How to balance a character‘s duty versus his conscience
I have a character, a secondary antagonist who is following his sense of duty and pursuing a former asset.
Said asset is injured, tired and cornered, seriously considering making a stand and going out taking as many of the hunters as possible.
The secondary antagonist realizes that the ones they are chasing have been behaving more honourably than they have. Their initial attack was met with tranquilizers so most of their casualties are not casualties.
He also realizes that their actions, while effective and hardly a violation of protocol, just don’t seem right to him.
He suspects that driving the man to desperate acts might result in a desperate act which could be very costly to them in lives.
Secondary antagonist wishes to accomplish his mission with minimal loss of life - his in particular. It strikes this character that the best way to achieve this is not necessarily by shooting everything that moves, but by offering assistance in exchange for surrendering.
The ‘no one needs to die’ speech would be met with scepticism, but this man does not want to act like a villain. He is doing his job and if that means shooting everything, so be it, but it might be easier on all if the asset just tosses out his gun, accepts aid for himself and his partner and lives to fight another day.
There are no villains, just people doing what they think they must.
My question is how best to balance the man’s sense of duty and the requirements of his job with the not so silent voice of his conscience?
He feels angst and has a strong inclination to just shout ‘toss your weapons and we will bring medical assistance.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/40301. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
There is no conflict between duty and conscience
The man's duty is to neutralize the asset, with minimal loss of life and resources on his side. He would be doing his duty if he killed the asset or if he captured the asset.
You're saying he prefers at this point to capture the asset. This is not counter to doing his duty. In fact, there are many tactical advantages to it.
He removes the risk that the asset will do a suicide run and take out more of his soldiers.
He is more likely to come out of this alive and well himself.
He makes it possible for the asset to be questioned, which may prove useful.
He makes it easier for his side to discover who caused the asset to turn and how.
If the asset stole documents or materials, they are more likely to be recovered (less damage if they're on the asset's person and a possible route to find them if they are hidden).
The fact that the man would rather see his former ally alive is just a bonus feature.
Now, why would the asset agree to surrender? Because he is not a fool. All those reasons above are ones he can see as clearly as your reader. Maybe it's a trick to get him out in the open for a clean shot, maybe not. If he refuses to surrender, he (and his partner) will die. If he agrees to surrender, he has a good chance at living. Most people would take the chance at life, especially when it's also someone else's life.
As for the offer of medical assistance, that would be sincere. Why? Because the asset is of a lot more use to the man's allies alive. The man knows this. The asset knows this. This will influence his decision.
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