These things always trip me up. I'm in past tense, and my sentence is: "The Queen might have actively wanted them dead, but the Legion wasn't comprised of harmless do-gooders, either." I feel like this implies the queen wanted them dead in the past tense in relation to the current narrative, when the intended meaning is that she wants them dead currently. It's the 'have' that's confusing me, I think. But "The Queen might actively want them dead, but the Legion wasn't comprised of harmless do-gooders, either" definitely sounds too ... present tense-y. I could do "The Queen actively wanted them dead, but the Legion wasn't comprised of harmless do-gooders, either" but I don't like the sound of it as much. Pretty sure I've just been staring at it for too long and can't make sense of anything at this point. Is the original sentence good?
Although the Queen actively wanted them dead, the Legion wasn't comprised of harmless do-gooders either... Sorry, I suspect that more context would help; and there's a bit of a disconnect between the mediaeval feel of the Queen wanting them dead and the laconic crime noir feel of the Legion not being comprised of do-gooders. Although I don't actually see what's wrong with your original sentence - I'm certainly not understanding it to say that the Queen's desire for them to be dead was in any way over and done with.
I'm with @Shadowfax in that I also don't feel the temporal problem you initially mention in your original version. It doesn't present itself to me that way, that her wish was finished and put to bed before the lack of do-goodery. What I do feel is a lack of syntactic bridge between her wish and the arguable excuse that they're possible baddies, and perhaps deserving of said wish. It's logically there when I stand back and look at it, but I feel like there are a couple of words missing to link these two ideas more soundly together. They feel a little disconnected at this point.
So it's the Legion that the Queen wanted dead? I hadn't got that...which was why I was asking for more context...but it underlines my discomfort with the sentence as written.
Could be, could be not. With just that sentence, there's vaguery afoot. I don't really know if the Queen and the Legion are at odds against one another, or if the Queen and the Legion are at odds with a third part. Therein lies the disconnect I feel.
Cool, I thought I might be overthinking it, just needed an outside opinion The Legion isn't the 'they' being referenced - if you read it as "The Queen might have actively wanted [protagonist] dead, but the Legion wasn't comprised of harmless do-gooders, either" with the context of the queen and the Legion being two at-odds groups that the protagonist is caught between, it (hopefully) makes sense.
No worries. I figured it was probably just a lack of surrounding context, knowing your other work that I've read.
