Why Some Characters Stay With Us - and Others Are Just Cool
Explore three levels of character likability from Pixar Storytelling and learn how flaws, desire, and struggle make characters unforgettable.
Some characters are attractive, funny, powerful, and immediately entertaining.
Then the story ends, and we forget them.
Others are jealous, frightened, stubborn, or deeply imperfect—and somehow stay with us for years.
What creates the difference?
This article expands on a TikTok slide post I made about character likability.
While reading Pixar Storytelling, I found a useful framework from author Dean Movshovitz. He describes three levels through which audiences begin to like and emotionally invest in a character:
- obvious traits;
- personal qualities;
- empathy.
The first two levels earn attention.
The third makes us care.
Level 1: Obvious traits grab attention
At first, we notice what can be understood immediately.
A character may be:
- attractive;
- confident;
- charismatic;
- stylish;
- powerful;
- visually distinctive.
These qualities work quickly. Before we understand the character, we already know they are cool.
But coolness is only a first impression.
A stylish entrance may make us curious. A clever line may make us laugh. A strong design may make the character instantly recognizable.
None of that guarantees emotional investment.
This is also true outside fiction. Confidence, appearance, and charisma can make someone noticeable, but they do not automatically create closeness.
Attention is not empathy.
Level 2: Personal qualities make us stay
Next, we discover what spending time with the character feels like.
Maybe they are funny, passionate, talented, curious, knowledgeable, or unusually capable. They introduce us to a world we have never seen or show us a familiar world from a new angle.
This level resembles friendship.
We enjoy being around people who make us laugh, teach us something, share a passion, or notice things we normally miss.
A character can create the same feeling.
Remy in Ratatouille is not interesting only because he is a rat who cooks. His passion, taste, and way of seeing food make us want to remain in his world.
But enjoyment is still not the same as deep emotional investment.
We can enjoy a character without fearing for them.
That changes at the third level.
Level 3: Empathy makes their goal feel personal
Empathy begins when we gradually understand what exists beneath the character’s surface.
We discover:
- what they fear;
- where they are flawed;
- what they hope for;
- what they desperately want;
- why that desire matters;
- what they may lose.
At this point, the character stops being a collection of attractive qualities.
They become a person.
Woody is jealous and insecure because he fears being replaced.
Marlin is painfully overprotective because he has already experienced devastating loss.
Wall-E’s desire for connection matters because it grows from profound loneliness.
Their flaws do not prevent empathy. In many cases, the flaws are what make empathy possible.
We may not approve of every decision they make. But we understand the emotional reason behind it.
Understanding is more powerful than perfection.
Empathy does not require identical experience
We sometimes reduce empathy to relatability:
“I care because the same thing happened to me.”
But audiences do not need to share a character’s exact circumstances.
Most viewers have never been a lonely robot, a talking toy, or a fish crossing an ocean.
The situation can be fantastical while the feeling remains recognizable.
We understand:
- loneliness;
- jealousy;
- grief;
- fear of replacement;
- love;
- the desire to belong;
- the need to protect someone.
Empathy comes from understanding why the goal matters—not from living the same plot.
Desire turns personality into story
A character can be charming for several scenes without becoming dramatically interesting.
Story begins when they want something.
A clear desire gives the audience something to follow. It creates a question:
Will they get it?
A meaningful desire creates a stronger question:
What will getting it cost them?
This is why “make the protagonist cooler” is often the wrong writing goal.
Better questions are:
- What does the character desperately want?
- Why can they not simply let it go?
- What are they afraid of losing?
- Which flaw makes the goal harder to reach?
- What will they do when the story pushes back?
The desire does not need to be enormous.
Wall-E wants connection.
Woody wants to remain important.
Marlin wants his son back.
What matters is not the scale of the goal. It is the emotional meaning attached to it.
Struggle reveals what a character values
A sad backstory alone does not create empathy.
The audience needs to watch the character act.
They must choose, struggle, fail, reveal vulnerability, continue, and sometimes pay a price.
A biography can tell us that someone is brave.
A difficult choice lets us experience their bravery.
This gives us a simple mechanism:
desire → conflict → struggle
First, give the character something meaningful to pursue.
Then make that pursuit difficult.
As the character keeps moving through fear, failure, embarrassment, danger, or sacrifice, we learn what the goal truly means to them.
Their victory becomes more than a plot result.
It feels earned.
Their losses begin to hurt because we understand exactly what has been taken away.
The same pattern appears in real relationships
This framework also offers a useful parallel to how we connect with real people.
First, we notice visible qualities: appearance, confidence, style, or charisma.
Then we become interested in personality: humor, passion, knowledge, talent, or a distinctive way of seeing the world.
Finally, closeness grows through deeper discovery.
We learn someone’s fears, private hopes, insecurities, strange habits, history, and motivations.
They become a person we uniquely understand.
Human relationships are obviously more complex than screenwriting. But the parallel reveals something important:
We rarely care deeply about someone because they appear perfect.
We care because we understand what matters to them.
Coolness earns attention. Empathy earns investment.
A memorable character does not need to be morally perfect.
They can be jealous, stubborn, selfish, afraid, dishonest, awkward, or conflict-avoidant.
The key question is not:
Does this character always behave correctly?
It is:
Do we understand the emotional truth behind their behavior?
Cool characters attract us.
Interesting characters keep us watching.
But unforgettable characters give us something deeper: a desire we understand, a flaw that complicates it, and a struggle that makes the outcome matter.
Their wins become our wins.
Their losses become our losses.
That is when a character stops being merely cool—and becomes difficult to forget.