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Overly Leadable Characters in Speculative Fiction

I’ve just finished reading The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold, quite a shift in gears after James Joyce’s Dubliners. Like much speculative fiction it was rather like a ride in a hovercar: the interesting technology was (mostly) able to carry the story, keep our belief suspended, across the plot holes.

While the book is enjoyable, there was one aspect of it busted my hovercar: Miles Vorkosigan’s followers are simply too easily lead (almost as easily led as Captain Phule’s legionnaires in Robert Asprin’s Phule’s Company). Many of Vorkosigan’s main associates seem to act like a single self-help seminar was all that stood between them and greatness: an out-of-work pilot and drunk not only stays sober after meeting Miles, but contributes both to strategy and to fighting, a thuggish commander learns restraint apparently by osmosis, a hermaphroditic mercenary becomes a great field commander (and manages to get a crush on Miles). One deserter becomes a brave war hero simply because Miles gives him the old “we’re all afraid; it’s not about losing your fear but about learning to control it” speech.

The climax of leadability is when when Miles’ crew of five, with only one fit and trained military person, overcomes two-dozen mercenaries and then manages to convince them that they (Miles’ five) are an inspection committee, rather than a bunch of smugglers. The reason we are given for why the the mercenaries believe the bluff (despite having one of their crew killed by the “inspectors”) is that doing so would make them feel less humiliated by their defeat. This is a level of psychological vulnerability almost as unbelievable as the physical vulnerability of the Star Wars stormtroopers to Fightin’ Ewoks.

Leaders Created by Followers

The plot of The Warrior’s Apprentice is dependent on the supernatural leadability of secondary characters in a way that brings to mind the the dependence of the Tarot character of The Fool on his luck. Phule’s Company can at least be defended as a book targeted at younger teenagers meant for simple pleasure reading (I loved it at 15, but couldn’t enjoy it nearly as much at 25). Since it doesn’t try too hard for seriousness, the supernatural leadability of supporting characters can be just part of the way the world works. Bujold gets into trouble because her book does try for more: such as seriously addressing political intrigue and war crimes. Because of this, each instance of Foolish leadability is an example of bathos—a fall in the story from the serious to the absurd.

Why did Bujold, like many other writers, make this mistake?

My best guess is that to become a writer, a person must have an exceptional ability to see other people’s points of view and value them as their own, as well as the time and the inclination to go off in a room alone to create for much of their lives. Good leaders need to pursue goals with single-minded determination and consistency (that’s vision), and must be constantly in the public eye, inspiring their followers to follow same these few goals. A fiction writer-leader is quite nearly an oxymoron.

Writers writing about leadership are describing people totally unlike themselves, so it is understandable that even good writers sometimes resort to propping up their weak leaders with unrealistically impressionable followers.

Real Leaders

Trying to create realistic leaders is central to a number of the stories I want to write. However, I am a typical writer with little experience myself with leadership to work from. That means a concomitant increase in research. I’ll add more on this topic as I come across it. Some of my ideas follow, but if you have any, please comment:

1. Don’t make a charismatic leader as reflective as you are. A person who interacts with a couple coworkers and meets about one friend per day for a couple hours is going to be able to do a lot more reflection, relative to talking, than someone who is leading and talking morning to night. Also, just because some leaders are successful does not mean their self images are free of major inaccuracies. Let your overworked leaders fall into misconceptions more easily than you do.
2. Give leaders slogans and core concepts to repeat. Good leaders often “read” their audience and adjust their messages, but they succeed most when the fundamental part of the messages remain unchanged. In Colleen Willis’s fabulous To Say Nothing of the Dog, “God is in the details” is the slogan used by Lady Schrapnell to push around an entire Oxford faculty, to the point where the main character flees through a time machine centuries into the past just to escape her attention. Giving your leaders ideas and slogans they hold on to relentlessly will help explain how they can guide large numbers of people, many of whom they may never meet directly.
3. Don’t make your followers abject worshippers. Another way that To Say Nothing of the Dog gets Lady Schrapnell right is by making many of the characters dislike her. By definition, a good leader is someone who can get other people to do more than they would without the leader. That often requires pressure, and few people respond well to pressure. Even if a leader is greatly admirable, lower-level officials may misinterpret the leader’s vision, and this will also compromise the leader. If follower reactions cover a range from bitterness through grudging respect, with only a select number admiring the leader, the leader will seem more real than one worshipped by otherwise not-overly-impressionable people.

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