Young Writers Society

I came up with a new (somewhat weird) idea for my novel's ending. Basically, after the main characters attempt to escape the prison that the antagonists put them in, the female MC (Iris) is forced to leave the male MC (Cove) behind. She finds a safe haven (that her presumed-dead sister created), grieves, and begins to move on. Several weeks later, they decide to destroy/invade the prison, freeing many prisoners. Some are mutated, though. One of the more coherent prisoners tells Iris that horrible experiments have been taking place--the goal was to create a new superhuman race using a serum, but something went wrong. She finds Cove, who was one of the first to be experimented on; he now has fangs, wings/limited flight powers, and strangely colored eyes (think of the blank-eyed children of urban legends). He also can't speak. Once all the prisoners get back to the compound, Iris avoids them at all costs, even though Cove was her friend before this happened, and the others think she's a hero for rescuing them. Mercy (Iris's sister) asks her about this, and Iris reveals that she hates being around the prisoners/mutants because they're reminders of the Kingdom (antagonist group) and its cruelty. I don't know what would happen after that...
Sorry to ramble, but is this a good idea? Is it too weird or too depressing? And what should happen after Mercy and Iris's conversation?

I'd be very careful not to parallel "loved ones abandon somebody newly disabled/chronically ill", because that's my gut instinct when I read this.

The thing about having the person lose things like speech is that some people in real life lose speech, then get treated terribly as a result. Mutants also tend to be metaphors for various marginalized identities, so there's a strong parallel that can be drawn already. The fact there are some enhanced abilities but some weakened abilities can be an indication of disability, too.

You've got some muffling of this blow by how it reminds her of the antagonist, but that just means you have to be careful how others treat him, too. If the experiments become social lepers, then you've reinforced "people who look/behave differently from us deserve shunning" on one level or another.

You can mitigate that reinforcement by having others still treat him as a valuable person, finding other communication for him instead of speech (drawing, signing, flashcards, etc), and/or having her come around eventually. You've got to be careful not to erase her understandable very bad feelings about it, and not have her come around too quickly.

But, all in all, be very careful with this. There are some really strong parallels to abandonment of disabled individuals in here, and unless you actively work to undo them they're going to persist.

Thanks for your reply. I thought this would seem like a metaphor for ableism--I'm leaving it up to the reader, ultimately, but I also saw the parallel as I wrote this. I do want to show that the mutants are still people, and that Iris is wrong. And, yes, the other characters still respect him.

Oh-kay. So, this changes my answer a little, now that I know you've taken care of that!

If she has anything that's similar to PTSD or trauma from her antagonist, then you'll have to treat her mindset just as respectfully. Because if she's been traumatized by the antagonist, then she can still have a negative reaction to what happened that she can't control (even if that reaction leads to bad events).

It does lead to a wrong reaction, disliking somebody based on who they are (and she should be called on it), but her past bad experience shouldn't be completely invalidated just because it leads to an incorrect reaction. This article goes more into PTSD.

It'll be an interesting line to walk because her trauma/bad experience is valid, but her reaction is not a good reaction at all. So you have be between not excusing her behaviour, but also not demonizing her for having the reaction in the first place because it comes from a place of pain.

Well, she doesn't exactly have PTSD, but at this point, she's angry and grieving for her parents and third sister (Kate), whom the antagonists killed. If that makes sense.

Your comments are really helpful so far, by the way!

I came up with two ideas for what should happen next, but I'm not sure which to use.
1. Iris is picked for an important mission (not sure what that would entail yet), and so are several of the mutants. She's standoffish until she sees the camaraderie they have with each other, and then she realizes they're still capable of emotion. I'm concerned that this option would give messages of 'disabled people should interact with each other and not the rest of us', although that's the opposite of what I want to get across.
2. Iris ends up in some sort of danger, and Cove rescues her. I don't like this option much, either, because Iris is a strong character who could probably save herself.

Thoughts, anyone? I'd also appreciate some better ideas that don't have these unintentionally ableist or sexist undertones.

Why does there have to be One Event that makes everything all better?

Redemption arcs take work, and one event where she goes "oh, I have seen the error of my ways!" doesn't ring true.

Option 1 is ableist in the sense that some disabled people don't show emotion, or at least don't show it typically, and it throws them under the bus. Option 2 is, as you mentioned, sexist, but also— people who are bigoted often don't apply the actions of one to the whole group.

The best story arc I saw involving bigots was in Teen Titans, where a bounty hunter hated Starfire's species. She saves his life, and instead of going "your species is good", he goes "you are a good member of your otherwise bad species." The same thing could happen in both options you've presented, honestly, because bias takes awhile to sort out.

You might have to accept that for a little while, she's going to be a bigoted character. It happens. Good people are bigoted all the time, and it takes them months to improve if not years. It takes other people calling them on it. It takes lots and lots of work from the person who has behaved poorly.

So try not to think of "I have to change her mind with One Thing" but instead figure out the full amount of work it'll take to actually change her mind and plan multiple plot points, even a whole story arc. She's not going to change her mind with one thing, and if she does, she'll probably have other biases that'll show up later.

It shouldn't be on the marginalized to "prove" themselves to be better. It should be on the bigoted person to go "wow I am seeing a whole group of sentient beings as lesser this is a problem." Until you flip that script, until you stop relying on showing "no, no, these mutants are Good!", you're not putting the emotional labour where it needs to go: on the person being biased.

Thanks for your feedback.
After a lot of thinking, I've decided not to use this ending. Not only does it have the potential to be very, very ableist, it also doesn't fit with the rest of my book very well. I probably should have thought about this earlier.
Again, I appreciate your assistance.