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Keeping the grey

Gurkhal

Auror
Ok, from some personal observations I've come to notice with many people is that they tend to divided their world to a great degree into good and bad categories. For example if a certain side gets a PoV, then that's side will have a enormous advantage over the side that don't get a PoV. Not to mention first impressions where even if two sides have done equally bad things at the end of it, if one side starts as more symphatic then people would be more forgiving of doing the same kind of things to the other side that they mark the "other side" as being worse for doing in the first place.

Thus I'm asking what tricks there might be to, when possible keep the greyness in characters and story? Or should one just accept that many readers will divided the story into black and white regardless of intentions of the author? Or is my brain being selective and there's no such thing as what I've writen above?
 

Ben.D

Acolyte
I've struggled with this problem a lot as well. When I first wrote a draft the enemy was a central, one sided evil and it made the story seem very two dimensional. I knew I would have to give more of a backstory to the evil but didn't want them to be equal to the good. I've found the best way for me is to give a backstory of the evil to explain the choices and decisions they were forced to make that led them to where they are currently in the story. This lets their actions occurring currently still be entirely 'evil' but gives more depth to their character and explanation for that evil.
 

X Equestris

Maester
Give both sides POVs, for a start. Giving the more antagonistic side understandable motivations will also help. And have sympathetic and unsympathetic characters on both sides of the conflict.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
What books have you seen the world divided into good and bad in? I'm honestly curious because I haven't really seen it. Though admittedly I have read very few recently written fantasy books.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Give your POV side anti-heroes with some serious flaws and troubling histories. If you feel up to it, employ an unreliable narrator as well.

That should do well to add a certain level of doubt toward the POV side's motives and actions.
 

WooHooMan

Auror
Part of being morally grey, I think, is that someone - a reader, for example - is bound to call the character "evil".
The important thing is that the character never calls themselves evil.

My approach is that I don't try to write any "morally grey" guys. Every conflict is good guy vs. another good guy. "Everyone is the hero of their own story" and all that.
 
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I think the best way to show grey, proper grey, isn't to try and walk the middle line where everything is shitty, but could be shittier.

If you want to show great beauty in a city, a really wonderful palace or something, do it. Wax lyrical about the marble coloumns, the high towers, the rows of trees and quiet pools . . . and then show the bad things as well. Show the beggars and drug addicts in the back alleys. Show starved bodies, scars, petty abuse by those that can.

Its a matter of balancing the scales.
Show the glory of shining knights in plate armour and wind blown capes - why not? It's fun to write, fun to read. And then show them broken.A week, a year, ten years later. Bitter, dull eyes, morally broken, crawling inside a bottle. Show the cost of war that the pomp tries to hide.

Don't do this too characters - grey characters are the best. (In my opinion). I like them bastards doing the right thing for their own gain, and wonderful, lovely, heroic people doing the very worst things for the very best reasons.

But for the world, well, grey can be a boring colour. Show the whole range in the world, it'll make it more vibrant, more real. Show human kindness - it does exist, but if you do, you've go to balance the scales, you've got to mix the black and the white together. So for human kindness you need to show evil - the sack of a city after a hard seige. Look up Badajoz, 1813 for what I mean.

Hope this helps!!
 

K.S. Crooks

Maester
Providing a reason or understanding of the antagonist's side does this. One of the best examples is the character of Magneto in X-Men comics. Having suffered through the holocaust of WWII he knows first hand how humans can treat those seen as being different. When he has the ability to fight for himself and others he does so. It is not the reasons people find objectionable, it's the method. Having a character do a good thing in a bad way is an excellent way to bur the lines of morality.
 

SeverinR

Vala
I think I learned this best in reading (and watching) an author with well known initials.
His evil characters go and do something nice after your so into hating them. They aren't all evil.
You still don't like them, but they are more human. When they die a part of you cheers, but another part isn't so sure.
Some of his good characters do fall from grace, do things that won't earn them a white hat, but they are still good. In life you have to make tough choices and not all of them are strictly good or evil.

(the initials are GRRM, much like his world. Grim. 65million from writing, he must be doing something right.)
 
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Chilari

Staff
Moderator
If you want to keep a single POV and also make it clear that you're not excusing a protagonist's bad actions with "ends justify means" ideologies, having a character criticise them or call them out could be one way to go. Especially if they way the character reacts to being called out is clearly negative, such as severing a friendship or attempting to silence a vocal critic.
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
wow...all my characters are on the gray scale, none of them good or bad. They have flaws and emotions like real people and sometimes do nasty things because of fear or paranoia. Even my best example of a "good" character, my paladin is a religious fanatic who tends to force his views on those around him, alienating himself from friends and family and causing his own problems.

I guess the reason I make them gray is because I never have a dark lord sort of antagonist. My stories are just normal people overcoming a slightly less nice normal person. Sometimes I have true bad guys, like some undead creatures, but those are more like random encounters than bosses.
 
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