• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

The Epic and shades of grey

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
In recent fantasy, there has been a trend towards stories with complex political situations, shades of grey characters and plots focused on personal goals and personal growth. In a world where readers and writers increasingly acknowledge that things aren't all black and white, does the epic quest still have a place? Can the epic reconcile with the shades of grey approach, where the villain isn't evil, but rather just has a different perspective than the protagonist (and possibly a different moral outlook, but again, not evil)?

Can anyone suggest any recent novels which have an epic story with shades of grey? Is anyone writing one now? What challenges are involved, and where do the two different approaches ork well together?
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Look at Jaqueline Carey's Banewreaker to see a traditional, Tolkieneque epic turned sideways with respect to morality and villains.

I think the epic quest can be reconciled with "shades of grey" morality, but I do think that there is something about the black/white, good/evil dichotomy that speaks innately to human beings. So while you see a lot of the "shades of grey" on the market, the works that tend to really resonate and gain a huge readership seem to be predominantly black/white - LotR, Potter, Narnia, and so on.

I suppose one challenge you have to overcome is that of pulling the reader in emotionally and allowing them the same vicarious thrill when the protagonists win. It's easier to get that investment when you've got one side that are clearly the good guys, struggling against evil, and the reader can become wholly invested in them and their ultimate triumph. With the shades of grey approach, the reader's own questions about conflicting morality can take some of that away.
 
Last edited:

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
Joe Abercrombie's writing is pretty epic, but deals with lots of gray characters. A Song of Ice and Fire is about as epic as it gets and its filled with black, gray, white, and any other color under the sun type of character type you could imagine. :) Oftentimes when gray characters are mentioned, it's often the evil side that people focus the most on. A character like Tyrion Lannister is gray. He does some pretty evil things, but is also has a good heart for certain kinds of people. I think readers tend to focus more on his good side, because they like him. I think gray characters being relatable in epic fantasy has to do with how likable the characters are. If they're all sneering, soulless, mercenaries, then people may not care about them as much. But if the sneering mercenary fights because he wants to pay off a ransom for his daughter, then maybe the reader empathizes with him more.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
I would say, absolutely yes, the epic quest still has a place. If fact, the point of the whole journey of the epic quest can be to find the land of shades of grey.

We're working on a series that will eventually see the end of this Age of Man. Is that epic? We spend a lot of time looking at the natures of "good" and "evil." The villian is the hero of their own story.

Was Darth Vader evil? Did he wake up in the morning and think "I'm evil?" Does he kill a lot of people? Yes. Does that make him evil? Did it make Harry Truman evil when he gave the "go" order to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki? In this case, I think it's fair to look at motivation to define evil, and considering the over-arching story of Star Wars is the redemption of Anakin Skywalker, then no, probably not.

Was Smaug evil? He was just acting according to his dragon nature. Is the hurricane evil? Most people would say no.

Was Sauron evil? ...yeah, gonna have to come down on the side of yes, here, but he's a character who consciously and consistantly made the choice to be evil over and over. As such, he's a bit one-faceted, and I don't think he'd really be believable in todays fantasy. Evil for evil's sake just doesn't cut it anymore.

In our series, we have demons who are capable of loving, in their own fashion, and angels who commit atrocities in the name of the "greater good." We have villians who end up sacrificing themselves for their children, and heroes who have commited unspeakable acts in their pasts who now seek redemption. The universe is shaking the dice, preparing to roll it out with the end of the Age, and everyone is placing their bets on who comes out on top. Is the ultimate goal of the epic quest the triumph of "good" over "evil?" The question really does complicate things, but yes, I say it still has a place.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
Depends on how you define "evil". Take Robert E. Lee of Civil War infamy for example. He fought for a cause he probably regarded as noble, but for him "noble" behavior would have included whipping enslaved African people fifty times and washing their wounds with brine if they tried to run away. I on the other hand would regard such behavior as evil. Absolute good and evil may not be useful concepts, but that doesn't mean a story can't have an unambiguous moral message.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Depends on how you define "evil". Take Robert E. Lee of Civil War infamy for example. He fought for a cause he probably regarded as noble, but for him "noble" behavior would have included whipping enslaved African people fifty times and washing their wounds with brine if they tried to run away. I on the other hand would regard such behavior as evil. Absolute good and evil may not be useful concepts, but that doesn't mean a story can't have an unambiguous moral message.

