How do I make a character likable? I want a hero to be the most bad ass guy along with a bad ass villain. Please, I would LOOVE some feedback from your opinion.
In my opinion if you want to make your character bad-ass you need to focus on his attitude. Make him independent from family members, as to avoid an emotional background. Be careful not to make him too cliche, a rebel attitude and a cigarette addiction perhaps would be nice, but try to make your character as original as possible.
Have him/her do something dangerous like...dive head-first into the open maw of a dragon with a sword held in front like a live spear. At the last minute, he/she grabs a 'whisker' of the dragon and swings him/herself onto the dragon's snout and begins stabbing away while holding onto the 'whisker'. He/she does this with complete calm, complete coolness. Maybe even with a wisecracking smile on his/her face as he/she spouts out a badass line that TV Tropes calls a 'PreAssKickingOneLiner'. He/she doesn't fear danger, instead he/she relishes it. Something that would be an absolute nightmare for the rest of us is just another day in the office for him/her. To put it simply, the Boss from the Saints Row series says it best: "I don't think I'm a badass, I know it." They know they're tough; they don't surrender to fear. They've got this. The moment they strut into the scene, everyone takes a collective sigh of relief and quickly exunts out of there to give the badass some room. If things go sour, they grit their teeth, mutter under their breaths and keep going. Hellboy, for example, would say, "Aw, crap..." when a surprising development that won't end well for him starts to happen. Of course, in the midst of all this absolute badassery, he/she shows some humanity, something we can relate to. A gritty, dark past and an alcohol problem is classy, but really, anything can work. Maybe he/she likes to play cards or gives to the poor? Maybe he/she tutors a youngster on schoolwork on the side? Something that's more like us, what we could relate to. The same badass that punches out dragons/chthulu-like monsters for a living can be the same badass who likes crafting/tinkering with machines. Or likes to go on jogs or runs a dog and cat orphanage center. Something to remind us that even if he/she is borderline superhuman, there are things that bring them down to our level.
I think this is somewhat flawed way to start out as there are very few popular good guy characters that we consider bad-ass, who are in reality wholey and completely bad-ass. As a case in point i will use one of my favorite movie bad-asses, John McClane as an example. This character is one of the most perfect movie action bad-asses in history, however through-out the entire movie (and follow up films) he wants to avoid the action. John McClane is dragged along through the plot kicking and screaming, he wants no part in it. He is character is driven by survival and a moral code that keeps him in the game just enough to prevent him from surrendering to Hans and his henchmen right away. The most likable bad-asses are reluctant hero's who are constantly trying to avoid the fight but keep getting pulled into it. Once they are put under duress however, their response is true unmatched awesomeness.
Dude...I am SOOOO down for this. Thanks! Because I have a character who is just too judgmental on his sidekick and as for his sidekick, I need him to be bad ass like this. I have a detective who looks like Clint Eastwood's cowboy outfit in the year 2930, while I have the Angel of Wrath who is just too damn judgmental on him. They are good buddies; however, they have some disagreement on certain issues like life vs. death penalty.
One has a family, but he died and came back like the Angel of Wrath. The other, however, is a detective who is on the search for supernatural that he doesn't want to believe. In the end, he did. Also, the detective is going to get married; however, the Angel of Wrath, wouldn't let him because she'll die if she gets to know about their secret stuff that they do together on a mission.
Surely you should not think about trying to make him too 'bad ass' and instead focus on making a character who faces dangerous situations interesting? Generally, I find people who want some sort of cigar-smoking, Man-With-No-Name type of 'cool character' they are buying a first class ticket on the naff and honestly-not-great cliche train.
