'All Quiet on the Western Front,' made into a Netflix series. [Photo=Netflix] 

Characters do not simply appear in literature. Authors predetermine where readers will stand to view the story. Among these positions, the most powerful is that of the 'victim.' 

A victim is a character who has suffered. Suffering has the power to halt a reader's judgment. In the face of suffering, we first feel pity. Pity is fast, while argumentation is slow. This time difference creates moral superiority. 

1. The Method of Preempting Moral Superiority

For example, in 'The Son Comes,' the author centers the story on the death of a boy in Gwangju in 1980. Readers experience the story by following scenes of bodies being cleaned and the family's loss. 

At this point, readers do not first consider the political context of the event. What they first feel is the weight of loss. Loss postpones judgment. "How great was this suffering?" precedes "Why did this happen?" The victim's position has already occupied the moral center. 

Moral superiority is not achieved by declaration; it is achieved by placement. The author places the victim at the starting point of the narrative. The victim's perspective, language, and memories are brought to the forefront. 

As a result, readers naturally enter that perspective. Within it, other stances are pushed to the periphery. The perpetrator's explanation, institutional background, international affairs, and complex political calculations are relegated to the background. 

The same method is used in historical novels. Consider 'Oliver Twist,' which deals with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Charles Dickens depicted the poverty of industrial cities through an orphan boy. 

The scene where a starving child says, "Please give me more," was far more persuasive than statistics explaining the structure of British society. Naturally, readers side with the orphan, and the complex economic structure of industrialization is compressed into simple cruelty. 

The key here is not the character's morality itself but the technique of placement. A victim is justified without explanation. The fact of having suffered becomes a shield. The author utilizes this shield. 

When victims are placed at the forefront, readers empathize first. Empathy leads to a suspension of judgment, and in this suspended state, the author's message seeps in without resistance. 

In various novels dealing with contemporary Korean history, war orphans from the 1950s, laborers from the 1970s, and participants in the democratization movement from the 1980s appear as central characters. 

While these characters are historical victims, what is more important than the facts is that this placement prevents other questions from being considered. 

When the victim's suffering is placed at the center of the novel, the strategy or internal conflicts of that movement, and its political errors, become secondary. Once the victim preempts moral superiority, the work begins from that state. 

The preempting of moral superiority intertwines with the reader's psychological structure. Humans tend to protect the weak. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, protecting the weak within a group was advantageous for the survival of the community. 

Literature touches this instinct. Victims are the weak. When the instinct to protect the weak is activated, we tend to protect the group or ideology they belong to as well. 

In this process, the victim becomes not just a character but a symbol. One boy becomes a city, one laborer becomes an era. Once they become symbols, criticism becomes difficult. Acts that challenge symbols are considered transgressions of moral taboos. 

Therefore, the victim's position is not merely a character's role but the moral center of the entire narrative. 

Literature does not force judgment. Instead, it assigns a position. Where will the reader sit to view the story? A story that begins from the victim's standpoint starts with half its persuasion already accomplished. This is the method of preempting moral superiority. 

2. How Pity Drives Judgment

The speed of conveying 'pity' overwhelms 'reason.' The human brain reacts instantly to situations of crisis or suffering. In psychology, this is called 'affect heuristic.' 

When making complex judgments, we do not analyze all information. Instead, we seize on quick cues. Cues like tears, blood, hunger, and unfairness lead to immediate conclusions. 

For instance, consider literature dealing with Germany after World War I. 'All Quiet on the Western Front' depicts the horrors of war from a soldier's perspective. As you read about young men dying in trenches, the causes of the war or calculations of international politics recede. 

Readers feel the war itself as a tragedy. That tragedy leads to criticism of the political leaders who started the war. 

Pity is conveyed through individual faces. Statistics are numbers. Numbers, no matter how large, are abstract. However, the hunger of one child is concrete. This is why UNICEF advertisements always show children's faces. 

Literature is similar. The death of one individual with a face has a stronger impact than 10,000 nameless victims.  

In contemporary Korean historical novels, the self-immolation of Jeon Tae-il in 1970 is frequently mentioned. Jeon Tae-il's death became a symbolic event for labor issues. His cry, "Protect the Labor Standards Act," was the 절규 of an individual, yet literature and film used it to criticize the entire social structure. 

Here, the reader's judgment first passes through pity. Pity leads to a sense of solidarity, and solidarity connects to political conclusions. 

This process proceeds in three stages. First, the concretization of suffering. The author lays out suffering before our eyes through detailed descriptions. Second, identification. The reader imagines, "What if that character were me?" Third, generalization. The character's experience is expanded to a problem for society as a whole. 

