“Curse Your Sudden Yet Inevitable Betrayal!”
Sometimes the characters that we think are good guys turn out to be bad guys. How do you create believable traitors?
In The Lord Of The Rings, Saruman was Gandolf's friend and mentor, the wizard that he trusted most. In The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo turns to his old friend Lando Calrissian.
Many dramatic scenes in fiction begin when the hero realizes too late that a trusted friend is actually working for the other side. As writers, we create all kinds of characters, good guys, bad guys, innocent bystanders. Creating characters that end up turning on their friends, however, has some particular challenges.
What Motivates Traitors?
First and foremost is the question of motivation. We may want a character to turn because it advances the plot and increases the tension, turns what should be an easy victory into an ignominious defeat. Why would someone do such a thing, though?
What makes a betrayer? Here
1. Sometimes it's bribery.
Jayne Cobb, in the series Firefly, tells his captain, “The money was just too good.” Saruman was seduced by the promise of the power that Sauron could grant.
2. Sometimes it's fear.
Lando Calrissian's city was occupied by Imperial forces, he believed that turning Han over to Darth Vader would save himself and his people. In 1984, O'Brien tells Winston Smith, “They got me a long time ago”, implying that he himself had been arrested and turned by the Party.
3. Sometimes the traitor is motivated by loyalty.
George Correll in Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down thought of himself as a soldier and a patriot. In the film Gangs Of New York, Amsterdam Vallon goes to work for Bill Cutting specifically to seek revenge for the death of his father.
4. Sometimes the betrayal seems justified.
In John Sayles' film about the 1919 White Sox scandal, Eight Men Out, the team's owner Charles Comiskey is shown breaking promises to the players and essentially driving them to throw the series.
Why We Love to Hate Traitors
In order to make a character's betrayal believable to the reader, the betrayer's motivation should make sense. That doesn't mean that the character has to be likable, or that the reader has to agree with the character's motivation. Turncoats are characters that we all love to hate.
We can't just make the hero's best friend suddenly turn him over to the villains just because the plot is more exciting that way, though. Somehow we have to let the reader know that the best friend has a reason, and it should be a reason that is compelling to that character.
Have you ever had a character who became a traitor? What was his or her motivation?
PRACTICE
Give us a traitor. Write a character sketch of someone who is going to turn against a friend, a colleague, an employer, a superior officer.
Take fifteen minutes to explain this character's rationalization for her or his actions. And if you practice, make sure to comment on some else's practice with your feedback.
Photo by Jospeh Bremson (Creative Commons)
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My latest story was going to have a friend that turned traitor (not in an extreme, going-to-the-darkside way, but just some tension for the main character.) Then I decided that I didn’t need that. However, reading this post is making me rethink my decision. I might just stick this in after all. Jotted this down from the traitor’s pov …
Shana slammed the door behind her. All natural, blah, blah, blah. It shouldn’t bother her – she and Justine had been friends for five years – but the high and mighty way Justine made her arguments for nature’s medicine vs. the medical field set something off inside of her, and it certainly wasn’t friendly.
They had become close friends quickly, their careers pushing them together. The differences came slowly. At first they had been manageable. But one by one they had built up until now it was this huge whirlwind that knocked into one of them or both of them almost every time they were together. Shana couldn’t remember the last time they had talked and not disagreed on something.
Justine might be able to overlook the disagreements in order to keep their friendship, but it was getting harder for Shana. A friendship shouldn’t consist of having to smile through gritted teeth. A true friendship shouldn’t mean keeping quiet when you wanted to spill your feelings.
What it boiled down to: friends had to have something that drew them together; that made them friends. And she wasn’t sure she and Justine had anything left.
Here is what I wrote in my 15 minutes
Here is what I wrote in my 15 minutes- though I will admit I went a little bit longer than 15 in order to finish it up. These are characters I made as I wrote- that’s okay, right? The stories I’m working on aren’t developed enough for a traitor.
_____
Loyalty
_____
“You’re my enemy.”
There was a strained silence. “Yes,” Pillman replied at length. “But I’m the best chance you’ve got.”
Channing shoved Pillman against the wall, fire flashing in his dark brown eyes. “If you betray me, I /will/ kill you.” The knife he held against his throat was held there to prove a point. “Understand?”
Sheena started forward, a disbelieving look on her face. “You’re not actually going to trust this guy?” she asked incredulously. “He killed your brother, and tried to kill me!”
“I don’t want trust him,” he replied without looking away. “But we have to. If we don’t, the whole cause goes to waste.”
Sheena fumed silently but didn’t argue with her leader. Channing finally released Pillman. He looked to his friend and tossed his knife to her. “You’re going to watch him.”
“What?” she gaped. “I-”
“You are the best with a knife around here,” he said as he passed her, on his way to the tent. She grabbed his shoulder as he did.
“If he tries anything, I will kill him,” she said in a low voice. Channing looked at her for a few moments.
