Good and evil

[avevale_intelligencer]

soren_nyrond made a comment to my last post which started me thinking, something he is always good at doing.

He postulated a Doctor Who story in which there are two non-human sides involved (okay, he said “non-humna,” but I don’t see why those humnas should be left out: besides, I think the same question would apply if both sides were human, or indeed humna) and they were “both evil.” WWDWD? So I started thinking about evil, and about the numerous ways fans have tried, sometimes with some success, to justify the ways of Sauron or Voldemort or the Daleks or you name it to men, and also to expose without mercy, if possible, the slightest fraction of a toenail of clay on those who are presented to us as heroes. We don’t, as a subculture, seem to be entirely easy with the concept of absolute evil or absolute good. Evil deeds, yes, but evil people?

Stracynski managed sequential evil with the Centauri and the Narns in B5, showing exactly parallel accounts of an attack by each side on a peaceful outpost of the other, but I don’t think either race was supposed to be “evil” as a race: they each had their own justification for their actions, and I think most people and most races do. The extremists who blow stuff up are not on the whole doing it for the sheer pleasure of killing and maiming innocents: they have a very clear sense of grievance and an end in view which they see as good for their people. (There will doubtless be some individuals who just enjoy the power, or the bloodshed, but we’re talking about “sides” here.) The troops who are currently getting killed in a foreign country may in fact be serving the interests of evil individuals, but they see themselves as fighting to free their own country from the threat of global terrorism: no-one could call them evil, as a whole.

Then there are the virtues such as courage, loyalty, perseverance, honour and so on. If a race displays those characteristics while waging a bloodthirsty war of extermination against an enemy, can we call them evil?

What do people think? Is it possible to imagine a conflict between two sides, both of which we could only call “evil”? Would it make a good story?

Truly, all humna life is here...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, that was pretty much the feeling that I got from LotR, that most of the time the heroes /did/ think that they were doomed but they carried on anyway, and at the end it wasn't actually them who saved the day but Smeagol finally making one last grab for the Ring and overbalancing. Salvation by accident. If Frodo had been left to it, in the end he probably couldn't have done it. OK, so the heros don't actually die, and the world is saved, but they didn't know that was going to happen, they only knew that they had to try to the end. It only needs that slight tweak to the ending...

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

Yes, but in LotR the heroes believed that victory was not *impossible* whereas in what I called "Winterdoom", all the Good/Free races know that Evil/the dark is fated to win (the "Angels" made a mistake, but all the mortals still deserved their chances to live their lives out as they might. Which they did, day by century, aware of the eventual doom. until ... [but I never imagined that bit, wanting to leave it for beter writers than myself])