Trying to create a gray area: Hero's committing crimes.

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Xboxlover, Sep 9, 2017.

  1. Trish

    Trish Damned if I do and damned if I don't Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2011
    Messages:
    3,421
    Likes Received:
    2,083
    Location:
    New York
    You don't have any sympathy at all for the men who use the handmaids while their wives look on? No one in that situation is enjoying themselves. They don't have a choice. Sure, in theory they do, you always do, but sometimes you're just not tough enough to choose death over doing something horrendously distasteful. Sometimes you just do whatever you have to do to live, to procreate, to get out of bed in the morning.

    If he believes that he has to do this, yes, it will work.

    He was enraged, in the moment, that she tried to kill the baby again? I'm not trying to get into debate about women's rights or anything (so please don't think I am) but it is his baby too.
     
  2. Trish

    Trish Damned if I do and damned if I don't Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2011
    Messages:
    3,421
    Likes Received:
    2,083
    Location:
    New York
    My understanding was that she tried to kill the baby right after it was born? Maybe not though.
     
  3. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    I haven't read the book version of Handmaid's Tale in a decade or more. In the recent TV version, the primary "ruling" man and woman that we see are the ones who created and enforced the whole concept. I have some sympathy for the wife, because she didn't see herself becoming a nonperson even as she created a world where women are nonpeople. But essentially none for the man, because he designed it all.

    But, yes, it's theoretically possible to have sympathy for anything. I guess my point is the point above--to a large degree, this guy architected the situation. His primary crime is not the murder.

    Re (your post below) even if she immediately tried to kill the baby, that's not when he killed her--as I understand it, he stuck around for her to try some more times. Now, if she refused to let him take the baby away and was able to enforce that wish through law, I see his dilemma. But was that the situation?
     
  4. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 8, 2017
    Messages:
    12,141
    Likes Received:
    19,768
    Location:
    Rhode Island
    I wouldn't worry about it too much. You can't please everybody. A shitload of people won't touch the book because it's fantasy without considering anything beyond the image on the cover. Same goes if it were sci-fi, contemporary, LGBT romance, etc. Or if it were too violent, too profane, too lascivious, too religious, too agnostic, too White, too Jewish, too (fill in your controversial, hot button topic of choice).

    It's all in how it's written and framed, but be careful asking us to sympathize with such a man. That may or may not go splat depending on which elements of his character you force us to reconcile.
     
    Xboxlover likes this.
  5. surrealscenes

    surrealscenes Senior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2017
    Messages:
    416
    Likes Received:
    309
    Location:
    a room made of impossible angles
    All types of violence are justifiable to someone.
     
  6. Trish

    Trish Damned if I do and damned if I don't Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2011
    Messages:
    3,421
    Likes Received:
    2,083
    Location:
    New York
    Yes, that's true, but even if you've watched the show (at least the first season) it's a pretty rough situation for him too (at least in the beginning). It can't be easy, having to do that while looking at your wife and knowing both of the women involved hate you for it, but you have to procreate right? And what other options are there? Including the wife is so that it's not seen as cheating, but man, it's got to be a little like hell on earth for all involved. At least in the beginning. (and I don't know if I even watched all of season 1, I can't remember). Yeah, I see why you wouldn't have sympathy for him though, but I guess everyone has different levels of empathy.

    Yes, exactly.

    I believe she tried to abort the baby multiple times (the first attempts) and then tried to kill the baby right after it was born, when it was a real, clearly alive, person, and that's when he killed her. But I could be interpreting incorrectly, I"m just saying that's how I read it.
     
  7. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    There is an important point to be made here though; violence needs to be justifiable to the audience for them to forgive it. And of course this is a book, so they will be open to justifying more violence that usual (for revenge, for example is ok in a book) but just because the character believes they are justified doesn't mean that the audience will forgive them. For example, a character who conducts an honor killing where they absolutely believe this is the only option they have will not be forgiven if the audience doesn't equally believe that. You can still get some pathos when the audience doesn't forgive them; they'll understand why and see maybe it was hard and they didn't want to, but to the reader they have the option of just not doing that. A western audience will simply reject your book if there's some poor girl being murdered because she shamed her family and that being portrayed in a sympathetic light. Humbert Humbert from Lolita is someone who spends much of the book being repellent, frankly, even though he's the narrator and trying really very hard to build sympathy he doesn't quite manage to get there. The best he gets to is pitiable.
     
