Deep vs. Shallow Archetypes: Writing characters who use extreme personas to hide fragility.

[AdiofBali]

Hey everyone!

I’m working on planning out some upcoming character arcs and wanted to get the community's take on how you prefer your "deeply broken" characters to manifest their trauma.

Specifically, I’m looking at two distinct psychological defense mechanisms for a high-stakes, dark thriller setting:

1. The Traumatized "Clown" Persona: A character who has lost everything, feels entirely untethered to the world, and masks severe nihilism and fear of genuine attachment behind a loud, cheerful, eccentric persona. On the outside, they act like a chaotic jokester or an untouchable mentor, but underneath, they are completely hollowed out by grief.
2. The Sadistic "God Complex": A character who behaves like an arrogant, control-freak sadist—not necessarily because they are pure evil (they might even be working on the "good" side)—but because causing fear in others is the only mechanism that makes them feel strong enough to override their own deep-seated terror.

When you are reading psychological or dark fiction, which of these two archetypes do you find more compelling to follow? Do you prefer the tragedy of someone hiding behind a smile, or the tension of a fundamentally insecure character wielding a god complex? Also i have many other complex character ideas though i am not sure if people like deep complex characters or shallow normal characters.

Let's discuss!

Bro, this is EXACTLY what I'm doing with my MC. It's kinda scary that you list it out like that. But I guess your post presents it more as a choice than both of the options stemming from the same person.

So yeah, I prefer both at once. And with a dash of "Absolute Black and White Morality" to help cope with his inner explanation as to why there are good and bad people + "Centuries Old Exhaustion" to show the toll it takes of this kind of personality would have on someone.

Oh but I didn't actually meant clown. I Meant clown persona just for context ( SPOILER ALERT ) I will write a female character whose past was too tragic (that even I as a author cried while writing it lol) that she is now scared of genuine attachment and think she is unlucky..... in present she makes jokes and hide behind it keeping everyone at arm length when somebody tries to get close but inside she is deeply broken and wants to have somebody by her side. she is a side character btw will be introduced later in the story. Before the Storm Gathers – Prana though i am taking my time to slowly build the world the pacing is medium but it was a major spoiler what if somebody copied my idea? LOL! She is morally grey character btw

Oh, when it comes to FMC, I suppose you're doing it properly for a grimdark. I'm just happy if it's not caused by a dystopian society at this point, tbh.

 

[MissRiWrites]

Bro, this is EXACTLY what I'm doing with my MC. It's kinda scary that you list it out like that. But I guess your post presents it more as a choice than both of the options stemming from the same person.

So yeah, I prefer both at once. And with a dash of "Absolute Black and White Morality" to help cope with his inner explanation as to why there are good and bad people + "Centuries Old Exhaustion" to show the toll it takes of this kind of personality would have on someone.

Oh, when it comes to FMC, I suppose you're doing it properly for a grimdark. I'm just happy if it's not caused by a dystopian society at this point, tbh.

Oh thanks for the compliment!