All-Powerful Dark Rulers

The fantasy genre is full of stories where one (or a group, or race) of great power rules over a kingdom or empire with malice and corruption. The subjects are forced to live under the cruel, heavy hand of the dark rulers, and there’s always mention of a group of brave souls who attempted to rise up against the powers-that-be in hopes to overthrow the reigning darkness—but they failed. And so begins the story of a chosen one, and those that follow, who rises and succeeds against the evil power.

“The Lady” from the Chronicles of the Black Company betrayed her powerful, evil husband, the Dominator, to control and dominate the Northern Empire herself. She is a cruel empress, destroying all who oppose her. The Black Company, who were employed by the Lady, later change their course to prepare to fight against the Lady.

My all-time favorite, Emperor Palpatine, is the one Dark Lord of the Sith, who took the ancient principles of the Sith, the rule of two (one to harness the power of the darkside, and one to crave it), and patiently and skillfully took over the galaxy—creating the first galactic empire. With his apprentice, Darth Vader, Palpatine holds the galaxy in his powerful clutches, yet we see the Rebel Alliance defy his rule as we read (or watch, in most cases) in what’s called the original trilogy of the Star Wars saga.

In the Halfblood Chronicles, the all-powerful Elvenlords long ago entered the world through the Great Portal from another dimension and enslaved humankind, making concubines of choice women and gladiators of choice men, and oppressing all life forms to their will. Shana, half elven and half human, leads a band of intelligent dragons, half-blood wizards, and escaped human slaves to undo centuries of cruel elven reign.   

Like the Halfblood Chronicles, the Annals of Drakis takes place in a world ruled by cruel elves, yet they are not tall, fair, and good-looking like the Elvenlords of the Halfblood Chronicles. These are beings with (mostly) dark skin, elongated heads, and sharp teeth, enslaving not just humans, but races of all kinds—controlling them with aether magic to do their bidding.

In the original Mistborn trilogy, the first book, The Final Empire, gives us the Lord Ruler, a seemingly all-powerful, god-like man who controls the known empire. All who even attempt to oppose him meet their demise.

I could go on with many examples in fantasy fiction of seemingly all-powerful dark rulers. The genre is laded with them. It’s not too difficult to understand why authors bring to life characters with great power who are nothing but ruthless and dominating. It brings about conflict, and heightens the stakes for the “good” characters that we will root for.

But why do authors create ruling characters who possess great powers who are malevolent? Why don’t they make ruling characters with great powers who are benevolent? Stepping aside from the reasoning that evil characters with great powers makes for a more climatic story, could it be that writers have rested on the fact that no man/woman, or being, is able to be all-good if they were to possess great powers? The writer may not see this consciously, but it’s just a rooted fact within the human psyche. Anyone harnessing great powers will succumb to their dark side, and force their will upon the weaker to advance their own cause.

So what can be said of such characters? Do they reflect a reality that, in the words of John Dalberg-Acton, “absolute power corrupts absolutely?” Putting Acton’s words more in context, he said: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.” An example of this in fantasy fiction can be found in The Neverending Story. The main character, Bastian, becomes corrupted after obtaining the talisman, AURYN, given to him by the Childlike Empress. AURYN gave him the power to wish for whatever he wanted in the land of Fantastica. Consumed by the world he created with his wishes—creating havoc for the creatures of Fantastica—Bastian comes to the brink of wanting to conquer the Childlike Empress so that he can become the Childlike Emperor.

What would a work of fantasy fiction be like if the tables had turned? What if the all-powerful ruler was benevolent and good, ruling his people with peace, kindness and justice, but evil characters attempt to rise up to subdue them? Makes you wonder how such a story could work.

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Good vs Evil – Part 2
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Good vs Evil – Part 2

This is part two of my post about Good vs Evil in fantasy fiction. If you have not read my first post on this subject then you can read it here.

French philosopher, Simone Weil, said, “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. Therefore ‘imaginative literature’ is either boring or immoral (or a mixture of both). It only escapes from this alternative if in some way it passes over to the side of reality through the power of art – and only genius can do that.” She says a lot here in these four sentences. Basically, in fiction, evil is romantic and diverse; but in real life, evil is not great at all. In fiction, good is not so intriguing, but in real life good is wonderful. Weil makes a strong statement in saying that fiction (“imaginative literature”) is either boring or immoral (considering that good is boring in fiction and evil is fascinating in fiction), but can escape such an outcome if it would depict reality—but “only genius can do that.” Now let’s keep in mind that Weil’s comments are from the early part of the 20^TH century, and, just like the talk of most philosophers, her comments are from the fountains of her own thoughts and opinions; but one cannot deny the degree of truth in those profound words.

American writer, Flannery O’Connor, stated, “I know nothing harder than making good people believable.” It’s true, writing characters that are good, and trying to make them believable is quite the task for a lot of writers. The same can be said of characters that are evil; however, I think writers don’t have as much of a struggle writing a flawed, twisted character than writing a character that is good and noble in an interesting and believable manner. Readers want to read flawed characters, because in real life all people are flawed—nobody is perfect. Readers can relate to characters that are more like them than they could with characters like King Arthur or Aragorn. To me, a character that is “good” will have that struggle of good and evil within them; however, they tend to master, or suppress, their own “evil” desires to do what they know and believe to be right to oppose the external evils. Stephen King does a great job of writing flawed characters that are capable of standing against evil; but sometimes, in my opinion, King can go a little too far and make a character kind of goofy or bizarre, where it just doesn’t work all that well.     

George R.R. Martin has destroyed the likes of the chivalrous knight, and made him a murderer or rapist; and he’s smothered the likes of the noble king and made them brutal and manipulative. This completely grays out the contrast between good and evil, compared to the more traditional fantasy. Of course, Martin is not the only one doing this, but he’s the top of the fantasy chain right now, so I use him as an example.  

