During my Wordpress days, I wrote a text on identification and sympathy in fiction, centered on Paul Carpenter of Tom Holt’s “The Portable Door”. (With a part of the text relegated to a separate post through inattention; also note a more tangentially related follow up.)
In the last year-or-so, I have read a fair amount of Japanese light novels (in English translation), and I have found that sympathizing with the protagonists is often hard and often through problems that are similar to those of Paul Carpenter. Indeed, while I was and remain sceptical to the idea of identification (as opposed to just sympathy), there are cases when the differences between me and the protagonists are so large that the absence of identification becomes so strong that I suspect that I have underestimated how much I normally, on an unconscious level, might be identifying with protagonists.
While I will not go into a “compare and contrast” with Paul Carpenter, the below-mentioned “KonoSuba” has the problem of a protagonist going from clever to moron (whereas Paul Carpenter was a bit of a moron to begin with), while e.g. “Mushoku Tensei” has a difference in whether someone is a “lovable loser” or someone unlovable, or even vile, whether loser or not, and while protagonists in other series might be losers while failing on the lovable and/or on their authors not raising enough sympathy for them.
(I will also, however, just use some limited examples and not attempt a more thorough review of various series. The more so, as I have often, as with “KonoSuba”, just read several books and then given up.)
Consider “KonoSuba”: For the first three books, the protagonist had his various problems, but he was clever, he did what he could with what little resources he had, he was repeatedly the victim of undeserved hardship and injustices, and he, if nothing else, was the one person with a functioning brain in the party of four adventurers that he found himself, not entirely voluntarily, leading.
In the fourth book, it seems that the author sets about to turn him into a complete loser by any means necessary, be they rooted in the character or his circumstances, be they compatible or incompatible with the previous books, including (with reservations for memory errors and the complication that I did a fair amount of skipping and skimming before giving up on the book):
After going from poor to wealthy, he has also turned lazy. This might be forgivable, but is not a strong and sympathy inducing trait. This the more so, as he lost the drive for self-improvement, which is close to my own heart.
From being somewhat daring and willing to take any fight needed, bordering on the incautious, he turns into a coward. This includes fleeing a demon general in wild panic when he and his allies have already defeated two demon generals—and while he now had a stronger set of allies available than during those victories. (This was the point where I stopped reading and gave up on the series, on a last-straw basis; also see below.)
Above all, he has turned into an incompetent moron, making mistakes and misjudgments that made me cringe. This includes being so careless and celebratory after killing a dangerous monster per bow and arrow that he, as the monster crashed into the tree in which he was sitting, fell out of said tree and was summarily killed by other monsters; failing to bring said bow and arrow in a situation where he really should have and where it could have gained him many bonus points; falling into an obvious trap that his female party members had set for him in a bath house; and, with regard to the aforementioned demon general, initially underestimating him because he was a slime (a type of monster—not a despicable human being). To the last: Not only had the protagonist very obviously failed to do background research on the level of (in universe) general knowledge, which would have showed him that slimes could be quite dangerous opponents in this world, but he also leaped to assumptions without considering obvious complications like that a weak-seeming opponent could be stronger than expected (as he, himself, demonstrated in the first three books). This the more so, as this likely was the first slime that he faced, as said slime looked human (an indication of unusual powers), and as it had a dire sounding longer name. (What this longer name was, I do not remember, but a recurring issue is that monsters with longer names have more powers, are stronger, whatnot, than those with a “plain” name. He, then, had at least two warning signs, human looks and long name, that pointed to something very much above average for a slime.)
These examples, the first in particular, are not necessarily what made me consider him a moron the most strongly during reading, but my memory of events has faded and I pick from what I remember.
However, here some differentiation might be needed in detail. Consider the “I parry everything” (reservation for name) series: The protagonist of this series is, in part, oblivious. In particular, he seems to be unable to put two and two together where he, himself, and his own abilities are concerned. For instance, early in the first book, he defeats a Minotaur, but misconstrues it as a cow, later hears that a Minotaur had appeared in the approximate area where he had been at the time, and that it had been defeated by a mysterious stranger—yet, he fails to understand that he, himself, was the mysterious stranger and is relieved that he did not have the misfortune of running into the Minotaur, when a mere cow had given him such problems...
However, unlike with “KonoSuba”, we have a protagonist who (to date, knock on wood) has been consistent in his limitations, who has been “lovable” in his limitations, and who is exceptionally competent in several less mentally challenging areas. He is also exceptionally hard working, brave, and whatnot. Moreover, his limitations are a great source of humor, while those in “KonoSuba” are just cringe-worthy and depressing. (I concede, however, that the joke has worn a bit thin through straining credibility in how long he could realistically remain ignorant of his own strength and accomplishment.)
