
The good guy/bad guy myth - anacleto
https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-pop-culture-obsessed-with-battles-between-good-and-evil
======
mjw1007
I think people telling stories like Star Wars choose to make the antagonists
Capital-E-Evil because modern audiences are much less happy to root for people
who are fighting a war if they aren't shown that the war is thoroughly
justifiable.

A few hundred years ago you could happily put a character in a saga and have
them go off on viking raids and kill any number of people whose only crime is
living near the coast, and still put them forward as morally admirable.

Nowadays if you want to have your protagonists shooting at their enemies or
hitting them with sharp bits of metal you basically have to choose between a
good-vs-evil narrative or having only anti-heroes rather than plain heroes
(and both choices are now common).

So I think this bit is pretty much backwards: « Good guy/bad guy narratives
might not possess any moral sophistication, but they do promote social
stability, and they’re useful for getting people to sign up for armies and
fight in wars with other nations. »

What modern Good-vs-Evil narratives are collectively yelling at us is the idea
that _only_ outright visible evil justifies making war.

~~~
coldtea
I think it's the inverse. Good-vs-evil narratives are not some progression,
rather the inverse.

Whereas ancient peoples and older eras saw war as a necessary evil in some
cases, and could see the enemy as regular people that they just had to fight
(even down to the Iliad, the most heroic figure, Hector, is on the enemy
side), the Good-vs-Evil narrative doesn't come to prevent war (except in dire
circumstances), but to refuse the enemy its humanity and justify total war.

Good-vs-evil was used to justify the pillaging and goring of the colonial era,
to the Nazi's extinction of the Jews, and so on.

That's the route of modern diplomatic terminology ("axis of evil" and so on),
and behind the dehumanizing of the enemy. And even civilian casualties don't
matter much when you're fighting "evil" (e.g. Dresden, Hiroshima, modern
Middle East, etc).

Another such trick is to promote (with articles, movies, etc) the "inner
conflict" of your side (how they fear they're fighting an unjust war, the pain
they get from the killings they had to do, PTSI, etc), thus humanize them more
into good guys, while still painting the other side as caricatures. This faux-
critique of war is an excellent way to say "we might do bad, but we're
ultimately the good guys, the ones who actually do question what we do".

~~~
humanrebar
Is the good-vs-evil narrative always a regression?

Caricature-painting is a basic tool of modern morality tales. Is it so
universally regressive? Would we be better off if we portrayed Pol Pot, Heath
Ledger's Joker, or Opposing Racist White Guy as trying to balance conflicting
motivations?

~~~
bzbarsky
If you portray evil as being done only by people who have pure-evil
motivations, that gives your audience the impression that they can't do evil.
After all, _they_ don't have evil motivations!

I think it is in fact important to show that conflicting motivations can lead
to evil. Heck, even _good_ motivations can. That way people might actually
stop and think about whether what they're doing is in fact evil.

Or to put it in Godwin's Law terms, your typical Nazi was trying to balance
conflicting motivations. The right lesson to be learned is not "Nazis were
evil, so they did evil things" but "we better watch out for conditions that
cause people to behave like that".

~~~
goatlover
Your average Nazis and German society in general, sure. But the ones who
architected the final solution and world war? That's a different matter.
Sociopaths exist, as do people with deep hatred for certain groups, and a
desire for power and glory no matter the human cost.

A better way to frame the matter is what sort of conditions in a society lead
to dangerous people being in charge.

~~~
bzbarsky
Just to be clear, the "ones who architected the final solution" attempted
other solutions first (e.g. having Europe's Jews emigrate from Europe to
somewhere else; they were stymied by other countries not being willing to
accept them). I'm not saying this was a _nice_ thing to try to do, but even
they did not start with cackling evil laughter and wanting to wantonly
slaughter people. Something that often gets left out of histories of WWII.

~~~
goatlover
And I'm sure serial killers start out with fantasies and stalking instead of
melodramatic laughter. What matters is what people end up doing. The Nazis did
very bad things.

And I've heard Eichman's rationalizations for keeping the trains running on
time. He was doing his duty, it was lawful, nobody around him opposed the
policy, etc. It's all BS to excuse his moral choices and anti-semitism.

