How does your protagonist achieve peace?

[Worthy39]

Same way most of them do... Pure, unadulterated violence that only leads to more violence until everyone who disagrees with my protagonist's morals is dead or in prison.

 

[TinaMigarlo]

1. What is meaning "peace" to your protagonist?
   
   Being able to start a family again and have afternoon naps.
   
   
2. Who are worth protecting?

Innocents, people he has grown close to

3. Who are threats/enemies?

Pirates, Aliens, gangs, his own body

4. How does your protagonist achieve peace?

When he can reunite families, start his own, and can just sit back and just 'be' for a day without worrying about some calamity

Julia? This is the *second* time, that your themes and ideas have come so close to home that I suspect you of bribing my cat to look on my laptop. LOL

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

Julia? This is the *second* time, that your themes and ideas have come so close to home that I suspect you of bribing my cat to look on my laptop. LOL

hahah I can assure you I did not do that.

Your cat offered me the information free of charge

 

[MFontana]

Peace in Fiction​

Achieving peace has become a cliché motivation in mainstream fiction. For example, in isekai fiction, the protagonist defeating the demon king is considered a quick way to achieve world peace. In superhero fiction... the demon king is replaced by a supervillain.

Some dark protagonists go even more extreme. For example, for Yagami Light, peace means a world without evil and to achieve it, he tries to become a false god (kira) who passes judgment on anyone he considers to be a criminal or his opponent.

Eren Yeager goes even more extreme, genociding over half the world's population to maintain peace for the Eldians.

Leluoch vi Britania is even willing to become a 'martyr villain' for the sake of world peace.

Every protagonist may have their own version of peace about who are worth protecting, who are threats, and how to achieve peace. My questions are:

1. What is meaning "peace" to your protagonist?
2. Who are worth protecting?
3. Who are threats/enemies?
4. How does your protagonist achieve peace?

Spoiler: Me...

Peace for FMC is a world without tyranny. She lives in a world where the law is dead. The people are merely playthings of the rulers. For her, the silenced people are worthy of protection.

Before becoming a mother, my FMC believed that peace could only be achieved by enforcing the law of blood through the organized and public execution of systemic criminals (tyrants). She executed every tyrant and always left a bloody message as a stern warning.

After becoming a mother, FMC chose domestic peace. She lives in a remote valley with her little daughter. Now, she just wants to protect her daughter's smile and avoids violence unless necessary.

Ooo... that is a tough one.
I'd need to define Peace for each of them separately.
Then would need to address how he/she goes about achieving that peace.

Spoiler: Lucius Argentius

One of the two protagonists of The Elarian Chronicles: Duskfall, Lucius' peace would likely be an inner peace of mind, and sense of serenity with the overall success, being attaining a sense of normalcy in the world of Elaria, or finding a way to get everyone who was pulled into the world during the Apocalypse home. On the grander scale.
On the micro scale, or personal scale, that would be Morrigan.
His peace, is her happiness and safety.
His goals, are purely motivated by preserving the fire in her heart amidst the oppressive despair permeating the world, and he will do what he must for them, even if it leads to the rest of the world despising him for it.
The threats and/or enemies he faces along the way are a mix of external, and internal ones.
Externally, the monsters native to the world, and the machinations of the series' villain(s) are the primary threats.
Internally, how far will he go to achieve his ends, and whether he will become the very evil he seeks to oppose in order to attain them.
I can't say too much more, because of spoilers for the story. If you want to know... you'll have to read to find out.

Spoiler: Morrigan Flamecrest

The second of the two protagonists (and the closest to being a traditional Main Character) in The Elarian Chronicles: Duskfall. Morrigan's definition of "peace" here would be finding happiness, and living her life as best as she can. She has a number of goals throughout the story, and the first among them is building her own adventuring party, and breaking out from Lucius' shadow to earn her own place in a world she knows almost nothing about.
In her case, it isn't about protecting anyone specifically, rather, she is the one whom Lucius is trying to protect. For her, she wants to see the world through her own eyes. Wants to go out on adventures, the likes of which she's only heard about from Lucius. Her fire, and liveliness are what are truly worth protecting in this otherwise dark and grim world.
The threats and enemies she faces are as numerous as the dungeons and challenges arrayed against her externally-speaking. Orks, Undead, and a wide array of other monsters. Within, the challenges are coming to terms with her past, and embracing her feelings, and choosing the future she wishes to live, with the person(or persons) she wishes to live it with. Her insecurities are deep-seeded, and as numerous as the foes she faces on her adventure.
How she attains that peace...and whether she does or not I can't say here. That's all spoiler-territory for the series. You'll have to read to find out.

