one of the many things that people have said to me that will live in my head rent free forever, is something SainTalia said when we were going back and forth in the comments of one of their fics, once.
i don’t remember it verbatim, but the general idea is that in fiction, when it comes to morality, there are some fundamental things that either a character is okay with, or a character is not okay with. this is not an end-all-be-all rule by any means, infinite diversity in infinite combinations etc. etc.
but i do still think about that a lot. I find a lack of conviction in a character, or a kind of wishy washy plasticity, to be jarring if it isn’t handled with enough weight or in the right way.
the scene saintalia and i were talking about in a fic, pertained to one main character committing an act of incredible violence and espionage in defense of the other main character. and the thing saintalia said was, either she’s going to be okay with that, or she isn’t. actually i went and dug up the comment directly:
That kind of violence isn't something one just "comes around" on. Or at least...I think it's a deep character weakness in writing to have a character freak out and be negative, only to come around later on something that SHOULDN'T BE come around on. Either they have morals, or weird morals, or no morals. But trying to bend around on something like that is basically sacrificing characterization for drama. And that isn't something I've ever approved of in any story I've read.
THAT’S what sticks with me. some things are a yes, or a no. and if you have a character start on one answer and switch to the other...unless the story is about how that changes, how the character is changing from one person to become that other person, it really rings false to me.
an example: the scene in the dark knight (nolan!verse batman movies) where bruce wayne uses waynetech to take control of every cellphone in the city to find the joker.
FOX
Like the phone I gave you in Hong
Kong. You took my sonar concept and
applied it to everybody's phone in
the City. With half the city feeding
you sonar you can image all of
Gotham.
BATMAN
I've got to find this man, Lucius.
FOX
I'll help you this one time...
Lucius sits at the console. Batman moves off-
FOX
But consider this my resignation.
Batman turns. Fox looks at him, serious.
FOX
As long as this machine is at Wayne
Industries, I won't be
Lucius Fox has his line in the sand, he is fundamentally not okay with this, and the only way bruce gets him to stay is by destroying the machine in the end. this is not a thing where bruce can wear lucius down—and to have him change his mind would have been the equivalent of gutting his character. you can’t really respect him if he finds something deeply wrong but does nothing about it, or does something he thinks is deeply wrong.
what it is, at its core, when people switch sides on important core issues to the plot or their character or the characters around them, is laziness, and oftentimes imo, a fundamental inability to let irreconcilable differences sit.
it is uncomfortable when two people with diametrically opposed views interact. it’s heartbreaking when two people who mean the world to each other find themselves completely unable to reconcile their different approaches or beliefs. and I think more writers should lean into that.
there’s a reason charles xavier and erik lehnsherr’s relationship has a weight and a gravitas to it that few others ever have: it’s their understanding that they cannot agree on something so fundamental that, despite their genuine affection for each other, they can’t bear to be together. they have a line in the sand and they will not cross it, not for anything, not for anyone.
that’s what im looking for, sometimes. that’s what I wish more people did.