Let’s start out without any misunderstandings: I am a straight white guy. But stories about straight white guys are getting less and less interesting to me these days. My annual best-books-I-read-this-year posts show the trend; more and more, the books I enjoy the most feature female protagonists (often, though by no means always, written by female authors). I’m also reading more stories with queer or non-white protagonists, and often those too are among the ones that make it to Best of the Year.

Why is this? I’ve been wondering that myself.

My conclusion is that the kind of stories that tend to get told about straight white guys are a lot more limited than the ones about other kinds of protagonists. The archetypal straight white guy story is “I pass a test to come into my birthright of power, respect, and the love of women”; the archetypal story for someone who isn’t a straight white guy is more “I battle to make a place for myself in a world that doesn’t want to fit me.”

Thing is, a lot of the time the test the SWG passes to come into his (supposed) birthright is pretty simple. Sometimes the payoff is almost handed to him as a participation trophy, just for turning up and being a SWG; other times, he only has to hit a few simple plot points. He can be reluctant, he can be foolish, he can be incompetent, he can be lazy, he can even screw up majorly with dire consequences for others, and still receive the prize. And often, other characters in the story – notably the woman whose love he receives as part of his payoff – are more interesting, competent, capable, and motivated than he is, and I wish I was getting their story instead. I believe the term “Trinity effect” (referring to the Matrix movies) is relevant here; I’ve also referred to it as the Wyldstyle effect, referencing The Lego Movie.

Let’s divert for a moment and talk about that whole “birthright” thing. If you’ve read much of my musings, you’ll be aware that I’m allergic to Chosen Ones, and part of the reason is that the Chosen One often doesn’t have to work that hard or exhibit much agency in order to achieve their plot goals. They can drag their feet, they can not put in the practice or listen to their mentor or even follow basic common sense, and the universe will distort itself around them to hand them unearned victory. This is what I call the Spoiled Protagonist. I say in the post I’ve just linked that the Spoiled Protagonist is often female, and I have read plenty of female examples; but the straight white guy is the spoiled protagonist that I sometimes don’t even notice, because there’s such a powerful cultural norm of SWGs getting handed things they haven’t truly earned.

Another big reason for my aversion to Chosen Ones, though, is that I don’t believe in the myth of the divine right of kings. Unfortunately, a lot of fiction does still act as if this myth is true, as if your ancestry grants you some kind of destiny. At one point in The Dresden Files (a series I love, by the way, despite its straight-white-guy protagonist) someone, I forget exactly who, traces the ancestry of Michael Carpenter, one of the wielders of the holy swords, to Charlemagne, and this is presented as part of what qualifies him to wield the sword. His character by itself is apparently not enough.

The thing is, Charlemagne died in the year 814 and had 18 children. Actually, the number of children is irrelevant; even if he’d only had one child, if anyone alive today was his descendant (which we know to be the case), then, statistically, everyone of European descent alive today is his descendant. This is because, according to statistician Joseph Chang, any person who lived long enough ago and who is anyone’s ancestor is eventually everyone’s ancestor. So of course Michael Carpenter, who has European ancestry, is descended from Charlemagne. So am I.

Likewise, when a 12-year-old girl traced the ancestry of all but one of the US presidents to the English king John Lackland (the exception being Martin Van Buren, who was Dutch), it was reported as if some sort of genetic destiny brought them to their leadership positions. But again, John died in 1216, more than 800 years ago. Everyone with any English or Scottish ancestry from before the 20th century – including me, and including most if not all of the people who stood for the office of US president and didn’t win – is descended from him by this point. It means nothing. (I say “from before the 20th century” because there are English and Scottish people whose ancestors all immigrated to those countries within the last 100 years.)

And, of course, if you go back far enough – and “far enough” may not actually be all that far – we all have common ancestors. If you want your cultural assumptions about how much “race” means challenged (even if you’re fairly liberal in your ideas), I highly recommend Angela Saini’s book Superior (link is to my Goodreads review).

So the idea that your ancestry, including your white ancestry, conveys any sort of superiority or qualifies you for anything at all is not only erroneous but, I believe, toxic. Likewise with male gender; read Saini’s earlier book Inferior for more on that. And if, at this point of the 21st century, you still believe that people who aren’t straight are somehow lesser because of that, I’m not going to waste my time arguing with you.

So the straight white guy is not in any objective way superior, but all too often gets treated as if he is. Not only in fiction, but in real life too. Let’s stick with fiction, though, for the moment, since that’s what I’m talking about.

The problem with the usual SWG protagonist is that, just because of who he is, he doesn’t face as many challenges, and a protagonist who succeeds without much effort is simply not as interesting to me. He doesn’t need to be capable to become a respected ruler, or attractive to gain the love of a woman who is, frankly, better than he is, or work hard to achieve his plot goal or defeat the antagonist. It’s his Destiny.

So what about the unusual SWG protagonist? Can he still be interesting to me? He can, though it takes a bit more work from him and from his author.

A kind and considerate protagonist is interesting. Straight white guys don’t, traditionally, have to be kind and considerate to get what’s coming to them, but if they are, that makes them more interesting to me. Bill, the protagonist of the early P.G. Wodehouse book Uneasy Money, is such a man, and it instantly made me like him. In my own work, Patient from Hope and the Patient Man is kind, considerate, and supportive of his beloved. When I’m looking for a romance hero, that’s what I look for, because their winning of their love feels earned.

It helps that Patient is also disabled. A straight white guy who has some genuine obstacle to overcome is interesting, as long as he doesn’t overcome it too easily. Part of the traditional SWG story is rags-to-riches, but it’s often because he’s the hidden prince or some such divine-right-of-kings nonsense, so he doesn’t need to work for his elevation. (Satirized in Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, where a captain and a foremast hand are discovered to have been switched as children and are therefore given each other’s positions.)

A protagonist of goodwill who is willing to sacrifice for others is interesting. Someone like the protagonist of Tim Pratt’s Doors of Sleep, for example (though he wins love too easily), or Tom Miller’s excellent The Philosopher’s Flight and The Philosopher’s War (which also put the male protagonist in the position of being the odd one out in a female-dominated profession). The sacrifice needs to be of genuine value, though, or it’s just condescension.

A male cotagonist with an equally capable, equally central female partner (romantic or otherwise) who he respects is interesting, as in the Magebreakers series by Ben S. Dobson.

And finally, writing with genuine depth of characterization or insight into humanity will always be interesting, regardless of who the protagonist is. What I really object to in straight white guy stories is not the straightness, the whiteness, or the guyness, but the fact that those identities often belong to characters who cruise through life too easily and, as a consequence, never develop any complexity. Writing an underdog character who has to struggle for a place to fit into the world and stand up for who they are is a lot more likely, all else (like the author’s skill, for example) being equal, to produce a story that’s interesting to me.

Authors, feel free to consider this a challenge.