Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "evil"

Virtually every human since the dawn of time has had their own definition for "Evil". Personally I like to pull the scope back a little - focus on the entire forest rather than individual trees, onto the label itself and those that would throw the word around.



The way I define "Evil" is a splash of vomit on your carpet.

You can argue about what exactly it smells like, and just what all those chunks in it are made out of. You can debate over the best way to scrub the carpet clean, and whether the carpet itself can be salvaged afterwards. You'll be reminded of the times before someone threw up, and you won't take those times for granted again if or when they come back. You might raise the question of who threw up to begin with, and whether they're seriously ill or just hungover. Indeed, some of the wiser of us may point out that each of us might barf out like this, under the right circumstances: none of us is free of stink.

All these things are what people like to talk about, but the more pertinent truth remains: it has to go. It has no value whatsoever, no redeeming qualities, no reason anyone should endure its presence. It stinks up the entire house. Somebody throws up, the whole house will go to emergency mode to clean it up and to make sure no more comes out.



So by labeling something as "evil" you make an objective, inarguable, unambiguous statement that they're the absolute scum of the earth with zero redeeming qualities, and have to be disposed of immediately. There can be no "balance between good and evil": any evil at all is too much. There can be no redemption or salvation: all you can do is wipe it away. This is very strong language and, needless to say, not to be used lightly.

One thing I'm glad of with modern fantasy literature is that it indeed uses this sort of terminology much less casually than it used to. I myself prefer the much more morally-grey Order and Chaos. But there are still places where the word can be worth throwing around. Sometimes you really just need to get rid of something.



Sometimes you really are just fighting a great big pile of puke.

These past couple days I've been gunning down a lot of Nazis... but unlike when I was a kid, my heart's not really in it anymore.



They're supposed to be the closest the human race has to demons from hell - you should be able to mow them down in dozens and not feel a twinge of regret. But I just can't. What's going on?

Reflecting on it, I'm pretty sure that Humankind: A Hopeful History is to blame. It taught me more about the essential kindness of our species, the love and compassion and hope that lies in the core of even the war and other atrocities we commit. More specifically, it pointed out that even the German soldiers in WW2 fought not for the Nazi ideology, nor against the French and Americans and other enemies, but simply for the love they felt to their fellow soldiers. And I now feel that they do it even in video games - such as Wolfenstein, which I've been playing - and that even though the game gives me no other choice but to kill or be killed, I feel pretty bad doing it now.

Does this mean I can no longer enjoy a lighthearted action romp, videogame shoot-'em-ups or Indiana Jones movies? That you'd have to either establish the enemy as humongous dickbags beyond the uniform they wear (show them gun down civilians, or at least sneer at the main hero), or take the whole thing as a black comedy? Or else be forced to accept the moral greys of things, and not being able to just feel good about an evil being defeated? Perhaps it's not so bad, anyway: all of those options would almost-invariably be deeper and more satisfying than just turning your brain off for a while.

Or you could instead use your brain in finding justification. Make it work.



Great many fantasy enthusiasts in these past couple years have started to reject the notion of evil races entirely. I've written on the subject before myself, both on the nature of evil, and on races such as orcs and their ilk: I like nonhuman races that are inherently alien to us, rather than just humans with some green paint and tusks; and I don't like to throw the word "evil" around lightly. If I am now to create a race that would qualify as most definitely evil, then it'd be more an exception than a rule for me, perhaps just a mental exercise rather than something I'd legitimately write about. But I'm thinking about it now, so here we go.

Looking back at the Humankind book, it's been made apparent that us humans are actually pretty nice folk when you get down to it. We don't like to kill each other; we instinctively jump to the help of one another when we're in trouble; we like to make friends and be social, and more often than not, try to do the right thing. The book calls it "Homo Puppy".

Creating an "evil" race would therefore be a simple matter: just remove this puppiness.

The members of this race don't particularly care to help anyone, even one another. They're not here to make friends and have no problem with killing. No moral compunctions get in the way of their selfish desires and actions. By the standards of humans, they could each of them be diagnosed as sociopaths.



How would they survive, then? By breeding like rabbits and growing fast. This will have the added benefit of them always coming in swarms, giving the heroic badass protagonist plenty to cut down in gory action scenes.

