Unlikable Characters Aren't Unlovable Characters

Is likability the goal for fictional characters, even in romance novels?

May 12, 2024

I think we should let go of the idea that characters in romance novels should be likable.

We are fascinated by unlikable people, and when it comes to romance novels, this fascination creates conflict for readers because we worry that unlikable characters don’t deserve love, or a happily ever after.

Unlikable, bingeable characters on TV

First, let’s look to TV characters as a case study before we circle back to romance,

I’ve been rewatching Deadwood, the 2004 western drama that kicks off the pilot with the primary protagonist hanging a horse thief instead of letting an angry mob kill him. Then, we’re introduced to another main character who brutally beats a sex worker in his employ for daring to shoot a customer that was beating her, and then it’s revealed that this is the same sex worker who shares his bed every night.

2/3 of the people in this pic are unlikable to me, 3/3 are fascinating.

Deadwood is a show rife with unlikable characters, and while the series progression fleshes these characters out in a way that humanizes even the biggest villains, it’s eminently watchable because the characters are never uninteresting. We are invested in their stories and how they resolve conflicts.

We’re familiar with unlikable yet compelling characters in TV shows: Dr. House, Cersei Lannister, Dexter, Carrie Bradshaw, Rory Gilmore (although many of you may not have noticed until you got older and wiser).

Oh, noes! You can’t buy your apartment because you bought too many Manolo Blahniks? Insufferable. Yes, please play the next episode.

While it’s fair to remark that the women on the above list get more criticism than the men who do equally unlikable things, nonetheless, viewers are passionately invested in all of their stories and are willing to follow along with their adventures for hours on end.

Unlikable people do interesting things — they create or react to conflict in ways that are fun to watch. We see them make mistakes we may or may not make, solve problems, emerge victorious and fail, and then keep on going. We see them evolve as the episode or season progresses.

We love watching unlikable characters.

Important for a TV show, these characters must encounter enough serialized conflict to fill seasons of episodes. They can’t reach all of their goals, and they can’t resolve every character flaw (at least not until the final episode, and only if it’s filmed after the show has been canceled).

Imagine if Carrie Bradshaw always made emotionally mature dating decisions and put her money into a 401(k) instead of her shoe collection? It would be a snoozefest, from a plotting and visual perspective.

We acknowledge that on TV unlikable characters, even unlikable female characters, aren’t a reason to stop watching. In fact, they’re often the reason we keep watching.

Misogyny, blah blah blah…

First, let’s get something out of the way: we’ve all internalized misogyny to varying degrees and that influences how we respond differently to people’s actions based on their gender and the degree to which their behavior conforms with gendered expectations.

I get it, I really do. It’s just not that interesting.

Just like a TV show or a romance novel, this Substack seeks to entertain, and so I ask that we leave aside this rather obvious yet frustratingly boring fact.

Rather than focusing on the unfair criticism levied at people of marginalized genders (and more broadly, identities) in romance, I’d like to examine the assumption that we should like characters in the romance we read.

I’d like to examine the assumption that we should like characters in the romance novels we read.

Why do we expect likability in romance novels?

Popular romance novels are theoretically about idealized visions of romance and relationships, but I don’t actually think that’s true.

The most entertaining romances I’ve ever read chronicle a deeply fucked up relationship with deeply fucked up people. I wouldn’t want it for myself, no thank you. The characters do absolutely terrible things to each other, and it’s rare that I’d want to be in a relationship or even friends with anyone involved.

And yet, the difference between a romance novel and a love story is the end. A romance novel is a comedy, not a tragedy: it ends in a literal or metaphorical marriage that we never see end, not death.

Lovers riding into the sunset: never to be seen again, yet presumed alive.

What do we mean by happily ever after?

It always comes back to this: what do we mean by happily ever after?

Some people say that a romance novel happily ever after only feels earned when they believe that the characters have resolved what they needed to resolve and we see that they have to tools to stay together in the ensuing years.

The shorthand of “emotionally satisfying” ending can also be substituted for the “HEA,” especially among people who chafe at the idea of requiring a literal marriage or setting the expectation that the relationship never encounters future conflict.

But “emotionally satisfying” is the goal of all “romance” fiction, isn’t it? (I’m speaking here of “romances” writ large, often referred to as “genre fiction.”1)

A mystery opens with a body on the floor, and we must know whodunnit by the end. An epic fantasy sets our hero on a quest and a journey that must be traveled by the end. Characters in horror novels learn of a monster that they must face and vanquish.

For all intents and purposes, every one of these stories (if successful) ends with a happily ever after that the reader finds emotionally satisfying.

Create a problem: solve the problem.

Boom, welcome to narrative structure. It’s universally appealing because our primordial human brains love to solve problems because it keeps us alive (until we, inevitably, die).

