Morality Chain / Literature

Morality Chains in Literature.

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• Zigzagged in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo considers himself righteous and opens up to Professor Aronnax, his captive, clearly feeling guilt over the few things he still hides from him. Aronnax idolizes him, glossing over some of his morally ambiguous actions until Aronnax is unable to convince Nemo to not destroy a civilian ship. Nemo takes the loss of Aronnax's trust in him very badly, entering a Villainous Breakdown and trying to commit suicide by driving the Nautilus into the Maelstrom.
• Christine in "Beauty and the Opera, or the Phantom Beast," by Suzy McKee Charnas. The Phantom's whole idea of morality consists of obeying Christine's decree that he must not murder people who annoy him.
• Deconstructed in the backstory of Brimstone Angels. The tiefling cleric Alyona was the only person her twin sister Bisera cared for, and she kept Bisera relatively grounded in her quest for magical power. When Alyona was murdered, Bisera became obsessed with resurrecting her, and in so doing she became far worse than she might have been otherwise, to the point of bargaining with Asmodeus himself, performing wicked rites to help him rise to full godhood in exchange for Alyona's life, and ultimately changing her name to that by which she would be known and feared for generations: Bryseis Kakistos.
• Niko is this to Cal Leandros as his human side slowly starts dwindling away. He is also just as protective of Niko as Niko is of him. So it's a bad idea to hurt either of them, mm'kay?
• In Carry On, Lucy realizes that what Davy is trying to do won't go well, but hopes that her presence might tether him to sanity.
  I thought that whatever was coming would be better if I was there with him. I thought it helped him to be tied to me. Like a kite with a string.
• In The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees-Brennan, the protagonist's brother Alan acts as a Morality Chain for him.
• In Devil Venerable Also Wants To Know, Yin Hanjiang's complete devotion to his Noble Demon lord Wenren E is the one thing keeping his more twisted and vengeful side in check, as evidenced in the timeline where Wenren E sacrificed his life for Baili Qingmiao and Yin Hanjiang snapped and became hellbent on killing Baili Qingmiao and turning her into lamp oil in revenge. When Shu Yanyang gets a glimpse of just how terrifying and unhinged Yin Hanjiang would become without Wenren E, she finds herself suddenly hoping that Wenren E lives a very, very long life.
• Dexter's foster father, Harry, who trained Dexter to select his targets according to certain standards of morality and justice. Dexter calls it the "Code of Harry".
  • Subverted in later seasons, when the show becomes less clear on whether Dexter was actually by nature a murderous sociopath with no ability to control his instincts, or whether he was just traumatized and schizoidal, and whether Harry just misread the situation and manipulated him for the sake of pursuing personal vendetta.
    • Totally averted with all his girlfriends except Rita, and played with in regards to his stepdaughter Astor, because he will kill to protect her without going through his usual vetting process.
• Discworld:
  • Turned on its head in Witches Abroad. Granny Weatherwax is good because her sister turned evil, which by the Theory of Narrative Causality meant she had to be the 'good' one to balance things out. Granny never forgave her sister for that, since she maintains adamantly that she'd be an infinitely better villain than the sister. It should be noted that Granny was more pissed off because she never got to choose. She had to be the Good One because her sister was the bad one. That the sister thought she was the Good One was simply the icing on the cake.
  • Witches as a "community" keep an eye on each other for this very reason. Any group of witches larger than Three has a tendency to fall apart from bickering, but there's still a silent understanding that some level of contact helps them avoid "going to the bad".
• Menou is Momo's morality chain in The Executioner and Her Way of Life. Momo could care less about everyone in the world except Menou, who keeps her from going too far and being too destructive. Good thing too, as she's so powerful that if cut from her chain, there would be nothing stopping her from going on a massive destructive rampage. For reference she once killed a dragon with her bare hands because it burned the hair ribbons Menou got her off her head while declaring that everyone in the world except Menou can just die.

• The Exile's Violin: Clay's character development involves becoming one of these for Jacquie; he keeps her darker anti hero aspects in check.
• Gone with the Wind: At no point in the book or movie is Scarlett honestly a morally admirable human being, but after her mother Ellen dies, the puppies really start flying.
• Zigzagged with Snape in Harry Potter: though his love for Lily was not enough to keep him from joining the Death Eaters, Voldemort threatening her life switched him to good, and her death (and his responsibility for it) was the main reason he dedicated his life to protecting Harry, even though the two loathed each other.
  • Downplayed with Aragog and Hagrid. Aragog's loyalty and devotion to Hagrid were strong enough to suppress Aragog's natural instinct as a dangerous magical creature to eat humans. This only went so far; Aragog didn't try to deny his family the opportunity to eat Harry and Ron when they visited him in the Forbidden Forest, though he would prevent them from trying the same with Hagrid. Of course, whether or not a sapient monster (whose instincts drive it to eat people) actually eating people could be considered "evil" is a tricky matter.
