Funny thing about stories with morals is that we typically grew up with them. Then, we get upset when entertainment has messages. Sure, there’s a trend of the message overshadowing the fun, but I’ve seen people get upset at the slightest twinkle of a moral. Why is that?
Well, I’ve thought about this long and hard. Not really. It just popped in my head and made my own theory. When we are younger, the morals we are taught tend to be fairly universal. We are also too young to critical think our way into diving into an Internet flame war over things. As adults, we have a ‘stable’ moral code, which we hold onto with no real attempt to change it. Right is right, left is left, wrong is wrong, and nobody can change our minds. This might happen subconsciously, especially if we run into something that may force us to introspect. One thing I’ve learned in my 43 years is that humans hate gazing into their own psyche and admitting their own flaws. It’s painful and brings past actions into question.
The funny thing is that every story has some kind of moral or message. Characters need a moral code in order to be seen as more than 2-D. The more nuanced they are, the more interesting they can be. People who are very ‘black and white’ in their mindset have trouble with nuance, so they can take things the wrong way. Still, authors really need to consider a character’s moral code in order to give them more meat. Feels like you can’t win in that situation since you’ll inevitably have a character who acts in a way that readers don’t agree with. If it isn’t a villain, you’re in trouble. After all, authors are judged by the morality of their least noble non-villain.
An interesting aspect of fiction is that there really is a moral somewhere in them. Fairy tales are blatant since they are for children, but those for adults use these as themes. It is either the full plot or for an individual character. These morality struggles are designed to get audience’s thinking and talking, which can lead to revisiting the story for more information. At least, this is how it used to be, but there has become an issue of messages being so blunt that there is no real discussion. It makes people declare that they hate messages in their entertainment even though you find it everywhere. For example:
I played a simple game called ‘Kirby 64: The Crystals Shards’. You play as Kirby who is a pink puffball that eats everything and can steal abilities. The story is that he has to help a fairy girl find pieces of a broken crystal to fix the galaxy. I think because there isn’t any dialog. Anyway, it’s a game where you can only go forward and back as well as eat or use abilities to defeat enemies. Is there a message? Yes, you can see one in the small parts where Kirby needs help from one of his three allies. It’s small and innocuous, but it does show how one can’t save the galaxy without a little help.
Did that sound ridiculous? Maybe, but that’s how morals in fiction tend to work once you get older. Authors expect their readers to be thoughtful enough to figure things out and develop their own answers. If they miss it, the story could still be entertaining, but there might something missing to bring people back. This is difficult to pull off these days since many people find their echo chamber and stay in there. More often, adults feel like they’ve matured enough in their morality and don’t have to consider any other possibilities are nuances. The parade of bludgeoning messages doesn’t help since it makes people dig deeper into their dens. So, I think this makes the addition of morals nearly impossible in some genres. At least, nothing that could be taken in a variety of ways and isn’t ‘good is good and evil is evil’.
Anyway, what do you think about morals in fiction? Are they even possible in a world where everyone is out to be offended?
