I love that thing that Fitzgerald says in Gatsby, “they were careless people, Tom and Daisy, they smashed things up and then retreated” – something like that, I hope I’m not mangling it too terribly. I think what I find most difficult to forgive in a protagonist is that sort of carelessness of others. So with Nasser Ali, I found it frustrating because he was gone from his family long before he decided to go, and his life and death just seemed so careless, to leave his family behind that way.

…Though whiny is also extremely annoying, and often goes hand in hand with this same brand of self-regarding carelessness.