What is a "grey" character - and are there any?

[Richard]

To take it one step further, you get an author like Abercrombie. (A very good author, by the way, and one whose skill I'm not trying to detract from with my assessment of grey characters).

In any case, many people rave about the grey characters in his books, but if you look at them, they are just all plain evil bastards, who you are just forced to try and identify with because they happen to be point of view characters.

Dunno, I read The Heroes a couple of months ago, and I'd say there's barely a single character in it who wouldn't fit the description of morally grey (excepting Finree's dozy boyfriend, maybe?)

Further to the OP's point, I'd say that not only are there plenty of grey characters about in fiction, it's really quite hard for me to think of any I've read or viewed (in adult fiction, anyway) who are anything else. Perhaps this is only an issue in fantasy, because it's the only genre that really deals in these artificial absolutes of good and evil in the first place. Truth is, the real world is full not of good and bad people, but of good and bad acts (and even the relative good and bad of those is mostly subject to an awful lot of interpretation depending on point of view), carried out in variable quantity by just about everyone. So any attempt at all to write fiction which imitates and/or interrogates the real human condition will require the creation of characters who seem grey simply by virtue of their realism.

[Toblakai]

I am really shocked by the number of people who feel that the grey characters are black or evil, especially the comments about Abercormbie's POV characters, as almost all are grey. The only time I felt as if I entered all black territory was with Best Served Cold (I won't mention which characters as there are some spoilers even by doing that), but that is meant to be a nasty book about why revenge is never good.

I wonder about all of the people who can't accept many of Martin's and Abercrombie's characters as grey. And also at the people who can't get as invested in a book without clear-cut good guys. Are you really young? Are you naive about how the world works? Are you rigid in your morality and enforce your views on others? I know people aren't going to say "yes, I am naive" but maybe people should think about it. These stories are meant to be more well rounded and realisatic portrayals of people, especially people placed into violent situations. And the fact that that is not fully understood, means that many are not getting everything out of the books that they could.

As an aside, the nastiness of Best Served Cold actually made me better at work, as I now will never try to get back at people that are being politically nasty at work. It is never worth it, so I always stay nice and factual and let my work speak for itself. Backstabbing at work is pointless and I won't be involved at all anymore, and this nasty book taught me that. So kudos to Joe.

[The Reckoner]

I might be reaching here, but didn't Monza let a family of squatters occupy the ground floor in one of her bases? I could argue that this act makes her the greyest of the cast. Perhaps Caul Shivers, too, given the reluctance he shows throughout the novel.

[Arakan]

<snip>

Of course you are right regarding Hitler (his screwed darwinistic world view makes is the reason why there is a whole field of science to analyze him).

We both agree they are both black, knew what they did and thus have no "greyness" in them ;).

@QOW

yeah basically you are right but I think especially in this type of thread, RL benchmark examples (to which we all can relate) may help to understand what "evil character" might actually mean ;)

Hehe so only half OT ;)

That said I want to throw Sauron into the mix.

Tolkien vehemently did not want Sauron compared to Hitler or Stalin. Yes he considered Sauron as the pure evil but as mythological evil.

As such, Sauron (himself a Maia) stood de facto above the ordinary wrongdoings of mortals.

How do we consider this kind of evil? I can see the Others falling into the same category. We all speak about how bad characters like Tywin, the Ghiscari, Ramsay Bolton or the Mountain are but we seldom speak about the Others with the same disgust, even though they murdererd many and more. It's seems that as soon as something is out of our comprehesion frame (the mythological evil), then it gets a freepass.

[Toblakai]

I might be reaching here, but didn't Monza let a family of squatters occupy the ground floor in one of her bases? I could argue that this act makes her the greyest of the cast. Perhaps Caul Shivers, too, given the reluctance he shows throughout the nov

I didn't say everyone in Best Served Cold was all black. Monza is a semi-decent person under all her screwed-upness. And Shivers, well... I am trying to avoid saying things for people who still plan on reading.

[Toblakai]

How do we consider this kind of evil? I can see the Others falling into the same category. We all speak about how bad characters like Tywin, the Ghiscari, Ramsay Bolton or the Mountain are but we seldom speak about the Others with the same disgust, even though they murdererd many and more. It's seems that as soon as something is out of our comprehesion frame (the mythological evil), then it gets a freepass.

