Character Flaws

Not every character with a flaw rises above it. Instead, some choose to ignore or embrace their flaws, stalling the growth that could lead to happiness. Antagonists are particularly prone to this line of thinking, as they often serve as dark parallels to the protagonist. “Broken in some deep and defining way,” write Ackerman and Puglisi, “[the antagonist] believes that his goals will bring him closer to feeling complete, not understanding how his flaws and skewed view of the world are the very things holding him back from true happiness.”^⁠4 Instead of rising above their flaws like protagonists, antagonists either refuse to acknowledge their flaws or view them as positive traits that don’t need to be overcome. When the antagonist is as well-rounded as the protagonist, their reluctance to overcome their flaw comes from their trauma, and they’re unwilling to revisit it because it’s too painful to acknowledge. While one-dimensional antagonists lack this additional degree of complexity, they still have flaws that drive them, and their inability to overcome them is what leads to their downfall. 

When a character starts in a positive place only to succumb to their flaws, this is known as a Corruption Arc. The comic-based fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us (NetherRealm Studios, 2013) features a version of Superman whose flaws are used against him to turn him into an antagonist. When Injustice: Gods Among Us begins, Superman has already been forcibly thrust into his Corruption Arc by the Joker, who mind-controlled Superman into killing his wife and child (similar to Kratos in the God of War), along with millions of other people in his home city of Metropolis. Shattered by the tragedy, Superman responds by killing the Joker and overthrowing the government to lead a totalitarian regime. This impulse comes from the flaw of overprotectiveness, again mirroring Kratos, but unlike Kratos, the distraught Superman does not rise above his flaw. Instead, he succumbs to it, becoming an antagonist that must be stopped. Although the bulk of his character arc occurs either before the game or during its opening scenes, Superman still follows a classic Corruption Arc, and his failure to overcome his flaws become his downfall. 

The other type of character arc that involves a character succumbing to their flaws is the Fall Arc, in which a character who has already succumbed to their flaws has a chance to rise above them, yet ultimately chooses to re-embrace them. Final Fantasy VII’s (Square Enix, 1997) Sephiroth is a classic example of an antagonist with a Fall Arc driven by his own weaknesses. In Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth is a powerful soldier who believes himself to be superior to normal human beings. This sense of superiority, his weakness, comes from a mixture of lies he was told during his upbringing and his success in the military. His opportunity to reject his flaw comes when he’s stabbed by a middling recruit (the protagonist, Cloud Strife) and left for dead. Instead of recognizing this encounter as proof that he’s no better than anyone else, Sephiroth clings to his belief in his own superiority and becomes even more obsessed with proving it, and is ultimately taken down by that same middling recruit as a consequence. Had Sephiroth recognized his flaw, he could have grown and found a new path to happiness, but instead, he doubled down and embraced the flaw, solidifying his role as antagonist.