English writer, G.K. Chesterton, wrote: “This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately, and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world.” This quote is from the dawn of the 20^TH century, yet it is so relevant for today (over one hundred years later). Chesterton simply argues that the traditional stories of taking an ordinary person and putting them in extraordinary circumstances stand the test of time. But the stories where the character is ultra flawed in a world just as chaotic lacks any kind of variety. Think of a photo that has no contrast. It’s dull and washed-out looking. But the photo with good contrast is nice to look at, and makes for a much better picture. Fiction should be viewed likewise.  

Here is another quote from G.K. Chesterton: “The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman.” This goes back to my earlier point; a good person will have that struggle within, conflicting between the good and bad within them. This brings such a realistic contrast within a character; and this can go both ways—with hero or villain. The villain is no exception. He/she should have the same inner battles, but, of course, they tend to lean more towards the bad. Think of it in this simplistic way: a character is being good when they act selflessly; a character is being bad when they act selfishly.

A story should take the conflict of good and evil within the characters and display the same contrast externally. So when the hero acts out their selflessness (goodness) against the villain's selfishness (badness), there’s that iconic clash between the two, and the reader gets to sit back and watch a story of good versus evil unfold. When good and evil is blurred together in a story, and all the characters are acting selfishly, in most part, then you have a monotonous story. Everything is just grayed out, with no variety of color. Since modern fantasy is trying to steer more toward realism then it should reflect the real world, which has contrast and variety; and has people who do selfless acts and selfish acts, and the two acts battle each other for eons. Good and evil exists; and it should not be diminished in today’s fantasy fiction. 


RELATED POSTS: 
Good vs Evil 

Satan Isn’t Scary Anymore
All-Powerful Dark Rulers
 

Good vs Evil

 

Just about every fantasy story is based on the struggle between good and evil. How many dark lords have been defeated by the hero and his band of friends? How many wicked witches have been vanquished by innocent youths? How many dark wizards have met their end against the gifted brave? How many warlords have been defeated by the noble king? I could go on and on. The battle between good and evil is the foundation for almost every kind of fiction (fantasy, action, thriller, suspense, horror, etc). We go to the movies and we sit expecting to root for the “good” guy against the “bad” guy. It’s common in our culture, and it’s common in our nature. Mythology and folklore have been saturated with it for centuries.

In today’s fantasy fiction, there are times where we expect to root for the antihero. There are times where we see the lines between good and evil blurred. We’ve come to a place where the “all-good” hero and the “all-bad” villain no longer appeals, and shows no realism. It’s funny to see the genre which was supposed to be a vehicle of discovering the fantastic and speculative—to take us away from reality—is now being forced to make things as realistic as possible (in which I agree with). But I think the main purpose is to make things believable in the author’s created world, while giving the reader characters that are realistic.

It seems like today’s modern fantasy is trying to veer away from characters that are good and evil, and just make the characters grey (or amoral). This is a good thing for the genre, but it’s not good if this is done only to rebel against the old tradition of good versus evil. It should be done because that’s what the story calls for, and that’s who that character is. Also, a character shouldn’t be made dark just to put a dark spin on the story. There should be a believable reason why that character is that way.

There’s the belief that there is no absolute good or evil. But if someone believes in an all-good higher power, and believes that any force that defies that all-good higher power is evil, then there is absolute good and evil, in that concept. If someone does not believe in an all-good higher power, but believes that society sets the standards of what is right and wrong, then there is a degree of good and evil; for if anyone goes against what your society believes to be the right thing, then that person could be seen as evil in a way, and vice versa.

In the real world, there is good versus evil. That’s realistic. The generation known as the Greatest Generation, who fought Nazis in World War II, were not saints, but they were the good guys, going up against an evil empire. What Hitler did was evil. The Allies that fought him were good. That man that took those girls in Ohio and held them captive in his house for a decade, doing terrible things to them, did evil; and the people that helped those girls escape did good. A person that walks into an elementary school and slaughters children does evil; the people that tried to save those children, and tried to stop the murderer were good. The people that go and blow up innocent men, women and children are evil; the people that fight to stop those people are good. Do you see what I’m getting at here? Unfortunately, in our world, we see the evil that people do all the time. Fortunately, we see the good that people do all the time as well.

The key point here is that the struggle against good and evil is a part of our world, and of our existence, since the dawn of man. The battle of good and evil happens in the world, and it happens inside each and every person, as they make the choice to do the right or wrong thing everyday. This is reality, and this is the good against evil that we should see in fantasy fiction. So if an author is only going to give us grey characters, then show us readers why that character is that way. Also, show us the struggle inside the character as he/she strives to be a person that does the “right” thing; or if he/she strives to do the “wrong” thing.

So, authors of the dark and gritty, don’t try to make it an effort to exclude good and evil from your stories; but try making an effort to make your stories more realistic by including good and evil in the degree that your story calls for. Again, this could be an external struggle or an internal struggle for the character(s).

I think the things that bother us modern readers, in regards to the old-fashioned good versus evil plot, is that the hero and the villain have no depth. They’re just put there to fight each other, with nobility as the hero’s reason, and power and greed as the villain’s excuse. Readers want to get into the soldiers’ minds, and into the Nazis’ minds, so that the struggle becomes an explosion of good story, with depth and conflict; and the climax at the end is not predictability (even though you know the good guys will win), but a conclusion where you feel the triumph of the protagonists, because you fell in love with them, and you wanted them to succeed. 

Click here to see Part 2 of this post.

RELATED POSTS: 
Good vs Evil – Part 2

Satan Isn't Scary Anymore
All-Powerful Dark Rulers