How do you write a morally questionable character?

[CarburetorThompson]

Look up Sylvanas Windrunner and just do the opposite of everything the Warcraft writers did.

 

[AliceShiki]

I think I'd make a very devoted servant.

For example, if Noble Girl A (let's assume she is a child) starts crying because Noble Girl B said some mean things to her... Servant A might just brainwash Noble Girl B and force her to apologize to Noble Girl A (without Noble Girl's A knowledge, of course).

So like... The Servant is just trying to make their lady happy... It's not like they wanted to harm Girl B, they just cared more for the happiness of their lady than about some random other noble.

Or something like that.

 

[Agentt]

Since everyone has given the "give backstory" idea, let me be a jerk and say the opposite.


Make him shelfish, that's all,
Killing monsters give me exp? Let me kill my team mates.
Demon king offers me a job? Accept.
Demon king refuses to give me a raise? Kill him

That's all, make him a jerk, just someone who doesn't have any humanity. If you don't want him to look too robotic, then add statements like,
"That bitch! Come here and help me level up!"
*stabs her*

 

[AliceShiki]

Since everyone has given the "give backstory" idea, let me be a jerk and say the opposite.


Make him shelfish, that's all,
Killing monsters give me exp? Let me kill my team mates.
Demon king offers me a job? Accept.
Demon king refuses to give me a raise? Kill him

That's all, make him a jerk, just someone who doesn't have any humanity. If you don't want him to look too robotic, then add statements like,
"That bitch! Come here and help me level up!"
*stabs her*

I mean, OP was asking for Morally Questionable, not someone you'd actively disagree with morals-wise.

Like, the OP specifically said "Someone that some may judge as good, and some as evil".

So... I dunno, I feel like a Jerk doesn't fit into this? Jerks aren't morally questionable, they're just hateful.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

In all seriousness to make a morally questionable character just take a morally good goal and then just push his or her methods to achieve said goal as far to morally bad as possible. Not all morally grey characters follow the mold, but it is a way to do it. An example is the eco-terrorist character troupe.

 

[NobleTalon]

the streamers I like talk about this on their stream and it was pretty interesting. so I kinda wanted to know what you guys can come up with.

to elaborate the title, what I meant by morally questionable is someone who is doing things that while some people call them evil, some other people would call it justice.

the popular example is like Kira from Death Note, Keyaru from Redo Healer, or Leluoch from Code Geass

how would you wrote a character like that? but it has one rule : do not make it cringe.

What you describe is how all villains should be imo.

A well-written villain should not consider himself 'evil'. He should believe that what he's doing is right, and the reader should be able to understand his reason.

You don't need to agree with everything the villain does, but you need to understand his reasons and why he does this. If that is the case, it means that this villain is a good one no matter the kind of novel you're reading or the morality of what he's doing.

If you want an example, I think marvel's infinity war worked so well mainly because of Thanos. While he was clearly a villain, his reason for eradicating 50% of all living beings wasn't selfish. It wasn't to control the galaxy, for his own gain or because he was a mad tyrant.

He saw his people (the titans) suffer because of overpopulation, and he just wanted to save the galaxy. While we may not agree with the means, we can all agree with the idea of saving the galaxy and understand his reasoning. It's even more troubling when we see similarities with the real world, the global population is intensely growing and important resources production such as food or water are already not enough to feed everyone. And it will just get worse.

So the character of Thanos points out a problem we can refer to, and he proposes a solution to this problem. Result ? This is a well-written villain.

The villain who marked me the most was probably Shougo Makishima in Psycho-Pass, I won't talk much about him cuz it will be too long and I might spoil stuff, but if you haven't watched the first Psycho-Pass season, you should do it. While Makishima is a psychopath, he has his reasons and once again it is not selfish reasons. In the end, I even ended up siding more with his beliefs than those of the MC.

Once you understand this, you will be at ease when writing 'morally questionable characters'.

And it won't be just those kind of 'ME KILL BECAUSE WORLD NO KIND WITH ME AND ME SAD' chunibyou characters, but instead deep and interesting characters with their own beliefs.

 

[Kilolo]

have any of you guys read manga Aki Sora by Masahiro Itosugi?

in that manga there's a character that literally fucking her own little brother without feeling any remorse at all.
also there's an exhibitionist girl that lose her virginity in a dark spanish room while she's still underage.
there's also an erectile dysfunctional guy who wanted to satisfy his girlfriend so he ask another man to fuck her.

lots of character in this manga are definitely immoral if we're viewing it in an orthodox point of view, but does it really so?

the thing is. none of these character are actually bothering anyone or doing those stuff only for the thrill or the pleasure. they're doing so because they believe what they doing isn't wrong at all. and that's what it means to be a morally questionable character.


and honestly, I don't think these character fit in anyone description of morally questionable character so far.
all of you guys depiction is either about an anti hero or misguided villain.

 

[Agentt]

I mean, OP was asking for Morally Questionable, not someone you'd actively disagree with morals-wise.

Like, the OP specifically said "Someone that some may judge as good, and some as evil".

So... I dunno, I feel like a Jerk doesn't fit into this? Jerks aren't morally questionable, they're just hateful.

