My problem with moral ambiguity

[Pieturli]

D'yknow what? I really have a problem with the way moral "ambiguity" is typically done as a theme or whatever you want to call it.

The latest, fairly brutal death in GoT (which I watched just out of curiosity, and might I say HOLY FUCK THAT WAS HARSH) reminded me of this beef that has been brewing in my head for some time.

Now I like moral ambiguity in books, movies and games in the sense that I understand the phrase, namely, that the characters are actually human. They have moral grey areas, they sometimes have selfish motivations, they have flaws yada yada yada. The issue for me is how it is usually done, by which I mean that it seems like in the minds of a lot of writers, morally ambiguous translates as "lets make everyone basically evil".

That is not how people actually are. People are sometimes selfish, and sure, sometimes people are total assholes. However, it seems like instead of making people complex and flawed instead of perfectly black and white heroic or evil, some writers want to just make everyone a total shithead.

The reason I bring up Game of Thrones is because honestly, thats sort of what turned me off the show. I haven't read the books, so I'm not commenting on them, but I got through the first two seasons of the show before I just gave up. It seemed like about 97% of the characters were so intensely unlikable that I just didn't want to root for anyone. The few people who weren't total howling shits got murdered, raped or done away in some other fashion. I get that quite a lot of people apparently like that sort of thing, but for me, there's just no payoff when I can't really find anyone to root for. It's sort of the same as my problem with Kratos in God of War, or Walter White in Breaking Bad. At some point, the protagonist just becomes so awful that I actively want them to fail. That's sort of the opposite of a protagonist. I think this all might tie in with the veritable plague of dark and edgy grimdarkness we have had to suffer through for the past couple of years in virtually all areas of entertainment and art.


Do you know who is a great anti-hero/morally ambiguous character? Conan the Barbarian. He steals, he kills and a lot of the time his ostensibly heroic actions are done for selfish reasons. Still, he is basically honorable and his motivations are understandable. I have no problem rooting for a character like that.


Anyways, there's my extended ***** session. Anyone else feel the same way?


CAPTCHA: That's enough. Shut up, Escapist, you can't silence ME!

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

I think, in the case of Breaking Bad at least, you're not meant to root for the protagonist as such. Walter is the POV character and has a sympathetic origin (imo) but he is, ultimately, the villain of the story.

However I do basically feel the same way. I prefer moral ambiguity where the villains have sympathetic and understandable motivations and where the heroes can sometimes be selfish and make mistakes. I like feeling like there isn't necessarily an out-and-out "bad guy" but just a few people whose goals unfortunately pit them at odds with each other. This tends to be very difficult to write, though, because the antagonists still kinda need to be that little bit more questionable than the heroes so you don't wind up rooting for them too much.

So yeah, I too find it hard to get invested when everyone would have been the main villain in a more morally binary work.

 

[Necron_warrior]

Protagonist:- the leading character or one of the major characters in a play, film, novel, etc.

Doesn't mean they have to be likeable or have people root for them, it just means that the story is usually shown or centred around their perspective.
Tbh, I really like the grey area and the 'everyone furthers only themselves' characters. It really stops there from being the boring old GOOD Vs EVIL and where there are a multitude of sides with different agendas.

I do really wish people would stop thinking
Protagonist = hero = good guy
and
Antagonist = villain = bad guy.

 

[L. Declis]

Game of Thrones:

Let's look at the people another way; the Lannisters are bad and the Starks are good, yes? Let's swap it over.

(The Bad Guys)
Tywin Lannister; a man who is so utterly focused on making sure that his family is strong and safe that he will do anything to protect them. He is also focused on keeping the kingdom safe as well.

Cersei Lannister; a woman who is bitter for being sold but loves her children more than anything in life and wishes her father would give her more responsibility so she can better protect her family.

Jamie Lannister; a man who broke his oath to keep the civilians safe and has only ever acted in what he felt is good faith; he loves his little brother when no one else will and will bear hatred if it lets him be honourable.

Tyrion Lannister; a dwarf who is hated by everyone and fucks and swears but ultimately acts to protect the family who doesn't love him, protect the whore who he loves, protect Sansa from Joffrey and help those in need.

