"Complex Characters"

I was recently thinking about Brave New World again, and the problem that I (and many other people) had with the book: the characters. Since I finished the book, I have thought that it had zero likable characters (except Lenina, who wasn't particularly unlikeable.) However, I gave the book a pass, saying they were "complex" and "realistic." It wasn't until more recently that I realized these excuses for unlikeable characters were not really true. In fact, they were pretty boring. I didn't particularly care what happened to any of them, which made the story a bit of a slog for me, sometimes. But this made me think about a trope in stories of all kinds that I hadn't really noticed before: the "interesting and complex" character.

People often write off characters who always make the right choice as "boring" or "flat," and for the most part I think that's fair. A perfect person is unrelatable, as well as unrealistic. However, this has bred a type of character that has taken all forms of media by storm. This character is billed as someone who has both good and bad traits, but ends up essentially being a jerk who just happens to also be on the "right side" and also occasionally does something nice. These characters receive lots of praise from everyone for being "relatable" "realistic" and "complex," but why? In so many cases, a jerk tends to be just as flat and un-lifelike as a goody-goody "superman" type character. Yet somehow if a character does terrible things every one in a while, or just treats everyone terribly all the time is now free of the "unrealistic" label. I'm not sure how this school of thought came to be in the first place, but I have a good guess as to how it spread.

If someone is feeling lazy, but still wants to create a complex and interesting character, they now don't have to put the effort into giving the character quirks and personality as well as consistent behavior and realistic thoughts. Instead, they just have to make them do something jerky every once in a while, and find some way of explaining the character's "motivation," and their character is praised as being complex. 

To illustrate my point, I'll use a show that I loved when I was a kid: "Avatar: the last airbender." Those who watched the show will probably remember the character of Uncle Iroh. Now, personally I found him to be one of the more fleshed-out and vibrant characters on the show, and I would say he was quite "complex." However, he never really did anything bad, and I can't even remember his saying anything particularly mean to any of the other characters. So how does the show create a complex and lifelike character who isn't the least bit edgy or conflicted? 

This is a great example of a well-written complex character. These kinds of characters are defined as much by their own actions as they are by their relationships with other characters. They might make the right choice, but the story makes it clear that that was not the only option they considered. They have moments of vulnerability that show their struggles, and it is made clear that their actions are not effortless, but they ultimately make the right choice, or if they do slip up, they try their best to fix the damage. 

Now, I'm not saying that I have anything against "mixed bag characters." That couldn't be further from the truth. These characters can be super intriguing, and still likable despite their mistakes. However, I wish that there were more characters who tend to do the "right thing" and still manage to be complex. I also wish that characters like John, who pretend to be complex by being jerks most of the time and then occasionally not being jerks, would stop appearing in stories so often.