Aaaaah, when I first found Bigby Wolf and Fables, I was thrilled. And when I found out Geppetto was behind so much wrong, I remember I was less-than-thrilled but couldn't put my finger on why. I wasn't able to articulate it.
But this article brought it all back... and now I think it must have a lot to do with the idea Arendt coined with that phrase from her work, 'the banality of evil'. I think this phrase at best captures a half truth about evil, because at the end of the day to buy into the idea that evil isn't a deeply personal thing... is to buy into one of evils most successful lies about itself. I think it is an example of 'the language of genocide' taking on an aspect that deadens the senses of those who would oppose such things. To fight the foe you have to take his measure, not believe the lies he tells himself.
Anti heroes, realpolitik, blah! Give me villains who look into the abyss with some guts, and paint the good in their chiaroscuro. Enough of this unreality posing as being more real.
Making Geppetto a villain *is* a rather banal twist, though-- I know how "banality of evil" gets used, but the black and white definition-- roughly, evil is lame, uncreative, not-shiny-- is true.
Evil can, at best, do a derivative version of something else's work, and even then it does a bad job of it.
Think of the times when the Grand Reveal has actually had MEANING because the person sold themselves, successfully, as wonderful-- and it works because when you go back over you can PICK OUT all the places that you had clues, but didn't realize them.
That is POWERFUL.
Vs ... um... "Hey, this nice guy is evil now. For reasons. Ignore we didn't do any of the work to support that."
Evil does cheap knockoffs; 's why it goes with lazy, so often, though not always.
Aha! I agree, but I think we can also go farther. I think evil is only ever derivative also, I do not think it has its own ontology (to break out the fancy words). But I also think that evil prioritizes twisting what is very, very good. Like Lucifer side-eyeing Job.
If that thought has any merit in it, then to reduce evil to only banality, is to also reduce the good that it succeeded in corrupting.
One reason we like stories with villains who are not banal is: Their evil is evil, but they themselves have strengths. They have good point that have become out of proportion, like an idol, but they are still good points.
When you take nice characters like Geppetto or King Steven and tun them into villains, without adding anything, you just get good turned into evil, with no good quality to accompany it.
May be a perspective thing, then-- "if they manage to be THAT impressive-- k, what did they take and twist, to get that?"
Once you figure out that their 'trick' is only ever *perverting* things, you can get to looking for what it is that they took the cheap-bad-copy from.
Like that joke, how do you make a million dollars? Start with two million.
What makes Maleficent so impressive?
She's got all these AWESOME heroic traits-- but she is destroyed because she puts them towards an evil goal, punishing an entire kingdom for a social slight, and *killing a child*. (Well, trying to.)
If you hadn't laid it out like this, I wouldn't have anything to chew on. :D
Hoping to be able to use it to make some lackluster villains better-- and to have a realistic anti-hero/honorable villain that gets redeemed. But I have to poke at it and get my thoughts in order....
LIke King Steven, it is his kindness that marks him, so it would be hard. It would not be that hard to make an evil toymaker whose toys come to life, but to actually make a kind man a bad guy is a bit uncomfortable.
Still, it's an interesting question. Now I'm thinking about it. :-)
PS: So when does Hans Gruber from Die Hard get his own prequel movie or show? You know he was the real victim in that movie, right? He just needed the money for his transition!
One thing I noticed in the Malificent movie: was the appalling characterization of the good fairy godmothers. To make Malificent look good, every other character had to be remade as wicked, a weakling or a fool. One is tempted to think that the movie was made by for and about narcissists.
Two (possibly unrelated) thoughts have come to my mind. They are still both somewhat half-thought-through.
Firstly, when Screwtape proposed his toast he said something along the lines of (I paraphrase) that great villains were slippery - that a devil could play them for years, and then find that they turn, and that those abilities that make them powerful weapons for evil now make them powerful weapons in the hands of the enemy [God].
But if you remove the great villains from the stories, then you also remove the possibility of one of those villains repenting. The power of those repentance stories are lost because they are never written, and no-one ends up thinking "[Villain] was much worse than me, and repented, so I can repent too". The goal is presumably the removal of the possibility of repentance, and thus the minimisation of the number of those who repent.
Secondly, unset gems are supposed to appear at their best when laid on a jet black cloth. It is the contrast between the light refracting through the gem and the black background that creates the effect. By removing great villains from the stories, the black background has been removed, and the contrast between the villain and the hero is much reduced. This makes the heroism much less noticeable and much less impressive.
A less impressive set of heroes means that we find them less attractive, and have less desire to emulate them. The danger is that this reduces the proportion of quiet everyday heroes in the population, and thus coarsens society in general.
I will make the same comment that I made to the others...should you want to write that up as a short guest post, I'd love to post it and share it with readers.
When writing my current series, I had to decide if demons were redeemable. Most theologists say they are not. But...I figured, anyone the reader meets or interacts with, no matter how vile, can be redeemed. So, for this ficitonal background, I included that possibility.
Aaaaah, when I first found Bigby Wolf and Fables, I was thrilled. And when I found out Geppetto was behind so much wrong, I remember I was less-than-thrilled but couldn't put my finger on why. I wasn't able to articulate it.
But this article brought it all back... and now I think it must have a lot to do with the idea Arendt coined with that phrase from her work, 'the banality of evil'. I think this phrase at best captures a half truth about evil, because at the end of the day to buy into the idea that evil isn't a deeply personal thing... is to buy into one of evils most successful lies about itself. I think it is an example of 'the language of genocide' taking on an aspect that deadens the senses of those who would oppose such things. To fight the foe you have to take his measure, not believe the lies he tells himself.