Varys: A man whose only loyalty is to keeping the kingdom safe and the people safe despite how much he is hated.

(The Good Guys)
Ned Stark; A man who condemned Jamie regardless of what he had done; who would punish people for breaking laws despite them doing what is needed; a man with no compassion for others beyond what he feels is right in his eyes.

Catylin Stark; a woman who has done several rash actions that brought the kingdom to the brink of war, has weakened the position of her own son, and whose selfish actions constantly undermine any chance against the Lannisters.

Robb Stark; A man who is so selfish that rather than fight the Crown which has the legal right to do things has decided to plunge the entire kingdom into civil war for his own agenda, who broke his oath to marry a certain girl, who left his home undefended because he is selfish, who constantly attacks his own loyal men because he is arrogant, and like his father, refuses to bend what he thinks is right for the greater good.

John Snow; an arrogant selfish boy who refuses to work with the other Night's Watch, has broken many of his oaths without too much worrying, who undermined leadership several times.

Sansa Stark; sold out her family for power, sold out other people for power, refused to help her family, was a helpless child for most of it, is narcissistic and only cares for herself, not her people.

Arya Stark; a psychotic girl who has become obsessed with hatred and murder.

Bran Stark; a wizard who is constantly self-pitying and will possess people without their permission and gladly have people die so he can live.

 

[Gary Thompson]

I don't get why people think ASoIaF is all that dark.

It really isn't, it has good guys on every side and bad guys on every side, it just has a lot of bad crap happen, but it still has people who genuinely want to help and are still alive.

Though the show seems intent on ruining some of them; like they turned Jaime into a rapist and Stannis into a villain, the books though, they're not bad guys.

Go read any of Joe Abercrombie's books if you want to see a world populated entirely by terrible people.

 

[DEAD34345]

I disagree with you pretty much completely. I disagree with you so much in fact, that it's hard to pin down any specific area to discuss with regards to it.

I don't think the characters in Game of Thrones are mostly evil, or mostly total shitheads. Even if they were it wouldn't matter too much as I have absolutely no problem rooting for evil characters. I just disagree with your entire concept on the most basic levels, and I guess that's mostly a matter of personal taste.

Now I like moral ambiguity in books, movies and games in the sense that I understand the phrase, namely, that the characters are actually human. They have moral grey areas, they sometimes have selfish motivations, they have flaws yada yada yada.

That is exactly how I would describe the characters in Game of Thrones. None of them are evil, with the possible exception of the 2 or 3 characters who seem to have genuine mental conditions that make them extremely violent/sociopathic (Ramsay, Gregor and possibly Joffrey). Every other character simply has different goals and motivations that put them into conflict with one another.

I also liked and actively rooted for Walter White in Breaking Bad. He was a horrible person sure, but that's not a problem to me (in fiction). I genuinely wanted his "evil" schemes to succeed...

Spoiler: Breaking Bad Spoiler

... and I was kind of disappointed that they didn't in the end.

There's no such thing as "good guys" and "bad guys" in real life, so I find it kind of ridiculous that 99% of stories are framed that way. I also find it kind of boring, but I guess I must be in the minority with that opinion.

 

[tippy2k2]

Game of Thrones:

Let's look at the people another way; the Lannisters are bad and the Starks are good, yes? Let's swap it over.

snip for space

I could write about how the GoT characters are morally ambiguous and that all you're doing is trying to put the characters into "good guys versus bad guys" OP but Leon here has nailed it so perfectly that I will just give him a fake LIKE for his work rather than try to top it.

As to the topic at hand, there are good ways to do moral ambiguity and bad ways to do it. Generally, the shows/movies/games/erotic novels that do it the good way are the ones we remember (Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Mass Effect, etc.).

There are some legitimate reasons for not liking the show but botching moral ambiguity is not one of them.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I always thought the best moral ambiguity tends to be about "ends and means", where both sides has a point.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

It's not that all the good characters have been killed off. Tyrion, Briene, Arya, Ser Daavos, Ser Barristan, Bran (although boring), Jon Snow are all good characters, or at least sympathetic. Even Jaime's heading that way. It's that there's no definitively good large force to support, which was essentially Robb's army. But I actually think moral ambiguity from character to character is done pretty well. You see 'good' characters doing stupid things all the time and 'evil' characters having reasonable motivations.

