Discussion Does a Protagonist need to poop?

okay, dumb title but hear me out. does the Protag need to do something real and common to everyone to make him feel real and for you sympathise or connect with him?

 

You remind me of Luffy

 

from my expansive knowledge of fiction, characters only go to the toilet to shittalk people, to skip class, or to get spooked by a toilet ghost.

 

In martial god conqueror mc often urinates

 

Things happened in the story for a reason. You sure don't want to write the MC went to the toilet to poop and that's it. Something would either happen before he poop, while he poop, or after he poop.

You could actually find these kind of MC in R-18 section with a scat tag on it....

 

I'd say the way they act matters more I don't really have to see them do stuff that's common to everyone but if they act in ways no normal human would without good reasoning I can't really connect with them.

 

do mermaids poop? why universal items are only on earth? how can a atomic bomb kill many? so many questions

 

No. I personally do not think that a character needs to be similar to people in any way for us to sympathize with them.
Depends on author's skill after that

Edit:
I'm that one fucker who doesn't read the title but only OP

 

yes, they also need to breath (purple air from the east or dragon arrow exhaled), sweat (with all the muck and impurities), make love (to their wife/wives).. and a lot more daily action thats not worth mentioning every time they do something...

 

Poop jokes never goes out of fashion. All my protagonists enjoy a good poop joke.

 

When we eat our body strips the nutrients from food and poops the rest, but many Chinese protaganists have vastly superior bodies, which I've always assumed includes the ability to digest food so well that almost nothing is left over, leading to vastly decreased poop production, which is why they don't poop very often, which is necessary for long meditation sessions.

 

I don't want to discriminate and judge you but


You have a very weird fetish here, good sir

 

it's not a fetish based thing I'm asking for. more what does a protag need to do to feel "real" ie does he need to poop?

 

Do you ever want to read a story where the protag has a difficult bowel movement...? I won't ever sympathize on him, it might irked me and end up dropping the story. Because it was kinda gross... ._.

Edit: And they don't even need to feel real. They are just fictional characters.

 

Well, you don't need to actually show them do the deeds... Even a mention of toilet break in a journey, or character commenting the state of urinals is already enough to establish that the character is a normal human being.

 

I'd be hard-pressed to think of a novel in which the protagonist doesn't do "real" things like eat, or drink, or sleep, or sweat, or get sick, or, well, breathe. For that matter, I don't often see other people pooping in real life either, yet they still seem plenty real to me.

And the end of the day, what makes a character feel real isn't their having normal bodily functions or their performing normal, everyday actions, it's how they act and react in the situations that they face, and especially in the situations that are outside of everyday routines. It's whether what they do or say, or don't do or say, feels plausible and realistic for them and for their context at all times, and not just when the author is describing them doing something trivial.

Which is why aliens or robots or spirits or whatever can also feel real, pooping or no pooping.

 

Damnit this thread made me remember Air Gear, I need to go wipe my memories with bleach once again...

 

Of course they don't poop, if you did imagine the size of the poop for some protagonists considering how much most eat.

 

The MC's are like Jack Bauer~ ain't no time to go to the toilet~

Jokes aside I feel it is nice to see the MC do 'normal' things like everyone else~ an OP guy going round killing people gets tiring for me. They should take breaks occasionally and chill~