I wrote a big wall of text on the subject (with more detail on my examples) but deleted it because 1.) it get kind of rambling and incoherent and 2.) my dyslexia is acting up and I wasn't up for rereading it and editing it into comprehensibility (I hope this comment comes out coherent, my reading comprehension is in the toilet right now), but I will say that some shows/writers that try it and fall a bit short tend to have the collateral show up as a one-off episode, or have them show up and almost immediately forgive the protagonists who have wronged them, because their cause is So Incredibly Justified.
I'm having trouble thinking of examples as well, my vague recollection of Star Trek: Voyager is that the Marquis issues (their individual reasons for joining the Marquis, various ways the Federation/Starfleet had failed them, how Federation ideals don't always translate perfectly into the scenarios they'd lived through, etc), were handled very inconsistently.
As I mentioned above, it's an issue with trying to write grey-on-grey morality, having the good guys (have to) do bad things (to people who aren't the bad guys) while still being the good guys. Authors don't want their good guys to actually be bad, so the moral nuances sometimes get wallpapered over.
I mostly liked how it was handled in Rogue One (Jyn being cast out by Saw -who is the only family she has left- through no fault of her own and then being basically blackmailed by the Alliance into working for them, while also being partially blamed for her father's actions), though, and I think Andor is exploring similar themes with how Luthen handles his various operatives.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-01-24 02:21 am (UTC)I'm having trouble thinking of examples as well, my vague recollection of Star Trek: Voyager is that the Marquis issues (their individual reasons for joining the Marquis, various ways the Federation/Starfleet had failed them, how Federation ideals don't always translate perfectly into the scenarios they'd lived through, etc), were handled very inconsistently.
As I mentioned above, it's an issue with trying to write grey-on-grey morality, having the good guys (have to) do bad things (to people who aren't the bad guys) while still being the good guys. Authors don't want their good guys to actually be bad, so the moral nuances sometimes get wallpapered over.
I mostly liked how it was handled in Rogue One (Jyn being cast out by Saw -who is the only family she has left- through no fault of her own and then being basically blackmailed by the Alliance into working for them, while also being partially blamed for her father's actions), though, and I think Andor is exploring similar themes with how Luthen handles his various operatives.