 

[XDSkyFreak]

On the GoT subject: I find it funy people complain that no one seems to bat an eye at murder and rape and alot of questionable decisions of sexuality among the rulling class when GoT is esentialy a medieval fantasy. As in the Middle Ages: as in that time of history when armies raped and pilaged everywhere they went and kings basicaly considered themselves the chosen representatives of God on this earth and could preety much do what they wanted at any moment (right of first night anyone? AKA the noble has the RIGHT to fuck any pesant woman on the night of her wedding. It was his RIGHT.)
Realy G.R.R. Martin does a great job of recreating the Middle Ages and adding in some extra flavour to them. And not once did I find any of those characters unbelievable or forced (not that I liked all of them). Also the very essence of moral ambiguity is this: self-interest. As long as these characters have believable and plausible motivations, as well as justification for how far they are willing to go (read: fuck others in the ass with a rusty pitchfork) to achieve their goals, then everything works out. Honestly the only characters in GoT that simply can't be justified are those that you would find today in a paded cell (Jofrey, Ramsay) or characters that

Spoiler

are creatures of magic, like Lady Stoneheart

Oh and a small recomandation on something that IMO does moral ambiguity right: The Witcher. Books or games, both work.

 

[TheRiddler]

I think The Wire did a really good job of moral ambiguity. It didn't claim that there was no good side. The cops, bureaucratic jerks though they may be, are nowhere as bad as the drug kingpins and dealers they try to put away. That said, the show does a great deal to characterize the gang characters giving them believable, somewhat sympathetic motivation. And there are genuinely good/only slightly flawed people in the police force too (Lester, Kima, Daniels). Not every person's a jerk... just most people.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I sort of get where you're coming from.

'Moral ambiguity' seems to be used as an excuse these days to just have characters be dicks, since dickhead characters seem to be quite popular and highly praised currently.

It seems to be less about moral ambiguity and more about moral decay.

 

[RealRT]

D'yknow what? I really have a problem with the way moral "ambiguity" is typically done as a theme or whatever you want to call it.

The latest, fairly brutal death in GoT (which I watched just out of curiosity, and might I say HOLY FUCK THAT WAS HARSH) reminded me of this beef that has been brewing in my head for some time.

Now I like moral ambiguity in books, movies and games in the sense that I understand the phrase, namely, that the characters are actually human. They have moral grey areas, they sometimes have selfish motivations, they have flaws yada yada yada. The issue for me is how it is usually done, by which I mean that it seems like in the minds of a lot of writers, morally ambiguous translates as "lets make everyone basically evil".

That is not how people actually are. People are sometimes selfish, and sure, sometimes people are total assholes. However, it seems like instead of making people complex and flawed instead of perfectly black and white heroic or evil, some writers want to just make everyone a total shithead.

The reason I bring up Game of Thrones is because honestly, thats sort of what turned me off the show. I haven't read the books, so I'm not commenting on them, but I got through the first two seasons of the show before I just gave up. It seemed like about 97% of the characters were so intensely unlikable that I just didn't want to root for anyone. The few people who weren't total howling shits got murdered, raped or done away in some other fashion. I get that quite a lot of people apparently like that sort of thing, but for me, there's just no payoff when I can't really find anyone to root for. It's sort of the same as my problem with Kratos in God of War, or Walter White in Breaking Bad. At some point, the protagonist just becomes so awful that I actively want them to fail. That's sort of the opposite of a protagonist. I think this all might tie in with the veritable plague of dark and edgy grimdarkness we have had to suffer through for the past couple of years in virtually all areas of entertainment and art.


Do you know who is a great anti-hero/morally ambiguous character? Conan the Barbarian. He steals, he kills and a lot of the time his ostensibly heroic actions are done for selfish reasons. Still, he is basically honorable and his motivations are understandable. I have no problem rooting for a character like that.


Anyways, there's my extended ***** session. Anyone else feel the same way?


