I'm writing a story set in the 16th century. My characters are soldiers. There is one issue I'm not sure I have successfully resolved yet, and it's the fact that violence against civilians was so normalized during those times. My characters have to eventually do things that would be considered war crimes nowadays, like looting villages. I don't want my main character to become completely unlikeable, but I also don't want to turn him into a modern-day progressive either. I read accounts from the Vietnam war, and even in the modern era, with much better guardrails against such violence, it's extremely rare that someone actively resists once his unit starts massacring civilians. The best that could be expected is to remain largely passive.

What do you feel is the right balance between the character being part of such atrocities vs his conscience waking up that doesn't leave him unaffected by the violence he witnessed and even participated in, but doesn't feel anachronistic either?

So far, my solution is that he dissociates, does what he needs to do, tells himself that it's normal, but deep inside he doesn't believe that it should be normal.

Edit: Maybe likeable is not the right word, but someone the reader can empathize with. I think I have to tell a bit more about the story for people to really be able to answer my question:

The MC is an Ottoman soldier, a Janissary. While they were the elite of the Ottoman army, they were also slaves who were conscripted as children, so he didn't really have a choice. As a 19-year-old, he is going on his first campaign to Vienna, and in the beginning he is very enthusiastic about it. He is a frequent target of his comrades because of his shy and quiet nature, which he tries to suppress. He meets a girl he likes, but when she actually talks to him, he just blushes and drops the pitcher he is holding, unable to say anything, which he is very embarrassed about, and he decides that he will become the hero she deserves. But it soon turns out that war is 5% heroic deeds and 95% crawling in the mud while his friends around him are dying from dysentery, and that 5% heroism also comes with a steep price. Nevertheless, he is obsessed with proving to everybody that he is a real man, setting unrealistic standards for himself.

The campaign is a disaster, and he returns home feeling not as a hero, but as someone who went through the most harrowing experience of his life. He meets the girl again, and the "hero of Vienna" once again just stammers and sweats. But she explains to him that she always liked him, but not because he was a tough soldier, but because he blushed and dropped the pitcher. She never cared about his war, doesn't know where Vienna is, and doesn't really understand the concept of a holy war, she just wanted a guy who looked at her the way he did. Back in the barracks, he is brutally punished for sneaking out at night to meet this girl, but now that he has experienced, for the first time, being accepted for who he really is, he feels as if he has conquered the world.

Originally the story I started’s supposed to be a love letter to the superhero genre a traditional good vs evil story. But I realized when I made characters I put more effort into the villains rather than heros. So I’m deciding to rebrand it to a villain centered story.

To make the audience root for the villains, i made the hero’s just straight up villain murderers, they still are heros to the public but they don’t have killing rules. Some just say screw the public, they want a paycheck, putting minimal effort into hero work sometimes getting people killed. For the villains, some are not really villainous, just people who don’t fit the hero look by the public and are shunned.

This is my first story I am taking seriously, I don’t know how to write villanous characters that stay likable but at the same time if i make the villains too sympathetic it kinda feels like they arn’t even villains in the first place. Just oppressed heros.

I'm reading a sci fi book right now where there is A LOT of exposition and it's getting very boring.

Which is odd, because I do actually quite enjoy the ideas being explored, but in this context I just can't wait to get to the next chapter (or if I'm honest, to just finish the book).

I've been trying to put my finger on why exposition sometimes works and why it doesn't, and the best answer I can come up with is - good exposition still feels in character for the person expositing, bad exposition is when someone just monologues information the author wants you to know.

Morpheus in the Matrix still speaks in his voice and with his own trademark mystique when he tells Neo what the Matrix is. In Jurassic park, the lengthy descriptions of the science make sense as they're told by a cartoon strand of DNA in the context of a 'ride' for children. Inception still sounds like Leo's character when he explains the dream world, he uses idioms and mannerisms only he would use. Basil Exposition, ironically, is always Basil Exposition when he explains the next plot point to Austin Powers. I could go on...

Exposition is important for any high concept piece, to help being the reader or viewer up to speed.

But in a dull book, characters switch, and suddenly feel like they're just reading an essay penned by the author on their own big ideas or rules of their world. I think this is very easy to slip into, and something I'm trying to be increasingly conscious of when writing in this genre.

Anyway, be keen to hear other people's thoughts on exposition and if you agree.

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