: Re: Painting ritualistic murder in a "good-guy" light? My good guys murder people. They slowly carve runes onto them to help defeat the bad guys. Sure they try to use "society's worst" people for

@Looi5811334

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I see three ways:

A dramatic/traumatic event:
You want to change your MC dramatically, so a dramatic event is a believable reason for that. The dramatic event would be probably something like the MC having to act like the good guys. He might refuse, and suffer a huge emotional loss because of it. The person he's trying to spare probably dies a horrific death as well (or worse).
Anyway, thats for you to decide.
The good guys were more similar to the hero than he thought.
They appear cold on the outside at first, but they feel the same way he does. They don't want to do it, they have nightmares because of it, they cry out of guilt. So you don't have to change your MC.

Both of these, basically make the MC more like the good guys. Most people don't think of themselfes as a bad person, so when he is doing the same and feeling the same as these guys, he accepts them as good guys.
Even if he sees himself as a bad human, then he and the "good guys" are as good as it can get in this world (or he would do someting differently).

Lay it on thick.
Use standard techniques to make people likable.
For example: They love animals, they help people in need/distress when they gain nothing from it and no one will know they did it. They are loved by their family.They are funny. And so on... theres a reason why these techniques work.
Show that they themselfes are willing to take the same sacrifice as they force on others.
And most importantly to come back to an earlier point: They feel bad about what they do. I am not sure if that fits with your story, because you said they are "unapologetic" but I feel like that leaves lots of room.

I think it's almost impossible to make them accepted as the good guys, if they don't feel bad about what they are doing.

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