Erik Reuter wrote:
>
> On Sat, Sep 13, 2003 at 01:44:35AM -0400, Jim Sharkey wrote:
>
> > I suppose I understand why he acted that way, his believing none of
> > world was real and all, but I never could figure out the point of
> > creating a protagonist no one would like. That was one of the reasons
> > I disliked _Ancient of Days_, too.
>
> I can't understand why people only want to read about characters they
> really like. That gets awfully boring. It is also unrealistic.
There's a great deal of space between "really like" and "can't stand".
I myself like "somewhat sympathetic, but with a few irritating qualities
to make things more interesting, and incidentally help the character get
into trouble which he or she then has to figure out how to get *out*
of." Just a matter of where you draw the line for "too irritating to
like", I guess.
And you run into that same matter of drawing that line in RL, as well.
I have an acquaintance that seems to straddle that line, at least as far
as I'm concerned, and it's a matter of not spending so much time around
him that he moves entirely to the wrong side of it. So far, so good.
Not sure what would happen if he crossed the line and I had to be around
him for another couple of hours -- but it might involve my mouth opening
without much thought beforehand, with less than pleasant results. But
at least that wouldn't be boring, right?
Julia
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