Pitch's idea : what is evil??

[hamako]

Taking up Pitchwife's idea in another thread - SRD points us towards NIck Succorso, LF, KAsreyn, HOlt Fasner & Master Eremis and asks what do they have in common that could show us what being evil is about.

Looking at all these characters, they all seem to me to have a desparate urge to be ever living and will stop at nothing to achieve this end.

Also, they also appear to have a great capacity for vanity.

Is this the cirus of evil as SRD sees it ?

What does everyone think?

[Fist and Faith]

Oy! One of these questions! That is, the kind that we can't get everybody to agree on. Well, let's see if I can even get it straight for myself. And I only know Foul and Kasreyn, so I can't comment on the others.

Foul already knew that he was ever-living, so I don't think that was a factor in his being evil. His goal is always to cause despair, hate, anger, and all those negative emotions. Even though he doesn't seem to need it to exist (he existed as the Creator was creating, after all), it may make him stronger in one way or another. Or maybe he just enjoys manipulating and hurting others.

Kasreyn's main drive may have been a desire to live forever. We can't know what kind of deal he had with the croyel. Though it had already kept him alive for a looooooong time, it may not have been a permanent agreement. And so he may have been looking for other sources of power that would keep him alive. Or maybe the croyel demanded power as payment for keeping Kasreyn alive.

Or maybe Kasreyn's quests for power were not related to his desire to live forever. Maybe he just liked having power over others.

Whether either of them needed power over others, or just enjoyed it, that is evil - knowingly taking rights away from others that you want for yourself.

And that's all I'll say for now. Too tired to try to figure out all the different circumstances under which I'd take away the rights of others for myself. Everybody has the right to the fruits of their labor, but I'm sure that, if things got bad enough, I'd steal to feed my children. How evil is that? Questions for another time.

[duchess of malfi]

I think F&F is on to something with issues of control and power over others. I, too, must think some more on this (it's getting pretty late at night here).

[hamako]

I'm not so sure that Foul thought he's ever living, I'm not entirely sure that he believed truly that he's indestructible.

I agree though that the real driver is probably the pursuit of power and all it's trappings.

I think that there's a lot to be taken from the character of Holt Fasner (apologies F&F) - sadistic megalomaniac who is determined that he will outlive his physical body - sound anything like Kasreyn?

[duchess of malfi]

All of these characters, also, IMHO, are lacking empathy and compassion for others...they see their world/s through a narrow vision that never takes love for others into account. And, yes, Hamako, they are all arrogant.

[Nav]

I think it'd be more accurate to say that the characters mentioned by SRD all sought immortality rather than all wanted to live forever. I'm not familiar with Eremis (I assume he's from Mordant's Need which I own, but have not yet gotten around to reading), but out of that list only Kasreyn and Holt Fasner wanted to 'live' forever. Succorso wanted to be immortalised through his reputation as one of the most wily and buccaneering pirates ever to have lived.

Lord Foul doesn't really fit either the live-forever or immortality camp for me, as I always thought that his sole motivation was revenge against the Creator by firstly, making the people of the Land suffer and secondly by destroying the Arch of Time so he could get at the Creator himself.

[pitchwife]

I agree with F&F and the duchess. All these characters strove to have power and control, to control the fate of others for thier own benefit. The motivation each character had for doing this may be different though.
Nick Succorso, for example, IMO was doing it to placate his wounded ego.
Have to give this some more thought...
-pitch

[fightingmyinstincts]

LF is the essence of Despite....even Creators hate themselves and LF is the manifestation of this...He doesn't want to cause the so-called "quick" emotions, he is them. Even with the oath of peace, you can't end fighting; still a warward, ya know. So it is with Foul: you can't get rid of him the same as you can't get rid of the emotions banned by the oath of peace...You can stop him from acting and you can stop yourself from acting on violent emotions, but you can't destroy him or the emotions that cause violence...
Evil is whatever is unnatural. Lord Foul wants to ruin the beauty and truth of the Land...that would make the land other than what it is supposed to be, i.e. unnatural...Lord Foul is an evil dude. Kasreyn might be just another example of the effects of human greed...haven't got around to that in my reread yet though...

[Fist and Faith]

Lord Foul doesn't really fit either the live-forever or immortality camp for me, as I always thought that his sole motivation was revenge against the Creator by firstly, making the people of the Land suffer and secondly by destroying the Arch of Time so he could get at the Creator himself.

Don't forget that Foul's first act that we know about, assuming it's true, was to screw up the Creator's work. Not revenge, just causing pain. Which is, of course, a form of control. "Look what I can do to you. I can hurt you!"

