When Heroes Fail – Writing Redemption That Feels Earned

Heroes fail.

Not stumble. Not miscalculate. Not face setbacks on the road to inevitable triumph.

Fail.

They make the wrong choice. They hesitate when action is required. They trust the wrong person. They prioritize pride over people. They cause harm — sometimes irreversible harm.

Failure is one of the most powerful narrative tools available to a writer. But redemption, if it follows too easily, can undo that power. Readers are far more willing to accept a hero’s fall than they are to accept a redemption that feels rushed, convenient, or morally weightless.

Writing redemption that feels earned requires restraint. It requires consequence. And above all, it requires honesty.

---

The Difference Between Setback and Failure

Not all losses qualify as failure.

A setback is an obstacle. It is external. The hero tried, and something went wrong.

Failure, by contrast, is internal. It is tied to character. The hero’s flaw, fear, belief, or moral weakness directly contributes to the outcome.

This distinction matters because redemption is not about correcting circumstance. It is about correcting self.

If the hero’s failure was merely bad luck, redemption has nothing meaningful to repair.

---

Letting the Failure Matter

The temptation after a hero fails is to soften the blow.

To reveal new information that justifies their choice. To reduce collateral damage. To shift blame onto manipulation or misunderstanding.

Resist that temptation.

If failure has no cost, redemption has no weight.

Consequences should be visible. Relationships strained. Trust broken. Opportunities lost. The world altered.

This does not mean cruelty for cruelty’s sake. It means allowing the narrative to honor what happened instead of minimizing it.

Readers forgive flawed heroes. They do not forgive narratives that pretend harm didn’t occur.

---

Why Quick Redemption Feels Hollow

Redemption arcs often falter because they move too quickly.

The hero apologizes. The injured party forgives. The story moves on.

But redemption is not apology. It is transformation.

Transformation takes time. It requires:

• Recognition of harm
• Acceptance of responsibility
• Change in behavior
• Willingness to endure discomfort
• Sacrifice

If any of these elements are missing, the arc feels incomplete.

Readers don’t need heroes to be perfect. They need them to grow.

---

Accountability Before Forgiveness

Forgiveness is optional.

Accountability is not.

A hero seeking redemption must first confront what they did without excuse. “I had no choice” and “I meant well” may be emotionally understandable, but they do not absolve harm.

Accountability often requires the hero to sit in silence — to hear anger, disappointment, grief. To accept that trust may not return.

This is where redemption becomes difficult. The hero must continue acting differently even if forgiveness never arrives.

Redemption is about integrity, not reward.

---

Internal Change vs. External Heroics

One common trap in redemption arcs is substituting a grand heroic act for meaningful change.

The fallen hero sacrifices themselves in battle. They defeat a greater evil. They perform one spectacular act that erases prior wrongdoing.

But redemption is not spectacle.

External heroics can be part of redemption, but only if they arise from genuine internal change. If the hero remains fundamentally the same — proud, reckless, dismissive — then the gesture feels transactional.

“I hurt you, but look what I did.”

True redemption shifts values, not just outcomes.

---

Letting Redemption Be Incomplete

Not all redemption needs to end in restored status.

Sometimes the most powerful arcs are the quiet ones. The hero loses leadership. Steps aside. Accepts diminished authority. Continues working without recognition.

Redemption does not guarantee reinstatement.

In fact, retaining loss often makes redemption feel authentic. The hero has changed, but the damage remains part of their history.

Readers recognize this as honest.

---

When Failure Reveals the True Self

Failure strips away illusion.

Often, heroes believe they are brave, selfless, righteous — until crisis reveals otherwise. Failure exposes blind spots.

A redemption arc becomes compelling when the hero confronts this revelation.

Who am I, if I am capable of this?

This question reshapes identity. The hero must rebuild not just reputation, but self-understanding.

Without this internal reckoning, redemption remains surface-level.

---

Secondary Characters as Moral Mirrors

Redemption rarely occurs in isolation.

The people harmed by the hero’s failure serve as moral anchors. Their reactions matter. Their refusal to forgive matters. Their pain matters.

These secondary characters should not exist solely to validate the hero’s growth.

Let them:

• Stay angry
• Distance themselves
• Demand proof
• Withhold trust

Their agency strengthens the redemption arc by ensuring the hero cannot dictate the terms of forgiveness.

