The Wood Beyond The World Forum Evil

What is it? How do we define it? Does it vary from culture to culture? Are there really any clear cut lines between evil and good? For that matter, what is good?

I was thinking about these questions when pondering over different ways to spin a different kind of fantasy experience. For me, "evil" is everything that is outside of or goes against the common values and beliefs that I've acquired and have grown up with. "Sin", and all that. Then I wondered why evil even existed.

Of course as a Christian I believe (or am supposed to) that evil is the result of the Fall of Man...the temptation in the Garden, the severance from God, and Satan's hold on the world. But then I thought of something different.

I learned about dualisms in my Eng 101 class this past year. The more i think about it, everything in the world, despite the gray area, comes down to two opposing ideas: good/evil, life/death, pain/joy, etc. This wasn't new, but then i thought "Hey, wouldn't the world be a better place if the worse of the two were wiped out?" Then I got to thinking, if the bad half of the dualisms were cut out, would that really be a good thing? Without something to compare it to, something to contrast it, what would the good things turn into? Monotony and everyday life, I think. Think about all these pampered Hollywood stars, who have never really had any real trial or tribulation in their lives...sure they're living 'the good life', but they still feel empty, like they need more...to gather more things and more wealth and more friends, and somehow their lives will be better...but they aren't. Without pain to compare it to, joy would mean nothing. Really, we wouldn't even know what it is or what to call it, since it's the only thing we've ever experienced. Living through both sides of the dualisms builds character.

So then I thought about good vs. evil. Up till now I had the mindset "Well...evil is evil, and is therefore "bad", and must be eliminated." But is that really true? Would life be better without the bad things? Or on the other end, would the 'bad' things seem so troubling if there wasn't any good thing to compare it to? It would also just become everyday life.

So now I'm in a quandary. Fantasy seems to be built around good vs. evil....but to be different, how about somebody write a fantasy about trying to preserve the balance, to stop both those who would seek to destroy either good or evil? Someone who wants to truly preserve the quality of life...in this instance, the average "hero" could turn out to be a villain.

So what do you all think?

Andy, there must be something going through similar minds here on the cafe. I've come across writing that has inspired me to review in matters of duality and the differences between a linear and cyclical approach towards life, living and the cosmos.

there is a large misconception between bad and evil, as much as there is a misconception between infinite and eternal.

traditionally, evil was opposite of Holy, evil was anything that was specifically not aligned with the church. we've managed to get sucked into believing (in our religiously free country) that the church is good and anything else is bad. and in my opinion, the church hasn't played fair with their own myths and have burned the calories out of their metaphors.

Church doesn't want balance, it wants authority. the fact that it wishes to destroy evil (the shadow cast by the church itself) shows that it is not interested in reconciling its dark side. it ought to. also, the church externalizes too much when the initial religious journey was a personal one that was instructed to individuals by metaphors it is now a cereal box on a pulpit.

I like adventures without good and bad (per se) but with self interest, or selfless intentions. My Shade Calabronn is one example of a selfish stop-at-nothing character who leaves ruin in his path for the sake of obtaining something he believes he needs.

If anyone read Whisper Mages where at the end the sky opens from Atlas' Agony a huge black column comes forth. this might be the evil thing in my story, it isn't but it is the thing that need to be stopped. it isn't evil simply because it is just different.

James Cameron's Aliens aren't evil, they are just different and have behaviors and appetites that threaten our well being. they are only evil to those who are afraid of feeling threatened.

Duality is necessary. but it is a means to certain enlightenment.
without duality a church cannot draw attention to the soul who walks into the front doors. That is why statues of knights or gargoyles abound, they draw attention toward you, because as the center of these two opposing elements you recognize yourself as the balancing element and are therefore worthy of entering a church (the church used to have this function, but i feel is totally forgotten to the religious).

we are the nexus of all duality, between the multitude and the monad, and we are spiritually challenged to become the hero of both worlds, that is the only way heroes succeed: by conquering the inner and outer struggles.

Oh dear, good Christian kid goes away to college, gets all his ideas turned upside down. ::cool::

Seriously, it isn't just fantasy that's about good vs. evil -- it's everything. Traditional fantasy gets to draw it in big, flashy pictures, and can call evil by it's name without blushing. But that's not the only way for fantasy to handle things. I think we get that from following the Northern European model that Tolkien established (and of course he had a Catholic Christian spin on his morality as well.) I suspect that folks working in other traditions might come up with stories with more ambiguity to them.

