#morally gray character

[cr1mson5returns]

Listen to me. Listen to me. Tim deserves to be 19 and thriving and making it everyone else's problem.

He's not been Robin since he was 17 and maybe the Red Robin series happened here, maybe it didn't, but either way it hardly matters now. He's not angry about it anymore but it's an inside joke between all the kids for reasons that Bruce doesn't understand (and probably won't ask about). He grew his hair out long enough that he can tie it back in a messy bun or a half ponytail, and he's gotten at least one tattoo to cover a more conspicuous scar he couldn't explain away easily to the press. He got his GED and he's taking college classes in an artsy major specifically because it pisses off the stuffy old men at Wayne Enterprises. Paparazzi have snapped at least two dozen photos of him skateboarding through downtown Gotham in a Givenchy sweater over ratty-ass jeans and heavy combat boots. Clips of him being a complete fucking gremlin at a public event have become standard meme templates. He's Lex Luthor's second most important nemesis purely because he's bratty and annoying and clowns on the guy on socials all the time. He's rabid. He's ungovernable. He's so endearing because of it.

#tim drake's tendency to fight anything that moves #morally gray tim drake has my heart #that's not specifically in this post but i love that interpretation of the character so i'm tagging it here #tim drake #red robin #batfamily #cr1mson's thoughts

[clown-eating-pig]

I really love gertrude robinson bc how often do you get an older woman character who just really sucks? She sacrifices ppl that trust her. She is so focused on keeping the world from ending that she completely doesn’t notice one of her assistants routinely torturing the others. She dismembered a guy. She does her job badly on purpose. She’s cunning and sneaky. She dares her murderous, immortality seeking boss to kill her. She gets murdered by her murderous, immortality seeking boss. She’s not particularly friendly. She somehow had access to plastic explosives. She’s a manipulator and a liar. She’s bound to the avatar of destruction. She helped a guy get rid of a pig by telling him to put it in conk crete. She is like the opposite of a sweet little grandma and that’s beautiful.

#tma #tma spoilers #the magnus archives #gertrude robinson #I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fanon interpretation of her being kind and motherly #and that’s sooooo amazing to me #bc female characters (esp older ones) #are so often relegated to being the mom friend or some similar trope that completely ignores their personality #so I love that she gets to be just the most morally gray old woman #with an amazing voice #ever #tma podcast #what if I fell in love with her #what are you gonna do about it? #nothing!! #you can’t! #can’t wait to be sacrificed <333

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

Crafting Compelling Morally Gray Characters: A Guide for Fiction Writers

In literature, there is often a clear distinction between good and evil. Heroes are portrayed as virtuous and villains as wicked. However, in recent years, there has been a rise in the popularity of morally gray characters - those who do not fit neatly into the categories of good or evil. These characters are complex, flawed, and often make decisions that challenge the reader's moral compass. In this guide, I'll help you explore the art of crafting compelling morally gray characters and how to make them stand out in your fiction writing.

What Are Morally Gray Characters?

Morally gray characters, also known as morally ambiguous characters, are those who do not conform to traditional notions of good or evil. They may have both positive and negative traits, and their actions may be motivated by a mix of good and bad intentions. These characters often blur the lines between right and wrong, making them more relatable and intriguing to readers.

Examples of Morally Gray Characters

Some well-known examples of morally gray characters include:

Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series: Initially portrayed as a villain, Snape's true motivations and actions are revealed to be more complex and morally ambiguous.

Jaime Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire series: Known for his arrogance and incestuous relationship with his sister, Jaime's character evolves throughout the series, showcasing his internal struggle between his duty and his personal desires.

Walter White from Breaking Bad: A high school chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine producer, Walter's character is constantly torn between his desire for power and his moral compass.

Why Are Morally Gray Characters Compelling?