In many ways, he turned pathetic. The aforementioned death after falling out of a tree could be seen as an example (as could a fair bit of the above, more generally), but what followed next is even worse: As he lands in front of a goddess in the afterlife to determine his future fate (and, no, he did not die permanently, due to some special provisions), he at first wisely makes the choice to give up on his current life, filled with problems, fights (including the need to, in the long term, defeat the demon king), and three female party members who are more problem than use (none of which was a girlfriend, and which he had all more-or-less babysat in the three previous books), in favor of a fresh start somewhere else—and then caves because the three threaten to scribble embarrassing things on his corpse. What a lack of priorities and what a lack of resolve! (And if he falls so easily for that type of extortion, he puts himself in a very poor position for the continuation of their relationships.)
Indeed, his reaction was another cause of anti-identification: In his shoes, had I not already been moved to break ties with the three, these threats would almost certainly have moved me to do so. They would not have altered my decision to move on but would have cemented it, or, assuming a slightly different situation, been what pushed me over the border to move on.
Of course, if he had gone through with this change of life, it would have ended the series (or changed its character very strongly), but it would then have been better for the author to either never include the original decision of a change of life or to provide a more noble reason to revise the decision, say, an appeal to the protagonist’s good heart and how his party and/or the fight against the demon king needed him.
Alternatively, to not have him die at all: Here we have an interesting anti-parallel with “The Portable Door” and its sequels. In these the protagonist died and was revived repeatedly and in a way that had me laughing and which had relevance to the story. In “KonoSuba”, the protagonist died and was revived repeatedly in a way that brought no true value to anything, or might even have done harm, and it would have been better to leave matters at the one death needed to move from “our” world to the world of “KonoSuba”. (With reservations for what might or might not happen in the later, unread by me, portions of the series.)
He is inexplicably turned into a loser in terms of physical and other capabilities (following a “stats and levels” system as is common in many adventuring games), where he firstly loses levels relative his companions when he reasonably should be gaining, and where his stats are ret-conned from great Luck, high Intelligence, and otherwise average, to great Luck and otherwise abysmal. This to the point that he finds himself unable to move in a suit of armor through lack of physical strength... (No, not unable to spend two hours fighting a battle—unable to move.)
More generally, while the previous books saw him as (again) something of a babysitter for his three party members, as the one adult in the room surrounded by three exaggerated comic characters, something akin to a Ricky Ricardo surrounded by three Lucies, he was now increasingly the “bottom dog”, the butt of their jokes, etc.
In the end, I gave up on the series, largely, because I could no longer take the protagonist seriously. I might or might not have been able to swallow factors like laziness (especially, if temporary) and what was outside his control (e.g. weird stats issues), but his sudden stupidity and incompetence made him impossible—the more so as he all too often was a wet noodle. Add in a drop in other quality, poor story lines, whatnot, and I could not justify giving book five an attempt, even on the basis of just writing book four off as an individual flop.
The fourth book (maybe, already the third) also illustrates a recurring problem with light novel series, namely, that the author has a few good books in him, after which the writing turns worse and worse. I note, in particular, a journey to and weird adventures at a spa that bordered on the idiotic in their respective developments, annoying religious fanatics, a villainous plot to foil that did not really make sense, and e.g. that the fight that brought the aforementioned death and return seemed to have no connection to the overall story of the book and brought little value of its own, leaving me with the impression that it was a gratuitous excuse to set him up for that death (and my opinions on the death are already clear), maybe, as a step towards turning the protagonist into a loser.
The more general issue might be a topic for a later text and here I only note that frequent problems with even originally good series include increasing amounts of filler, worse and less plausible story developments, too many characters, characters (both among the good guys and the bad guys) becoming too powerful or otherwise too exaggerated, a humor that grows to stale and repetitive (the more so, as the humor used by various authors is often similar to begin with), and fight scenes that are ten times longer than the skill of the author allows. (“Black Summoner” is a good illustration of many such problems.) An underlying problem is likely that the authors of successful series underlie a heavy publication schedule, which can lead to a drop in quality to keep quantity up and outright invites the use of filler. (As a reader, I would prefer that quantity was sacrificed in favor of quality and that the filler was cut.)
