How do you make characters relatable if they exist in a completely different moral context?

Question

Usually when I read books in ancient-like settings (settings that are either in real ancient civilizations on Earth, or fantasy settings similar to those), there are relatable characters who employ modern humanitarian ethics such as caring about the welfare of criminals or war prisoners from a different state, or wanting equal treatment for people of different sexes and ethnicities.

However, when I read historical accounts of just about any civilization prior to the 18th century, I get the impression that ethics like these were virtually nonexistent. People had circles of empathy, but the idea of, say, caring about people in different states, especially war prisoners, wasn't even really considered. Even for people in their own states, most people didn't balk at the idea of impaling someone in a public square for trivial crimes like stealing or speaking out against their monarch. Slavery was practiced in just about every civilization that had the means to do so, prior to the 19th century. Sexual assault of the worst kind was seldom considered an offense against the woman, but at worst, it was considered an offense against the man who "owns" the woman (the husband, or father if the woman is unmarried). There are plenty more examples of values that would make our modern stomachs turn, but were considered perfectly acceptable, and even commendable.

I'm not a historian. The bulk of my understanding of ethics in ancient civilizations comes from reading small articles and popular books (The Better Angels of our Nature is what gave me the most recent impression of historical ethics). So maybe I'm wrong about this. But I generally get the impression that, in ancient-like settings in fiction, characters (usually protagonists) are given ethics that are far too modern to reflect even the best people in actual ancient civilizations.

Suppose I want to write fiction in an ancient-like setting. While I'm not going for totally unambiguous heroes and villains, I do want to have characters for whom the reader will have varying levels of sympathy. I want the readers to be able to follow some characters and hope they succeed. However, I also want people's ethics to generally reflect real historical civilizations that were as close as possible to the fictional setting in which I'm writing. So I want even the most sympathetic characters to be perfectly fine with certain contemporary values that we would generally consider abhorrent. For example, if the setting was similar to the Roman Empire, main characters should be okay with crucifying people in public squares for stealing, owning slaves and pitting them in deadly combat for entertainment, slaughtering regular citizens in a foreign town during a war/raid and letting your soldiers enjoy their "spoils", etc. But the "good" characters would still generally care about their fellow (free, usually male and property-owning) Roman citizens, have codes of conduct for things like honoring a deal or contract, have integrity and stay true to their word, express humility when warranted, love and make sacrifices for their family, etc.

I'm skeptical that even I could possibly sympathize with any character in an ancient-like setting with ethics that realistically portray that setting. Would the readers respect varying levels of moral values that would normally differentiate people between "good" and "bad" in those settings, if, by our modern standards, basically everyone is a monster? Is it possible to do this without alienating most of my readers? Or am I forced to suspend some disbelief and impose unrealistically modern ethics to people in ancient-like settings just to make the story compelling enough to follow?

Answer 1

There is no problem at all with writing morally ambiguous characters, and it's surprisingly easy for readers to sympathise with them. Let us look at some examples:

First, a modern example: A Song of Ice and Fire by G.R.R. Martin. There was a character in the first book of the series, who had all those honourable values, in particular he was averse to lying, as well as to killing children even when they might threaten the throne's stability. As a result of those lovely values, the character got killed, and the kingdom got dragged into a protracted (unresolved as of 5th book) civil war. Since then, characters who actually manage to make things better tend to be more Machiavellian.

Second, let us look at works written in earlier periods - works that reflect the kind of different morality you talk about. Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers: d'Artagnan was a traitor, Athos attempted murder, the plot with the diamond studs was treason. Not to mention the whole duelling things, such a glorified aspect of their culture - how would you look at it now, if two guys fought and one guy killed the other over a perceived offence ("I didn't like they way he looked at me")?
Or, let us go further back, to, for example the Cantar de Mio Cid a Spanish epic poem about the glorified hero El Cid. El Cid gets unjustly exiled. First order of business - let's rob some Jews.
Or, going even further back, we don't seem to have trouble sympathising with Achilles, do we? Even though the Iliad starts from an argument over possession of a concubine?

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Now that we've established that the thing can be done, let us look at how it can be done.

First, and this is quite important, ancient morality is not entirely Blue and Orange Morality (tv tropes link), completely incomprehensible to us. Courage, honour, friendship, protecting someone - those are things we can sympathise with. The difference lies in which one takes precedence, how values relate to each other. Going back to the Three Musketeers example, the queen's distress in regards to the diamond studs is considered more important than the fact that the queen's illicit affair is dragging the kingdom into a war, and could potentially create a succession crisis (if there's any reason to suspect an heir's legitimacy).

Second, values don't exist in a vacuum. Values exist because there's a system in which they make sense, or at least made sense in the past (values change slowly). Let's take duels for example: if you've got to sign an agreement, only there's no legal system to enforce that agreement, you need to have much more trust that the person you're signing the agreement with will not break it, right? In essence, that's what honour means - can I trust you. If honour is so valuable, of course you are going to protect it.

Third, you are quite right - there were circles of empathy, (there still are, only we don't like admitting it nowadays,) and people could be quite horrid to those outside those circles. But here's something: unnecessary cruelty has always been frowned upon. Meaning, you don't beat your slave if he's done nothing wrong. And if you're not cruel to your slaves, you actually provide them with food, shelter, clothing, then that's the way things are in your society, you're not going to be judged for that. Similarly, if punishment is deserved, for example if you have a traitor in your midst, readers would usually accept the particular punishment as part of the setting, no matter how cruel it would be considered nowadays. Readers are not stupid, they understand things used to be different.

