In related thoughts to the last post (by one @greatwyrmgold), Double-Blind is one of my favorite novels. The main character fits the âjaded but effective and arguably more moral than the âmoral centerâ charactersâ archetype to a T, just like Taylor Hebert and Zorian Kazinski.
And Iâm just now realizing my perception of them is very biased, because one of my less-favored things in media is idea that you can get away with avoiding the trolly problem, that you can just âchoose to be goodâ and everything works out well enough . Edit (sentence I forgot I would need): so I tend to really like characters who break that rule, and I think of them as the most effective (or even the best period) character for that.
And that other post actually reminded me that, no, it is not strictly necessary to pick the most ethically dubious option to be the most effective.
Now, do any of these characters âalways go dubiousâ? No. But they err on the side of ethically dubious, and the narrative often rewards them for it. In real life, itâs not so simple (and Iâm aware that this contrasts the usual use of âitâs not so simpleâ to mean that ethics must be kept at armâs length to be the most effective at saving people).