And yeah, we need to understand how groups of people come to justify genocide
and other terrible practice, but keep in mind not everyone went along with it
in WW2. Bulgaria refused to hand it's Jews over. There were German police and
army who refused to cooperate with the SS. It was possible to resist
participating in genocide, and sometimes without consequence.

~~~
bzbarsky
> What matters is what people end up doing.

Sure, I agree. My point is that we need to get people to notice that they're
on a slippery slope to doing bad things and stop. And that this is easier if
they admit to themselves the possibility that they might end up doing bad
things.

As you note, during WWII there were people who noticed and stopped. I just
wish more had.

------
hacknat
I racked my brain in disagreement at first with her claim (I took a fair
amount of ancient literature classes in college and continue to read ancient
literature when I can), only to find I couldn’t come up with many examples
that contradict her. In fact I even began to think on the Bible, the one
document I’m sure we would all think of as being moralizing, but even it
contains passages that don’t assume the good guy/bad guy trope:

In the Joshua narrative (a part of the Bible that troubles a lot of people for
its wholesale slaughter of ethnic groups) before they sack Jericho Joshua sees
an angel and asks which side he is on, and the angel replies, “neither”
(Joshua 5). Similarly in Deuteronomy the existence of other deities is
presumed in some passsages, but they are meant for “other nations”
(Deuteronomy 4). And my favorite example, God tries to kill Moses after he
commissions him (Exodus 4:18).

Here’s the thing though, when ethnicity and familial ties no longer are the
thing binding a society together, the only thing left is ideology. If we want
to live in a pluralist society we have no choice, but to embrace narratives
that bind us together through morality and ideology. Universalism is a
powerful tool, it can create a society like the US, which has many faults and
sins to be sure, but is the only society in history to elect a member of, what
was very recently, a slave class to its highest political office. Universal
also has its dark side in things like the fascisms of the early 20tj century.

It seems like we might be migrating back (or around?) to a non-Universalist
sentiment around the world in the current backlash against globalization. The
impetus definitely has some nationalism and racism in it, but it feels
different to me than a moralizing racism of the past that assumed racial
superiority, and now seems to be rooted in a theory of primacy (it’s not that
we’re better, but we come first, e.g. “America first”).

It makes sense to me that we are migrating away from Universalism. Our
collective psyche cannot fathom the indirect violence that we are all wreaking
on each other right now (and the immense catastrophes we are all about to
suffer).

~~~
eesmith
> Universalism is a powerful tool, it can create a society like the US, which
> has many faults and sins to be sure, but is the only society in history to
> elect a member of, what was very recently, a slave class to its highest
> political office. Universal also has its dark side in things like the
> fascisms of the early 20tj century.

Haiti, the second republic in the Americas, elected people who had been
slaves. For example, Faustin Soulouque, born into slavery in Petit-Goâve in
1782, elected President of Haiti in 1847 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faustin_Soulouque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faustin_Soulouque)
. He then became Emperor of Haiti.

What do you mean by "Universalism"? Is it "focused around ... the doctrine
that every human soul will ultimately be reconciled to God because of divine
love and mercy"?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalism)

Because I struggled and failed to see the connection between the German and
Italian fascist movements movements and the American Universalism of the late
1700s.

Those fascist groups were driven be nationalism. You can see that in the
names. Partito Nazionale Fascista, ("National Fascist Party") was rooted in
Italian nationalism. Nationalsozialismus ("National Socialism" or "Nazi") was
positioned as alternative to international socialism. In "Ein Volk, ein Reich,
ein Führer", the "Volk" means ethnic Germans.

I think internationalism, expressed for example in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale)
, is closer to what I think you might mean by Universalism than ethnic
nationalism.

~~~
Amezarak
> Haiti, the second republic in the Americas, elected people who had been
> slaves.

Haitians gained their freedom and formed their republic by genociding all the
white colonialists - men, women, and children - and forming their own society.

The US had slaves, and then an internal reform (including a Civil War to put
down a rebellion) freed them. The same society that once enslaved people later
elected them. Ironically, the genocide of the Haitian Revolution was a
justification by the pro-slavery elements who feared the same thing would
happen as in Haiti.

The land by itself is not the country.