Even the big Good vs. Evil stories, if they've got anything realistic about them, will have ambiguity. Frodo almost messes up because there's a seed of will in him that responds to the evil will of the Ring, remember. And the Edenic Shire is imperiled, not by a direct assault by the forces of Mordor, but by it's own inhabitants willingness to be Brownshirts for the dispossessed Saruman.

And this gets back to the Free Will business that came up in Nick's encounter between Nathin and the Goddess.

I just woke up from a nap, so my head isn't up to anything very reasoned right now, but I started salivating when I read the title of your thread, Andy, and I couldn't help responding. Thanks.

Free Will is a subject that is broached upon throughout my story. But what Nathin learns from the Goddess is that everything in life is about balance...and even these gods of Netherron are bound by the laws of creation, which is about...balance.

For me, Nathin fights what he feels is evil throughout the books, and its obvious to the reader what this evil is. But in the end...(close your eyes if you do not want to know the ending)...Nathin must decide for himself to defeat evil and upset the balance of creation, or not. Its his free choice to do so, based on all he comes to learn over the series. At this time, I know how I am leaning, but not sure if he will or will not defeat this evil. By then, he will be almost as powerful as this evil, but in a totally different form.

Sort of like Thomas Convenant in the Cronicles of Thomas Convenant the unbeliever. Which is a very updated version of LOTR. He defeats evil by laughing at it, disbelieving the power of the evil. But, the evil is not defeated and comes back time and again. Why? Because others call on it.

For me, there are several issues in my current works that Nathin faces and learns about. Good vs Evil is a matter of perception. And faith is another of the beliefs that I touch upon, no matter what that faith is.

Like when a child is very young, and goes near a stove, we tell the child not to touch, hot. The child does not listen and burns his fingers. The child now knows what the word hot means and has faith that when someone tells him/her its hot, they will withdraw. But as the child grows...they will continually test this faith in the word...hot. As it grows, the child will learn that there are varying degree's of hot, some of which they can tolerate. Is their faith shattered then. No, because their faith has just been updated and they now have a greater balance of understanding. At least to me it seems that way.

Its the same with the context of evil. No matter what we think it is...there are varying degrees to it. Some we learn to live with, like poor health care...now to me, that is evil. And there is the evils of descrimination, war, poverity, etc, etc, etc. Are these truly evils as we are taught, or just facts of life in a world where not all is equal. Think about this, where would the balance be if everyone made the same salary, had the same education, the same outlooks, view of religion, of what is right or wrong?

So Nathin learns ... life is about having faith, free will, and balance. Seems pretty simplistic, but its the matter in which he learns these things that make the story, stories. Even the storyteller has a part in all of this.

Now...here is another thought, but perhaps for a future thread.

Science Vs Faith. When does one become evil? Can there be a balance between the two?

Just a few of my thoughts.

Quote:


Yeah, you're right on the money there. "Bad" could be a kid causing trouble: breaking in, stealing, maybe even murder. But "evil"...that's just a whole other can of worms. By our standards, Hitler was evil...and maybe he was. Or maybe he was just insane, or lusting for power, or maybe deep in his heart he really truly believed that we were the monsters and he the crusader.

This reminds me of a quote from Steinbeck's "East of Eden": "Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without a conscience. A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust himself to the lack, but one born without arms suffers only from people who find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them. Sometimes when we are little we imagine how it would be to have wings, but there is no reason to suppose it is the same feeling birds have. No, to a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous."

Quote:


First of all, I�d like to know which Church? � even if you mean the contemporary Catholic Church you�re talking about a collection of communities which are themselves collections of individuals, and these contain a wide variety of experience. On the whole, historically, in its art, literature, and theology, I think the Catholic Church has been much more alive to �the shadow� (tip of the hat to C. G. J.) than subsequent protestant formations. This particular church is a different organism than it was 6 or 7 centuries ago, of course. Less overtly political, for one thing.

Are you familiar with St. John of the Cross at all? Plenty of shadow there. Even big, institutionalized religion sends up shoots of extremely intense personal spirituality, and draws new life from them. I think it�s wise to remember that spiritual experience doesn�t serve only the individual, but also the community � individuals (except for hermits) live in community, after all, and their spiritual experience should inform their communal lives. It�s a matter of striking a balance.

