As the audience’s cravings for stories change, it is inevitable for certain characters to feel dated, simplistic, or problematic. Many of these negative reactions stem from overuse, leading to your audience asking: “Is there something else?”
The problem is, that once a character type is overused, it becomes too familiar. This is the point where a trope becomes a cliche.
The Worst Character Types
There are some characters that plenty of people just can’t connect with. They don’t make you feel or care and seem more like clumsy caricatures of real people. Below are just a few of these.
1. The Mary Sue/Gary Sue
These are characters who are too perfect. They’re physically attractive, smart, charismatic, and everything you want to be in real life.
While everyone would certainly want to have no flaws, humans simply aren’t like that. That unrealistic element is what disrupts the audience from creating a genuine connection with these characters.
The best example is perhaps the originator of this type, Mary Sue herself. Originating from Paula Smith’s satirical Star Trek short story, Mary Sue was the uber-combination of every wish-fulfillment trope there is.
2. The Damsel in Distress
The damsel in distress is a female character who has few to no motivations of their own and simply exists to highlight a male character’s amazing traits.
She’s beautiful, pure of heart, and often comes from a good social standing. Most of all though, she always gets herself in danger and is too incompetent to save herself.
Such a stunted character doesn’t work before it infuriates the audience. How can someone be so useless? Some damsels are even so annoying that people wouldn’t mind seeing them dead.
Olive Oyl from Popeye the Sailor is one such character, who is in a constant state of being kidnapped by Brutus, Popeye’s arch-rival.
3. The Seductress
Much like how a damsel in distress only exists to be saved, a seductress’ only reason for existing is to temp the hero. She may not necessarily seduce him into the sheets, but she’s always happy to use her looks and body to get her way.
You’ll find this type of character in a lot of romances with love triangles that involve two women. One is pure of heart, while the other is a home wrecker. The second’s pursuit of the man is almost irrational.
The Mord-Sith from the Sword of Truth series falls into this type. They’re barely disguised dominatrixes with magic who routinely break people using their torture rods.
4. The Misunderstood, Broody, Bad Boy
You know the type. A “dark” loner with a permanent scowl who does nothing but brood over the many issues he is currently being tortured with. He’s not edgy, just misunderstood—and only a few know that, including the heroine with a pure heart and the understanding teacher who’ll move the heavens just to help their student.
The problem with the majority of these types is that they turn out creepy. Just look at Edward from the Twilight series, who likes standing at the foot of his unknowing girlfriend’s bed as she sleeps. But that seems to be okay because, apparently, he has a good reason.
5. The Nerd Who Turns into Cinderella
This character, often found in romantic comedies, can apply to any gender but is most often a woman. She’s nerdy, soft-spoken, shy, and absolutely riddled with acne. She wears glasses, braces, and whatever’s not fashionable during the time the story was made.
And by some intervention of fate or the equivalent of a fairy godmother, she’s suddenly transformed into a beauty that rivals the most popular girl on campus. Everyone’s obsessed with her, including Prince Charming.
This just doesn’t work anymore. All these movies are doing is hiding a conventionally beautiful woman under quirky clothes and heavy makeup. Everyone who looks at Anne Hathaway’s character in The Princess Diaries and deems her ugly is blind.
6. The Manchild
There are plenty of films and TV series where an adult man seems to have stopped developing mentally after reaching high school. He’s dumb, messy, loud, and almost entirely dependent on those around him.
Most of these stories start with an event that forces the manchild into action. He’s being evicted by his parents. His girlfriend is leaving him. Or he suddenly realizes he’s been left behind in life by his friends.
That still doesn’t stop you from being infuriated by his grave incompetence. And after all he goes through, he’s still immature and childlike. Many of Adam Sandler’s characters come to mind, especially from Billy Madison.
7. The Token Minority
A diverse cast is great and all but only if each character is well-developed and not only there to fulfill some kind of racial quota. The latter always fails to portray minorities realistically and often falls on troublesome stereotypes.
These one-dimensional characters seem to exist primarily to assist the protagonists with their goals. Hollywood does this a lot, though there have been plenty of improvements in recent years.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is an iconic film but many do criticize one thing about it: Mr. Yunioshi. Aside from the prosthetic buck teeth and caricatured Asian accent, it’s just so odd they chose a white actor to play someone of a completely different ethnicity.
8. The Insufferable Genius
This character is smart but arrogant—often more on the latter than the former. They claim to know everything, even things they clearly don’t.
These characters love to brand others as stupid or beneath them, often justifying their “superiority” as common sense. People hate them for it and rightly so.
To be fair, many of these types thaw out as the story unfolds. They get closer to people, learn to socialize, and so on. That still doesn’t stop you from hating them early on though. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory is one such character.
Character Cliches
Many characters start out as unique concepts. However, like most things fresh and entertaining in fiction, they tend to get overused. This is when archetypes and tropes turn into stereotypes and cliches.
That doesn’t mean they’re already useless though. Plenty of writers still find ways to evolve a character into something new, or at least something that their audience isn’t tired of.
What is the worst character type for you? Share them in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- How to Write Engaging Character Dynamics
- Unseen Character: Definition and Examples
- Character Regression: How to Use Setbacks to Create Better Characters
- How to Create a Compelling Character Backstory
Cole is a blog writer and aspiring novelist. He has a degree in Communications and is an advocate of media and information literacy and responsible media practices. Aside from his interest in technology, crafts, and food, he’s also your typical science fiction and fantasy junkie, spending most of his free time reading through an ever-growing to-be-read list. It’s either that or procrastinating over actually writing his book. Wish him luck!
