- Edited
Sollkiri For me reading has never been for the sake of understanding what the novel wants me to feel, that may be your way of enjoying a novel, but not mine. I can have completely different thoughts and feeling about an event, while, on the other hand, the novel is trying to make the readers feel the opposite. To me reading is just enjoying the actions of the characters and the various events/situation, looking forward to how they are gonna develop. But I have my own taste, so there are certainly some things that I am not gonna like depending on how the author has decided to progress the novel, and when the those things surpass my enjoyment for the novel I stop liking the story.
One example is the death of the old man Kohlen (or how he was called) and the other people of the slums. I never liked that character and was happy that the interaction with him will not happen anymore; but the motive of his death was to make the readers feel emotional about it together with the main character, he was a character designed to die to make the readers feel emotional but because of my own taste this completely failed to me.
(if the person to die was someone else, like Audrey, it would have been a lot better in my opinion. The death of such a character would have had a lot more impact and also been more ejoyable for me to read about, even if I like or disliked her. The death of a character so important and that 'shouldn't' have died would make the story better for me than that of a character that was already designed to die from the start).
"for the sake of understanding what the novel wants me to feel" My feelings were completely different from what the author wanted me to feel or what the characters in the story felt, and that made me simply unable to get into it.
The reason I asked the question is to understand if there were more situations like that one later on, and what made the MC decide what he did. I just care what the MC decided to do then. From what you said, I got that he did what he did because he had people he wanted to protect/save that he valued more than his life, this is his 'ethics'. This is the simple answer I needed and that's it. It's just a question of what kind of character he is, if he is willing to do certain things with certain consequences and risk attached. He decided that risking his life was worth it in that case. There was no need to respond in such a roundway.
I though that Klein would not risk his life to save others or strangers, that was his bottom line. But the truth is that the MC is the type that wouldn't mind sacrificing himself to save 'humanity' (or a large numbers of people) and/or others he cares about, without ever implicating innocents or good people even at his own cost, and at the same time, bringing justice to evil people. This is the character the author tried to portrey and the only answer I needed.
He is a kind and good-hearted person, that tries to save everyone in his power and scope, even going as far as risking himself.
This is completely different from what I though: as someone that would save whoever he can, but would never go as far as risking his life to save innocents or strangers. Even if his family and friends would have been completely protected and safe from it, he would still risk it to save a large amount of people that he knows are certainly going to die otherwise. This is what I got, and one of the minor reason as to why I stopped reading. Thank you anyway.