How would I write a power to influence people's feelings without making it evil?

[Marscaleb]

In my story, I have a character who is in a position of authority, (a general,) and is also growing into a father-figure for the main character.
I have had this idea in the back of my mind that he might have a secret magic power to influence people's emotions. Thusfar in what I've written, it has only appeared as him being good at influencing people, as if he just has a natural charisma for influencing people. Mostly he's been getting people to relax when he's around, so they can be more casual in their interactions with him instead of being intimidated by his rank.

But as I said, I've been thinking that perhaps he's actually using a secret magic ability to do this, a spell he is discretely using to make people feel more relaxed around him. In my mind I developed it as a spell that can basically push emotions onto other people, although it has a limitation that a portion of the emotions he's feeling spills through, which makes it tricky for him to make someone feel something that he's not feeling himself. Thus, getting people to relax and feel casual around him is easy, but getting someone to feel intimidated when he's angry would be tricky. But as I said, I haven't officially adopted this power into the story.

Now, I'm writing a scene where the main character reveals some shocking/unbelievable things to the general, and I thought it would be a great moment where the general starts pushing the MC for the truth (not believing the MC's story, though it is true,) and in this exchange he uses his magic power, but it doesn't have the right effect, (because the MC isn't lying,) and the MC comes to discover that the general has this ability (recognizing certain signs of magic combined with recognizing her own emotions.)
When I first thought of this scene, I thought it would be a cool scene. One, we get to establish that the general has this power, two, we have an emotionally-charged dramatic scene, three, it helps the general to believe the unbelievable truth, given the circumstances.

But when I wrote out the first draft... it felt like a rape scene, like the general was forcing unwanted emotions onto the MC. And I've been trying to improve it with my second draft, but when I look at it, I just don't see how there can ever be trust around this general again. If he can push emotions into people, who is to say that he's not doing that at any moment? When I have him bonding and growing closer to the MC, how does she know that this isn't him using his power? How does the general's wife know that how she feels about her husband is genuine? The list goes on.
There are a lot of implications with a spell like this, and they all inherently land in some dark territory.

This guy is NOT supposed to be a villain. How can I have a power like this without it being evil?

Offhand I would say there needs to be some kind of limit to it, but I can't quite find one that works. I thought about making the power only able to make people feel relaxed, as that's basically the only way he uses it in the story so far, but then there's no reasonable way to make the main character discover he has this power. And he wouldn't reveal this power, which ultimately makes it effectively non-existent. At that point he could just have a naturally disarming demeanor, not a magic ability.

 

[Penpilot]

IMHO, your initial instincts about it are correct. When you boil it down, magically directing someone's emotions to make them do something they wouldn't otherwise do is robbing them of their ability to choose.

You're basically asking how do you make forcing someone to do something they don't want to do be OK. Generally, it's not. But there can be a gray area.

This is akin to the Jedi mind trick. You see it being used to prevent storm trooper from capturing the heroes. You also see it being used in an attempt to basically swindle a shop owner. The first instance tends to be acceptable because it's not selfishly trying to screw someone over, where the second one is.

A lot of it has to do with how it's used, not necessarily on the limitations. Give someone a sword and they have the ability to murder and to protect. What they do with said sword determines how we feel about them.

 

[Prince of Spires]

You can read Mistborn, by Sanderson, where some of the characters have this kind of power. It's a decent example. It comes down to how do you write it and what do we know of the character's motivations.

In the end, it's no different from any other power a character has. The sword example of Penpilot is a good one. We give our protagonists a sword fairly easily and have him kill a bunch of people without second thought simply because they're in the way of the objective. When you think about it, that's actually pretty evil and not something we'd celebrate in the real world (most of the time). However, it's fine in fiction.

 

[AlexS]

A character can be good and still do bad things in the pursuit of noble end goals. Yes, influencing the MC this way was not a good thing, but the MC may come to forgive him because:
- there was simply no choice. The general HAD to know the truth
- the mind effect on the MC was relatively minor
- now that the general learned to trust the MC, the MC can trust in return that such thing won't happen
- now that the MC underwent this influence once, she will know to recognize it in the future
In summary, don't shy away from the negativity of using this power. Use it to build character complexity.

 

[pmmg]

I can see it being put to good use--there may be dire reasons one has to pull this out and use it, but generally, if you are screwing with people minds, and get found out, a lack of trust will stick for a long time after. Maybe have the general wrestle with it a bit, and only use it in times of desperation.

 

[Marscaleb]

I appreciate these comments and I've been trying to work these into my story, but I still am struggling to make it really work.

Maybe I should take a different approach to this. What's an interesting limitation I could put on this ability?
I already was thinking to have it insert a tiny bit of his own emotions into whatever he is inserting in someone else's mind, but that doesn't seem strong enough. Any fun ideas?

 

[pmmg]

I think trust is a good limitation. Have a woman in his life who cannot trust him because of it and it hurts him.

 

[Gurkhal]

Or it can be written as comedy with the power hilariously backfiring or having comical side effects?

 

[minta]

Limit the power

 

[Diana Silver]

This guy is NOT supposed to be a villain. How can I have a power like this without it being evil?

What if the general struggles with it himself? To the point where it's not a power at all, but a weakness. He's got this ability and he doesn't want to use it but sometimes it just happens. It corrupts all his relationships with other people, and his faith in himself to connect with people in a way that doesn't amount to manipulating them.

And in this instance, the scene you mentioned, he really thought he had to use it, for a greater good, and it destroys the MC's trust in him. It's something that's happened to him before. He's lost friends and family and god knows what to this curse of his.

And maybe your MC is the first one who'll see the curse for what it really is, and he gets to open up to her, and they find a way to navigate it together, set boundaries that he swears to stick by, and find a way to tell the people in his life, so that he doesn't have to lie and hide this part of him. So she saves him, in a way, from this power he's cursed with?

... Or something ^.^