Unpopular opinion: giving characters flaws is overrated sometimes

I read this post on a writing sub where a guy said his beta readers all hated his perfect hero MC, and it got me thinking why do we always have to make characters broken or messed up to feel real? Has anyone else found that a solid, competent character with zero flaws actually worked better for their story than one with all the baggage?

2 comments

2 Comments

lucasschmidt1mo ago

Yeah but what kind of flaws are we talking about though... like are people just piling on stuff to make the character "deep" or are they actually meaningful to the story? I feel like a lot of writers get told they need flaws so they tack on some stupid thing like a gambling problem or anger issues just to check a box, and that never works anyway. But then you get a character who's just good at everything and people start rolling their eyes because it feels fake, so there's gotta be a middle ground somewhere. Are your beta readers really hating the perfect hero or are they just bored because nothing challenges him?

eric_knight71mo ago

Feel you on this. Fake flaws are worse than no flaws.