Even the most noble attempt to control someone - that is, "for their own good" - is wrong. Not letting them decide for themselves what is for their own good is an injury to them. What arrogance! Some parents never let go, controlling their kids through guilt and every manipulation for as long as possible. (No, I'm not speaking from personal experience. )

Controlling someone is causing them harm. And causing harm to someone is a form of control.

[Reisheiruhime]

My dad still trys to control me and my mom even though we've moved three times. He's truely evil.

Some parents never let go, controlling their kids through guilt and every manipulation for as long as possible.

Well, he does that.
"Look what I can do to you. I can hurt you!" <My dad's favorite quote.

I have to go to tharapy 'cause of this.

[Damelon]

Characters like Kaseryn and Holt Fastner have sold their souls for the chance to live forever. When given great power they used it to unnnaturally prolong their lives.

The suggestion with the character of Lord Foul is that the Creator, like us, has a good side and a bad side. Just the Creator's bad side is a real bad side.

[Zahir]

I'm going to agree most with the Duchess. Evil seems to arise from a lack of love, of caring, of compassion. Once those are gone, all that's left is vanity, self-preservation, and cruelty.

Think about it. Virtually every emotion we have is some variation of fear (we don't want something) or desire (we do want it). This includes what emotions we want/don't want to see in others. If we lack--or cast aside--any desire to see others feel pleasure, what is left but a desire to see their pain? We become ruthless, focussed in upon ourselves and our survival, maimed in that we've lost a whole range of sensation which would have increased our joy.

Personally, I adore the peel of laughter from my fiancee. And the content expression on our cat's face when he's purring. The greeting of a friend when I arrive at work is a genuine pleasure, as is the smile of stranger who holds a door open for me. Life without such would be a pale, frustrated thing--and would no doubt twist a soul into something dangerous. The problem is that allowing yourself to care for others means giving them the opportunity to hurt you. It is an irony we cannot escape as long as we dwell in this world.

Evil can also be seen as a lack of moderation. We all feel desire, but need not wallow in greed. Fear is something we all know, but cowardice need not be. Likewise, a lack of compassion as well as loyalty reduces us. One is our ability to feel another's emotions. Without that we are truly alone. The second is our ability to choose, to act on behalf of something other than our own survival and sensation.

Unclicking my soapbox now...

[Fist and Faith]

My knee-jerk reaction is to agree. I'd like to think that love and evil are mutually exclusive. But even if, without love, all that's left is self-preservation, must vanity and cruelty be there also? If I had no love, and therefore didn't try to help people who were being tortured/killed by others, would I be evil? Is being willing to risk my life to help others a requirement for not being evil?

But aside from all that, I think that evil people love. I have no doubt that members of the most hateful groups in history, like the KKK and Nazis, loved their children. Now, some will argue that those folks do not truly love their children - are, in fact, not capable of love. Personally, I have problems with that kind of judgement. It's easy to just assume that those I consider to be monsters cannot love. But then someone will tell me that, since I don't have God in my life, I don't truly know love either. And the closer I examine it, the more I think that no definition of love is universal. So I can't say that it can't be in evil people.

[Ryzel]

Love is an emotion, evil is an opinion that we have about things we do not like being done to us or others. To compare the two is like comparing apples and oranges.

That said I do not necessarily mean that they have nothing to do with one another, but love provides motivation for people to act in ways that seem good to THEM.

Earlier in this thread a stong point was made for the fact that controlling people was evil or something very like it. That is just not always true; parents control their children all the time and mostly that is because they love them and do not want them to come to harm. Parents do this because their (hopefully) superior intellects and morals will enable them to make judgements about situations that children cannot.

I think the distinction must be much more subtle than that. In my personal opinion evil is when you take something from someone without giving him something of equal or greater value in return. This seems quite narrow at first but if you just remember to include intangibles like emotions and status as well as principles it goes a long way.

[Zahir]

Just to clarify a bit.

My view is that Fear and Desire are immutable parts of the world. Taking either one to an extreme usually results in evil. However, this isn't like a on/off switch. Evil isn't so much a decision as it is a habit, one that can wax and wane. To some extent I believe everyone is evil, to some extent. Which doesn't mean we're incapable of virtue, far from it. Without the capacity for one, there could be no possibility of the other. Nor did I mean to suggest that the habit of evil (i.e. greed and cowardice) is irrevocable or even constant for every single moment of life--although it may well be so for the most evil of beings.

