: Your answer is given by your first trope link; on DIAA, perhaps you have misunderstood it! The protagonist is incredibly self-centered, an existential nihilist Then why should the reader

@Welton431

Your answer is given by your first trope link; on DIAA, perhaps you have misunderstood it!

The protagonist is incredibly self-centered, an existential nihilist

Then why should the reader care about this hero? DIAA is induced by an Evil v. Evil story.

It happens when the audience doesn't care what happens, because no matter who wins, the world still sucks.

It happens when the good guys (your protagonist and sidekick) are awful people and the audience cannot relate to them.

It happens when the audience has nobody they like, or are rooting for, or hoping will be saved or survive.

With DIAA they suffer through your movie (because it is only two hours, they can afford that), or put down your novel, because you have given them nothing to really care about; they don't care about your dystopia, or how your politics work out, or who wins.

Why? Because they read to have an adventure. They want Luke Skywalker and Leia and Hans Solo and Chewbacca to prevail! They want Indiana Jones to get the treasure and keep it this time! (in the opening boulder seq, he loses...)

Being dark is fine, the bigger the stakes, the more we root for the good guys to win, to prevail against the Emperor and a reign of terror and cruelty led by Darth Vader and his Death Star that obliterates a billion lives on Leia's home planet (or however many they said).

Read your Darkness Induced Audience Apathy trope again; when it says:

MEANINGFUL conflict is the soul of drama.

Followed by,

"The conflict between the two equally horrible sides is essentially meaningless, there is no dramatic tension."

Good guys have to be good in some sense the audience can root for. They can be criminals, hit men, thieves -- but they need some kind of humanity and must be relative good guys compared to their antagonist(s). They may kill criminals, their opponents kill babies, or intend to kill millions.

Your story has to have a likable hero, from the beginning, a self-centered nihilist psychopath is not likable, or a hero, they are a selfish psychopath and a bad guy, fighting other selfish psychopaths and bad guys, and who cares?

You avoid DIAA by making the outcome matter, which means making the audience care who wins, which means they need to root for one side to win and worry about how much damage and sacrifice their hero must endure to win.

Rethink your hero, his sidekick, and their mission.

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