---

Redemption and Sacrifice

Sacrifice often plays a role in redemption — but it must align with the failure.

If a hero failed through selfishness, sacrifice should address that selfishness. If they failed through cowardice, redemption should require courage. If they failed through control, redemption should involve surrender.

Sacrifice without thematic alignment feels arbitrary.

The cost should reflect the flaw.

---

The Risk of Over-Punishment

While redemption requires consequence, it should not become punishment fantasy.

If a hero suffers endlessly without growth, the narrative may tip into cruelty. The purpose of consequence is not humiliation — it is clarity.

The hero must have space to change.

If the story traps them in perpetual condemnation, redemption becomes impossible. Balance is essential.

---

When Redemption Isn’t Earned

Some failures are too severe.

Some harms are too great.

Part of writing honestly is recognizing when redemption does not fit the story. Not every hero deserves restoration. Not every narrative benefits from forgiveness.

In some stories, the most powerful choice is to let the hero live with what they’ve done without narrative absolution.

This is not nihilism. It is moral realism.

---

Why Redemption Resonates

Redemption stories endure because they reflect something deeply human.

We fail. We hurt people. We fall short of who we believe ourselves to be.

The hope embedded in redemption arcs is not that mistakes vanish. It is that growth remains possible.

When you write redemption with care, you honor both failure and change. You allow harm to matter without letting it define the entire story.

That balance is difficult — and worth striving for.

---

Letting the Hero Choose Again

At its heart, redemption is about choice.

The hero failed once. Given another chance — or a different challenge — they choose differently.

This second choice is the emotional pivot of the arc. It should feel deliberate, costly, and conscious.

Not destiny.

Not convenience.

Choice.

And when that choice reflects genuine transformation, readers feel it.

Because they recognize that the hero didn’t just survive failure.

They learned from it.

Breaking the Prophecy Trope – New Ways to Handle Destiny

Prophecies are seductive.

They promise inevitability. They offer structure. They whisper that chaos has a plan and that suffering has meaning. In fantasy especially, prophecy has long functioned as narrative shorthand — a way to set stakes quickly and justify extraordinary events.

But prophecy is also one of the most overused and least interrogated devices in modern storytelling.

Too often, it flattens character agency, excuses coincidence, and replaces choice with compliance. The “chosen one” fulfills their fate because the universe says so, not because they decide anything meaningful. Destiny becomes a rail the story rides instead of a force the characters grapple with.

Breaking the prophecy trope doesn’t mean abandoning destiny altogether. It means treating it with the same skepticism, nuance, and consequence you would apply to power, faith, or authority.

---

Why Prophecy Became So Popular

Prophecy solves several narrative problems at once.

It gives the story direction. It explains why this character matters. It creates anticipation. It justifies escalation. It reassures the reader that events are purposeful, even when they are brutal.

Historically, prophecy also reflects deeply human needs: the desire for order, the comfort of inevitability, the hope that suffering serves a greater design.

But those same qualities become liabilities when prophecy goes unquestioned.

When destiny is fixed, choice becomes ornamental. When the future is guaranteed, tension evaporates. When characters succeed because they were meant to, their victories feel hollow.

---

The Problem With Inevitable Destiny

The most common flaw in prophecy-driven stories is inevitability.

If the prophecy must come true, then:

• Characters cannot meaningfully fail
• Sacrifice loses weight
• Danger becomes cosmetic
• Moral decisions feel irrelevant

Readers may not articulate this consciously, but they feel it. Suspense collapses when outcomes are predetermined.

Even worse, inevitable destiny can absolve characters of responsibility. Harmful actions become “necessary.” Collateral damage becomes “part of the plan.” The universe wanted this, so no one has to answer for it.

This is where prophecy stops being a narrative tool and starts being a narrative crutch.

---

Treating Prophecy as Information, Not Truth

One of the simplest ways to refresh prophecy is to stop treating it as objective fact.

A prophecy is information filtered through belief, culture, power, and interpretation. It was spoken or written by someone, for some reason, under specific conditions.

Ask:

• Who created the prophecy?
• What did they want?
• Who benefits from people believing it?
• What might be missing, distorted, or misunderstood?

When prophecy becomes fallible, it regains tension. Characters must decide whether to believe it, resist it, manipulate it, or reject it entirely.