Actually, Lee wrote quite clearly that he considered slavery a "moral and political evil." However, in those days States were viewed more akin to sovereign countries that had joined together under a common "federal" government and ceded some of their authority to it. People's loyalties lay with states in much the way people are loyal to countries. Lee fought for the south because Virginia joined the Confederacy. If Virginia had stayed with the north, Lee would have fought for the north.
 

Mindfire

Istar
In fact, it was not until after the war that the U.S. was fully viewed as a single country rather than a conglomerate of smaller ones. ...According to National Treasure, anyway.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
In fact, it was not until after the war that the U.S. was fully viewed as a single country rather than a conglomerate of smaller ones. ...According to National Treasure, anyway.

Yeah, and actually state sovereignty still exists, though not on the scale you'd expect as a country. But the Federal Government still has laws struck down when they don't fall within the "interstate" nature of its jurisdiction but are instead directed to wholly-intrastate activities.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
Whatever he claimed in his rhetoric, the part about Lee owning slaves and punishing them that way is true. In fact I quoted the whips and brine part almost verbatim from one of his slaves' testimonies. But I mainly cited Lee as my example of culturally sanctioned evil because I didn't want to pick a certain over-cited German statesman.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Whatever he claimed in his rhetoric, the part about Lee owning slaves and punishing them that way is true. In fact I quoted the whips and brine part almost verbatim from one of his slaves' testimonies. But I mainly cited Lee as my example of culturally sanctioned evil because I didn't want to pick a certain over-cited German statesman.

I think you've been misinformed, though if you have a reference to suggest I'll take a look. There is a published account of William Mack Lee, Rev., published by the man in the early 1900s, and it is completely at odds with what you've said. He was born on Lee's plantation in somewhere in the 1820s or 30s, though he says Lee freed everyone ten years or so before the civil war. He also stayed with Lee until Lee died. You can see parts of the book at the Univ. of North Carolina web site, here: Rev. William Mack Lee, b. 1835. History of the Life of Rev. Wm. Mack Lee, Body Servant of General Robert E. Lee ...

If you look at Lee's letters, you'll find accounts of problems he had with slaves (belonging to his father-in-law, I think, since I don't think he owned any outright, personally), and punishments he had inflicted by the sheriff at one point (whipping being typical), so there's certainly some of that going on, but the idea in your post that Lee would have considered this noble isn't supported by any evidence, and seems to me to be an exaggeration at best.
 
Last edited:

teacup

Auror
I'm writing one now, the "bad guy" of the story is shown to be incredibly cruel and evil early on. Then, when you're given a more in depth look into his character and even some of his thoughts it's clear that he isn't exactly "evil" and has good reason for what he's doing, though most wouldn't justify it anyway.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
I think you've been misinformed, though if you have a reference to suggest I'll take a look. There is a published account of William Mack Lee, Rev., published by the man in the early 1900s, and it is completely at odds with what you've said. He was born on Lee's plantation in somewhere in the 1820s or 30s, though he says Lee freed everyone ten years or so before the civil war. He also stayed with Lee until Lee died. You can see parts of the book at the Univ. of North Carolina web site, here: Rev. William Mack Lee, b. 1835. History of the Life of Rev. Wm. Mack Lee, Body Servant of General Robert E. Lee ...

If you look at Lee's letters, you'll find accounts of problems he had with slaves (belonging to his father-in-law, I think, since I don't think he owned any outright, personally), and punishments he had inflicted by the sheriff at one point (whipping being typical), so there's certainly some of that going on, but the idea in your post that Lee would have considered this noble isn't supported by any evidence, and seems to me to be an exaggeration at best.

I got it from here. Pay special attention to the eighth footnote.

EDIT: Wait a minute, William Mack Lee is your source?

EDIT 2: Never mind, the second source I cite seems to doubt both Mack Lee and Norris. The doubt shown toward's Norris's account doesn't really convince me though.

