Fickle Crowds

Today I shall impart to you a pet peeve of a scenario I feel appears far too often in stories – be it books, movies or, as was the case with what inspired this post, video games.

            The scenario of which I speak is the one where the hero of our story has a secret that becomes public knowledge and, suddenly, everyone turns against them. Even their closest friends. This happens all the time and I find it to be completely unrealistic.

            Admittedly, it is a good ploy for garnering sympathy for the character and making their situation more desperate, but when it comes down to it, people aren't that fickle. If you were to take a sampling of the people in your life, you would always find at least a few who would stand by you no matter what your secret was. Some people would be driven away, some might think a little less of you, but there is no way everyone would turn against you.

            There are times when this technique does work, but it always involves the character not knowing anyone particularly well – because the better you know someone, the more likely you are to accept their flaws. I suppose if the character was disliked by everyone in the first place it might work, too.

            The specific situation in the game, Arc the Lad (an otherwise fantastic game), has a character who was raised in a small town where everyone knows everyone extremely well. More than that, he was the most popular person in town. Yet, the moment they find out he’s only half human, they turn on him and run him out of town. All I could think was “I know what my blog will be about today”.

            Now, I may be mistaken, but I find that when people know each other well and then a secret comes out, the judgement of the person will be heavily weighted towards their past actions. In the very worst case scenario, the closest friends will find out the truth before making a decision. Mob mentality is strong, but not that strong.

            Perhaps I'm just an idealist who takes laid-back approach to everything. I can’t believe enough people are that fickle. There will always be at least one friend left.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.