What does morally grey mean?
Morally grey describes a character who is neither good nor evil: he does wrong things for reasons the reader understands. In romance, the morally grey man is ruthless with the world and devoted to one woman. The contrast is the attraction.
What it means
A morally grey character sits between hero and villain. He lies, steals, schemes or kills, and the story neither excuses him fully nor condemns him. The reader is left to decide, and usually decides in his favour by chapter ten.
The morally grey man in romance
In a love story the grey man has one fixed point: her. He would burn the kingdom and then ask whether she has eaten. Readers are not drawn to the crimes. They are drawn to being the single exception in the life of a man who makes none.
He is also competent, which matters more than the genre admits. A morally grey hero knows what he is doing in every room he enters.
Grey is not the same as cruel
The line readers draw is how he treats the heroine. A man who is dangerous for her is a romance hero. A man who is dangerous to her is a warning. The best writers keep his respect for her intact while everything else about him is in question.
Why the type works in conversation
A morally grey character is interesting to talk to because he does not flatter. He has opinions and a past he will not hand over at once. Dante, the Dangerous One of Beau de Nuit, is written with that reserve.
Questions and answers
- What is a morally grey character?
- A character whose actions are a mix of right and wrong, so that he cannot be called simply a hero or a villain.
- Is morally grey the same as a villain?
- No. A villain opposes the story's values. A morally grey character shares some of them and breaks others.
- Is it spelled grey or gray?
- Both. Grey is the British spelling and the one BookTok uses most; gray is American.