How do you make characters relatable if they exist in a completely different moral context?
Usually when I read books in ancient-like settings (settings that are either in real ancient civilizations on Earth, or fantasy settings similar to those), there are relatable characters who employ modern humanitarian ethics such as caring about the welfare of criminals or war prisoners from a different state, or wanting equal treatment for people of different sexes and ethnicities.
However, when I read historical accounts of just about any civilization prior to the 18th century, I get the impression that ethics like these were virtually nonexistent. People had circles of empathy, but the idea of, say, caring about people in different states, especially war prisoners, wasn't even really considered. Even for people in their own states, most people didn't balk at the idea of impaling someone in a public square for trivial crimes like stealing or speaking out against their monarch. Slavery was practiced in just about every civilization that had the means to do so, prior to the 19th century. Sexual assault of the worst kind was seldom considered an offense against the woman, but at worst, it was considered an offense against the man who "owns" the woman (the husband, or father if the woman is unmarried). There are plenty more examples of values that would make our modern stomachs turn, but were considered perfectly acceptable, and even commendable.
I'm not a historian. The bulk of my understanding of ethics in ancient civilizations comes from reading small articles and popular books (The Better Angels of our Nature is what gave me the most recent impression of historical ethics). So maybe I'm wrong about this. But I generally get the impression that, in ancient-like settings in fiction, characters (usually protagonists) are given ethics that are far too modern to reflect even the best people in actual ancient civilizations.
Suppose I want to write fiction in an ancient-like setting. While I'm not going for totally unambiguous heroes and villains, I do want to have characters for whom the reader will have varying levels of sympathy. I want the readers to be able to follow some characters and hope they succeed. However, I also want people's ethics to generally reflect real historical civilizations that were as close as possible to the fictional setting in which I'm writing. So I want even the most sympathetic characters to be perfectly fine with certain contemporary values that we would generally consider abhorrent. For example, if the setting was similar to the Roman Empire, main characters should be okay with crucifying people in public squares for stealing, owning slaves and pitting them in deadly combat for entertainment, slaughtering regular citizens in a foreign town during a war/raid and letting your soldiers enjoy their "spoils", etc. But the "good" characters would still generally care about their fellow (free, usually male and property-owning) Roman citizens, have codes of conduct for things like honoring a deal or contract, have integrity and stay true to their word, express humility when warranted, love and make sacrifices for their family, etc.
I'm skeptical that even I could possibly sympathize with any character in an ancient-like setting with ethics that realistically portray that setting. Would the readers respect varying levels of moral values that would normally differentiate people between "good" and "bad" in those settings, if, by our modern standards, basically everyone is a monster? Is it possible to do this without alienating most of my readers? Or am I forced to suspend some disbelief and impose unrealistically modern ethics to people in ancient-like settings just to make the story compelling enough to follow?
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It works well when done well. I have a copy of The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff and fondly recall it.
It is set in Britain during the Roman occupation. The protagonist is a slave descended of one of the Northern Tribes and his life is very difficult. He is the doppelgänger for a blinded prince, who due to his acquired disability is unacceptable to his people.
The slave learns the ways of these people, as does the reader. The protagonist learns that leaders always serve their people and, in time of crisis, must give their lives gladly that their people might prosper. The false king becomes a true king and dies for a people he hadn’t really known before.
The ethics of those characters fit the culture they are in. I suspect that Sutcliff spent more time researching the chosen period than she did writing the novel.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40664. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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There is no problem at all with writing morally ambiguous characters, and it's surprisingly easy for readers to sympathise with them. Let us look at some examples:
First, a modern example: A Song of Ice and Fire by G.R.R. Martin. There was a character in the first book of the series, who had all those honourable values, in particular he was averse to lying, as well as to killing children even when they might threaten the throne's stability. As a result of those lovely values, the character got killed, and the kingdom got dragged into a protracted (unresolved as of 5th book) civil war. Since then, characters who actually manage to make things better tend to be more Machiavellian.
Second, let us look at works written in earlier periods - works that reflect the kind of different morality you talk about. Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers: d'Artagnan was a traitor, Athos attempted murder, the plot with the diamond studs was treason. Not to mention the whole duelling things, such a glorified aspect of their culture - how would you look at it now, if two guys fought and one guy killed the other over a perceived offence ("I didn't like they way he looked at me")?
Or, let us go further back, to, for example the Cantar de Mio Cid a Spanish epic poem about the glorified hero El Cid. El Cid gets unjustly exiled. First order of business - let's rob some Jews.
Or, going even further back, we don't seem to have trouble sympathising with Achilles, do we? Even though the Iliad starts from an argument over possession of a concubine?
Now that we've established that the thing can be done, let us look at how it can be done.
First, and this is quite important, ancient morality is not entirely Blue and Orange Morality (tv tropes link), completely incomprehensible to us. Courage, honour, friendship, protecting someone - those are things we can sympathise with. The difference lies in which one takes precedence, how values relate to each other. Going back to the Three Musketeers example, the queen's distress in regards to the diamond studs is considered more important than the fact that the queen's illicit affair is dragging the kingdom into a war, and could potentially create a succession crisis (if there's any reason to suspect an heir's legitimacy).
Second, values don't exist in a vacuum. Values exist because there's a system in which they make sense, or at least made sense in the past (values change slowly). Let's take duels for example: if you've got to sign an agreement, only there's no legal system to enforce that agreement, you need to have much more trust that the person you're signing the agreement with will not break it, right? In essence, that's what honour means - can I trust you. If honour is so valuable, of course you are going to protect it.
Third, you are quite right - there were circles of empathy, (there still are, only we don't like admitting it nowadays,) and people could be quite horrid to those outside those circles. But here's something: unnecessary cruelty has always been frowned upon. Meaning, you don't beat your slave if he's done nothing wrong. And if you're not cruel to your slaves, you actually provide them with food, shelter, clothing, then that's the way things are in your society, you're not going to be judged for that. Similarly, if punishment is deserved, for example if you have a traitor in your midst, readers would usually accept the particular punishment as part of the setting, no matter how cruel it would be considered nowadays. Readers are not stupid, they understand things used to be different.
So, to sum up, no, you certainly don't need to shove modern morality where it doesn't belong. To make a character sympathetic even though their morals don't quite match ours, show also the values we can and will sympathise with. Show the system - that is, show us what is the norm for the setting you're writing about. Show the character as being a decent enough person within their society. (Not extraordinarily good - that stinks of Mary Sue. Just decent enough.)
The one thing you'd want to avoid is sadism. If your character enjoys inflicting suffering on others, that's crossing a line. Has always been. Do that, and you will lose the readers' sympathy.
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