I collect these portrayals when I find them. Jo Walton over at torcom has talked about searching for books which do not contain violence, because they are rarities the believable portrayal of genuine human decency is just as rare, and incredibly rare in a viewpoint character. And then there is the conviction, popularized by among others Tolstoy but hovering in the air in general, that evil is always more interesting than good and that bad things make better news and better stories. It's hard to write those people, and it's hard to read them, because they are usually portrayed as overly saintly with no flaws whatsoever, or as incredibly self-righteous, or something like that. I don't mean people who are heroic, necessarily, or unusually courageous, or self-sacrificing, or working on plans which are good things for the world: I mean people who are simply good people, on a deep level, who do good things because they are loving and wise. It's very difficult to portray good people well, in fiction.
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