# What do you think is the core flaw in people?



## AquaRoxas (Mar 17, 2017)

So, when developing characters, flaws are very important, obviously. What do you say, in your experience of meeting people and from whatever you understand, is the most common or core flaw in people? 

I personally think it's close-mindedness i.e. ignorance about other people and a lack of acceptance of other beliefs. Or, I think it's a lack of self-evaluation i.e. the failure to be able to critically analyse and deduce your own shortcomings while maintaining a sense of confidence and belief in yourself. 

So what do you think?


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## Ptolemy (Mar 17, 2017)

I don't think it's "closed-mindedness" as it is people's personal perceptions of others flaws that is the greatest flaw of them all. 

The thing is, while we derive our developmental characteristics from real life situations, not all character development can be formulated naturally. In the real, physical world, it takes years for us to "develop" the personalities and emotions we hold dear. With a novel, we must draw a line between character development and oversaturation. Because, as with anything, to much of something is always a bad thing. This is true with character development and flaws. Yes, the flaws should be realistic and allow us to get some sympathy points with our readers, but if you make the flaws to exogenous you threaten the careful balance between writing and describing. 

So, to answer your question, "What do I think?" I think that our ability to grow and understand flaws is our true flaw. I'll use a simple sociology trick here; The only reason words/people/things etc have power, is because we give them that power. It works in the same way with "flaws". Flaws, or imperfections, are only flaws because we denote that they are flaws. Close-mindedness, judgements, misinterpreting, those canned flaws sure, but they are not present in all. There is no great "one flaw that rules them all" as many "flaws" inhabit themselves inside us. Not everyone is judgmental, not everyone is closed-minded all the time. It's just simply our perception of flaws that is the flaw.


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## K.S. Crooks (Mar 17, 2017)

Well there are of course the 7 deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, pride, envy, lust and wrath. Another way of looking at this off the top of my head- lack of true confidence, over-involvement with self, lack strength of perseverance, but I think the biggest problem is a lack of empathy.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Mar 18, 2017)

Pride. 

More specifically, lack of humility. 

Everyone is selfish. There is so much emphasis put on the self. It's not healthy, it's not right. 

So many problems would go away completely if people were humble. 

Even the concept of humility incites negative emotion. People don't know what the word really means, and assume that humility means to be a doormat, or give up your rights. 

If the whole world thought more of others, and less of themselves, to the healthy proper degree, earth would be a better place to live.


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## ArtBlinked (Mar 18, 2017)

I say a hard heart. Those characters that despite all, they refuse to change for the better. Even when given a second chance, and a third, and fourth.


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## Pallandozi (Sep 8, 2020)

Varies with the culture.

For example, in a warrior culture, lack of courage might be seen, in any amount, as a flaw.   In a different culture rudeness, breaking your word, or some other practice might outweigh that, while a less judgemental attitude towards courage would reduce the number that they consider to be lacking in it.

So, give, the same set of 100 people, in the warrior culture, 40 might be seen as cowards and 20 as rude; while in the extremely polite society that same group of 100 might be seen as containing 10 cowards and 30 rude people.     Which flaw, then, would be the more "common"?


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## CyberWar (Sep 9, 2020)

I think the most fundamental flaw of all people regardless of background is the tendency to always choose the easiest path - which from an evolutionary standpoint makes perfect sense. However, civilization is in many ways a direct contradiction to easy choices. The ability to consciously choose making that extra effort for something bigger than mere survival is what separates us from the rest of animals. The tendency to always choose the easy way if given opportunity is a logical survival tool in nature, but detrimental in civilized society.

I would think that this tendency towards the easiest choice is the reason behind most ills of any civilized society, especially in contemporary Western civilization that has literally defined itself around the freedom of choice - which in most cases is going to be the easiest one.


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## bdcharles (Sep 9, 2020)

A nigh-irresistible desire to follow the loudest voice. Though even that is only a flaw from my perspective; in all likelihood such people do well for themselves because of it, so ... I dunno. In my darker, more Randesque (yes, I almost said "Randy") moments I'd say the tendency to try and better ourselves by considering our problems in an enlightened fashion rather than giving in to our base desires, which, as an approach, has two million years of empirical evidence to back it up where the alternative seems to cause nothing but trouble.

Heavy, heavy.


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## Joker (Sep 9, 2020)

Refusal to acknowledge the capacity of evil in all of us.

Statistically speaking, if you were living in Nazi Germany, you would not be a hero risking your life to save Jews. You'd have been complicit or worse, actively helping the authorities.


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## Taylor (Sep 9, 2020)

Black and White thinking.  The inability to absorb a series of facts, and form an opinion that is not on one end of the spectrum, but some form of grey.  

I see this flaw as the basis for many conflicts, battles and wars.  

I also see it as the culprit for many underdeveloped, boring characters.   For many writers, once they have pigeonholed their character, either good or evil, they find it hard to attribute any features contrary to the correlating, expected characteristics.


