How to keep a dark protagonist who wants to keep his humanity dark?
My MC is in a dark line of work. He is an assassin. He is also someone with lines he does not cross. He has been duped or coerced to do things he would not, but still holds to some standards.
I want my gentleman assassin to be dark, conflicted and dangerous without being mad dog killer, psycho or (worse yet) fading into emo guy who kills.
He would tell you that his own innocence was the first casualty of his profession. When on the job, he is a pure professional. When off the clock, he is a normal person - more or less.
How best to keep him the assassin next door and avoid becoming emo guy who kills?
MC considers himself a necessary evil, does not enjoy taking lives, but feels that using his skills is better than John Q Public efforts causing suffering. He has an extensive military background even before his CIA days. He never intended to become an assassin.
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Establishing a conflicted character
My MC is in a dark line of work. He is an assassin.
Good start, a character in a dark line of work is assumed to be dark until told otherwise. Start with a murder; cold, ruthless and efficient murder. The character is firmly ingrained as dark in the readers mind.
He is also someone with lines he does not cross. He has been duped or coerced to do things he would not, but still holds to some standards.
Now there's some conflict. Is he a dark anti-hero content with his life or a hero waiting for redemption? Once you show the MC's humanity; mercy, compassion or a sense of guilt, readers will expect this to be a redemption story. He was dark but now is turning to the light.
The Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Mass take this arc with an assassin in a fantasy setting. By the later books the character has lost most of what made them dark and is now a true hero rather than a dark anti-hero.
If I understand your question correctly the part you struggle with is: how to keep this character dark despite his redemptive characteristics?
Keeping them dark
To keep a character dark you need something else to make them dark beyond their line of work. This can be some character flaw, some secret to keep or a reason to reject opportunities for redemption. A truly dark character will, when give a chance to take a lighter path, choose to remain in the shadows.
Why does he continue to do this work despite the risk to his morals? Why stray so close to the line he swears he won't cross? Does he derive some sick pleasure from the risk or the thrill of the kill? Perhaps his line of work is his own compromise between his humanity and darker instincts.
I found a great article on writing dark characters that contains a lot of good tips. Among them is the following brilliant advice:
If you're aiming to create a "dark" character who will leave the audience unsettled in some way, remember: some of the best characters for this aren't the ones who leave the audience unsettled with them per se, but with themselves - because they make the audience realize that under the right circumstances, they could be those awful characters who do those horrible things.
Your MC's humanity and strict lines they won't cross are relatable, their methods are not. Keep it this way and your dark character will remain a dark character with a redemptive streak rather than a redeemed hero with a dark past.
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While I have no advice on what you can do for your character, I want to suggest you go watch a movie called "Grosse Pointe Blank." The main character is a hired assassin who is looking to retire and is written in such a way to be likeable and pretty normal, aside from his line of work.
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TL;DR, Give him the same personal traits as the here nameless human subject discussed in some of Anna Arendt's writings: a mediocre self-contented clown in need of constant approval from a group of peers he believes to belong to.
Also note that a human being that can justify to him/her-self the murdering of others by any ethical or moral paradigm would probably require a significant amount of cognitive dissonance, as probably was the case for some of the quirkiness of the subject of the book mentioned above.
Returning to A.A.'s book, and the implications for your character: you wish to create a character who commits monstrous acts and yet lives a normal life. The banality and sincerity (in contrast to making it up as an act of deception, e.g. as would be expected of a psychopath) of your character's normal life makes it difficult to perceive him as a monster, then we are left to suspect that he is some sort of clown. On the other hand, to call him a clown would make it harder for us to seriously accuse him of being a murderer.
While in real life we do not play lightly on this topic, in your book, you may decide where to trace the line. Simply bear in mind that the more sincerely and honestly normal your character believes himself to be, the less seriously he will be perceived as an assassin.
Now, to some details, freely borrowing from the book mentioned above:
give your character a fixed set of moral guidelines, which he will refer to every now and then. Your character is unable to think for himself in terms of moral judgement, and has therefore to constantly rely on these mantra to justify himself. Ensure that these guidelines are: 1) repeated mnemonically, 2) copied from reasonable moral laws, 3) stated in a manner that a normal person may agree with them. For instance "All jobs are alike, and all are in the service of society. Mine is like a cleaning man, like a trash operator, or like a factory worker." or "I do a service to society, removing the bad apples, and preserving the good ones, like a gardener, or a teacher."
your character perceives himself as a "team-player". He has a constant need to feel part of the gang, to please the others with his efficiency, and to feel that his work has not let the rest of the team down. Make him suffer if he is left alone and without directions. By placing the organization above all else, he seriously impairs his ability to perceive the actual implications of what he is doing.
while skilled, your MC should not be particularly intelligent. An intelligent assassin who wishes to live in the same society which he harms is by necessity mentally disturbed. On the other hand, make him reluctant to be tested, or to be faced with his shortcomings. Also, this will help make him unnoticeable, and anonymous, both of which are great traits to fulfill his dream of living amidst other human beings.
Make him boast with his inferior about some of his results, which were not his to start with (e.g. stopping some dictator, or halting a war), and make him meek with his superiors. A clear understanding of the hierarchical ladder will help him fit into society too, obeying to (most of) the law, and even bringing it forward onto others, when given the authority.
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What's in your MC's past, and what's driving him now?
Your MC is a professional assassin - a skilled murderer. Where did he learn his skills? How did he come to be in a position where people pay him to kill?
He has a violent background - but he's not just some street thug. Maybe he used to be a soldier (probably special forces of some kind)? His talents extend beyond just killing. He's a gentleman, someone charming. He's skilled at gathering information, too. So his superiors offered him a chance to serve his country in a different capacity - now he's an assassin for the CIA.
He believes in his country, and he knows that not all problems have peaceful solutions. Better one death now than hundreds or thousands later. He's a gentleman to his neighbors because they're the people he kills to protect. And he has a code: no unnecessary suffering, no random bystanders.
He's conflicted - why is that? Did he see something that made him think that the people giving him orders aren't entirely trustworthy, that maybe they're using him to further their own agendas? Does he secretly doubt that every kill he made served a higher purpose, and was truly necessary?
Keeping him dark - he's not crazy, and killing doesn't satisfy some sick need he has. But he stays in his job, so he doesn't hate it (or he's stuck). In my opinion, one of the most terrifying options is someone who kills and feels nothing. (He may even be surprised to learn this about himself.) He doesn't sympathize with his targets, but he doesn't hate them, either. They're targets, he doesn't see them as people. For him, killing is business and nothing more.
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