I was writing a fantasy novel and in it, the captain and his troops were ordered to massacre a village (of fictional creatures); after the massacre the captain quit his position in anger and disgust; the captain had also smuggled a child out of the village.
When I mentioned this on a writing forum I was on, people got upset and everyone rebuked the idea that the captain would quit his position and defy orders because…it takes a long time and a lot of effort to become a captain.
This was supposed to be a positive reflection on the character, that he would be disgusted at being ordered to commit a genocide (it wasn’t JUST a massacre; absolutely no one from the village was to be allowed to live, including kids), but posters got upset because…it takes a long time and a lot of effort to reach such a rank and no one would quit their positions or disobey orders, that it was unrealistic; people were genuinely upset; PEOPLE WERE GENUINELY UPSET.
My conclusion? A rewrite of the character so he’s not a military dog, but someone else who would’ve been in the area and ignored. My novel has anti-colonial themes although they weren’t that central to the story; if the military are supposed to be jackbooted thugs then that’s how they’re going to be portrayed going forward.
I genuinely can’t believe people would actually be upset at this point when it’s supposed to reflect well on the character; this post was also an old one, as in around 2016-2018, so before the Gaza genocide or the Russian SMO. Absolutely disgusting bootlicking individuals.
Writing forums can be extremely hit or miss for advice unfortunately. Sometimes you get some really helpful stuff, sometimes you get “This isn’t exactly the way I would do it, which means it’s terrible writing and you should rewrite the whole thing to cater to my personal tastes.”
The biggest thing I would look at with this example you gave: Has the captain shown that they are a person who puts their personal morality above “duty” at any point in the story before this? If this is someone who respects the chain of command above all else, them having a crisis of conscience could feel a little out of nowhere. But if it is foreshadowed effectively and fits how the character would act, I don’t see the problem.
That response seems a little strange tbh, like someone too focused on TVTropes and not how actual humans engage with media, and they hate the “cliche” of the good guy protagonist doing the right thing despite personal sacrifice. I’ve known a few “writers” like that, anything they produce is pure self-congratulatory drek, just full of uninteresting bland characters who serve more as a vessel for the author to vent about things they hate in storytelling rather than actually trying to tell a compelling story. I’m probably reading a lot into your anecdote though.