Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Good and Evil

Good and Evil

I have a real problem with this in my characters. This is because I see life as a conflict between the divine light and the elements. I see a person as analogous to a light bulb. The bulb is made of the elements… There is a silicon globe, a tungsten filament, some metal thrown in and the thing drawn to vacume. Once the switch is thrown the bulb is animated and begins to glow as the electricity flows into it and across the filament. To me that is what life is like.

Life is a union of the two…. There is the divine trying to find expression in the physical world and the containment vessel made up of the elements that are shaped and twisted to give the spirit a chance to feel what here-to-for he/she could only imagine.

The elements do not really like being used to the ends they are made to serve. Indeed they want to return this insidious creation called life to the dust from whence it came and eventually succeeds, but not before new little light bulbs are reproduced and so the cycle goes.

Using this model one thing becomes evident… Good is analogous to the divine light and evil the elements. We are the union of the two and quite naturally see as evil, that hard and cold realm that despises our awareness and and would like nothing better than to see us all plunged back into a silent and eternal darkness.

Thus I see in a character both good and evil and the whole purpose of the exercise of life is to keep good in the drivers seat and make sure evil stays in the backseat with the dogs.

In writing a story however, while it is tempting to show the Witch in Snow White as a persona with some redeeming human qualities, it is better to show the crone as an unadulterated personification of evil, hell bent on the destruction of the lives around her. As you can see my view on life makes it hard for me to write a character who is totally a knight in shining armor any more than a totally dark specter, unredeemed by any goodness. Indeed the very definition I have of life makes this impossible.

Still this is more a theoretical hick-up than a real problem. There are those extremes that are not quite absolute and a writer has plenty of latitude to show some pretty despicable characters, like Hannibal Lector and Voldamort and the Wicked Witch of the West.

The same case can be made for a Hero and I have as much contempt for a character who is Lily White as I do for one, cold as a well digger’s ass in Montana. However, a good story thrives on the contrast between the two and while it is possible to show the good guy as having some blemishes (He is in the process of overcoming) having the bad guy transform into a choir boy is always a bit of a disappointment to a reader or audience.

Yes, yes I know it happens all the time in the soap operas and Darth Vader turned out to be not so bad but a writer needs to restrain themselves from rehabilitating an evil person to any large extent, just as they do making the the good guy too much of a rake. It dilutes the edge of the story and going from either extreme a character should not be allowed to migrate to far into the great unwashed center of mediocrity.