One thing to remember about the Catholic Church in particular � it has scriptural and traditional proofs it relies on for its authority, and they�re pretty solid proofs, when you look at them on their own terms. The authority isn�t meant to oppress, but to guide. Granted, oppression has flourished, in certain times and places, but the oppressed generally find a way, through the Church�s own teaching, to provide a corrective. (Thinking of various reform movements, from St. Francis through Liberation Theology.)

I think North Americans and Western Europeans are at a disadvantage in their Christianity, because of its secularization � Catholic and protestant alike, alas. �Third world� traditions have more life, dark as well as light, in them. On the whole, you can't get much more out of religion than what you bring to it. Institutions are necessary, in some form, to community, and community is part of the human experience, as much as individual enlightenment is. Keeping experience alive in the midst of the institution can becoem problematic.

In my stories these ideas form some of the essential conflicts -- the coldness of the institution, when it's uninformed by genuine experience, the easy movement to atheism for someone raised in a cold, institutional tradition, the way the oppressed look to vital spiritual reality for their political as well as spiritual redemption, etc. It takes a while to develop these themes, of course -- first I have to deal with characters, and give them an entertaining story to work in, with espionage, warfare, love, etc.

Well, it was probably inevitable, and Adam started it, but the thread on Evil slid over to the subject of religion. . . .

Anyway -- I don't think we can say there's no such thing as evil -- if the secret police are hauling you off to the gulag, you know what evil is -- if the deacons are burning you as a witch because you gave some herbal remedies to a fellow-villager, you know what evil is. At the same time, the individual members of the secret police are probably just doing their job, and the deacons no doubt are completely convinced that they're doing God's work -- it isn't the people who are evil. They're under various compunctions. But evil exists.

Yeah. I see evil as a sort of looming darkness in the background of our earthly doings and it casts a shadow on everyone in some way or another.

Whenever discussing a term, there is no better place than Webster's Collegiate to begin: Evil = whatever brings sorrow, distress, calamity; the fact of suffering, misfortune, wrongdoing.

So obviously, since the causes for the above-stated conditions can never be abolished (excepting in one's own mind), there is no question that evil cannot be abolished (in human culture as a whole). Even if we were all to become compassionate people who create benevolent governments, forget anger and thereafter became free to abolish all weapons as useless items, still there would be disease and death. Even abolishing death, say by a transference of consciousness to new bodies (and this supposes the abolition of accidents before the transference is possible), then there would surely be distress over conditions arising from agelessness.

My conclusion is that distress, stress, suffering, are necessities of the life that occurs when dual thinking arises. Andy's opening statement was very insightful in this regard. Evil arises wherever there is even the capacity for anger, selfishness, delusional desire. As to the latter, love of the flesh = clinging to what is by nature transitory = an impossible dream = evil, so long as we continue habitual action in striving after false hope. This would apply to any clinging at all, for there is not an atom of existence not in constant flux, so there is no holding on to any of it.

Nick hinted at the antidote to evil, which is understanding. Buddhists call the understanding which abolishes all suffering many names: complete perfect understanding, awakening to Reality Itself, awakening to our original pure nature, nirvana. A Buddhist's faith is that liberation, awakening, enlightenment, is a reality that is accomplishable, and prescriptions for liberation are several, but they all come down to understanding (or better, "intuitive experience," if you are thinking of the limited understanding that can be had by linear thought, intellection) in the final analysis that self and other are different only in minds suffering the delusion of mistaken views.

There are several antidotes to mistaken views, also called ignorance, or nonvirtuous desire. One antidote is expressed in pratityasamutpada = the Doctrine of Dependent Origination (or Dependent Arising), which proves that there is no unchanging entity or atom of existence, that all atoms arise in dependence of the arising of all other atoms, and that none are superior to others, in their essence (though not necessarily in their appearance, as dual thinkers are bound to hold a variety of opinions, views). The Fourth Noble Truth is the most famous of the prescriptions for the abolition of suffering; it requires such things as "right effort, right discipline, right seeing," which all sound doctrinaire, so I will not go on listing them; just remember that appearances are deceiving, which sounds like one of the "evils" to me.

Of course, these scriptures have been, to quote Leah, "informed by genuine experience." She is perfectly correct that institutions uninformed by experience, which cling to words while having forgotten their deeper meanings, will die in the long run because rites and rituals can only survive so long without real meaning behind them.