“I know,” he replied, and kept walking.
_____
As they slept, Pillman slipped out of his tent. The fire had died down to embers, but he knew it could still be coaxed into a flame. He stirred it around with a stick, adding a few dry leaves to get it going. When a steady flame was burning, he held a stick in it until it caught fire. Silently tiptoeing to Channing’s tent, he held the stick against it and watched as it caught fire. When he was satisfied that in a few minutes it would rage out control, he threw the stick into the tent and took off into the woods.
About thirty seconds later, a shout was heard and people called for water. One voice screamed above the others. “Pillman!”
He turned back to the woods and smiled. An allegiance they should’ve never made, that was what this situation was. If they had expected him to be loyal to them after they had killed his family, murdered his father in front of his eyes- he laughed into the air in front of him. He was not to be trusted, and they should’ve known it.
______
Sheena held Channing in her arms as he gasped for air. Tears pooled in her eyes and she looked up, stifling them.
“Sheen,” he gasped. “Sheena-”
She flinched as he started coughing violently, shaking and jerking as each cough racked through his body. Once the coughing settled, she waited for him to say something.
“Channing?” she whispered. “Channing?” She shook him slightly and grabbed his face in one hand. His eyes were open and glazed, brown staring blankly into the unforgiving night.
She started trembling as she processed what had happened. Standing up abruptly, she called the others over. As they started crying and shaking their fearless leader, she stood away from them, numb and stoic.
She looked down at the knife she held. He would pay, she decided. She would make him pay.
Hi!, maybe some structural mistakes or vocab errors (english is not my first language) I don’t agree with all of my sentences, please tell me if I wrote something odd.
“See you soon… I love you” The clicking sound of the ending record made him angrier and angrier every time. He found the voice recorder yesterday, together with a prepaid phone on his kitchen table. Only one number should be called by it, and only when he had finished the job. He didn’t sleep that night, listened to her voice over and over until the words had no more meaning, until no more hope was in his head. He would finish the job today, call them and get his love back. The clock in his office was ticking so loud, he couldn’t hear anyone of his colleagues talking. They all probably wished him a good morning, but he knew better; there was nothing good about this morning. His lab-partner, Jenny was suddenly walking beside him, holding a cup of coffee in front of him. His hands were shaking as he took it. “I said, how was dinner yesterday?” She smiled as if nothing had happened, he despised her for that even if she couldn’t know what had happened. He slid his security card through the machine, typed in the code with weary hands and paused before he pressed Enter. He didn’t want to do it, but he did it and it made him feel sick. Small cold drops of sweat accumulated on his forehead and he felt as if everyone was going to see, what he was planning. “Mark? Are you all right? You don’t look good at all, maybe you should go-““No”, he interrupted her, louder and more aggressive than intended, and shivered at whom they had made him. He just wanted it to be over; he wanted everything to be normal again, just like yesterday morning when he kissed her and his junior goodbye.
I think the best books use a combination of two or three factors : )
My character I had in mind turns because of fear (of a loved one dying) and loyalty (to the cause of preventing other people from getting sick) – P.s. He uses bad methods to reach that end…
Just my two penceworth : )
Tarik bit his upper lip and with a scant lower lip, his mouth was a fine cut through his face. Mario recognized that expression. Suddenly it was as all his past life poured back into his memory. Way back at that time in the slave camp. Now he knew whom this Tarik was.
‘Of course! You are Tayyib!’ Said Mario astonished. Tayyib has changed so much he had not recognized him. It passed through his mind how the body proclaims the type of life someone has led; as an accident that leaves scars in the human body by changing the original features emotional scars too, leave visible signs on the body beyond recognition.
‘So, you see, it didn’t take long for you to figure out whom I was.’ Said Tayyib.
‘Man! I am glad to see you. To know you are alive!’ Despite the situation in which Mario was in he felt great relief. Even the comfort of knowing that Si loved him without limits was as reassuring as knowing that Tayyib was alive. It was as if a large rock would have been taken off him. He believed he had overcome all that guilt produced by the killing of Tayyib. He thought so because of the ease with which he could kill a person, almost without remorse. Eventually, he got so used to that he hasn’t even had to philosophize over right or wrong. It much resembled his earlier love life: use it, discard it. Always leaving behind a piece of his soul. Crumbling apart, piece-by-piece until he had, to redo his emotional life, go through extraordinary lengths. Now, Tayyib was alive, and he could collect all the crumbs of that guilt, of his first kill and so redeem the subsequent. All vanished as smoke from an extinguished fire.
I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to save her. They say it’s the only way, turn against my best friend to save the love of my life, simple right? Not really. Olivia is my best friend, and the love of my life, so it’s either lose her forever or watch her die. But I have to do this, I will not let her die. Even if she hates me, I will save her. They could be lying about her being safe, but its her best chance. I will not let her die, and if anyone even thinks about hurting her then they will know exactly how hell feels.