Spoiler: Tobias Anderson

The protagonist, and main character, of Aestelle Nocte. Peace, for him, is simple.
Living a normal, semi-quiet, life. The life he had when he was able to just live his double-life as a hacker, and gamer while attending college.
Nothing extravagant to be sure, but it is peaceful. For him. And the life he wants.
Murphy has other plans.
As for who is worth protecting. To him, the women in his life, and those he calls friend.
He will protect them, no matter the personal cost, and will do whatever it takes to ensure they can find their own peace. In truth, his character arc is fairly static, save for coming to learn more about himself as a man.
The threats and enemies he faces are quite numerous as well. Starting with an inquisitive FBI Special Agent, Lance Stevens, and reaching all the way to civilization-ending threats in the form of alien empires, pirates, and all other sorts of ne'er-do-wells.
And politicians. Because we all know they're evil.
How does he achieve peace... again, I can't really say. Not here, because that ventures into spoiler territory.
All I can say is that it has to do with coming to understand himself, and finding a truer sense of self and inner-peace.
If you want more, you'll have to read to find out.

For Marius, I will really need to do a deep-dive into his character, and his story, so I have to omit that one for now, save for his primary antagonist throughout the story. The Elder Dragon Asharthrinax. A beast of ruin with a God-Complex and the power to back it up.
I just don't have the time to do such a deep-dive into his character or to do a full character-study on him, his beliefs, his motivations, and ideals. For the others, I have all of that typed up already. For Marius, that isn't the case, since his story arc follows a very different structure.

 

[TinaMigarlo]

Your cat offered me the information free of charge

that fuzzy little prick.

 

[LesserSarcasm]

There can be no real peace without the constant ever loomimg threat of war. Peace is maintained by preparing for war.

 

[Dawnathon]

My current MC in VoraCity is finally starting to come to terms with her individual power being far greater than anyone she's met si far, but at the same time, she's just one person in an era where populations were ballooning by the tens of millions every year. At this time, there's nothing she can do to affect the fate of the world or any other lofty goals. Even overthrowing the wicked institutions ruling over the city-state she lives in, would be nothing more than a wishful, distant dream. It's a setting that likes to cut down the tall poppies, so to speak.

So, for right now...

1.) What is meaning "peace" to your protagonist?
Peace is getting to curl up in a warm room at the end of the day, without worrying about anything collapsing in the near future.

2.) Who are worth protecting?
Only the very few closest to her. She has disgust for the oppressions of society at large, especially with slavery, but she doesn't see much she can do. As a non-human, she can only see it as "this is what humans do to each other by nature". It makes the bitter pill taste only worse to swallow.

3.) Who are threats/enemies?
Anyone putting her closest companions or herself at risk, along with the estate she belongs to. More broadly, the human society around her as a whole. Not in a vague "society bad" sense, but rather she has had it hammered in that if the government learned of her existence, she would almost certainly end up captured and experimented on for the rest of her life. It leaves a lingering dread that she's in the wrong for the sin of merely existing as a nun-human.

4.) How does your protagonist achieve peace?
Hedonistic indulgence, a very short-term, narrow-minded approach. At the end of the day, she really would be the type who only loves to party and chill out with any friends or interesting strangers around. It might sounds vapid, but there's an innocence to it. The tragedy of it is that she'd be right at home in a silly slice-of-life setting, but instead she's mired in a world of cutthroats and cruelty. Watching her happiness be denied is sad, but at the same time, it's frustrating watching how she keeps wanting to pull the wool over her eyes, pretending everything is going to be alright. You almost want to shout at her to get a grip and face the reality before her eyes. Then you get exactly that, and I hope it hurts seeing her becoming that kind of person.