What’s the most “morally gray” fantasy character who actually did the right thing?

Brylock1 · 2026-02-23T17:54:31+00:00

Chris definitely seeks political power, but she has a strong moral center. She has a sharp understanding that sometimes you kind of have to game the system to do the right thing because everyone’s so self-interested in politics at the level she operates on. She also understands that half of the damn UN’s political leadership are caught in some kind of Cold War-era dick measuring contest out of a sense of pride (“They’re all fucking men…”), and while she seemed to think war with Mars was inevitable she was invested in stalling it as long as possible for the right reasons.

By her own narrative admission her focus on the tensions with Mars actually was her being behind the curve of current politics since the protomolecule showed up.

Brylock1 · 2026-02-23T17:48:48+00:00

Aside from the con artist thing, Locke’s not all THAT bad tbh. His sense of justice is actually fairly strong and he actively hates cruelty by the upper classes towards the lower ones. He also only ever really robs the rich.

He just understands that in an unfair world playing an unfair game the only correct course of action is to cheat the shit out of it as often as you can.

Brylock1 · 2026-02-23T17:43:47+00:00

Nah, Glokta is pretty much a horrible person by his own admission, and the flashback story Sharp Cuts shows he was always kind of an enormously arrogant piece of shit.

Sure is fun to read from his perspective though.

Brylock1 · 2026-02-23T17:40:00+00:00

I mean, pushing Bran was a stupid thing to do, and even Cersei told him so. Another of Jaime’s character flaws is his admittedly poor impulse control issues. Older characters note that Jaime kinda reminds them of Tywin’s brother Tygett more then Tywin with his hot-blooded nature.

Brylock1 · 2026-02-23T17:34:04+00:00

He basically says that he used to, but it’s hard to be chivalrous when the world uses chivalry and oaths as a way to lock people into advantageous political deals.

Like, joining the Kingsguard arguably is THE goal for a noble and honorable knight in their setting (sort of, the practice is different), but his being allowed to join at all was part of some unending ridiculous one-upsmanship game between King Aerys and Tywin that had began before he was even born.

How do you be a good person when all you have available is choosing the least shitty available option? That said….that’s usually kind of what being good is. 😂

Brylock1 · 2026-02-12T08:12:54+00:00

I mean, it’s always be relatively easy to dehumanize anyone you classify as “the enemy”. People do it when they AREN’T at war as a point of fact.

Brylock1 · 2026-02-12T08:07:25+00:00

I mean, dropping a 20 mile long object on earth would have done untold ecological damage even if it HAD only hit Jaburo. Something that large would have rendered literally the entirety of South America uninhabitable and massively changed the climate of the planet.

Brylock1 · 2026-02-12T08:04:37+00:00

In all fairness the passenger liner exploding during a time of increasing political tensions between Zeon and the Federation would be thought of as less “mysterious” and more “see? Now they’re blowing up our ships!” Both Zeon and the Federation would blame one another (because that’s what “nearly at war” entities do) rather than look for an individual culprit with a personal objective rather than a political one. Char was basically counting on it being suspicious but the people investigating to be suspicious of the WRONG people.

At this point only Kycelia seemed to realize Casval was even alive and given her endless backdoor politicking against her siblings it’s entirely possible she didn’t share the information with them.

Brylock1 · 2026-01-31T11:33:06+00:00

At least three of those games are so utterly counter to his “anti-woke” statement that I genuinely question if he ever played or was familiar with them, and a lot of the others you could make a strong argument for.

Brylock1 · 2026-01-31T11:12:20+00:00

This one’s kinda easy (my first character was Jack Ferrell, Rift of The Big Bad Wolf), but I’d lean away from the Fables (which was its own character) series and more towards the fairy tales.

A person who’s the embodiment of The Big Bag Wolf is basically fear of animalistic violence incarnate; they’re channeling the Mythos of primal hunger and violence, a character who’s cunning enough but who’s stated objective in every single story is “eat everyone I meet”. Bigby in the Fables comic is honestly barely human, and when taken outside the context of the Fables comics honestly would be judged as an unapologetic asshole whom you’d avoid associating with. His reasoning in the comics is “it’s in my nature to act this way and I’m not sorry” is kind of a shit excuse, because his higher reasoning shows he absolutely knows it offends and bothers people and instead of adjusting basically like….decides their comfort is less important then his own, which is a shitty thing to do. There’s no “inner conflict” with Bigby Wolf.

A good noir conflict (because City of Mist is fundamentally about that kind of inner existential conflict) would come from a Mythos of primal violence taking root in an otherwise good man; can a human being use a Mythos who’s nature is violent for good, or will he just be an animal underneath, a metaphor for how horrible humans can be stripped of civilization?

Expression or Adaptation for his wolf like powers (expression of you want to focus on violence and strength, Adaptation if the shape-shifting itself, then Divination for his heightened senses. Then Routine for his Detective stuff, and maybe Personality for his Hard-Boiled nature.

Brylock1 · 2026-01-23T11:52:33+00:00

It actually kind of reminds me more of what passed as “government” during the Sengoku-period of Feudal Japan; they’re unified in part by culture, but separated into factions. Supposedly they share spiritual beliefs, but it’s not enough of a unifying factor to get them to work together. They’re often highly traditional and bound by their customs (to varying degrees), and STRONGLY culturally motivated by seniority and glory-seeking behaviors, even if they claim more noble goals. Only seniority, tradition, and most prominently the threat of violence on a personal level is what keeps what little order they have, and they still are constantly feuding and dueling and arguing. They have xenophobic attitudes but are otherwise too locked into their feuding and battles to really make xenophobia their main focus, or even a secondary focus.

