Brilliant Actors - When bad does not equal bad!
What do you do when your heroine is actually a bad person? Simple: introduce "relative badness".
Calendar Moonstone, heroine of the "Brilliant" books is a diamond thief, plain and simple. She steals beautiful jewelry and extraordinary diamonds. I agree, it is not as bad as our beloved serial killer Dexter Morgan or Cereisi Lannister. Or as heartbreaking as Oliver Twist. But still thief remains thief. She hurts the owner of the jewelry, and it is not an excuse to be rich! She hurts the insurances, and it's not an excuse that the insurance detective has actually built his whole career around Calendar.
Therefore the concept of "relative bad". In the book I have our Calender girl fight against various people who are even more despicable than her:
What is worse? Steal for fun or steal for profit? Clear badness : profit. No passion, pure money in the eyes of the antagonist.
What is worse? Steal out of compulsion or steal out of jealousy? Wicked badness in favor of jealousy. Compulsive behaviour, isn't that a sickness? The poor girl! Jealousy, what a lousy motivation to do harm! Bad bad girl!
What is worse? Steal for reusing the diamonds or steal because it is your job? How sweet, she is redoing the make and model of the jewelry! And that guy over in New York is the biggest crime czar and stealing is his business. Baaad.
Calendar Moonstone, heroine of the "Brilliant" books is a diamond thief, plain and simple. She steals beautiful jewelry and extraordinary diamonds. I agree, it is not as bad as our beloved serial killer Dexter Morgan or Cereisi Lannister. Or as heartbreaking as Oliver Twist. But still thief remains thief. She hurts the owner of the jewelry, and it is not an excuse to be rich! She hurts the insurances, and it's not an excuse that the insurance detective has actually built his whole career around Calendar.
Therefore the concept of "relative bad". In the book I have our Calender girl fight against various people who are even more despicable than her:
What is worse? Steal for fun or steal for profit? Clear badness : profit. No passion, pure money in the eyes of the antagonist.
What is worse? Steal out of compulsion or steal out of jealousy? Wicked badness in favor of jealousy. Compulsive behaviour, isn't that a sickness? The poor girl! Jealousy, what a lousy motivation to do harm! Bad bad girl!
What is worse? Steal for reusing the diamonds or steal because it is your job? How sweet, she is redoing the make and model of the jewelry! And that guy over in New York is the biggest crime czar and stealing is his business. Baaad.