Can "Evil Incarnate" Still Work?

The God of Evil-type characters such as Sauron. These types of villains have been described as "the living embodiment of evil" and "the worst of all villains".

Do you think that "evil incarnate" is a cliché and outdated kind of villain that needs to die? Or is it a timeless archetype that can still craft believable and memorable villains even today?

Memorable is the hard part, I think. If you suceed in distilling evil to its purest, most despicable form the result will, by definition, be always the same. That is, if "evil" as a concept is independent enough and not too maleable to have a "purest" form.

So you either add a certain amount of subjectivity and complexity or make the villain vague and generic. The latter is the opposite of memorable, while with the former you end not with avatars of pure evil, but a slightly more mundane Complete Monster or a more alien Eldritch Abomination with Blue-and-Orange Morality.

"The dried flowers are so beautiful, and it applies to all things living and dead."

I mostly agree with the above, though I'd note that there can be some differences depending on whether we are dealing with, for lack of better terms, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, or Chaotic Evil.

I think such a character is much less disturbing than realistic villains who do awful things for good reasons.

One reason Hannibal is so scary is that you sympathize with a cannibalistic murder hobbyist. Nobody sympathizes with Sauron.

edited 17th Apr '16 7:06:44 PM by garridob

Great men are almost never good men, they say. One wonders what philosopher of the good would value the impotence of his disciples.

Never underestimate mankind's ability to put leather pants on SYMPATHIZE with anything.

One Strip! One Strip!

Well, being evil incarnate makes it hard to be anything other than, well, evil; which is kind of pitiable.

You say I am loved, when I don’t feel a thing. You say I am strong, when I think I am weak. You say I am held, when I am falling short.

Evil incarnates remove any question of "hey are the Good Heroes actually Good to chop down the other side"? It is not a bad thing since you can go on ahead to focus on the acts of the heroes, or the people of questionable morality who are nevertheless trying to fight the evil incarnate because, well, evil incarnate trying to destroy the world.

Largely the same, perhaps, but not necessarily entirely the same, I think. I'm inclined to argue that there's space for detail in such beings, separating them from each other.

Look, for example, at Sauron, Morgoth, and Lord Foul the Despiser. All might be claimed to fit somewhat into the "evil incarnate" mould. (Although only Foul is technically "evil incarnate"—both Morgoth and Sauron started out good, and Sauron nearly changed his ways at one point—at least, as far as I recall.) However, each is distinct in their details:

• Sauron tends towards dominion, including mental domination; at one point in The Lord of the Rings Gandalf seems worried that brief exposure to the Eye via a Palantir may have adversely affected one of the hobbits. Similarly, direct contact with the Eye resulted in both Saruman and Denethor being subverted, albeit in different ways.
• As to Morgoth, I'll confess that it's been a while since I read The Silmarillion, but my impression is that he was rather Chaotic: he wanted to destroy and despoil, to make mockery of creation.
• Finally, Lord Foul wanted to destroy and debase, much like Morgoth, but also wanted simply to escape the prison of the world. He had a tendency towards mind-games and a fondness for turning the strengths of his enemies against them. He also had limited prescience, which tended to come back on him: he missed possibilities that might cast his foretellings as something other than his triumph.

Look at how some of their minions saw them (as best I have it):

• Sauron looked up to Morgoth, seeing him as strong, and continued to use Morgoth's name for others to worship.
• The Ringwraiths were completely subverted, completely dominated: they had no will but Sauron's.
• The Ravers looked up to Lord Foul, seeing in him what they wanted to be—but they would happily have overthrown him if they thought they had a chance, and conversely were terrified of him.

To answer the original question, I don't have a problem with "ultimate evil" characters. I don't want nothing but such villains, but I have no problem with new stories featuring them.

edited 18th Apr '16 5:45:57 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

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I agree with that; also there's nothing stopping an evil incarnate from being in the same work as a more humanized villain. Sauron's hiradrim soldiers fought for him because of his deceptions.

You say I am loved, when I don’t feel a thing. You say I am strong, when I think I am weak. You say I am held, when I am falling short.

Azash of The Elenium is another decent example of evil incarnate done well. He's a god of perversion, blood lust, human sacrifice, etc, who was castrated and imprisoned by the Younger God. The only people he can really understand are the utterly degenerate, which is explicitly posited as a handicap, but by employing the likes of Martel he can work his way around that.

There's also Nyarlathotep, who I think is still a compelling villain even to this day. (Even though he's less God of Evil and more like an aberrantly evil Eldritch Abomination)

Refresh my memory: isn't he also The Dragon to Azathoth?

I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.

I would submit that a not-evil villain is a lot scarier than a pure evil type. The thing about pure evil is that nobody would ever get behind it. Snidely Whiplash or Sauron simply aren't going to find minions in a psychologically realistic setting.

Now, a charismatic leader who cares about the poor and wants retribution against the oppressors, I just described every major communist and fascist leader of the 20th century.

Great men are almost never good men, they say. One wonders what philosopher of the good would value the impotence of his disciples.

I think that I can see means for a "pure evil" character to get minions:

• They might share his world-view; in short, evil might get behind evil.
• They might hate the protagonists more than they fear or hate the "pure evil" character
• They might want something that they think that the villain is best-suited to giving them, and not have sufficient qualms about working for the villain to get it
  • In some cases, sufficient power or money might be an effective incentive
• They could be threatened into service (such as via threats to loved ones)
• They might be deceived into thinking that the villain isn't evil
• They could be outright dominated, whether psychologically or supernaturally.

As to fear, I don't agree that non-"pure evil" villains are necessarily scarier. What scares one person might not scare another, and vice versa, after all.

Finally, is fear the primary measure of a villain's quality? I'm inclined to argue that there are a number of reasons that one might enjoy a villain in a work, with fear being only one such reason.

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Just as a case in point here, in The Elenium Martel, who has no interest in actually converting to the worship of Azash, is perfectly prepared to do Azash's bidding in exchange for magical power, money, and a shot at revenge on the Church Militant order that kicked him out.

In general, if the force of Evil Incarnate is a god, there's going to be people who fall in line behind it because it is a source of power they can draw upon.

@Demetrios Well, yes and no. While Azathoth is Nyarlathotep's master, most of the latter's actions are done on his own accord. Not to mention it's heavily implied that Nyarlathotep is actually Azathoth's disembodied consciousness.

Which goes against the Cthulhu Mythos being about entities beyond human comprehension. Why would God's seperated consciousness being humanly evil? Is this a Freudian Slip by the writers? That they do in fact believe in a universal morality?

You could always combine Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, Tortured Monster, and Made of Evil then take it to the logical extreme- A being of pure Evil who hates being Evil that is, unfortunately, incapable of being Good and thus wrongly thinks they can exhaust their Evil by torturing enough people. Thus a fully sympathetic yet irredeemable monster of Pure Evil, where putting it down is a Mercy Kill for it.

"The Omniverse is the collection of all possibilities, and all possibilities must eventually come to pass."

Hmm...

Pure EI requires a great deal of world building to keep us remained interested. If there is little to none lore behind its existence then the chances are any non descriptive details would be bland.

Pure IE requires a great deal of competence, style, and scariness. On the other hand, sympathy isn't required 24/7; you don't need to feel compassion for its existence unless you're intentionally playing on our heart strings. If people inverse and outsideverse arent fearing it more than anything else then something is wrong.

Everything else is up to you... the who, what, where, why, when and how. I get bored of I Es that leave behind no interesting imprints on their world or aren't dangerous

edited 22nd May '16 6:12:32 AM by FictionWriterKing