Today, I’ll look into another storytelling element: the power of friendship and love in fiction with its pros and cons as I see them.

While the power of friendship is often a major element of stories written for younger audiences, they still have their place in more mature stories, though they won’t be the central element anymore. In children’s books, I would say it allows some simplification of more complex motivations. That said, even in adult stories, friendship and love can be a major motivation, as well as a realistic hindrance for the major characters.

When it comes to villains, they rarely have true friends, let alone lovers – they typically have underlings that aren’t treated exactly well, which means they’ll be less likely to be willing to die for their leader and more likely to abandon the fight or turn against the villain. This can even happen to long-term staunch followers (Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter series comes to my mind).

However, among protagonists, it’s quite common (aside from some anti-hero archetypes) that they do have close friends and/or partners. These relationships are often built through several common points, such as shared hardships and goals, mutual respect, and other elements. Usually, the friendship grows stronger as the involved characters help each other.

I will borrow a quote from one of my favorite books: “One of the biggest distinctions between us and our enemies is our compassion and our love for our fellows. That may seem like a weakness at first glance, but I believe that, in the long run, it is one of our greatest strengths. You won’t sacrifice your friends needlessly or callously, but they will willingly sacrifice themselves for you if the need arises.”

I think that does a good job of describing the main point. The protagonists, even if they have a clear leader, often act much more as a unit, not as a group of individuals. They will, if possible, fight together and cover each other to reduce the casualties among them. And, when things get tough, positive motivation has much more power than negative motivation. This is why a heroic sacrifice is much more frequent among the protagonists – both because it’s more realistic to die for a friend than for someone you follow because you’re forced to; but also because it has a much higher emotional impact on the readers.

So, while the power of friendship won’t often be anything that would act as a higher power of a sort in books for older audiences, it still has a strong presence in how the characters act.

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So, that’s it for my random storytelling thoughts of the day. I’ll welcome your own insights – or favorite stories where this is prominent if you have some to recommend.