~~~
watwut
Civil war killed 25÷ of males between 18-45 in South. It thoroughly destroyed
their way of life (as it was trully slave society). Internal reform is a bit
understatement. There were many disagreements and figths over former slaves
after, including violence and terrorism and laws to limit their rights
(meaning they went from elected to unable to participate in politics). It was
not straight line.

Women and children died too.

~~~
Amezarak
Nobody went around after the Civil War deliberately killing every single man,
woman, and child on the losing side, and forming an entirely new country.

This is what happened in Haiti - a full on genocide _after_ the French
surrender. Remarking on the extraordinary feat of "electing" a former slave is
a little bit strange when almost everyone who _wasn 't_ a slave was killed or
fled the country. With a few specific exceptions, white people in Haiti became
_persona non grata_ who could not own land, etc.

The degree to which post-war Haiti could be called a "republic", except
nominally, is somewhat questionable as well.

Additionally, slavery as a "way of life" destroyed in the South is generally
exaggerated. The South was economically dependent on slavery, yes, but slavery
was largely an institution of the wealthy planter class. As Grant wrote in his
memoirs, most of the Southerners who fought in the Civil War were duped into
fighting a war they had no real interest in; the best most of them had going
for them was basically "sure, I'm dirt-poor sonofabitch, but at least I ain't
a _slave_ ".

 _The young men who would have the fighting to do in case of war, believed all
these statements, both in regard to the aggressiveness of the North and its
cowardice. They, too, cried out for a separation from such people. The great
bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their
homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for
educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were
very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre—what there was, if
they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed
emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who
controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as poor white
trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to
direction._

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4367/4367-h/4367-h.htm#ch17](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4367/4367-h/4367-h.htm#ch17)

~~~
eesmith
> "The degree to which post-war Haiti could be called a "republic", except
> nominally, is somewhat questionable as well."

The definition of "republic" is quite general, and includes the Roman Republic
and the German Democratic Republic, neither of which follow the Madison-
derived definition described at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#United_States)
.

Haiti had multiple forms of government. Quoting from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_of_Hait...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_of_Haiti)
:

    
    
        1.1 Saint-Domingue (1791–1804)
        1.2 First Empire of Haiti (1804–1806)
        1.3 State of Haiti (1806–1811)
        1.4 Kingdom of Haiti (1811–1820)
        1.5 Republic of Haiti (1806–1822)
        1.6 Republic of Haiti during the unification of Hispaniola (1822–1844)
        1.7 Republic of Haiti (1844–1849)
        1.8 Second Empire of Haiti (1849–1859)
        1.9 Republic of Haiti (1859–present)
    

The 1804 massacre of most of the white population was under Dessalines and the
First Empire of Haiti. The republic came later. Faustin Soulouque, who I
mentioned earlier, was elected to be the President of the Republic of Haiti in
1847.

If you would like, feel free to ignore the "republic" part of my comment. My
point holds that I think Haiti is an example where someone born a slave was
elected president ... for some definition of the word 'elected.' I can't
figure out who was able to vote in his election.

As a contributing factor to him coming from an underclass even in a society
almost completely urged of white people, he was black in a culture where
mulattos had held more political power. (Eg, quoting
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Louis_Pierrot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Pierrot) "As President
of Haiti, he was intended to be a figurehead for the mulatto ruling class.")
He organized a massacre of mulattos while he was president, then as emperor he
"installed black loyalists in administrative positions ... [and] created a
black nobility".

BTW, Wikipedia's summaries aren't that detailed and I haven't found better.
It's probably that I don't know where to go to look. My DDG search for Faustin
Soulouque mostly came up with sites which use Wikipedia as the main source.

If there is a reason for why this example does not serve as a useful counter-
example, then perhaps it's because there are enough qualifiers in the
definition that the original statement "the only society in history to ..." is
not actually that useful?

Add enough qualifiers and you can make anything sound special.

