Secretly Selfish motivations (or accusations thereof) in Literature.
By Author:
- Any mother written by Jodi Picoult, to the point of straight-up demonization of motherhood as a whole. They will go to their graves maintaining that they are the Only Sane Woman, and the only one in the family willing to do something and make sacrifices and why does the rest of her (badly neglected) family have to make things so difficult?!! Anyone else will point out that said mother has a boatload of issues and either a serious case of narcissism or a messiah/martyr complex.
- Sarah in My Sister's Keeper sees herself as a martyr who only wants what's best for Kate — even if that means making everyone else's lives miserable. She keeps the spotlight on her own suffering and sacrifices and conveniently glosses over the fact that the actual person being dragged through unnecessary medical procedures and who is being pressured to give up an organ is Anna, her younger daughter. Sarah's husband and sister both realize that her whole identity centers around being Kate's Crusading Mother — and while part of her motivation is indeed a deep love for her child, part of it is that she'll lose that identity if Kate dies.
- Charlotte O'Keefe in Handle with Care eventually admits that the court case she sets in motion (ruining the lives of everyone involved with it in the process) was really a case of It's All About Me, not, as she initially claimed, all about Willow, her daughter with osteogenesis imperfecta.
- Emma in House Rules centres her whole life, and that of her younger son Theo, around the needs and demands of her autistic son, Jacob. She prides herself on "managing" Jacob, to the point that she's sabotaged any coping skills he might have been able to develop because teaching him to be independent would mean that she would lose The Caretaker role she's built her life around.
By Title:
- In Beware of Chicken, The Lord Magistrate of Verdant Hill is the very image of an ideal government patriarch of his small town and the surrounding territory. He keeps his bureaucrats are honest and intelligent, his guards firm but fair, the taxes moderate and well-spent, and the town clean and orderly. He goes out of his way to cater to the needs of all his subjects, takes a personal interest in the local families, commissions great projects to benefit the villages, and even trains with his guards. He seems to be the most selfless man in the province, but in truth, everything he does is self-serving; he absolutely enjoys being praised, adored, and (most importantly) kept safe, but has decided that the best way to accomplish this was to genuinely earn the praise of everyone in his jurisdiction. He doesn't take advantage of his subjects because it would earn him enmity and he appears fearless because running away would lose him the respect of his guards (who might not defend him any more). Only his wife Lady Wu knows the truth.
- Later on, it's revealed that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree; his son, the Special Inspector of the Azure Hills, is quickly building a reputation as an intelligent and stalwart man of the Law who can solve any mystery and bring even Qi-cultivating criminals to justice. The reality is, he's in way over his head, became Special Inspector largely by accident, simply stumbled onto many of his most famous cases, is completely terrified of criminals, and gets by largely by taking his father's lessons to heart. It's unknown if his mother has seen through his act.
- Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!, admits in his memoirs that everything he did during his Imperial Guard service was with the ulterior motive of keeping himself alive. Cain has a massive case of Heroic Self-Deprecation, considering himself a Dirty Coward and nothing else. Cain doesn't seem personally conflicted about this, but the setting is one in which human culture has a martyrdom complex, and where the concept of Enlightened Self-Interest provably fails when applied on any significant scale, so it has to be a secret. In the teaching part of his career, he tries to teach his students to behave rationally on the grounds that while surviving can't be too high a priority, until they get some experience they won't recognize when a situation actually merits sacrificing themselves. Cain is being run through a ghostwriter in-universe who calls him an Unreliable Narrator since she notes that there were plenty of times that Cain could have chosen to save himself, but acted anyway. Word of God says even they're not sure which version is correct.
- In Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic, Sandry, a noble and a thread-mage, is regularly accused of this. For the most part, she genuinely is just a good person, but her friends point out that, while she's gone to great lengths to protect people on her estates in Namorn, they wouldn't need protecting if she'd just sign the land over to someone who actually lives in the country — her possessiveness (and dogged determination to hang on to one of the last reminders she has of her parents) puts the people living there at risk. Before that, her beloved Uncle accuses her of hiding from her responsibilities in Namorn by taking on other responsibilities in Emelan — which seems rather unfair, as the extra responsibilities she takes on are HIS responsibilities, and she's been covering for him after he had a heart attack.
