Not really. I would expect at least that much from an "evil" entity. But hey, if you want to intensify the "evilness" of the daemons (or daimons in Greek), you can add a psychological aspect to the story. Make some of the daemons pretend to be good guys, and let your protagonists personally believe they are good guys; then once the climax scene nears, reveal the vileness behind the curtain. What breaks people down the most is when those they believe to be dependable betray their expectations. In the extreme case, it will make some people paranoid and distrustful of others. But what is evil? Your story follows the notion that whatever threatens human lives is evil. That's one form of ethics I've read about somewhere. Perhaps you can research on that. Demon est Deus inversus.
Oh, that's perfect for the ending of the my short story I'm working on! Toda roba! Thank you so much!
I find corruption and manipulation a good source of evil. Especially if it is hidden. Maybe a leader who pretends he is benevolent to the masses when in actual fact he manipulates their emotion so he can get away with things by blaming it on those outside of his favour. Perhaps a character who puts on a front of wanting peace but manipulates others to start wars for him so that he can gain wealth and territory without damaging his own reputation. Admittedly neither of those examples are overly evil but hopefully you get the idea of what I'm attempting to say. Wait, thought of an example from my own upcoming writing. A company of special forces soldiers who are augmented genetically and mechanically rebel against the empire they believe to be corrupt due to its brutality. Each company is self sufficient and as such has the means to augment recruits. In order to expand their rebellion they break prisoners out and shelter all manner of spies and rebels from other planets but because they are indiscriminate with their recruits and augmenting them, they eventually find their forces committing the same acts of brutality that had caused them to rebel though they are too far down the path to turn back and decide to press on. Again this isn't the most evil act in the world but since they recognise it but proceed regardless rather then attempting to stop it that makes it evil to an extent.
I recently read an excellent essay about the way Christopher Nolan represents villains in his Batman movies (I've tried to find a link but it seem to be missing from my browser...) He has many villains who have history with Batman which fuels their antagonism and then there's a character like The Joker. With little back story and ambiguous psychological motive, this character 'just wants to watch the world burn.' Granted, The Joker is an established character in the audiences' eye so it's not like Nolan was introducing a new villain. But The Joker is written and introduced in such a way that the audience doesn't need an explanation of his 'evil' - they except it because he opposes their idea of good (Batman). Still, my point here is that simply describing what evil is, or why your character is evil, can be a trap and I've read a lot of bad books that attempt to justify a villains actions by giving them a tragic past or superficial mental illness. You've mentioned the kind of evil acts they might perform and only you can decide if/when the audience gets answers. Exploring the 'why' as a writer doesn't have to be an overt process where you detail the history and psychology of the 'evil' characters and attempt to explain away their actions with thinly developed rationale. My point is that sometimes the most effective evil may not be described per se. It comes in the 'not knowing' or the ambiguity.
Great points here. I was actually trying to figure out an angle for bringing up The Joker, too. I've got a little to add on to this, though. Whether it's explained or not, the author should still know and fully understand a character's rationale.
How about I answer your question with a story, since it seems like it can harness a little more emotion than a simple automated google response? Anyways, here it is. I will divide it as diary entries, but for the last paragraph I will change the perspective as if I was actually telling it to someone else-you. I hope it is good enough! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entry 1: Dear Diary (Diary perspective) The world was coming to an end, after a hundred and twenty-two years of darkness, since the ashes covered the sky, and the smog from the broken lairs wiped every form of life from one-third of the planet, I was born. My father and mother went through a lot in order for me to be able to see the shining of my kind during the epitome of our civilization. I’ve never been out of our house, yet, but I can’t wait to get out and see the world for myself. I was born as a man, and all I do for the day is follow my mother around through the village, looking at everyone else live their life. There aren’t many of my kind here, the only others I can socialize with are my brothers and sisters, who do the same thing as me- all day long. It isn’t any fun. Entry 2: Realization Today I decided to lift up my sleeve and leave the village, I want to see it for myself, I want to make sure what dad tells me is true… I hope it isn't. He says they wiped out everything, every animal, plant, or flower is gone now. We are the only ones left in this dying world, and it’s been like this for a hundred years. It was horrible; the sight nearly blinded my eyes. There was a thick fog covering the floor, and I could barely see the ground. Gigantic machines laid on the floor, fastened to the wall with huge rusted pipes. Our only source of water, the water I've been drinking for 12 years was polluted with the dead bodies of my kind. All dead, heads laying everywhere, covering the ground with blood, and a giant hatchet rest impaled in a wooden log. I decided to come back for the day, there is only building left… this will lead me to the truth. I have to get