Guest Post: Evil bad guys, good good guys, and shades of gray

A notable aspect of recent fantasy is an interest in shades of gray in characterization. (Cough, Game of Thrones, cough.) “That old concern with good versus evil is so simplistic!” we’re sometimes told. “And it’s played out now.” Actually, this is not true. But I’m going to argue that it doesn’t matter anyway, because you can have upstanding good guys, totally vile bad guys, and still do some ethical exploring in your fiction. First things first: Good versus evil can never be played out as a theme because that will always be the situation that planet Earth is in. From the schoolyard bully to Joseph Stalin, there are always people who... What, you’re aware of that? Okay, let’s move on. As to “simplistic,” that depends on the skill of the writer. Gandalf is an interesting character, but not because he has moral flaws When you first meet him you want to know more about his nature; is he a very powerful human, or something else? On the other side of things, Georges Leon in Tim Powers’s Last Call kills many people and attempts to kill his own son, to prolong his own life. Evil, yes, but the novel isn’t simplistic. And the particular magic in question - removing people’s souls from their bodies so he can inhabit them himself - provides a layer of interest as well. So as with many other aspects of fiction, it’s not really whether you have purely good characters versus purely evil ones, but how you do it. (Neil Gaiman: “The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like.”) However, suppose you have a specific desire to include some ethical explorations in your next work of fiction, but you like your good guys good, and you like (to hate) your bad guys when they’re purely nasty. Is there anything you can do? Why, yes there is! Glad you asked! You see, not just people, but situations have shades of gray. And you can use this to give your novel moral heft and complexity while keeping your good guys stalwart and pure and your bad guys totally vile. For example... Consider M in the James Bond movie Skyfall. At the opening of the movie she has to tell one of her agents, a sniper, to take a shot at a bad guy. But another of her agents, Bond, is in the way of the shot. Yet the bad guy has captured information that’s very dangerous in his hands. M orders the shot and the sniper’s bullet hits Bond. Bond falls from the moving train he was standing on and into a river, and for all M knows, has died. As the movie proceeds we realize this is not the first time that M has had to make such calls. And this fact is used to provide thematic depth to the film, as the consequences of M’s past choices lunge back to attack her and the entire intelligence agency of which she’s the head. As more is brought to light about her past decisions, we realize that they were not at all clear choices; one can make a case that M made a wrong call or three. But that does not rely on M herself being a morally ambiguous figure. She’s just a person in a profession where easy choices are not always available. Another kind of example arises in moral philosophy. E.g., suppose 100 people are stranded on a desert island. The island has enough materials (wood, etc.) to make two kinds of boat. One can only carry 70 people, but has a 99% chance of getting them safely to civilization. Another can carry all 100, but only has an 80% chance of conveying them safely - there is a 20% chance that the craft will fall apart on the water and everyone will perish at sea. What to do? Whatever you think is the right choice, it’s plain that a well-meaning person might disagree. Of course, this type of situation is excellent fodder for conflict among your characters, even if they’re all good guys! Apparently dilemmas like this actually arise in real-world medicine sometimes. Yikes, I’d hate to have to make that call. (But the novelist in me goes, “Whoa, cool scenario.”) There was a French actress - I wish I could recall her name - who in an interview years ago made the following comment: After appearing in several movies, she said, “I don’t so much empathize with my character as with the situation.” In a compact way, this makes the same point I am making. So shades of gray are not necessarily in the person, but in the situations they find themselves in, in the choices they’re forced to make. This is a good way to play around with moral questions, because it allows you to explore the shades-of-gray idea without having a character be morally flawed, if you don’t want the character to be. Just put your hero or heroine into a position in which there are no clean answers, and off you go!

The author of this article is Thomas Fleet. Read below for more info on him!

Thomas Fleet writes fiction, principally fantasy, on the grounds that fantasy allows magic, and therefore has the largest scope for writers. That's the official story, but it's only half the truth. The other half is that fantasy is fun. One of his goals is to out-Tarantino filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. A bank heist attempted by thieves drunk on magical wine, so they can pay for their unicorn friend's sex-change operation, is about right. Especially if it takes place during an earthquake.

Now, I know you're curious about his book!

When the King of Taxis invades the witchlands, witch apprentice Lilta is ordered to kill the King and capture his infant son. Thus Lilta is swept up in a war between the witches and Taxis. Witches soon learn that traitors among them planned the invasion for their own reasons, and the witchlands explode in a savage civil war. At first it seems that Reeva, the leader of the traitors, wants to rule the witchlands... Until Lilta learns that Reeva’s goal is not power. Then it seems Reeva is seeking a potent magical object that will help her kill the surviving faithful witches... It’s not that either. But whatever Reeva’s goal, it involves the approaching Day of All Centuries, a magical day on which anything can happen. If the traitors can use the Day’s power, there’s nothing they won’t be able to do. Meanwhile Lilta’s mistress Apandra, distracted with the fighting, fails to notice Lilta’s growing magical knowledge. Lilta discovers magic that might defeat their enemies, but the risks are terrible. Apandra forbids her from attempting it, and Lilta must decide if she dares to try to overcome her own mistress, before everything she holds dear is destroyed.

If you're interested in purchasing Thomas Fleet's book, The War of the First Day, then click here: http://amzn.to/2k0Y4tn