An Amoral Protagonist

Normally, a protagonist is meant to be likeable and someone the reader can identify with. Sometimes, however, you want or need to write someone less likeable. While fully evil is hard to pull off, having an amoral character as a protagonist can work, providing you spend enough time in the characters mind, so their motivation and thoughts are clear.

One good example for an amoral character is Johannes Cabal from several short stories and five novels written by Jonathan L. Howard. Johannes is a necromancer of some little infamy and all his deeds are just aimed at one goal: reviving his fiancé in body, mind, and spirit. Not as a revenant or zombie, but the way she was before she drowned. This is impossible for most necromancers, so Johannes gathers information and does experiments to get closer to that goal, step by step. It matters little to him what others think of his deeds or what damage or harm his deeds cause in others (well, it matters more to him from the second novel onwards - since he regains his soul at the end of the first novel and all short stories are set before that time). He is a criminal, he is cold-blooded, and he doesn’t care for it at all.

Yet, Jonathan L. Howard manages to make Johannes if not outright likeable then at least interesting. The reader spends a lot of time in Johannes’ head, understanding his motivations. The author makes it clear that Johannes is not a nice guy and that what he does - despite serving his goals - is not okay. Yet it’s also clear that Johannes isn’t burdened overly much by that. Once he has his conscience back (second novel onwards), he might feel a twinge at certain actions and sometimes be compelled to act differently, but his general look at the world, at other humans, and at his deeds doesn’t change.

Another thing which makes Johannes interesting, if nothing else, is that he’s often thrown into situations which are humiliating as well as dangerous (such as hanging out of an airship only wearing a dressing gown and slippers). He’s not allowed to really dominate the story, he’s always thrown around by it, kept off balance, rarely allowed to plot until late into the narrative. Johannes is good at plotting and at surviving, but prefers the former to the latter.

Johannes has saved the world twice (once before and once after he regained his soul), but always just as part of saving himself. He’s done good, if only because it served his own plans. He’s not evil, he’s simply amoral. He doesn’t care about religion, law, or general morals, he has his own limits and those are malleable most of the time.

What can you and I as writers learn from that? First of all, an amoral character can be successful. Not all protagonists have to be likeable. You have to give the reader an understanding of the character and their motivation, though. With a good protagonist, someone with morals and dedication to a good cause, you don’t really need that close-up. We all understand that person, if not because of our own character, then because we’ve seen them often. We know what a hero is like, how they feel, how they act. The amoral protagonist (surely not a hero) is not that well-known to us, so we need a look into their mind and soul.

Give your amoral protagonist a good reason for their deeds, an understandable motivation. The biggest reveal in “Johannes Cabal - The Necromancer”, the first novel of the series, is not whether or not Johannes gets his soul back, despite being one contract short. It’s done well, Johannes repaying Satan, beating him at the contract game, but not the biggest reveal of the story. No, the biggest reveal comes in the very last scene of the very last chapter as Johannes returns home, argues with Satan once more, goes down into the basement, past a secret door, levels a huge stone block out of the floor with the help of a pulley, lies down on top of a glass coffin with a woman’s body, preserved through chemicals, and curls up on it to sleep, the woman’s name (which is learned by the audience much later) on his lips. This is his motivation, this is why he kills, steals, cheats, and commits other crimes as well. This is the moment he really becomes human to the audience - not through the return of his soul, but through the disclosure of his motivation.

Being amoral doesn’t mean that the character doesn’t have any limits, either. It means the character doesn’t apply any morals to find or define those limits. Possibility of a plan is a limit. Possibility of being caught and punished can be a limit (if it’s likely to happen). The mores of society are not limits in this case, though. Far from it.

With this, it’s quite obvious that the amoral protagonist isn’t meant for light and fluffy stories. Without a certain darkness in the story, the amoral protagonist won’t work. If there’s no way a character can act against common morals or rules of society, there’s no way to make them amoral. They would be ‘amoral in name only,’ if that. Someone bragging about how evil they are, but never doing anything to prove it.

Grim and dark stories are ideal for amoral protagonists, on the other hand. In a noir setting, for instance, nobody is a paragon of virtue. The main difference between the anti-hero and the villain of the piece is usually the motivation for their deeds (and, sometimes, their body count). The anti-hero has an understandable motivation we can accept, the villain has a motivation that is just wrong. If not their motivations, then at least the way on which they try to reach their goal.

Putting up an amoral protagonist against ‘deserving’ enemies is a good way to excuse their behaviour. Killing the innocent is usually frowned upon, if not by the protagonist themselves. Killing people out to kill you is not exactly humane, but certainly understandable and, to a degree, acceptable. Now, helping the innocent, even if it just serves the amoral protagonist’s goals, is fully acceptable, too. Like saving the world because the ritual used to raise the dead (which will overrun the world) was used to take revenge on you. Or dealing with a lich because it endangers you in person and the end of the world would also spell the end of your plans.

An amoral protagonist needs a surrounding which suits their amorality, so nothing fluffy and light in tone. They should not act against the innocent, but against ‘deserving’ enemies. They should also have an understandable motivation and, perhaps, have it hard to get to their goal. All of that can help with making them a little likeable or at least interesting enough for the audience.