Framing an Impossible Conversation

So this pertains to an increasingly likely direction my Urban Fantasy series is going to take, and I had a question about a facet of that story direction.

In this story path, my main protagonist has undergone a massive Face–Heel Turn, becoming the new Big Bad. It's an understandable action in context of the story, but it turns him into an overwhelming threat and the primary villain, while it places the mantle of hero onto several other characters who the story also follows. This former hero such a destructive monster on a physical scale and to the order and stability of the mundane and supernatural worlds that it's decided that he must be killed and as quickly as possible.

Where my question comes in is here: one of the characters on the "hit squad" out to kill him is his own mother, who is reluctantly participating for reasons of her own. Before she leaves with the rest of the group to enter the endgame with the abomination he's become, she talks with her husband—-the protagonist's father—-about her decision.

What I'm trying to get a little insight on is...can it even be possible for one parent to convince the other that it is for the best to kill their child, even if he has become a literal monster? How would they even go about doing that?

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Nov 1st 2020 at 1:35:39 PM

As a parent, I could see it. We have agreed on various life-support scenarios in which we would have to decide whether or not to keep various relatives on life-support, including our children. The basic approach is "If this happened to me, I would want someone to do this."

Thank you for the reply and your thoughts.

From what I understand, you're framing the conversation as a sort of Mercy Kill, where ending his life isn't done in malice or pursuit of a "higher goal" but rather because a loved one (their son in this case) is suffering and needs to be put to rest.

If that is the angle you are coming from, it's pretty good. It would be perfect to counterbalance the motivations of others coming after him; some are doing it from a sense of hatred, others out of fear and others because they see it as a higher duty. So his parents just wanting to end his suffering adds something on the "tender" side since the only other person on the squad is his ex girlfriend who cares about him but is also very save my people oriented.

If it helps you (or anyone else replying to this thread, here is something to add)

• The hero who has become this monster is dying anyway. Without going into unnecessarily long detail he's pushing his abilities far past their limits and he sustained a fatal wound before his power up. He'll burn out eventually, but he'll have wrought unspeakable destruction on the world beforehand.

• He's not a wild uncontrollable lunatic but purposefully did this as his version of a Heroic Sacrifice to save the human race so no one else will ever have to suffer the way he and those close to him have throughout the story.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Nov 2nd 2020 at 4:17:40 AM

Yeah, I would have to say that if my child became some sort of sociopathic monster I might even feel that it would be best if I were the one to kill him. It might seem strange to put it this way, but a parent might feel a sense of obligation toward the child—this is the last act of mercy I can show you. You should be able to extract a lot of dramatic tension out if it ; )

I just wanted to mention that you've given me a great amount of motivational material to work with and it's definitely paid off. I wonder if rather than her being outright set on killing him, it could be something more along the lines of her wanting to return him to being "human". Of course this will kill him, and she knows it, but it's essentially wanting him to die as a person rather than a monstrous force of destruction.

Sounds good, go for it.