Quote Originally Posted by Mathalor View Post
Please don't tell me that a character's motivation for their actions can be, because the author needs the story to be longer.
When you completely re-write a reasonable statement in order to make it appear stupid, you almost always throw out the author's intended meaning to do so. That's what you have done here.

No, the character's motivation isn't to continue the story. But the author's intent is. Therefore of the ten thousand motivations that a character might reasonably have, the author will choose the one that best furthers the story.

Thus, McCoy helps get Kirk on the Enterprise to help his friend. His motivation wasn't so Kirk could recognize what the Romulan ship was, and thus save the Enterprise, but that's why the author had him decide to help his friend aboard.

Sam learns from the orcs that Frodo is alive, so he rescues him from the orc lair. The orcs didn't say, "Let's talk about this guy being alive so somebody will come rescue him," but that's why Tolkien decided that they would say that at that exact moment.

If Rudolph is not treated unfairly, his leading the sleigh on a foggy night wouldn't be a vindication, so all of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. That doesn't mean all the reindeer sat around and decided to exclude him in order to set up his triumph; it means that the story called for them to be the sort who would exclude him.

If you have to completely re-write somebody's words to get the meaning you want, then it probably isn't his meaning.