As to good and evil in writing, you will have these so long as you have conflicting values in your stories, whether or not you have gods as characters, whether your characters consult with gods or pray to them. Even if your characters only consult their moral compass, even if they simply name things good or evil based on their own experiences of their world, you will have on your stage good and evil, and you will likely find out that what is called good is not always good, and what is called evil is not always evil, for these terms of dual thinking are shaded gray by the unending variety of the opinions held by those (readers and authors) considering them.

Very nice, Bill. I've got to get those books on Buddhism you recommended, because I do indeed remember much of this from the little I read in my youth, and want a more solid grounding.

I have one question. If the answer to suffering is to avoid clinging to the false hope it arises from, what would impel our practical moral actions? I'd find it difficult to tell someone who's suffering -- don't cling to false hope! I'd want to do something to help that would be tangible.

I have another question. Where does actual harmful action fit into this -- cruelty exists, and it's performed by people. How are we to respond to that?

I know the Christian answer to the problem of evil -- God gave himself in atonement for our harmful thoughts and actions, and in redemption of the things that "just happen" that cause suffering -- disease, natural calamity, and so on. All our own suffering can be applied to that atonement and redemption if it's in union with Christ's suffering in the Passion. Applied toward our own spiritual balance, or the balance of others. Why'd He do that? Out of love. He gave us the freedom to mess up, but He loves us too much to doom us to suffer the consequences hopelessly.

Awaiting responses from all and sundry.

Leah,

Very good questions.

As to what impels our practical moral actions, the simple answer is that the very sight of suffering impels us, if we have cultivated a compassionate heart (and this is innate, insofar as we believe Mencius is right to point out that we all know what to do when we see a child fall down a well). And of course if one is dying of thirst, and we are intellectually sound, we will not rely on admonitions to avoid clinging but fetch water right away. The Buddha, the Awakened One, demonstrates at every turn that the antidote must fit the disease of the moment. The greatest disease is lack of compassion, which by another word is known as selfishness, or a very strong sense that self is more important than other. Manifestations of this are anger and other lesser defilements of mind, all which we do well to see as imbalances that need attention. Only by learning, either through scriptures or benevolent enlightening beings (which we all are, to one extent or another), or through a revulsion brought about by experience (would this fit the experiences of Jesus; for the paravritti, the revulsion I refer to it, is followed by a consciousness that did not exist before the epiphany), can one come to a state of mindfulness that is fearless and knows in its heart of hearts that clinging is a mental error and a root cause of suffering.

As to cruelty, this requires a deeper answer. This is very much the same question as, what is the nature of suffering, how does it arise, where does it abide, how can it be overcome? Cruelty arises from selfishness and anger. These cause actions which ripple throughout the various abodes of mind (both individual and collective).

It is only in each mind that anger can be rejected, or chosen. And this is true of all defilements, that perfect freedom of will--given our conditions which have come to be from our previous actions which were the result of our previous conditions unto beginningless time--allows us choice at every turn, though we might not be able to see we have a choice, unless we are capable of maintaining such desireable virtues as mindfulness, equanitmity, fearlessness; oh, the list of virtues available for cultivation seems endless! By definition, the end of cultivation is Buddhahood. Let this help you understand the meaning of the term "enlightening being," which is the best English translation I know of the Sanskrit "bodhisattva." [being awake]

Before I continue below, I will only mention that in this world of birth, suffering and death, Buddhists see that suffering and stains like anger arise in accord with conditons, and that the true test of courage and insight is in how we deal with the effects of conditions.

Following are verses from the chapter on Patience from THE WAY OF THE BODHISATTVA (Bodhicharyavatara), by Shantideva (9th century India); I think this is a near perfect answer to Leah's question on how we should respond to cruelty. Of course, an understanding of the doctrines of karma and dependent origination and of Buddhist cosmology in general can be helpful; I've chosen these verses because I think they speak clearly to anyone, beyond much need for experience with scripture:

If those who are like wanton children
Are by nature prone to injure others,
What point is there in being angry--
Like resenting fire for its heat?

And if their faults are fleeting and contingent,
If living beings are by nature wholesome,
It's likewise senseless to resent them--
As well be angry at the sky for having clouds.

Although indeed it is the stick that hurts me,
I am angry at the one who wields it, striking me.
But he is driven and impelled by anger--
So it is his wrath I should resent.

I it was who in the past
Did harm to beings such as these.
And so, when others do me mischief,
It is only just that they should injure me.

Their weapons and my body--
Both are causes of my suffering!
They their weapons drew, while I held out my body.
Who then is more worth of my anger?

