• Explore options your protagonist can use to confront, counteract, and defeat the Dark Side
• Suggest story tools for using all this information
BUT I’M WRITING A COMEDY,
ROMANCE, CHILDREN’S FANTASY,
OR DOCUMENTARY…
Since conflict is the very heart of story, these principles apply in any style, any genre.
The Dark Side is there in comedies: Dr. Evil and Mini-Me in Austin Powers, Cold War cartoon spies Boris and Natasha in the Bullwinkle TV series, and Cruella DeVil of Dalmation deviousness. Evil may not always pay, but sometimes it can be awfully funny.
Stories most popular with children have some seriously evil villains and deadly dangerous situations: Harry Potter, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Star Wars. Developing young minds require a sense of meaning, self importance, and optimism; the way heroes in these stories deal with the Dark Side offers insight and encouragement for the dangers inherent in any child’s existence.
In romance stories the Dark Side is whatever comes between lovers, be it family feuds in Romeo and Juliet, 19th-century English societal barriers in Pride and Prejudice, or selfish indecisiveness in My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Documentaries are only interesting and effective if there is an us-against-them element. Whether “them” is the environment, a bureaucracy, a disease, or a situation, you will only engage our interest and stir our actions if you show us conflict and choices.
Fairy tales, comedy, romantic comedy, black comedy, drama, action-adventure, horror, tragedy, historical fiction, documentaries… all need worthy opponents, dangers to heroines, and the opportunity for your audience to observe and experience transformation as the story moves through conflict to resolution. No matter the medium — from a theatrical blockbuster to a YouTube short, a massively multiplayer online game, or a torrid romance novel — without vivid and believable antagonists and threatening situations, there can be no heroics (whether of the heart or the sword), and hence no real story.
CONCLUSION
Conflict is the very heart and soul of drama, and the Dark Side offers worlds of conflict. Enjoy the exploration, add your own insights along the way to enhance the information, and use the suggestions to strengthen and expand your own skills and experience.
Put The Power of the Dark Side to work on your side to write and create Great Villains, Dangerous Situations, and Dramatic Conflicts to entertain and enlighten us all!
CAVEAT SCRIPTOR
= WRITER BEWARE
Can writing or playing a bad guy turn you into one? Can song lyrics cause suicide? Can working on a horror movie curse your real life? Maybe.…
Storytellers create characters and situations from the sublime to the scary, the silly to the sleazy. Many of us find that our real lives imitate the stories we are working on, and vice versa. In Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, evil-incarnate Freddy Krueger enters the real world through the filmmakers’ dreams and emotions. Once a thing is seen as cursed, that feeling seems to bring about its own fulfillment; watch theater actors shiver when you mention “The Scottish Play” (Macbeth). Sophisticated philosophies have always taught that our perceptions influence our individual experience of reality, though not necessarily actual reality. If your perceptions are filled with Evil and the Dark Side while you’re working on a project, it’s fairly typical that some of that will spill over into your real life. How does that happen? What can you do to maintain a higher perspective and healthy balance?
Every thing that exists has a unique character, essence, or “isness”, whether rock, flower, animal, person, family, company, story genre, situation, or concept such as democracy, love, or evil. Hindu teachings call this essence, or identity, a deva and the concept is everywhere, from rose-ness to cat-ness and more. The military has esprit de corps, French for “spirit of the body”. Zeitgeist is German for “spirit of the time.” Business has institutional memory and religions have dogma. Lovers have relationships, Jung labeled personalized universal qualities archetypes, and wars are fought over ideologies.
Devas influence us according to our receptiveness: the disaffected do not thrill to the national anthem, the disillusioned lover is immune to pleas and kisses, the non-believer pooh-poohs angels and aliens. Plug into a deva, however, and your life changes: religious converts, new lovers, revolutionaries, and avid fans are all affected by devas. Since consciousness is both radiatory and magnetic, put out a particular “vibe” and you’ll attract that joy, cynicism, fear, etc. As my Texas grandmother used to tell us, “What you think about, you bring about.”
You must make your story emotionally strong and compelling for your audience. If you aren’t much affected by the relationship between you and your story, perhaps it isn’t strong enough yet. But you don’t want to be so swept up in it that you’re immobilized by your own emotions, as well as your story’s devas. Once I was reading a book about alien abductions that was so spooky I had to put it in the freezer at night so I could get to sleep. That’s a very strong deva!
Storytellers have thin veils between their own souls and the rest of reality. That’s what makes them so valuable — they can be a mirror and a movie screen for the rest of humanity, who have a curiosity for variety and adventure but often not the inclination, time, or courage to go there themselves.
The Hero’s Journey involves a descent to the underworld, a battling with the forces of darkness, and a return with a boon for the community. Jesus harrowed Hell, sending the righteous to Heaven; Greek heroes Aeneas and Ulysses visited the scary bits of the underworld and gained support for their journeys; in The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf returned from his fall into the fiery abyss a stronger Wizard. All came back transformed with new insights and information to aid themselves and others. You can do this too, from your own descent into the shadow world of your stories.