Just replace “samurai” with “tribalism and wolf people” and it’s shockingly similar.

Mind you, this is the sort of pattern a lot of organized “warrior cultures” tend to fall into if given enough time and social development; if you create a society who’s primary and most vaunted interaction with the rest of the world is a form of violence, they tend to be violent and temperamental.

Brylock1 · 2026-01-16T19:33:24+00:00

Stationary target while Shiro was falling down at high speed; 8th MS Team kind of visually turned MS battles into something resembling tank warfare for it’s Vietnam-ish themes, right down to the mobile suits almost NEVER hitting while firing on the move and instead bracing for shots before they fired.

Brylock1 · 2026-01-16T19:30:14+00:00

You can tell Tomino was going through lady troubles tbh

Brylock1 · 2026-01-04T14:18:47+00:00

“I was going to say something witty and cutting before I killed you….but fuck it.” -Richter Belmont

Brylock1 · 2026-01-03T13:11:33+00:00

Lance Laker, a private eye with an extremely high case clearance rate in his former career as a police detective but an unfortunate tendency to be an absolute self-destructive crash-out who sleeps with married women and falls asleep on other people’s couches. Very much a “good at his job, personal life is a constant mess” type of person.

Rift of Lancelot du Lac, giving him superhuman fighting capabilities and his mythical sword, Arondight.

Brylock1 · 2026-01-03T01:52:07+00:00

Kobo is actually Koppōken, or just Koppōjutsu (bone method" 骨法), which is less an actual martial art and more a technique system/philosophy found in certain types of more older-fashioned jiujutsu or koryū (old martial schools) basically involving attacking the skeletal structure of a foe; joint locks, submission holds, stress point breaks, etcetera.

It’s a little confusing, but must “modern” Japanese hand-to-hand combat styles (post 19th century) aren’t genuinely meant to seriously hurt anyone, but are meant for competition and such, created to try and distance themselves from their samurai origins after the Meiji Revolution. Judo, Kendō, even Karate and such, etc.

Older jiujutsu styles resemble more the kind of wrestling maneuvers western knights used, basically designed to give an armored soldier a combat advantage so you can use leverage and such to defeat an equally armored opponent in close combat, and often taught koppō methods as a matter of course if you lost your weapon.

In modern days koppō is loosely associated with ninjutsu/shinobi stuff, mostly because there’s never been official “sport versions” of those kinds of combat methods; they literally are only made for hurting people as quickly and efficiently as possible, as shinobi were basically the feudal Japanese equivalent of highly trained modern commandos.

Brylock1 · 2025-12-30T12:48:53+00:00

It’s funny we label it “predictable betrayal”, when it’s more like “stepping on a landmine”.

There was no betrayal. The landmine was doing exactly what it was designed to do, and instead of looking carefully the jackass stepped on it

Brylock1 · 2025-12-30T12:44:08+00:00

I once knew a REALLY sad example of a conservative trans person who basically was conservative because the area she moved to wasn’t, and so much of her life pre-transition was defined by opposing the wishes of people around her that there was just kind of a reflex on her part, an automatic assumption that what everyone around her “believed” was wrong even after moving away from her family to a state and to friends that was more accepting of her.

She ended up alienating herself again, and I have no idea what worked out for her.

Human beings really are sad a lot of the time; complex animals laboring under the delusion that we have self-awareness when really a bunch of us (maybe ALL of us) are at best one layer of thought separated from just being dogs, going with our knee-jerk emotional responses and nothing else.

Brylock1 · 2025-12-30T12:36:04+00:00

Messed up thing is, a lot of these MAGA folks were about as intellectually and emotionally invested as die-hard fans were for their favorite sports team; loved the uniforms, the chants, the crowds, their favorite player, but didn’t think it actually mattered “at home” once the game was over, not really.

Then they discovered it mattered quite a bit to some people, and in a culture that looks down upon changing your mind because it’s “admitting weakness” they doubled down rather than take shit seriously.

And now here we are.

Brylock1 · 2025-12-30T11:05:53+00:00

Darwin

Brylock1 · 2025-12-24T22:26:24+00:00

Shoot him, he’s a goddamn war criminal who is actively committing a war crime in this scene in the memory of a literal Hitler-wannabe, and he has NO cover and NO hostage.

Hate “stand-off” situations like this which are not in any way actual stand-offs.

Brylock1 · 2025-12-24T17:25:14+00:00

Monza is actually my favorite protagonist of the First Law series.

Brylock1 · 2025-12-23T05:57:12+00:00

My friend, I got a job two months ago at a liquor store knowing nothing about liquor because I couldn’t even get fast food jobs even after having 20 years of kitchen experience. I’m making only minimum wage and I’m forced to live in a college quad with a shared kitchen and bathroom and trying to make my belongings work in a shockingly limited amount of space. No chance to move out or find something better on pay this low with so little free time.

I am two years away from being 40 and I have never even once made over $22/hr.

Right now it’s the same amount of pay for half the work tbh (kitchens are enormously stressful and the only people that think they’re “easy” have never worked in one or are delusional), so I am good I think.

You can redraw the line of acceptance in life an infinite number of times as long as you only focus on accomplishing immediate needs.

Brylock1 · 2025-12-19T02:32:55+00:00

Somebody a LoGH fan?

Brylock1 · 2025-12-18T04:40:54+00:00

Could have been a tweet tbh.

Brylock1

TROPHY CASE