------
tzs
A few years ago I grabbed a free ebook of Grimm stories from Project Gutenberg
for light bedtime reading. There are several there, based on different
translations and containing different subsets of the stories. This one seems
to be the most complete:
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5314](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5314)

I was surprised by how many of the stories fell under one of these templates:

• Main character in story is cruel and dishonest. This brings him wealth,
power, love, and/or happiness.

• Main character in story is victimized by someone cruel and dishonest.
Responds by finding someone weak and/or stupid that he can victimize in order
to boost his wealth or position back to what they were originally.

It was very hard in most of the stories to find anyone who could be described
as what we would call a "good guy".

~~~
maxerickson
In the first tale the king is a minor character but seems to be a "good guy".

The protagonist does do something nasty and go on to live happily ever after
with the victim though.

------
lkrubner
When I was a kid, one thing I loved about Japanese manga was that the bad guy
was often somewhat admirable. I couldn't stand the USA tradition of
exaggerated and simplistic evil bad guys. I couldn't stand the lack of nuance
in 99% of anything produced by Disney. But Japanese manga often had
antagonists who had purposes and motives that were at least understandable,
and sometimes as morally justified as the protagonists. In the cartoon show
Starblazers, the villain of the first season end most shows by sending
compliments to the brave crew of the Argonaught, because their courage and
cleverness allows them to continue forward despite all the odds. If I ever had
children, I'd want to expose them to that kind sportsmanship, rather than the
good-versus-evil attitude of most USA created children's shows.

------
natecavanaugh
I have to disagree with the assumptions here that there are no ancient good
guy/bad guy narratives. David vs Goliath. Samson and the Philistines. Jesus
against Death in Revelation. And that's just the Bible.

People's stories going through history follow all sorts of narratives, some
that are hero/villain, some that are proverbial, some where some virtue is
being exemplified by one or more people, and some evil exemplified by people
or elemental forces and nature. There's nothing modern about it, it's just
that you can make anything seem hazier or more opaque or you reduce it to a
binary, depending on just how much you want to over analyze it.

~~~
badestrand
I don't know the other stories well and Christianity is a big good-bad theme
in itself with its hell and heaven but in David versus Goliath the giant never
was the bad guy. He was just fighting for the other side and David killed him,
that's it as far as I know.

~~~
dragontamer
I think that's a fair point. But otherwise, David is very much a "good guy" in
virtually all of his stories.

King David's famous "Slice the baby in half, so that both 'mothers' can have
half of it" is clearly a fight of good vs evil. The Evil mother doesn't care
for the child, while the good mother cares deeply for the child. And that's
how King David solved one child-custody problem... (not actually killing the
baby, but by judging the reactions of the two 'mothers' to the potential act).

\-----------

The story of "Sodom and Gomorrah" is implicitly about evil. The town faces
divine punishment because 10 good people couldn't be found. Its perhaps not
"good guy vs bad guy", bit the concepts of "bad guy" are definitely explored.

~~~
bobcostas55
>David is very much a "good guy" in virtually all of his stories.

The whole Bathsheba incident portrays him in a very negative light.

~~~
humanrebar
He also comes across as a fairly bad father (his kids rape, murder, and commit
treason). That goes all the way back to taking multiple wives against explicit
instructions. 1 Chronicles 21 describes David as being responsible for the
death of 70,000 of his people.

------
schoen
> Not only do people in ancient stories not switch sides in fights but
> Achilles, say, would never win because his army was composed of the rejects
> from the Trojans’.

It's not in the Iliad, but in the Aeneid one of the Greeks _pretends_ to
desert in order to sell the story of the Trojan horse, and the Trojans do
kindly accept him.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinon)

(However, it turns out that that he was still really loyal to the Greeks and
the Trojans made a mistake by believing him.)

------
dnautics
The increasing prevalence good guy bad guy dichotomy is probably driven by the
conatraint of the shorter forms. There's a great videoessay on why star trek
movies are awful (all of them except I and IV have a villain, and only II
pulled it off well) while the series deep space nine pulled off an incredibly
complex villain by virtue that they had 7 years to develop his story arc.

Even Darth Vader, the example from the OP essay got complexity as the
franchise spanned decades.

