How often do you focus on the original story's protagonist?
I usually find the main character to be the least interesting. This isn't always, but it's often.
Part of it is the sense that sometimes protagonists rest too much on BEING protagonists to be interesting. Everyone sort of falls all over them and they're special just because and... It feels flat to me.
So most of the fic I write/read centers on secondary protagonist or side characters to varying degrees.
It really depends on the series who I focus on. Sometimes I think a main character is great but that doesn't mean I find them fun to write about. Most often my goal in writing fics isn't directly about the characters. It's often worldbuilding in focus that de/reconstructs rules or window dressing aesthetics. Or filling plotholes. I fucking love fixing plotholes. One of my favourite main characters ever is Gesicht from Pluto and I can't think of anything to do with him he's just perfect as he is.
So, let's get back to plotholes~
With the Pokémon franchise, there is a bit of a Schrödinger's main character situation. Most of them are so flat that writing most them turns them into OC Stand Ins. While your dialogue choices never matter in a Pokémon game, I absolutely latched onto one of the "choices" in Arceus Legends. You can state your character never had anything like Pokémon (whether fictional or living is left vague) in their lives before. I took that and ran with it. There wasn't a "character" to start with. But there are a lot of concepts around them that I loved so I used those to make a character.
As a_mac says, it's on the writer to write good characters. The title simply states one's role in the story. Not how to make the role good in said story lol. Don't forget this role is transformative. Whoever you decide to write about, regardless of what their role was in the original work, they are now the main character for your story.
(Unless you decide to write a story where there is no main character! Those are fun too~)
I do! I also focus on a lot of other characters (friendship stories!). With the stories I'm interested in, most of the time the protagonist has something just as interesting to provide to my brain. Or is given enough hints of an interesting personality (Persona protagonists) that my headcanon fills out the rest of it to make the character exactly what I want.
I'm trying to think of a series I am into where the protagonist is of no interest to me. I guess Pokemon games? Mainly because when I write Pokemon stories, I usually go all OCs.
Perhaps it is the media I consume?
Yu Yu Hakusho: people don't fall over Yusuke. He has to fight to earn people's respect, but he is also loyal, and when he gets someone's loyalty they make a great team with him.
Saiyuki: I know Sanzo and Goku are the "main" main characters of the core four, but I can't imagine any of them without the other. I love all of them.
Ouran High School Host Club: Haruhi is a wonderful protagonist. As much as the whole host club fawns over her, they don't actually trust her immediately. Most of them have let her in to mess with Tamaki, as far as I'm concerned. Haruhi earns their love. And Tamaki initially seems like he might be flat, but the way the manga goes circumvents where you think his character might be taken.
For the ones I write? I write every character in Bandori. They are all interesting. Yu-Gi-Oh! DM is a matter of a cast. I couldn't separate them from each other too much. Even when I don't put every character in a story, they are all referenced to being in the background. They are important in each other's lives.
It is a matter of the media itself. A mark of perhaps not the best creator, if their main character is flat and uninteresting. Even if you can appreciate the creator for everything else they have accomplished within the media. A good author/creator will make a good protagonist. One you can follow and cheer for or even curse out as they make bad decisions. One you love. Or just love to hate.
And if the character is the type to bring people together? The creator will show why that is the case, not just tell. Or at least imply it well enough that our fandom minds put the last hooks together.
Thinking back on everything I wrote… yeah, not a protag writer either x’) Not sure why honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve written for enough fandoms with similar approach to what is a protagonist to see a pattern in my reactions.
I mean… the fandom I’ve the most fics for have a clear protagonist and I’ve not written him a lot, I focus very heavily on side characters (some would say one of them is a villain and I could write an essay on why this is missing the whole point of the story). I’ve written for a game where you can personalize your player character. I’ve written for stuff where you don’t have a protag because you have like 25 protags. I’ve written for a game with a protag but where other characters are so developed that it feels like they’re as important. My most recent fandom really feels like you have a point-of-view character but no protag at all. So… yeah, these are all very different situations and in some cases “not focusing on the protag” doesn’t even make sense in this specific canon.
So after typing all of this I guess my sample size for “there is clearly a protag, did you focus on them or not?” is actually one (1) fandom and the answer is no I didn’t focus on him, though I did write him here and there, but I suppose I could focus on a protag in another fandom? I’d need to fall into more fandoms to really know x’)
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