One tenet in spiritual training is about range. The higher you ascend, the deeper you descend. Once you’ve seen the light on some situation, what better to do with it than take it down into the darkness where it’s needed. Most of us wouldn’t voluntarily do that, so life often conspires to send us there anyway. See what is drawn to you, and remember that that is what needs to be harrowed out, transformed, and released. Your privilege and your duty as storytellers is to do that for the rest of us, too, through the heroes and heroines you create.
Chapter 12, “Confronting the Dark Side,” has many suggestions for you and your characters.
I
DEFINING THE
DARK SIDE
Before we use the Dark Side in our stories we need to understand it as well as possible so we don’t create silly stereotypes or laughable situations, but rather great depth and effectiveness, regardless of genre or style. Because we write for the entire world these days, we need to be aware of diverse perspectives and experiences even as we reach towards the universal truths inside each one.
1.
WHAT DARK SIDE?
What is Evil?
Who is Evil?
Why is there Evil?
What does Evil want?
Why is Evil sometimes so alluring?
What’s the difference between Evil and Bad?
What can we learn from Evil?
How do we defeat/defuse Evil?
Your characters will be richer if you know and include their worldview of Evil, its origins, its goals, and its methods, since these beliefs will color how they approach every aspect of the emotions and actions in the story. Dramatic conflict can be enhanced by bringing different characters’ belief systems against each other, as well as taking a character through an arc from one belief to another, or to/from, from/to lack of belief.
WHAT IS EVIL?
IT DEPENDS WHO YOU ASK
Take death. Christianity calls death the wages of sin, a punishment. Buddhists see it as release from earthly suffering. Hindus deify death in the god Shiva, a natural part of the cycle of life. Simba’s dad in The Lion King took a similar stance from the lion’s point of view; no
doubt the gazelles were not so sanguine about their place on the food chain. Assisted suicide is murder to some and sweet release to others. Some insist evil is just a perception; others insist pure Evil exists.
IT DEPENDS ON YOUR PERSPECTIVE
Military strategy often calls for a surgical strike to remove a growing problem. Eliminate one person or small group, the theory goes, and save hundreds or thousands. Would killing Hitler early on have been a good thing? Most would say yes. Yet we debate dropping atomic bombs on Japan to end war in the Pacific.
Tough love probably feels pretty evil to the person on the receiving end of it, such as teenagers struggling with parents over discipline-and-safety versus exploration-and-self-definition.
Pride and Prejudice makes clear the Bennett girls must battle not only a confining social structure where people of higher class barely recognize the existence of others, but also a silly mother. We find the social structure outdated, but we understand that those characters are bound within it.
Characters in the movie Underworld: Evolution, which pits vampires against werewolves, is full of judgment and justifications that vary greatly from side to side, though humans consider them all evil.
IN YOUR CREATIONS
The most interesting stories are those that lift the veils of convention and turn perspective around. As you build the world your heroine lives in, be sure to give clear indications of what people in her world consider good and bad. We need some idea of who’s against who and why, though of course we want you to throw us off, toss up surprises, and offer new insights.
WHO IS EVIL?
IT DEPENDS ON WHO’S DECIDING
Some traditions say the battle between Lucifer and the Archangel Michael was the battle between intellect and emotion. Emotion won and humans have been manipulated by it ever since. Lucifer, which means “light-bringer” in Latin, brings critical-thinking skills: the ability to assess situations and motives, foresee consequences, and make informed decisions. Faith is an emotion that takes the place of knowledge and is a powerful tool to control the unthinking masses.
Oppressive societies control communications, burn books, close schools, and kill intellectuals. If people lack information and critical-thinking skills, you can better control them through fear.
Fundamentalists of all stripes see “other” as evil.
Catholicism says seven years old is the age of accountability, so that’s when you do your first Confession and Holy Communion. Supposedly you then understand right from wrong on a higher conceptual level than just the instinctual punishment-or-reward behavioral programming a kid gets. Dog-owners swear their animals can look furtively around before they do something “wrong,” and then look whiningly guilty when caught. Then again, a one-year-old dog is equivalent to a seven year old child.…
The charming animated film Curse of the Were-Rabbit has a slant on evil similar to that of many of the mystery systems, such as Mithraism and Masonry. When Wallace is warned “Beware the beast within,” the nature of the beast is revealed when he looks in a mirror and sees… himself.
Some think no one does anything unless they believe they’ll get some good from others, from some deity, or from themselves via self-righteousness. Others think when we’re doing wrong, we know darn well it’s wrong, but do it anyway. Then the “good” faction says we do wrong to get our good. Maybe. Yet sometimes you know you’re hurting someone but you don’t stop, you just keep feeding that dark/guilty/shameful maw inside yourself. Then the “good” faction says, “See, you were getting something you wanted — you wanted to feel awful.” About then I throw my hands up and exit that debate.
At one end of the sliding scale of guilt is the person who simply does not have the brain wiring to feel shame or remorse. In Se7en, serial killer Kevin Spacey thinks he’s performing a service to humanity by displaying the horrors of our sins. These people are called psychopaths. At the other end is the overly guilty, no-boundaries person who assumes blame for everything from the weather, to the food, to the state of the world. These people are called codependent.
