: Re: How can I establish the nature of a person/group without action? How can one establish the nature of a person/group to the reader without relying on actions to 'show' it? For example, if I

@Odierno164

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In dialogue, either from the heroes perspective or from the villains perspective, discuss the resolution of a prior problem and dismiss it.

You can use that dialogue to prove callous psychopathic violence taken and accepted in stride by the villains, or "unnecessary" violence by the evil group causing empathic sorrow for the heroes. Children killed, a hospital bombed, a general lack of regard for civilian human life. e.g. causing an airliner to crash and kill 125 passengers in order to eliminate one witness. Or better yet, make three airliners crash, because the good guys disguised their route and the villains could not be certain which airliner the witness was on. Easy solution, kill everybody on all three.

Brutality, torture, and the killing of innocents is evil, the more innocents (or the more innocent) the greater the evil.

But you don't have to SHOW it, you can just refer to some past evil in a conversation of a few lines. Business as usual if discussed by the villains, and "remembered trauma" if discussed by heroes.

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