• In the Heralds of Valdemar books, the Companions are the gatekeepers of the Herald ranks (no small thing, since the Monarch and the Heir must be Heralds). In most cases, the people they Choose are fully capable of maintaining their morality without any external pressure, but if it seems like a Herald is about to cross the Moral Event Horizon, they have a trump card — break the bond and disown that person. (Fortunately this has only happened once).
• The Hunger Games: Peeta Mellark. Played up subtlety in Catching Fire. By the end of Mockingjay, Katniss explicitly states this is why she ultimately chooses Peeta over Gale.
• In I, Claudius, Tiberius has three people like that: his first wife, Vipsania, his brother Drusus and his friend Cocceius Nerva. Claudius notes that initially their influence checked the worse elements of his nature, but as he was forced to divorce Vipsania and Drusus was sent on a military campaign to a different part of the empire, their influence on Tiberius was removed and he gradually went altogether to the bad (especially after the two died). As for Nerva, he was too absent-minded and innocent to keep Tiberius in check.
• Journey to Chaos:
  • Captain Hasina is a Mad Scientist who might experiment on random bystanders all day and all night if her lieutenant didn't stick to her like glue and tell her not to.
  • Nunnal Enaz hired someone for the sole purpose of reigning her in when she goes too far with the mad science.
• In The Kingkiller Chronicle, there are signs that Kvothe is a morality chain to his Psycho Supporter Bast. As a Prince of The Fair Folk, Bast has at best an academic understanding of human morality, but cares deeply for Kvothe's well-being and follows his counsel — aside from the things he gets up to behind Kvothe's back "for his own good."
• Legacy of the Dragokin: Ritchie is revealed to have been this for Kalak for the previous book and earlier.. Once he dies, Mordak stirs, Kalak's marriage decays and he visits Zarracka for comfort.
• In the Logan's Run books, Logan is a hardened killer with barely a conscience to speak of. He actually goes on the run on his Lastday in order to achieve the glory of finding Sanctuary and destroying it, dying as the greatest Sandman ever. He (at first) dupes Jessica so that she'll be his Unwitting Pawn. But Jess impresses him by having more bravery and will to live than anyone he's seen, and falls for her instead, eventually converting to her cause and defecting. When Jess isn't around to rein him in, he does revert back to an unpleasant Anti-Hero.
• The Lost Fleet: Senator Victoria Rionne is a combination of this trope and Honest Advisor for Captain Geary, who is self-aware enough to outright ask her to play this role; it doesn't take him long to realise that his elevation to near King in the Mountain status while he was in cryosleep in a drifting escape pod after his Last Stand would let him do enormous harm if he let it go to his head.
• Relatively benign example in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. Nick Rostu was mind-controlled into attacking Luke, who took a chance and saved Nick. Now Nick can return the favor by gunning down thirty-odd mind controlled people and saving Luke... but... he hesitates
  because he had an overpowering intuition: if Luke Skywalker thought he might save thirty innocent lives by sacrificing his own, he wouldn't hesitate. Ten innocent lives.
  One.
  "Or, hell, one not-so-innocent life," Nick muttered. "Like mine." He flipped the carbine's power setting to stun. "I hate Jedi."
• In the Matthew Swift series, the titular character is this for the blue electric angels who are infantile, amoral, quite capable of burning London to the ground for shits and giggles, and with whom he shares a mind; although others suspect he may be more of a Morality Pet. On the occasions when Matthew is forced to take a back seat, havoc ensues. As one character puts it:
  Vera: God, if there wasn't a fucking sorcerer still in that skin, they'd have ripped the city apart just for kicks.
  • Later in the series, when Matthew becomes Midnight Mayor, it's speculated that he was chosen for the office (as London's mystic guardian) in order to force the angels to be invested in the city's well being, essentially making the entirety of London into a Morality Chain.
• In the novelization of Metropolis, Hel functioned as one of these for both Joh Fredersen and Rotwang. After she dies, Joh withdraws completely into work and becomes a cold-hearted executive, and Rotwang withdraws into his laboratory to spend all his time plotting revenge and building a robot clone of Hel. At the end, Joh Fredersen is redeemed by his son Freder, who becomes his new morality chain.
• "One Lonely Night" begins with Private Detective Mike Hammer angsting over being chewed out by a judge merely for blowing away a scumbag who likely would have been executed anyway. He spends much of the book bothered by his Honor's assertion that he's no better than the man he killed, and so is quite pleased when he's able to retrieve the MacGuffin without killing many more people. Then his Sexy Secretary Velda gets kidnapped and Mike realises he's been kidding himself. Of course he's an evil murdering bastard. That's what he was put on Earth for! He then proceeds to track down the Dirty Communists who kidnapped his secretary and Leave No Survivors.
