To build on this - creative work does not reveal character, but it can reveal the *capacity* for character. You cannot read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead without realizing that Orson Scott Card has a deep well of understanding and compassion which it turns out was not goodness itself.

Learning that a creator has an understanding of goodness, (in works that are opinionated on such things) and the demonstrated capacity for it (which is usually part and parcel of a work being good) and yet has violated it makes the whole thing feel like a particularly vile, deliberate betrayal.

gosh, this is a tremendously great point, and I think speaks to what feels so guttingly disappointing when someone like that turns out to be an asshole.gosh, this is a tremendously great point, and I think speaks to what feels so guttingly disappointing when someone like that turns out to be an asshole.