Motivation dilemma.
So for a while I've been referencing a character's mysterious angsty backstory, except I only recently realized that I have forgotten to come up with said backstory. If you're willing to sit through a long block of text, I could use some advice.
Here's the gist of it: Kratos, a soldier, committed a crime and then in fear deserted, and is now on the run. However he would never normally desert the army, unless he believed staying to be a big enough threat to him personally. The reason he deserted is because the potential sentence for his crime would be either a life sentence or the death sentence (oh haha.) However I'm having trouble coming up with whatever this crime is; it probably involves either murder or treason, or both. And why would this normally straight-laced, loyal character commit murder or treason I wonder?
The reason, then, would have to have stemmed from a situation that was so obviously morally wrong that he was willing to risk the consequences in order to rectify it; and this situation would normally be tolerated by the government, thus their willingness to come down hard on him for it.
Now part of the reason comes in the form of another character's younger brother Edwick, who is a member of a race that is oppressed by the government. Thus Kratos probably steps in to prevent the ill treatment of Edwick, which would probably otherwise be tolerated by the government. But, assuming that this ends in murder, why would Kratos decide that the only option of subduing the boy's tormentor was deadly force? The person he kills, who we will call V for convenience, would have to have tried to kill Kratos first before he would resort to deadly force.
Why, then, would V try to kill Kratos? One option is that V had something to gain from Kratos's death that outweighed the potential consequence -- or he thought he could get away with it, either legally or through duplicity. Either way, V would probably only take the risk if he had it planned in advance to some extent, as in the spur of the moment trying to kill a well-known knight probably wouldn't seem like a very good idea. However if Kratos knew that V had intended his death from the beginning, he wouldn't have felt the guilt later at breaking the law in the process of preventing something morally repugnant, but rather would feel justified in killing in self defense. This guilt is a rather essential part of Kratos's character arc, and thus Kratos can't know. Thus he must truly believe that V would be willing to kill him in order to carry out whatever deed he was planning; however for the incident to be believable to the audience, V's true agenda must eventually be made clear, which would completely derail Kratos's character development, as he would have a good excuse to avoid coming to terms with what he's done. With Kratos I think even if the revelation happens after he learns his lesson he will still uses it as an excuse to un-learn it and go back to the way he was before. It might be interesting for him to temporarily regress and then encounter a situation where he's presented with a clear choice between his morals and and his loyalty to the law, and then choose the right thing; or indeed, regress and stay that way, as we can see in the original story, which takes place many years later, he is still reluctant to break from authority in order to keep his morals, though he does indeed do so in the end. However that seems overly complicated, plus I have the feeling that a death plot against Kratos that was hatched and failed before the story even started would make it more complicated than is really necessary.
Thus, if we want to avoid this whole death-plot tangle, V must have something to gain directly from whatever he was planning to do to Edwick. Edwick is the younger brother of a terrorist, Haddon, and if V was an intelligence agent and found out their relation, he could use Edwick against Haddon. If Kratos caught what looked like a kidnapping in a dark alley, and if V thought that Kratos was coming to Edwick's aid because he was working with the terrorists, that would provide us with an easy motivation for the both of them. However this case of mistaken identity on both their parts wouldn't leave Kratos with the crisis of loyalty in the moment he killed V, as he would only realize what he had done once he had already killed V, seen his face properly, and realized who he was.
To sum up: Kratos tries to prevent something he thinks his morally reprehensible. Is it a case of mistaken purpose, as in the knife-in-the-dark scenario, which lessens the impact of his choice? Or was this act truly going to be committed? If so, was it against Edwick, or did it look like it was against Edwick but was actually against Kratos? If the former, I can think of no crime V would believably commit that would require prevention via deadly force and that the government would also let slide, as even this government would object to the murder of the oppressed race, unless V was a very important person. If we take the death-plot route, it will derail Kratos's character development later on, which is not necessarily a bad thing. (To reiterate, in the original, which happens many years later, Kratos essentially works for a corrupt government again, and still has to struggle with himself before he finally decides to work against it, meaning that either he doesn't complete this part of his character arc until then, or he regressed at some point.) Or could I use some sort of amalgamation of these scenarios?
1. A case of mistaken identity
Pro: Simple, very little room for plotholes
Con: Lessens the impact of his choice and thus weakens his character arc
2. V was committing a crime against Edwick
Pro: doesn't have bad repercussions on the overall plot and character arcs
Con: Lack of believability -- why would V (probably) try to kill Edwick, that was so important he was willing to kill a well-known knight?
3. V plotting to kill Kratos
Pro/Con: Derails Kratos's character arc, leaving it to end like it does in the original -- could be accomplished by having him complete the character arc in "Harmony" and then regress in the sequel "Celestial Design." ("Harmony of the Spheres" is a typical adventure story with a typical plot flow expected of such, meaning Kratos's character arc should probably be completed normally or risk seeming at odds with the rest of the story; while "Celestial Design" is more of a tragedy in that, while ostensibly it's about Cruxis setting up the new world order, it's more character driven in that the main plot is the surviving characters from HotS regressing to their worst instincts.) Potentially awesome if pulled off well.
Con: Unnecessarily complicated
Con: Derailment, while potentially awesome, could be completed in some other way.
(That is a very long summary.)
Luckily either way this whole fiasco has provided the motivation for Haddon in some of his actions regarding the Kratos, and why Haddon seems to admire the Kratos one moment and revile him the next.