Anti heroes, realpolitik, blah! Give me villains who look into the abyss with some guts, and paint the good in their chiaroscuro. Enough of this unreality posing as being more real.
.. Anyway don't mind me, just brainstorming.
You know, you're right! About the banality of evil.
The evil around us now seems very banal, but it is actually horrid.
Making Geppetto a villain *is* a rather banal twist, though-- I know how "banality of evil" gets used, but the black and white definition-- roughly, evil is lame, uncreative, not-shiny-- is true.
Evil can, at best, do a derivative version of something else's work, and even then it does a bad job of it.
Think of the times when the Grand Reveal has actually had MEANING because the person sold themselves, successfully, as wonderful-- and it works because when you go back over you can PICK OUT all the places that you had clues, but didn't realize them.
That is POWERFUL.
Vs ... um... "Hey, this nice guy is evil now. For reasons. Ignore we didn't do any of the work to support that."
Evil does cheap knockoffs; 's why it goes with lazy, so often, though not always.
Aha! I agree, but I think we can also go farther. I think evil is only ever derivative also, I do not think it has its own ontology (to break out the fancy words). But I also think that evil prioritizes twisting what is very, very good. Like Lucifer side-eyeing Job.
If that thought has any merit in it, then to reduce evil to only banality, is to also reduce the good that it succeeded in corrupting.
You may be onto something here.
One reason we like stories with villains who are not banal is: Their evil is evil, but they themselves have strengths. They have good point that have become out of proportion, like an idol, but they are still good points.
When you take nice characters like Geppetto or King Steven and tun them into villains, without adding anything, you just get good turned into evil, with no good quality to accompany it.
May be a perspective thing, then-- "if they manage to be THAT impressive-- k, what did they take and twist, to get that?"
Once you figure out that their 'trick' is only ever *perverting* things, you can get to looking for what it is that they took the cheap-bad-copy from.
Like that joke, how do you make a million dollars? Start with two million.
What makes Maleficent so impressive?
She's got all these AWESOME heroic traits-- but she is destroyed because she puts them towards an evil goal, punishing an entire kingdom for a social slight, and *killing a child*. (Well, trying to.)
Imagine what she could be without that flaw.
Grreat topics here, guys. If either of you want to write up any of these ideas as a guest post....
:-P
If you hadn't laid it out like this, I wouldn't have anything to chew on. :D
Hoping to be able to use it to make some lackluster villains better-- and to have a realistic anti-hero/honorable villain that gets redeemed. But I have to poke at it and get my thoughts in order....
I think looking at things this way is a help with such things!
Lol You said waht I just answered above...but you said it better.
Oh, blast it, and now I'm trying to find a <I>good</i> way to sell Geppetto as a villain.
/sigh
Probably best bet would be to go to either Mafia or pre-WWII Italy, see how they sold their bad ideas....
LIke King Steven, it is his kindness that marks him, so it would be hard. It would not be that hard to make an evil toymaker whose toys come to life, but to actually make a kind man a bad guy is a bit uncomfortable.
Still, it's an interesting question. Now I'm thinking about it. :-)
Maybe twist it into tenderness rather than kindness?
I don't remember if we're ever shown him having a strong moral foundation, rather than just *being good*.
That, and trying to protect his son?
I think it would definitely be possible to get him to do wrong. He could put his love for his son or some other value like that before goodness.
But that isn't evil like Darth Vader, Maleficent, or Doom. That's just misguided--a tragic hero type of evil.
Lol! Break a leg.
PS: So when does Hans Gruber from Die Hard get his own prequel movie or show? You know he was the real victim in that movie, right? He just needed the money for his transition!
Laughing and choaking here at the same time.
Also, if you have to tear down literally every other character in a story to show you’re not the bad guy...you just might be the bad guy.
Well put.
One thing I noticed in the Malificent movie: was the appalling characterization of the good fairy godmothers. To make Malificent look good, every other character had to be remade as wicked, a weakling or a fool. One is tempted to think that the movie was made by for and about narcissists.
Right. they had to make all the good guys banal and the evil character weak.
Two (possibly unrelated) thoughts have come to my mind. They are still both somewhat half-thought-through.
Firstly, when Screwtape proposed his toast he said something along the lines of (I paraphrase) that great villains were slippery - that a devil could play them for years, and then find that they turn, and that those abilities that make them powerful weapons for evil now make them powerful weapons in the hands of the enemy [God].
But if you remove the great villains from the stories, then you also remove the possibility of one of those villains repenting. The power of those repentance stories are lost because they are never written, and no-one ends up thinking "[Villain] was much worse than me, and repented, so I can repent too". The goal is presumably the removal of the possibility of repentance, and thus the minimisation of the number of those who repent.
Secondly, unset gems are supposed to appear at their best when laid on a jet black cloth. It is the contrast between the light refracting through the gem and the black background that creates the effect. By removing great villains from the stories, the black background has been removed, and the contrast between the villain and the hero is much reduced. This makes the heroism much less noticeable and much less impressive.
A less impressive set of heroes means that we find them less attractive, and have less desire to emulate them. The danger is that this reduces the proportion of quiet everyday heroes in the population, and thus coarsens society in general.
I will make the same comment that I made to the others...should you want to write that up as a short guest post, I'd love to post it and share it with readers.
When writing my current series, I had to decide if demons were redeemable. Most theologists say they are not. But...I figured, anyone the reader meets or interacts with, no matter how vile, can be redeemed. So, for this ficitonal background, I included that possibility.