Is this character motivation too contradictory?

[JoshRaed]

I have a character in my story who's motivation is very confusing to my beta reader.

Basically this character was raised in a lovecraftian cult, and as a result believes that it is a fundamental law of the universe that he is going to kill the dark king. It is built into the worldview he has been taught since birth. But he also really does not like this and does not care to do it. But he is not actually trying to give up.

He is only doing it because he believes that a version of reality where he does not do it simply is not possible. He believes that it is a fundamental law of reality. He doesn't believe in gravity, he believes that the reason things fall is because they are destined to, and that the same force which ensures things always fall is the same force that will ensure that he will do this. He resents the idea of the responsibility, and even views his abusive guardian kidnapping him as a sort of kindness because it gets him out of doing it until his escape.

For context, the entire second season is about a character desperately trying to ensure that he does not become destined to do something bad and has to use ancient powerful magic that will ensure that the events of the story does not happen.

And in this world the characters live in the one true god is destiny itself, who decides things will happen at random and then they happen, such as the chosen one and dark lord stuff. In one scene of this story a character will be "Destined" to become a horrifying eldritch flesh ocean, and then it happens because destiny.

Does this characters motivation make sense or is it badly written?

[wolflu66]

If destiny is the only true god, and the character believes in it, then the character's motivation itself is not strong enough.

Perhaps you can make the character discover that destiny is not the only true god. He thinks he is a destined character, but ultimately discovers that he is not.

Or the character realizes that a certain destiny must occur, but he doesn't want to see it happen, and uses all efforts to prevent it from happening.

Finally, the intensity of risk determines a character's motivation. You can consider your protagonist: 'What will happen to him if he follows destiny, or if he doesn't follow destiny?' If the outcome is that everything in life continues as normal, then obviously this motivation is not strong enough.

As for whether this destiny can be fought against by human power, whether all the character's efforts are ultimately in vain, that depends on your decision - you are the destiny of the entire story itself.

[wolflu66]

By the way, the protagonist's thoughts you mentioned initially actually reminded me of a character I really like: 'Bart Curlish.'

At first, she also believed that everything she did was destined to happen.
When the time came, broken cars would automatically start working.

Later, when she planned to kill someone she shouldn't have, she was punished.

[moontokkym]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say probably badly written.

Basic premice is: "This character has been groomed since birth to do [thing], but now growing up they don't want to do [thing] anymore."

That's a common, normal premice. Cf every single "I am prince but don't want to become king" story.

However your explanation doesn't ring human, it rings like a puppet, he seems more or less ambivalent to the death of another by his hand. As you describe he doesn't want to do it through laziness? No internal or external motivation, just can't be bothered.

Usually when people have been groomed into believing something is important for decades, they need a reason (o'r usually a handful of reasons) to "fall out of the faith" so to speak, and these reasons almost always come from emotion that cannot be ignored, the feeling that something is not right, or something that forces doubt about a fundamental principle into the mind. Remember you've set up that this guy's whole world view was shaped by this mission, his purpose in life was this, and now it's not. That is a massive and sometimes traumatic shift in someone's psyche, and you've not looked into that because that character was always supposed to not want to kill the big bad in your mind.

Think about when you're forced to do something you don't want to do, worse something you think is actively wrong, you're going to feel some type of way about it, usually negatively. Resentful against those forcing you to do it? Terrified, distraught, depressed, avoidant?

There's a distinct lack of emotion and humanity in your description of your character's goals and actions here. If your writing in the story is anything like this, the motivations are strange because they lack emotional recoil to big life events and decisions, and if they don't effect the character, they won't effect the reader.

[JoshRaed]

Basic premice is: "This character has been groomed since birth to do [thing], but now growing up they don't want to do [thing] anymore."

He's not trying to stop though. That's the basic subversion. He has mostly given up on the idea that he has any real agency. That's what I was trying to get across. What he dislikes is the idea that he is being given responsibility to help people against his will. He resents the lack of choice, and the idea that he has to be this figure of important with responsibility when he does not like people or want to help them.

[moontokkym]

He's not trying to stop, I never said he was, but from what you initially described there was no mental turmoil about being forced to do something he doesn't want to.

This isn't subversion, this is the trope. The reluctant king, the doubtful cult member, the disillusionned soldier, etc... They still perform their duties because they feel obligated by their role, their birth, their faith... But what makes them human is that they have a clear conflict between whatever's making them say "this sucks" and "but it must be done".

