I just finished a book-that-shall-not-be-named that got me thinking about the idea of the corruption of the soul. It's a story where the male love interest was tempted to do something taboo, and it plays out as if that one tiny misstep, that one giving into temptation is going to lead that person down the path of being tainted and irredeemable.

And I thought a bit too much about the message that sends.

Too many novels put forward this impenetrable need to resist something at all costs, because to give in, even once, even just slightly, is to blacken you and your soul forever.

I hate the lesson that this teaches, and how common a trope it is. Because it teaches people that even the tiniest mistake, the tiniest lapse, somehow paints a person's whole aura black. And what the hell sort of message is that?

It says a single sin mars your soul, says that you have failed because you were not perfect.

Someone can make a mistake and then choose never to make that mistake again.

I don't like the idea that someone is ruined from one single misstep. I wish we could have a character that was tainted like that, and instead of that person needing to be purified or redeemed, they just... chose not to walk down that dark pathway again. And that choice, that single misstep, helps them build a deeper and more nuanced way to be a good person.

Because everyone makes mistakes, and leaving people with the message that it's the choices they make each day, rather than the loss of control, is what truly defines them is a message I wish that we saw more.