• In the Prince Roger books by David Weber and John Ringo, Sergeant Nimashet Despreaux is told by a number of her comrades that she must survive because she is the Morality Chain for Prince Roger MacClintock, who will be the next emperor of mankind. She is also told that is why she has to marry him.
• The Reunion With Twelve Fascinating Goddesses has Alua acting as this to Tooi. Tooi has a sense of morality that borders on Blue-and-Orange Morality, but he tries to act like a brotherly figure around Alua, which is why Laila (Alua's older sister) has her accompany him. As a last resort, Laila also intends for Alua to kill Tooi if he shows himself to be a threat to the world.
• The Reynard Cycle: Persephone is this to Reynard. Which is rather ironic, given that the majority of the reprehensible things he does throughout the series are motivated by him wanting to possess her.
• After his death and Brain Uploading, Nahrmahn plays this role for Merlin in the Safehold series. He offers reassurance when Merlin fears what his power (to essentially kill anyone he has to with impunity) may turn him into, and makes sure Merlin doesn't shut himself out from his friends and loved ones.
• The School for Good and Evil: At the end of book 1, Sophie expresses her belief that Agatha is what keeps her from Evil. This becomes a key part of her motivations in the next book; she fears that without Agatha's influence, she will turn into a witch again.
  Agatha: You're not Evil, Sophie. You're human.
  Sophie: Only if I have you.
• The second half of the original Slayers novels (the ninth-through-fifteenth novels, which were never translated into English) introduced a new rival to Lina, Luke. He is an ex-assassin, and the only reason he never turned back is because of his partner Milina (and it' shown that he is clearly in love with her). With her he is more or less a Jerkass, but when Milina is killed later on, Luke becomes a crazed Omnicidal Maniac, allowing his piece of Shabranigdo, the Big Bad, to awaken out of his soul.
• While the cold and ruthless Tywin Lannister of A Song of Ice and Fire was never really a nice guy (he wiped out two families of rebellious vassals as a young man), it's mentioned that he used to be somewhat more humane, and in particular, showed his most visible happiness and emotion around his beloved wife. When she died in childbirth, all of that humanity was gone for good.
• In Song of the Lioness, the only thing that keeps Thom from going full-on Evil Sorcerer is his bond with his twin sister Alanna, and she's the only person he acts decently towards with any consistency. Unfortunately, he isolates himself so much in his arrogance that his affection towards her wanes in favor of proving his own capabilities, with disastrous results.
• In The Spirit Thief, Josef is the reason Nico hasn't gone off the deep end yet. She's a demonseed, always at risk that a demon will take her over, but she has Undying Loyalty for Josef and his words — and sometimes, even his presence, or someone mentioning that he needs her help — are often enough to pull her back from the brink.
• Urban Dragon: Arkay has zero compunctions about murdering anybody who so much as disrespects her, but she tones it down so as not to upset Rosario.
• In The Warrior's Apprentice, the sadistic Sociopathic Soldier Sergeant Bothari has two morality chains: his daughter Elena and the young Miles Vorkosigan. Lacking any moral sense, he uses duty to dictate how he treats them.
  • Originally, he had replied first on military hierarchy to perform this role (which either worked or didn't, depending on who was currently his commanding officer) and then on Miles's mother, Cordelia — who overlaps with Morality Pet, as his Heel–Face Turn in the first book, Shards of Honor, stemmed from rescuing Cordelia when she was a prisoner of war whom he was told to rape. Seeing himself as Cordelia's 'dog' worked well for him because Cordelia, while she respected him and cared about him, was aware of just how dangerous he could be. Miles, having only ever known Bothari when he was comparatively stable, the caring bodyguard who had looked after Miles since he was a child, isn't aware of having to phrase instructions just right, like having to specify, 'Please question this prisoner without torturing him to death,' until too late.
• In The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, Philip's daughter Penny is the only thing that keeps him from snapping during the Zombie Apocalypse.
• War and Democide Never Again. The protagonist, John, thinks he is this to Joy, but when things get hairy he is completely ineffectual in reining in her sociopathic tendencies... until she crosses the Moral Event Horizon completely, leaving him with no choice but to kill her to prevent her from causing any further harm.
• Invoked in the Warhammer 40,000 novel Deus Sanguinius. When Rafen offers to challenge Arkio's claim to be Sanguinius reincarnated in combat, Stele is glad despite the unexpected turn Rafen's survival has caused, because he believes that Rafen is the last link Arkio has to his humanity and that Rafen's death will cause Arkio to be permanently lost to Chaos.
• Catherine Earnshaw is this to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. He was never a nice person (though this may be a case of Then Let Me Be Evil, considering that everyone ostracizes him and expects him to be evil from the start because he's an Ambiguously Brown rescued street urchin), but once she marries another man and then dies in childbirth, he develops into a near-demonic Villain Protagonist and takes elaborate revenge on everyone who has ever kept him from Catherine or otherwise screwed him over (and their children).

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