always evil races

[marycatelli]

I've heard some complaints about the Always Evil race.  To be sure, they're fun in RPGs, where you don't have to let the orc/troll/goblin take a free swing before you get down to the business of killing them and stealing their treasure.  They're grotesquely improbable, of course.

But most of the complaints revolve about the improbablity of a thoroughly evil character (which is not as improbable as it might see, but not what I'm talking about; The Terminal Orc discusses it nicely) or the improbability of a race that is in total agreement.

What strikes me most about it -- and the mirror universe, the parallel world where all the goodies are baddies and vice versa -- is the immensity impracticality of it all.  "If I am a lady, and you are a lady, who will slop the hogs?", and by the same token, if I am a thief and you are a thief, what are we going to steal?  The mirror universes perhaps have it particularly hard, since the proportions of the honest vs. the thieves would have to be reverse.  Always evil races can, perhaps, resort to warfare and slavery.  Except that it requires a fair amount of organization to pull off.  Even a band of pirates had to have internal peace and harmony (relatively speaking) to work.  They knew it, they had their articles.  But an Evil race would regard articles as a useful tool to bind others until you were ready to spring your trap, except that they, of course, would also regard them as the same.  And everyone would be endlessly looking for ways to bring others down.  Even an immensely strong and clever one would have a hard time to keep everyone down at once.

Even without the question of ambition, pride would have a continual effect of abrasion.  The orcs that Tolkien portrayed as fighting each other would be only too likely among the wrathful as well.  Greed would soon have characters fighting over what there was to be had.

Which is why uniformity would make them even more improbable.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yep, so true. A lawless, totally self-seeking "race" of creature would never be able to come together and work for a common cause--they'd always be undermining one another. And if that's the case, they wouldn't be much of a threat except as lone individual monsters. On the other hand, if they *are* able to work together and have some degree of loyalty and goals and so on, they very quickly cease to be dismissibly evil.

[marycatelli]

As Screwtape observed in the Screwtape Letters, you need some virtue to be effectively evil.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

The whole child-rearing thing would kinda kill it, too.

I have enough trouble with Star Trek and almost everyone being in huge, dozens-to-hundreds of system spanning groups, minus Plot Required Individual...planets or species. -.-

[marycatelli]

How true! Raising children can only go so low before the race dies out.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Brian Jacques had trouble depicting the "vermin" cultures as simultaneously Always Evil and credible threats (because their hordes tended to self-destruct in civil wars). The most rational way to interpret this based on the information in the Redwall books is that most of these cultures are only about as Evil (at home) as the typical pre-modern civilization (which means slavery and extreme exploitation with fairly brutal means of keeping order), but the ones the heroes encounter are the warlords, brigands and pirates, who are probably a bit too Evil to remain happy at home. There's hints in the books that it actually works this way.

[marycatelli]

Pre-modern civilizations were not Evil but limited in resources.

A modern day society on those principles would indeed be Evil.

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of a conversation I had once with the wonderful Terry Pratchett who said that he had loved Tolkien as a child, but that even as a child he could not help wondering, "Wasn't there ever an orc who wrote poetry? Wasn't there ever an elf who kicked a bunny?"

(I asked him if that was where diskworld came from, and he said, "Exactly!")

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I was nodding in agreement at your two comments, which prompted me to look at your journal (insta-stalking!), and I saw your mention of Firefly, which my younger daughter and I just started watching--and *that* made me think of our expostulations over the "reavers" that appeared in episode three (I think), precisely on this trope of evilty-evil of the most evil! They are introduced in an earlier episode as a group that will rape you to death and then EAT you (yikes) and being so scary that everyone wants to run away whenever they show up... so my daughter was saying, "Well, what are they doing when they're not raping and eating people? Like... do they go bowling?"

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

LOL Oh, that's hilarious. They bowl and write poetry with Orcs...while Mel kicks a bunny.

If I recall, the movie Serenity--despite its many flaws--does explain the Reavers.

[marycatelli]

Almost always a virtue, explaining things that make people ask questions.

[marycatelli]

To be sure, there are plenty of groups that would appear as Always Evil to the people whose POV we never leave.

[marycatelli]

If you've read the Similarion you know that all the elves are angelically good because the evil ones got themselves killed off in the First Age.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Pratchett is old enough that he couldn't read 'The Silmarillion' as a child, so I suppose he missed out on all the nasty elves in that, and on the origin of Orcs as corrupted, enslaved elves too.

I'm a little surprised that a reader could register the Elves in the Hobbit as being non-bunny-kickers though. The Hobbit goblins, too, are less obviously evil than the LOTR ones. I would say the Hobbit book-goblins come across as more xenophobic and greedy than universally evil?

I've always been slightly baffled by Tolkien's struggles with the Orc problem. I'm not sure why the Orcs NEED to be universally evil. I mean, there are human beings allied to Sauron too, and nobody suggests that humans are universally evil.

He has some orcs that say they came down from the North to take revenge for what happened in Moria, and then there are the Morgul-orcs that talk about taking off into the hills and setting up on their own with no 'big bosses'. I'm not sure why Tolkien thought they had to be unredeemably evil to behave that way. They could just have a really nasty culture problem, reinforced from on high.

When I was a child, I wanted to see how an orc-imp would turn out if it was brought up well. :-D

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... and in fact, in the Hobbit, goblins DO write - well, if not poetry exactly, then at least songs...

"Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!
Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!"

Is it too much of a stretch to assume that while the popular Goblins are composing ditties of this kind, some solitary, academic-minded goblin is quietly coming up with verses about the nature of evil or the inevitability of death? As long as he doesn't try to prevent the other goblins stealing ponies or snacking on strayed hobbit, I don't really understand why that would change the nature of the books, any more than Gollum eating goblins changes the general nature and role of the Hobbits.

[marycatelli]

Well, there's a lot of people who wrestled the always-evil cannon fodder thataway, but -- Tolkien wasn't one of them.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

He didn't *think* he was one of them. But - Tolkien wrote Leaf By Niggle, as well as Gorbag's hopeful plans for a future outside Mordor.

If there was ever an author with an awareness that the creation sometimes goes in directions that the author didn't really intend, Tolkien is it.

[marycatelli]

He was the author. He knew they were all evil. He just couldn't make it make sense.

The Hobbit is a rather toned-down version. Even in Middle Earth, you might not tell your children the full horror of monsters.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

This is why it's so odd, I think, that he doesn't write them as remarkably, outstandingly evil beyond salvation.

Shagrat and Gorbag, for example, come over as very nasty people, but not more than that. They come across as the kind of nasty, everyday evil that occurs rather a lot in people who don't think it's important to be anything else. It's their ordinariness that is horrible. I wonder what was behind his feeling that the theological 'all evil' element needed to be there.

There's a fair bit in his letters about the problem of evil, but the idea that 'you must have an evil race and the Orcs are it' I don't remember really being examined.

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

While I never thought about an orc imp, I used to think about that theme all the time...what if the kids from all those 'kid destined to be evil' movies was raised well?

I started a book on that subject once but never got very far.

[marycatelli]

Depends on why the kid was destined to be evil. Psychopaths are difficult if not impossible to raise well. Or if the child was diabolically possessed from infancy. . . which would mean the irrevocable choice was made before.

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

Tolkien probably started this with his Orcs, but people forget that his Orcs were not natural creatures...they were monsters bred from twised elves by the bad guys. Basically a slave race of warriers.

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

And even Tolkien in his later years became increasingly uncomfortable with what he had wrought, and there are several lengthy essays and pages of notes and ponderings in which he struggled with how to reconcile the Orcs as irredeemably evil with the principle that nothing was evil from the start. He toyed with the theories that they were actually the embodied form of fallen lesser Maiar, or that they were in fact a sort of organic robots, anthropoid creatures that moved only as their master's will impelled them, and as Morgoth and then Sauron dilluted their wills through various magical workings, the Orcs and Trolls increasingly took on the appearance of free will, to the point they could even seem to work at cross-purposes to their master.

Reading The History of Middle Earth gives many interesting insights on Tolkien's creative process, and particularly how he'd create something in a rush of inspiration and then struggle to fit it into the deeper structures of his Secondary World.

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

Isn't that just how the imagination works!

[marycatelli]

All the time. . . .

[marycatelli]

Well, there's the little issue of practical, in-this-world redeemability, which could be make impractical by producing sociopaths. A society of sociopaths would come to a screeching halt very quickly, that's the problem.

The puppets could, perhaps, be finangled if he figured out a way to get them to act generally on his will, semi-independently -- then his conflcting desires would erupt into conflict.

[marycatelli]

A background that gets omitted from most treatments of them.

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

[robert mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

I wonder. We have certainly seen many examples close to "Always Evil" groups of people here in the Real world. Sparta would seem to do well for an "Orc" society, and we know of the last Spartan poet, so it would seem that it is possible that no Orcs would write poetry. And the Soviet Union had many pointless engineering projects that gave Russia the stink of Mordor to this day. And it was certainly an Evil society, that lasted until there was nothing more for them to steal. So an country of Evil that wants to take over the world and ruin it seems quite possible. It gets more interesting when we consider that the Soviet Union lasted as long as it did because of this idea, that Orcs are just like us, and write poetry. They got a lot of food shipments, factories, loans and other material support because people believed the Russian People shouldn't have to suffer because their government was opposed to ours. How many suffered and died under this corrupt and Evil system because we lacked the mercy of the executioner?

[marycatelli]

There were dissenters in the Soviet Union.

Though Sparta certainly is the model for as military as a society can get -- and uses the slaves solution to slopping the hogs.

[robert mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

Dissenters? Sure. Did they accomplish much? No. Think of how much worse it would be in the average Fantasy environment. And think of how many of the Dissenters turned out to be Cat's-paws, spies preying on our need to believe that the Soviet's weren't evil....

[marycatelli]

But that would be an Evil Society, not an Evil Race.

[robert mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

Sure, but that's really what we are talking about. I can't think of any examples of fantasy races (I'm sure they're out there, but they made no impression) that were not unitary societies. Second, note that none of the discussion of "Evil Races" on this thread involved Race. All the objection is about how the Society would not work. All the people on this thread assume Free Will. Not a bad thing, but perhaps not correct in a fantasy world with Magic. I think of the Spartans, and what they did to themselves, for generations, of their own Free Will. What might they have become with access to Magic? How long before they would be an actual separate, evil Race?

[marycatelli]

No, we're really talking about Evil Races, like I said up front. The unitary society doesn't mean that they are both.

[robert mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

Except we really aren't talking about Evil Races, just humans with pointy ears. Heck, Evil Races are more believable then Evil Societies, despite the fact the second exists and the first doesn't. Let us talk of an Evil Race, self aware army ants. How would we deal with them? They want to eat us. It is a war to the knife, and is going to stay that way. There are no dissidents, it is a hive mind. It answers all your complaints in your post and is quite, quite possible. Heck, it might be happening now, we aren't sure Hive Minds don't exist, and we certainly haven't been able to stop the spread of Fire Ants. If they are or become Sentient, but now aware enough to overcome their instincts, I think they would have to be classed as an Evil Race, if for no other reason then our frames of reference are too different, while too many of our needs are the same.

[marycatelli]

The essence of anthood is lack of self-awareness. You might as well attribute self-awareness to a missile. Sure, they could be extremely dangerous, which does not differentiate them from a flood.

