Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16243
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I've had quarrels with some of my friends where they say that some book or movie is bad because it depicts people doing evil things. And I say, But look HOW it depicts them! It clearly depicts them as evil and destructive! There is a huge difference between a story in which a character does evil and it is portrayed as perfectly all right and having no harmful consequences for himself or others, and a story in which a character does evil and we see the awful consequences.

Those consequences certainly don't have to come immediately. A story in which every evil dead is instantly punished would probably be boring as there would be no suspense.

I'd be very careful about having someone give a speech about how evil it is. That could be good if done well, but I think it would be very tricky. It would more likely sound trite and moralistic. A good one-liner might work well, though. Like, I recall reading once -- and sorry, I remember nothing else about the story, just this one exchange -- a character is pondering whether he will do some bad action, and he says, "Decision making can be very complicated." And then another character replies "Yes. Especially when you have no morals."

You could also have the evil character give a speech justifying his actions that is obviously strained.

This reminds me of an article I once read about Milton's Paradise Lost, where the commentator said that Milton's Satan is interesting because he has both good and bad qualities, while Milton's God is boring because he is pure good. I recall at the time thinking that I disagreed. Milton's God is boring because he is continually justifying himself. Everything he does, he gives a speech about why this is a good and right thing to do. When I do something good, I rarely find it necessary to explain why it was good. Good people around me know it was good and evil people don't care. It's when I do something wrong that I need to justify myself.

Original score: 3