How can show that my cold hearted character is coping with grief?
I have a little contradiction in my story that may well be fatal.
In my high sci-fi setting, one of my main characters is an android. Let's call him Bob. Bob is efficient, cold and straight-to-the-point: we may as well say that he is heartless. To give you an example: in a scene I'm planning, he will willingly let 30 people die without flinching because their death will maximize the chance of him getting his goal.
Now, Bob is supposed to be a cold bastard, you got the point. But by definition, in my setting androids like Bob are only built in couples - partners, let's say - with matching functions and synergies. The bond between those partners escape logic and can be as well an equivalent of unyielding, hard-coded love.
Sadly enough, Bob's partner, Alice, has been destroyed some days prior to the start of the story (in my prologue). Bob knows this very well.
And now I've got an heartless character who, supposedly, should be dealing with grief.
I can't let Bob falter or mourn: he still has to move on and try to reach the goal. Yet, I wonder if I could (or should) show something.
Is this possible, or have I written myself into a corner from the very start?
In short,
how can I show a heartless character coping with grief?
3 answers
I wrote a story in a boarding school, its protagonist a student facing obstacles from a new teacher, the headmistress and her daughters. Later in the story, the new teacher discovered he would lose the use of his legs (which is a downer, if somewhat different from grief), and the headmistress died (which, for her daughters, is definitely grief). Given how the teacher and daughters had been presented, how did I show them coping with what they'd been through?
In the teacher's case, his role as a "bad guy" stemmed from opinions the protagonist didn't share. The teacher gradually changes his mind on these issues because of his experiences in the book, and he becomes a better person for it. But he could come across as quite, quite heartless in the earlier chapters; and I'd imagine if he looked back on what he used to be like, he'd admit as much. In the girls' case, much of their demeanor was a product of their cruel mother's encouragement, and following her death they had to assess who she was, since a lot of people were happy about it.
Heartlessness, like all traits of people, comes from somewhere. Why be kind when you don't believe the sorts of ideas that make sense of kindness? And horrible experiences force us to do more than just find resources and do more for ourselves; they make us contextualise something unexpected. I'm not saying your character has to reject everything they used to believe, or stop sympathising with who they used to be. But you need to show them go on some kind of mental journey (at least, if you're using my strategy).
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39267. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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What you've got to answer for yourself, very clearly, is what emotions your android experiences, and to what extent.
You mention your android has an attachment to another android. Can they form other attachments, at all? You mention the android has a goal. What guides him - why this particular goal? What does it mean to him?
The first example that comes to my mind for an emotionless android is Data, from Star Trek. He is explicitly mentioned, multiple times, to experience no emotions. All the same, he forms attachments, that is friendships. He knows camaraderie, he talks of gratitude, he is curious, he has a clear moral code.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is different - it's all about empathy. While it's "stated" that androids are incapable of experiencing it, it is strongly suggested that they do feel empathy towards one another, at least.
Depending on the story you want to tell, you can decide whether your android is incapable of experiencing any emotions at all, or experiences them only towards certain subjects, or is simply Machiavellian in his thinking. Once you've decided, however, it is important that you remain consistent with the characterisation.
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The heartlessness you describe is "externally facing" -- the actions he takes and the way he interacts with others. That doesn't mean there's no heart at all in there; it just means he doesn't allow it to influence his actions.
You can show signs of Bob mourning in his thoughts (if the story is first-person) or in brief private moments. Bob might keep looking at the portrait of the two of them in his quarters, or might carry something that had significance for the two of them. In first person he might think "this is how Alice would have solved this" or "I wish I could talk with Alice about this" or even a direct "my partner is gone and I feel incomplete" (or whatever your android would say along those lines).
You have given your android intelligence, and that invites the complexities of emotions. Think of your android like a Vulcan, not like software that the programmer fully controls.
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