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Q&A Tactician's Viewpoint and Contradictory Characterization

I have a character who's supposed to be a talented tactician. Because of the setup of the story, this character is contrasted with another character by means of giving them contradictory or complem...

2 answers  ·  posted 10y ago by lea‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:36:04Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/12261
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar lea‭ · 2019-12-08T03:36:04Z (over 4 years ago)
I have a character who's supposed to be a talented tactician. Because of the setup of the story, this character is contrasted with another character by means of giving them contradictory or complementary traits. It's meant to both generate conflict and also allow them to more effectively solve problems together.

Specifically relevant to my question here, their decision-making style. Since the other character is primarily analytic: in order to arrive at a conclusion she must pay attention to each piece of information available to her and then put them all together. By contrast, I want her friend to be a more intuitive type, where if one would ask him how he arrived at his conclusion he would not necessarily be able to explain it.

At a certain point I became suspicious that this characterization conflicts with the tactical aspect of his story. Aren't tacticians supposed to be highly analytic in their thinking? I feel like including both might leave readers confused or frustrated with the seeming inconsistency.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-06-25T20:08:07Z (almost 10 years ago)
Original score: 2