thoughts, words, deeds

everyone's the hero of his own story

“The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good.” Leo Tolstoy
Agree or disagree and what do you think Tolstoy meant?

This is an interesting quote, and I agree. In realistic fiction especially (we're not talking about fiction in which good and evil are simplified to make things simple--Sauron is evil incarnate, but he's designed that way. If he was complicated, the story would not be a myth) the characters should be realistic. Ignoring the fact that we are talking about something that can't be done (characters are necessarily edited, and so fall short of the real) the fact that we want realistic characters means that the motivations of the characters should also be realistic. And every character should have some angle where looking at them makes them the hero.

In other words, people don't set out on a path saying "let me be bad." They come to that through a series of choices--a story line that makes the horrible things they do feel inevitable and justifiable when seen through their eyes. Now, I know that there are real life people who do bad things, sometimes for no reason whatsoever, but we're talking characters. And characters need to have some place where the reader can latch onto, to make them real, to make the things they do more horrible by giving the reader a place where they can empathize with the character.

That's why Sauron isn't as scary or real as Saruman.

As readers, we want our heroes to be human enough to have flaws. We're not interested in Lancelot the greatest knight who always wins and gets all the ladies. We want him to suffer defeats and unrequited loves and try to be honorable but fall in love with the queen anyway. And we're not interested in unmotivated evil. We want the villain to love his mother and think that his actions are the right ones, justified, even while they get more evil. Whenever we think about a character's motivations and say "well, he did it because he's the bad guy, duh," we're wasting the opportunity to come up with the point of view that says, "The sheriff of Nottingham is overtaxing the people because he grew up poor and gets panic attacks if he doesn't have all the gold" or "Mordred fights Arthur because his mother feels betrayed and ignored, and he loves her."

That's what I think Tolstoy meant. A good story balances something that's good in the protagonist's eyes against something that's good in the antagonist's eyes--making it more complicated, interesting . . . compelling . . . than good vs. bad.