Oh, I see.
When the question asked that, I thought he was referring to the other characters judging him as good or evil, not the audience. Hence, my question was more of a jolly king saying, "Oh, all your teammates were defeated and killed by bandits, but atleast you manages to survive and bring back the treasure! This calls for a celebration!" And mc could say some end justices the means stuff.

But let's see, if we are talking about the audience,
Then I just remembered a manga, it was a very minor one, I believe the artist dropped it after 20 chapters.
One of the villains shown there was pretty much a 2d assassin, a guy who just kills, occasionally has the maniacal laughter, just kills, no reason whatsoever.

But he does has a rule that he always repays kindness with kindness. He once walked into a little boy which caused the boy to fall and break his eggs. The assassin walked away grumpily but the next day, the boy found 20 crates of eggs on his doorsteps.

What does this do?
It creates an illusion, sort of.
The assassin has no background, he just kills for fun, but morals such like these make us believe, or rather think that he is a deeper character than he seems.

 

[AliceShiki]

to elaborate the title, what I meant by morally questionable is someone who is doing things that while some people call them evil, some other people would call it justice.

in that manga there's a character that literally fucking her own little brother without feeling any remorse at all.

the thing is. none of these character are actually bothering anyone or doing those stuff only for the thrill or the pleasure. they're doing so because they believe what they doing isn't wrong at all. and that's what it means to be a morally questionable character.

I don't think your OP and your last post have the same definition of Morally Questionable.

A character that does wrong things, but isn't aware that what they're doing is wrong isn't a morally questionably character IMO, it's someone with mental problems.

Like, Cell, from Dragon Ball. He doesn't really have much of a reason for being a villain. He doesn't want to destroy/rule the universe or anything... At first he just wanted to become perfect, and once he did, he just... Realized that he enjoyed seeing people's despairing expression, so he decided to cause despair to as much people as possible... That's what I call a psychopath. Someone that is mentally ill, yanno? But... He kinda seems to fit into your definition of Morally Questionable.

Or Gasai Yuno from Mirai Nikki, which is like, a pretty default yandere, but that still manages to be likeable. She is pretty crazy and stuff, but I guess she can kinda fit into what you want?

 

[Cipiteca396]

and honestly, I don't think these character fit in anyone description of morally questionable character so far.
all of you guys depiction is either about an anti hero or misguided villain.

This is pretty much exactly what I said though... The only difference between an anti-hero and an anti-villain or even a full blown villain is perspective. They all believe in their own sense of morality, but it's the audience that determines whether those beliefs are actually 'moral' or not.

A character that does wrong things, but isn't aware that what they're doing is wrong isn't a morally questionably character IMO, it's someone with mental problems.

To clarify, being gay or a different ethnicity was(and sometimes still is) considered morally wrong for quite a while. The people in question believed otherwise. I don't think it's wise to accuse someone of being insane because they do something that other people are willing to object to. It's a slippery slope.

Cell and Yuno were hurting people, which is the reason they're 'evil'. I don't know anything about Cell, but Yuno actually did have mental problems. Some PTSD and obsession and whatever else was going on. Of course, killing people is what drove her insane in the first place, not the other way around. She was originally a normal, if extremely lonely, girl.

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I feel like I haven't made myself clear again...

 

[AliceShiki]

To clarify, being gay or a different ethnicity was(and sometimes still is) considered morally wrong for quite a while. The people in question believed otherwise. I don't think it's wise to accuse someone of being insane because they do something that other people are willing to object to. It's a slippery slope.

Well, insanity is something that is kinda judged on a case-by-case basis I'd say. The two characters I mentioned fit well into the category though.

Cell and Yuno were hurting people, which is the reason they're 'evil'. I don't know anything about Cell, but Yuno actually did have mental problems. Some PTSD and obsession and whatever else was going on. Of course, killing people is what drove her insane in the first place, not the other way around. She was originally a normal, if extremely lonely, girl.

Cell is an android made by a researching supercomputer. It was originally supposed to be the ultimate weapon of an evil scientist, but the scientist died long before the supercomputer finished making Cell, so... Well, Cell didn't really have anyone to order him around, so he just did whatever he wanted.

His only real goal was to become perfect. He'd achieve that by absorbing two specific androids that the evil scientist made in the past... However, as the androids were also dead by the time Cell was born, he had to go back to the past to try finding the Androids.

After going back to the past and absorbing the Androids, he became perfect, and like... Well, he had already caused a lot of destruction and whatnot already, so the good guys wanted to kill him... But Cell won the first two fights after becoming perfect, and then, when he was about to kill one of the good guys, he saw the good guy wallowing in despair and was like... "Hey, I like this expression... I think I'll try making more people look like that."

So he left and hijacked a TV Station, so as to broadcast a message to the whole world, saying he'd host a tournament in 10 days, and if he won, he'd kill everyone on the world... So like, to see people panicking, falling into chaos and whatnot... And he wanted to see the despairing faces of the good guys as they lost one by one too.

So yeah... Cell is totally a psychopath IMO. Which is someone that is mentally ill.
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And I agree with you that Yuno does have mental problems, hence why I said that the OP seemed to be looking for mentally ill characters, and why I mentioned her and Cell, as they seemed to fit.