  8. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2016
    Messages:
    22,567
    Likes Received:
    25,882
    Location:
    East devon/somerset border
    Although as was mentioned earlier Hanibal Lecter's violence is completely unjustified by any normal standard, and yet he is wildly popular with readers
     
    LostThePlot likes this.
  9. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    That's a fair point. I agree that kind of character is a bit of an exception; but I do think he's a genuine exception to the way that violence can be forgivable. There's a kind of dark glamour to Lector, he's never the hero. I'm sure we can all name lots of villainous types who the audience loves because they are cool or weird or crazy or interesting in some way. The audiences I think wants to see him more but they don't really want to see him as their hero either. He's a charming, clever, monster and that's a great kind of villain but I strongly doubt that you can write his character as a protagonist and make the reader genuinely like him.
     
  10. surrealscenes

    surrealscenes Senior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2017
    Messages:
    416
    Likes Received:
    309
    Location:
    a room made of impossible angles
    Check out a series by Paul Cleave, first book is titled The Cleaner.
     
  11. Xboxlover

    Xboxlover Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2017
    Messages:
    300
    Likes Received:
    154
    Royal bloodlines complicate it more.
     
  12. Xboxlover

    Xboxlover Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2017
    Messages:
    300
    Likes Received:
    154
    @ChickenFreak He didn't force her to have his child she wanted to be with him and wanted the kid at first. I'm trying to display her as selfish and wrong. Same with him as well but redeemable.
    I feel as This post is progressing people are losing sight of what I'm going for by muddying it up. I'm just going to go with it an hope it succeeds.
     
    Trish likes this.
  13. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 10, 2017
    Messages:
    538
    Likes Received:
    531
    Location:
    Colorado
    Ya know, I don't think this is entirely a lost cause. One thing you can learn is that people tend to be emotionally black and and white on these issues.
     
    Trish likes this.
  14. Xboxlover

    Xboxlover Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2017
    Messages:
    300
    Likes Received:
    154
    I've been trying to keep agendas out of my story and keep it within the boundaries of medieval (ish) fantasy. People seem to be more focused on the modern take on this subject and have lost the objectivity I was originally seeking. I don't want this interpreted as an attack by any means, I'm just needing a different point of view that some of the people on this forum seem incapable of providing without injecting agenda into it. I've received some useful advice, but I'm no longer getting what I was looking for.
     
    Homer Potvin likes this.
  15. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    Deleting; never mind.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2017
  16. MythMachine

    MythMachine Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2017
    Messages:
    198
    Likes Received:
    141
    Location:
    Arizona, US
    I think the situation is a bit complex and convoluted... and it's coming across as a political statement against Freedom of Choice rather than a story, but that's my personal take. I don't see why he feels the need to force her to have the child when he didn't even bed her with the intent of having one, nor do I understand why having a child (one that she's likely willing to give up to the father or for adoption anyway) would have an impact on her "career choice". From the sound of it, the setting of the story is based on the real world, but I just don't find the situation believable.
    And as @ChickenFreak mentioned, you're really limiting your potential audience by asking the readers to sympathize with a man who didn't wear proper protection during his fling, has a child that the mother never wanted, disallows her from having an abortion, and pressures her into having a relationship (something else she didn't want). Does he even feel any love or affection toward her to warrant starting a relationship?

    Edit: I didn't see the newer posts, my apologies. If she felt that the child would have an impact on her aspirations, then why would she want the child at first? Now she just seems wishy-washy (although pregnancy could be a good explanation for that).

    I will add a final, possibly controversial point to this post. If a woman and a man agree to have sex, then the woman decides she doesn't want to, but the man very strongly does and proceeds without her consent, that would turn the act into a sexual assault/rape. It is a very fundamental violation of human rights, and the capacity to make a decision regarding one's own body.

