Does Evil Need a Reason?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Elgaisma, Nov 24, 2010.

  1. Donal

    Donal New Member

    Joined:
    Jul 14, 2010
    Messages:
    259
    Likes Received:
    5
    Location:
    Limerick, Ireland
    Ok so your character does have a reason. She doesn't care about the consequences of her actions. She just enjoys acting the way she does and finds it hard to care about the consequences.
     
  2. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    I think intial it wasn't that she didn't care - she just never considered them. There had been no evil prior to that she couldn't have an understanding of it.
     
  3. Donal

    Donal New Member

    Joined:
    Jul 14, 2010
    Messages:
    259
    Likes Received:
    5
    Location:
    Limerick, Ireland
    See my only concern is that although that is well and good you are talking about someone (I think if I remember correctly) who has lived for thousands of years, and played an active role in interacting with people as a secondary school teacher. She had to study a subject, she spend years talking to children and parents, she watched countless generations of people come and go and all of this has no effect on her. Ive read 125 comments on this subject and to say that someone like that does evil for no reason seems unthinkable to me. Has none of that influenced her. Has such long life made her bored of normal life or incapable of forming attachement to people.

    You don't have to reveal all this but I can't understand what you mean by "there had been no evil" prior to that and that she suddenly decided to just be evil. It doesn't make sense to me.
     
  4. HorusEye

    HorusEye Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 25, 2009
    Messages:
    1,211
    Likes Received:
    48
    Location:
    Denmark
    No. That's a complete misunderstanding of the concept of evil. A consequence can be tragic, horrible, devastating, etc, to the ones perceiving it, but it cannot have an evil nature of itself. That would imply that the consequence itself was an object with moral properties. Only evolved, sentient beings are that.

    And that would surely be a horrible tragedy in any regard. Whether it was an act of evil depends on the intent of the perpetrator, in reference to consensual morality.
     
  5. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    I honestly don't know - just think I will never figure this character out lol She is beyond comprehension. Actually think you hit it on the head Donal she isn't a character I can comprehend - think maybe just accepting her for who she is would work best.

    I don't think she did ever really form any major attachments if she did they died many years ago.
     
  6. Donal

    Donal New Member

    Joined:
    Jul 14, 2010
    Messages:
    259
    Likes Received:
    5
    Location:
    Limerick, Ireland
    Harsh as it might sound but why would you write a character that you don't understand. And as for accepting her for who she is I would ask you - Who Is She???
     
  7. TerXIII

    TerXIII New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2010
    Messages:
    7
    Likes Received:
    0
    I completely support this idea, that actions themselves do not have "alignments", merely intentions. And I hate to say it, I've never known someone to do something without "good" intentions, or mistaken/misunderstood intentions.
     
  8. TerXIII

    TerXIII New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2010
    Messages:
    7
    Likes Received:
    0
    How can you sensibly write a character that you don't understand?
     
  9. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    I don't know why I write any of my characters - they usually reveal themselves. With my first book there was a character I got to know him from his lover's seventeen year old brother.

    I came to write him from the lover's standpoint - I didn't know the first thing about him. In my first book he had been a spy, capable of projecting the image everyone wanted to see. That is what I had seen.

    It is not unreasonable that the great nephew of this character (who I am writing from the POV) doesn't understand her - he is only 150, has only known her as the school secretary that terrified the life out of him as a little boy, and later as a schoolmaster. Not entirely sure he is capable of understanding why around 800 years ago she suddenly changed.
     
  10. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    Quite easy - they reveal themselves through the time of a story. Some I understand more than others. There are some things about some of my characters I do not understand. I do not understand why Angus was so sensitive about his body or why Socrates has an irrational fear of snot or why after his eye was healed Nate continued to wear his eyepatch.

    Maybe one day they will tell me.
     
  11. Indivisible

    Indivisible Member

    Joined:
    Nov 15, 2010
    Messages:
    35
    Likes Received:
    8
    I don't think evil needs a reason, but if you want it to be powerful it would always be better. It depends what you're going for. To me, the scariest villian is the one with no reason behind his evil ways, because with a character like that, you can't reason with him...Kinda of like the joker. The most poweful villians though are the ones with reason behind their evil ways, because you can understand them, you could see there humanity and people think, hey that could have been me. A villian like the killer from Se7en is powerful as hell to me, because i know where he is coming from, he is a spychopathic killer, but I understand him, and something like that disturbs me.
     
