#god. camlann had a great episode about this too this past week with a great twist

[utilitycaster]

This is not only about FCG, but it is definitely about FCG.

Something I've always found incredibly attractive about fantasy narratives is that it's a safe space to explore heroic sacrifice. In real life, dying for a cause, even if justified, is rarely so fitting and poignant, and it usually involves ponderous discussions and arguments and above all, paperwork. And as with all things death-related, it's simply easier in fiction, where the grief comes with the knowledge that you can and always will be able to access every moment you had with the deceased.

I'm far too tired and halfway into my cocktail to split the hairs of what is suicide vs. heroic sacrifice, and if they're different, and why; but on a high level the difference is conviction.

I think a lot of people are really uncomfortable with or even scared of conviction, even in fiction. It's come up in some talks about Midst. It comes up when people are suspicious of the Volition, more so than the Vanguard. It comes up with Orym. It comes up in D&D whenever people shy away from paladins, who are built upon this as a premise.

One can argue FCG died a paladin; one can argue he always made, in some ways, a better one than he was a cleric. It comes up when people question the motives of the Volition. Perhaps it's the confidence that shakes people, the idea that these characters can't be molded into an easier, more comfortable ideology that suits the viewer. Perhaps it's a different take on the Trolley Problem than mine.

I do think in real life, at least most of the time, there are more options - often very boring and unglamorous but ultimately more effective one. In fiction, however, the heroic sacrifice isn't just rife with dramatic possibility - which is, in fiction, far more important in my mind than having a clear moral or telling the audience that they're good and smart little children - it's also a chance, as Matt says, to redefine the stakes and reframe everything that's been going on, because one character decided what their stakes were. Perhaps that's what makes people balk: the amount of power it grants you despite the prohibitively high price.