The future is no longer fixed. It is contested.

---

Misinterpretation as Narrative Engine

Many of the most compelling prophecy stories hinge not on fulfillment, but on misunderstanding.

Ambiguous language. Symbolic imagery. Metaphors mistaken for literal instruction. Predictions that come true in ways no one expected — or feared.

Misinterpretation works because it mirrors real human behavior. People project their hopes and fears onto uncertain information. They hear what they want to hear.

In these stories, the tragedy is not destiny itself, but the certainty with which characters believe they understand it.

---

Prophecy as Self-Fulfilling Trap

One of the most effective subversions of prophecy is to make it self-fulfilling.

The prophecy comes true because people act on it.

Attempts to prevent it cause it. Efforts to control it accelerate it. Faith in inevitability creates the very outcome everyone feared.

This approach preserves the sense of destiny while restoring agency — but in a darker form. Characters are responsible for what happens, even if they believe they are powerless.

Self-fulfilling prophecy reframes destiny as consequence rather than command.

---

Letting Characters Refuse the Call

Not every chosen one has to accept the role.

Refusal is one of the most underused responses to prophecy. What happens when a character says no — not out of fear, but conviction?

Refusal raises uncomfortable questions:

• Does the world punish them?
• Does someone else step into the role?
• Does the prophecy unravel?
• Was the prophecy ever about them at all?

A character who rejects destiny forces the story to confront whether fate has authority — or only influence.

Refusal turns prophecy into a negotiation.

---

Shifting the Cost of Destiny

Traditional prophecy stories often externalize cost. The world suffers so the chosen one can rise. Others die so destiny can proceed.

A more interesting approach is to internalize the cost.

What does believing in destiny cost the character?

• Relationships?
• Autonomy?
• Identity?
• Moral clarity?

When prophecy demands obedience, it becomes a burden rather than a blessing. Characters must decide whether fulfilling fate is worth losing themselves.

This reframing turns destiny into a moral dilemma instead of a reward.

---

Prophecy as Political Tool

Prophecy doesn’t have to be mystical to be powerful.

In many worlds, prophecy functions as propaganda. Rulers invoke it to justify authority. Movements rally around it. Violence is excused in its name.

In these stories, prophecy is less about the future and more about control.

Who gets to interpret destiny? Who enforces it? Who is silenced by it?

This approach grounds prophecy in social reality. It becomes a system to challenge, dismantle, or exploit — not a cosmic truth to obey.

---

Breaking the “Chosen One” Monopoly

Another way to refresh prophecy is to decentralize it.

What if:

• The prophecy applies to a group, not an individual?
• It describes a role anyone could fill?
• It names an outcome, not a hero?
• It was never meant to identify a savior at all?

By removing exclusivity, you restore uncertainty. Characters compete, cooperate, or conflict over meaning. Destiny becomes collective, not personal.

This shift allows for richer character dynamics and avoids elevating one figure at the expense of everyone else’s agency.

---

Letting Prophecy Be Wrong

Perhaps the boldest option is to let the prophecy fail.

Not be delayed. Not be reinterpreted. Be wrong.

False prophecy can arise from:

• Mistranslation
• Deception
• Corruption
• Limited understanding
• Outdated context

When prophecy fails, characters must confront the void it leaves behind. Without destiny to guide them, they must choose their path without cosmic validation.

This can be terrifying — and deeply human.

---

Destiny as Pressure, Not Path

The most compelling modern takes on destiny treat it as pressure rather than instruction.

Prophecy becomes a force characters push against. It shapes expectations, fear, and behavior without dictating outcomes.

Characters still feel watched. Still feel judged. Still feel compelled. But the future remains open.

This approach preserves the emotional weight of destiny while restoring narrative freedom.

---

Choosing Meaning Over Inevitability

At its best, prophecy is not about predicting the future.

It’s about revealing what people believe about the future — and how those beliefs shape their choices.

When you break the prophecy trope, you don’t remove destiny from the story. You transform it from a script into a question.

And questions are far more powerful than answers.

The Currency of Trust – Writing Complex Friendships and Alliances

Trust is one of the most valuable — and most fragile — currencies in storytelling.

Unlike love or loyalty, trust is rarely unconditional. It must be earned, tested, repaired, and sometimes spent. In fiction, trust shapes alliances, deepens friendships, and determines whether characters survive long enough to see the ending of the story.

