How to Motivate Characters

I'm not sure if I've given enough motivation for my main character's actions.

The character is a career thief and con-artist who is saved by a knight errant from being killed by some noble's guards over his latest scheme. The thief sticks with the knight, at first because he feels like he owes the guy and thinks such a do-gooder is just gonna get himself killed, and then over time because he legit believes in the knight's Don Quixote style chivalric ideals, eventually becoming his squire. They are one day ambushed by bandits, and the knight sacrifices his own life for the thief's. The thief, noting his remarkable "prince and the pauper" like similarity with the knight, decides to take on his friend's identity and fulfill his quest: to win a great treasure and gain the hand of his childhood sweetheart. He does this to preserve the memory of his friend, who he thinks died ignobly fighting common bandits that were only there to collect the thief's bounty. There's a few more bits and bobs to the whole thing, but I've wasted enough time, and someone could request more info.

tl;dr How much motivation is needed to realistically convince a con artist and gentleman thief to pretend to be Don Quixote, even at risk to his own life?

Love. That is to say: the promise of an earth-shattering, Homeric fuck with a virgin.

the treasure should be enough, it's a thief

yes but the reader is going to be a kissless handholdless ugly beta incel who reads fantasy

That's mean user.

So, a priest.

just go watch a knights tale for some inspiration

Indebted. Could it be the thief only hangs around other thieves and as such has never felt the compassion of the knight?
May be a way to want to show thanks or repay a perceived debt.
What would motivate you in that position, OP?

I had the same thought. good movie

That was more or less what I was going for. The knight is basically the only person to treat the thief as anything other than scum or a tolerated presence. My worry is that it feels flat, or doesn't explain such a drastic action by the thief.

Mmmmm. Yes.

>kissless handholdless ugly beta incel who reads fantasy
user, have you ever seen a woman? Fantasy is heavily featured. Perhaps you should try reading some so you could meet one.

How long do they travel together? Thief could already be thankful for being saved the first time, everything between that and the knight's death could slowly turn the thief's opinion to take up the knight's mantle.
Alternative; was the knight always a knight or did he too start out as a dreg of society?

Sounds like a good book my friend.

I believe as long as you have scenes or internal character thoughts that show how truly the thief respects and admires the knight then it makes sense. I don't know if its a best friend relationship or more mentor/student but either way respect or love can drive people to do great things.

You could also have a sense of desperation. The thief's life changed when he joined the knight and he doesn't want to return to his old ways. So he lives on the only other way he knows how.

Wouldn't the thief have some self contempt because of his life choices? The meeting with the knight gives him a chance to change. I don't see why you'd need to emphasize his motivations all that much when it seems pretty clear to me that if you have a shot at being a knight, especially if you're some lowly criminal, and you know it, that you'd be glad to take the chance.

>How long do they travel together?
I figure around a year or so.
>was the knight always a knight
The knight was born to very poor nobility, but nobility nonetheless. The knight originally joined a crusade in order to 1) be a good knight and win renown, and 2) get rich off the loot so he could afford a dowry for his childhood sweetheart. He left the crusade after coming to realize the actions he was forced to take were beneath the honor of the knight (while there have been good crusades in-setting, this one was a later, less idealistic one), including participating in a massacre of civilians. This led to the knight also deeply contemplating ways to seek forgiveness of his sins. Helping the thief out of a bind was step 1 of this process. So I plan to have at least one or more characters meet the thief and have a somewhat mixed opinion of him from the knight's reputation, which goes on to fuel the thief's desire to rehabilitate his friend and master's legacy.

>internal character thoughts that show how truly the thief respects and admires the knight then it makes sense
I had planned a few conversations with a "dark knight" that would criticize and belittle the thief's intentions, being a representation of his old self and his self-loathing as put it.

In that case it might be best to go for the thief to feel indebted. It can be begrudgingly at first "Oh great, now I suppose I have to repay this do-gooder" sort of thing, only to eventually come around to the cause.

>very poor nobility
user I don't really think you understand how nobility works
Unless his family lineage had been obscured or removed from social grace (through exile, perhaps) and only upon his appearance had its good name reassured, then that makes some degree of sense.
Nobility who ran out of money would turn to debt solvency and eventually be ostracized thoroughly from society. If this Knight were poor, how would he afford the expensive equipment and training necessary for cavalry combat?
I get that this is fantasy, but these logistics need ironing out and contribute to characterization.

I do like the Crusade aspect though, especially since it ties well into the death of Chivalry as a concept - the surviving veterans of Crusades often turned to mercenary work in Europe or abroad, leveraging their skills alongside the accepted social rank of those who fought for Christendom to basically overhaul chivalric warrior culture into the kind of feudal warlord system you'd have seen among the Japanese clans in the early days of the Samurai, only on a much larger scale.

Pretty sure I‘ve seen a movie once with the exact same plot, also
>childhood sweetheart
Come on man

Not all nobility spent time with kings, user.
There were lesser noble houses that would be under barons, dukes etc in status.
"Poor" as compared with the standard nobility you're thinking of.

Maybe he was more referring to like the son of a Duke or small landholding lord. Doesn't have to be a Kings son or anything to be a knight.

Basically this and . I know various titles of nobility can kinda shift in importance, so I'm not 100% sure, but probably a Baron's son or (I wanna say) Marquis?

>childhood sweetheart
>Come on man
What can I say? I'm sentimental. The knight's and her families were on very good terms, and there was a betrothal. The knight went crusading as a means of raising the funds to pay her family a dowry, as well as give her a high standard of living (for the times).

Oh, you meant the knight‘s crush I thought it was the thief‘s
That’s actually pretty good, imposters always make interesting conflict

Yeah, I'm still mulling over how bad that's gonna go. Will probably leave it up to the moment I write it.