Our knowledge of the world before our time is based on hearsay and speculation. We are told what suits agendas. We learn misconceptions believing they are true.
Our knowledge of the world today is limited to our own experiences and what is claimed by other people. Our memories are faulty and biased. We hear from people trying to convince us what suits their agenda.
I am a writer of fiction mindful that perception is not reality. None of the characters truly know themselves or others. Their notions of their world are biased no matter their honesty. The same universe is very different from the perspectives of the various inhabitants.
My genre is usually action-adventure. When horror it is usually survival horror, a subgenre of action-adventure. The stories are usually struggles of good against evil.
The villains may not be as villainous as the heroes believe them to be. The heroes may not be as heroic as we would assume. This could be a matter of moral ambiguity. The point of a story may be to show that the world is not “black or white” but rather “shades of gray.”
There is no moral ambiguity. People are confused by their notions. They assume good and evil are matters of right and wrong as codified by law, scripture or unwritten rules. Their moral compass is honor or ethics rather than actual conscience.
I never vilify or glorify my characters. They speak their own minds. Their motives are personal. Readers typically confuse this with moral ambiguity. They assume I am cynical or nihilistic. On the contrary: I wholeheartedly believe in freedom and justice.
In my fiction, like in reality, people live according to
their perspectives… but the truth is what it is regardless.