One that pops to mind for me is Francis York Morgan, an FBI agent, and the main character of the "horror" game Deadly Premonition.

He's an eccentric, but nice, character who has an imaginary friend he talks to named Zach who helps him solve crimes.

He seemingly only solves serial murders and not assassinating leftist leaders...as far as we know..

  • Quimby [any, any]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I wrote a mini-treatise on this recently, but essentially I think morality is different in fiction. Copaganda is still bad because it has negative real world consequences. BUT, as an example of different fictional morality, I believe that the police characters and even the police as an institution can still be good--setting aside the real world impact that this depiction may have--in a fictional world because the writer is free to write a police force that, say, actually exists for the primary purpose of protecting ordinary citizens from otherworldly threats or something, instead of protecting rich people's property.

    You can write a cop character where we actually know they are good because we can actually get inside the head of the character and know with absolute truth their morality and motivations, and we can know, for example, that they serve a fictional police force that only does good. So it's ok to like, say, Commander Shepard from Mass Effect or Spider-Man from Spider-Man without that suddenly making you a cop sympathizer or warmonger irl.

    • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I hadn't thought of that before, but it's true. I'd like to read more analysis about it, did you post that "treatise" somewhere?

      • Quimby [any, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I haven't. But I feel like I really should write something up and publish it properly. While I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever think of it, it's an angle of moral philosophy I personally haven't seen discussed much.

        I think this is also why, for example, villains can be redeemed in fiction even when they've done horrible things that we might not forgive in real life. In fiction, we can know that they feel true remorse and have truly changed. It also why I can support killing bad people in fiction when I don't support the death penalty irl. In fiction, we can know both their guilt and their irredemability with true certainty.

        On top of that, I think fictional constructs like, say, an afterlife, can significantly change the fundamental nature of morality. If Valhalla or Elysium exists, then even war has very different moral implications.