This human form is like a running sore;
Merely touched, it cannot stand the pain!
I'm the one who clings to it with blind attachment;
Whom should I resent when pain occurs?

We who are like senseless children
Shrink from suffereing, but love its causes.
We hurt ourselves; our pain is self-inflicted!
Why should others be the object of our anger?

Who indeed should I be angry with?
This pain is all my own contriving--
Likewise all the janitors of hell
And all the groves of razor trees!

Those who harm me come against me,
Summoned by my evil karma.
But they will be the ones who go to hell,
And so it is myself who bring their ruin.

Because of them and through the exercise of patience,
My many sins are cleansed and purified.
But they will be the ones who, thanks to me,
Will have the long-drawn agonies of hell.

Therefore I am their tormentor!
Therefore it is they who bring me benefit!
Thus with what perversity, pernicious mind,
Will you be angry with your enemies?

If I repay them harm for harm,
Indeed they'll not be saved thereby;
And all my noble actions will be spoiled,
Austerity of patience brought to nothing.

The mind is bodiless:
By no one can it be destroyed.
And yet it grasps the body tightly,
Falling victim to the body's pain.

Scorn and hostile words,
And comments that I do not like to hear--
My body is not harmed by them.
What reason do you have, O mind, for your resentment?

Okay, judging from that neat poem, suffering is redemptive in the Buddhist understanding too.

You know Thomas Merton was very interested in this stuff. I personally know a priest in Louisiana who's been studying it for years, too. I think we've got a lot of common ground here.

Yes, we stand on common ground, every atom of us. The elements of existence are the same no matter the body they appear in, no matter the level of consciousness thinking and speaking and feeling. If only we could all understand each others' language, and see into each others' hearts, walk a mile in the others' shoes, what a different world we might see.

I will say, with all sincerity, that I have never understood the language Christianity uses: redemption and atonement. I have been poring over these two words in the dictionary.

ATONEMENT: the reconciliation of God and mankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. If you could make sense of this language for me it would be a miracle. This has never carried any meaning. In my mind God is of two parts: the relative, and the Absolute. All minds reside in one or the other, or may better be said to be in constant transition/flux (relative world = samsara = birth/death/duality) or in dynamic rest (the Tathagata, God as "neither coming nor going"; the original pure nature that we have forgotten, or fallen from). Thus in my view, there is no falling out between humans and their creators, so much as it is the nature of the REAL that there is more than one way to see the REAL. Speaking of atonement is like saying there is a fight between two entities, but they are only seen as two by those living in relativity; God has no conflict, but humans have felt the need to make a conflict with him up. WHY IS THIS ATONEMENT NECESSARY, FROM GOD'S VIEWPOINT?

REDEMPTION lands me on "redeem," = implies releasing from bondage or penalties by giving what is demanded or necessary. THIS SEEMS MORE UNDERSTANDABLE to me. We are clearly in bondage, of suffering, of self v. other, of the elements, of anger. I think the redemption you speak of then is a kind of realization people must have in order to make sense of suffering. You're saying God is the answer to this mystery. IS THAT RIGHT?

As to the qualifier: "IF IT'S IN UNION WITH CHRIST'S SUFFERING IN THE PASSION," is honestly no clearer than Portuguese to me. I do not begin to understand the importance of this phrase. HELP WITH FIND MEANING IN THESE WORDS, PLEASE. I have heard this for decades, and it means no more to me now than all those years ago.

At bottom, these Christian formulae seem to me to cling to the view that self (I) and other (God) are real unchanging seperate entities. And that "love" is the glue that binds them. My impression is that there has never been a real separation. Only misunderstanding causes us to think there has been.

HELP ME WITH YOUR INSIGHTS.

In my own understanding, Christ's Passion is simply the ulitmate act of sacrifical love. Suffering offered freely, for anyone who chooses to unite with it, to redeem all suffering.

I think what worked throughout the centuries for Christianity was the human face of it. The relationship of God with the Jews was exclusive, and God lost a lot of His human attributes (except for the most metaphorical) as that relationship developed. In Genesis He goes walking through the Garden, and chats with Adam. Later on He's a wind, a voice, a bit of blazing shrubbery. The angels get to interact physicallly with a few prophets (an angel snatches Habukkuk up by his hair to deliver lunch to Daniel in Babylon) but God keeps His distance. Until He shows up as a helpless human infant, in a humble cave/barn. The first people outside his family who get to see him are the very low-class shepherds. It's a very folksy thing, and it keeps that focus when Jesus grows up and begins his ministry -- he'll have lunch with anyone, any class, any nationality. Human, humble, but universal and able to move in any and all social circles.

