personal practical dilemma theme
A character struggles with a tough decision that involve choices that are hard, not because of moral considerations or preferences but simply because the effect of possible choices are less than clear. A typical example is "risk taking vs. playing it safe": high risk with high reward, or low risk with low reward.
9 total · 1 choice · 3 major · 5 minor
| Story | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| ldr2019e1x11 | choice | The story posits the following dilemma: would you, and could you, voluntarily maim yourself if it meant a slim chance of survival when death was otherwise certain? After debris damaged Alexandrina's spacesuit and pushed her out into space, she sacrificed her own arm in order to generate momentum to get back to her spacecraft. |
| ahh1x05 | major | The publisher and his other author friend wrestled with whether the story was believable enough that they ought to do something about it, yet thinking the police would simply laugh at them. |
| blackmirror7x01 | major | In order to pay for Amanda's brain to keep on running, Ted found himself driven to perform painful and humiliating acts for money on some murky internet site. |
| theamericanshortstory07 | major | Mrs. Mcintyre struggled with whether or not to fire the industrious but social order-challenging Mr. Guizac. People in the community pressured Mrs. McIntyre to get rid of Mr. Guizac because he upset the social fabric, but on the other hand she wanted to keep him on because he was a model farmhand. |
| movie: Open Your Eyes (1997) | minor | Should César choose to wake up from his virtual reality dream and live as a normal person in the real world or accept the man's offer to live in a virtual reality fantasy world for the foreseeable future? |
| movie: The Iron Giant (1999) | minor | Should General Rogard order a possibly civilian killing nuclear strike on the town of Rockwell to destroy the possibly hostile giant robot from outer space? |
| movie: Vanilla Sky (2001) | minor | Should David choose to wake up from his virtual reality dream and live as a normal person in the real world or accept the tech support guy's offer to live in a virtual reality fantasy world for the foreseeable future? |
| talesoftheunexpected3x07 | minor | Should Harold accept a job working for a bully at double the pay of his current job? |
| tz1959e4x17 | minor | The young couple were confronted with a tough decision when two elderly gentlemen warned them about perils and even offered them an excessive amount of money to stay off the ship. |