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Are Good And Evil Outdated?
The fantasy genre is constantly evolving, new trends spring up, new ideas are explored, and old ones are laid to rest in cliché rich ground. With the recent breed of darker, grittier novels that fill the bestseller charts, packed with morally complex protagonists and warring factions that come in every shade of grey, perhaps the notion of clear sides marked good and evil will be another convention to bite the dust. Given the popularity of such novels, it’s clear the contemporary fantasy reader is responding to the more developed and complicated style of fiction that makes you wonder who to support. But with this drive for a more mature sort of fiction, are we moving away from tradition, away from the typical fantasy convention of the hero and villain? In today’s fantasy genre, is such a simple concept as good and evil outdated? It’s very difficult to separate the idea of good and evil from the fantasy genre, which can trace its ancestry in stories about brave heroes battling hideous monsters or cruel tyrants. The vast majority of these tales contain a clear good and bad side, be it the hero Beowulf and monster Grendel, or the noble Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham. The fantasy genre as we know it began with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a series which set out the typical conventions of fantasy – the evil adversary of the dark lord and the band of courageous heroes that is seeking to stop him. The battle lines are clearly drawn between the ugly, vicious orcs as the “bad guys,” set against the handsome and brave alliance of elves and men. There is little doubt in the reader’s mind who they should be rooting for; Tolkien has practically stamped “evil” on the head of the relevant characters.
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This was a practice followed by a number of fantasy authors; writers like David Eddings and Terry Brooks clad their characters in black and white and let the fantasy ensue. Occasionally there were a few blips in the pattern with anti-hero characters like Moorcock’s cursed swordsman Elric or Wagner’s wandering immortal Kane – protagonists with a darker tone and plotlines veering from the hero’s quest formula. Even so, most fantasy novels kept the “them and us” mentality, and while they explored a number of ideas, the morality of the novels remained largely static. But then things started to change, with the development of more mature characters came the development of fantasy worlds as a whole. In order to have the protagonists face complex moral choices, the story situation had to adjust. The enemies were humanised more, given motivations and a backstory that made them sympathetic. The reader started to see them as real people, rather than just generic foes to be cut down, they saw that the enemy had their own reasons for what they did, and that they may actually be in the right. One of the earliest examples I’ve found of this type of fiction is Glen Cook’s The Black Company, first published in 1984, where the main character Croaker is part of a mercenary company and very aware he is fighting on the side of evil: “I am haunted by the Lady’s laughter. I am haunted by my suspicion that we are furthering the cause of something that deserves to be scrubbed from the face of the earth. I am haunted by the conviction that those bent upon the Lady’s eradication are little better than she.” (Cook, 1984, p193) Cook made the two enemies as bad as each other in his book, but there are other methods that can be used to give the factions a more even footing. In his A Song of Ice and Fire series, Martin takes a different track. While at the start of the series you have the traditionally noble side of the Starks vs. the Lannisters, he is able to develop his characters to such a point where their natures and reasons have been explored enough for the reader to understand their side and avoid classifying them as evil. Martin has villainous characters, sure enough, he has a whole cast of varied personalities across the moral spectrum. But he makes them relatable and human enough that the reader sees them as people rather than stock enemies of “the bad side.”
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*Spoilers for A Song of Ice and Fire*
An example would be his development of Jaime Lannister; in the first book we see Jaime throwing a young boy off a tower to protect the secret of his incest with Cersei, not to mention fighting against the more noble hero character of Eddard Stark. Yet after Caitlyn cuts off his sword hand and Jaime is given POV chapters, the reader comes to know the character more intimately at a time of strife. We get into the psyche of a character that had previously been seen as a monster. We learn about his past with Cersei, and how he felt driven to kill the mad king, thus saving many innocent lives. While the reader may still not choose to side with the character, Jaime becomes more than just a faceless adversary, but someone we can sympathise with. Martin does this with other characters too, we are nudged towards liking Jaime’s brother Tyrion from the start of the series. This cynical, witty little man provides the only real honest side to the Lannisters in the beginning, and despite being on the “wrong side,” the reader comes to admire him. By populating all sides of his conflict with characters like this, Martin inspires us to support individual people, and stops us from forming biased opinions that one side is good or evil.
*End Spoiler* It seems that a large portion of new fantasy fiction follows this trend, with authors trying to give their worlds greater moral depth, just take a look at the work of Abercrombie or Lawrence. But it does raise the question of why, have we simply grown tired of traditional convention, is it an outgrowth of our desire for more mature characters, or is there a deeper cultural root?
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The fantasy genre has often reflected the strong influences of the time. An example would be the Arthurian tales and other literature based around knights, which was heavily influenced by the church and Christian values. When Tolkien first established fantasy in The Lord of the Rings he was writing during WW2, at that time people had a clear enemy that they saw as “evil.” From their fiction they wanted the same, obvious enemies that twirled their moustaches, battling heroes with proud chins and great hair. There were even those who said that Middle-earth represented the east and west with Mordor and Gondor. Today things may be seen as less clear cut, with threats like terrorism that come from within a country, and concerns about corrupt governments that may diminish our faith in a clear “good side.” Perhaps because our world has grown more complex, less black and white, so too our fiction has evolved to reflect that. Does that mean the end of our classic contests of good vs. evil? If we no longer have sides, what does that mean for the development of our moral views in how we see the world? Will even the timeless archetypes of the hero and villain be forgotten? It’ll be interesting to see how fantasy develops from here.
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Still, it would appear that the concept of good and evil is not dead yet, there are still some great books that have complex, well developed characters, and still follow the tradition. I recently read Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, the novel featured a brilliant villain, a believable, sympathetic heroine and a host of other fleshed out characters. While it’s slow to establish, the plot develops into a true good vs. evil scenario and the story loses nothing for following convention. Now I’m a big fan of the new breed of darker fantasy, but Shadow and Bone renewed my faith that such books could still captivate me. And while there are still writers producing work of this quality, perhaps we’ll keep our heroes and villains, because maybe the battle’s not over yet. Title image by Donato Giancola.
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