When written well, trust becomes a living force within the narrative. When written poorly, relationships feel shallow, convenient, or unearned. Characters cooperate because the plot requires it, not because their bond makes sense.

Understanding trust as a currency — something exchanged, invested, risked, and occasionally squandered — allows relationships to develop with depth and tension rather than ease.

---

Why Trust Is More Interesting Than Loyalty

Loyalty is static.

Once a character is loyal, they tend to remain so unless something dramatic breaks that bond. Trust, by contrast, is dynamic. It shifts constantly based on action, context, and consequence.

A character can be loyal but not trusted. Trusted but not loved. Dependent without being secure.

Trust creates questions:

• How much does this character know?
• How much are they allowed to know?
• What would happen if they betrayed me?
• What would it cost to rely on them?

Those questions generate narrative energy.

---

Trust Is Built Through Action, Not Words

Characters can promise loyalty endlessly. It means nothing unless backed by behavior.

Trust grows through:

• Keeping difficult promises
• Sharing information that creates vulnerability
• Choosing another character’s safety over personal gain
• Acting consistently under pressure

One of the most common mistakes in writing friendships or alliances is allowing trust to form through dialogue alone. Characters declare themselves allies without demonstrating why.

Readers don’t believe declarations. They believe patterns.

If you want a relationship to feel earned, show the cost of trusting — and the cost of being trusted.

---

Unequal Trust Creates Tension

The most compelling relationships are rarely balanced.

One character trusts more than the other. One reveals secrets while the other withholds. One depends; the other remains guarded. These asymmetries create friction without requiring open conflict.

Unequal trust can arise from:

• Differences in power
• Differences in experience
• Past betrayal
• Conflicting goals
• Emotional vulnerability

When trust is uneven, every interaction carries subtext. Every decision feels risky. The relationship becomes a site of negotiation rather than comfort.

That tension is fertile ground for storytelling.

---

Alliances Built on Necessity

Not all trust is chosen.

Some alliances form because survival demands it. Enemies cooperate. Rivals share resources. Strangers rely on each other because there is no alternative.

These relationships are especially effective because trust is provisional. It exists only so long as circumstances require it.

In necessity-based alliances:

• Trust is practical, not emotional
• Boundaries are rigid
• Information is controlled
• Betrayal feels likely, even expected

Over time, necessity can evolve into genuine trust — or collapse into violence. Either outcome feels earned because the foundation was unstable from the start.

---

Trust and Power

Trust is never separate from power.

Who holds leverage? Who has information? Who controls resources? Who risks more by trusting?

Power imbalances complicate relationships in meaningful ways. A powerful character who trusts a weaker one creates vulnerability. A weaker character trusting power risks exploitation.

These dynamics shape alliances far more convincingly than shared values alone.

Ask yourself:

• Who loses the most if trust fails?
• Who benefits from ambiguity?
• Who controls the terms of cooperation?

Trust given freely by someone with power carries a different weight than trust extracted from someone without it.

---

Betrayal Is Not the Opposite of Trust

Betrayal only matters where trust existed.

A character betraying an enemy is expected. A character betraying an ally is devastating. The emotional impact of betrayal depends entirely on how much trust was invested beforehand.

This is why rushed betrayals often fall flat. Without sufficient groundwork, the moment feels shocking but hollow.

Effective betrayal requires:

• Established trust
• Clear motivation
• Consequences that ripple outward

The betrayal should not only hurt the betrayed character — it should alter the landscape of relationships around them.

Trust, once broken, leaves scars.

---

Repairing Broken Trust

Broken trust is far more interesting than unbroken trust.

Repair is slow. It requires humility, accountability, and consistent effort. Apologies alone are rarely enough. Characters must change behavior, not just intention.

Not all trust should be repaired. Some betrayals permanently alter the relationship, and forcing reconciliation can feel dishonest.

But when repair does occur, it often deepens the bond beyond its original state. The characters understand each other’s limits. They trust more carefully, but more consciously.

Repair arcs work best when:

• The betrayal was understandable, even if unforgivable
• The betrayed character retains agency
• Rebuilding trust has a cost

Forgiveness is not obligation.

---

Silence, Secrecy, and Selective Trust

Trust does not require total transparency.

