Protagonist Syndrome

(WIP)

In my experience, protagonists of many stories tend to converge to a single personality. This personality in some ways feels like "a normal person". Even if the protagonist has their preferences and ideas, their drive and goals, the feeling is similar.

Possible causes I can think of are:

• Fundamental attribution error - when we follow the protagonist's mind we tend to attribute their actions to circumstances, so they have fewer distinct personality labels.
• Author's skill - maybe if the author made a better character, they wouldn't blend together with other characters.
• Convergence of consumer expectations - you expect the character to be "mostly a good person", to have them solve problems, to take initiative, and so on.
• A consequence of another phenomenon where the villain has all the complex plans and initiative and the protagonist mostly reacts to the villain's actions.