CAPTCHA: That's enough. Shut up, Escapist, you can't silence ME!

SPOILER ALERT FOR GOD OF WAR AND BREAKING BAD AHEAD


I think Walter White gradually becoming a villain is the whole point of the story. As for Kratos... well, he dies at the end.

 

[gargantual]

AKIRA is a plain and simple example of moral ambiguity done right. The characters negative actions are highlighted but they appear contextual and more as a product of terrible circumstance. Its too bad that many creators dont take hints from works like these. Its awkward to OVERglorify the violence and debauchery, in a setting that doesnt preempt, influence or trigger such action.

Cops and security were dealing w/ martial law and rebels but they often seemed eager to shoot first and ask questions later. Perhaps born of an inherent nervousness about rebels, and the people discovering 'what they were hiding'.

Kaneda is a gangbanger who has likely murdered other rival gang members, and he had no qualms about killing Tetsuo when he went over the edge, but he demonstrates his compassion, is reasonable and has some sense of justice

The colonel is as abrasive as a military leader can get and shows how complicit he was in the akira experiments, prepared for collateral damage, but you also see his sense of balance and frustration with selfish execs and parliament who ignore his warnings about AKIRA

Tetsuo went nuts, he's almost like the anti-spiderman. Getting powerful, the story doesnt sympathize with him, but his internal conflicts and excessive pill popping reflect in mass destruction.

Even the clowns appear first as faceless troublemakers, whose ambitions you could care less about, they are revealed as just young men in their suffering when the masks come off. The rebel movements that spawn, exalting Tetsuo as their leader, show mankinds misguided desperation.

I could go on, from this to GHOST IN THE SHELL and its spin offs, perhaps even TNT's ' Falling Skies' but framing scifi horror action stories this way where the environment is as amplified as the characters and noones being an asshole in a vaccum leaves more room for characters to be redeemable, and try to establish some common good out of their situation. Its not every person they hurt, or antagonize. But thats the breaking point of fiction. Viewers and readers can accept unreal worlds but never emotional dishonesty.

Unreasonably cartoon villains and very pre-meditated haphazard evil decisions dont work in that arena unless its a symptom of serious hate or misanthropy like FF6's Kefka. Thats why even The Walking Dead tv show got it wrong.

I think there are some oblivious executive producers out there who want to know how to exploit sex and violence for ratings ad traffic and numbers really, thats how some potentially good dramas can go downhill. Unless the show makers are self aware of their exploitation, and camp and try to make some art out of it.

As opposed to experienced creators who often cosmeticize or pornify ( if those could be words...lol) visual ascept of their fictional adventures, but know how to keep a wall between cosmetic aspects of a story, and treat the more educational, evolutionary and core aspects of a story like character development, goals, human conflict, lessons, world balance and other subject matter seriously.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

So basically, your problem is with villain protagonists being portrayed as ?morally ambiguous? or straight-up ?hero?.

I think one of the best examples of an antihero/morally ambiguous protagonist is Guts from Berserk. He?s a ridiculously determined mercenary who hunts down demons, but for the first three arcs, he?s driven by vengeance for his former friend who betrayed him, and seems to show no remorse for the pain and destruction caused by his selfish quest for retribution.

But he learns and develops once he realises that protecting his loved ones is more important than abandoning them for a life of violence. Another good thing here is that the moral dilemma isn?t that ?killing bad guys is wrong because you become just like them? bullshit, but ?you don?t even seem to care that you?re leaving little girls orphaned and alone?. Not to mention, it seems that even God is against him. I won?t say anymore, for fear of spoiling things for people who haven?t read Berserk (although, if you haven?t?why the fuck not?).

Perhaps one of the worst examples of ?moral ambiguity? is Light Yagami in Death Note (although he?s still a villain protagonist). It?s clear from the start that he?s a narcissistic prick who crosses the line of killing an innocent man in the first fucking volume of the manga, and his god complex just gets worse as the series goes on. I wish the author had made him a bit more humble at the start, and made his progression off the deep end more gradual and realistic. There is no ?grey area? when it comes to straight-up murdering members of law enforcement just because they don?t agree with you putting people to death without trial.