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@theinconveivable1 Honestly, I find “it makes the light brighter” an unconvincing argument, so I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that negative arcs are a part of telling the truth and a valuable literary device.

It certainly doesn’t mean there’s no hope… unless you’re going to write about your character in hell at the end, but I’m certainly not 😉 The point is they could choose differently at any time, but they don’t.

I’ll use Deathnote as an example because it’s the best one I know, though I know it’s not very well known. There are a lot of good characters trying to do the right thing in the story. But, if the story was only from their POV and the villain wasn’t the MC, it would be very difficult to make him sympathetic and give him understandable motivations. By letting readers see into his mind, the story explores what happens when humans try to take the place of God far more effectively than it could by showing us from a distance.

However, negative arc stories do tend to be dark, and I understand that a lot of people don’t like their stories too dark, and that’s personal taste. But hope can and should exist in there in some form. In both Deathnote and Wuthering Heights, this is done by showing the other characters moving on after the negative arc character’s death. It shows that the evil the MCs embraced won’t win in the end.

Push as much as you want. I love discussing these things. Life is boring when everyone just nods along 😉