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@hope-ann

Whaaaat the amazing Hope Ann is in our guild? How could have I not known this?

@karthmin

I’m seconding Hope’s wow. Because I think this is the shortest post you’ve had yet other than the one on the Fantasy Writer’s Realm in which you tell us all you’ll catch up soon. XD

Anyhow.

*cracks knuckles*

Since I have a decently large cast of characters(at least four protagonists in the space of three books, not counting the villain who is somewhat a protag himself… well, the multiple villains), I have not thoroughly created all of their beliefs and morals(come on, I have 4 MCs, at least 3 villains, like 2 mentors, a few dozen or so side characters… so, yeah), but I have fleshed them out for my protags. Because I love them and they’re my children whom I take immense pleasure in inflicting pain or sorrow upon their bodies and minds… yeah. I’m mean to my darlings.

*cough*

Moving on to the moral beliefs–I tend to tie these into the over-arching theme of the novels as well as the character’s own themes(which also tie into the over-arching theme…. don’t ask how. It’s a lengthy explanation and I’m not sure I even know myself.), while at the same time making them contradict. Take my “main” MC, Kirin, for example. (Karthmin, you know quite a bit about him now….) His goal is to become the most powerful mage/Master/magic user that ever lived. (That sounds kind of like a villain’s motivation now that I look at it… good!) Why? So he can be sure that he’ll never hurt, want, or be in pain again. He takes security and strength in his money, power, and wealth. If he does not have these things, he feels insecure, vulnerable, and weak.

This directly ties into his moral/character arc–Kirin originally starts out as a selfish, greedy, narcissistic boy who will do anything to get what he wants, even leaving his own friends to die(because he’s never had friends before, and therefore thinks they are simply using him to get what they want, just like he is), and must change over the course of the three novels to become a selfless, kind, and protective person. His worldview dramatically shifts into an almost opposite of what he thought before.

How to do this, though? First off, Kirin has a psychological impulse to protect himself above everything else, due to being tossed around the slave trade as a child and after finally getting free and ending up with someone who treated him like his own son, being sold back into it by that very person. So due to that, he’ll do anything to get what he wants. His morals are nearly nonexistent, save for a few things–do not spit on free food, do not refuse free gifts/kindness, do not trust, and do not let those who hurt him stay unharmed.

That’s pretty much all he has for morals that he thinks he has. But since people are contradictory, that is far from the case. Kirin thinks he has only these four “morals” (if you can even call them that), because he has been conditioned and has conditioned himself to follow these morals to protect himself. He forces them upon himself, because he believes that if he doesn’t become someone, if he doesn’t avenge himself, if he doesn’t become powerful, than he will always remain what he was–nothing. A slave, a tool, to be shifted around the market and never given even the title “human”. And why? For no reason. He himself didn’t do anything to become a slave, he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. So if he did no wrong and has no meaning as anything over than a slave, then in Kirin’s mind, the only was he’ll become human and loose his title as a slave is by becoming powerful, avenging himself, and gaining wealth, because those who put the “inhuman/slave” label on him were those who were rich, powerful, and wealthy. So he believes that if he can gain the same standing, he can change his own guilt, self-hatred, shame, and neediness into independence, power, and happiness.

It sounds a bit complicated and might not make any sense–but basically what Kirin believes is that if he can become as powerful as those who put the label of not human on him, he can justify to himself his own humanity and change that label he’s been given his entire life to “human”.

It’s a bit…. complex and odd if you’re not in his shoes and reading from his perspective, but it actually does make sense if you’re in his head. XD

As for developing his beliefs… honestly, they just come to me. I create characters usually by writing a character I like. I don’t like strong female characters, so often times I won’t write them(except for in this novel…. yeah. but Vyrn is a good strong female character, in my opinion. XD). But I do like flawed characters(though in my opinion every character should be able to considered flawed), or characters with a sad backstory. So more often than not, I simply start off like that. I like ex-slave characters(Kirin’s inspiration actually came from a mixture of Esca from The Eagle of the Ninth and Jean Valjean from Les Miserables[if he didn’t ‘redeem’ himself so soon]), so I made Kirin an ex-slave. And the rest…. it just comes. I start off with that one thing–he’s an ex-slave–and work my way through. First off, psychology plays a big role, as well as does mental trauma and disorders/health issues like PTSD, anxiety, depression, etc. What mindset would an ex-slave have? Certainly not a “healthy” one.

And then comes in to play my hatred of generic “traumatized” characters. Their trauma has no role in the story. How many characters have you read with a sad backstory that should give them depression, anxiety, panic attacks, dissociation, compulsions, eating disorders, PTSD, etc? I’m not saying every person will get these things from a traumatic event. But some of them will, so why do we never see it in novels? (Especially fantasy?) I get that you often can’t write in stuff like that because it takes up to much time, or slows the story down, or you just don’t want to…. but really. Their trauma literally has no effect on the story. If I were a generic YA writer, I could lock my characters in a dark room for three weeks and they’d come out blinking and wearing sunglasses until their eyes could adjust.

And that’s all. I’m ranting a bit, but let me go on a little longer. XD

Morals, generally, either come from experiences or are accepted from respected authority figures(aka your parents). And while a person might agree with a moral, that does not mean he will have that moral. When I write my characters, I generally like to think of what I would be like if I were in their shoes–and since all my characters usually have some part of me in them somewhere, this works pretty well. Originally, Kirin was going to be this strong, upstanding kid who always did what was right because he felt that was the only way he could justify himself to people and himself, and that that was the only way people would like him. (Also, because he was just a good kid.) But that changed into the darker, more pessimistic Kirin I have now for one reason–it didn’t work. Kirin was upstanding and just, and his former emotional trauma had little or no effect on him. He was…. bland. Because he was so just, there was no arc. There was nothing to fix.

And I think that’s the thing we have to understand about morals when we’re writing–everyone, no matter how dark or gray they seem to be, has a moral somewhere. It might not be what you consider a moral–but that’s what makes it theirs. Our definition of a moral is often something like “don’t steal” or “don’t lie”. That’s good. That is what truly should be considered a moral. But characters like Kirin who have lived their entire life stealing and lying and hurting aren’t going to adopt that moral just because it’s right. They will adopt morals that they view as right–for example Kirin always takes gifts or free food/etc, because considering he has nothing, taking something that is offered freely isn’t embarrassing or demeaning like some people view it as in our culture. It’s free, it’s good, so he takes it. Or like a darker moral that he has–don’t let those who hurt you walk away unharmed–he views that as right because now that he’s freed from being a slave and being hurt without being able to defend himself, he views it as right to defend himself even to the point of injuring someone else because in his eyes, he’s simply defending his newfound humanity. Because now that he is a human and not a slave, he has the same rights as anyone else, and therefore can cause harm to those who hurt him without expecting repercussions because he’s a human now who can defend himself.

So yeah. Morals. This is an insanely long post, but oh well. It’s a bit rambling as well, but once I get going you can’t stop me, so…. yep. I have lots of thoughts on this subject. 😉 (Just be glad I used Kirin as an example and not Jax… that kid has some messed up morals and we’d be here all day talking about them.)