In fact, selective trust often feels more realistic. Characters choose what to reveal, when to reveal it, and to whom. These choices define intimacy.

Secrets can exist within trusted relationships without negating them — as long as the secrecy serves a purpose and carries risk.

The danger arises when secrecy becomes manipulation rather than protection.

A useful distinction:

• Protective secrecy limits harm
• Exploitative secrecy limits agency

Readers are quick to sense the difference.

---

Trust as Thematic Backbone

In many stories, trust is not just relational — it is thematic.

Stories about revolution hinge on trust between leaders and followers. Stories about magic hinge on trust in power. Stories about family hinge on trust across generations. Stories about trauma hinge on trust in memory and perception.

When trust aligns with theme, relationships gain symbolic weight. The way characters trust mirrors the story’s deeper questions about faith, control, or belief.

This alignment gives emotional cohesion to interpersonal dynamics.

---

Letting Trust Change Over Time

Trust should evolve.

Early trust is often tentative. Mid-story trust is tested. Late-story trust either solidifies or collapses.

Static trust feels false because people change under pressure. Shared experience reshapes perception. Survival alters priorities.

Track trust the way you track character arcs:

• Where does it begin?
• What challenges it?
• Where does it end?

If trust looks the same in the final chapter as it did in the first, something has been missed.

---

Writing Trust Without Sentimentality

Trust does not need to be soft to be meaningful.

Some of the strongest bonds are built on shared hardship, mutual respect, or quiet reliability rather than affection. Trust can exist without warmth. It can be brutal, pragmatic, or restrained.

Avoid reducing trust to sentiment. Focus instead on choice.

Every act of trust is a decision made under uncertainty.

That uncertainty is what gives it weight.

---

Trust as Risk

Ultimately, trust is a gamble.

Characters trust because the alternative — isolation — is worse. They trust because they need something. They trust because they hope the world will prove kinder than it has been.

That risk is what makes alliances matter.

When characters trust each other in a story, they are placing something of value into another’s hands. Whether that trust is honored or broken shapes not only the relationship, but the meaning of the narrative itself.

Trust is not comfort.

It is courage.

Monsters as Metaphor – What Your Creatures Really Represent

Monsters rarely exist just to be frightening.

They may snarl, stalk, hunt, and destroy, but their true power in storytelling lies in what they mean. Long before monsters were entertainment, they were explanations — ways of giving shape to fear, guilt, desire, taboo, and the unknown.

Even in modern fantasy and speculative fiction, monsters continue to function as mirrors. They reflect what a society fears becoming, what it refuses to confront, or what it cannot name directly.

When writers understand monsters as metaphor rather than mere obstacles, creatures become more than threats. They become language.

---

Why We Invent Monsters at All

At their core, monsters are answers to unanswerable questions.

What happens if we lose control?
What if hunger outweighs morality?
What if power corrupts beyond recognition?
What if the “other” is not external, but internal?

Monsters allow stories to explore these ideas safely — displaced onto claws, fangs, shadows, or unnatural forms. They make abstract fears concrete. They allow readers to confront danger without having to name it directly.

This is why monster stories persist across cultures and centuries. The details change. The fears don’t.

---

Monsters as Embodied Fear

The most obvious metaphor monsters carry is fear itself.

But fear is not singular. It has texture.

A monster driven by hunger often reflects fear of scarcity, deprivation, or unchecked consumption. A monster that spreads infection reflects fear of contamination — physical, moral, or social. A monster that mimics humanity reflects fear of deception, infiltration, or loss of identity.

When designing a creature, ask:

• What does this monster want?
• What does it destroy?
• What boundary does it cross?

Those answers usually point directly to the fear it embodies.

---

Cultural Anxiety Made Flesh

Monsters are rarely created in a vacuum.

They are shaped by the anxieties of the time and place that birthed them. Vampires rise during periods obsessed with purity, disease, and desire. Zombies flourish in eras marked by consumerism, dehumanization, and social collapse. Artificial beings reflect unease about technology and autonomy.

Even in secondary worlds, monsters often echo real-world concerns — displacement, colonization, exploitation, environmental collapse.

The more specific the cultural anxiety, the more resonant the monster becomes.

Generic monsters frighten briefly. Contextual monsters linger.

---

The Monster as the Shadow Self

Some of the most compelling monsters are not external threats, but distorted reflections of the self.

