1. Ooooh, I love complex moral dilemmas like this. My protagonist faces a quandary of duty at the end of Book 1 of my trilogy….to say much about what he has to choose between would be spoilers, but oh, I AGONIZED over what his decision would be. I had a giant page full of a thought cloud on all the possible motivations and pros and cons for each choice. 😛 I agree with you; ultimately there is no blanket answer to all of these kinds of questions, and each provides a fascinating little problem to puzzle out. People have duties and responsibilities to causes/society/nations/family/etc., and sometimes it’s hard to say which should come out on “top.”

    • Eric says:

      That’s cool. I’m working on a story where the inciting incident is the result of a dilemma the heroes faced years before the story beginning. They made the best decision they possibly could, and things still end up going south for them by the time the story starts.

      Does book 1 end with the protagonist actually making a choice, or does that happen in the next installment?

  2. notleia says:

    IMO, there’s a certain amount of sketchiness in someone making important decisions on behalf of another non-child person without their knowledge/input. Especially when it’s dudes making decisions for ladies, because gross baggage of patriarchy. Even with spouses, because there are plenty of terrible spouses and/or ones with chronic assumption-itis. There are few kinds of people more infuriating than those with assumption-itis.

  3. There are so many ways to play the “secret identity” trope, it seems — some are angsty and questionable, but others are just good fun. I’ve recently discovered a cute cartoon called Miraculous Ladybug — sort of a modern 3D Sailor Moon, really — in which two tenth graders in the same class are also superhero partners fighting magical crime, and the girl has a crush on the boy’s real life identity while the boy has a crush on her alter-ego. But of course neither one of them has guessed who the other one is, and none of their schoolmates have either, even though it’s hilariously obvious to the viewer.

    Sure, it would be easy to roll one’s eyes at the cliche, and ordinarily I would. But in this case the absurd obviousness is actually part of the show’s charm. It’s not trying to be edgy or sophisticated; it’s a sweet, earnest, quasi-romantic magical girl story in the best tradition of that subgenre. I can roll with that because it doesn’t pretend to be anything else — whereas I’ve frequently gritted my teeth in exasperation over shows that strive to be original and clever in every other way but still insist that the superhero can’t reveal his identity to the people he loves BECAUSE OF REASONS.

  4. Autumn Grayson says:

    Sometimes a superhero keeping a secret identity hidden from a loved one wouldn’t seem to help much(at least in terms of the hero’s spouse). The most important thing would be to keep their secret identity safe from everyone else. But there is also the fact that many heroes have at least one friend or family member that disapproves of superheroes, or the alter ego of the hero in question. Of course at that point the hero is going to want to keep it a secret, because they don’t want their family member or friend to hate them.

  5. Eric says:

    As I recall, the webcomic Axe Cop recommends not only telling your loved ones your secret identity but giving them guns and having them hide in the bushes outside the house each night to kill any villains who try to kidnap them (with one family member on the roof to kill villains at a distance).

    That’s probably what I’d do. The family wouldn’t get much sleep, but, hey, stakeouts are fun! 🙂

  6. Eric says:

    On a more serious note than my previous comment, I like what you’re saying.

    It can be even more interesting when either choice would have a CLEARLY bad outcome (as opposed to POTENTIALLY bad outcome). Although the phrase “pick your poison” refers to alcohol, it’s really tempting to apply it to situations like this.

  7. Wow, this brings up a couple thoughts.

    1) Yay! I’m not the only one who is perplexed that Superhero can’t reveal his identity to his closest friend even though Archnemesis already has a clue who Superhero is! Plot hole, anyone?

    2) In real life, spouses or significant others who keep secrets like that from each other end up with serious relational difficulties. Trust is vital.

    3) I love moral dilemmas. For one thing, they’re realistic. We don’t always get the luxury of choosing between a good choice and a bad one. Sometimes they’re both bad. What the hero chooses in that moment, what he prizes more or fears more, is superb insight into his character, more than an author’s descriptive in-text analysis of his character could ever reveal. In my interactive episodic fantasy story, Azinae, my readers are the ones who choose between my MC’s difficult choices and moral dilemmas, and it’s really interesting for me to see what people choose when faced with these types of complex moral dilemmas. Sometimes the responses have totally surprised me.

    Well done, Zachary. Who says speculative fiction doesn’t lead to deep thinking? 😉

  8. Sparksofember says:

    It’s true, though I think as Christians, we have a whole additional perspective that weighs in. I remember a discussion in one of my college classes that discussed a story of a married Christian woman, alone in a Nazi prison – a sympathetic prison guard knew she would be released if she were pregnant so he offered to “help”. She took him up on the offer and, sure enough, was released to her husband and family. The class overwhelmingly condemned her actions as choosing to sin and save herself over not trusting God to save her if He willed. There’s also a story I’ve heard about a man sacrificing his son on railroad tracks rather than allow a train full of passengers to derail…

What do you think?