    In your story, the woman thinks she wants to have the child, but comes to the gut-wrenching realization that it will have an impact on her way of life, and changes her mind. The man, only considering his own beliefs and not those of the woman he desires to have a mutual romantic relationship with, interferes with the decision, and has her restrained and monitored against her will until the baby is born. After enduring the mental and emotional strain of a pregnancy she wanted to prevent, the mother feels there's no other way out but to kill the child after birth, which is obviously a bad idea. The father rescues his child, but he doesn't cool his head and pick up his phone to call the police after getting away from her. Instead, in a fervent rage, he once again violates her will by taking away the only thing she has left, her own life.

    Subtracting the mother's murder from the equation, both situations feel eerily similar to me. I couldn't forgive or sympathize with a rapist for their actions, because they're taking from their victims something that defines us as humans, the ability to rationalize and make decisions regarding our bodies. Neither would I be able to forgive or sympathize with the father, because he steals away the mother's ability to make a decision regarding her own body, albeit in a different way.
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2017
    Lemie and ChickenFreak like this.
  17. Xboxlover

    Xboxlover Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2017
    Messages:
    300
    Likes Received:
    154
    This is fantasy not modern. Everyone is missing the point I said what I said up a few posts ago to shut the topic down. I've repeated several times throughout this thread that this is a fantasy. It is not a modern fantasy, it's a fantasy. Concepts like this had no barring on past cultures. All your posts tell me is that you people don't read the thread and don't follow the posters questions. I've tried to make things clear the best I could. This forum has been frustrating for me the last few thread posts I've made. EVERYTHING turns into politics...or agenda. Why can't people just write their stories and ask for help or thoughts on if they are approaching something right? I'm trying to create an anti-hero. It shouldn't be about forced pregnancy and modern rights. People didn't have a choice back there most of the time if they lived or time if they lived or died through pregnancy. Basic human rights? People didn't even have those throughout most of history. People in a lot of countries these days still don't. (North Korea, to site one.) I feel this is something we take for granted.

    People can't look at anything this as simple bad human behaviors and mistakes anymore without overanalyzing the crap out of it. IT's a story, no one was forced no one seems to be getting that through their heads. The lady wanted her child to begin with can can't make up her mind and flips back and forth on emotions. That and the fact that its fantasy people didn't have condoms.... birth control was a concept few cultures had, and if they had it or figured it out it stayed in the community or with the rich people. Even then people didn't birth control, they were god fearing and it was considered a sin which people were scared of making for their mortal soul. Besides most sex happens in the heat of the moment between people the last thing people think about is not wanting to get pregnant. People are more interested in their personal gratification or whether someone will like them. I know when I've had sex getting pregnant wasn't on my mind. I was supposed to be sterile and still had a kid. When I was a teen going through messed up abuse and molestation I didn't think about pregnancy I was worried about going to hell or being called a slut.

    Everyone seems to be twisting a simple concept I constructed back in high school to a modern political agenda its bs...
    If a mod sees this please for my sake and everyone else's shut this thread down...
    This thread has pissed me off.
     
  18. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2010
    Messages:
    15,262
    Likes Received:
    13,084
    You asked for thoughts. You got thoughts. The fact that you got what you asked for is making you angry. But in that case, why did you ask?

    When you want opinions, often those opinions aren't going to match your own opinion. That can be frustrating, but that's the very nature of asking for and getting opinions.

    Your book may be historical, but it will be read by people in the modern day. Any readers are, also, likely to have thoughts. There are any number of things that were historically completely acceptable, that are regarded as horrible today. It's not realistic to expect your readers to regard those things as totally normal.

    You seem to see murder as the only one of those things. But murder isn't the only issue here. You may want it to be the only issue, you may not want people to have an opinion about any other issue, but nevertheless, when you ask for thoughts, there's a risk that you're going to get thoughts. If your book also had, say, child abuse, or spousal abuse, those things might be totally normal in the historical context. But people are going to be uncomfortable with those things.

    When you ask for thoughts there is a very strong risk that you will get thoughts.

    Edited to add:

    Contraception and abortion are not new concepts. They absolutely did exist in past cultures. As usual, Wikipedia is not all that reliable but is a good accumulation of concepts and sources:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_birth_control
     
    Lemie and MythMachine like this.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice