jeriendhal | Good Guys vs. Bad Guys

Ryk
E. Spoor has some interesting commentary on tension and how it applies to stories, and why we root for the good guys anyway in stories where their victory is inevitable

Like Spoor, I'm firmly in favor of the "Good Guys Win" school of storytelling. If I wanted to watch a story about the good guys losing, or no good guys at all, I'd turn on the evening news. Stories like The Princess Bride or Bujold's Mirror Dance have the protagonists dying, but the audience is assured that at the end (especially if you're re-reading the story) that Our Heroes will triumph in the end. Perhaps wounded in body and spirit, perhaps not with all of their dear companions, but they make it through themselves.

Making up for this loss is the question of how the heroes will win. Miles Vorkosigan came back to life, but at the cost of his health and a portion of his brother's sanity. Wesley came back as well, but what was at risk this time was the idealism of a child who was having the story read to him on his sickbed. It's not so much knowing what's going to happen at the end, it's how they get there.

This is why stories like Elizabeth Bear's Blood and Iron leave such a bad taste in my mouth. It's a beautifully written tale about faeries battling human sorcerers, but there's not a single person to root for. Both sides are equally vile and the characters that are at least likable are ineffectual, allowing themselves to be rolled over by the circumstances instead of creating a more favorable outcome.

Looking at things from that perspective, I'm not surprised now that The Dragon's Companion is the commercial work I like the least out of the ones I've published. Teal gets what she wants in the end, but she sacrifices her shot at personal freedom and is undeniably miserable at the conclusion. Worse, throughout the stories, she's moody, dour and fairly humorless, which makes for a poor reading companion.