Recall how he tricked Achilles into dropping his woman disguise (by sounding a war trumpet outside). That’s a lie, but I can’t seem to find anything wrong with it. It’s not an edge case and doesn’t need authorial fiat—many people have done similar tricks in reality, like the Sokal hoax.
Totally fair point. I agree that not all fictional heroes’ possibly justifiable lies are subject to my “author writes the story to protect reader perception of hero” concept. Maybe narrow my comment to “When using a fictional character’s lies as a model for when lying is acceptable, one should be alert for situations where the author has built the fictional world in such a way that Lie X is maybe justifiable in the fictional world but would not be in nearby counterfactual worlds.”
Recall how he tricked Achilles into dropping his woman disguise (by sounding a war trumpet outside). That’s a lie, but I can’t seem to find anything wrong with it. It’s not an edge case and doesn’t need authorial fiat—many people have done similar tricks in reality, like the Sokal hoax.
Totally fair point. I agree that not all fictional heroes’ possibly justifiable lies are subject to my “author writes the story to protect reader perception of hero” concept. Maybe narrow my comment to “When using a fictional character’s lies as a model for when lying is acceptable, one should be alert for situations where the author has built the fictional world in such a way that Lie X is maybe justifiable in the fictional world but would not be in nearby counterfactual worlds.”