Resolution feels good, and the shitty, unsatisfying part of real life is that we so rarely get to finish anything, at least for good (until we, inevitably, die, usually with much unfinished business).

Romances are a fantasy that we can resolve things for good: a vanquished monster that will never again rise, a mystery solved with certainty for good, a relationship formed with an eternal bond, and heroes we never see die.

And yes, it requires us to cover our ears and sing la, la, la, I can’t hear you! to drown out the knowledge that it’s an artificial resolution because outside of our fictional worlds, life is a series of conflicts and then you die, but we suspend our disbelief and as a reward, we get the vicarious thrills of adventure and the emotional satisfaction of resolution from the safety of our couch (until we, inevitably, die).

We love this narrative structure because our brains really hate thinking about death. It’s the ultimate problem we can’t resolve.

Relationships in romance novels are the problem to be solved

“But Andrea,” you might find yourself saying, “isn’t this essay about unlikable characters?”

Yes, clever reader. That’s the problem I said I was going to solve for you today and here I am, taking you down a road that seems to be drifting from our destination and sadistically reminding you of your inevitable mortality.

Our detour into interrogating the narrative purpose of the happily ever after was to impart the lesson that the emotional satisfaction in romance novels comes from the resolution. And, for there to be a resolution, there must be a problem to be solved.

What’s unique about romance novels, that distinguishes them from mysteries or horror novels, is that relationships are the problem to be solved.

Romance novels aren’t by definition about presenting healthy relationships, despite what some people say or prefer. It’s true that sometimes romance novels feature healthy relationships, but more often than not they’re satisfying even when portraying unhealthy relationships.

When I say that in romance novels the relationship is the problem to be solved, I’m saying that it’s the source of the conflict in the story that must be resolved before it can end.

If the characters meet on page 2 and form a relationship with zero conflict, you’ll either be reading a very short, boring story, or the compelling conflict will come from some other source. If all of the conflict comes from a source other than the relationship, you likely are not reading a romance novel.

Relationships in Romance Novels are Symbolic

Relationships in romance novels are symbolic — the events on page represent abstract ideas, yet they’re often treated so literally by readers and critics alike.

Just because a romance novel explores a deeply unhealthy relationship with terrible, toxic, unlikable characters does not mean that my enjoyment of said book means I am clamoring for that relationship.

Just the opposite: it’s about symbolically solving the problem of a toxic relationship. The toxic relationship is the problem to be solved by the end.

In a recent episode about Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Philips, my guest Emma talked about how we expect for there to be problems at page 100 that we expect to not be problems by page 400. “It's happening not at the end of the book. We're waiting for the book to end: they're going to figure it out.”

The characters represent the challenges we have even when they’re nothing like us and not aspirational.

The unlikable characters make choices that have repercussions, do things to each other we know they shouldn’t do even if we understand why they did them. The things they do to themselves and each other are the problems to be solved.

By the end, they may have addressed some of their least likable traits in order to have a successful relationship, but they don’t need to be perfect and impervious to future mistakes.

The resolution is in knowing that these characters can mess up and still be loved, still be forgiven, if they can acknowledge and atone, and do better in the future.

Unlikable Characters Can Be Lovable Characters

What does it even mean to be “unlikable,” as if it’s some intrinsic binary as opposed to a completely subjective value judgement? Can characters be unlikable one moment and likable the next? Can they be both at once depending on who is deciding?

It reminds me of the parenting advice to never tell your children they’re bad, even if something they did was bad. Characters aren’t unlikable, they’re just doing things we don’t like — at least at first.

We may hate how unlikable characters act throughout a story — that’s the point. It’s the equivalent of discovering a body in the study with a knife in their chest announcing that there’s a murderer roaming the house. We take note of the problem that needs to be solved and eagerly look for clues that they’re changing.

Romance readers know that a woman-hating misogynist alphahole is a problem to be solved: that’s why it’s so satisfying when he’s groveling and completely under the power of his chosen woman’s love by the end of the story.

We don’t have to love unlikable characters in romance novels, but we do need to believe that they can be loved by the person they’re in a relationship with. We don’t have to agree with their actions, particularly in the beginning of a story, but we should be entertained and intrigued by them.

The reason we dislike unlikable characters because they’re presenting problems that we agree are problems. Otherwise, they wouldn’t aggravate us as much as they do, and we’d have no interest in investing in seeing their resolution.

I don’t think likability should be the goal for any fictional character, even in romance novels, and I don’t think we should expect to like every thing a character does. It’s a purity test that is needlessly keeping us from enjoying emotionally satisfying stories that bring us pleasure and resolution before we, inevitably, die2.

Perhaps more concerning to me is that this mindset emerges from our lived experiences, not our fictional ones.

I want to believe that relationships that start with conflict can resolve. I don’t know about you, but I know I’m a flawed person who makes mistakes. I know at least five people who don’t like me3! Despite not always being likable, I believe I am lovable.