When these three stages are seamlessly connected, the reader's judgment is already tilted in a certain direction. 

The problem is that questions decrease at this point. The stronger the pity, the less room there is for complex explanations. For example, in a novel about a peasant rebellion, if the depiction of hungry peasants is at the forefront, the strategic decisions of the rebellion or the issues of violence become relatively weaker. 

Readers first conclude, "They were wronged." Subsequent judgments follow the already formed direction. 

Pity becomes a moral shield. Criticizing someone pitiful appears cruel. Therefore, debate stops. This pause is the power that drives judgment. 

This structure is repeated in the modern media environment. When the victim of a specific incident becomes known on social media, public opinion is formed within hours. Literature performs this process slowly and more deeply. However, the structure is the same: pity comes first, and analysis comes later. 

When literature intentionally utilizes this process, the reader's moral compass is already adjusted. If we fail to understand this point, we think we are judging for ourselves within the story, but in reality, we are following the arranged flow of emotions. Pity is not the starting point of judgment but often its destination. 

3. Narrative Structures Where Questions Are Blocked

When the victim is placed at the center and pity drives judgment, the next stage appears: the reduction of questions. When questions decrease, so does discussion. The narrative allows only certain questions and implicitly prohibits others. 

For example, if a novel depicting a particular dictatorship includes detailed descriptions of torture scenes, readers will first see the regime's violence. While this is justifiable, questions such as "What was the background for the regime's emergence?" or "What threats existed within the international order?" are pushed aside. 

This is because posing such questions can be misunderstood as an attitude that trivializes the victim's suffering. 

Consider '1984.' Orwell depicted a totalitarian society in extreme terms. Readers experience the oppression of the system by following Winston's suffering. This work played a significant role in warning against the dangers of totalitarianism. 

'1984' published as a graphic novel by Pido Nesti. [Cover=Sakyejul]

However, at the same time, the social conditions under which the regime was maintained and the psychology of the masses are relatively less addressed. This is because the work's purpose is a warning. The narrative of a warning reduces questions and strengthens its message. 

The structure that blocks questions operates as follows. 

First, the moral center is fixed. The victim is the center. Second, counter-questions carry moral risks. The question, "Did they also do wrong?" can be interpreted as blaming the victim. Third, readers ask only safe questions. 

For example, general questions like "Why does such a tragedy repeat?" are allowed, but questions probing the internal complexities of the event are reduced. 

This structure appears in many works dealing with contemporary Korean history. Novels about the democratization movement expose state violence. This has played an important role. 

However, at the same time, there are relatively few works that deal with the strategic choices or ideological conflicts within the movement itself. When the victim's suffering occupies the center of the narrative, the diversity within it becomes secondary. 

This phenomenon is not an issue confined to a particular faction. Any group that positions itself as a victim gains the effect of reducing questions. The same applies to international politics. When a nation defines itself as a victim, criticism of that nation's policies encounters moral resistance. 

Literature can block questions, and it can also expand them. There are works that, while centering on the victim, also depict complexity. 

For example, Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' does not portray the murderer as a simple villain. 

Raskolnikov commits his crime amidst poverty and isolation. Readers understand his suffering but do not accept the justification for his crime. Here, the victim-perpetrator dynamic is not simple. The questions remain open. 

Narratives where questions are blocked are clear and powerful. However, they lose complexity. Narratives where questions remain open are uncomfortable. But they are deeper. 

Literature has the power to tame the reader's judgment. Where the victim's position is placed, how pity is depicted, and which questions are allowed and which are excluded all alter the direction of the reader's thought. 

Respecting victims and maintaining questions are simultaneously possible. The issue is the balance. Narratives are needed that, while acknowledging the victim's suffering, also address the surrounding structures and choices, the international environment, and ideological conflicts. 

The placement of the victim is a powerful tool in literature. That tool can persuade readers, or it can narrow their thinking. Ultimately, literature deals with humans. Humans are not simple. Victims are also complex beings. Narratives that keep questions open reveal the complexity of humans more fully. 

Reading literature is not about following a story. It is about reading the arrangement of the story. △Who is at the center △Who is silenced △What questions have disappeared. When we adopt an attitude of examining these three aspects, we can be led by the narrative without being trapped by it. 

◆ Songsan

A poet and researcher of history and philosophy. Former director of the Rhee Syngman Academy. Currently serves as a research advisor for the Korean Modern and Contemporary History Research Association and as the representative of the philosophical forum Lyceum. He has published four poetry collections, co-translated 'Heroes of Hook Island,' and published the historical psychology commentary 'Joseon, Which Became a Myth' (2026). He is actively engaged in research and practice within the liberal cultural movement. Songsan is a pen name.