Last Kids on Earth
As I said, we tend to go dark with post-apocalyptic stories. There’s the desire to show the struggle to survive and shadowy side of human nature. Life is cruel and ruthless, so the story needs to be too. So, how do we make a story with a protagonist who is making the most of life and enjoying it?
- Optimism is a good personality trait for a character like this, but there’s a limit. You don’t want them to deny the state of the world. Instead, they are looking at the benefits such as having more freedom and being able to live their life. The danger and possibility of death are acknowledged. Yet, these characters retain their desire to live every day instead of falling to fear.
- It helps to make them brave and give them abilities to survive. These can be physical traits such as athleticism, endurance, or great aim with guns. You can go with mental such as high situation awareness, strategic mind, or knowledge for completing various survival tactics. There needs to be something that allows these characters to believe they can survive and actually do it.
- These protagonists can be loners or social. It doesn’t have to be one or the other like some people think. A loner may see that as a better way to survive and not have anything stopping them from enjoying life. The more people in a group, the more responsibility and work can occur. Social heroes might see having others to join them in fun as a way to justify their existence. It isn’t enough to live their life, but they want to have people around to see them do it.
- Connecting to #3, these characters can possess a level of selfishness. At least for the beginning of their adventure, they may see living their life as the most important thing in the world. Believing they could die at any moment amplifies this. For example, Akira in ‘Zom 100’ prioritized getting cold beer and a big TV over other supplies at the start of the zombie apocalypse. This changed as his adventure continued, so he learned to balance responsibility/caution with working on his bucket list. So, selfishness is a good starting flaw.
- While you can make their successes rather incredible, you do need to make them somewhat believable. By this, I mean them living their life cannot be easy with no real threat. They have to be enjoying life in spite of the world being a dangerous hellhole, which means risks, near disasters, and them not always depending on luck. You can still have them luck out of situations at times since the world isn’t as predictable as it once was. The problem is if they depend entirely on luck and the universe always provides a well-timed solution beyond their control. Part of them living their life is that they control their situations too.
- If there are zombies, make sure they’re actually a presence. Yes, humans are dangerous too, but a character having fun in a zombie apocalypse can lose its charm if the zombies are barely seen.
- Failure without death is possible. These characters are optimistic and living their lives, but that doesn’t mean they are immune to disaster. They still need things to go wrong at times to make them learn. A few of their desires might be detrimental to others, so they need to realize that those wants aren’t worth pushing for. Their world now has no limits, laws, or boundaries, so personal ones must be made. One of the strongest ways to have a character establish them is by making a big mistake and living to learn from it.
Legends of Windemere 