Why I Like The Dark Cloud

[Steerpike]

You mean why a loving God would permit the existence of evil?

Yes. One explanation you hear is that it is necessary to have evil if you want good.

 

[FatCat]

I think the terms good and evil are so subjective they almost become irrelevent. One persons percieved 'evil' actions may be viewed as good, vice versa. To include the existence of one element it seems only natural that the other also be evident. I agree that without the two, neither can exist. I'd rather have a world where good exists along with evil than a world where you'd be unable to differentiate. The latter sounds too boring to contemplate.

 

[Mindfire]

Yes. One explanation you hear is that it is necessary to have evil if you want good.

I don't subscribe to that school of thought. I view it more as a process of vindication. A cosmic lawsuit trial if you will.

 

[Ankari]

. I'd rather have a world where good exists along with evil than a world where you'd be unable to differentiate. The latter sounds too boring to contemplate.

It also suggests that such a world would lack free will. Thus, much of our human nature is compromised.

 

[Steerpike]

FatCat I don't entirely agree. There are subjective elements of course, but not all of it and not enough to make the terms irrelevant.

 

[Steerpike]

It also suggests that such a world would lack free will. Thus, much of our human nature is compromised.

I don't agree with the free will argument. You can have free will without evil and certainly with less evil.

 

[Ankari]

FatCat I don't entirely agree. There are subjective elements of course, but not all of it and not enough to make the terms irrelevant.

I think FatCat is suggesting the POV of an action determines if something is good or evil. You can consider the age-old argument of a war. A nation invades another nation can be perceived as a "good" act from the invading force's POV and an "evil" act from the invaded nation's POV. I'm not talking about the military or the leadership, but rather the citizenry.

 

[Ankari]

I don't agree with the free will argument. You can have free will without evil and certainly with less evil.

I made a suggestion, once, to have a Philosophy and Symbolism Forum for this exact kind of exchange. First, I love this stuff. Second, I don't get offended.

But to your point. If I'm unable to choose to do evil, how is my free will not infringed upon?

 

[Steerpike]

I think FatCat is suggesting the POV of an action determines if something is good or evil. You can consider the age-old argument of a war. A nation invades another nation can be perceived as a "good" act from the invading force's POV and an "evil" act from the invaded nation's POV. I'm not talking about the military or the leadership, but rather the citizenry.

I don't disagree. But FatCat said the terms are so subjective as to be almost irrelevant. I don't agree with that.

 

[Steerpike]

I made a suggestion, once, to have a Philosophy and Symbolism Forum for this exact kind of exchange. First, I love this stuff. Second, I don't get offended.

But to your point. If I'm unable to choose to do evil, how is my free will not infringed upon?

I don't get offended either. I didn't say unable. I think we can agree that you and I both have the ability to choose to murder. But we don't. That doesn't negate our free will. If the world was full of people who could choose evil but did not , you still have free will.

 

[FatCat]

Woa, this thread is hoppin!

@Steerpike- I don't usually generalize, and yes there are instances where the terms can easily be applied, but in my opinion the vast majority of decisions in life all fall within a grey zone. Defining things as good and evil, in my mind, seems to be blanket statements and the irrelevence comes from that neither are wholly effective in describing almost anything.

 

[Amanita]

I hope it’s okay if I return to the original topic. There is a thread on Good and Evil somewhere already I believe.
I don’t necessarily mind dark stories but I don’t care for stories (or movies) which are only or mainly about creative forms of torture being inflicted upon the characters. Especially if the victims are helpless young women, which is still quite common for such stories.
Call it childish, but I’m also not fond of stories where the character I’m interested in dies because I like to follow him through the story.

One of the main appeals fantasy holds for me is the fact, that one person or a small group can actually make a difference through their actions and change things for the better. Therefore, I don’t really care for nihilistic stories where the main characters only make everything worse, die etc. Maybe this is more realistic in many cases, but it’s still not what I want to read. If I want realistic depictions of the worst things humans do to each other, I can turn on the evening news or pick up a newspaper which both tend to offer almost exclusively the worse bits of news.
The characters have to struggle and face problems, yes (but those don’t necessarily have to amount to torture and rape) but they should also achieve something and be in for something I can sympathize with.
I also don’t mind stories with no severe human-inflicted troubles at all if other things are interesting enough.