  12. Sam08503

    Sam08503 New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2010
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    London
    Antagonists are usually the cause of conflict - instead of having an evil person you could have a natural disaster. For example the movie 2012. An interesting antagonist draws viewers in my opinion. But when they're the typical 'I will rule the world' kind then that just comes out flat and boring.
     
  13. Mafma

    Mafma New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 9, 2010
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Love

    I am new to this site and already,,,,I'm smileing.:)
     
  14. MetalRenard

    MetalRenard New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 9, 2010
    Messages:
    85
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    France
    I see evil every day. Evil is just like love or hate. Some people are generally good, others are generally bad (I'm not talking in religious terms at all - this is all in reference to my own moral code).
    An "evil" person doesn't, in my opinion exist. That doesn't stop someone from doing evil all their lives (Hitler...) but then often these people are idealists (though these ideals go against 99% of other people's moral codes) or have hidden motives.

    So evil for evil's sake... Why not, but maybe not all the time. The character would seem too funny if he only does evil for the sake of it and I don't think it will fit in a horror/thriller/fantasy... etc. story.
     
  15. Midnight Pete

    Midnight Pete New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 9, 2010
    Messages:
    73
    Likes Received:
    2
    Location:
    Clarkson, ON Canada
    Sometimes the evil character is a monster, like the Xenomorph in the Alien films or those "Graboid" things in the Tremors movies. They provide the conflict but because they are just monsters their motives for wreaking havoc and killing people are nonexistent or nearly so.
     
  16. JetMasta

    JetMasta New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 3, 2010
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    QLD, Australia
    All evil is...is perception. Thats all anything is.
    E.g Assassian's kill people who are going to cause death to others.
    In the Assassian's eye's, what he just did was good.
    However, say the vitctem had a brother. The brother obviously would see that as an evil act, regardless. XD
     
  17. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,490
    Likes Received:
    81
    Location:
    Orpington, Bromley, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
    Apparently, Alan Rickman gets frustrated at being cast so often as the villain. At a party a child who didn't know any better asked him why he always played the baddie, and Rickman fixed him with his best Snape glare and said 'I don't play "baddies", I play very interesting people.'
     
  18. michaelwantstolearn

    michaelwantstolearn New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 12, 2010
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Hello, everyone. I'm having the same problem on how to develop the character of an evil antagonist. I have plans on how to present the "viciousness" of the antagonist in my story. In the first few chapters, it should appear as if the antagonist is someone who supports the main characters, and later on the real motives of the antagonist will be revealed, at least to the readers. However, I am struggling to show why the antagonist has come up with such wicked motives. I am planning to write an entire chapter just to show the antagonist's background, but I'm afraid it would mess up the flow of the story. What do you think?
     
  19. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 19, 2007
    Messages:
    36,161
    Likes Received:
    2,827
    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Background chapters are almost always a bad idea. Work in a few hints throughout the story instead.
     
  20. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,490
    Likes Received:
    81
    Location:
    Orpington, Bromley, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
    Yes, I think it would mess up the flow of the story. The important thing is that you know the reasons, so you can write the character credibly. As Cog says, you can reveal little bits here and there, but unless the story is episodic in its style (which is how J K Rowling just about gets away with the pensieve passages) the character's motives are part of a different story, not the one you are telling.
     
  21. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    Write the chapter as a short story then use it for reference - it will give you information to work from.
     
  22. Midnight Pete

    Midnight Pete New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 9, 2010
    Messages:
    73
    Likes Received:
    2
    Location:
    Clarkson, ON Canada
    Evil needs a reason, else it's just chaos. But evil people don't always consider themselves evil.
     
  23. Midnight Pete

    Midnight Pete New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 9, 2010
    Messages:
    73
    Likes Received:
    2
    Location:
    Clarkson, ON Canada
    Yeah, that's moral relavitism. :rolleyes:
     
  24. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    can chaos be evil ?
     
  25. JetMasta

    JetMasta New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 3, 2010
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    QLD, Australia
    Like I said, thats defined by perception.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice