Gotcha. I guess the difference is, I don't understand that character, and have trouble believing it. The only people I know who are self-centered to anywhere near Quentin's extent are narcissists who are not capable of growing out of it no matter how much of any stick is applied.
And that was true even when I was a teenager -- the teenagers I was and knew were always hormonal, frequently dweebs and often poorly socialized, but it didn't mean they had no empathy, it just meant they were awkward as hell and sometimes counter productive in how they expressed it. But they cared passionately about the world around them, often to the point of obsession.
It was not exactly NOT self-centered, because a lot of that caring was about how and where they fit and what other people thought of them, but it included close, if sometimes tempestuous, bonds, and quite as many surprising acts of charity as of malice. And while there was some obliviousness, it was mostly of the "I didn't realize other people were as vulnerable to me as I am to them" or the "I didn't realize I could change these social rules or ignore them" varieties.
(I do have several friends now who say their experience was different, and I believe them, but I didn't know them or anyone like them as teenagers, so it's hard for me to envision. Except for their weirdly delayed puberty, I found the Harry Potter teenagers considerably closer to my experience than these, though neither exactly hits the mark.)
I also find it all but impossible to believe that someone could attend school for 12 years, not to mention living in a nuclear family, and never have occasion to grow moral constructs. Most of us have morals without needing Great Cosmic Powers to trigger them. It is enough to see what helps and hurts us and others. If Quentin does not see that, as far as I'm concerned that's either a flaw in Quentin (and possibly also his parents), or in the believability of Grossman's worldbuilding.
I think it's the former -- I think it's intended to be the former, a flaw in the main character. I'm not saying it's bad writing for a main character to have a serious flaw, just that this particular flaw makes me dislike Quentin to the point that hearing about him is more unpleasant than any amount of good writing can redeem.
no subject
And that was true even when I was a teenager -- the teenagers I was and knew were always hormonal, frequently dweebs and often poorly socialized, but it didn't mean they had no empathy, it just meant they were awkward as hell and sometimes counter productive in how they expressed it. But they cared passionately about the world around them, often to the point of obsession.
It was not exactly NOT self-centered, because a lot of that caring was about how and where they fit and what other people thought of them, but it included close, if sometimes tempestuous, bonds, and quite as many surprising acts of charity as of malice. And while there was some obliviousness, it was mostly of the "I didn't realize other people were as vulnerable to me as I am to them" or the "I didn't realize I could change these social rules or ignore them" varieties.
(I do have several friends now who say their experience was different, and I believe them, but I didn't know them or anyone like them as teenagers, so it's hard for me to envision. Except for their weirdly delayed puberty, I found the Harry Potter teenagers considerably closer to my experience than these, though neither exactly hits the mark.)
I also find it all but impossible to believe that someone could attend school for 12 years, not to mention living in a nuclear family, and never have occasion to grow moral constructs. Most of us have morals without needing Great Cosmic Powers to trigger them. It is enough to see what helps and hurts us and others. If Quentin does not see that, as far as I'm concerned that's either a flaw in Quentin (and possibly also his parents), or in the believability of Grossman's worldbuilding.
I think it's the former -- I think it's intended to be the former, a flaw in the main character. I'm not saying it's bad writing for a main character to have a serious flaw, just that this particular flaw makes me dislike Quentin to the point that hearing about him is more unpleasant than any amount of good writing can redeem.