“Mushoku Tensei” is unfortunate in other regards, notably, in the pre-reincarnation period of the protagonists history, which were so anti-sympathetic that I considered giving up reading at a very early stage, and ultimately skimmed/skipped most of the early material, until the “real” story began. (As with “KonoSuba”, this is a work in the life-in-a-different-world-post-death-in-the-original-world genre so common in light novels, and what happens before the switch of world is rarely very important to the overall story and tends not to tell the reader much about the later worth and nature of the books.) What followed was much better, in part because the protagonist takes his death and reincarnation as cause to truly start over. Even so, there are post-reincarnation aspects that I found outright off-putting and/or brought me a feeling of anti-identification. This most notably in how he perved on and stole women’s panties and built a one-man quasi-cult around his erstwhile (female) teacher—both incomprehensible to me. I can understand having an interest in a woman without panties but panties without a woman?!? What is so interesting about a mere piece of cloth? And how does interest justify theft? Likewise, I could understand someone having a crush on a teacher, but not literal shrine building and other demented excesses. (Of course, that she later became one of his three wives raises the question which of the two was the bigger weirdo—and, unlike his counterpart in “KonoSuba”, he actually had three wives and not three platonic chores.)
With “Mushoku Tensei” we have a series sufficiently long and changing that a characterization is hard. Many scenes with and behaviors of the protagonist induce sympathy, many others do not, as he is followed from early childhood to some point in his 20s (?) in some detail, with shorter portions covering both his previous life and his life post-20s.
An issue with many series is poor language choices that reflect an immature, unheroic, easily impressionable, whatnot mentality in the protagonist. For instance, I find it hard to take a protagonist seriously who frequently goes “Um...”, “Wow!”, “Wait! You mean that ...”, uses and misuses “like” with the frequency of a stereotypical valley girl, or similar. That “Wow!”, e.g., might be acceptable in a teenage girl who tries to give a teenage boy the impression (whether honestly or dishonestly) that she is impressed by him, but is otherwise hard to defend. At a minimum, something less infantile should be used, e.g. a specific comment (that a large building is referenced in terms of its size, a beautiful one in terms of its beauty, etc., for other characteristics and other things/persons/whatnot—vice versa, imagine Shakespeare having Romeo comment “Wow!” when he first saw Juliet). Sometimes it might be better to “play it cool”, to not give an impressed reaction to the outside world.
Likewise, why do characters so rarely think, argue, reason, believe, assume, whatnot, and so often “feel” or “guess”? And: What does that tell us about the intellectual development and attitudes of these characters? Certainly, nothing good—it reeks of the wishy-washy, the anti-intellectual, the indecisive (note the difference between having healthy doubt and skepticism and being indecisive), the easily manipulated, the whatnot. Apart from core special cases, e.g. “the surface feels rough”, a good author/translator would exterminate the use of “feel” (and its variations) from the text at hand, in favor of “I think that X”, “I argue that Y”, etc. Even “I feel hungry” will usually be improved by a move to “I am hungry”. (Indeed, even a “the surface is rough” might be an improvement.) The result is not just a better text but characters that are far more likely to be taken seriously. Ditto “guess”, where even the answer to a literal guessing game might be just “your left hand” or “I pick your left hand” (or whatever might be appropriate in the current game), while there is a wide variety of words that can be used in other cases, e.g. “surmise” and “speculate”. (The abuses of “guess”, however, are so varied that a separate text might be needed to give a fair discussion.) Indeed, for both “feel” and “guess” a complete cut is often beneficial, turning, say, “I feel that we should go east” into “we should go east” or “I guess that you are right” into “you are right”.
Indeed, in many cases, I work on the assumption (which might or might not actually hold true) that the translator is an idiot and that the original Japanese was less unflattering, the problem arising through poor translation. The obvious improvement of “Um...” to “Ahem.” or “Well...” could often be a good match. (What improvements are good matches will depend on the exact context.)
Indeed, some assumptions about poor translation and/or differences between English and Japanese idiom/grammar/whatnot are almost necessary when we throw a wider net. Particular problems in the English versions (but usually reflecting redundancy problems rather than character problems), include phrasings like “I went ahead and bought X” over the (almost always superior) “I bought X”, and “it is not as if I am hungry” or “there is no way that I am hungry” over “I am not hungry”.
Likewise, the extreme PC abuse of “they”, found in so many of the light novels that I have read, is unlikely to reflect deficits in the characters, and more that the Japanese system for grammatical gender appears to be radically different from the English and that the Japanese take on pronouns is highly incompatible with the English. (Generally, a great amount of nuance is lost through the extreme differences between the two languages, the respective language conventions, etc.; in particular, where personal relationships, relative status, and similar, are concerned.)
A separate text on the many problems in grammar, style, redundancy, whatnot in a typical light novel translation might follow at a later date.