And how did they come to be in the first place? They don't seem the type to thrive by cooperation: rather, evolution (or some warrior-god) would have come up with them as an extreme illustration of the ideal of Survival of the Fittest: plenty of them are spat out into the world, but only the strongest, the toughest, or the most cunning of them ever survive to continue their bloodline. Strongly individualistic, looking to do things on their own and shun aid whenever possible: clever, self-sufficient, and very fast learners - those that weren't, would never make it to adulthood.

If any of them manage to make it out alive of your heroic massacre, you best beware: they'll learn from their mistakes and come back so much stronger and cleverer. Always confirm kills.



Yet for all of this... if you are the type that would like some moral greys and diplomacy in your stories, none of this still precludes making friends with a few. If met in peacetime, they might enjoy your company on an intellectual level, not rush into killing you - look for alternatives - even help you out in a pinch if there's something to it for them. Golden Rule is rooted less in compassion, far more in greater long-term payoff - they could most definitely understand it, and help people in return for assistance to themselves. Just that they'd be rather more mercenary about it.

But even so, the world would most assuredly be better off without them. So don't feel bad if you need to kill a bunch in a war. They're like double-nazis that way.


...Say. A lot of modern research suggests that neanderthals were quite smart and inventive individually, but had very little instinct in sharing their discoveries or helping each other out in general. The Humankind book above compared them to powerful modern computers, while humans were older and slower machines but with a working WiFi. That's got a lot in common with what I just went on about.

Were neanderthals the real-world orcs? Were they all killed off because they were a bunch of evil conquering psychos, possibly in the service of a dark lord?



If so, that just goes to show that if you live in a fantasy world, you better get on killing evil now and kill them fast, before they run out altogether. Get going while the going's good.

(I have absolutely no relevant education or decrees. My only trait is overthinking.)

Used to be I could love it when a bad guy turned good. A long meaningful character arc where they realize what a terrible person they've been, and set forth to turn a new leaf. The worse they'd been before, the better it could be.

Nowadays... I don't really feel it anymore. I can no longer believe in it. Because in the internet, everybody is terrible.



Ideologies worn on their sleeves and taken to the absolute extreme: everyone burying themselves into bunkers covered in spikes, absolutely refusing to budge, yet ready to fling rocks and bombs at other, equally immoveable, bunkers. Even the nominally "good" people - the ones preaching for love and tolerance and progress, loving the tales where evil is peacefully redeemed - frothing at their mouths as they rage at other people, shouting and screaming and wishing for bodily harm... absolutely blind to the irony of it. Even the slightest disagreement can spark a row... or even if the two people actually fully agree, but one of them expresses themselves poorly. People that could otherwise be best of friends, driven at each other's throats. Everyone everywhere is always ready to pick a fight and to have a go at it, never realizing how there's nothing to be won or no one that can be convinced.

And in the off-chance someone does in fact put their past behind them and becomes a better person, someone is always ready to dig up their sordid history and get a good lynch mob going. No redemption is allowed to stand.

No one comes across as any good or pure in this: all faith in humanity, crumbling away like ancient ruins to desert winds. Bloody festering rifts forming between all peoples of mankind, out of nothing and for no reason. I've watched it grow increasingly worse for years now. It's asinine.



Clearly we need to tone down our expectations.

For this year's NaNoWriMo, I will write an Enemy Mine situation where a bunch of Good Guys and Bad Guys, usually at each other's throats, are forced to work together to survive in the face of a far greater foe. They learn to appreciate each other better by the end of it, some of them become friends, and everyone gets a character arc and grows as a person... but no one is redeemed. The bad guys are at the end of it still as bad as at the start - possibly even worse, with their character growth only making them more efficient villains.

The takeaway here will not be a great moral or ideological one, but rather simply learning to coexist. Learning to tolerate people even when you disagree with them on some heavy subjects. Learning to cooperate with them for a common cause. Learning to be polite even when you think someone's a terrible person.

Because you have to share this world with these people whether you like it or not, and nothing you say to them is likely to convince them out of their ideals, especially not if you're being a dick about it. The heroes of this story do the whole internet fight thing at the beginning, and nearly get killed for their efforts. After that they learn better.

Of course, the two or so people likely to read the story will already know this lesson, so it's rather preaching to the choir. But at least I can vent a little.