What’s In A Genre: Some Final Thoughts About World View

In the Middle Ages, evil did not get much good press, but in modern times, there seems to be, as the Rolling Stones put it, “sympathy for the Devil” all over the place. Evil is considered more interesting, attractive, and appealing than good. 

There are, of course, reasons for this. The catalogue of war, genocide, and slaughter in the last century contributes to the idea that evil is powerful and pervasive. And, if you know history, the Twentieth Century was not more “evil” than other eras. It’s just that we caught it on tape—and that evil became more efficient and scientific. Threats to freedom and sanctity seem to grow daily—though the same thing is true here; they’re not worse than in the past, we just know about them more thoroughly.

This notion often finds its way into speculative fiction. Evil is often seen as unstoppable. Even in stories where good prevails (e.g,, The Lord of the Rings), evil is formidable. The bad guys always seem to be stronger, more agile, more powerful, and have better resources at their disposal. The good forces in Middle Earth ride horses. The evil forces ride Wargs, wolf-life animals that can eat a horse alive. The bad guys command dragons. Their armies are always larger, have better weapons, and their telekinetic and magical power always greater.

Wargs

While evil has wrought a great deal of destruction, however, most often it doesn’t rule and reign. Oppressive kingdoms are short-lived. Grace and good eat away at the foundations of tyranny. Though it may take a long time for those foundations to collapse, they do seem to eventually crumble. Tyrants end up falling on their own swords, drinking themselves to death, are killed by invading armies. Good has a way of sticking around and, often, of coming out on top and in charge.

Evil goes against the nature of things. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “No being could attain a ‘perfect badness’ opposite to the perfect goodness of God; for when you have taken away every kind of good thing (intelligence, will memory, energy, and existence itself) there would be none of him left.” In a completely opposite theological vein, New Age writer Wayne Dyer noted that “if the all-giving power of Intention had at its core the desire to be unkind, malevolent, or hurtful, then creation itself would be impossible. The moment unkind energy became form, the life-giving Spirit would be destroyed.” The mere existence of things suggests that goodness lies at its spiritual root and core.

So creating “good” characters who triumph is not unrealistic or sentimental. On the contrary, it is realistic. Evil is derivative. Its power can never be absolute because existence itself is good. Evil works with borrowed or plundered material but does not know how to really use the material, uses it improperly, and builds weak structures. Paranormal writing can recognize this and can outline struggle, sorrow, loss, and pain, but note that the bad does not have the upper hand. The bad guys are bluffing. In the end, goodness holds all the cards.