Dear Fairy Godmother,

My older brother is my hero. I’ve always looked up to him and tried to emulate the things he does. But recently, he did something that I just can’t seem to get past. I don’t want to go into detail, but to me, it seemed more like the action of a villain, not a hero.

I don’t know what to do. Maybe I misunderstood what happened, but it’s made me look at him differently. How can I reconcile the person I thought he was with what he did?

Sincerely,

Conflicted Brother

Dear Conflicted,

It’s never easy when our heroes are revealed to be human, as flawed as the rest of us. Because no person, no matter how good or bad, is entirely one thing. It’s the magical thing about people, that they are complex and changing and, well, messy.

But that can often lead to disappointment. No one is going to ever be one thing and only that at all times. So when expectations aren’t met, it’s hard to reconcile your vision of the person with the truth of the situation. While I don’t have a hard and fast answer about your brother, I do have a few pieces of advice as you navigate this situation.

1. You are only seeing the top of the beanstalk, so to speak. A person’s actions stem from a much wider range of considerations and factors than someone on the outside can see, much like the rest of the plant that must be climbed before reaching the summit. Think about your brother’s goals and motivations in this action you are having trouble with. Reasons don’t provide excuses, but they can provide understanding. Looking to understand the action may not lead to agreeing with it, but empathy and understanding, at least in my experience, are never wasted.

2. A single action does not define a person. Just as spells and adventures contain many steps, so too do the things we do. Even if you come to the conclusion that what your brother did was wrong, that doesn’t change who he is as a person (unless you find he took great joy in a categorically wrong action, in which case I would find myself agreeing that he has either changed or revealed his true self). As I said before, people are imperfect. They make mistakes. Sometimes they act with the best intentions in the worst way or make a miscalculation that snowballs into something bigger. Sometimes they’re just wrong. It happens to us all, and while we should hold each other accountable for such mistakes, it would be just as big a mistake on your part to paint your brother as a villain because of a single instance, especially without context. How else will we flourish, if not from learning from our missteps?

3. If do nothing else, I encourage you to talk to your brother. Ask for details, listen to his side, and share your own worries. It may be that he hasn’t considered the implications that you clearly have. We all need an outside perspective sometimes. As I tell many would-be questers: The best skill you can hone is that of communicating well. It’s not as flashy as swordplay, but it will disarm a great many situations before steel is ever drawn.

No matter how things turn out, I hope you never stop dreaming.

Your Fairy Godmother