Morally gray characters are compelling because they challenge the reader's perceptions of right and wrong. They are not easily categorized as heroes or villains, making them more relatable and human. These characters also add depth and complexity to a story, making it more interesting and thought-provoking.

The Power of Relatability

One of the main reasons morally gray characters are so compelling is because they are relatable. They are not perfect, and they make mistakes, just like real people. This makes them more human and allows readers to connect with them on a deeper level. When readers can see themselves in a character, it creates a stronger emotional connection to the story.

The Element of Surprise

Morally gray characters also add an element of surprise to a story. Their actions and decisions may not always align with what the reader expects, keeping them on the edge of their seat. This unpredictability makes the story more engaging and can lead to unexpected plot twists.

The Exploration of Morality

Morally gray characters also allow for a deeper exploration of morality in a story. By challenging traditional notions of good and evil, these characters force readers to question their own moral compass and consider the gray areas of morality. This can lead to thought-provoking discussions and a deeper understanding of complex moral issues.

How to Craft Morally Gray Characters

Crafting morally gray characters requires a delicate balance of positive and negative traits, as well as a deep understanding of their motivations and internal struggles. Here are some tips for creating compelling morally gray characters in your writing.

Give Them a Strong Motivation

Every character, regardless of their moral alignment, should have a strong motivation for their actions. For morally gray characters, this motivation should be complex and not easily defined as purely good or evil. It could be a desire for power, revenge, or even a sense of duty. This motivation will drive their decisions and actions throughout the story.

Show Their Flaws and Vulnerabilities

Morally gray characters are not perfect, and they should not be portrayed as such. They should have flaws and vulnerabilities that make them more relatable and human. These flaws could be physical, emotional, or moral, and they should play a role in the character's development and decisions.

Create Internal Conflict

One of the defining characteristics of morally gray characters is their internal conflict. They are torn between their good and bad tendencies, and this struggle should be evident in their thoughts and actions. This internal conflict adds depth to the character and makes them more relatable to readers.

Avoid Stereotypes

When crafting morally gray characters, it's important to avoid falling into stereotypes. These characters should not be one-dimensional or defined solely by their moral ambiguity. They should have unique personalities, backgrounds, and motivations that make them stand out as individuals.

Show Their Growth and Development

As with any well-written character, morally gray characters should experience growth and development throughout the story. They should learn from their mistakes and make decisions that challenge their moral compass. This growth and development will make them more dynamic and interesting to readers.

How to Make Morally Gray Characters Stand Out

With the rise in popularity of morally gray characters, it's important to make yours stand out in a sea of similar characters. Here are some tips for making your morally gray characters unique and memorable.

Give Them a Distinctive Voice

A character's voice is an essential part of their identity. It should be unique and reflective of their personality and motivations. For morally gray characters, their voice should reflect their internal conflict and the complexity of their moral alignment.

Create a Strong Backstory

A character's backstory can provide valuable insight into their motivations and actions. For morally gray characters, a strong backstory can help explain their moral ambiguity and add depth to their character. It can also create empathy and understanding for their decisions.

Use Foils to Highlight Their Morality

Foils are characters who contrast with the main character, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. For morally gray characters, foils can be used to showcase their moral ambiguity and challenge their beliefs. This can add depth to the character and create interesting dynamics between them and other characters.

Morally gray characters add depth, complexity, and relatability to a story. By challenging traditional notions of good and evil, these characters force readers to question their own moral compass and consider the gray areas of morality.

#thewriteadviceforwriters #writing #creative writing #how to write #writers and poets #writing tips #on writing #writeblr #writers block #authors on tumblr #authoradvice #writer #author #writerscommunity #morally grey characters #morally gray #morally grey villain #anti hero #writers #writers on tumblr #writerslife #writer stuff #writerscreed #female writers #writersociety #writing advice #writing help #writer tips #writing resources

[ky-landfill]

He thinks of Jason constantly. When he’s working in the prison kitchen. When he’s lying awake at night in his cell. When a thunderstorm crashes against the roof of the prison, and all he can think of is Jason running to the window, fearless, to watch the storm in all its fury and wonder raging on the other side of the glass.

