What book have you put down and never picked back up, and can you actually name the line that did it? If you can't, my free Writing Remedies has forty named problems just like that one, each with the fix: https://thetaletinkerer.com/the-remedies?v=PS4O1HfWejs&p=pinned

I've heard it called "Crossing the moral event horizon."

"Readers can hear an author clearing their throat from a mile off"

That line alone is the best writing advice I've seen in a month.

It makes me think of Agamemnon. In the older stories, he sacrifices Iphigenia to obtain favorable winds for the Greek fleet. From a Mycenaean perspective, the sacrifice was tragic, but apparently not necessarily monstrous. By the time of Aeschylus and the Oresteia, however, human sacrifice had become morally abhorrent to the Greeks. The older story is therefore reinterpreted: Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia becomes a grave moral crime, one of the sins that ultimately leads to his murder and the cycle of vengeance that follows.

This is called "Audience surrogate" and you can see it in nearly every good story. Young cop who pukes seeing dead body is one of the most common examples, simply providing rational option on how to respond to situation

I had not realized this was so universal. I've recognized in my own reading that it is not bad things happening that upsets me but bad things not being addressed that upsets me. It has informed my own writing, but how much addressing an act needs is a personal thing, so my some books are just not for everyone.

One reason grimdark could get grimmer and darker is that readers like me who dont relate to psychopathic "grey heroe" and just find them disgusting villains stipped the reading the whole genre, leaving those with a taste for worse and worse things to keep reading.

I dropped Prince of thorns about 30 pages in. I can't root for a psychopath, rapist. No rooting interest whatsoever. 🎉

For a popular example of this, take Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when, during the fight at the Ministry of Magic, Harry casts Crucio on Bellatrix LeStrange. While understandable given the context, the fact that he just used an unforgivable curse for the first time is glossed over by everyone except Bellatrix herself, who is briefly shocked but then continues mocking him, saying something along the lines that “just (=righteous) anger won’t hurt her for long”. So the only reaction comes from a villain, not Ron or Hermione being shocked by what Harry has just done — and since the villain downplays what Harry did, it comes off like an excuse from the author.

Its not the level of violence that matters, its the writer's level of approval of it.

You can go deeper: mark that the world isn’t nice. That’s how Warhammer 40k can show the most horrible acts without pushing people away: “in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war”. The world is not portrayed as good. The opening line already says so. By establishing that the world is horrible and that most people inside don’t even notice that anymore, readers can accept deepest cruelty, because the author does not tell them that this is good.
But ironically that falls apart when someone tries to make the world less grimdark. Then the marker „even though no one said anything against it, this is not good“ is removed.

Allow me to sum up your video: readers need some kind of indication that the author knows that the hideous act was morally deficient. People don't want to read books in which the author actually believes that moral atrocities are justified, because their decision to continue reading would imply that they also agree with that justification. So, the fix is to add hints that signals to the reader that the author knows that the act was morally wrong, even if the characters themselves think it was acceptable. It might just take a single sentence, such as a reaction from a witness.

I gave up on that book, not because of anything r apey but because the main character was obviously a dick and I had no desire to spend three books in his company.

For me, it usually comes down to does it feel like progress is being made through the story. I once got through half a book, I could honestly say a lot of things had happened, but it didn't feel like anything had happened at all.

It's not lost on me that there is a meta commentary in this video about the limits of fiction, since we avoided naming the thing while talking about the thing that is not acceptable and removes people. We know what it is, but it's not a YT friendly topic. Violence and murder, on the other hand, seem much more acceptable.

And I guess we have experienced a relatively peaceful time free of wars, enough that murder is something distant for the majority of people. Even if we see it in the news, it's not something we're experiencing ourselves, so the topic doesn't feel as personal. But that thing that is not forgiven, that feels more personal, perhaps because it's easier to understand. I also find it very amusing that it's a common trope among horror movie fans to ask if the pet dies or not. Like, never mind if the entire cast dies gruesomely, is the dog okay? Then again, it's as the video explained, people dying horribly is a premise you accept from horror movies, it's something you expect.

It could also explain why slavery in fiction is such a sensitive topic these days.

It comes down to two things, imo.
Firstly- are their actions framed by the narrative and other characters as being monstrous? If a rapist or slave owner is rightfully called a monster, audiences will get more immersed in the story by empathizing with their victims, and anticipating a karmic downfall. If it's the protagonist doing it... you're going to lose people. If it's really done badly, it may even raise questions as to whether the author takes such acts seriously, or even approves of it.
Secondly- Murder may be forgiven, as the average person may be capable of it under certain circumstances, or at understand the motives. Somebody kills and tortures my family and wife? Yeah, I'm going to be tempted to do a lil murder. But rape? That is something no well adjusted person would ever even think of doing, and has difficulty even understanding the motives behind it.

Great video. My pet peeve is when the FMC is a narcissist. (I've seen this in romance.) It takes a few chapters for me to accept that I just can't connect with the character. In the second quarter, I start to suspect the character is a narcissist, but I try to give her (and the author/book) the benefit of the doubt.
By about 60-70% I'm pretty sure of it and I'm annoyed as heck... but by then, I have to finish the book because I need to know if the AUTHOR realizes the FMC is a narcissist. I keep holding out, hoping that by the end the FMC will acknowledge their self-absorption in a legitimate, convincing way... but in 2 of the 3 books, it didn't happen. Everyone sang the FMC's praises.
In the 3rd book, the FMC acknowledged some minor wrong, but her husband insisted that no, he owed her the bigger apology for... well, I never could figure out what he was apologizing. Even the author couldn't make it clear what he was apologizing for. (Probably because he didn't owe her an apology at all.)
In all three cases, I concluded that for the narrator to be that clueless about the FMC's narcissistic tendencies, the author, herself, had to be a narcissist. I will never read another book written by those authors.

7:10 I quit a book series on a twist, over halfway through. Turns out this cool fantasy world wasn’t a new world entirely……but our own universe we currently reside in which there is a planet where every fantasy race and creature was real?

1.Out of character behavior that is just random. 2. No character growth or getting to the point of their purpose or goals.

I’m putting this video down after under a minute because of AI slop.