As I had previously mentioned, I’m working on a story about meaning through the context of characters in a very meta story. Last time I ask you guys about how to interpret free will for these characters, I got a lot of very helpful feedback, so, as in the words of the one great Bernie Sanders, “I am once again asking for your [writing] support!”
If you recall from my last post, I want to have a very wise character that helps the other people find comfort in the weird reality in which they live. I want this wise character to essentially be a sort of Jesus figure: infinitely powerful (even with “real world” power) but masquerading as a superhero alongside my other characters (as the wise character was bestowed this power but still has to keep the plot happy. I’m working on a saying of “The plot is a tyrant. The show must go on, and the show must be good”). One of the events that will predate my story will be a universe-scale war that will lead to the deaths of trillions. However, I’m having a bit of a tough time trying to bring it all together. On one side, the wise character’s main characteristic is that they secretly save innocent people from plot events. On the other hand, trying to save everyone engaged in combat will quickly remove all stakes my story has (if there is no real danger, why should the reader care?). Like before, I have a few concepts cooked up and was wondering what your thoughts were:
- Since I have a Jesus-like figure, I also want a Satan like figure: it will be the literal incarnation of human evil that is present whenever we write stories; after all, we base the evils in stories off the evils from the real world
- Part of my story will involve the characters having to interact with the writer of the story, so perhaps the writer is in some part responsible for the events, perhaps similar to the responsibility a video game player has to the characters they kill in the game
One possible explanation is simply that the characters had the free will to start the war, but find that it kinda still doesn’t work with the wise character saving some innocents but not others.