Fatal Flaw

Aside Posted on October 16, 2023

WHAT IS A FATAL FLAW?  —- It’s character arc 101.

This flaw is a character’s destructive character trait that is often the cause of their demise.

Great characters are generally wounded, and they don’t want to be hurt again, so they adopt new protective behaviors––drinking (Jesse Stone), tattoos (Lisbeth Salander) or unchecked ambition (Macbeth), whose fatal flaw ultimately led to his downfall.

But their new defensive behaviors are usually dysfunctional, increasing negative consequences and keeping them from attaining the things they desperately want and need.

And speaking of Macbeth, let’s look at the brilliant performance of the actor, Walton Goggins (pictured above) as Boyd Crowder in the hugely popular, Justified series. Boyd is a complex, brilliantly articulate man with a huge fatal flaw. His FF, GREED. Even when he has everything, he says he wants, love, money, and a possible escape plan, that one last big steal is too intoxicating for him to leave behind. He lets the love of his life walk out, believing he will get his hands on the elusive millions of dollars, earn her love back, and life will be wonderful again. Sadly, she realizes that’s not possible, because Boyd is weaker than his flaw.

Boyd, portrayed alongside his nemesis, Marshall Raylan Givens (actor Timothy Olyphant)––a friend from his coal mining days with whom he has a lifelong bond––is the shadow character and Raylan, the light––or at least, lighter than Boyd. When Raylan kills somebody, it’s justified (hence the name) but when Boyd does it it’s a criminal endeavor.  Boyd serves as a caution to Raylan that one wrong step and he too, will cross the line and be on the dark side with Boyd. The two men, so similar it’s often hard to see any daylight between them, dance between light and dark. It’s a poignant relationship worthy of its own article.

Anyway, Boyd succumbs to his weakness and is ultimately destroyed by it. It’s a great example of a character’s fatal flaw. As #archetypes go, Boyd is a classic tragic hero, and an Outlaw Archetype as coined by Gloria Kempton in her book, The Outlaw’s Journey.  

For a character to reach their arc, they must ultimately see that their emotional protection is essentially a theatrical mask––Boyd never reaches this arc. They must stop sabotaging themselves and make changes if they want to achieve their deepest desires––Boyd is doomed, trapped in a toxic game of self-sabotage.  And the only way is to look the fatal flaw in the mirror and renounce it––Boyd believes he is right, righteous even, and that the lucrative albeit violent end will justify the vicious means. When he looks in the mirror, he sees only a righteous man who will do whatever it takes to have what he wants. Boyd, like Macbeth, yields all he is to this flaw and is overwhelmed by his own venomous yearnings.

This is a critical piece of the character arc puzzle authors must know.

Here’s a list of other fatal flaws you can tap into to help create interesting and multi-dimensional characters.

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