“Theme emerges by examining competing priorities in life through the specifics of a story, which ultimately reflects a point of view about the best way to be in the world, and the most effective way—at least in a situation like the one at hand. I’m not talking about facile, obvious arguments, like whether racism is good or bad or whether one should be selfish or giving. A good theme weighs competing goods or competing evils against each other, and dramatizes why it’s so difficult to make a choice sometimes, or to change. It doesn’t offer easy answers. Any thematic outcome or judgment in the end is earned, gradually, over the course of the story. It’s not just thrown out there in a quick and easy way. Theme”