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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47737
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47737
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There is a scene in Naomi Novik's _Spinning Silver_ which, I believe, holds the answer to your question:

> I didn't mean to say no to him that day. I had never said no to him before, because I knew if we did he would hurt us, and he hurt us anyway already, and so I knew he would hurt us even worse if we said no. I would not have even thought of saying no to him no matter what he did, because he could always do something worse. And when Wanda said no to him, I said no too, but I didn't really decide to say no, I just said it. But now, I thought, I had said it because there wasn't anything worse he could do to me than hit Wanda with that poker over and over and make her dead while I was there just watching. If he was going to do that then I could be dead too, and that would not be as bad as just standing there. (Naomi Novik, _Spinning Silver_, chapter 19)

You have to find what it is that your character would not, could not, give up - that whatever you did to them, giving _this_ up would be worse. That is your character's core. The core of their identity, as much as anything else. That is the thing that is most fundamental to them. That is as deep as stakes could go for them.

Original score: 3