out of here. Entry 3: Curiosity (Change of perspective, 1st person. Past) Forever we lived with the fear of foxes snatching out brethren during the night; that is why the strong males stay outside, guarding the doors of our shelter. These beasts by which we call titans are actually demons of the night; they slay those of our kind without regret. They eat our flesh and maw our bones while the others wait in line, watching them slaughter their friends. While I was there, watching without them noticing, I saw my mother for the first time in years. She was sitting in a nest, laying eggs. The look of horror in her face sent a chill down my spine, but I knew that if I moved, I was a going to die. There was no meaning to it, why were they recollecting the eggs, each which hold an embryo that would turn into a brother, or sister. I’ve always wanted someone I could talk too; I was considered the left over for all my life. Entry 4: Truth I’m all grown up now. Even though I know the truth about my kind, why those child-eating demons keep us alive each day, make us fight each other with knifes for entertainment and bets, I have no desire to let the others know. What would I gain by inducing them more pain, by letting them know, that not only us, males, have to suffer. But each day- our wives are forced to stay still- watching the humans throw others of our kind into the fire, and eat them while they are forced to give birth countless times- just to watch their children die by the hands of humans. One of each twelve new-born is allowed to live. After all, now that I am aware, those who I called brothers weren’t actually my brothers, they were just lucky enough to live…like me. After they cleared half the world of its flora and fauna, they throw us into a prison, forcing us to eat leftovers, and drink water polluted from the deceased bodies of the fallen. The force our females to give birth countless times a day, just to eat those children, and they force the males to fight to the death for their entertainment. The only flowers, fruits and plants good enough to eat grow apart from the rest of the world, in guarded fences where only humans can enter. What is evil, you ask me, my child? Look around you… ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Sorry if there are any mistakes.. I did just for the response in 30 mins.) What I am trying to say with this story is that: If you are truly trying to portray something evil, make sure it has some kind of "twist". The twist I tried to portray in my story what when you found out that the "titans" or "demons" were actually the humans, and that the victims were chickens or whatever.. Something you must include in a horror story, and every time you want to portray evil is: -Hope, you need some sort of hope for the main characters to get to the end. <-- My story didnt have any hope, so there wasn't much point in the end, other than the question "What is evil?" -Other than hope there is mystery. Don't let the reader know -everything- that is happening, let the "evil" guy be unknown. What we -humans- portray as "evil" is those things we don't understand. God for example; we don't know if he -really- exists (not trying to be rude), it is that sense of mystery which keeps up tagging along to religion. Now, there can be no evil, or no good without its counter part. No evil without good, no good without evil to compare it to. You get what I am saying? If we think from the perspective of chickens, the worst horror is a human... that is evil. If we see the world from the perspective of a human, we fear demons because they are "greater" than us, and we don't understand them, and because there is God to compare them to. A presence of good is never alone, its counterpart, evil, is always tagging along. <-- Remember that. And finally, for something to be considered evil there must be other options. For example: If you want to be the best in your class, you can either earn it by studying, or simply kill all the good students... The second option would be considered evil.
Some things I've learned recently. Most evil characters have certain traits in common: They are the protagonist of their own stories and the usually love something or someone. Some evil characters aren't so much characters but symbols of what they represent. Smaug from The Hobbit was the pure representation of greed.
Hmm.. I didn't see it from that point of view Jennym123. I thank you for the information about the Hobbit, you just gave me an idea.
There's an easy way to make your daemons more evil. You said they torture people for their own sick pleasure. That's just going to be, "Ooh, generic evil dude, just kick his ass and walk away." An evil person needs to be multifaceted. Show them killing ruthlessly, yes, but explain it. Maybe the daemons think that it's perfectly natural and good. Maybe the daemons feed on pain to survive and have to choose between humans and themselves. You know what is one of the most scary things for me? It's one of the items in Team Fortress 2. In that game, there is a class of character called the Pyro. There is an item that allows you to see the world as the Pyro supposedly sees it. And here's the gig. That world is fluffly and innocent, all plump clouds and laughing and best friends and confetti. In real life, it's a ruined, apocalyptic world with desperate men killing each other by the dozens, pumping each other full of bullets or ripping them to shreds or stabbing them in the back. But the pyro doesn't care. When the Pyro burns a helpless player to death, all he sees is bubbles pouring out and the laughs and giggles of the burning player. This is what scares me. Not that he murders, but that he thinks it's harmless.
Sure, that's scary, but it's not evil. An evil person knows what he is doing is wrong and does it anyway. Hitler's regime, for instance, hid it's atrocities from the world. If they thought what they were doing was right, why hide it? There's no need to, such as with this 'Pyro' character.
