It pays to be mean to your MC.

Cruising along, or close enough, on the raccoon story. A couple of calamities befall the main character at once, pretty bad ones, actually.

MEMBERS OF MY CRITIQUE GROUP: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Thorn, my main character, loses an eye in a big fight. And then the same raccoon he loses his eye to goes off and kills Thorn's closest friend. Who also happens to be the raccoon that is helping to prop up Thorn's authority in the tribe. And Thorn's authority's going to be questioned soon.

It's a bad wound. It affects him in small ways, such as drinking (when he's trying to lap the water, he keeps misjudging the water's surface and keeps getting water in his nose) and walking (keeps crashing into folk, or startles when someone comes up on his blind side). He's leery about getting back in a tree, since he's not sure how this is going to affect his climbing skills. Which is bad when you live half your life in trees.

But there are some bad things looming up. Because Thorn's trying to move his tribe out of that area, but because of his bad wound he's sick and dizzy. The area around the eye is hot, it's constantly hurting, not just an owie but hot-wire-through-your-skull pain. He pushes himself too hard and blacks out while telling his successor that they need to have a council meeting right away.

But at that point where he blacks out, the narrative demands that I change the pov to his successor, who's sharing the story, so she can go make some mistakes that she's going to pay for later.

Except I don't want to mess with that chapter. I want to stay in Thorn's pov. Because now I have to admit I'm suddenly more interested in Thorn. (I was having trouble with that earlier.)

I know he's up to the challenge. I've always known that he was a strong one. But now he can show his strength. He's become much more sympathetic. For all his guff and bluff ways, now he is going to show that he is truly a good leader, even when the rest of his tribe start questioning his decisions.

I'm kind of glad this happened, even though it's going to be very bad for him for a while. Now I have a MC I can really be proud of. He's getting a bigger reward at the end, though at this point I'm not sure what it is.