Look, I didn't mean to get into an argument about the Civil War. That's not even my area of expertise to be honest.
 
Last edited:
Does an epic even need an animate villain? The primary component seems to be the quest rather than the clash--the protagonist needs to go and bring back something, and faces trials along the way. Those trials may be foes, but they may also be against an event or a location rather than an embodied foe (say, a mountain that seems too high to climb.)
 

Ophiucha

Auror
Certainly the roots of the fantasy epic were a bit more grey. The Odyssey, for instance. Odysseus wasn't perfect or completely good (by Ancient Greek standards, at least). He had a bit of hubris, a classic Greek flaw, as demonstrated by his taunting of the Cyclops. He had a lot of different villains, but half of them were gods - all of which are mostly grey, and mostly a lighter shade - and the other half were monsters, arguably just driven by their nature. Not the nicest nature, but still.

I don't really see any reason a classic fantasy epic couldn't be more grey, either. Heck, from my perspective, it makes it all feel a little better. There's something uncomfortable about the inarguably good characters brutally murdering dozens of sentient beings simply because they are inarguably evil. At the very least, having a protagonist who isn't meant to be a paragon of virtue makes the whole business a bit more excusable from a moral perspective.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I think what someone brought up earlier about the most popular epics depicting good and evil battling against each other resonates the most with readers (Harry Potter, LOTR, etc.) This is most likely due to their upbringing when children or students even. When I was younger, any books I read had a clear hero and a clear villain. Readers can more easily identify with these types of characters because it doesn't require them to think too deeply. When readers just want to read something for fun (which I think a lot of people do with Harry Potter) they don't want to get into complicated morality and such. They want to say "OK, Harry is the hero, Voldemort is the villain. I expect Harry to destroy Voldemort. Let's see how he does it." If Harry was a gray character, who for instance obliterated Draco Malfoy in the one of the early books, people may have viewed him differently.
 

Mindfire

Istar
I think what someone brought up earlier about the most popular epics depicting good and evil battling against each other resonates the most with readers (Harry Potter, LOTR, etc.) This is most likely due to their upbringing when children or students even. When I was younger, any books I read had a clear hero and a clear villain. Readers can more easily identify with these types of characters because it doesn't require them to think too deeply. When readers just want to read something for fun (which I think a lot of people do with Harry Potter) they don't want to get into complicated morality and such. They want to say "OK, Harry is the hero, Voldemort is the villain. I expect Harry to destroy Voldemort. Let's see how he does it." If Harry was a gray character, who for instance obliterated Draco Malfoy in the one of the early books, people may have viewed him differently.

I don't know. In one of the really early drafts of my WIP, my main character was a kid around Harry's age who was attending a school for superheroes (it was a really weird first draft and i'm glad i scrapped most of it) and he totally thrashed and severely burned (literally burned, as in with magic fire) a half-giant kid who tried to bully him (like I said, weird draft). I thought it was quite heroic at the time. :D
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
I think what someone brought up earlier about the most popular epics depicting good and evil battling against each other resonates the most with readers (Harry Potter, LOTR, etc.) This is most likely due to their upbringing when children or students even. When I was younger, any books I read had a clear hero and a clear villain. Readers can more easily identify with these types of characters because it doesn't require them to think too deeply. When readers just want to read something for fun (which I think a lot of people do with Harry Potter) they don't want to get into complicated morality and such. They want to say "OK, Harry is the hero, Voldemort is the villain. I expect Harry to destroy Voldemort. Let's see how he does it." If Harry was a gray character, who for instance obliterated Draco Malfoy in the one of the early books, people may have viewed him differently.

This is a very interesting point.

Up until this point in reading through this thread (after the diversion to explore arguments about the War of Northern Aggression), my thoughts were that writing "gray" characters are a part of making character more realistic.

This post made me question that assumption.

I think that "real" characters have flaws, but their motivations can still be pure. Your hero may be a liar, but he can still choose to save the day because he's selfless. Your villian can stop to save a puppy from being run over and still kill the hero just for sheer cussedness.

Thanks for bringing up this point.
 
Top