~~~
humanrebar
Good point. Good TV, shows like Breaking Bad, the Sopranos, and Mad Men use
their longer format to take their time and develop more complex characters.

------
dexwiz
In a Song of Ice and Fire there are no good guys or bad guys. Each side has
moral quandaries and a drive to survive. The only “Evil” characters are
sadists, and there are quite a few. That is part of the reason the books are
so engrossing.

People have lamented the Game of Thrones show has gone down hill after passing
the books. I argue that is because the narrative has shifted to a war against
the White Walkers, a clearly malevolent force. Instead of a mutlifaceted story
about amoral factions, it’s become Lord of the Rings. The story lost its spark
and rejoined the common good versus evil narrative.

~~~
akvadrako
If the writers are any good, the white walkers will also turn out not to be
clearly bad.

~~~
humanrebar
They are kind of described as out-of-control biological weapons the Children
of the Forest used against the First Men. So it's possible they are more like
a weapon of mass destruction (zombie virus) unleashed for complex reasons
(war, survival) and less like a people.

------
Animats
This is an American filmic convention. Maybe it's a holdover from the Hays
Code, which explicitly mandated a good guy/bad guy structure by regulation.[1]
Japanese anime and Russian literature do not follow it.

[1] [https://www.asu.edu/courses/fms200s/total-
readings/MotionPic...](https://www.asu.edu/courses/fms200s/total-
readings/MotionPictureProductionCode.pdf)

------
skywhopper
Darth Vader was not the one who wanted to blow up a planet. In fact, he
dismissed the idea of such a weapon as futile and silly. The followup movies
in the original trilogy added layers to the question of good and evil, and the
most recent film in the series explicitly questioned the entire premise. So
maybe opening with Star Wars is not the best example.

~~~
humanrebar
> ...the most recent film in the series explicitly questioned the entire
> premise.

Did it? The bad guys are still blowing up planets and murdering the people who
love them.

------
bagacrap
Why is it a bad thing if the moral is usually that goodness triumphs? Seems
better than arbitrary person triumphs.

Also, Macbeth is a story about one bad act dooming Lord and Lady Macbeth. So
when is this shift meant to have taken place? In the Bible, the main guy goes
around healing and feeding the sick and turning the other cheek. His life
starts and ends with power hungry figures trying to kill him. Let's keep
working backwards. Wasn't the Minotaur a pretty evil guy? Just sits there
eating virgins until a hero selflessly, bravely, and cleverly manages to slay
him.

I'm not convinced.

~~~
tboyd47
I think the point the author is trying to make is that there may be a
connection between the "moral physics" (as she puts it) in modern folktales
and the genocidal nature of war in the modern world. It seems like the intent
of these stories is to nurture a sense of innate moral superiority in the
audience, often for explicitly political purposes, as she mentions with the
Robin Hood story. The protagonists in these stories never go to war except
against people who are true villains and have no morals at all, so it's as if
war draws a line between good and evil so clearly that it justifies wiping
your enemies off of the face of the earth completely.

If the point of telling a story is to create a shared experience like a
football game, where the audience roots for a certain side to win, then yes,
it's better for the "good guys" to win. But why is that the point of stories?
If we look at ancient folktales, it becomes harder and harder to root for the
good guys, if there even are any. If there is a moral battle, it's between two
individuals, not an army of good and an army of evil, like in Star Wars or
Lord of the Rings.

It's a pretty broad, sweeping claim to make, but I think she brought enough
historical examples to make a strong case. We can't go back in time and ask
the ancients themselves.

------
krylon
Huh. Once upon a time, as a young boy, I had dreams of becoming a writer.

A couple of years ago I actually started writing what might have become a
novel. But I remember that back then, it changed the way I watched movies and
TV programs. And I started having on an almost regular basis these epiphanies
of things about writing that people can learn in college in the USA. I do not
remember what movie, series, scene or character triggered that one, but the
"biggest" one I got was that _in real life, Good and Evil exist only as
approximations_. Asymptotically, if you will. (Almost) _Nobody is purely good
or evil._ And even the people we consider evil, tend to see themselves as
good. And they consider _us_ evil.