Aaand that's what I've been doing the past four hours.
Here's the gist of it: Kratos, a soldier, committed a crime and then in fear deserted, and is now on the run. However he would never normally desert the army, unless he believed staying to be a big enough threat to him personally. The reason he deserted is because the potential sentence for his crime would be either a life sentence or the death sentence (oh haha.) However I'm having trouble coming up with whatever this crime is; it probably involves either murder or treason, or both. And why would this normally straight-laced, loyal character commit murder or treason I wonder?
The reason, then, would have to have stemmed from a situation that was so obviously morally wrong that he was willing to risk the consequences in order to rectify it; and this situation would normally be tolerated by the government, thus their willingness to come down hard on him for it.
Now part of the reason comes in the form of another character's younger brother Edwick, who is a member of a race that is oppressed by the government. Thus Kratos probably steps in to prevent the ill treatment of Edwick, which would probably otherwise be tolerated by the government. But, assuming that this ends in murder, why would Kratos decide that the only option of subduing the boy's tormentor was deadly force? The person he kills, who we will call V for convenience, would have to have tried to kill Kratos first before he would resort to deadly force.
Why, then, would V try to kill Kratos? One option is that V had something to gain from Kratos's death that outweighed the potential consequence -- or he thought he could get away with it, either legally or through duplicity. Either way, V would probably only take the risk if he had it planned in advance to some extent, as in the spur of the moment trying to kill a well-known knight probably wouldn't seem like a very good idea. However if Kratos knew that V had intended his death from the beginning, he wouldn't have felt the guilt later at breaking the law in the process of preventing something morally repugnant, but rather would feel justified in killing in self defense. This guilt is a rather essential part of Kratos's character arc, and thus Kratos can't know. Thus he must truly believe that V would be willing to kill him in order to carry out whatever deed he was planning; however for the incident to be believable to the audience, V's true agenda must eventually be made clear, which would completely derail Kratos's character development, as he would have a good excuse to avoid coming to terms with what he's done. With Kratos I think even if the revelation happens after he learns his lesson he will still uses it as an excuse to un-learn it and go back to the way he was before. It might be interesting for him to temporarily regress and then encounter a situation where he's presented with a clear choice between his morals and and his loyalty to the law, and then choose the right thing; or indeed, regress and stay that way, as we can see in the original story, which takes place many years later, he is still reluctant to break from authority in order to keep his morals, though he does indeed do so in the end. However that seems overly complicated, plus I have the feeling that a death plot against Kratos that was hatched and failed before the story even started would make it more complicated than is really necessary.
Thus, if we want to avoid this whole death-plot tangle, V must have something to gain directly from whatever he was planning to do to Edwick. Edwick is the younger brother of a terrorist, Haddon, and if V was an intelligence agent and found out their relation, he could use Edwick against Haddon. If Kratos caught what looked like a kidnapping in a dark alley, and if V thought that Kratos was coming to Edwick's aid because he was working with the terrorists, that would provide us with an easy motivation for the both of them. However this case of mistaken identity on both their parts wouldn't leave Kratos with the crisis of loyalty in the moment he killed V, as he would only realize what he had done once he had already killed V, seen his face properly, and realized who he was.
To sum up: Kratos tries to prevent something he thinks his morally reprehensible. Is it a case of mistaken purpose, as in the knife-in-the-dark scenario, which lessens the impact of his choice? Or was this act truly going to be committed? If so, was it against Edwick, or did it look like it was against Edwick but was actually against Kratos? If the former, I can think of no crime V would believably commit that would require prevention via deadly force and that the government would also let slide, as even this government would object to the murder of the oppressed race, unless V was a very important person. If we take the death-plot route, it will derail Kratos's character development later on, which is not necessarily a bad thing. (To reiterate, in the original, which happens many years later, Kratos essentially works for a corrupt government again, and still has to struggle with himself before he finally decides to work against it, meaning that either he doesn't complete this part of his character arc until then, or he regressed at some point.) Or could I use some sort of amalgamation of these scenarios?
1. A case of mistaken identity
Pro: Simple, very little room for plotholes
Con: Lessens the impact of his choice and thus weakens his character arc
2. V was committing a crime against Edwick
Pro: doesn't have bad repercussions on the overall plot and character arcs
Con: Lack of believability -- why would V (probably) try to kill Edwick, that was so important he was willing to kill a well-known knight?
3. V plotting to kill Kratos
Pro/Con: Derails Kratos's character arc, leaving it to end like it does in the original -- could be accomplished by having him complete the character arc in "Harmony" and then regress in the sequel "Celestial Design." ("Harmony of the Spheres" is a typical adventure story with a typical plot flow expected of such, meaning Kratos's character arc should probably be completed normally or risk seeming at odds with the rest of the story; while "Celestial Design" is more of a tragedy in that, while ostensibly it's about Cruxis setting up the new world order, it's more character driven in that the main plot is the surviving characters from HotS regressing to their worst instincts.) Potentially awesome if pulled off well.
Con: Unnecessarily complicated
Con: Derailment, while potentially awesome, could be completed in some other way.
(That is a very long summary.)
Luckily either way this whole fiasco has provided the motivation for Haddon in some of his actions regarding the Kratos, and why Haddon seems to admire the Kratos one moment and revile him the next.
Aaand that's what I've been doing the past four hours.