There is an inherent duality in Judeo/Christian theology. The divine and the mundane are split from each other, and the need of healing the split is inevitable. I think there's a truth in this. Human intellect seems to separate us from our natural place in creation. It may be essentially an illusion, but it's a darn powerful one, and it takes a certain amount of mental and emotional backtracking to overcome it.

More anon.

Reading the responses, I am not sure how much evil is being dicussed verses faith and belief.

I think Andy's question is Evil in writing, especially fantasy.

In real life, a plague is evil to those who suffer it. A forest fire is evil to those who lose their homes, as is an earth quake, flood, hurricane or tornado. But they are all acts of nature and as far as anyone knows, or can prove...they are not acts of god or other benelevant being.

There are many forms of evil. Those that are used in fantasy fiction deal more with good vs evil, mostly on the higher levels of magic, gods and goddesses, or any unholy alliances and armies bent of destroying man. The more evil the evil is in a story, the more a reader is prone to grasp the horror of the story. Events that are merely natural, the readers do not respond to as well...in my humble opinion and thus, we make it an evil event. Its what motivates the writer to tell the story, good vs evil. And its what sells.

There are many types of evil and I think that no matter the genre you write in, evil will rear its ugly head because its the true antagonist of the story. Who wants to read book after book of a good guy/gal never having any conflict, any emotional upheavel, any spiritual doubt, or persoanl tragedy. Yawn. I think those are call non-fiction.

Just my thoughts.
Nick

Leah,

As I suspected:

It is all about the healing between the Divine and the mundane. This is my experience. I simply am unfamiliar with the expressions, the formulations, of most religions, but as you said in an earlier post, there is much common ground.

I love your answer, for it is not doctrinaire, but down to earth. You skip the mumbo-jumbo in favor of the humanity of it all. I know there are holy people in every tradition who have just such attitudes.

Unfortunately, those who speak loudest and speak down to others sometimes find larger audiences--as do car wrecks and burning buildings--just because they are so radical or otherworldly and bloody minded. The bin ladens and falwells of the world make for great flash news but give people very wrong opinions about the function of religion, and the relation of good and evil.

Bill

evil is not writing

Adam,

I think that statement too would be subjective. I mean if the writing is full of hate and bigetry, then it could be said to be evil.

A book detailing how to build bombs may not evil, but if used as a terrorist tool, it would be considered evil. I know...they are only words and words themself are not evil. Yes and know. Words of hate are always evil. Words that harm and descriminate are evil. At least to those who recieved them.

Look at the N-word. The NAACP is going to bury it at their national convention this summer. They are going to try to change the culture of peoples minds about using the word, no matter what color the person is using it. Will it make the word go away? No. But its symbolic of getting people to understand that the word itself is hateful, and can harm. Would that not classify the word as evil?

No, the writen word is never evil itself...until someone acts upon them. When words are formed to create an evil, to deny rights or lead to murder and mayhem, then no one thinks about the evil the words can cause. We blame the author of those words rightly so, but still, the author did not do the evil. The author simply put into place the idea, through the writen words, that set evil into motion.

Words have power...and formed correctly, they can perform/create good, evil, or indifference. We are the creaters of those words, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or obiterary. We have the power to use words and the power they can weild.

Just some additional thoughts.
Nick.

First off...Hi! I'm new.

Second, to veer away from the more philosophical elements of this thread...

I've always struggled writing a convincing antagonist. You know...the so-called "evil" characters. What can be done to avoid writing a cliche, mustachio-twirling villain?

That is to say, How can we make evil new and exciting?

Elise,

Glad to meet you.

I'll begin with the most obvious answer to your question:

Once having created your protagonist, with an attitude and an overriding story goal (also known as a 'ruling passion'), and set him off on the path he requires to accomplish his goal, you have set the groundwork for the creation of your "evil."

One of the antagonist's ruling passions must be to stop the protagonist from achieving his goal. The antagonist must do this with attitude, and a reasoning sound enough that from his own view the reader can see how right he is in attempting to stop the protagonist.

The greatest evil is the kind that might convince even you that he is right: like a good politician from the opposing party, so good his arguments might sway even his most vociferous opponents, at least until they go home shaking in anger, sure that their devil has convinced many others of his view.

WWW