Sorry to pull a Godwin in the first round, but consider a prime example if
ever there was one: Even Hitler did think of himself as basically good. He
ordered unspeakable atrocities, but from his point of view, it all served the
greater Good and was therefore justified. The question of how somebody could
arrive at such a fucked up value system will probably never be answered to
anyone's satisfaction.

Or Captain Ahab. He has a twisted moral compass, but again, from his point of
view, he is doing "the right thing"(tm). Or Major Weissmann, Dominus Blicero.
And often enough it is just egotism, "I want to be super-duper rich", or "I
want to rule the _ENTIRE_ world!" And what a crap job that would be! Does
nobody ever think of that? No wonder terrible villains fail to conquer the
planet, they are idiots. But to get a villain with depth - or at least the
illusion of it - we need somebody who has another goal than just petty
materialistic things or power over people. OH!! Watchmen!!!

So that particular epiphany taught me that a good (meaning "halfway
believable") "villain" never does anything "evil" for its own sake, but from
their own perspective, the villain does what needs to be done, terrible as it
may be, because it serves a higher purpose, whatever that may be. Although I
wonder about Judge Holden, he was an awesome antagonist, but I think he would
have considered "good" and "evil" irrelevant. Anton Chigurh, too. He is
possibly the closest anyone has come to creating a character that is pure
evil. Then again, neither of these two has depth.

------
dvt
This article is embarrassingly wrong. In _every single_ interpretation of the
monomyth, we have a hero that strives to be victorious over some form of evil
-- often times at great cost. But Ms. Nichols is being disingenuous by cherry-
picking The Iliad (which is politically complex) -- why not Beowulf, or The
Odyssey -- where we have _very clear_ cases of antagonists and protagonists.
Also, the argument that moral face-offs are "a recent invention that evolved
in concert with modern nationalism" is so unequivocally wrong, if you said it,
you'd be laughed out of an undergraduate English class.

Morally relativist and historically revisionist BS.

~~~
gwern
Well, because _Beowulf_ is a Christianized retelling of earlier more pagan
versions adding in moralizing (and of course involves a fair bit of
nationalism/ethnicism although most people tend to ignore the allusions to the
backstories and dynasties because it's hard to keep straight even if it's
equally hard to miss that Beowulf dying is considered very ominous for the
survivors), so it follows the same pattern as King Arthur discussed in OP:
what was originally a relatively neutral set of stories about a warrior
fighting monsters then becomes morally inflected - Grendel is not just a
bandit or some monster, but he's a descendant of Cain, the first murderer and
fratricide, inimitably evil and opposed to all mankind and core Anglo-Saxon
moral values like hospitality and feasting which he cannibalistically
perverts, and his dam can only be slain by a weapon from Genesis.

~~~
Mithaldu
Isn't any form of "monster" just a cheap "this thing is evil" marker?

~~~
gwern
I don't think so. Are the monsters in _Shadow of the Colossus_ evil? Are
Humbaba or the Bull of Heaven in Gilgamesh evil? After all, Humbaba may have
been 'terrible' but that was his assignment from the gods. (Was Satan the
tempter in the Book of Job Evil with a capital E?) They may be dangerous to
humans and destructive, but they are merely doing their job or following their
nature. It might be better to refer to them, Rowlingesque, as 'fantastic
beasts' rather than 'monsters' to avoid the loaded connotations.

~~~
goatlover
Are Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers just monsters? What about the monsters and
demons on Supernatural that the Winchester brothers kill because they hurt
people?

At what point is something a monster that does bad versus a bad guy that does
bad?

~~~
gwern
Let me try again with an even more mundane example. Is a tiger an evil monster
just because it may eat people? At what point is a tiger just an animal which
does something people don't like vs a _bad_ guy that does _bad_? How about a
landslide? What would it take to make a landslide _evil_ with a capital E?

~~~
goatlover
In context of the article, it's the myth of good guys versus bad guys instead
of gray characters. That means these characters have moral choices to make. A
tiger doesn't understand morality, while Kylo Ren and does, but chooses to do
join/stay on the dark side, which means causing a lot of people harm, which
he's fully aware of.