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## Lee Messer (Sep 10, 2020)

I love this question. It is a much needed discussion. I read every comment, and every comment was correct. All of you are intelligent by my standards. Each comment had valid points, and it is difficult to add at this point, but I think I can find one more based from what is given.

We assume too much without knowledge of such.
It is not ignorance, we should know better.
It is prejudice coming from all cultures, and beset upon all cultures.
It is choosing without knowing. We create a picture, and perspectives based off of fleeting moments.
We do this quite often because we pretentiously believe we are relatively smarter than the average monkey-person.
Which may be true for us monkeys, but nonetheless, we do assume too much.
Making judgements too soon... choosing a viewpoint in such a short span is collaboratively contaminating our culture causing everyone to be prejudiced.
Everyone becomes isolated, and afraid.
The violence will come... and it will as it always has come, from fear. You have to understand evil to see what is being done to us. Otherwise, you assume too much.


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## Davi Mai (Sep 10, 2020)

I think it essentially boils down to self-interest.  Which might be considered a natural defensive strategy too. We're not really a hive-mind species, or even a wolf-pack one really. People are selfish. In fact because everyone is selfish its perhaps not an interesting character flaw to give someone when writing a story. But yeah, that's my answer. Everything stems from being selfish. Even sexism and racism if you think about it. Fear of the "other"  too. ie.  " you're not like me, so you're a threat".


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## Rojack79 (Sep 15, 2020)

Taylor said:


> Black and White thinking.  The inability to absorb a series of facts, and form an opinion that is not on one end of the spectrum, but some form of grey.
> 
> I see this flaw as the basis for many conflicts, battles and wars.
> 
> I also see it as the culprit for many underdeveloped, boring characters.   For many writers, once they have pigeonholed their character, either good or evil, they find it hard to attribute any features contrary to the correlating, expected characteristics.



See this is something that I'm currently struggling with for my MC in my novel. He's a knight in shining armor archetype, ah a paragon like captain america. I honestly don't see anything wrong with either archetype seeing as we do have good and evil in the real world, but giving a good guy evil flaws or a bad guy good virtues just doesn't really make much sense to me. I mean I know that there are very few all good or all evil people in the history of the world but to say that there's an issue with them in fiction is something that I just don't see the point in. P.S. sorry if my post is confusing, being sick with C19 is kinda messing with my head at the moment.


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## Taylor (Sep 15, 2020)

Rojack79 said:


> See this is something that I'm currently struggling with for my MC in my novel. He's a knight in shining armor archetype, ah a paragon like captain america. I honestly don't see anything wrong with either archetype seeing as we do have good and evil in the real world, but giving a good guy evil flaws or a bad guy good virtues just doesn't really make much sense to me. I mean I know that there are very few all good or all evil people in the history of the world but to say that there's an issue with them in fiction is something that I just don't see the point in. P.S. sorry if my post is confusing, being sick with C19 is kinda messing with my head at the moment.




Sorry you're not feeling well!  

I do know what you mean.  It is very difficult to mess with the archetypes, especially for certain genres.  But it really depends on your target market.  Many of your readers may expect clearly defined good and evil characters.  You wouldn't need to worry what I think, because likely I'm not your target market.  I tend to look for complicated stories with complicated characters.  

But it could be interesting to see if you experimented creatively and found a slight flaw or unexpected characteristics for your knight, to see if your readership responds positively or negatively to it.  Maybe he envies someone else because they have a more simple life.  Or perhaps he sometimes grows weary in the face of evil.  I'm not suggesting it's easy.  

I'm still trying to find a good flaw for my protagonist's love interest.  So far I have made him out to be Mr. perfect.  I want my readers to be in love with him as well, so I risk turning them off if he has say commitment issues or doesn't manage his finances properly.   Any ideas welcome.

Take care and get well!


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## Rojack79 (Sep 15, 2020)

Taylor said:


> Sorry you're not feeling well!
> 
> I do know what you mean.  It is very difficult to mess with the archetypes, especially for certain genres.  But it really depends on your target market.  Many of your readers may expect clearly defined good and evil characters.  You wouldn't need to worry what I think, because likely I'm not your target market.  I tend to look for complicated stories with complicated characters.
> 
> ...



Hmmmm thinking it over having him faulter in the face of evil and be envious of others would definitely for with his character. The basic premise is that he's a "fish out of water" character whos sent centuries into the future, so all that he knows and loves is gone. In the world he finds himself in everyone see's him as this angelic savoir sent by God to help them, and he doesn't feel like he'll be able to love up to everyone's expectations. So if he faulters in a fight it's because he feels inadequate as a protector and he could easily become envious of others who have their family.


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 16, 2020)

Doing what they are told.

I have used it several times and it is true, people do what they are told if you sound authoritative enough. Like helping someone who had a bike crash and a crowd starts to gather, "Stand back and move on please." in a loud voice and people move back and start to drift away. That is using it for fairly good cause, but it still works when someone shouts, "Don't stand for it, smack him one". The people who think for themselves are a small minority, but, like the minority of very good drivers, the vast majority think they belong to it


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