This is a former warrior who walked away from killing after fighting in a horrific war. He won't kill at all, even becomes a vegetarian. However, he is also a leader of a small group of people. When his own people are attacked, he defends them and kills someone. It's something that anyone would consider justifiable, but I'm trying to wrap my mind around how he would deal with this. Killing is something he swore he'd never do again.

I can't seem to get into his mind at that point. Any thoughts? Thanks.
 

Hope that helped.
 

For him the fact that it was an accident, doesn't change the fact of the killing or that he has broken his oath to not kill.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited June 21, 2008).]
 

Do the people condemn him, or console him? Do they know he's a conscientious objector, or is it an internal conflict?

If the killing he objects to is at the core of the plot, how is it relevant to the inciting moment, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution?

These are posed as rhetorical questions. Answering them here may spoil the plot.

Specifically, when confronted by contradictions to my convictions, serving the greatest good is my guidance. I'll take the hit for me and mine, kit, kith, and kine. However, I'm more emotionally satisfied by stories where the protagonist fails to keep to his of her convictions and principles. The accomodation to the failure provides a deeper and more emotionally satisifying resolution. I fail. I identify more deeply with redeemable failures than golden boy, football heroes.
 

If that's not a tack you want to take, then here's a list of other reactions that might help jump-start your idea engine:

Anger
Self-loathing
Fear
Grief

This would also likely trigger an episode of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). It could also make him physically ill.

I love that saying every time I see or hear that word.

In combat you have to make split second decisions that can have a major affect on the out come of the battle, and the rest of your life.

After returning from AFG, I have found that drinking helps. Not from combat but lack there of. Our hands were tied and now the prison brake in south AFG has made me even more feeling the need to go back and complete the mission and end it one and for all,

After returning, some soldiers (such as me) feel that we haven’t done a good enough job. After hearing of the prison brake it made it worse. And no I haven’t killed anyone to my knowledge you don’t see them when you are getting shot at you just spray and pray. And if push comes to shove I would not hesitate to end someone’s life in self defense (not including hippies, hippies are not people.)
It might help to hear from a combat veteran.

RFW2nd

 

Edit: I don't often talk about my personal life on this forum. I've gone through more than I care to share generally speaking including the fact that not long after the death of my older daughter my husband, who was a career soldier and combat veteran, killed himself.

This is certainly not the forum for discussing politics. But believe me, I don't need to be told about the results of war and violence.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited June 23, 2008).]
 

RFW2nd

 

RFW2nd

 

Total pacifism runs counter to much of the genetic programming that has been built in to people over eons of evolution. It may well be that your character had enough of war and enough of killing to swear it off, but if you look at his behavior, you'll probably see that the killing in war was unnecessary and gratuitous to him (the killing may have been necessary to his immediate situation at the time, but the situation was one that he was in because of artificial factors). Thus he's sworn off killing categorically. Being a vegetarian is a logical outgrowth of this, because killing for food is not a necessity for him.

However, total pacifism in the individual runs counter to our animal nature, and can only successfully exist for any length of time in a society that has niche occupations for those who are willing to fight and kill (and do) and those who are not (and contribute in other ways).

The situation he finds himself in (leader of a small group) does not give him the luxury of pacifism; he is responsible for his "family" (whether they be blood relatives or not), and he will protect them through escalating force as necessary, up to and including deadly force.

He needs to come to the philosophical realization that there is a difference between killing without need (fighting in a senseless war, perhaps) and killing because it is the only option (protecting his clan in a way that he has the training and experience to do).

All things die that other things might live; that is a fact of nature. Your character will have to come to terms with the fact that biological imperative mandates that, when circumstances require it, we kill in order to protect the survival of ourselves and our family.

If this character is a man of reason, he'll eventually noodle that out. It might not be easy for him, but he'll get there.

-G
 

I know of at least one vehement pacifist who would get into a heck of a snit over my analysis, and probably hit me hard on the shoulder for having made it. Thus proving my point, at least in her specific case.

I pondered putting more supporting argument in my post, but that would have taken it into the realm of the needlessly-political, which would have done your thread no good at all. I welcome off-line debate if anyone's umbrage-to-apathy ratio is high enough.

-G

 

Life isn't always as simple or clear cut as one might wish.
 

I think our natural instinct is to fight, and what we call "civilization" is but a thin veneer.

In the UK House of Commons the chamber is divided into two sides. There's a line down each side, just in front of the opposing benches. A Member of the House must stand behind her line to speak. The distance between the lines is that of two men standing, arms outstretched, holding swords. It's a reminder that debate is our civilized substitute for fighting, and that only discipline maintains it.

If an enemy threatens your loved ones, if you're sure he will kill them if you don't kill him first, how many would stand by stand silently by in pacifism? And if they did, what would "love" mean?

I hope that if your character thinks it over--perhaps alone, in silence--I hope he'll convince himself that it was for the best, if abhorent. I hope also he had the strength of character to use "sufficient and necessary" force (even if that was lethal)--to kill no more than necessary to get a surrender, and not enjoy it or put them to unnecessary pain. If he did, his conscience should rest easy after a while. I hope. (Then, I speak as a fool with no combat experience.)

Hope this helps,
Pat

[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited June 24, 2008).]

[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited June 24, 2008).]
 

He finds a wife and becomes a studied pacifist, and settles down as the patriarch of a large southern farm. In 1776, when the American Revolution starts, he refuses to join the Continental Army, and tries to persuade the South Carolina legislature (of which he is a part, as a landowner) to vote against sending funds to the army. Even when a battle erupts near his property, he refuses to be drawn instead, instead offering medical assistance to all injured, both Continental and British.

When a British colonel finds his farm and orders it burned for the medical aid he gave to continentals (despite the fact he gave the same aid to the British), and orders his oldest son taken prisoner as a spy, he still refuses to fight. Even when the colonel points a gun at his head, he refuses to fight. Such is the power of his abhorrence of violence.

When the second-oldest son runs to the aid of oldest, and knocks a British soldier down, the colonel shoots the boy. Gibson's character holds his dying son in his arms as his house and barns burn down, his younger children cry in terror, and his oldest son is marched away to be hanged. In a brilliant piece of non-verbal acting, you can see in Gibson's face the moment his pacifistic principles give way.

When he catches up to the British patrol, he doesn't just ambush them--he massacres them. He shoots a soldier trying to surrender. Another tries to flee, but Gibson's character runs him down and hacks him to death with a tomahawk, screaming as he does so.

The progression of scenes very artfully shows--not tells--exactly why Gibson was such a studied pacifist to begin with. For him, there's no such thing as moderate or measured violence. He shies away from fighting not because of some abstract ideal, but because of horror of the things he must do, and does, when at war.

The religious/ social aspects of his culture would probably play a role in how he reacts and what, specifically, he might do.