Why is MC with collected personality viewed as 'no personality'

[Marina2]

This is something I always wonder......

Some times, a main character who can stay cool and calm under any pressure* are criticized as 'boring' because "He/She is always wearing a serious face and never showed any personality" Some people even feel 'annoyed' by how those characters acted or called them "Mary Sue" in some case.

What I find even more strange is that if this kind of characters are a side character, people usually have a problem with them and might even call them "best character" because he/she looks so cool compare to MC. But as MC?, some people dislike them.

I don't understand why being 'collected' are viewed as 'no personality' Do character really need to be funny or cheerful or and smile/laugh/panic/ a lot in order to "have personality"?

...........................................

*Character in this case is someone like: Yusaku and Yusei from Yu-Gi-OH series if you need some reference. There are better examples but somehow I can't think of their name in my head right now.

[Haak]

If you want to understand a piece of criticism then I recommended asking from the person who said it because you'll probably never get a real understanding of a criticism you've seen otherwise.

Personally, I tend to empathise with characters that are removed from their comfort zone and see how they react, because I can be more emotionally involved with them. I can admire their endurance and/or feel sorry for their plight for example.

But those that are never put under their paces and just breeze through a story that literally handholds them is never going to make me feel anything. In that regards I've come across unemotional characters but also perpetually cheerful characters that just never receive any real challenge. They can both be equally annoying for different reasons. Unemotional characters tend to come across as faux badass and embarrassingly edgelordy whilst the perpetual happy people just make me want to strangle them. In either case, the problem is the same: they are far too alien to be relatable.

[Marcus H.]

Thing is, we don't seem to have this problem with Western characters.
I feel like it's not just the character being collected that's the issue; there are several aspects like the character's impact in the story, any justification for the lack of portrayal of emotions, the character in the eyes of other characters, and most notably how the character is written by the author.

Characters that are written by authors with a limited vocabulary or not enough research will inevitably be seen as "lacking personality" because the author is unable to bring out the desired characterization. We can say that it's pretty common with light novel or web novel authors.

[Archon_Wing]

It really depends if they have extra depth to them, or if they just are there as a vehicle to move the plot. And it takes a bit to stand out; someone like Inaho from Aldnoah;Zero is a pretty bad example since he seemed like he could be replaced by someone else.

[Mad Pierrot]

While not anime I guess both Squall and Cloud's depressed form from Advent Children might qualify as this. Then again, the reason for their behavior is this but it seems it's not enough for the fandom to stop critcizing them. Cloud had extra scenes in Advent Children's director's cut which emphasized more why he acts like this in the movie.

Can't think of other type of characters. I guess antiheroes in general tend to be viewed as this.

[Akito Kinomoto]

The question to ask is whether the character is actually written as the strong, silent type (Kiritsugu Emiya) or if it's impossible to gleam a personality from them at all (Shirou Emiya)

Thank you and good night!

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

It really depends if they have extra depth to them, or if they just are there as a vehicle to move the plot. And it takes a bit to stand out; someone like Inaho from Aldnoah;Zero is a pretty bad example since he seemed like he could be replaced by someone else.

It's funny that you mention that because I've always thought the dislike he got was kinda unfair. I always thought his expressionless poker face was a bit of amusing quirk and part of his eccentricity. I do have to admit that I never really did figure out just why he was made to be like that. The only underlying theme I could possibly imagine is some kind of meta joke about flat and one dimensional main characters but I've always found it's never a good idea to base fundamental writing purely on meta that a "muggle" wouldn't understand (unless its a full on work of abstract, like what Shaft does).

So in that regards I can see why it might have irked some given the apparent lack of point to it. It might be worth comparing and contrasting to another emotionless mecha pilot called Mikazuki from Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans. His was the more "scary" kind that I never saw anybody take issue with and I guess probably because we were able to tolerate it because we could see a point to the way he was. And I guess it also helped that he had a good partnership with Olga, where as Inaho was a bit of a one man army.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Haak

It's funny that you mention that because I've always thought the dislike he got was kinda unfair. I always thought his expressionless poker face was a bit of amusing quirk and part of his eccentricity. I do have to admit that I never really did figure out just why he was made to be like that. The only underlying theme I could possibly imagine is some kind of meta joke about flat and one dimensional main characters but I've always found it's never a good idea to base fundamental writing purely on meta that a "muggle" wouldn't understand (unless its a full on work of abstract, like what Shaft does).