Then there are somewhat bad people who kill evil people to save others, like the scruffy Catholic twins in Boondock Saints assassinating murderous Mafia guys, or outlaw Vin Diesel slaying evil necromongers out to take over the universe in Chronicles of Riddick.
IT DEPENDS ON TIME AND PLACE
In the conservative American ‘50s and ‘60s movies with wicked children, such as The Bad Seed and Village of the Damned, were horrifying because evil was embodied in children. Now it’s no shocker for kids to be blood-sucking, murderous, evil demons. In stories, that is; we’d still like them to behave in restaurants and - theaters.
Women who smoke, wear pants, or speak their minds are considered scandalous in repressive times, like Victorian England and many contemporary cultures. Rebellious, pot-smoking, bra-burners of the 1960s became the gray-haired heroines of the later Feminist Movement, but girls of the 2000s hardly acknowledge them.
In some cultures a girl who even holds hands with a man can still be slain by her family for dishonoring them. Yet among the Tuareg of North Africa, unmarried girls are expected to have as much sex as possible with as many men as possible and to prove their fertility before marriage.
Cultural definitions of evil and impropriety vary so much as to be puzzling, if not downright comical. An Internet search for “silly laws” reveals it’s illegal in Thailand to leave the house without underwear, in Sweden prostitution is legal but it is not legal to avail oneself of a prostitute’s services, donkeys can’t sleep in bathtubs in Arizona, and sex with animals is forbidden in Texas.
American soldiers flying over Mogadishu in helicopters offended Muslims because their legs were hanging out the sides of the choppers and they were “showing the soles of their feet,” a supreme insult in that culture. The Black Hawk Down movie didn’t mention this, but it’s thought to have been an emotional trigger for that anti-American backlash.
IN YOUR CREATIONS
The more specifically and strongly you define Evil for the different characters in your story’s situation, the more you heighten dramatic conflict. The sliding scale concept is an essential aspect of the character arc, transformation, and resolution.
WHY IS THERE EVIL?
Does it matter where evil comes from? For your characters, yes, it does, because their beliefs will influence their motivations and actions. People who believe in an afterlife may be much more willing to sacrifice themselves than people who think it’s this life and this life only. People who base their actions on expected rewards or punishment from a Higher Being may be willing to break laws and make sacrifices in the here and now.
According to Duality theories, good and evil, light and dark continually battle for dominance, with one or the other destined to win. Both Judeo-Christianity and Islam posit an eventual victory by good over evil, so there’s an inherent optimism even as believers suffer, become martyrs or murderers. Arthurian tales and stories of the Crusades, such as Kingdom of Heaven, reflect this view, as both Christian Crusaders and the Muslims they fought believed God/Allah would bring them victory.
The Teutonic system of northern Europe foretells Ragnarok, the dissolution of all things; yet it instills a sense of honor that encourages fighting against the inevitable. Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas about the fall of the Norse gods, and Star Trek’s gloomy Klingons embody this pessimistic but valiant philosophy.
In Unity theories “It’s all good,” and seeming duality is merely maya (illusion). Opposites arise mutually and cannot exist without each other. Rising above duality places one above conflict and is said to bring comfort, peace, and ultimately nirvana (total impersonal bliss). The round yin/yang symbol of Taoism illustrates the concept with intertwined dark and light tear shapes, each containing a spot of the other.
Yet both Duality and Unity beg an explanation as to why there is evil. Here are some.
SOMEBODY REBELLED
Judeo-Christianity posits a war
in heaven between Yahweh and Lucifer. John Milton’s Paradise Lost and William Blake’s art and poetry richly recount this story.
A tale from mystic Islam relates a disillusioned Lucifer departing because God reneged on his initial agreement to always put angels first. Other Islamic traditions pose the deceiver Iblis (similar to Christian Satan) against the will of Allah.
The Siberian Tunga people’s devil is Buninka, who challenges God. African Bushmen have Kaang the good creator versus Gauna who brings evil and trouble.
Even this duality of rebellion is reconciled in some mythologies into a unity. The Zoroastrian mythology of ancient Persia says that Ahura-Mazda the good allows Ahriman the evil to express itself, then eventually be conquered by good.
SOMEBODY GOOFED
A popular New Age explanation for how the world got this wonky is that our predecessors, the Atlanteans, were so technologically advanced they got too big for their britches, used crystal powers unwisely, and set off tectonic shifts that sank the continent. Some escaped to carry on secret teachings in the spirituality of the Egyptians, Celts, and Mesoamericans. This theory has echoes in Plato, Ignatius Donnely’s Atlantis, and Madame Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine.
Some Hindu Vedic stories recount that earthlings had sponsors from Venus helping us out during the Atlantean era, but after pride led to our downfall they gave up on us, left the planet in disgust, and put up a “Quarantine” sign. Supposedly, the quarantine was lifted once we exploded the first atomic bomb, and now beings from other worlds are once again visiting earth. Whether or not this is good or bad depends on whether you’re watching X-Files, Alien Nation, or Men in Black, all of which deal in different ways with extraterrestrials.
Power of the Dark Side Page 2
