wholeheartedly cheered by the audience.

See, for example, the Man with No Name trilogy:

Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly.

In "A Fistful of Dollars," Clint Eastwood's character reunites Marisol with her family, and gives them money.

I don't remember much about "For a Few Dollars More," but Clint Eastwood's character intervenes in the final confrontation between Lee Van Cleef's character and El Indio in order to make it a fair gunfight. (Lee Van Cleef's character had no gun.)

I believe both those movies had other incidents which showed some non-nasty characteristics.

In each of those movies, Clint does exactly one thing that doesn't spring from totally selfish motives. The one thing in each movie is usually comparatively small, and vastly outweighed by all the other rotten things he does.

More importantly, his token act of kindness in each movie (reuniting Marisol, making the gunfight fair, giving the wounded soldier a puff of his cigar--then taking it back after the soldier dies) is not a sign or redemption, or of the desire of redemption, or even of redeemable qualities. It's just something Clint did because he felt like it. Afterwards, he continues on just as selfish, violent, and ruthless as before.

The fact that these small acts of decency are noteworthy shows by contrast what a bastard he is generally. It's impossible to find any moral difference between Clint and his antagonists in the movies (Ramon, Van Cleef, Angel Eyes). He's just as nasty--or nastier--than they are.

I maintain that the single acts of minimal decency displayed by Clint do not disqualify him from the "thouroughly nasty" category. If anything, they emphasize just how nasty he is--and just how ready the audience is to applaud him despite his thoroughly nasty nature.

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In each of those movies, Clint does exactly one thing that doesn't spring from totally selfish motives. The one thing in each movie is usually comparatively small, and vastly outweighed by all the other rotten things he does.

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Everything springs from selfish motives. "Good" people do good things because they derive pleasure from doing good. "Bad" people do bad things for the same reason.

I don't think that's true. True for some. Not for all. Some live a life of self-sacrifice. Not becease they enjoy it. Not becease it makes them look good. But becease they know it's the right thing to do.

Not that I'm one of them, but it's an ideal to look up to.

I have to disagree with you on that. Doing the right thing fulfills the individual that performs it.

Even something simple like taking out the garbage can be rooted in your deriving satisfaction or pleasure from having done something that needed doing.

Do I specifically enjoy taking out the garbage? No, but I do receive pleasure in my wife NOT harping at me to take out the garbage, or smelling ripening food stuffs in my kitchen.

Maybe give me an example of a "right thing" that is not rooted in the individual performing the act because they derive pleasure/satisfaction from the duty or job.

Well, there's the story I heard, it pure invention, and I might not relate it to the best degree. Don't have much time, my wife just said dinner's about ready.

But the story is about the railroad guy. He has to switch the train to a different track to avoid a disaster. Then he notices his child is on the other track. He is too far away to get him. He could always switch the track back. So he does what he believe is right, saves the train, but in the process it kills his child.

Just because someone may derive some pleasure or satisfaction out of doing something doesn't mean that their motive for doing so is to gain pleasure or satisfaction.

Pleasure is defined as feeling pleased or gratified.

I'd argue that seeking to avoid pain so as to maintain a gratified or pleased state of mind might be construed as seeking pleasure.

In the example of the soldier, he is seeking gratification by saving his buddies, the gratification he receives for saving his fellow soldiers is greater than the gratification he would receive by living and his buddies dying.

So "selfless" acts such as these are seeking to diminish the loss of pleasure/satisfaction/gratification.

I'm not sure I would directly equate minimizing pain/displeasure with seeking pleasure/satisfaction, but they have the same root.

Therefore, I would like to request that this discussion stop because it is one of those kinds of discussions that tend to go nowhere.

I confess that I'm doing it for a selfish reason: I have to read all the posts on this forum, and I get bored with discussions where people with opposing ideas try to convince each other of something they are already convinced against. (Yeah, I know, I'm being cynical, too, but there seem to have been a few too many of such discussions around here lately.)

It is indeed a very cynical opinion...

Just because all these things are "needs" of various elements of the self doesn't mean that they can all be accurately described as "selfish needs". And you can't compare the gratification of needs that are essentially different from each other on the same scale. "Pleasure" can be stretched to cover the greater sense of self-awareness that is a result in many "altruistic" activities, but you shouldn't simultaneously use it to mean the sensation that one derives from fufilling an animal impulse, because that implies they are the same thing when they are clearly not the same thing.

In the same way, "selfish" could mean "arising out of the autonomous self", but that isn't the way we mean it. We use it specifically to describe aggrandizement of that part of the self that can be treated independently of what happens to any other person. To call an altruistic desire "selfish" because it happens to be an element of the self is to erase the meaning of the term "selfish" as distinct from "voluntary".

On the other hand, it is philosophically important that people realize that voluntary action, action that arises out of the deepest yearnings of the self, is an important principle in morality. There is no such thing as a moral action that is involuntary, after all. And we cannot say that an action is voluntary unless it is something that the individual self somehow chooses freely, in the end.

All that said, I agree with KDW that this all has very little to do with the topic of this thread. It also probably has almost nothing to do with writing in general, since none of my characters really has free will, and I suspect that none of the characters created by anyone else on this board are literally "volunteers" either.

The glass is half full if it was once empty and then filled up halfway.