Writing (drawing) graphic novels with imperfect characters – recipe for bad ratings?

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I've noticed in the average manga/manhua/manhwa (manguwa) when protagonists or side-characters make mistakes or overlook things that are clearly obvious to the reader, many readers will get frustrated by the character's actions and it ends up souring their view of the entire story.
To be honest, I also find the same thing when I’m reading manguwa. It really is quite frustrating when characters make mistakes, especially obvious ones.
In the end, most of my follows (that I actually look forward to) have the most straight-forward Mary Sues and Gary Stus you can get.

I think this is a bit different to typical written literature.
In graphic novels you want to show the reader things rather than telling them, but also because of this you don’t want to include descriptions about the character’s motives or feelings.

Rather than explaining the fact that Gary was hesitant to use his previously-explained special ability to breeze his way through some upcoming battle because there may be unintended casualties, you can just show how lively the area is just before Gary faces his adversaries.
Since you don’t like to degrade the intelligence of your potential readers, since previous clues alluded to Gary’s power being limited in its uses it should be obvious to the reader what Gary is thinking. Since you already showed how lively the area was, of course Gary would be thinking of that.
So it isn’t explained.

But the result is that several readers get angry at Gary using such roundabout methods to fight his adversaries, because he gets captured at the end of it anyway! If he had just carefully used his ability here and there, he would have gone through this whole ordeal without wasting everyone’s time.
Of course, the author’s intention was to show that Gary made a mistake in his judgement. Potentially he could have done it a better way, but he’s only human!
...Except, NOT.
Because his thoughts weren’t laid out on paper, the reader can’t engage with him.
“The art is good, but the author can’t write for shit.”

So why not just explain their thoughts?
True, you can, but here’s the thing: the readers have a literal image of what’s going on.
They don’t have to let their imaginations fill in the visuals, as graphic novels are all about the graphics. With this you also expose the readers to the same picture that the character is supposedly facing, which allows the readers to draw their own conclusions.

“The character clearly could have done this and this, it's blatantly obvious and you can see they could have done it.”
Unless the art is carefully crafted to absolutely make no mistake about it, sudden exposition just feels hollow.

Ultimately when characters make mistakes in manguwa it so often just seems like a way for the author to arbitrarily extend the story when everything was progressing smoothly beforehand.

With novel situations and/or great writing— more importantly, a clear translation of the character’s thoughts into image, sure, there are exemptions.
But in my opinion with picture-art being so expensive to make and the cost-cutting measures that get employed because of that, imperfect characters stain manguwa more than they add to them.

Thoughts?
 
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It's an interesting thought, but comics aren't the only visual storytelling medium. Cinema has had to face the exact same writing issues of "show, don't tell" and "portraying flawed characters" for just as long a time. And I doubt that all but the most hardcore literature snobs would dismiss the fact that cinema has in fact been able to portray exceptionally complex characters despite rarely even stating a character's inner thoughts (something comics instead are much more prone to doing, allowing the reader to see the justification behind a character's flaws).

If the writer can't sell a flawed character with his given toolset (be it that of literature, comics, theatre or cinema), that is not the fault of the medium itself, but in their creator. Obviously they are different mediums, and trying to directly reproduce the language of literature or cinema in comics isn't always possible (or even preferable. Comic panels have their own, unique language and tricks that are unreproduceable in the other two as well). Doesn't matter if it's visual or more abstract, they are all storytelling mediums. If the medium itself is so limited you can't write anything more complex than a simplistic, flawless character, it's a failure of a storytelling medium (which neither comics or cinema are).

I'll do a little projecting, but I'm gonna guess that if people are complaining, it's probably either because the author is not good enough at selling those flaws, and his attemptes come across as cheap justifications to the audience. Alternatively, it's a matter of audience expectations, like how people tend to complain about ineffective "beta" protagonists more on general principle than on a manga-by-manga basis. These are all writing problems/social phenomenons, though. Nothing to do with the medium, but probably with the kind of stuff you're reading.
 
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You have to justify why a character makes a mistake within what their character is and what they would do, and (arguably most importantly) what they would not do.

For a few classic examples:

For instance, Homer Simpson, despite basically embodying the seven deadly sins in their entirety, will still never do anything to harm Maggie, still will never cheat on Marge, and will never knowingly hurt his family.

There's deeds one must justify from an in-character perspective. The classic (no pun intended) example is with hubris in Greek plays and literature often leading to the downfall of a protagonist. Oedipus's hubris and relentless belief that he can do no wrong and his pride in his accomplishments leave him blind to what reality truly is. Odysseus's pride in himself, ultimately accumulating in him boasting to Polyphemus once he has blinded him and is sailing away, in which he lets slip his actual name, and so he is able to use it to curse him with Poseidon's wrath. However, both of these characters would have lines they wouldn't cross. Oedipus wouldn't harm civilians or the people of Thebes as he wishes to help them above all and Odysseus wishes to return him to his family, never faltering in his desire to ultimately return to Ithaca and reclaim his kingdom.

Breaking characters down into these fundamental conceptions help flesh them out and make their oversights and mistakes more believable whilst the audience is still invested in them.
 
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Thank you both, I would generally agree with all the points brought up.

Cinema is a good comparison for this. I don’t watch much film or animation, but I understand it would face a number of the same issues and much more due to its complexity. Careless arrangements of scenes can completely turn audiences’ views on the same story, which is ultimately what I wanted to discuss here.

I suppose what I should have included in the OP is that, I agree, the writing problems that I’m talking about generally stem from audience expectations and social phenomena.

Novel adaptations, where the writing has been crafted with a different medium in mind to start with. A division between the art storyboards and the actual story.
Or simply bad writing.
The (paying) audience is obviously consuming and popularising this media without much regard for that, which affords the opportunity for such media to thrive regardless of poor writing.

Well, this isn’t an exclusive problem to manguwa, like you both touched on.
The writing team for the Simpsons have been scratching for ideas for so long that Homer did at one point break up with Marge to be with someone else. But the Simpsons is still going despite its ratings.

Despite all that, it’s not my opinion that writers or audiences are fully to blame for the average manguwa with the issues being discussed.
Of course, it’s fully the authors of the work who are responsible for the end product. But in my opinion this is substantially a consequence of the increased complexity of the medium requiring increased planning to achieve a good result. Since it’s not as ‘easy’ to achieve the average quality slips in comparison.
Naturally this applies and even more so to film. The more complexity, the more planning, the more there are things that can drag down the presentation of the story.

Though I suppose that has been known widely for some time. If I were to reword the title of the OP then I guess it would answer my question:
Writing characters that don't follow general audience expectations, poorly, is a recipe for bad ratings.


This was useful to me, so I appreciate the discussion.
 
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A huge problem with the authors of graphic novels and the genre is authors try to be deep; the try to portray themes that you see typically associated with graphic novels and ignore independent ideas of themes. That's all still lilliputian in comparison to the sacrifice they make to story, character and writing. In general terms they do the gritty darkness edgy over actual storytelling. A majority of these authors are simply not competent or experienced enough to tackle the medium in any intelligent way.
 

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