Evil? A thought about the darkness in us all.
What is it, how do we reconcile it, how do I think about it when I write.
One of my favorite quotes from a movie is…
I am a serial killer, we look like everyone else.
— Wendsday Adams, on her trick or treat consume
I discovered the macabre and the Adams family in my local library in the ‘Adult’ section when I was eleven. I have been fascinated by the darkness ever since. I have explored death and dystopian ideas over the years. But none has been more interesting than the idea of evil.
Stephen King actually said something about writing evil characters.
“They are really very simple, evil characters feel themselves totally justified, they are only looking out from themselves. No one, see’s themselves as evil.”
So what is Evil?
Oh there are plenty of ways to dice this. We tend to see Evil as a very dramatic thing. Serial killers, Genocidal dictators. But as in the two statement above evil is all around us all the time. Evil is a value judgement by an observer of the perpetrator. In general we never see ourselves as evil, guilt or remorse is the closest we generally get.