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So, to sum up, no, you certainly don't need to shove modern morality where it doesn't belong. To make a character sympathetic even though their morals don't quite match ours, show also the values we can and will sympathise with. Show the system - that is, show us what is the norm for the setting you're writing about. Show the character as being a decent enough person within their society. (Not extraordinarily good - that stinks of Mary Sue. Just decent enough.)

The one thing you'd want to avoid is sadism. If your character enjoys inflicting suffering on others, that's crossing a line. Has always been. Do that, and you will lose the readers' sympathy.

Answer 2

I think it's mostly a modern delusion that ethics today are dramatically different than they were in the past.

Yes, ancient Persia routinely tortured political prisoners. So do modern China and North Korea and many Arab countries.

Modern Americans pride themselves on equal rights for women. Yet the US has never had a female president, while many ancient countries had a queen.

Ancient Rome was brutal to prisoners of war and conquered people. And many ancient Romans agonized over this. A major message of the Iliad, the classic Greek book about the Trojan War, is that the Greeks questioned their own behavior in that war.

I saw some statistics from a Christian organization a few years back claiming that more people were killed for being Christians in the 20th century than in all previous centuries combined. The Holocaust killed more people for being Jews than in any other comparable period of time in the past. I don't think it was more than all past history combined, but it was murder on a massive scale.

The largest mass killings in history include the massacre of real and imagined political opponents by Stalin and Mao, and the massacre of unborn babies in America in the 20th century.

Etc.

And of course, when you judge the moral standards of a society, how do you decide whether Society A or Society B has the better moral standards? To say, "Our society has better moral standards than this other society, which we determined by evaluating each against the standards of our society" ... well, duh. On this controversial question, A says one thing and B says another, and we conclude that A is right because we asked A and they said that they were right.

For example, many 21st century Americans say that modern America is superior to America of 100 years ago because we have greater tolerance of homosexuality. Ancient Greeks would agree. But 20th century Americans would say that they are superior because they fight against this practice that they believe to be immoral and self-destructive. One could say the same thing about other issues where the consensus has changed.

Answer 3

The first thing to remember is that realism is just a style. If historical accuracy is hurting your story, let it go. Even historical fiction isn't "history." In particular, it can be enough to hint at alien value systems without wallowing in them --enough to give the flavor of the times, but not enough to make the whole thing distasteful. To be blunt, you don't want it to seem like you, the author, share or celebrate the values of your characters.

Next, context is everything. If your character is at least noticeably better than everyone around them, that can make a difference. Claudius, in I Claudius, isn't the best or nicest person, but he seems positively heroic in comparison with the murderous, incestuous, avaricious brood of vipers around him. Nor is this entirely ahistorical. Even slaveholding societies have their abolitionists, and patriarchies have their equal rights activists. There are always people who question the values and assumptions of their own times.

Finally, moral progress isn't entirely linear. Ancient Egypt, for example, was notably more progressive than a lot of more recent societies around issues of race and gender. And there are other values we've lost on the way to developing new ones. If you balance the worse-than values with some better-than ones, that might help as well.

Answer 4

Society today is simply much more adept at covering up our moral deficits.

Slavery is not just defined by the word. Tens of millions of people today are trapped as indentured labourers and sex workers. Human trafficking is still a thing. Even forced marriages in many parts of the world count as a form of slavery.

As for public executions, beatings, and the likes, I'll just say that it's still a problem today. Mostly because people don't turn up to watch a person die. They watch or take part to see justice done for themselves or to sate deep-seated fears stoked by fear mongers.

There are more parallels to draw on from today -- vigilante mobs, extremists, honour killings -- but that would be irrelevant here.

So in answer to your question, humans at their core haven't changed over the years. It's the system and what's considered acceptable that has changed. As long as you make sure that the story and its characters are well-written, the readers can and will take anything and everything you throw at them.

Answer 5

What makes a reader care about a character is empathy, and empathy is generally built on commonalities your readers might see between themselves and the characters.

Coarse, "clumsy" empathy may be "she's a woman and I'm a woman", or "he's [insert ethnic group] and I'm [repeat ethnic group]".

Broader relatability might be based on things common across time, and universal to the human condition.  Romance is a major theme in literature because everyone can relate to a longing for companionship and affection. In addition to romantic themes, many of the same hopes and fears plague most people.  Will you make a difference in the world?  Will people remember you?  Can you find enough food to eat, and make a living in the future? Will the big forces of change or war or political divisions leave your home and family intact, and let you get on withyour life?  Will you be forced to compromise what you believe in order to protect the things and people you care about?

Most people, now and in the past, mostly want to be able to live their lives, and we should all be able to relate to that, even if we disagree with those others in regards to fundamental moral principles.  And truly great writers can show how much sympathy can be had even for people from very foreign cultures or times.

Answer 6

It works well when done well. I have a copy of The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff and fondly recall it.

It is set in Britain during the Roman occupation. The protagonist is a slave descended of one of the Northern Tribes and his life is very difficult. He is the doppelgänger for a blinded prince, who due to his acquired disability is unacceptable to his people.

The slave learns the ways of these people, as does the reader. The protagonist learns that leaders always serve their people and, in time of crisis, must give their lives gladly that their people might prosper. The false king becomes a true king and dies for a people he hadn’t really known before.

The ethics of those characters fit the culture they are in. I suspect that Sutcliff spent more time researching the chosen period than she did writing the novel.