"I am doing the right thing, yet it feels a bit wrong..."

There seems to be an inner turmoil within your character in what they feel they are doing is right.

They know that they are doing the right thing because they have to be. But there is a lingering sense of doubt lying in them. No, this can’t be! Your character can’t be doing the wrong thing because they are simply trying to do the right thing. Whether it be trying to change the world or trying to change something else, they feel they are in the right.

What is that “right” thing that your main character is doing that makes them doubt themselves?

My Turn:

In one of my three stories, my main character ends up going an organization to end the injustices and malice in the world. She believes she is doing good and bringing forth peace, however her actions are anything but good. She is just mindlessly killing people to get the Knighthood Federation riled up and force them to view her and the organization as a single enemy. Yet at the same time, she’ll begin to wonder if what she is doing is the right thing. Still, she continues to kill and cause destruction and plunging the world in flame. Because of these actions, she and the organization go to war with the Knighthood Federation and the world becomes a battlefield.

Mind you she went into the organization trying to change the world but ends up destroying it because she truly believes she is doing the right thing. Yet she is slowly doubting the fact that she is in the right. She is conflicted too because she is also enjoying killing and murdering in the name of justice (only while in berserker mode), but when she is normal mode, she slowly starts to question her sanity and if she is doing the right thing.

Anyway, what about you guys? Do you have a character (doesn’t have to the main character) who feels that they are doing the right things but has a sense of doubt lurking in them?

Points if it is a “hero” thinking their heroic actions are good, but in reality, they don’t truly believe that because they are doubting themselves a bit.

Enjoy!!!

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Oh, that’s easy. Book 3: Xix takes on the power of Naka (Evil, Darkness, Chaos) and becomes a Balance Keeper. She was against the entire thing because the power ruined her family, but she took on the power to help save Creation because only she could hold it. Even a hundred years down the line, she still wonders if she did the right thing

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Wowzers!

So, you ended up doing something that ruined her family, but she didn’t have any options or am I misunderstanding things?

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Cainis basically has an orphaned girl she semi-adopted due to a combination of guilt, pity, and genuine compassion. Where one feeling ends and another begins is fuzzy, like such complex emotions often are.

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The dark power overtook the minds of her ancestors all the way up to her father, and they all did some pretty terrible things. Xix didn’t want to take on the power because she was afraid she’d also lose her mind and do terrible things, but she had no choice but to take it on to save Creation. So, she ended up taking on the power that ruined her family

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Oh wow!

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I don’t do a lot for indecisive characters.

Probably the closest is Rachael from Begging is for Losers. Missing half her life and that half’s ideology makes her question a lot of things, but not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of “Is this true to myself?”

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Bump.

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My MC in Wings, Flings, and Demon Kings has kind of the opposite problem! She’s an angel with serious self-esteem issues who’s been taught by Heaven that she’s inherently bad, and most of the story is about her trying to help a nice demon (all the while convinced that she’s a terrible person for helping him, when in actual fact it’s Heaven that has draconian rules that she’s been brainwashed by).

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