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Hey all!  This is the question/discussion piece that @princess-foo submitted a few days ago. My internet connection has been less than helpful in allowing me to post a response so far. Here’s to hoping this one works. I’m definitely copy/pasting before hitting enter this time!

Here’s what she said:

“This is more of a discussion opinion question than a definite answer question. My brother and I have seen a play we really like with two negative characters. Character A has pretty much everything going for her. She is her father’s favorite, has a lot of power, and several people have commented on the fact that she is pretty. However, she is in a wheelchair and thinks that everyone pities her because of it, even though no one really cares. She becomes abusive and controlling to keep people with her, even though it is her behavior that is driving them away.

Character B is the main villain of the story, and is also very controlling, although he is a lot more charismatic about it. In the end, the story hints that he maybe possibly a little bit regrets what he has done, then he finds out that the MC, whom he “killed”, was his daughter.  Then he is really sorry, as he always wanted to be a father and he just killed the only family he has ever had.

I feel sorry for Character A, because she had everything going for her. She was in the best possible situation for her to act rightly, and because she didn’t, there is no situation in which she would have acted rightly. Thus, it is impossible for her to change, or act in another way. Character B showed he could have acted differently, and chose to do badly. I think his punishment of discovering that through his evil acts he ruined the only chance he had at a family was fitting. But my brother doesn’t feel sorry for Character A, because she acted evil all the way through, and feels sorry for Character B because at least he regretted what he had done in the end.

So my question is, what do you think? This is more of a difference of opinion than something that has a right or wrong answer, but I thought it would be an interesting discussion.”

You’re right! This is an interesting discussion. We have two different negative characters here keying into two rather different aspects of what it means to be fallen. Like you said in your summary, it’s not so much a question of which one is better. They are different characters doing different things for different people. But I want to get into that a little more, because it’s fun to analyze why characters impact people in different ways.

For example, Character B would definitely take a seat behind my emotional control panel and go to town. I’m very familiar with the twisted feeling you get when seeing someone else reap the consequence of your poor (or outright bad) decision. Just tonight I caused my nephew to hit his shin on a chair (accidentally), and I winced that he had to feel that pain as a result of my shortsightedness. I could multiply examples from outright sinful choices I have made, to simply messing around and getting someone else hurt. Sometimes it seems like hurting people is a thing that follows me around. Okay that got kind of depressing. It doesn’t bother me like that. But still, the thought pops up every now and then.

Anyway, there’s a very specific quality of regret that this kind of storyline gets at. It’s the pain of seeing what didn’t have to happen actually happen – to someone else. Much of the time, people will acknowledge the ‘karma’ of something bad happening to themselves as the result of a bad choice or series of choices. They can usually live with that (though they will probably complain the whole way). But when their choices begin to effect their loved ones in ways that never would have intended… there’s a keen sense of regret in that dynamic that we’ve all experienced in different ways.

Things didn’t have to be this way. It all could have been different – even should have been different. It wasn’t supposed to end up this way.

 

Character A, on the other hand, keys into a whole different kind of sadness in our response. She is the person who had everything in place to be good, and still turned out evil. There’s a deliberate choice of evil, and a gradual sense of inevitability to the storyline that plays out as a result: nothing can change this character from the path they have chosen, not even the most auspicious of circumstances.

In this kind of character, instead of seeing “it wasn’t supposed to end up this way” we see “there’s no other way this could have gone.”

Instead of identifying with a character who is living out a dynamic that we have experienced ourselves (our choices hurting someone we love: Character A), Character B takes us to a somber moment that shows us the total loss of a person to evil. There’s a unique, disquieting sense of loss in characters like this. They could have been entirely different. Everything was in place for them to be a great force for good, and yet that potential influence became twisted and shriveled and eventually destroyed because of their persistence in a path that they deliberately chose.

While this may strike a chord in us, it’s not a very big one. There have been times I have felt this dynamic in my life – the times when I am very far from God and do not seek His face – but even in these situations I never get to the endgame; grace restores me, and the lies I believed for a time are no more. Character A pulls back the veil on the “What if?” that stands at the end of that storyline and mourns the loss of that person. It’s a reminder, in a way, of what we could all become were it not for the grace of God. That ‘alternate timeline’ is a very sad one, and seeing it lived out by characters can touch us in powerful ways.

So yeah. Character A and Character B showcase different aspects of what it means to be a (fallen) human, and both character arcs can be used powerfully. Hopefully my discussion has helped clarify why these two characters come across so differently, and why people would find one more personally effective than the other.

That’s all I have for now, but I’d love to hear what everyone else has to add to this discussion!

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