We don't hold a tiger morally responsible, while most of the beings on the tv
show Supernatural would be, since they're capable of making moral choices.
Even the ST Borg understand morality, although they consider it irrelevant.
But the Federation would probably hold them responsible, if they had the power
to put the Borg Queen on trial, like they ended up doing with the Changeling
lead female character from the Dominion.

------
ccleve
It's a fine essay, right up to this point: "The ostensibly moral face-off
between good and evil is a recent invention that evolved in concert with
modern nationalism – and, ultimately, it gives voice to a political vision not
an ethical one."

What utter drivel.

The moral face-off between good and evil is core to a great many religions,
most notably Christianity. Concepts of right and wrong, and the clash between
them, has formed the core of many strains of philosophical, religious,
cultural and literary thought for 2,500 years, at least.

Such thought, particularly Christian thought, has influenced the literature of
Western Europe for many centuries. It's hard to find a writer who was not at
least aware of God-vs-the-devil story lines.

Sorry, professor, but western civilization has existed for much longer than
you imagine. Not everything is political, ok?

~~~
dvt
That same quote made me roll my eyes. You would literally be laughed out of an
undergraduate English class if you made that claim. I guess Beowulf and The
Odyssey weren't moral face-offs?

~~~
Sangermaine
>I guess Beowulf and The Odyssey weren't moral face-offs?

No, they aren't.

What's the "moral face-off" in Beowulf? He goes to help the King of the Danes
defeat the monster Grendel. Then he returns home to become king and eventually
dies fighting a dragon. Who is the "bad guy"? It's not a moral lesson about
good and evil, but about virtues and qualities like bravery important to
Anglo-Saxon society.

Same with the Odyssey. What's the "moral face-off"? Who's the bad guy?
Odysseus has to wander because he had angered the god Poseidon, and goes
through a series of adventures and ordeals as a result. It's not a moral
struggle of good and evil, it's again a tale about important qualities like
obedience to the gods.

Neither of those stories are "good guy vs. bad guy" stories in any way.

~~~
dvt
_Really?_ Why is Grendel characterized as "evil" and a "fiend in hell"? Why
does Beowulf exemplify traits of courage, bravery, and self-sacrifice? Why is
Beowulf already famous for his "good" and "glorious" deeds?

I was re-reading the intro, and ran into this gem[1]:

    
    
        105
    	the wretched creature      ruled for a time
            since him the Creator      had condemned
    	with the kin of Cain;      that killing avenged
    

Totally forgot about this _literal_ reference to Cain (of Cain and Abel fame).
I mean, you're about as wrong as wrong gets.

[1] [http://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-
text.html](http://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html)

~~~
Sangermaine
Nope. You’re confusing “antagonist” with “bad guy”. I’m fact, much of your
confusion, and the confusion in the other comments, stems from conflating
“protagonist” and “antagonist” with “hero” and “villain”.

Beowulf is a tale of a brave warrior vanquishing monsters, not a struggle of
good and evil, anymore than a story about someone hunting a wolf described as
“monstrous” or “evil” is a moral tale.

It’s similar to what the author points out about the Arthurian stories. The
original French tales were about brave knights fighting beasts and monsters to
display their strength and bravery. It was only later versions that
transformed them into moral paragons fighting representations of human
weaknesses and evils.

I also note you conspicuously forgot the Odyssey in your response.

~~~
dvt
>Beowulf is a tale of a brave warrior vanquishing monsters, not a struggle of
good and evil, anymore than a story about someone hunting a wolf described as
“monstrous” or “evil” is a moral tale.

Beowulf is a story about Beowulf displaying favorable virtues by overcoming a
bunch of challenges. The Odyssey is a story about Odysseus displaying
favorable virtues by overcoming a bunch of challenges. These virtues include
justice, honor, courage, honesty, prudence, and so on -- this is the GOOD. The
challenges include monsters, hardships, annoyed gods, and so on -- this is the
EVIL.

Your analysis is highly reductive. I guess the New Testament about a cool dude
that made 12 friends.

