Talk:A Hearth's Warming Tail/@comment-32136229-20160514185725/@comment-10390252-20160515074518

In neither case was the fillyhood event the single motivation or the single cause. Rather, it was the tipping point where both characters directed all their thoughts and desires to a certain outcome. Once they had set their goal at that tender age, everything that they had to do to achieve that goal became justifiable in their own minds.

It became an avalanche effect. They were so invested in the outcome that they couldn't stop or even step back because it made all their acts up to that point of less value. Indeed, it might have exposed them as a fool who had been wrong for years and, for someone with weak self-esteem, that is almost worse than death.

What was necessary in both cases was the realisation that they hadn't found the best path to their goal at all, therefore they weren't having to give up their quest, only find a less destructive path to that same end.