#fic rec #YOU MUST KNOW LIFE TO KNOW DECAY. by orpheusaki #and #Code of Silence by JHSC #willis todd #jason todd #baby jason #incredible fics #sketch #wip #batman #You're gonna be everything I never was. - RHATO 23 #the world is allowed morally gray characters

[greenqueenhightower]

when you’re morally GAY

#we love a morally gay character #the parallels tho #rhaenicent #morally gray #rhaenicentdaily #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #rhaenyra x alicent #alicent x rhaenyra #the green queen #house of the dragon #hotd #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #hotd meta #hotd thoughts #alicent #greenqueenhightower #olivia cooke #emma d’arcy #hotd parallels #welighttheway

[arson-09]

Man, Rhysand was never the dreamer in that god awful series. It was always Tamlin

Tamlin is the one who has always done everything he can do to stop injustice. Protecting mortals, always accepting fae from other court in his land, trying his damnedest to find a way to break the curse instead of stealing a mortal. He has always dreamed of a safer and more just world and has always tried to make that come true. Even after loosing so much he always did whats right and true in the end.

but hes doomed by the narrative. His good deeds and genuine soul over shadowed by the biases of the narrator. Hes the age old tragedy of wanting to be the best he can and do the best he can.

#acotar #a court of thorns and roses #tamlin #pro tamlin #sarah j maas #sjm #he’s actually such a good and interesting character but is thrown aside for a supposedly morally gray man #the fact tamlin tries to be so morally good causes more interesting scenarios #hes my babygirl #i have so many thoughts i hope this makes sense #my brain is melted from playing stardew valley #Tamlin is so tragic he deserves a happy ending #with people who care for him and who he loves #thats a major part of my fic #if i may self promote #anti rhysand #adding that tag cause some of yall dont know how to scroll

[mitskiluvr]

beast will always mean SO much to me because of everything it tells us about atsushi and akutagawa. all the parallels between them. they were both victims of circumstance—akutagawa ended up on the side of “good” in beast and atsushi didn’t and at their core they were both just teenagers trying to find a way to survive with the hand that was dealt to them

#bungo stray dogs #bsd #bungou stray dogs #shin soukoku #sskk #atsushi nakajima #akutagawa ryuunosuke #bsd beast #i hate talking about morally gray characters and themes because i can never get it right like i can never hit the right points #but i think this is a pretty goood example #atsushi would’ve ended up an assassin in canon if things went any differently #and it sounds so cliche but. they were just KIDS #they were doing anything they could to survive #it didn’t matter to akutagawa that he was gonna be a ruthless killer in the mafia #as long as he had his reason to live he didn’t care #even if in beast he talks about morality and how he could never picture himself in the mafia #god. i love them. i’m sick.

[labannori]

Nightmare nightmare nightmare

#YES he is a morally gray person whose done some very questionable things but have you considered that he’s just a little guy #I think about the Black White and Gray eps SO MUCH #the very real moral conflict and character interactions (esp between Will and David) is sosososo good #jrwi pd #jrwi prime defenders #jrwi william #william wisp #jrwi pd spoilers #jrwi spoilers

[z0mbie2b0y]

I need to see more fics where Stiles is like morally gray and would do anything to protect his pack even if he needs to get his hands dirty!! :3

#sterek #teen wolf #stiles stilinski #hale pack #bamf stiles #morally grey characters #morally gray #I NEED THESE FICS PLS

