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This technique taps into a universal experience: we've all watched someone defend a person who doesn't deserve it. It creates a specific tension — the slow ache of watching someone waste their best qualities on an unworthy cause.

In Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Remains of the Day,' Stevens dedicates his life to Lord Darlington with absolute loyalty, sacrificing romance with Miss Kenton. The devastation isn't that Darlington was a Nazi sympathizer — it's that Stevens's magnificent devotion was poured into protecting a morally bankrupt man.

In Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History,' Richard Papen's loyalty to a group of classics students leads him to cover up a murder, blind to Henry's manipulation.

Practical steps:
1. Give the protector a concrete reason for loyalty (a debt, shared trauma, a deathbed promise)
2. Show loyalty producing real costs — missed opportunities, damaged relationships
3. Let secondary characters notice what the protagonist cannot
4. Build evidence so the reader arrives at the truth scenes before the character does
5. Trigger the break with something small — the final straw should feel almost absurdly minor compared to everything already tolerated