These creatures embody what characters repress:

• Rage they refuse to acknowledge
• Desires they deny
• Power they fear to claim
• Violence they pretend is absent

In these stories, defeating the monster does not mean destroying it. It means confronting what it represents.

This approach transforms the monster from a physical enemy into a psychological reckoning. The real danger is not claws or teeth, but recognition.

---

Monsters and Moral Boundaries

Monsters often exist to test moral lines.

They force characters to ask uncomfortable questions:

• What is justified when survival is at stake?
• Who deserves protection?
• When does mercy become complicity?
• When does violence become necessary?

In many stories, the monster itself is less important than how characters respond to it. Fear exposes priorities. Crisis reveals ethics.

Sometimes the monster is not the most monstrous presence in the narrative.

That contrast is deliberate.

---

Sympathetic Monsters and Reclaimed Metaphors

Not all monsters are villains.

Sympathetic monsters challenge the assumption that otherness equals danger. They often represent marginalized identities, misunderstood power, or traits condemned by dominant culture.

In these stories, the real threat is not the creature, but the society that hunts it.

This inversion works because it interrogates who gets labeled monstrous — and why. It asks whether fear is rooted in harm or in difference.

Sympathetic monsters invite readers to question the narratives they’ve inherited.

---

Physical Design as Symbol

A monster’s body tells a story before it ever acts.

Extra limbs, missing features, exaggerated proportions, unnatural movement — all of these communicate meaning. Physicality is not neutral. It signals imbalance, excess, corruption, or adaptation.

Consider:

• What parts of the body are emphasized?
• What human traits are distorted?
• What natural rules are broken?

A creature that sees too much may represent forbidden knowledge. A creature that cannot speak may represent silenced truth. A creature that regenerates endlessly may represent unstoppable cycles of harm.

Design choices are symbolic whether you intend them to be or not. Making them intentional strengthens the metaphor.

---

Environment and Habitat as Context

Where a monster lives matters.

Creatures born of ruins tell different stories than creatures born of wilderness. Monsters that dwell underground evoke buried truths. Monsters that emerge from water often reflect emotional depths or subconscious fear. Monsters that appear in cities highlight breakdowns in social order.

Environment reinforces meaning.

A monster that cannot survive outside a poisoned landscape raises questions about responsibility. A monster that thrives where humans once lived invites reflection on abandonment or consequence.

The setting and the creature should speak to each other.

---

Avoiding the Empty Monster

One of the most common weaknesses in monster writing is emptiness.

A creature that exists only to be fought may serve a plot function, but it rarely serves a thematic one. If the monster can be replaced with any other threat without changing the story’s meaning, it may not be pulling its weight.

Ask yourself:

• What would be lost if this monster didn’t exist?
• What idea disappears with it?
• What fear does it externalize?

If the answer is “nothing,” the monster may need deeper roots.

---

Monsters as Systems, Not Individuals

Sometimes the monster isn’t a single being at all.

Plagues, curses, hiveminds, creeping transformations — these represent systemic threats rather than personal ones. They reflect fears that cannot be defeated by killing one enemy. Corruption. Ideology. Collapse.

These monsters are especially effective in stories about power, empire, or generational harm. They suggest that the problem is structural, not individual.

There is no heroic duel that fixes everything.

Only change.

---

Letting Monsters Change Meaning

As a story evolves, a monster’s meaning can shift.

What begins as an external threat may become an internal one. What appears monstrous may later reveal humanity. What seems symbolic of fear may become symbolic of survival.

Allowing this evolution adds depth. It prevents the monster from becoming static. It mirrors how understanding changes over time.

The best monsters grow alongside the narrative.

---

Writing Monsters With Intention

You do not need to explain your metaphor on the page.

In fact, you shouldn’t.

Readers do not need monsters to come with footnotes. They feel meaning intuitively when design, behavior, and consequence align. Subtlety matters. Trust matters.

Your job is not to decode the monster for the reader, but to build it honestly enough that interpretation arises naturally.

---

Why Monsters Endure

Monsters persist because they give shape to what we fear becoming — and what we fear acknowledging.

They allow stories to speak truths that would otherwise remain unspeakable. They challenge comfort. They force confrontation.

When you treat monsters as metaphor, you stop asking how frightening they are and start asking why they exist.

And that question is where the real story lives.