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

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

Zander has pretty well got it right, and the rest of you have contributed some valuable insights.
The sort of thing I am thinking of is "Genesis of the Daleks", where Davros is definitely evil (and while he doesn't have mustaches, he's definitely thinking that future generations will Know His Name). And everything about the Kaleds (as they are protrayed here) says National Socialist.
Now, on the other side we have the Thals, who from the early shots we're set up to treat as WW1 trench-fighting heroes. Now, suppose we substitute for them a DW analogue of early Revolutionary Russia (or of Orwellian Socialism), full of comrade commissars, and earnest idealogues preaching the Gospel to the allegedly-Converted, with the UnMutual being Taken Away.
Neither side (unless you're Certain Contemporary SpinDoctors) automatically attracts sympathy, and certainly neither suits the Doctor's brand of Neutral Good laissez-faire. Now throw in a few off-screen atrocities (spun by both sides as "for the greater good") and ask yourself how does a Time Lord react ?
If he helps either side, he promotes their brand of faceless oppression. And if he helps neither, then the innocent few (there will always be some) caught in the middle go down to perdition without even the vaguest surcease.

I'd like to see it -- once. Just like I'd still like to get people behind my scheme for a Tolkien-pastiche where the whole point is that the heroes know, from the start, that they're doomed to final defeat, but (because they're heroes) they resolve to fight on anyway, to prevent Evil getting an easy victory (And in the hope that what can be learned this time can be used next cycle to combat the Darkness).

[(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])

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, one thing a Time Lord (or a Nyrond) might do in that situation is a sort of reverse I Say, James, changing sides several times and sabotaging both régimes. The trick then would be to make sure the sabotage was total on both sides, so that neither had the advantage.

As I said in a comment somewhere else, I don't actually believe in carrying on fighting when faced with certain defeat. At best, there's always another way; at worst, alive offers more options than dead. (Both old Nyrond proverbs.) The thing about learning stuff to use next cycle is that dead people, especially those on the losing side of a battle, are rotten at passing useful knowledge on; or in the words of an alleged old Scots proverb I found in a book yesterday, "A man's little use when his wife's a widow."