Thread:Mesektet/@comment-27729149-20160128170019/@comment-3581997-20160504071300

Two slight notes on the base idea, nothing too major since suspension of disbelief can kick in but I should note. 1. Most soldiers have mental health therapists to keep units healthy and tell commanders when someone is becoming unstable in certain scenarios. 2. It is very much legal for any soldier to take the life of an enemy combatant, the twins, I am assuming were the joy riding sociopaths you mentioned earlier, any soldier with them as a combatant would get into zero trouble for stopping them with lethal force, even if he were just a cop, public opinion being what it is, you can get away with a lot against the right type of threat.

As for still being a hero, what if the journey itself is what he is dealing with, as in, he doesn't want to devolve into being the sort of person who needs to rely on being allowed to kill anyone, a simple crisis of conscience at the start and rellying him in can count for a lot. Maybe you pull a Sopranos/Interview with a Vampire and he is actually recapping this to a therapist as your narrative structure. You could pull a Kill Bill and ignore the notions of making him worry about being good all together, make certain lines he will not cross, without being heavy handed, Beatrix Kiddo never says she is against killing civilians but the spanking scene shows us she is more than capable of holding back on anyone less than a professional killer, which is a proper method of showing without telling. And just have the rest of the story going up against worse people than himself. You do not need to morally justify his actions, if he has legitimate gripes and is actively trying to do less damage than his foes the audience will follow along and route for him.

Maybe you want him to be constantly second guessing himself, a duel personality can make that work, if not an outright one than just him assigning his conscience as an imaginary friend he debates with but ultimately puts on hold for the no nonsense stuff needs to get done scenes.

Perhaps you want him to be responsive to the audience, give the audience power, Die Hard pulls this off by giving the audience omniscience, they know what all the characters are doing but the characters don't all know what the others are. Making what should be a high tension situation from any one view into a giant goodie bag of watching an adventure unfold.

Maybe you want Harold to be a hardcore edgy good hearted bastard, in which case he needs some level of levity, Kratos gets so pissed off that he actually gets petty after a while; To avoid this either have him change bit by bit or give him a friend/cohort who can take the piss out of him because otherwise the audiance will.