Need help with a plot point

[Sado]

One of the important characters in the story is the crown prince of an evil empire who is supposed to be leading a military action to conquer a region inhabited by less advanced peaceful tribes. He becomes disgusted with the atrocities committed by his empire and ends up switching sides and uniting the tribes against the empire.

My question is, what would reasonably lead him to do this? He has been raised as royalty of this empire his whole life, trained to rule it with an iron fist as his forefathers had, with its values being instilled in him from an early age. What could have happened to him that would have made him sympathetic to the plight of the tribes and given him a respect for the freedom and justice and niceness that is lacking in the empire.

Would it make a difference if the empire wasn’t necessarily evil, but was more of a benevolent tyranny, more advanced than the tribes, wanting to “help” and “enlighten” the primitive tribes by bringing them out of their savagery and under the empire’s rule (whether the tribes wanted it or not)? If this empire thought they were actually doing something good for the tribes?

 

[diaglo]

religion...

conversion by the sword. the evil empire is forcing the tribes to convert to their religion. the tribes don't understand. and many of them are dieing without even getting a chance to explain their side.

when the prince is examining the troops he sees a priest slay a very pregnant woman for not converting.

 

[Tinner]

In the immortal words of Nathan Detroit "You can bet he's only doin' it for some doll!"

Seriously, the first thing that popped into my mind after reading your post was Disney's non-historical take on Pocahontas.
Peaceful tribal girl and warlike nobleman fall in love, and the only way he can keep her in his life is to save her people from his people.

It's a litle cliche, but so is Romeo & Juliet. Sometimes the classics work best.

 

[diaglo]

magic is another possibility.

charmed.

or replaced. a doppleganger or magic jar.

cursed perhaps by an item he took. or pagan altar he touched.

 

[monkeynova]

Try this

You could actually chalk it up to "social advancement gone wrong" as the ultimate reason for the major character's change-of-heart: the character or character's family has decided to initially attain a higher-level of social status by conquering uncharted lands for themselves rather than for the crown; when the crown comes a-knockin', ideally the character/character's family will provide enough resistance that the crown will be forced to recognize the legitimacy of the character/character's family as rules of their conquered areas. Except that the major character spends so much time among the local tribes, preparing defences and training them to fight the eventual arrival of the crown, that the character decides that either (a) he doesn't want them to be ruled by the crown or the character's family (if the character's family is behind the character's military actions) or (b) he actually does want to rule them as a benevolent dictator/king and won't let the crown violate is newfound sense of sovereignty (if the character is behind the charater's motivations).

Alternatively, you could just follow the upthread suggestion, and say "He's rebelling in the name of love" (or, in an homage to House of Flying Daggers, you could make the major character think he's doing it all for love...except the object of his affections or one of her lovers has designs to take the character out, for some reason; maybe the major character killed a sibling, before he had a change of heart).

monkeynova

 

[morbiczer]

"Love" was the first thing which came to my mind.

 

[Warbringer]

d post....

 

[Warbringer]

An enemy wizard created a replica crown that looked liked the prince's. A band of local heroes stole into the prince's war tent, switched crowns. Of course, the crown is alignment change...

Once the prince's alignment was switched, the heroes had the opportunity for the prince to "see through eyes unclouded" the "evil" ways of his father's nation. Consumed by guilt for the atrocities he and his kin had visited upon his enemies he is driven to remorse.

....

Or, a woman

 

[was]

He was in love with a woman who was sympathetic to the tribes, providing them with food and medical relief. She was caught providing them aid and executed in a grisly fashion for treason.

 

[shilsen]

Is that you, Moses?