Normally dilemmas have no good outcome, no matter what you chose. When I started drafting my protagonist, I decided to throw my protagonist into a dilemma. To sum the dilemma up very briefly: Would you die for justice, killing your almost all your friends and family in the process though not actively (more through consequences) or would you protect your loved ones which would mean killing your one of your two best friends (someone who is like a brother to you) with your own hands and likely strangers which includes children, etc.? The protagonist chose the 2nd option. The character developed by itself after I drafted the backstory but to be frank, he is very traumatised. He is very skilled but his emotional state kinda renders his skills useless since he cannot use them. That's why I've tried to change this character in different ways and get him away from this issue but everything comes back to this dilemma. The story them forces this character who feels wronged by the world to face the same dilemma again at the end of then first book in a slightly different way. This character who gave up everything to repent for his sins. The one who still cannot cope with what he has done, having serious PTSD symptoms. The antagonist is the protagonist's best friend and was there during the dilemma incident. It left him just as traumatised as the protagonist but unlike the protagonist, he sought the right his wrongs by following in their dead friend's footsteps. So far so good. Here's the problem: The protagonist cannot make the same decision again, not with what he's been through. Under normal circumstances the protaginist would also never take up arms against anyone ever again. He hates fighting and violence. If he does, he would need a very good reason. I can imagine him doing it to save his friend, the antagonist from himself. This however includes that this protagonist is willing to die for and with his friend. This also means that he is willingly traumatising himself. He also does not do it for moral reasons. His motive is very self-centered. So he is not the typical hero. His character growth would not be that he accepts his wrongdoings or that realizes what justice truly is. He simply wants to save his friend from the pain he knows all too well. Their opinions, interests, ideas align so much that the protagonist would've joined the antagonist in his fight if he had not met another character. So he understands him to a point that it's painful. Would you be interested in reading about this protagonist?
I personally would not. My tolerance for unrelenting angst, agony, and violence in literature is limited.
That's fair. Mine is insatiable. Who wouldn't like a bromance gone sour? The cliche answer: depends on how it's written. Time and editing will tell if you can avoid overt contrivance, hypocontrastiasis, and 'my only trait is angst' pitfalls.
I hate it when the protagonist is screwed no matter what he does. If he has a choice between two option, both of which leave him devastated one way or another, the story would be disappointing and depressing. Real life is sad enough without books adding to it.
I think the answers above give you a good idea of how I’d look at it: whether the inescapable dilemma is there or not, some folk will like it and others won’t. It doesn’t make it a bad story. You need to think about whether it’s the story you want to tell. It could be that the world you’ve made or the character you’ve written would need a total rewrite to avoid that situation. If so, it’s up to you whether you do that or not. Personally, sad stories need to be told. Cautionary tales about hubris need to be told. Yarns that end in disaster all need to be told. If not, scrap King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet. Chuck out all the Ken Loach movies about what it is genuinely like for the underclass in the UK. People can choose not to read that stuff, but I think we have a need to write it, and sometimes an obligation.
Some people like a "doomed either way". We all suffer Hobson's choice in life at some point. But I tend to like to stick to life and make those kinds of dilemmas less dramatic. There is a third option - he could do nothing at all. Why is he the one that must do this? Why will no one else step in and do the work for him? The dilemma doesn't really appeal to me because I can't fully understand either choice.
I wouldn't. The antagonist seems like a character I'd prefer to follow. But really, I think a lot depends on what the story is about. The question "why is this character specifically the protagonist" comes to my mind, and depending on your answer, I might be interested. But, in general, the way this is presented, I imagined the main character's backstory is going to be the first thing we learn about them. And starting the story with a tragedy like that can be really tricky, and more often than not, I've seen it done badly.
I'm not sure how that dilemma developed the way you are talking about but the biggest hurdle is convincing us that there was no other choices. The second hardest is that the character chose. In reality most people confronted with choices like this do nothing. They are helpless in making that choice and it's out of their hand and they deal with the grief after the fact and accept that they'd lose no matter what. But let's say you can make a character be in a situation like this and it's believable how it happened that way, or that you can convince the reader that they would make that choice, well personally that's very COMPELLING for me as the reader. I personally LOVE gray scenarios and choices, they bring out the best of every character, the most layered and textured parts of them. Its like taking a bite out of a Ferrero Roche cake; it's luxurious if you have never tried it. But it takes a lot to write like that, hard to make sure that it's not too melodramatic or the character is too unbelievable. If you can convince the reader its real, well I think you won in that case.