[paragonrobits]

a way for the skaven running gag to continue via the Ratkin

Kitten: Okay this has been bothering me for a while. If there's things like werewolves and werecats- Big D: Hold on, I told you about werewolves. How do you know about werecats? Kitten: Long story, lots of family drama, I'd prefer not to get into it right now. But my point is are there other shapeshifters? Big D: You BET THERE ARE. No werechihuahuas, though. That's a joke. And it's NOT FUCKING FUNNY, DEAR GOD I AM SO FED UP WITH THE TOMES OF ARCANE LORE FILLED UP WITH JOKE POSTS ABOUT THEM and okay, okay. Off track. Anyway, there are indeed many different types of shapeshifters. Boy, wandering from another room: There's wererats and stuff Big D: Quite so! They're hardly friendly to humans, for you see, they're quite fed up with human corruption being responsible for HEY WHOA WAIT WAIT. Boy! How do YOU know about wererats!? Boy: They talks to me all the time. Kitten: They do? Boy: Dunno why. They just wander up and complain about humans being a pestilence upon the world. One of them wants to show me a giant mouse wheel it wants to make into a big bike thingy, though.

#hunter the parenting #WoD #world of darkness #ratkin #werewolf the apocalypse #given how the Ratkin are completely bonkers but in a somewhat morally gray way #and functionally fighting for the survival of the world #vs the skaven being comically evil even by Imperium standards #they also nicely have the 'TTS but everything just slightly askew' vibe that #HtP seems to be taking to character adjustments #queued

[wannabeprincess-8]

annabel: I hate myself and I will be as cruel as I see necessary and sacrifice anyone to be with lenore, i am extremely self destructive and couldn't care less if I died as long as I can be with lenore

people: girlboss!

annabel: *is self destructive and cruel*

fandom: you bitch!

#other people have said this but yall want complex/morally gray female characters until they are actually morally Grey #annabel lee whitlock #nevermore webtoon #annabel lee x lenore #justice for Duke tho

[thief-of-eggs]

Remember folks- murder is OK so long as the murderer is just a silly little guy :)

#they didn’t actually mean it!! they’re just silly :)) #everyone makes mistakes and it’s important that we forgive and forget #this is about alastor #but also any morally gray character #hazbin hotel #alastor #jinx #arcane #silco #loki #anakin #kylo ren #general hux #star wars #marvel #dc #dc joker #hazbin hotel alastor #helluva boss #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #loki laufeyson #jason todd

[boyquiet]

i think that we need to get over the narrative that you can’t have gay villains because that’s a harmful stereotype because there’s a huge difference between “this character is gay and a bad person” and “this character was written specifically to equate being gay and being evil/depraved/degenerate”. it’s just such a narrow minded view of fiction that leads to people afraid to write queer characters as anything less than morally perfect and then to a bunch of palatable but bland and boring queer characters that are arguably worse representation than a gay villain because they are not allowed to do anything wrong. while it is important to write all types of gay characters a work isn’t instantly “problematic” because the villain is queer and the hero isn’t. I think this is also related to the idea of subtext vs text in gay media and how I see a lot of people get mad bc the homoerotic subtext isn’t made canon without considering the context of it at all—sometimes creators make artistic decisions for reasons other than that they didn’t want the gay people to kiss because they’re homophobic. well written queer subtext can be better than a canon gay couple with no personality or relevance and a queer villain can be a better queer character than a gay hero because the characters in-universe morality isn’t inherently tied to how much care they are written with and the quality of “queer representation” isn’t determined by the amount of times they kiss on screen.

#mainly this is brought on by mgs discourse surrounding vamp and volgin and ocelot #I was telling a friend who isn’t into mgs about how ocelot is gay and a sadist and they asked if there were any good gay characters in mgs #and I was like um well no one is really a good character in this series. but yeah I guess #and they said ‘then the game is redeemed’ #that was pretty disappointing to me im not making a callout for my friend or anything but like. you cant judge a work on its rep #by weighing the number of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ queer characters mathematically #it’s shallow and reductive both to queer rep and the concept of gray morality #never mind that ocelot is one of the most important well written and beloved characters in the franchise. hes gay and evil so that must #make him a derogatory stereotype and ‘bad representation’ #anyway I think ocelot should torture and kill more people for fun #queer #lgbtq

[dilf-phoenix-rights]

If y’all can forgive Edgeworth for knowingly participating in a rigged trial because he couldn’t accept ruining his perfect record, than you should be able to forgive Phoenix for presenting forged evidence when he was facing the possibility of execution and the man actually responsible for the murder he was accused of walks free and could go after his daughter if he decided taking vengeance out on Phoenix wasn’t enough.