Hitler hid his atrocities from the world because he knew the world wouldn't accept them; however, he did believe he had the moral high ground and he genuinely believed what he was doing was right. Very few people in the world actively do things they believe to be wrong. Even serial killers find a way to justify what they're doing and turn it into something "right" - whether it be God told them to, or some other twisted reason. Humans try to justify nearly ever single action they take, even when others say they're wrong. I think what Python said is fine.
I can tell when someone hasn't done much research into the thoughts and feelings of the people who carried out the Holocaust. The Armenian genocide happened pretty much in full public view and no one did anything. Everyone who needed to know what was going on in the Holocaust did know and did nothing. Hitler had no reason to hide the Holocaust, especially if he thought it was right. He and those who carried it out may have tried to justify it, but they knew it was wrong and admitted as such in their private writings and discussions. It's not something that is well talked about outside of Jewish/Israeli discussion on the Holocaust, but it is a fact that they knew it was wrong and did it anyway. Regardless, that's well outside of the scope of the discussion.
I said Hitler, not the people who carried out the Holocaust. Even then, the people who carried it out knowing it was wrong would have sought out a way to justify their actions, such as telling themselves it is "for the good of the Reich" - WHILE it's happening; after it's all said and done they can have their moment of clarity and realise just how wrong they really were. The point is, Hitler never had that moment of clarity where he said to himself "well, damn...", but many others did. In Hitlers final will shortly before his suicide, he never spoke of regretting his actions, he was proud of them - believing the Aryan race was superior to all, especially the Jews who were "destroying Germany without remorse". I've read a lot about genocides, I know that after the matter, people do feel remorse and regret - but that almost always comes after, for most people.
I'm not having this discussion with you in this thread and I doubt I'd have the discussion with you anyway due to your ignorance. Drop it.
I take back any skeptical remarks I might have made about the validity of Godwin's Law. It's a thread about writing fantasy stories, guys.
I was reading Terry Goodkind's 'The Sword of Truth.' It is a good story, but after a while, the repeated descriptions of violence and rape began to sicken me. It's been a few years since I read one, but if I recall correctly, there seemed to be a new instance in almost every chapter, and that could really turn a reader off. Like it did me. Especially if they get deeply emotionally invested in those characters. Another that did this was the 'Fifth Sorcerous,' which was very heavy with the sexually violence. Didn't finish that one either. Basically, make sure your character is evil, but not so evil that no one wants to read how sick they can be...
IMO pure evil would be that total absence of humanity. Demons aren't human, and their actions wouldn't be motivated by human emotions. I personally think pure evil in this sense would be best exemplified when human characters are confronted with an utter lack of humanity. Where a human could decide right from wrong, a demon has no pause or even remote consideration or even emotional response to a conflict. They draw their motives from another realm we as humans wouldn't be able to directly understand. I think that could have a strong impact on the reader from a human POV. Just an opinion
Hello JM Hoffer, No what you're describing is not too over the top for evil. However, I would caution you with some considerations. What is truly evil? There are people that think governments maiming and killing innocent children is evil, etc. etc. ad nauseam. I deal with blurring the lines of evil in many of my stories (are they evil or not? do their deeds make them evil? etc.) I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to work in a demon eating a baby; people are actually doing that in some parts of the world right now. Just check out a Vice documentary. The Stand by Stephen King is an excellent study in what evil is. I mean, King has some "regular" guy rape another deaf & mute guy with a handgun in The Stand for goodness sake and that is considered mainstream media! I have a story called "Elijah's Phone" wherein a gangster tells a little boy (Elijah) that he's going to rape his mother on top of his corpse. Okay I am rambling.... My two cents: it's not the acts, it's helping us readers discover for ourselves what evil truly is. You can check out Elijah's Phone by web searching Kelson's Challenge or Kelson Hargis. You would have to join my site to see it but that and all other stories are free. Best of luck to you on your tale. ~Kelson
How bout worshiping the devil to make a character appear evil. or having sex with the devil, or perhaps raping the devil while stabbing his children at the same time. Or Raping the devil's mum while the devil is forced to watch, or making the devil rape his own mum, while the protag watches.
some portion of the book written from the POV of a tortured victim would possibly get the point across. The victim, forced to spend time suffering as the demon enjoys the spectacle, perhaps some exchanges of dialogue to highlight the demon's enjoyment or indifference at the suffering. Thrust the reader into a victim's circumstance, the hopelessness of the suffering. It also gives you a chance to flesh out the character of the demon and make revelations that go deeper than death and anger and torture.
I still think that evil requires humanity and an understanding of good. A character who can see the good thing, understand it, has the choice of doing it...and then does the evil thing is, to me, the evil character. A character with a complete lack of humanity and lack of understanding of good is just a machine or a destructive force of nature, and is boring, even if they might do far more harm than the first character.
