Motifs--Evil

Alyria is a world of evil. We all stare into the abyss and find that we are damned. Darkness taints us all, and through it the world is scarred. Some openly embrace the darkness, yet many others pursue it blindly, calling it by other names. Some call it “power”. Some call it “money”. Some call it “vengeance”. Some call it “religion”. Some call it “God”. Yet evil is rarely as powerful as it appears. It is not a mighty creator. Rather it is a gnawing in darkness, a vile loathing of what is good, a selfish demanding that the world bow to me, me, me. Evil is not found first in great and powerful villains. It is found in the petty act, the little cheat, the tiny white lie. And yet, it is so sweet. So sweet and seductive. How easy it is to take that first step into the willing darkness. It tantalizes, it seduces, but in the end all it can offer is the void, the empty gnawing hunger for something more.

Evil is a hideous thing in Alyria. However, it should not become a cliché. There is a place for dramatic evil, like a dark ritual involving human sacrifice. However, evil in Alyria extends to simple selfishness in the face of greater need. What if one of the characters was a miser, hoarding his money and refusing to share? Not quite the riveting face of evil. However, this was Ebenezer Scrooge’s evil that was the focus of A Christmas Carol. Such evil is not meaningless, and including it does not trivialize evil. In fact, this view takes evil quite seriously, because it does not excuse evil on a small scale.