Sympathy for the Devil

You know how they always say “He always seemed so nice…so quiet…the person you’d least expect…” when describing the perpetrator of some ghastly and therefore newsworthy crime? What it all boils down to is that, as humans, we will never know what’s going on inside another person’s head.

Unless you’re a writer.

And just as the human condition has given writers a reason to tell stories (after all, what are stories other than explanations of the world around you?), it has also provided a plethora of nasty little emotions and motivations that compel your average, everyday person to do some pretty awful stuff. Lust and envy and wrath and all those other deadly little sins that theologians and scientists alike have puzzled over are a writer’s bread and butter.

But what makes a writer evil, the kind of evil I aspire to, is mixing up those seven sins with seven virtues. I don’t want to read about perfectly evil people just as I don’t want to read about perfectly good people. They’re boring. They make me roll my eyes and yawn. Just as I want heroes with flaws, I want villains with merits.

Sure, the man in black who fingers his mustache and ties pretty girls to train tracks has his place, but let’s face it: he’s a one dimensional, one trick pony. He doesn’t make me invested in the story because characters like him exist solely for the hero to defeat. There’s no risk. You know from the beginning what the outcome will be.

What I love to read, and what I love to write, are books that make me care about the villain just as much as I care about the hero. Even if they need to be punished, even if what they’ve done is reprehensible, there are certain villains out there that a small part of me always wants to see succeed. Because they aren’t that mustache-twiddling jerk, they are real people. Hurt, lonely, scared, sad, angry, whatever. Maybe they want revenge. Maybe they want power. Doesn’t really matter what they want or how they go about trying to get it. You take me inside that character’s head and force me to discover the humanity within, and I will forgive them almost anything. More than that, I will cheer them on.

I don’t believe anyone is born evil. There are reasons why people do the things they do. A truly evil writer can reveal this to the reader through bits of back story or moments of weakness, self doubt, and second thoughts. Then, no matter how the story ends, no matter if the villain is thrown in jail or into Mount Doom, there is a sense of loss at the end of it. A moment of silence for a wasted life. That amidst the celebratory epilogues and the ‘take that, bastard’s, the reader is left wishing that things had been able to turn out differently.

Evil writers make you sympathize with their devils, and even the most heavenly of readers will linger over that little taste of hell.