Certainly, characters that are clearly evil but retain capacity of virtue, even great amounts of same, make the best villains, usually. Scorpius on Farscape comes to mind. Another example would be Steerpike in the BBC miniseries Gormenghast, although his sympathetic feelings are very meagre for anyone save himself or the Lady Fuschia--and I think he likes her only as much as someone might a favorite chair.

Lord Foul, on the other hand, has completely given in to both fear and greed. They define him, embody him. He exists utterly alone in a populated cosmos, cut off from the rest of creation by a blazingly cold disdain bereft of any concern for others as people like himself. They are merely contemptuous obstacles to his will.

The great redemptive emotions, imo, are Compassion and Loyalty. One is the imaginative feeling of another's pain and pleasure. It is the only thing that really keeps us from seeing others as anything other than objects. The other, Loyalty, is our ability to choose, to bind ourselves to something other than ourselves. Scorpius is actually motivated by something like pure loyalty, while evincing very little compassion. Lord Foul, on the other hand, shows no sign of either. An interesting idea of a villain, imo, is one who shows lots of compassion but zero loyalty. heh heh heh

But I do think of evil as well as virtue in terms of being poles opposing one another, an infinity number of points between the two where individual lives roam to and fro. Few are those who go all the way in either direction, just as nearly no one stays put.

Wow, that was long and tedious, wasn't it?

[Fist and Faith]

Love is an emotion, evil is an opinion that we have about things we do not like being done to us or others. To compare the two is like comparing apples and oranges.

It's also like comparing apples & oranges with, say, gasoline. They are not the same thing, but you cannot grow apples & oranges in gasoline. The question here is, can you have evil with love?

That said I do not necessarily mean that they have nothing to do with one another, but love provides motivation for people to act in ways that seem good to THEM.

Yeah, we've only been discussing this in general terms so far. I won't discuss this in particulars, because we'd find that, even here, where we all have at least something in common, we might have very large differences in what we consider to be love, evil, right & wrong, etc.

Earlier in this thread a stong point was made for the fact that controlling people was evil or something very like it. That is just not always true; parents control their children all the time and mostly that is because they love them and do not want them to come to harm. Parents do this because their (hopefully) superior intellects and morals will enable them to make judgements about situations that children cannot.

I agree. And I don't agree. The problem is with the definition. I don't like the strict definition of "control." I think that control should mean taking away someone's freedom to choose. And a huge part of making choices is understanding the consequences. At first, children cannot understand the concept of consequences, much less the consequences of any particular situation. At that point, we're not controlling them, we're only safeguarding them - like putting a crystal vase in the middle of a table, so it doesn't fall and break. But as the child becomes aware of the consequences in any given type of situation, we let them choose. If we don't, we are controlling; "showing them who's boss."

Here's another type of example. I work with developmentally disabled adults. Mental retardation is the most common dd. Even the higher-functioning "consumers", as we call the folks in our care, cannot understand long-term consequences. Take those who smoke. We do not allow them to smoke as frequently as they want, but limit them to a certain number each day. This is based on how much money they have. If they smoke as often as they want, they will run out of cigarettes in a few days, and have none until their money comes in next. Which might be days or weeks. Our way, they have cigarettes every day. Are we controlling them? By the strict definition of the word, yes. But not the way I mean it, the way that is evil. One of my co-workers smokes. I asked her which way she'd prefer me deal with the situation if she got a brain injury and couldn't handle her own money. She said she'd prefer the way we do it.

I think the distinction must be much more subtle than that. In my personal opinion evil is when you take something from someone without giving him something of equal or greater value in return. This seems quite narrow at first but if you just remember to include intangibles like emotions and status as well as principles it goes a long way.

I'm not sure exactly how far you would take this idea. Do I give as much love to my wife as she gives to me? Can we quantify it? And does expressing our emotions have enough to do with uncontrollable issues - like ADD, autism, social phobias, etc - that we shouldn't expect an equal exchange of emotions?

[duchess of malfi]

I understand what Fist and Faith is saying. Yes, a parent must "control" a very young child or infant, in order to protect and take care of that child. But as a child gets older, if you do not allow the child to begin to make his or her choices and learn from those choices, then you have ceased being a loving parent and have become an abuser. There is a disctinction in my mind between offering guidance to someone and in trying to control that person. One is being loving and the other is being abusive.

[Lord Mhoram]

...I wouldn't call it abusive

[duchess of malfi]

You think it's OK to control someone? I'm not talking about a baby here, I'm talking about an older person, one who can make up his/her own mind?

[Ryzel]

No, that would not be good.