Even before I began writing my book my fear is that the Hero of the book might be seen as 'edgy' and not be taken seriously. He is an Anti-Hero he lacks many of the qualities of your standard protagonist and is thrust into a violent and dark world. He is a very quiet Man, Melancholic and has I.E.D or is prone to explosive bouts of anger and rage. Yep sounds like your typical edge lord. *Cues Crawling by LP* but deep inside he a very nice person and regrets being a deadbeat dad by leaving his daughter behind on a path to revenge. The type of character I want to achieve is like..Hmm..Guts from Berserk. I don't want to rip off berserk completely but I want to hear your thoughts in making a protagonist that lacks conventional morality but is still taken seriously. And the reader can enjoy or relate. P.S Sorry if there are some wrong grammars or inconsistencies I wrote this at like...2 AM. Good night!
Have him befriend a therapist. No, seriously, have him befriend a therapist who just 'gets him', and is there for him to vent his frustration in words. They form a companion bond. Or, better yet, maybe the therapist is actually his daughter grown-up, but he doesn't recognize her yet (and maybe she's going through her own personal daddy-issues as well.) Even the most harden edge-lord has something that gives them pleasure. Maybe he's good at dart-throwing, seems some newb completely failing and decides to take him/her under his wing and teach the finer arts of dart-throwing. If he's in a group also bent on revenge, he works with them and listens to whatever plan they have. He's a planner himself, so he figures two heads are better than one, and there's strength in numbers. Maybe he meets the overall typical 'good-guy' and cautions him about not trusting the wrong person and providing examples from his own life. "By all means, kid, keep believing that people are basically good, but ya gotta realize that some of 'em really just wanna use your good-natured self to fuck you over."
In my opinion you would really pull this off if it's not morally okay but the reader does agree with the actions, you know, do the lesser evil for the greater good thing. For example, I can understand what made Darth Vader who he became, but yet he seemed to me a little bit of a whiny boy (no offence to others who did like him). So how to do this, let him understand what he's doing, but not make him believe he's delusional of his own believes. So yes, it gets tricky very quickly. I believe that if you make him very prown to anger outburst that he might too quickly seem to be not incontrol of his own emotions, and therefor could be whiny, like Anakin, but anger outbursts like Darth Vader is completely badass. What causes these two in differences, I'm not entirely sure, but could maybe be the difference in the abiliy to overcome the feeling of powerless? Anakin always feels he has too little power to correct to those things that are going wrong, but that's just my idea. I agree with the therapist part, but I personally would change it to him saying this to himself within is own thoughts.
I think Guts works in part because we see him from childhood and so we understand why he is the way he is. When you understand a character, it typically makes them somewhat sympathetic, and more real and rounded. We also get to see Guts fail and get fucked up on plenty of occasions, which helps with sympathy and rounding out as well. Berserk also has its moment of levity (it's practically Puck's entire purpose) and those help to humanize Guts and endear him to us, so even when he's being a bit edgy you forgive it, because ... Look at'em. A very serious a grimdark manga, surely. So that's a few things. Figure out why your guy is the way he is, what motivates him, what set him on this path. Think about ways you can make him fallible. Let him have those moments of genuine happiness and humor. Guts also struggles with the path he's on and who he is / becomes, and that internal struggle is both compelling narratively and - you guessed it - sympathetic, because who hasn't had thoughts and impulses (and even acted on them) that they regretted, or made choices that, in retrospect, were the exact opposite of what they should've done? Guts is actually a lot like a character of mine as well - it's an archetype I unabashedly love - so I worry a fair bit over keeping my guy from becoming too cringe-worthy too. I find it's always useful to take a hard look at the characters you like who're similar and figure out why they work for you. And it is going to be a subjective thing - Berserk crosses into edgy grimdark territory for plenty of people. But if you can deconstruct character similar to yours to the point that you see why they work, or if they don't, why not, they I think you'll be well on your way. See if you can think of any similar characters that you don't like, and figure out what Ken Miura did different with Guts.
This is probably going to sound simplistic, but forget about the cliché. Just make your character as believable and INDIVIDUAL as possible. Make sure your readers get inside his head and understand his thoughts, feelings and motivations. Make him occasionally do stuff that surprises us. The key to any great character is the reader's understanding of him or her. So give us this kind of understanding by using a close POV. Whether you do this in first person or third isn't an issue. But avoid the temptation (I'm seeing a lot these days) of just showing us his external actions, physicality, etc. Get us inside his head. Have him react internally to what's going on around him, and let us in on what his thoughts and feelings are. Get in the habit of BEING that character as you write him. Don't just show us the external part of him. Let us in on the internal workings as well. Don't make us guess. Even if he turns out to be a bit of a cliché it won't matter, if folks can empathise with him.
As long as you don't relegate the entire personality of your character to a single word, then you'll be fine. I think an appropriate term to assign for this is "one-trick pony". If being "edgy" is their only trick, then their character won't run very deep. What makes them edgy? If it's intentional, What do they gain by being edgy? If it's not, do they desire to change that aspect of themselves? Even in real life, the personas a person might apply to themselves have a reason, or otherwise there is some sort of instability in their character or growth that drove them to adopt those personalities. It doesn't have to be a complex reason, but it's still a reason. Even giving a character a description doesn't do all much for the character until it's fleshed out by a background and/or foreground of their development in the story itself. So to answer your question in short, it's done rather easily, but it's also rather easy to fall into the bad habit of isolating a character to one personality type.
This is good advice. I'll also add, Berserk became a lot more interesting for me after the 'Lost Children' arc, where Guts begins a long, slow process of healing--he starts fighting for things and people rather than being a pure force of destruction, and finds new companions who bring back that fear of growing close to someone or trusting them with your life, and then having them torn away. But at the same time, people like that sort of "doesn't give a damn" character for a reason, and Guts remains a whirling force of cathartic destruction against anyone who threatens him or the people who he cares for. It's escapist fun, to safely enjoy the exploits of someone who doesn't play by the rules. So be wary of changing the character's personality too much--they can certainly grow and heal, but while they're doing that, they probably want to keep at least some of the qualities that made them cool in the first place.
Edginess comes from a misguided attempt to be cool. Usually a smattering of "badass" qualities that add up to make a character who is just silly. Wears red and black, carries a gun/katana in situations where that would be unusual(katanas are the go-to sword for edgelords), monologues about their tragic backstory, is rude for no reason, wears a trenchcoat purely to look cool, has some "badass" name like Cypher Raige or Shadow the Hedgehog(perhaps the gold standard of edgy characters), and generally is just trying so hard to be cool that you almost feel sorry for them. None of these traits in of themselves are bad, and lots of cool characters like Batman have two or three of them, but they can easily be overplayed.
In comics, a character can be interesting even if you cannot relate to him just because you love to hate him like Eric Cartman. I don't know if it can be done in a book but it would be interesting to try some time.