To everyone who took the time to reply, thank you so much. It’s really interesting to see the different responses. In order not to bombard this thread with replies, I’ll reply to everything in this comment: Some people do not want a book that is filled with nothing but angst. I totally understand. It would not be my choice either. This feedback has actually helped me quite a bit. However it may sound, the MC is not supposed to be a broody and angsty person. Yes, he has his trauma, and probing into his past would probably turn him bitter and angry. He also cannot cope with death, but he is by no means angsty or broody. In the story, I try to present him as a lighthearted, warm, and friendly person. He is well-liked around town. He can be a bit cheeky and sarcastic, but his entire backstory only becomes important bit by bit. At the start of the novel, you find out that he has a great disdain for all of the knights and the government, though no-one really knows why. He also doesn’t celebrate national holidays, spending those days drunk at the tavern. His decision back then made him cut ties with everyone and everything related to the incident. Grieved by what had happened, he decided to distance himself as much as he could. Why did he do it? Couldn’t he have done nothing? Let me give a broader context since it is related to the world’s culture and its magic system. However I do plan to redo this scenario, so it's not final. To put it very briefly: Magic cannot be used without a tool. A healer, for example, needs to inscribe a bandage with his own magical letters in order for his magic to work. Everyone has magic. There are 12 overarching kinds of magic. While you always belong to one magic type, magic and its abilities are always unique to the user. For example, a healer might be able to heal bones and open wounds but not internal or psychological ones. The country’s daily life and culture revolve around these abilities (or, to be more precise, their origin). We live in a theocracy (kind of, it’s the closest thing to what it is). So to get back to the issue, The protagonist (P), the antagonist (A), and the friend (F) all grew up together. A and P were always extremely close, almost like brothers. They were sent on a mission with 12 other knights to imprison bandits that had been bothering the outskirts of the country they lived in. As a little note here, becoming a knight usually takes years, and the process usually starts when they are really young. So they, all 15 of them, had known each other for about 11 years at the time of the incident. So F possesses a rare kind of magic. He is able to control someone’s body against their will for a small period of time under the condition that he has written his inscription on their body. Back to the culture (sorry for all the flip-flopping) again, magic is used daily. Everything revolves around it. However, certain gifts, like F’s, are viewed as dangerous and cannot really be used outside of the government’s purposes. If he sold his services, he’d go against the law. If he was lucky, the sacral knights would find him. If he was unlucky, he’d just be murdered. Honestly, his choice is to work for the state or to fend for himself, running for the rest of his life. Even during his time as a knight, he was met with hostility by other knights who did not know him. So he had been an outcast for his entire life. F confided in A and P that he did not want to kill the bandits. They were people like him, with powers that people were scared of. He felt bad for them. He understood that they had to be stopped since they were hurting and killing people, but he also understood that they had no choice if they wanted to survive. A & P put their faith in him. They wanted to help him by keeping everyone from finding the bandits in the first place. He made a concoction that could put someone into a deep sleep for several days, and he used it on everyone, mixing it with his magic. F then used his power to control the other knights, so that they would not be accused of refusing their mission. Things, however, did not go as planned, and the group met the bandits regardless. Keep in mind that these are people with very special powers. They attacked the group without hesitation, because having sacral knights after you can only mean one thing. P begged F to protect their friends and to help them run away while A and P fought the bandits. F was torn. He knew that A & P would have had no choice but to kill the bandits if they kept attacking them, and they would. There was no way to join forces. People like him have been too badly hurt by the system. They would never agree to a truce with sacral knights. So who was he supposed to betray, his friends or his kin? As A launched at one of the bandits, F used one of the knights he controlled to stop A, fatally wounding him in the process. P & A were shocked as they looked at someone they had known for more than a decade dying at their hands. F started crying. He was shocked by what he had done. He had sacrificed a friend. It was a brink decision, but he had actually killed a friend. There was no turning back. Everyone was right. He was a cold-blooded murderer. F was losing it, now totally unable to control his abilities. His puppets reacted and started attacking P and A, who were sure to die like this. P decided to break the spell he put on his friends, hoping that would save them, but that only made them conscious. He could see the terror that filled their eyes as they attacked their friends. The bandits use the chance to kill as many knights as they can. P begged F to stop, but he is too far gone. As another friend died, P knew that he and everyone else would die if he or A did not intervene. In the end, the deaths were A and P’s fault as much as F’s. The only way to break a spell is to kill the person who casts it. That is what P did. He killed his friend. The knights won the battle, but all of them were hurt and, to some degree, traumatised. Both A and P felt the heavy burden of their friends’ deaths on their shoulders. They knew what F had gone through, and had seen the horrors that awaited those that no-one wanted. They had inflicted those horrors themselves, but it was only then that they realized how horrible all of this was. They both grow to detest the government, magic itself, and everything surrounding it. P quits being a knight and tries to live an ordinary life as far away from magic as possible (though that is not really possible in this culture). A, on the other hand, uses his position as a knight to gain insight into the government in the hopes of righting the wrongs done to his friend and others like him by this twisted system.He becomes apathetic towards death, seeing the lost lives as a necessity for true justice. That’s the detailed backstory. Since A’s and P’s past and their relationship are so important to the plot, I really want to explore their friendship in detail. If anyone has ever watched Merlin (the show by the BBC), I didn’t write it like this on purpose, but their relationship dynamic kind of reminds me of Arthur and Merlin.
Wait -- WHAT "sins? Being forced to choose between two abhorrent options does not equate to "sins" in my mind. No.