What you're showing here is the surface of one of these conflicts. He feels resentful of the lack of choice in his role, he hates people... But if you put someone who hates people, who doesn't like this situation, and presumably has a good deal of power (be it physical, magical, political, etc...) if he's expected to kill the big bad... What exactly is stopping him from renouncing the belief, given to him by people he dislikes and that is making him do things he doesn't want to, that he has to do this thing? Have they given him a reason other than "trust me bro" to do this? Like something bad (specific) will happen if he doesn't? Or something good, or he'll be free will happen if he does? Is he just a religious fanatic to this principle that "what will be will be"? If so show it with emotions. Human motivation is rarely fully rational and when things seem contradictory, especially internally, you need a strong emotional basis for why there's this internal dissonance.

What you've set up is "I'm saying that what other people in this story think this character's motivations are don't actually motivate the character", again, common trope for double agents, secret soft-spot bad guys, tag-along team members who work with the party until their motives diverge and the like. What we need is a compelling alternative motivation for why he does do the actions anyway. If he never wanted to not do this strong enough for it to be a conflict, what you have on your hands is just a minion following orders, which can work, but the writing has to be there.

[Lensing]

It´s not bad writing. People do irrational things all the time and
they can´t explain why they are doing what they are doing.

The bad writing part would be to share that with the reader and not
leave it in the backstory

[KevinReijnders]

The real issue here is that a character who resigns themselves to their fate and doesn't want to do anything about it, is going to be a very boring character to read about.

It's perfectly fine to end the story with the destined outcome, but at least have the character struggle against it before submitting to their fate.

[JoshRaed]

The subversion is, “What if the chosen one only did it because he was chosen and not because he cared”

Another idea for his motivation is that he wants to do it so it can be over and done with and he won’t be compelled to act towards this goal anymore. Is that a good enough reason?

[KevinReijnders]

That's not a subversion of the chosen one trope, that's pretty much just straight up the chosen one trope.

[JoshRaed]

I don't think that ever happened on Avatar. It's always about taking responsibility and doing the right thing but he doesn't want to be responsible or resist fate. If the prophecy was to set your house on fire he'd do that.

If you saw a character in lovecratian horror kill someone because they think this is their reason for existing, based on the words of Glugnath the ancient, would that be a typical chosen one character? Because this is an apt description of what Nulls situation is except it's in a fantasy setting.

There is a story from the past of this world about a chosen one who was rendered legally braindead but followed the prophecy anyway just by performing random actions with no ability to think about why any no motivation for doing them.

[NickRowler]

I don’t think it’s a bad motivation.

Often people in real world cults might doubt what they were taught but still continue being part of the cult. Some try to “logic” their way into justifying that their doubt isn’t valid. And some people are scared that leaving (or not following rituals) could cause horrible things to happen, even if their fears aren’t based in reality.

[jwabeasley]

I think your motivation will create a weak lead for a story and it will be difficult to create interest with them.

The world you describe aligns well with Fatalism, which usually stems from having an extreme version of monotheism. Normally, the deity is supposed to be all-good but with an inscrutable but ultimately just will, but in your version the deity is ambivalent, which could lead to some interesting conclusions. If it is a fatalist universe, look into people who come from fatalist worldviews, like Calvinists or Muslims. They can wind up with some very interesting beliefs, like that poor people deserve to be poor or that you don't need traffic safety because if it's your time, it's your time.

You could also look at some ancient Greek stories, which often have themes of unavoidable fate.

Oedipus is a story of a man who has a terrible destiny. He is a heroic man, and both he and everyone around him do everything possible to avoid that destiny. However, the dramatic irony is that all of their extreme and heroic efforts actually make the destiny happen. That story is a tragedy, and the entertainment and catharsis comes from watching a heroic man struggle heroically and then deal heroically with failure. If Oediupus decided "Meh, kill my father and marry my mother? Whatever, I guess," then the story would not be very interesting even if he did manage to avoid his destiny.

I think if I was in a world with an omnipotent but ambivalent deity who lays out fates for people that they are powerless to change, then if I had a good fate I would wallow in my fortune and gratify myself at other's expense or if I had a bad one I would go out of my way to sabotage both it and the world. In either case I'd be taking my revenge on the universe for the crime of being.

[JoshRaed]

He’s actually a side character to the other character, and his whole arc is about this changing and him becoming a better person.

[BoomerZ]

You should watch Big Fish, the movie. The basics is he was shown his future death and how he will die, Instead of being horrified, he figures if that is how he dies, he can't die any other way. So he becomes fearless. So if destiny is to fight the "demon king", that means nothing else until then can kill him. He can be reckless as he wants until he faces the demon king.