I think there are still too many questions regarding the Others and their purpose to cast definitive judgement.

And I personally would not lump Tywin in with the other characters you listed. He is not quite as bad.

[Jo498]

Most literature is not about killing people even in war or self defense. So "grey" typically means cheating on ones wife or abuse power over subordinates at work or something like that.

A "dark grey" protagonist from non-genre fiction would e.g. be Raskolnikov who almost goes insane plagued by his conscience after a deliberate murder. If ASoIAF was a modern novel on some war, Jon probably would be in tatters from posttraumatic stress disorder after having had to kill Halfhand as condition for successful infiltration. As he is a good guy, it is hard for him. It would not have been hard for Jaime (although in the book Jaime does not kill his cousin for sport as in the show)

and the "greyness" of someone like Logen consists in killing his friends unvoluntarily when is in the Bloody Nine Berserk state. I guess a Homerian Hero would at least have had the guts to commit suicide after going berserk among his friends.

With the Fantasy genre (as with some others) we more or less accept e.g. collateral death as a matter of fact that will not even bother the good guys. So with our daily morality we should classify most of the good guys as grey. We do not do that. Because we are shown some of the mores of Westeros and could "rate" characters according to them. It was not necessary for Sandor to kill Micah, I think the average knight probably would not have done it, but neither is it seen as a crime, probably because Joffrey and Cersei would have tried a captured Micah for attacking a prince and might have gotten their way to execute him. But the "proper" (Ned's) way would have been to give Micah at least a hearing. So Sandor is more brutal than average, but not a cruel sadist like his brother.

Someone like Tywin is ruthless even according to Westeros standards (especially, if he was complicit in the Red Wedding). The slavers do business as usual according to Ghiscari standards. So I guess we actually evaluate those characters according to a mixture of our and in-world standards, e.g.: Slavery very bad, rape quite bad, marital rape pretty normal, but nice guys wouldn't.

To claim Tywin should be understood as grey, because he is not sadistically or mindlessly evil (although letting Joffrey, the Mountain and others act sadistically when it would be in his power to interfere), is really like calling Hitler grey, because he loved dogs and was nice to little kids. Is there any scene where Tywin is shown to have pity, tries to really mitigate Joffrey's sadism or in any conflict, because what's best for the Lannisters might not be the right thing to do?

Of course, Theon is a conflicted character and shown to have qualms. But he has done one of the worst things according to Westeros morals, he betrayed his (former) allies and killed quite a few of their people. Nothing good for anyone resulted from this betrayal, but this hardly redeems him. He cannot even plead that the end justified the means.

Roose Bolton or Tywin could maybe make such an appeal wrt the Red Wedding: a few hundred dead instead of several thousand in a pitched battle. Nevertheless this was a about the WORST thing according to Westeros standards, not only our own.

So Theon, the Boltons, Freys, Tywin, Littlefinger etc. are commiting atrocities according to Westeros standards to further their ends. They do not even have plausible claims to do this to pacify the Realm, convert the Heathen or something like that. I cannot see what's grey about that. It's plain bad, evil, atrocious.

(Tyrion is grey, but he is often seen as "good guy.)

[Richard]

like calling Hitler grey, because he loved dogs and was nice to little kids

or because he fought with apparent courage in the first world war (awarded medals for bravery twice, rejected the opportunity to sit out the remainder of the war after being injured and requested an early return to the front)?

It's not so much that you could call Hitler a grey character, it's that despite instigating one of the worst atrocities in recorded history, he cannot be reduced to the simplicity of a comic-book villain. The true horror of the Holocaust is that it was NOT perpetrated by a cabal of black-hearted evil villains, it was carried out largely by a bunch of ordinary human beings not hugely dissimilar to you and me. (Try Bernhardt Schlink's The Reader for a very well-realised examination of this particular sore point).

This basic understanding infuses all good literature, in genre and out.

[Jo498]

(I do think there is a difference between Hitler and the everyman henchmen who followed orders, the latter were like you and me, although raised in a rather different society.)

I didn't mean to say that Tywin (or other "bad guys") are shallow comic book villains. It may be that some people say "grey" when they mean any not-cardboard-shallow character. But this is a different dimension of character evaluation. The plain and simple fact is that what Tywin, Theon, Roose Bolton etc. do is atrocious according even to the standards of Westeros in war time. And they were not forced to do it because of some unsolvable predicament (like resorting to cannibalism during a siege might be excused). Neither are they following some ideology, believing that killing the Heathen will produce a better world. They simply follow their ambition in the Game of Thrones. This seems very straightforward to me.

