The self-defeating nature of evil is depicted nowhere better than in Perelandra, the second book of C. S. Lewis’s space trilogy. The character possessed by the devil gloats over the death of the Son of God until Ransom, the Christian, asks him, essentially, “And how did that work out for you?” The demon throws back his head and howls, because he remembers that in killing Christ he defeated himself and ended death. Evil is not locked in a battle with good. . . . The good has already triumphed and evil everywhere recoils on itself.
