Being moral is good and all, but when you are living in a dying world with resources that runs up quicker than you can say kumbayah, only the ruthless makes it to the end. Every hero is seen as a genocidal maniac from those that they've overpowered, even in modern times, a lot of those with psychopathic/sociopathic tendencies achieve greatness in life.
I find this development to be a good one, instead of making the ML a flat, strong but sensitive type of generic lead, author actually gave him backbones that make sense to his character profile- he's the leader of a dystopian group, for goodness sake, when everything is messed up and scarce, people do tend to go to the extremes just to survive, also what was he supposed to do? if he spared him at the last minute, that would be showing favor which would 1. decrease loyalty from his followers who tried their best to adhere to the laws themselves, 2. create animosity for the spared "criminal" from the other townsfolk (because why was he spared and not the others?) and 3. show weakness to the leader - if he can do it once for someone, then others could just pull a sob story and use it to justify going against the law.
Everything's cyclical anyway, once this extremity reaches a boiling point it is bound to pop. Maybe the kid will take revenge, maybe the MC will lead a rebellion against the ML, maybe they both lose their minds in the end. This story can go multiple ways and I find that's what makes it really interesting so far.
Being moral is good and all, but when you are living in a dying world with resources that runs up quicker than you can say kumbayah, only the ruthless makes it to the end. Every hero is seen as a genocidal maniac from those that they've overpowered, even in modern times, a lot of those with psychopathic/sociopathic tendencies achieve greatness in life.
I find this development to be a good one, instead of making the ML a flat, strong but sensitive type of generic lead, author actually gave him backbones that make sense to his character profile- he's the leader of a dystopian group, for goodness sake, when everything is messed up and scarce, people do tend to go to the extremes just to survive, also what was he supposed to do? if he spared him at the last minute, that would be showing favor which would 1. decrease loyalty from his followers who tried their best to adhere to the laws themselves, 2. create animosity for the spared "criminal" from the other townsfolk (because why was he spared and not the others?) and 3. show weakness to the leader - if he can do it once for someone, then others could just pull a sob story and use it to justify going against the law.
Everything's cyclical anyway, once this extremity reaches a boiling point it is bound to pop. Maybe the kid will take revenge, maybe the MC will lead a rebellion against the ML, maybe they both lose their minds in the end. This story can go multiple ways and I find that's what makes it really interesting so far.