Our hero needs to save the entire city from fiery destruction, and the only way to accomplish that is to push a trusting friend onto the tracks in front of the oncoming bomb trolley.
Good call?
In the conventional narrative arc of fiction, the answer is a resounding NO. Despicable acts, no matter how noble the avowed motive, are the road to ruin. In fact, a character's willingness to do such a deed is evidence of a moral failing - that person will fully deserve the fate that eventually arrives.
The ultimate despicable act is betrayal of a friend.
Simply committing violence, or even murder, doesn't rise to the same level of plot-line evil as betrayal. Dispatching those identified as enemies can be shown as heroic. Strangers or others - meh (as long as the hero didn't actively plan their demise). But sending a friend directly on to those tracks - can a character commit such an act
and still retain any tattered remnant of heroism?
The archetypical tale of personal betrayal for imagined public good, which has ruled high school English classrooms for decades, is the assassination of Caesar by a cabal including his friend Brutus, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The lament of "Et tu, Brute?" has become durable symbol of betrayal and a foreshadowing of the deserved result. Caesar's ghost, whether seen as the conscience of Brutus or a cosmic force bent on revenge, makes sure of the ending.
All this despite Brutus' original intent - to save Rome from a rising dictator. No matter how noble the purpose, the evilness of the act corrupts the result. Our intuitive moral sense agrees: The end does not justify the means.
We carve out exceptions, most especially the allowance to do harm to those considered enemies. In The Guns of Navarone by Alistair McLean, Mallory survives as a hero through a series of morally dubious actions, mostly by dint of his underlying purpose - to defeat the enemy.
Another exemption is the idea of Collateral Damage - it's sometimes allowable to commit immense harm as a side effect of an action, rather than the direct purpose. The moral grey areas involving collateral damage are so great that it's no wonder there are literally dozens of novels of that name, or containing the phrase in the title (try it - the list is ridiculous).
A field of philosophy (or perhaps psychology) named Trolleyology explores the question of direct harm as opposed to collateral damage, and has some revealing findings. When asked whether it is acceptable to push someone to their death under an approaching trolley in order to save the lives of five other people, a majority of respondents say No.
Yet, when the death can be portrayed as a side effect of achieving the same result (saving five lives), a strong majority of people approve of the action.
What gives? The two scenarios are identical in practical result: Sacrifice one and save five.
This question was considered in the "
Doctrine of Double Effect" by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s.
According to the principle of double effect, sometimes it is permissible to cause a harm as a side effect (or “double effect”) of bringing about a good result even though it would not be permissible to cause such a harm as a means to bringing about the same good end.
Whether logical or not, the distinction between the directly intended effect of an action vs a harmful consequence has remained a core part of our moral framing for the 750+ years since St. Thomas - and long before him. He's just the guy who got the author credit.
But let's take on the question of directly and purposefully causing harm to a friend or an innocent. No hiding behind "enemy" labels and pretending it wasn't part of the plan.
Here's an example from my somewhat recent reading. In A Game of Thrones, Ned Stark takes his honor seriously, and that means taking responsibility for directly carrying out any execution he orders. When we see him kill a convicted criminal, we accept it, despite a lingering icky feeling. Honor and all that.
Then, Ned attempts to achieve a greater good of saving a planned marriage by killing one of his children's adopted wolves, full well knowing the injustice of the action. At that moment, Ned Stark sealed his own fate. When he was later betrayed and killed, I was like "whatever, that's what you get for doing that to the wolf." Just one of the steps on the path to deciding that the series is largely filled with horrible people who are tough to care for.
So - your hero, upon whom you have labored mightily to develop in character and backstory, has the chance to protect the many by directly harming the few. Should he or she do it?
Writers, the simple and easy answer is: Don't Do That. If you want your hero to remain a hero, then lots of things are on the table (violence, deception, bad manners), but purposefully harming friends or innocents is not. If the evil deed must be done, get a disposable follower or even an enemy to do it for the hero's convenience.
That's a great answer for anyone who is satisfied with the simple and easy.
Last week's Write On diary was about breaking the rules of writing. We've got a big one here. Who dares to swim upstream against hundreds or perhaps thousands of years of cultural consensus?
R&BL Question of the Day: What novel most convincingly allows a hero to get away with directly and knowingly harming friends or innocents, while remaining a hero?
For tonight's challenge, the hero's dilemma. Start with any situation morally similar to this:
"I'm so glad we're blood brothers now," the Callow Youth said as he leaned over the railing. "I can trust you with anything. Hey - down there on the tracks, what's that? It's coming our way, fast!"
Thanks to
SensibleShoes for allowing a Write On! rookie to give it a try.
The Write On! timeslot has changed to Thurs 7 pm ET (4 pm Pacific) for the winter. [Hey - it's spring! Does that matter?]
Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write and/or Writer Beware.
James R. Wells is the author of The Great Symmetry, coming in April 2015.
In an asteroid in the Aurora star system, exoarcheologist Evan McElroy has made a discovery about the Versari, a long-departed alien race. But Evan’s sponsor, the Affirmatix family of companies, realizes that they can make huge gains from the new finding, if it is kept completely secret.
As Evan flees for his life, he finds that his trajectory has reawakened the long-buried struggle of the Infoterrorists, who believe that all knowledge screams to be free, against those who maintain the True Story that holds all of civilization together.
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