: Re: How can I portray a character with no fear of death, without them sounding utterly bored? Imagine a fantasy hero with a 'time reset' ability like the protagonists of Groundhog Day or Edge of

@Yeniel532

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The antagonist in Dean Koontz' Intensity does not fear death. He views boring experiences with disdain, and only values the intensity of an experience. And as far as experiences go, death is a pretty intense one.

It's stuck in my mind for the 10+ years since I read it, because he was a fun and unique character to read about. I don't even remember the protagonists from the story.

A struggle with the cognitive dissonance between morality and need for morally ambiguous intense situations could be an interesting character development opportunity for a protagonist as well. In a story where death can be experienced multiple times, a guilty pleasure for dying could require increasing elaborate scenarios to keep it interesting enough for the character.

Of course a character with these traits will come off as a psychopath, which it sounds like may be something you didn't want (because you're afraid of the character not being relatable enough [citation needed]). But there's definitely precedents for protagonist psychopaths, for instance the show Dexter.

The struggles to keep on the morally good side when it doesn't seem like there are any good options is what makes this type of character relatable to a reader/watcher. The understanding of how we've all made less than ideal decisions when put in situations where what we want and what is unambiguously good don't match up is what puts us in their shoes. We can't relate to their specific struggle, but we can understand what it's like to struggle in our own life, and we are intrigued by the uniqueness of the scenario.

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