[Arakan]

(I do think there is a difference between Hitler and the everyman henchmen who followed orders, the latter were like you and me, although raised in a rather different society.)

I didn't mean to say that Tywin (or other "bad guys") are shallow comic book villains. It may be that some people say "grey" when they mean any not-cardboard-shallow character. But this is a different dimension of character evaluation. The plain and simple fact is that what Tywin, Theon, Roose Bolton etc. do is atrocious according even to the standards of Westeros in war time. And they were not forced to do it because of some unsolvable predicament (like resorting to cannibalism during a siege might be excused). Neither are they following some ideology, believing that killing the Heathen will produce a better world. They simply follow their ambition in the Game of Thrones. This seems very straightforward to me.

Tywin for me is a difficult case...his political actions and the way he wages the war is ruthless, brutal but in a Machiavellian sense "realistic". An asshole yes but not that different to many of our political leaders from the Middle Ages till the 19th century (Napoleon anyone?). What puts him on the "dark side" for me is his personal cruelty (Tysha). For the RW I cannot blame him in an objective manner. Robb and the other Northern Lords were "legitimate" military targets (Bolton and Frey are the assholes in this case due to their betrayal, in the case of Frey even more despicable).

[Errant Bard]

It feels "grey" is only used for characters in Fantasy or Fairy tales, is there really talks about the greyness of the brothers Karamazov? Of anyone in The Expanse series? Of Arsène Lupin? Edmond Dantès? Claudius? Charles De Valois? In Borgès, Mieville, Vandermeer, Murakami? Even in what the likes of Dan Brown write? In LA Confidential? In non-fiction? That would seem weird to me.

Anyway, wouldn't the colouration just be an euphemism for "not a caricature"? Having a supposedly objective linear moral scale would seem to indicate that indeed if you can reduce characterisation to that simplistic thing (and define clear, objective absolute black and white), then characterisation could be lacking in that book you're judging.

[Jo498]

Of the Karamazov brothers Alyosha is "white", almost bordering on caricature, he really is an "angel" (like Myshkin).

Ivan has "bad" ideas (if your idea of "right is Russian orthodox faith...), but I do not recall him doing anything morally despicable (maybe he mistreated a girl). One main point about Mitya is that everybody thinks that he is far more ruthless and brutal than he actually is. He is impulsive, in debt, wild, misunderstood, but not a bad guy.

Smerdyakov(the bastard?), and especially the father are rather clearly "the bad guys".

Of course it looks slightly ridiculous to rate them like that. And nobody claims that this would be the most interesting characterization. But the old Karamazov truly is a terrible person (asshole victim trope), if I remember correctly, although entertaining.

[Jo498]

Tywin for me is a difficult case...his political actions and the way he wages the war is ruthless, brutal but in a Machiavellian sense "realistic". An asshole yes but not that different to many of our political leaders from the Middle Ages till the 19th century (Napoleon anyone?). What puts him on the "dark side" for me is his personal cruelty (Tysha). For the RW I cannot blame him in an objective manner. Robb and the other Northern Lords were "legitimate" military targets (Bolton and Frey are the assholes in this case due to their betrayal, in the case of Frey even more despicable).

But the RW is not a legimate military action!

Sure, Tywin may not be so different from other military leaders. Still his treatment of Tyrion, letting the Mountain ravage the smallfolk, employing? sadists like the bloody mummers, and not kicking Joffrey's butt show him as more callous than most of the other military leaders we encounter in the books.

[Arakan]

But the RW is not a legimate military action!

Sure, Tywin may not be so different from other military leaders. Still his treatment of Tyrion, letting the Mountain ravage the smallfolk, employing? sadists like the bloody mummers, and not kicking Joffrey's butt show him as more callous than most of the other military leaders we encounter in the books.

Oh dont misunderstand me, I condemn the RW, a horrible act, but I dont blame Tywin for it in a moral sense. Maybe it's strange but I despise Walder and Roose for the RW, but not Tywin.

From his POV all the Northern Lords were enemies, and he took advantage from Roose's and Walder's treachery.

