In the first book I'm writing, I intend to have the main character do something that I know some would view as morally wrong, even reprehensible. Without going into excessive detail, basically the situation is that her and her best friend are being targeted by a villain, who has nearly killed them on several occasions through his hit men. It gets to the point in which they're on the run from an entire mafia, with a large reward on their heads. At the beginning of the third act however, the main character would find out that the villain has a hospitalized brother. Seeing no other option, she gets a third party to capture him, and put him up for ransom, in order to lure the villain out in the open. She keeps her best friend in the dark about this plan, so she doesn't know that the main character has anything to do with the kidnapping. The brother ends up dying while in custody, which the main character didn't intend on happening. She's a bit shaken up, but stands by her decision, and they manage to defeat the villain. Her friend still doesn't find out about the plan (for the time being at least), and views it as a victory. I'm well aware this isn't a very moral choice, and I'm not defending it either. I want to have a character who is morally ambiguous, but I'm wondering if this is crossing a line? Oh, and not all the details are figured out about this plot, so things might change. This is simply the basic outline of what I want to happen.
I don't think it crosses a line, buuuuuut I fucking love anti-heroes, so I'm probably biased. If you do this right, it can be great. Personally, I love it when heroes are forced to do terrible things in order to defeat a worse villain. Do it. When you finish the book, use a beta to see if it worked. Go from there.
I don't think it's crossing the line. Sometimes you have to do bad things to get a good ending, and that's just how it is. If you really wanted to, you could put some sort of repercussion on the MC, but I don't think it's necessary.
Yeah, I've been working on that. Like I said, I pretty much just have the basic outline figured out, and there's still a lot of details to fill in.
Yeah, as the others have said, it doesn't outwardly seem too morally dubious. However, there are some things I think they're failing to consider. You mention the hero's friend is kept unaware of them kidnapped this brother. Why is this? Did the hero make a promise with their friend to not cross lines like this? Is the brother a bad guy, or is he an innocent man who merely happens to have a crime boss brother? Did the hero think they could juggle morality by kidnapping the brother while keeping their partner in the dark, only to have that blow up in their face? It's not really crossing much of a line as it is, though it can lead to moral conflict since the hero is doing it behind their friend's back. If you wanted to change it up a bit to make it more morally wrong, maybe the hero decides to use the sick brother not to escape danger from the villain, but to try and extort the villain as well. Maybe the hero and their partner are both in on the kidnapping, but the hero decides to use their advantage to say "hey, mob boss, we got your brother, now gimmie 50 million dollars and leave us alone", going behind their partner's back. Then when the brother ends up dying as a result of the hero's attempts to extort some cash on the side, the hero is left to confront their huge mistake.
I fail to see an issue. Have an MC of my own that does questionable things all the time. Make people give up intel with less than subtle means. Even at one point keeping an enemy alive just to get intel. Your's seems more like an unfortunate set of circumstances. Falls more into being ill equipped to effectively keep their hostage alive, due to lack of materials and medical knowledge. Seems pretty benign, and a bit careless in the planning. Though it is a believable scenario for the most part.
These are good points, and I probably should've explained things better. The reason they're being hunted in the first place, is because they're former members of the mafia purposefully attempting to take it over, along with several of the boss's business partners, who are tired of his leadership costing them money. As for the brother's identity, I was thinking of just having him be a random guy who was badly injured during a fight with his brother's mafia. The boss feels guilty about this, and using his connections to pay for his medical bills. Technically, the hero doesn't kidnap the brother (with her limited resources she isn't able to do it), but rather makes his existence known to the rest of the underworld, which leads to a rival gang kidnapping him. This also leads to the rest of his family being found out, and them becoming targets as well. This leads to the boss spreading out his forces, and eventually going out in the open to do the hostage exchange. The hero ambushes him before he arrives though, and manages to kill him. Her friend was tasked with rescuing the brother (she wanted to do it because she knew he was a good person), but she ended up getting spotted, and the gang interpreted this to mean the boss sent her instead of coming in person (at this point, they were unaware that he was dead), and proceed to kill the brother. Her friend manage to escape, but she views it as her fault the brother died, unaware that the hero put him in that situation in the first place. Despite her sadness, she's a bit relieved when the hero let's her know that the boss is dead, and that they're safe now. The hero feels sorry for her friend, but still doesn't tell her the truth, due to thinking it would ruin their friendship. Like I said, stuff is bound to change, but that's what I've got so far. Thanks for the suggestions.
