#manipulative characters

Sorry for the delay in posts. My situation is still rocky right now—I’m currently navigating some major life stress, including trying to find a new place to live. It’s been tough, but I’m doing my best to find time to create and share content. Thank you so much for your patience and continued support. It means more than I can say.

Writing Manipulative Characters More Effectively

Characters are complex creations, and some of the most compelling ones are those who manipulate others to get what they want. Whether you’ve encountered someone like this in real life or not, understanding how manipulation works can help you write these characters with depth, realism, and impact.

Here are some common manipulation tactics to consider when developing your characters:

Manipulation Tactics

- Lying – Manipulators are strategic liars. They fabricate stories to boost their ego, gain sympathy, or control the narrative.

- Blaming Others – They deflect responsibility and make others feel guilty or confused, often to maintain their image or avoid consequences.

- Decision Hijacking – They subtly make decisions for others, planting ideas and making it seem like it was the other person’s choice all along.

- Creating Illusions – Manipulators often build a world that looks appealing on the surface but is confusing and harmful once you’re inside. Think of it like a funhouse—distorted mirrors, false exits, and emotional traps.

Example of Manipulation in Dialogue

> “Dad, I want to go to a party tonight. Can I go?”

> “You know how uncomfortable you were last time. I don’t think you’re ready for that. Maybe you should stay home and watch TV with us tonight. Your favorite show will be on.”

This example shows how a past experience is used as leverage to make someone second-guess their decision. It’s subtle, but effective—making the person feel like staying home is their own idea, when in reality, it’s been carefully guided.

Why Family Dynamics Work Well in These Examples

Manipulation can come from anyone, but family relationships often provide the most emotionally charged examples. These dynamics are built on trust, history, and vulnerability, which makes manipulation more believable and impactful in storytelling.

That said, you can explore manipulation in friendships, romantic relationships, workplaces, or political settings—each offers unique angles and emotional stakes.

Final Thoughts

Manipulative characters can be antagonists, anti-heroes, or even protagonists depending on how you frame their intentions and growth. There’s a lot of room to experiment with these tactics, and the more nuanced you make them, the more compelling your story will be.

I hope this post gives you a solid starting point for writing these layered, complex characters.

This scene brings me so much joy as well as pain. Alicent's expression is so light. Otto's humor is brought forth. They are at peace in this moment. It's these little moments where you forget the awfulness. You forget the pain and recall laughter. You find the moment where a parent is beside you and not manipulating your every decision. They aren't your betrayer or fearmonger but someone who finds a way to lighten your shoulders. Those moments tend to overshadow the idea that your parent, your protector would use you, their child.

Otto is the last normalcy in Alicent's life after losing Rhaenyra. In her eyes, her father was protecting her. A noble man who's had years of experiences dealing with schemes, liars, power grabbers. He knows that someone will try to hurt them since he's Lord hand and they are highborn. Now Lady Alicent, a child bride, a teenage mother, and young Queen Consort of Westeros, must listen to her father. Her protector, her flesh and blood is to be listened to because he loved her mother, he loves her. Otto would do anything to ensure Alicent lives safely, right?

Alicent isn't naïve but she is holding on to her last piece of normalcy. Ignoring that her father used her womb to birth war. That her body was willfully taken over by the only relative she has for leagues away. That couldn't have been, he loved her mother, she's his only daughter? Why deform the last living memory of his wife? Alicent looks so much like her yet all she can remember are the gowns she wore to resemble an echo of a memory. Features lost but she has them like pieces of an unsolved puzzle. Otto takes away all that comforted her to be the only recognizable figure, the only half of her broken heart. He then stood behind her and guided her by voice whilst she stepped blindly. That was trust built by the foundation that he is her father and she is his daughter.

Once Alicent removed the fear of losing the twisted comfort of her father. She stepped blindly into the first comforts she had in her old life, Rhaenyra, title, colors, words. They were far from the fear she endured, the pain she clenched her throat in. And they were precious memories that outweighed the bad. Taking Helaena & Jaehaera away meant reclaiming the innocence she lost in King's Landing. She finally wants to be the parent that shields their daughter. She wants knowledge that she isn't her father, she could protect them. Alicent at least has to try because Otto never truly did.

