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Evil: Sauron or Cersei?

Which is your preference? The overwhelming, unrepentant personification of all that is dark and destructive and terrible? Or a character with clear motivation that, while they do horrible things, their justifications make them feel as if they aren't the villain of the piece?

The former is easier to write, but the latter feels so much more satisfying to me.

Thoughts?
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Cersei for certain. She has so many flaws, an unquenchable lust for power, but she she loves her children fiercely.

She combines elements we loathe with qualities we empathize with. For my money that's always a more intriguing villain.

However, in comparing the 2 stories I'd place Sauron more on par with The Others.
 
I imagine they will...but there's something viscerally satisfying about the Sauron-style evil all the same.

Maybe because its more satisfying to destroy a personification of evil than a 'real' person?
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Or a character with clear motivation that, while they do horrible things, their justifications make them feel as if they aren't the villain of the piece?

How can you not think of Cersei as a villain? That she uses her children to justify herself is only another evil that she's committing. After all, the betrayals started happening before there were children.
 
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How can you not think of Cersei as a villain? That she uses her children to justify herself is only another evil that she's committing.

Thank you. That is one of the many problems I have with A Song of Ice and Fire. Despite George RR Martin saying that there are no good or evil characters, many of his characters ARE good and evil. Cersei is an example. She follows after her father. Both Tywin and Cersei never truly loved their children, but saw them as their property. Also in many ways, Cersei is more evil than Sauron. Her actions have inadvertantly destroyed the unity on an empire(the Seven Kingdoms are an empire in my mind), costed the lives of hundred of thousands of innocent people, left the entire empire bankrupt, and because of that, Westeros is ill prepared to handle Aegon, Dany, and the Others coming through the Wall. All because her husband called her the wrong name.

Sauron however wasn't like his master Morgoth, who wanted to destroy every thing. Sauron wanted to conquer Middle Earth. His evil was focused.

But that was my too cents.
 
How can you not think of Cersei as a villain?

She's definitely a villain. But Cersei probably doesn't view herself as a villain. Whereas Sauron (or the Devil, for example) might view himself that way.

"The villain is the hero of their own story", as someone once said.
 
I agree, I prefer the latter. Maybe because we can understand them easier. The ultimate villain who is completely evil in every way is hard for most people to relate to. Just like when we see in the news about someone killing innocent people or children, or other horrific crimes; we look at it and say how can that person do those things?

But when we see a villain that has clear motivation for their evil or misguided ways, we can at least see their reasoning behind their "bad guy" ways, why they do what they do.

But I think mainly they are just more interesting characters when they are complicated, and not 1-dimensional evil villains.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
She's definitely a villain. But Cersei probably doesn't view herself as a villain. Whereas Sauron (or the Devil, for example) might view himself that way.

I don't . . . I don't understand what kind of difference self-perception makes. Is Cersei somehow more real? I've had people tell me, pretty frankly, that they were bad people, that they'd done things which were unacceptable by their own standards, that they'd still do them again. What kind of difference does denial make?
 
I don't . . . I don't understand what kind of difference self-perception makes. Is Cersei somehow more real? I've had people tell me, pretty frankly, that they were bad people, that they'd done things which were unacceptable by their own standards, that they'd still do them again. What kind of difference does denial make?

I don't think it's necessarily denial. It's a difference in morality and what actions you view as acceptable or unacceptable.

If you've done something you view as unacceptable and would do it again, that speaks to me more of a cognitive dissonance. If the action really wasn't acceptable, they wouldn't have done it.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
If you've done something you view as unacceptable and would do it again, that speaks to me more of a cognitive dissonance. If the action really wasn't acceptable, they wouldn't have done it.

People aren't as simple as a simple statement of logic would ask them to be.

An example of what I've personally heard, how about someone who walks out on their kids because if they stayed, they'd end up being abusive? That person had a clear perception of himself as a bad guy, and didn't have any denial about what he should have done - which is to stay, and to not be abusive - and still he would do it again because it was easier, because he thought of himself as weak, because he wasn't willing to fight with himself.

He clearly thought of himself of a bad guy, and had come to accept it.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Cersei is certainly a villain but is she truly evil? I don't think so. She is delusional yes. She is misguided for sure. However she still has human qualities I can relate to.