So in that regards I can see why it might have irked some given the apparent lack of point to it. It might be worth comparing and contrasting to another emotionless mecha pilot called Mikazuki from Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans. His was the more "scary" kind that I never saw anybody take issue with and I guess probably because we were able to tolerate it because we could see a point to the way he was. And I guess it also helped that he had a good partnership with Olga, where as Inaho was a bit of a one man army.

lol I just thought AZ's cast was just dull overall; that really doesn't help.

Mikazuki was w/e but I never really had issue with him.

In general I think it's pretty standard for us to have the most insight into what MC thinks so when that happens things feel a bit off.

[serenade_beta]

The protagonist stands out -> Good
The protagonist doesn't stand out -> I couldn't' care less about him
The protagonist is annoying -> Bad

The "no personality" criticism probably falls in the second category.

Also, I'm not sure Yusei falls in that category, if not just because of all the JP memes using him.

[ArrowSmith]

Might as well just call them 'MC-kun'.

[-G1-]

It is expected that MC characters will have something in them that will push the plot forward, and passivity, being calm and collected, isn't a trait that will help with that.

I think it can also be because this kind of behavior is harder to explain than normal reactions (extraordinary behaviors need extraordinary explanations). This wouldn't be a problem if the character has a background story that explain his "collected" character; otherwise, it may seem like lazy writing. I don't expect much backstory from a side character even if his actions are extraordinary.

[dragon1412]

Most likely because it is harder to make a collected MC struggle and harder to them to stand out like above said, there are plenty of good calm and collected MC out there though, the famous one recently would be Goblin slayers, Accelerator in TAMNI probably count too. Gin from gintama is also pretty calm when it count. We also have stuff like Golden Kamuy, frankly all war veterans there are the example of being calm and collected, or if you want the weaker version, Osamu from world trigger definitely counted as well.

The truth is that vibrant characters are easier to stand out and make people remember them and it is also much easier to build a story about them, there is a reason why shounen main characters have similar personality traits, I mean, it is much easier for a character like Naruto to run into trouble on his own compare to, let say Sugimoto. It is much harder to build coincident or issues around a calm MC since it have to be reasonable enough to lead to MC events with it. But when the author carefully consider it, i think calm MC have a much deeper story compare to usual colorful personality MC.

[Haak]

Sugimoto is pretty much the exact opposite of what I'd consider "calm and collected". The guy literally screams "I'M THE INVINCIBLE SUGIMOTO" at every point of action in an effort to convince his broken heart that he isn't going to die.

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by Haak

Sugimoto is pretty much the exact opposite of what I'd consider "calm and collected". The guy literally screams "I'M THE INVINCIBLE SUGIMOTO" at every point of action in an effort to convince his broken heart that he isn't going to die.

I'd not say so, i mean, his scream is more like battle cry to overcome difficulty rather than some kind of hot header personality. Frankly screaming is not really an indicator of collected or hot blooded MC, I mean people get high in adrenaline and they scream. Take a look at his behaviour, which i think is a better indicator:
- Stay perfectly calm when Tsurumi stab the dango skewer through his mouth.
- Calm enough to set up a mirror to trick the Russian sniper before throw him down.
- When Ogata snipe Wilk in Abashiri, he is calm enough to use him as cover when Ogata put the second shot on Sugimoto.

Frankly beside the fight near the Banya, which he is own to his brain issues and situation involved Asirpa safety, Sugimoto fighting style is precise and collected, he think before he act, knowing what should be done or not, i'd call that pretty calm and collected. It just that Sugimoto is rather talkative rather than the usual stereotype quiet = calm but you could see the mentality switch whenever he is prepare to kill.

[rladls2121]

I thought Yusei and Yusaku at least have reasons to be like that.
They both had harsh life even before the start of the series.
Characters like Yugi, Judai, Yuma, and Yuya at least didn't go through too much pain as two of them did.
Except Judai, all of these MCs still catch anyone their attention no matter hard they try not to stand out because of their hairstyles.