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What’s the best example of bondage you’ve seen in literature?

You already used the best one, @daeus. XD. It’s so hard to think one, but wait.

I think I’ve got a good one. Jace from the Ilyon Chronicles. To quote what you said, his bondage is, “a fatal weakness like letting other people’s opinions drive how you live.”

He’s a half-Ryric, a member of a race is known for their bloodthirstyness, violence, murder, and thievery. And everyone says that Ryrics have no souls. They are outcasts from society, and Jace grew up as a slave, always beat down for being no more than an “animal”.

He was always treated as less, and then believed the lie, that he had no soul. He was a killer. He didn’t deserve any love. He couldn’t control his fierce Ryrik blood.

Deep down, he knew it was all lies, but he really wrestled with overcoming his past failures, and realizing that he wasn’t a failure.

He struggled to believe that he could be saved, because of being a Ryric. Elom (God in the story) really does a redemptive work in him throughout the books, and it’s amazing to see the transformation from darkness to life.

How do we write about bondage without letting it pull our readers down either with the temptation of the bondage or the despair of its power?

You really need to show how powerful it actually is. And deadly. Don’t make it alluring. Show it for what it really is. It’s a poisonous fruit gilded with beauty, but the path only leads to destruction. One thing you could do would be actually make it utterly consume a character, which would cause readers to fear.

But  for the second part of that…I think that’s where God comes in. Yes, bondage is powerful. There is no breaking free without God’s redeeming power. You could show that yes, it’s hopeless. But when God works through the character and shows them that the light has the key to freedom, it would be an incredibly amazing story.

Are there techniques that make bondage more effective?

Use something that people are very vulnerable to, and can really relate to. It will really make the readers fear because of the power of that bondage, that they could fall into the same trap.

Show an endless, almost hopeless cycle of them trying to change in their own strength. And then…it would be a really powerful character arc if they did break free, or it would be saddening, and sobering if they all the way succombed to their bondage.

How are you using/how do you plan to use bondage in your story?

My MC, Coralie, was abused around fifteen. She struggles with her worth, her purpose in life. That she really means anything to anyone. She really is afraid to open up because of what happened.

She closes herself in, hoping that it will protect her from the world. While in reality, she’s crumbling on the inside.

This is her bondage.

But she starts finding out about the light. The last person she would expect to be there, forgives her and loves her for who she is, even while aware of what has happened. She ultimately turns back to God, and realizes that if her hope is in him, she doesn’t have to be afraid of brokenness, or her trust being broken again, because it will always ultimately be in him.