[Larry of the Lawn]

It feels "grey" is only used for characters in Fantasy or Fairy tales, is there really talks about the greyness of the brothers Karamazov? Of anyone in The Expanse series? Of Arsène Lupin? Edmond Dantès? Claudius? Charles De Valois? In Borgès, Mieville, Vandermeer, Murakami? Even in what the likes of Dan Brown write? In LA Confidential? In non-fiction? That would seem weird to me.

Anyway, wouldn't the colouration just be an euphemism for "not a caricature"? Having a supposedly objective linear moral scale would seem to indicate that indeed if you can reduce characterisation to that simplistic thing (and define clear, objective absolute black and white), then characterisation could be lacking in that book you're judging.

Agreed. Kind of like Mary Sue.

[Darth Richard II]

Pfft, everyone knows neutral mages wear RED, not GREY. Did you people even read Dragonlance?

...that's a joke, btw

[Toblakai]

It feels "grey" is only used for characters in Fantasy or Fairy tales, is there really talks about the greyness of the brothers Karamazov? Of anyone in The Expanse series? Of Arsène Lupin? Edmond Dantès? Claudius? Charles De Valois? In Borgès, Mieville, Vandermeer, Murakami? Even in what the likes of Dan Brown write? In LA Confidential? In non-fiction? That would seem weird to me.Anyway, wouldn't the colouration just be an euphemism for "not a caricature"? Having a supposedly objective linear moral scale would seem to indicate that indeed if you can reduce characterisation to that simplistic thing (and define clear, objective absolute black and white), then characterisation could be lacking in that book you're judging.

I think the only reason the word grey permeates modern fantasy discussion is because of all of the Tolkien clones that took over mainstream fantasy for decades, where there were clear dividing lines of good vs. evil. As a result, I see some fantasy readers who became used to the good vs. evil trope, and now struggle with the more grey modern fantasy because they don't know who to root for.

[Jo498]

Call me naive or obnoxious, but I still think many characters, not only in genre fiction, are rather clearly black or white, although most narratives also have a few "grey" characters.

What about Oliver Twist, Fagin and Bill Sykes? Not grey. The Artful Dodger might count as slightly grey, but he is something like a "chaotic good" jester type. The whore whose name I forgot (Betsy, Nancy?), is a "noble whore" who helps Oliver and is murdered, if I remember correctly. Uriah Heep is not grey, neither David Copperfield, his wives (especially the second, another angelic being) or his stepfather.

I am not familiar with all of Dickens, but of the books I have read, I'd say "grey" characters are a small minority. They are often colorful, flawed, excentric, but most of the "good ones" are rather obviously good and most of the bad ones rather obviously bad. Or at least, it's clear what side they are on. Bad does not have to mean a villain like Fagin, but the fat and hypocritical beadle in Oliver Twist is clearly not a nice guy.

And this is even more the case in most genre precursors of former times like adventure fiction, mysteries etc.

[Galactus]

I think a "grey" character means a character that is difficult to categorize: Who throws you out of your comfort-zone of cateogrizations. It doesen't neccessarily have any real-world moral implications.

[Richard]

Bad does not have to mean a villain like Fagin, but the fat and hypocritical beadle in Oliver Twist is clearly not a nice guy.

And this is even more the case in most genre precursors of former times like adventure fiction, mysteries etc.

Granted, it hasn't always been the case that fantasy alone dealt in black and white/good and evil characterisation - but it does seem to be pretty much the last bastion of that tendency now.

It's significant that the examples you choose there are from the past. And yes, to Dickens' (actually far from uniform - check out Great Expectations) thumbnail sketches in good and evil you could also, for example, add stalwarts of the crime genre like Miss Marple or Poirot, neither of whose solid middle class goodness is ever in question. But times have changed, and you'll struggle to find such squeaky clean protagonists in the crime genre these days. If Dickens was writing now, his palette would be altogether more muddied - cf, interestingly, comparisons with Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities (billed when it came out as "debut of a dayglow Dickens!!!"). The whole cultural landscape has changed massively over the last century, and our perceptions of the human condition now are altogether darker and more complex. It's only really fantasy that seems to have resisted this change so solidly and for so long, and even now somehow managed to remain a genre in which concepts of black and white morality which the rest of literature has pretty much dealt with and dumped are still a "live" issue.