 

[Devor]

I don't believe in the Yin-Yang relationship. I just believe in the ability to tell that white is white because black is black.

Yin-Yang is a real Taoist philosophy about good and evil and opposites blending into one substance, so that the best philosophy of life becomes escaping both of them through the elimination of a personal will defined by those characteristics. I'm not fond of the phrase being thrown about lightly.

I believe that all people have experiential knowledge of both good and evil, but not necessarily the rational ability to define and identify instances of them apart from what we can draw from those experiences. One of the chief conclusions I think most people will draw is that good things take a lot of work to protect them, and I think that holds true for the good things about ourselves as people as well.

Apart from that, I don't have the time to get boggled into debating this time around, so this will be my only post on the thread about it.

 

[Christopher Wright]

I do like dark, gritty stuff. The Black Company is one of my favorite fantasy books. That said, I recently wandered across this quote from Ursula K. LeGuin on tumblr:

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.

And I really agree with this quote. Dark absolutely has a place in fiction, and an important one, but it does seem that it's become the "new cool" with people looking down their noses at anything that tries to even attempt at optimism, or hope, or possessing any kind of ideals. So yeah, I generally agree with Ankari, but I also keep the sentiment behind this quote in mind. Dark for dark's sake has nothing I want, and never will.

 

[Shockley]

Yin-Yang is a real Taoist philosophy about good and evil and opposites blending into one substance, so that the best philosophy of life becomes escaping both of them through the elimination of a personal will defined by those characteristics. I'm not fond of the phrase being thrown about lightly.

I believe that all people have experiential knowledge of both good and evil, but not necessarily the rational ability to define and identify instances of them apart from what we can draw from those experiences. One of the chief conclusions I think most people will draw is that good things take a lot of work to protect them, and I think that holds true for the good things about ourselves as people as well.

Apart from that, I don't have the time to get boggled into debating this time around, so this will be my only post on the thread about it.

Good god, I love that you brought Taoism up in response to that comment - the debate up to that point is more-or-less a crash course in Taoist thought.

To the debate: I'm indifferent to grittiness versus lightheartedness. A good story should have bits of both, and going too far in either direction removes the story from a more important goal - realism.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Now that I think about it, I've heard lots and lots of light-hearted stories criticized as unrealistic, but the only dark story I've ever heard criticized as unrealistic is the backstory of Warhammer 40K. In other circumstances, darkness is just assumed to be the natural state of things.

Maybe this is because most of the people I discuss fiction with are jaded teenagers . . .

 

[Mindfire]

Darkness has its place. But I think our culture has an unhealthy fascination with it. Evil is to be fought, not reveled in.

 

[Ankari]

Darkness has its place. But I think our culture has an unhealthy fascination with it. Evil is to be fought, not reveled in.

But this is exactly why I love dark fantasy. When a character survives all the death, abuse, and struggle of their plight, the are seen as victorious. I celebrate that moment when good triumphs in the face of all those obstacles.

The difference between the traditional Good vs Evil is the face of evil. With dark fantasy, evil resides in the hearts of men that look and act like the main characters. With Good vs Evil, the evil is the other race or power. One that is not us, or not meant to resemble us. It gives the reader a reassurance that our kind could never be that evil.

I want to be reminded that there have been many instances where evil has resided in us, has occupied huge chunks of our history. Yet, at the end of the day, we can overcome.

 

[Mindfire]

Too bad so much "dark fantasy" isn't about overcoming the evil within, but rather about how awesome gratuitous rape and murder is.

 

[Steerpike]

Too bad so much "dark fantasy" isn't about overcoming the evil within, but rather about how awesome gratuitous rape and murder is.

Never come across that, and I've read a lot of dark fantasy. Do you have an example?