this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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I never could finish 1984. I got maybe halfway through it and was like 25% interesting world building, 25% a sad, bitter, sexist person lamenting the way of things (particularly that be can't just fuck every woman, but also the lying totalitarian goverment) but also having no spine to even consider doing anything about it, and 50% him sneaking around to fuck some horny manic pixie dream girl against the rules. Unfortunately, id have probably enjoyed it more if I had read it at 16
Idk, I likes that part. Ultimately Winston is flawed and weak and yet he thinks he's making a grand defiant gesture, only to find out the party knew it all. All his secrets and triumphs where plainly and obviously known.
Effectively he builds himself up as a dramatic hero in his mind, and in narrative. The reader gets swept along, but when he falls, when he is crushed, we remember all the gross parts of his personality. We see him as the broken, pathetic man he becomes at the end lf the novel. I enjoyed how the experience of reading the text, and the experience of remembering the text tell two very different stories.
But you see how if they immediately saw the base pathetic person Winston is beyond the curtain of his own narrative, none of that really works.
Then he's just an audience proxy, reflecting our own patheticness. :)
I'm not saying everyone has to like 1984, I'm not saying there is one concrete experience of it. I'm merely pointing out that unlikable protaganists are a choice, and there can be a strong narrative experience when that choice is made.
I'll definitely recommend Gurgeh from The Player of Games as a great unlikeable protagonist. It helps that his friends call him on his bullshit, and that he's quickly put in a situation where he's one of the best people around. It helps us believe that the Culture's idea of a doofus is quite a bit better than most civilisations' idea of a good person.