I mean, in my mind, a character who's morally ambiguous is one who crosses the line sometimes. If someone never crosses a line, they're just good. Right? Writing a morally ambiguous character means taking a risk that some readers aren't going to approve of what they do. So if that's what you really want to go for, IMO, be gutsy and do it. There is the concept of a Moral Event Horizon, but that kind of stuff tends to be really heinous.
I would say a true moral grey character is someone who makes a decision that can be viewed as either good or bad depending on how you look at it. A lot of people believe a 'moral grey' character is just someone who does good and bad things, but this is a very shallow example of someone who is morally grey. Good moral greyness might be a village leader who decides not to risk sending his three greatest warriors out on a dangerous quest to retrieve medicine for a sick child. There's a moral confliction to his decision and he's neither truly right or truly wrong, and each individual reader can make their own choice as to how they view the character and why they did what they did.
Dang, that's a good point. Although I don't know that the someone-doing-both-good-and-bad-things example is shallow necessarily; I'm sure it depends on the character's motivation.
While the character themselves may not be shallow, I think simply 'does good and bad things' is a more shallow version of morally grey; though not that this is by itself a bad thing. If you're familiar with George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, or Game of Thrones, then Jaime Lannister is a good example of what I'm talking about. He's 'morally grey' in that he does bad things while still being kind of a good guy, but there's not a lot of depth to that moral greyness. He's just sort of a guy who does some shitty things while not necessarily being a shitty person. In a way, it's super realistic and human- but then most humans tend to be shallow assholes from a literary sense, eh? Edit: Actually, if you are familiar with Jaime, his whole 'pushing a kid out a window' thing is a very good example of deep moral greyness. He 'had' to do it, but he did it in such a nonchalant and casual way. Makes you think.
I wouldn't call it nonchalant; the word "loathing" is used: The man looked over at the woman. “The things I do for love,” he said with loathing. He knows it's evil. But he'll do any amount of evil for Cersei.
I know in the book the word 'loathing' was used, but something about quipping "The things I do for love" before shoving a young child from a window before you go back to plowing your sister strikes me as innately pretty nonchalant. In the show, especially, the delivery of the line is very nonchalant. Jaime knew it was wrong, but he couldn't risk Bran telling anyone what he saw. It wasn't just about Cersei, it was about their children and their own lives. In a way, it was about the entire Seven Kingdoms because of the rift that might've been caused from the breaking of the news (and the king's reaction to it). But not much of that weighed on Jaime, cuz he's an asshole.
I'm not so much thinking about it crossing the line as the whole of the plot thread feeling like a cop out - she does this thing, deliberately puts a sick and injured innocent party in danger, he is killed and.... and what? She feels guilty? Wow, big deal.... not. As a reader, I would feel totally cheated. Better to have the friend find out about it and have it wreck the friendship (and permanently, for preference - your MC then gets to have to decide if it was worth it, which is good drama either way, The fact that she did it FOR the friend would make this even better). Or the friend doesn't find out, but MC knows there is evidence out there that will inevitably surface one day and people will find out - and there's nothing she can do but wait. After all, she did it, let her show how she deals with consequences (I'm rather a fan of a metaphorical Newton's Third Law in writing). Here, she just skates across with a 'little' bit of shaking up, which feels very empty.
You make a good point. I probably am going to change a lot of things in the future, as this idea is just the first draft. I do plan for her friend to find out eventually, and it will shake their friendship.
