EVIL! *><*

I am an aspiring writer as some of you may know, and so I have already written a very long and intricate story. I’m quite proud of it actually, because I did finish it in 8th grade at a whopping 82 pages (single spaced might I add!). But of course I reread it last year and thought it basically sucked as far as I could tell. No amount of revisions would keep it the way it was without a few MAJOR changes. So I am still rewriting it and it is almost past its original mark. ANYWAY, the point I’m trying to reach is that the main guy in the backstory going on has got a pretty good case of EVIL goin for him. His name is Lord Deaghas Fescar, and basically he’s raised an army of undead to take over the world (typical). But what’s not so typical is his reasoning. He’s not doing it for all the money he could wish for, or to become an evil dictator and hold all the power. If you read the story, (it’ll take time if I ever get it up here, but its worth the effort!) From the prologue Deaghas’ history is revealed. His father made a pact with a gigantic demon who threatened to destroy the world. Well, Dad said he would tell the demon where the resistance was so that his country, Delanta, could be saved. The demon agreed and attacked the resistance. The resistance, though, knew this was gonna happen and killed the demon. Uh oh. Not good for Deaghas and his dad (Dheavin by the way). Because of his treachery, the resistance sends over guys to kill the entire royal family, but then the citizens riot and they kill them too. So everyone’s dead except Deaghas and he escapes as a slave and watches as his whole world is collapsing in front of him.

I know that seems irrelevant and too too detailed and long to mean anything about why this dude is evil, but keep listening. Deaghas comes back, since he was basically born to receive the country and discovers that all the people are zombies! He then finds out its because a this disgusting worm that releases chemicals to make the dead into undead. Ew? yes. He then harnesses the zombies unending power to become the worlds greatest army. They never hunger nor thirst, sleep nor tire, and they don’t feel pain. He’s gonna use this army of undead upon the world because he believes his father was justified in his decision to risk losing Delanta to the demon, and the council’s actions were not. That resistance was made up of every leader from all the nations (I got a map for all this, but you’d have to ask me personally to see it.) Deaghas thinks that they should all pay for what they have done, and he will spare no one in his wrath.

Now Deaghas here is a perfect example of evil, correct? Sounds like it to me. But he was never inherently evil. His intentions were somewhat good and he had reasoning to back it up, but over time he became corrupted by his own intentions (and by one a those undead making worms) and turned evil. I discovered after some thinking that a lot of people we would model Evil after started their evil sieges out of intentions on doing good. Darth Vader wanted to save his wife in the third movie by turning to the dark side and learning how to keep her from dying. That intention wasn’t evil, but it was dangerous and he took a chance going against the Jedi Council. (If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t know about the ending look away now!) But of course, he became consumed by the Dark Forces and unintentionally killed his wife. Isn’t murder considered an evil act? Moving on…

Another example is one I had to take a stab at, was Saruman from the The Lord of the Rings. He was a wizard that was the head of a wizard council and was the most powerful of them all. He was a white wizard (white = good Black = bad) and was the wisest of them. But then he started looking into the Palentir, one of the 3 lost Seeing Stones. As he stared into it he became twisted and gripped by the evil lord Sauron’s power. Sauron tricked Saruman into joining him into trying to cover all the lands in a darkness. Then he became the corrupted wizard, who needed to be dealt with, because he was poisoning the land of Rohan and Gondor with his vicious orc attacks and his wargs. He became an ally of Sauron, the most evil entity in the book (based off of Hitler if you do your research about Tolkein) when if he saw what he was doing when he was still good he probably wouldn’t believe it.
In conclusion, I think that Evil at least from these examples were not wrought from thoughts of evil, but were corrupted from original intentions to do good. Though I admit, murder, genocide, and torture are rarely started from good intentions, Saruman, Vader, and Deaghas all share similar qualities in the sense that they became wicked in the same process. I felt I had to get my opinion out, despite the fact I don’t have tape with me. I’m always open for comments and I’ll keep posting.

Mr. Wasserman writes: 

“EVIL to me was far too powerful a word whose implications may not fit many of the definitions people give it.”

There have been many examples of EVIL in the past, and more being demonstrated even as we speak in places such as Iraq for example.  Criminals who have committed insidious crimes of violence are being jailed and put away, but that does not erase the vile indisputably cruel acts that they have done.  EVIL is most commonly associated with Satan and the acts of demonic presences, and these would include the worst of the horrid unimaginable acts that they have done in the Bible.  Those are the types of acts we would only have nightmares about, and of course as Mr. W brought about, Chaos is the root of all evil, if anything else.

Evil to me takes no physical shape or form, for it manifests itself in many different ways. It can take the shape of the apple in the classic Adam and Eve story from the old testament or in the shape of the dark, which hides unknown horrors in which the human mind can only imagine. Human nature compels us to fear the unknown because of just that. Its unknown to us. That leaves the doors open to many many possibilities that all point to the deepest fears hidden far inside the human psyche.

In movies, Evil is displayed as Sauron’s Eye, A demonic figure, or a zombie or what have you. In literature, Lord of the Flies is a classic example that when humans are left to their own devices without order and a system of law, that we will be overtaken by evil.  True evil lives inside all of us, and it takes the shape of our most unclean thoughts, like fear and anger. The Seven Deadly Sins reflect what we have successfully identified as “evil feelings” or “evil actions”. Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Lust, Pride, Sloth and Wrath. We go to church because we wish to be rid of these awful feelings and repent our sins. In the media, purging of evil shows as slaying the vampire, overcoming fear and it always leads to a happy ending or some sort of conclusion.

I know my parents for one, could argue that either of these three men were some of the most diabolical of all time.  They would include: Adolf Hitler, Pol Pat, and Milosevic.  Each are responsible for a death count in the millions.  Hitler was the indirect murderer of over 6 million Jews, and at the end of WWII a tenth of the worlds population had died.  Pol Pot was head of the Vietnam War, destroying 2 million Cambodians in trying to remove them and to set a path for a communistic future.   Milosevic was behind the genocide in Bosnia and violated laws of war, and was charged for it.  He resigned a few years later.  I’m not sure what it would take to redeem them from the horrors they have shown the world.  Now we know what man is capable of.
The church believes that if we do not renounce the evils we unknowingly commit, then there will be no happy ending. Instead we would be condemned to hell, the domain of Satan and all his demonic kin for all eternity. Without that role of Satan to keep us away from hell (by way of fear and intimidation) we wouldn’t be able to find our way on the path to goodness and the line between right and wrong would be blurred. Satan is necessary, but not to be taken lightly if you are one of religion.