Also, purification of motive can occur in a story.
But, yeah, one good way to have me never pick up your story again is to ensure there's no reason to cheer for the main character because at best it doesn't matter whether he wins. (Worst is when you really wish both sides could lose.)
Hear hear! I've read books where the hero just randomly butchers guards and other mooks because they're in his way. Then I sit there and go, wait a minute. Did the author think about this? The mook was just doing his job. The hero just murdered him in cold blood. Whatever happened to knocking them out and hiding them in a closet? Why the huge trail of bodies?
I mean, I'll tell you why, and it's Hollywood plus videogames, where it's customary to leave a trail of bodies that fade from existence in a few seconds. I tell you what, I finish that book with doubts that that hero was a hero, and that he/she deserved that happy ending. I've read some that they did NOT deserve a happy ending, they deserved to marry the villain and suffer torment for the rest of their short life because their motivations and choices were SO BAD. Or it'll be a cliffhanger I don't care about, because I'm hoping they'll die and I know they won't. Ugh! Thank you for highlighting this problem.
Thank you for this! I think this started with Star Trek and the photon blasters. You could shoot a "bad guy" and he would disappear in a puff of greasy smoke. No crying out, no mess, no fuss, just gone. I watched Star Trek with my kids when they were growing up and they got kind of tired of my ranting about it. "If anyone ever invents a weapon like that, it would be the end of human life! Everybody would kill everybody!" Because the possibility of blasting our "bad guy" is hidden in every human heart. So thank you for your article. You're right -- we don't need stories that lie to us and make us worse.
Oh yes. This bothers me a lot too. And I love how you correlate the thing that the hero is fighting for (love, truth, beauty) with being aware of all the cardboard set pieces they're killing off. Like if you're fighting for the little guy--the weak and repressed--that kind of can't really work when you're just going in for wholesale slaughter. Not all of those security guards were evil--they were just collecting a paycheck. heh. I mean, unless we're talking zombies or something...
Motives can be mixed.
Also, purification of motive can occur in a story.
But, yeah, one good way to have me never pick up your story again is to ensure there's no reason to cheer for the main character because at best it doesn't matter whether he wins. (Worst is when you really wish both sides could lose.)
Hear hear! I've read books where the hero just randomly butchers guards and other mooks because they're in his way. Then I sit there and go, wait a minute. Did the author think about this? The mook was just doing his job. The hero just murdered him in cold blood. Whatever happened to knocking them out and hiding them in a closet? Why the huge trail of bodies?
I mean, I'll tell you why, and it's Hollywood plus videogames, where it's customary to leave a trail of bodies that fade from existence in a few seconds. I tell you what, I finish that book with doubts that that hero was a hero, and that he/she deserved that happy ending. I've read some that they did NOT deserve a happy ending, they deserved to marry the villain and suffer torment for the rest of their short life because their motivations and choices were SO BAD. Or it'll be a cliffhanger I don't care about, because I'm hoping they'll die and I know they won't. Ugh! Thank you for highlighting this problem.
Thank you for this! I think this started with Star Trek and the photon blasters. You could shoot a "bad guy" and he would disappear in a puff of greasy smoke. No crying out, no mess, no fuss, just gone. I watched Star Trek with my kids when they were growing up and they got kind of tired of my ranting about it. "If anyone ever invents a weapon like that, it would be the end of human life! Everybody would kill everybody!" Because the possibility of blasting our "bad guy" is hidden in every human heart. So thank you for your article. You're right -- we don't need stories that lie to us and make us worse.
Oh yes. This bothers me a lot too. And I love how you correlate the thing that the hero is fighting for (love, truth, beauty) with being aware of all the cardboard set pieces they're killing off. Like if you're fighting for the little guy--the weak and repressed--that kind of can't really work when you're just going in for wholesale slaughter. Not all of those security guards were evil--they were just collecting a paycheck. heh. I mean, unless we're talking zombies or something...