#ace attorney #phoenix wright #aa4 spoilers #god forbid a generally good character make a morally gray decision when he and his loved one are in danger #some of you are like ‘if a character isn’t presented as fallible from the beginning than he is never allowed to mess up.’ #and it’s just… frustrating. #like please learn to have sympathy for good characters making bad decisions under duress #you can certainly be mad at them but to decide they are a no good horrible selfish person because they had one moment of self preservation #is just ludicrous #and boring

[sashimew-the-cat]

Teenage Grant! Love this little guy (Click for better quality)

#art #my art #dungeons and daddies #dndads #dndaddies #grant wilson #dnd #dungeons and dragons #he has slowly became my favorite character #I don’t have any particular reason #though his morally gray-ness makes him very compelling to me!

[arson-09]

Tamlin is actually such an underrated character in acotar. Because of feyres very biased narrative she forces readers to ignore the complexity of his character and man. its sad

Tamlin is a character who is genuinely GOOD at his core. He changed so much of the spring court for good, eliminating slavery within the spring lands and mortals having more protection. Hes a morally good character that made a few mistakes and is boiled down to just those mistakes. Locking feyre in the house and the magical/emotional blow up, which are both pretty decent fuck ups (i dont think siding with hybern fully counts as he was a double agent all along and tamlin was decently justified in thinking feyre was being kept against her will. lets be fr here) and even after he’s extremely fucked over by the nightcourt, his lands and court burned to shit, he still saves rhysand. Saves rhysand and tells feyre to be happy, even when he has every reason to NOT do that!

Hes a character that clearly holds himself to a higher standard. throughout acotar he puts lucien and feyres safety above his own, even sending feyre away when she was the only one who could save him. Even though what he did to her wasnt great its not completely irredeemable, rhysand did much worse things to feyre and other people but hes living his best life while Tamlin seems to find himself unworthy of being a person (acosf wheres hes been in beast form for roughly over two years) hes a perfectionist who now doesnt even think he deserves anyone because he accidentally hurt the people he loves most.

Sjm accidentally created a beautifully rich and morally righteous character who is so extremely fucked by the narrative. Which doesnt even work half the time as sjm cant seemingly commit to making him a full villain (seemingly by accident again she gave him quite a reasonable explanation to everything he did ‘wrong’ but still chooses to make him a punching bag)

If Tamlin was genuinely a morally evil character he wouldnt have NEARLY the amount of fans as he does. Hes a character that requires the minimum amount of media literacy and comprehension to understand and i LOVE him.

#acotar #a court of thorns and roses #tamlin #pro tamlin #sarah j maas #rhysand #sjm #anti rhysand #feyre #sjm critical #and most tamlin haters are so shallow #calling him tampon (which has so many misogynistic issues) is not the serve the girlies think it is #GOD hes so complex and its so good #i usually like the morally gray characters but this series writes them so poorly i go back around to loving the hero esq characters #tamlin has a certain ‘hero’ complex to him where he expects himself to save everyone and that its his duty #he said himself that hes only good for fighting and killing. he sees himself as subhuman or subfae whatever #and that level of self loathing/belief that others mean more than him makes him infinitely better than rhys or feyre #feyre and rhys are characters who are so full of themselves #obnoxious and hypocritical #i like feyre in the first book and basically dislike her in the rest of the series because she becomes so hypocritical and self obsessed #its 3am idk if this makes sense i just love tam :(