She feels wronged in how she was given to the king and had to endure a loveless, philandering marriage. She feels slighted because women are viewed as weaker. She does love her children, albeit in a warped sense. She feels irrelevant without power. Losing her children & her power are her greatest fears.

She's not as black & white as saying that she's a villain because her husband called her another woman's name. If you think that you're missing the character's point entirely.

Sauron is pure evil and malice. A one dimensional personification of evil. That character creates zero sympathy for the reader (that's Gollum's job).
 
I don't . . . I don't understand what kind of difference self-perception makes. Is Cersei somehow more real? I've had people tell me, pretty frankly, that they were bad people, that they'd done things which were unacceptable by their own standards, that they'd still do them again. What kind of difference does denial make?

The difference is that ProfessorBrainfever said

Or a character with clear motivation that, while they do horrible things, their justifications make them feel as if they aren't the villain of the piece?

and you replied:

How can you not think of Cersei as a villain?

PBF was talking about characters who don't perceive themselves as villains, and you were talking about the reader perceiving characters as villains. The difference between those two things is pretty obvious. You guys are talking about two different things.
 

Mindfire

Istar
This is going to sound like a cop-out, but I choose both. Why? Because when you have both villain types together in the same story they play off of one another in very interesting ways. In fact, I'm doing that in my WiP right now. The main antagonist(s) are of the Cersei type- incredibly selfish or sociopathic individuals who, while not wholly diabolical, are willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want and to hell with anyone who gets in the way. However, unknown to them, they're all actually pawns in the scheme of a larger, more diabolical force that's a lot closer to the "evil personified" archetype. This creates a dynamic where the more human villains find themselves slowly losing more and more of their humanity as they give in to the power of the diabolical entity. Personally I find it more satisfying than having just one or the other alone.
 
I think every fictional villain in a non-comedic work should have at least a spark of reality, but it would be foolish to insist that they always be less cartoonish than the worst real-life villains. (Case in point: Amon Goeth.) I guess all I ask is that, before writing a certain type of villain, you do a bit of reading about real people who were like that--it's hard to properly balance banality with horror when you're working entirely off of speculation.

Edit: On second thought, I'd better clarify this, because there's no spark of reality in an outright Lovecraftian antagonist, but I can't say there's anything wrong with that type (so long as they're portrayed as unknowable rather than as the amalgam of your personal conception of evil.) I'll restrict this comment to villains that are supposed to be at least borderline human.
 
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Queshire

Auror
TOO LONG DIDN'T READ!!! X3

Anywho, I've never read whatever story you're refrencing, but I prefer the more morally grey, think what they are doing is neccesary / justified type of villian, for the simple fact that they, almost by definition, are more well rounded then the personification of evil.

Ah, but the BEST I think is if you start out with what seems like a type A then turns out to be a type B later like the Incarnation of Evil in Piers Anthony's Incarnation of Immortality series.
 
I think you guys are all skating over the real question here?

What exactly IS evil?

It's probably worth its own thread, but it's possible to perceive evil from almost any perspective. To recycle an analogy I used on another thread...what if cows were the true philosophically beautiful avatars of the universe and everyone and everything elsewhere perceived that, how would we look as we tucked into our steaks and chops and sausages? Like the gross monsters we are. But if we don't know that we are farming the gods, how can we really be evil? If we found out we were farming the gods and continued to do so then we would certainly be evil.

I should write a short story called Farming the Gods...you're not allowed to pinch it!

Did Hitler regard himself as evil? Reinhard Heydrich? Osama? No way. Hitler is still revered by some (however misguidedly) including my uncle, who was a child during the Third Reich and believes Hitler did great things for Germany post-Versailles.
 
What exactly IS evil? . . . Did Hitler regard himself as evil? Reinhard Heydrich? Osama? No way. Hitler is still revered by some (however misguidedly) including my uncle, who was a child during the Third Reich and believes Hitler did great things for Germany post-Versailles.

For the purposes of fiction, I don't think good and evil matter so much as protagonist and antagonist. You usually (though not always) need to make the protagonist at least slightly sympathetic, but there's not necessarily harm in having the antagonist be sympathetic to some or even most of your readers.
 

Queshire

Auror
yeah, if it's all the same to you all, I'd rather avoid another pointless debate on the nature of good vs evil...
 
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