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mastin2 -> RE: =CHAR= Good or Evil? (6/29/2010 6:02:07)
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Bah, you and your silly moralities. Good, Evil, all the same to me. :P
...In a slightly more...normal...tone, generally, I hate Black-and-White. Instead, I prefer to balance it out a little. Even my most heroic characters have flaws. (Well, naturally. If the character has now flaws, they'd most likely be a Mary Sue. I mean, flaws relating to moralities.) Maybe they won't save the villain from falling? I mean, it's certainly not evil, but letting someone die when you have the capability to save them? Definitely not 'heroic'. (Naturally, most situations like this have it so that the evil can't be spared. If sparing the villain dooms the world to death, I'd think I'd let the villain die, thank you very much. However, in situations where they probably wouldn't be that much of a harm? That's boarderline anti-hero already.) A darker shade is to flat-out kill the villain. (This at least earns you a light gray.) Most of my characters tend to have more significant flaws, though, which place them further down the list. Perhaps still of a silver-gray color, but certainly not the shining white cliche.
And my villains tend to be the same way. They're not evil for the evulz. (...Well...MOST of them.) They have a reason to be villainous. Perhaps not a noble reason (Well-Intentioned Extremist), but a justifiable reason. Currently, I can think of two stories of mine with villainous protagonists. (Oh, wait, thought of a third, but it's similar to the other two.) In one, he's got reasons for being evil. (For starters, it's more fun--only got one life to live; might as well enjoy it-type stuff. His history also led him to that path.) But circumstances also leave him looking more heroic. (He's trying to save the world [because if it was destroyed, he'd die, and he wants to live, of course], from a worse evil, and he tends to be fairly honorable...within reason. Honor Before Reason sounds like an idiotic idea to him.)
The other one lives in a world where there IS no good; merely, different shades of evil. Heck, his goal is to rule the world. (Not very heroic, is it?) He's got redeeming aspects (pretty much the same ones as the above--little things which seem somewhat heroic), but really, the main reason he's the "good guy" is because he's toppling a guy worse than him.
For antagonists, I tend to explain their motivations near the end. (I like final battle verbal spars.) For example, I can think of a few stories where the antagonists are simply using twisted versions of the protagonist's beliefs (or old beliefs). And they're right, technically, in what they're doing fulfilling what the protagonist once believed in. (It actually works really well. If you learn someone's doing exactly what you have done...only darker...you're probably going to hesitate. Maybe only for an instant, but that's still dangerous.) Pretty much the closest my antagonists get to having a 'for the evulz'-mentality is when they're doing it for the power. Money, wealth, that kind of thing, feeding off of corruption. Very blackened gray, but still not pure black.
A good number are Well-Intentioned Extremists (Neutral-Gray to Dark-Gray), and then there are those who actually have had a tragic life. They've been traumatized, twisted and corrupted into believing what they do, doing what they felt they should be doing. Was it correct to do? Not according to the protagonists, but it doesn't change the fact that they were still wounded. Anti-Heroes, Anti-Villains, etc. I mean, my stories go from pure-fantasy to close-as-I-can-get-to-reality. Things change. Tragedy happens on both sides, divisions exist. No matter the character's philosophy, it will always be brought into question at least once (this goes for ALL characters, villain, hero, somewhere in the middle...), because life is complicated that way. Heel-Face and Face-Heel Turns (sorry, TVTropes addict) happen for a reason.
Of course, it doesn't stop my characters from declaring one side good or evil. I mean, what they think and the reality can be quite different. Or, they can acknowledge what they're supposed to be, and recognize how they're not quite up to standard. I use the words "good" and "evil" in my stories a lot, because it's how my characters view things--but the definitions of those words varies to the point where I, myself would never call any of my characters pure evil or good.
Shades of Grey, I suppose (I've done full rambles as to how many shades there are!), are my specialty. Lots and LOTS of shades of grey, tons of them all over the spectrum! :P
(Slight Note--It should be noted that most of my stories had far lighter protagonists before I read Heart of the Dark. :P)
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