To be the image of your parent whom you cannot help but recall the good to keep the bad from hurting, Alicent repeated the same mistakes as her father. She can't undo it. That's the worse part, she has to live with the knowledge that she was another spoke of fear in her children's minds. Spinning continuously that everything bad will happen to them, The Stranger is near. But she believed her father was saving her so she tried to save her children. What was a 14-15 year old supposed to believe? That her flesh and blood meant to manipulate her body and mind for his gain? Alicent is attempting to reverse his deep influence. And yet there will always be these small happy memories with the same man. How tragic.

VALE Talk about Alicent is always a treat. She makes me passionate, melancholic, and deeply contemplate her character. I can never escape Rhaenicent either, whoops. Her relationship with Otto will heavily influence my other analyzes on Team Green. I also want to write about why I think she agreed to allow Aegon's death. Cause there wasn't enough time to show us the progression that decision.

Ever since I found out earlier this year that a 'world puppetry day' exists I was very excited to write something sefikura in honor of it. I haven't specifically listed these prompts as sefikura, because I know there are a lot of mind control and manipulation kink characters out there and I wanted to leave that open for anyone else to use for their fics as well. I'm not going to make a whole page for it because it's just a one day thing.

Do one prompt, do all of them, whatever you like! If you want to share with other deviants on here just share this post with a link to your fic or art!

I'll queue this to share it a few times, leading up to next March, so people have time to see if they want to play with it.

Hey Anon, here are some IF that would fit your request. If anyone knows of additional suggestions for this category, feel free to message us and we’ll update and add to this post! 

Completed:

180 Files: The Aegis Project by Karelia Hall

Stars Arisen by Abigail C. Trevor

Demos:

Dear Diary, We Created a Plot Hole! by @ddwcaph-game

Defiled Hearts by @defiledheartsblog

For The Crown by @13leaguestories

Guenevere by @newarcana

Hollowed Minds by @shai-manahan

Turncoat Chronicles by @zincalloygames

Well if the manipulative character is the antagonist or the story, this is how I would see them.

A character that is known as a manipulator can show it in many ways and have many methods on how to manipulate someone. For example, they can be charismatic. They know all the right things to say to get what they want out of the person they are manipulating. Their smooth talk and communication skills make it easy for a person to feel drawn to them. They are also very observant of the people they want to manipulate, finding interests, or what they have in common to make it easier to bond with them. A manipulative character would also try and make a person push friends and families away so that they wouldn't jeopardize their plans, feeding a person lies and say that they are their true friend and wants what best for them when reality they don't care for the person's needs. They can also gaslight and lie to a person to push them off the right path, and make sure that they stay in their control.

Also, I feel that over showing that a character is manipulating and antagonistic because it can show the reader that this character is not a good person and the main character needs to stay clear of them unless you don't want it to seem noticeable and I believe there are ways to achieve that but I wouldn't know how to go about it.

Even the most sympathetic manipulators still do some pretty sketchy things, and the more and more their plans rely on chance, many moving parts, weird assumptions, and/or questionable actions, the worse and worse they will look to audiences. 

One thing I remember in a story was a character trying to keep another character from getting murdered by lying about something the would-be murderer’s sister wrote. In reality, the would-be murderer would’ve become an actual murder and knew it was a lie. But because the writer didn’t want to do that, the would-be murderer hadn’t read it for no reason, so the other character could make up whatever the fuck they wanted.

Likewise, having characters plan out things with many moving parts will always require more and more accuracy with the more moving parts that need to be in place. This is why most stories where an audience is shown a plan of something will introduce complications that mess up the plan and cause tension. It makes things more interesting, true, but it also is a fairly basic thing to avoid the world feeling artificial. Random shit happens all the time that you can’t necessarily account for.