- Vishna in Counselors and Kings is a wise and benevolent Old Master, but secretly he's aligned with one of the trilogy's main villains, Kiva, and has been her accomplice for decades, if not longer. He says it's because he made a vow to help her when she was young, but his actions indicate he's actually afraid to back out when he's in so deep and acknowledge his responsibility for his actions. However, when his favorite pupil (and son), Matteo, calls him out in it, Vishna is sufficiently shamed that he finally manages to pull himself out of Kiva's influence - for the cost of his life.
- Cradle Series: Akura Mercy, heir to the Monarch Akura Malice, is known as a Nice Girl in a world of assholes, always friendly to people both above and below her in rank, refusing to follow the dog-eat-dog culture of the strong oppressing the weak. However, advancing to Underlord requires a revelation about why you began practicing the sacred arts in the first place; Mercy discovered that hers was that she wanted her mother to be proud of her. She was so horrified at this reveal that her motives weren't as pure as she thought that she abandoned her advancement and made a deal with her mother where she was basically exiled from the clan so that she could prove to herself that she would be better than that.
- Discworld: Tiffany Aching is accused of this towards the end of her first book - going off to save her kidnapped baby brother more so that she can feel special (and assuage her own fears of not caring enough about other people) than out of any genuine care for him; of course, the kidnapper is the one making said accusation. However, this turns out to be a good thing, because it proves she'll always defend those who need defending, no matter what.Tiffany's Third Thoughts: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them!...My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine! I have a duty!
- In the novel Little Fires Everywhere, Elena Richardson rents out houses in the neighbourhood to "suitable" tenants, which on the surface is generous of her, but said tenants are carefully selected by Elena to make her look like a Good Samaritan who is lending a helping hand to some misfortunates. In reality, Elena is not as tolerant and generous as she likes to think she is and when Mia sides with Mrs. Chow in the custody battle over the baby, Elena takes this as a personal slight and goes out of her way to ruin Mia's reputation.
- The Stormlight Archive:
- Highlord Amaram is widely considered to be the most honorable man in Alethkar, and he believes that he is vital to Alethkar's continued survival against the coming Voidbringers. It's increasingly made clear that he doesn't want Alethkar safe from the Voidbringers, he wants to save Alethkar from the Voidbringers, especially since his faction, the Sons of Honor, set out to wake the Voidbringer gods, kicking off the plot. When one of his soldiers claims a Shardblade by killing its last owner, saving Amaram's life, Amaram seizes the Shardblade and sells the soldier into slavery. Amaram justifies the theft by saying that a Shardblade would be wasted on a commoner with no sword training, and it needs to belong to someone with the proper skills. Except the soldier refused the Shardblade (it killed his friends), so Amaram could have just pulled rank and taken it. Amaram destroyed a man's life because he didn't want to suffer the indignity of being bested by a commoner and not earning his Shardblade.
- Taravangian is willing to do anything to improve Roshar, defeat the Voidbringers, and stop any further Desolations. He seems like a genuinely benevolent person, if a somewhat ruthless one willing to Shoot the Dog if need be. As the story progresses, however, Dalinar realizes that beneath all his talk of saving the world and protecting the little people, Taravangian's primary motivation is being proven right about how to do so and receiving the due credit for it. This becomes a very bad thing when Taravangian "saves the day" by killing Odium's avatar, Rayse, and becoming the new bearer of Odium's power. Turns out, it's really easy for a God of Evil like Odium to corrupt your well-intentioned goals when you're already a Holier Than Thou attention-seeker and Control Freak who thinks he knows best, and as a result it takes little time for Taravangian's desire to help people to get warped into a desire to continue Odium's Evil Plan to conquer the universe because, hey, somebody's gotta give creation some proper management and the gods "clearly" aren't doing as well as Taravangian could if he had all the power.
- At some point, the protagonist of Tales of MU laments that she must be evil because she only helped another to avoid feeling bad for not helping her. Her interlocutor answers that it's how everyone works, and what proves her a good person is the fact not helping would have caused her to feel bad in the first place. An evil person would feel nothing for not helping.
