Musings on Morals

I would like the intro with the fact that this is not a post specifically designed for the project this blog goes toward. It is my own musing and meant for nothing more than to let myself babble until I hit a conclusion. So, the point is that I suspect, half of this will only make sense to me.

I have done a lot of writing in my life, some of it better than others. Comparing my own work against itself I have started to find that my best characters have extremely loose morals. Does this mean I am falling into a habit of writing for one kind of character or is it just that amoral characters tend to present the most interesting and engaging flaws? I suspect the answer is that both thoughts are correct. But looking at my more recent characters, I wonder.

1) Angry. Violent. Conflicted. Alone. (Yes, very angst sounding isn't it? But not really, she's happy in a kill-you-as-soon-as-look-at-you kind of way.)
2) Arrogant/Later Developing a God-Complex. Conformist- led to very bad decisions. Wants to be a hero. (One of my weakest character recently but I think once I hit a good subplot with him he'll pick up.)
3) Confused. Out of Place. Gentleman. (This would be the character I referred to in my previous post "A Line and Salt." Currently I am having an amazing amount of fun writing for this guy.)

Those are the three main characters I have been working on. They are not all part of the same story per say, they are just characters with their own plots. Other minor works include another conformist (who is really just a different version of #2 on the list above), a thief and extortionist, and at the moment that may be it.

So I guess only the thief and the list's #1 are amoral (and in her defense, #1 thinks she's doing the right thing. You have to love utilitarianism in a character). The conformists have morals they just have a hard time recognizing them in the midst of trying to fit into a crowd. And Mr. Colonial Times is the most moral of them all I would say. That’s rather interesting seeing as he is having an impossible time with the social changes such as the civil progression regarding race and gender.

So have I mused enough to hit a conclusion? I'm not sure, but my favorite characters right now are #1 and #3 on the list. So the most moral and the utilitarian basically-amoral character. Interesting. Was it just perception that made me feel like I was drifting too much to a 'standard' character? No entirely, but without a conflict in morality how can there be flaw? Greed. Sadism. Bigotry. Anger. They all center from conflicts of some sort in a person's moral core.

Looking at books I read, and the television shows and movies I watch, I would say that I have a tendency to look at morals in more than just my own writing. There is one specific show I have been wanting to watch again which focuses a great deal on the questions around morals. Dollhouse is a Joss Whedon work and I admit to being a whedonite. But the questions it looks at are very interesting and, of course, my favorite character is the amoral- initially- engineer at the center of the house. Dollhouse looks at the freedom of choice and the abuse of technology, two issues that cannot be addressed without doing more than just touching on the question of morals.

Everyone in this house has been chosen because their morals have been compromised. Everyone except you. You were chosen because you have no morals. You have always seen people as playthings. This is not a judgment; you take very good care of your toys.

-Adele Dewitt addressing Topher (the engineer)

People as playthings. The idea of being able to see human-beings as toys is frightening, but at the same time fascinating. It is the moral ambiguity that gives a person the ability to do so and that is what made Topher so interesting, to me. Can a saint really make an interesting character in a story?

I guess maybe I’m just a bit partial to man vs. self conflict even if there are other conflicts around. Even Mr. Colonial-Times has inner-conflict, although it is not with his morals exactly. Perhaps I’m a tad too sadistic about my characters. I like to see them having problems. If everything came easy to their conscience…well where would the fun be in that?