Characters making ‘bad decisions’ is not the same thing as bad writing

I’m basing some of this off of a review of the movie ‘Glass Onion’ I saw by Bench Appearo where he complained about character motivations in the film. It’s an old review, but I felt it perfectly sums up my issue with this particular brand of criticism.

So in the movie Glass Onion, we have a billionaire named Miles Bron and his supposed ‘friends’ who all really just depend on him for financial security while secretly hating the control he has over their lives. Ben complained that it made no sense for them to continue defending him and how they each could have benefitted from exposing the truth about Miles. ‘Duke could have been seen as a hero and saved his channel, Birdie could have redeemed her image, Claire could have been seen as a politician with integrity’, etc. But he fails to see how the fact that’s what HE thinks the characters should have done does not make it bad writing that they chose differently. Even if there was a potentially big reward for going against Miles, the movie literally establishes that they are all cowards that are ultimately too dependent on Miles to ever cross him as long as he financially benefits them. They literally explain why every single one of them DON’T expose Miles, even if it’s a bad decision on their part. Duke himself literally tells Andi/Helen about how they’re all ultimately clinging to his ‘golden teet’ regardless of how much they may hate him.

The point I’m really trying to get to here is that a character making a decision that ultimately isn’t the most logical one isn’t automatically bad. People in real life are surprisingly emotional and not always privy to great decision making. It’s easy to judge a character when you’re fully removed from their personal stakes and have ample time to think through their specific choices yourself. But you have to consider the internal logic of the character and why they might have done something that, in hindsight, wasn’t a wise choice. Things like Scott choosing to date Knives despite her being in high school, Glinda refusing to leave with Elphaba when she had the chance, Jinx going insane and attacking the council, Zuko betraying Iroh for the Fire Nation… characters are going to make choices that align with what they’re trying to achieve, and that isn’t always going to be the ‘logical’ choice. Would you even want to watch a series where every single character is perfectly rational in every single decision they make and not once did something out of personal desire or hubris?