yes I do go to a lot of trouble to paint the warts in. And it confuses people who get really REALLY mad at my characters when they do boneheaded things, mean things, or say nasty things to other people.
It got a few really intense arguments about just how misogynistic Ellery is and whether Colson was being fair to his wife. They are all flawed, and it does make some readers pretty uncomfortable that they are not idealized. But I really can't do it any other way.
I wrote a novel in the winter of 2005-06 which I posted on my LJ called 'Your Skinny Girl' and the main character is a rather selfish, exploitive and narcissistic person who doesn't treat women very well, and I had to test it with an audience to find out of there was ENOUGH likeable about my main character for people to care about him. But there was a reason I wrote him that way, and he had to have that nasty streak in him, because it was part of the theme. Just as, in this story, Colson's hot temper and simmering violence masks his fear and vulnerability, and Ellery's arrogance and hard driving nature are compensations for his own feelings of isolation and loss even as he struggles to help his own kind... and of course, the cast of characters around them bring out either the best or the worst in them.