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7/4/2025, 4:02:07 PM
>>24520205
My reflexive instinct is that if you're going to have a character arc where a character learns morality, the morality should be the central focus, and the plot should be trite and small. It should be in the lulls between nation-wrecking wars that the urchin has to decide between hunger today and stealing bread from the grocer barely making ends meet, and the consequences should be small as well.
If the plot is going to be big, with moral consequences on the scale of life, death, torture, etc, then the main character at least should NOT be on a moral compass development arc. They should already have one, or just go along with the flow of events acting on instinct until there's some big tragic thing that happens because of their decisions, and then they stop and realize oh shit I've been firing from the hip, and it's time to go away for a while, let the situation deteriorate even more, while I sit and meditate on morality. Then come back and kick ass and shit.
Achilles goes into the Trojan war with a VERY well-developed moral compass, and only changes his mind when his best friend gets killed. Then he goes out and kicks ass. Raskolnikov is living a relatively dull, stable life when he goes off the rails, and the general plot is very tame while the tension is entirely moral, revolving around guilt.
As an author, there's one more important consideration: how one is making readers feel about your characters. One shouldn't write one's main character doing things that will make readers hate him unless that's the intention. Even if the dude is president of the planet and taking action intentionally to prevent the planet from being wiped out, and you explain all that perfectly clearly, if that guy tears down a statue of a fallen hero and tries to get the other surviving hero executed for putting everyone at risk, people will hate him with a rabid passion that will never extinguish.
My reflexive instinct is that if you're going to have a character arc where a character learns morality, the morality should be the central focus, and the plot should be trite and small. It should be in the lulls between nation-wrecking wars that the urchin has to decide between hunger today and stealing bread from the grocer barely making ends meet, and the consequences should be small as well.
If the plot is going to be big, with moral consequences on the scale of life, death, torture, etc, then the main character at least should NOT be on a moral compass development arc. They should already have one, or just go along with the flow of events acting on instinct until there's some big tragic thing that happens because of their decisions, and then they stop and realize oh shit I've been firing from the hip, and it's time to go away for a while, let the situation deteriorate even more, while I sit and meditate on morality. Then come back and kick ass and shit.
Achilles goes into the Trojan war with a VERY well-developed moral compass, and only changes his mind when his best friend gets killed. Then he goes out and kicks ass. Raskolnikov is living a relatively dull, stable life when he goes off the rails, and the general plot is very tame while the tension is entirely moral, revolving around guilt.
As an author, there's one more important consideration: how one is making readers feel about your characters. One shouldn't write one's main character doing things that will make readers hate him unless that's the intention. Even if the dude is president of the planet and taking action intentionally to prevent the planet from being wiped out, and you explain all that perfectly clearly, if that guy tears down a statue of a fallen hero and tries to get the other surviving hero executed for putting everyone at risk, people will hate him with a rabid passion that will never extinguish.
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