[robert mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

First, no. We have the term "Hive Mind" for a reason. People who study social insects such as ants, bees, and termites, came up with the term to describe the alarming way(your mileage may vary) they seem to be aware and/or intelligent when acting as a group. Army Ants making a bridge across a river, for example.

Second, I thought we were talking about Fantasy Races. Are you saying that an Intelligent Hive Mind Ant race is not possible in a world of Magic and Dragons? If possible, then how would "they" not qualify as an "Always Evil Race"?

[marycatelli]

"Hive mind" is a fictional construct. To be sure, it's based on real world stuff, but the mark of intelligence is not highly complex behavior. It's being able to modulate it as needed.

A genuine hive mind, of course, would no more be a society than your brain cells are a society.

[marycatelli]

besides, average fantasy setting is medievaloid tech, and magic. There's no rule that the magic has to work against the dissenters instead of for them.

[robert mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

Well, no, but in a world of Truth Spells, that's the way to bet. And I was thinking of a world without a solid communication net, or an America to get the message to.

[marycatelli]

Even if they have truth spells -- not guaranteed-- they have to know to use them.

[robert mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

Why? The Soviets watched everyone, as best they could. What could they have done with Magic? It's not like you are going to have a "right to privacy" in an evil society....

[marycatelli]

If magic's powerful enough to watch and detect problems -- if human judgment is involved it hits the same problem as the Soviets faced -- it's powerful enough to baffle such watching. Probably better. It's easy to jam something that to make it work.

[robert mitchell (from livejournal.com)]

I'm not saying that magic can detect problems. I am saying that keeping a network of revolutionaries secret is going to be problematic in a world with Love Potions and Speak with Dead. The real world can Rape your body. The Fantasy world can Rape your Soul......

[marycatelli]

The revoluntionaries can magic them back.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

It depends on the cost of magic. If it is rare and difficult, it will give an advantage to the State, which is rich and powerful and can afford to use it.

As Orwell noted, it is no accident that periods in history when the prevailing weapons were simple to use and cheap to manufacture have tended to be the periods of greatest personal liberty. The longbow and the rifle are democratic weapons; the armoured knight, the tank, and the bomber are authoritarian weapons. The Soviet dissidents never had anything like enough armed force to overthrow the Communist Party; and there is no a priori reason why their magical analogues would have enough magical force to overthrow the Evil Overlord.

[marycatelli]

There is the slight complication that while weapons can be brought to bear in one place, for the surveillance necessary to suppress all dissident you have to bring it to bear in all places at all times. That's kinda costly.

Bringing down the Soviet Union was beyond them. And the surveillance wss such that people from there would constantly glance over their shoulders while talking even in America. But it didn't produce a populace that acted like an Evil Race out of fear of it.

[akilika.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it... my immediate thought was that I didn't have problems with Always Evil Creatures, but then I realized that most of the ones I thought of were different to this. Dracula-style vampires, for example, which are definitionally evil... but not social, and appear to exist in small enough numbers to prey on Good's resources without having grand, trust-requiring structures to build their own. (Although that one's complicated by appearing human, and thus being able to make long-term plans without having anyone REALIZE you're totally evil. Hmm...)

Well, really, anything in small enough numbers, and unsociable enough, that it can live solely as a parasite off of productive society. Tales are full of this sort of thing, I'd thought--hags or ogres preying on villages, et cetera. Except... it doesn't really matter if they're Always Evil if you're unlikely to run into more than one (unless you REALLY search), huh?

And how are you to tell if they're always evil, if they keep to such individual corners of the world?


AGH. Yes, the more I think about it, I think I missed the point entirely.

(Although now I'm having a bit of fun thinking of Unicorns as the inverse, the solitary Always Good. At least in The Last Unicorn, which I recently read. Heh.)

[marycatelli]

Yes, massing them together gives an evaluation advantage.

Always Good characters, of course, suffer from the disadvantage that they do not make good stories.