Power of the Dark Side

by Pamela Jaye Smith

  IT’S ALL A SETUP

  Greek myths have a curious woman unable to resist opening a forbidden box and releasing all the ills of the world. Thank goodness there was one thing left in Pandora’s Box — Hope.

  Some thinkers observe that Yahweh used reverse psychology on Eve and Adam because he knew if he told them to study and go to the school of life, they’d cut class and refuse to do their homework. Like Mark Twain’s cunning boy in Tom Sawyer, who made others pay to paint the fence for him, Yahweh let the Serpent beguile Eve into showing some initiative and taking the path of Knowledge instead of just hanging around Paradise on an eternal vacation. The Persian poet Omar Khayyam, a Sufi mystic, has a rather cynical view of this setup and refuses to take the blame for his own inclinations and actions:

  Oh, Thou, who didst with Pitfall and with Gin

  Beset the Road I was to wander in,

  Thou wilt not with Predestination round

  Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?

  Or in plainer English, “Hey, God created both my appetites and martinis, so how is it my fault if I drink them?”

  IT’S ALL A GAME

  Those marvelous last scenes in the Men in Black movies show our galaxy and many others as just pieces in a vast game of marbles. Sufi poet Khayyam again offers an opinion:

  Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

  Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

  Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

  And one by one back in the Closet lays.

  Note the resemblance to Shakespeare’s As You Like It:

  All the world’s a stage,

  And all the men and women merely players:

  They have their exits and their entrances;

  And one man in his time plays many parts

  IT’S ALL A CLASSROOM

  Some think the existence of the Dark Side is like weights at the gym: there to help build spiritual muscles. Some reincarnationists see Evil as Karma, simply the balancing out of one action with another. You persecute others in one lifetime; you will be persecuted in another.

  Earth as a primary prep school for the more sacred planets is part of some lore. In a few others, this is a rehab or prison planet… which would explain a lot, actually.

  IT’S NOT OUR FAULT

  Author Zecharia Sitchen interpreted as true the ancient Sumerian myths about the Anunaki, extraterrestrials who came to earth looking for resources and slaves. They performed genetic engineering on proto-human simians, created modern people, and put us to work in mines. Stargate the movie and TV series, as well as the popular cyber-punk novel Snow Crash, take off on this.

  Scientology tells about ancient entities from other planets sent to earth for punishment, who attach to humans and cause all sorts of problems.

  Julian May’s Many-Colored Land quartet has aliens crashing here during the Pleistocene Era and becoming the early gods, who interact with humans from the modern era using a time machine to interact with… well, they’re wonderfully complex novels.

  In another time-twisting approach, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy blames it on an elegant science experiment conducted on our planet by white rats, foiled by bureaucracy.

  IT’S ALL OUR FAULT

  Manichaean dualism deals with light trapped in matter, the Greek Orphic mystery religion stresses duality within the individual, and Swahili thought views us as a combination of good and evil, matter and spirit.

  The angel Gabriel is said to have removed the Haab (dark spot) from Mohammed’s heart. The Wisdom Schools teach that there’s a dark spot within the heart of everything. Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now explore this concept within individuals.

  Anthropologists, evolutionary psychologists, and the slightly cynical might simply note our animal nature or reptilian brains, complete with cutthroat competition and oppressive hierarchies.

  IT’S NOBODY’S FAULT

  It’s just the way things are. Nobody made it, nobody went bad, nobody goofed. This is reality. Accept it. Work with it.

  For an amusing explanation of why there is evil, web search “shit happens.”

  IN YOUR CREATIONS

  Dramatic conflict can be heightened by giving different characters conflicting philosophical interpretations: choose one for Character A and a different one for Character B, combine, then stand back. Or take a character from one belief system to another and watch their actions shift. In The Matrix, Keanu Reeves’ Neo goes through a major transformation as he wakes up to reality and shifts from fighting boredom to fighting evil machines and bad people.

  Based on natural selection so far, what might the next 65 million years look like? Will humans, like dolphins and whales, throw up our hands, give up so-called civilization, and go back to the sea to splash about, sing, and have lots of sex? Club Med thinks so.

  WHAT DOES EVIL WANT?

  Bwa-ha-ha-ha — world domination! Or, maybe not.

  MAYBE IT WANTS TO TEACH US

  Mythic systems feature monsters, demons, and seductive evils, both real and symbolic. Wise observers say it’s to get us to explore and redeem the darkness within ourselves.

  Greek tragedies dramatically portray the down side of going to the Dark Side. Because he accidentally married his own mother, Oedipus teaches us to do an Internet search on your dates before you get intimate (Looking for Mister Goodbar, Body Heat, Fatal Attraction). Singer and string player Orpheus was torn to bits by Maenads, girls gone wild; he teaches performers to leave the stage while you’re still on top, before all goes bad and the fans tear you apart (Performance, The Doors, Almost Famous, Still Crazy).

  In the Old Testament, Satan (Hebrew for “adversary”) was often working with/for Yahweh, testing humans like Job.

  The fable about Midas’s golden touch and the movie Wall Street show the wages of greed, while Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and the HBO series Rome reveal how power corrupts. The background conflict in the TV series Babylon 5 is over the best way for the old races to spur evolution of younger races: “Conflict!” urge the vicious Shadows, or “Support!” offer the benevolent Vorlons.

  MAYBE IT WANTS TO PROTECT US

  Evil is just a good that’s been held onto too long, or so the Ageless Wisdom tells us. Some racism may be an aversion to outsiders who carry deadly germs, as with the decimation of Pacific Islanders by European colonists’ diseases. Science has revealed that this aversion to “other” is hardwired into our brains.

  Psychologists note how defense mechanisms of our youth become neurosis in our adulthood, as in Postcards from the Edge where Carrie Fisher strives for recognition beneath her movie star mom’s shadow. Grown-up wounds cause scabby characteristics, like Jane Austin’s gloomy Mister Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, and Ayn Rand’s hyper-individualistic heroes in Atlas Shrugged.

  MAYBE IT WANTS ITS OWN REDEMPTION

  Deathbed conversions are familiar stories. Darth Vader finally reaches out to his son Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi. Colonel Kurtz, who realizes he’s gone way over the edge of sanity and forgiveness, encourages Captain Willard to sacrifice him in Apocalypse Now.

  MAYBE IT WANTS POWER,

  SELF-AGGRANDIZEMENT, REVENGE

  Natural Born Killers (murderous kids and ravenous media), Hotel Rwanda (ethnic hatreds), the Godfather trilogy (mob rivalries), and The Lord of the Rings (power struggles for empire) explore these aspects of the Dark Side on a rampage.

  MAYBE IT JUST WANTS DESTRUCTION

  In Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, writer/director/star Craven explains Freddie Kreuger as the embodiment of an ancient evil that thrives on the death of innocents. In Schindler’s List, Nazi Ralph Fiennes admits he’s in thrall to the destruction of his tormenting desire for a Jewish woman.

  IN YOUR CREATIONS

  Whatever it wants, Evil is powerful and undeniable. You need to know the ultimate goal of your Evil people, events, and situations, since that will determine both motivations and a
ctions in your story. Your antagonists will fight for it; your protagonist against it. It can also provide surprises and resolutions as you reveal the deeper meanings behind characters’ actions.

  WHY IS EVIL SOMETIMES

  SO ALLURING?

  The nature of life is growth, expansion, exploration. To fit into society we must curb our natural impulse towards total expansion of Self and the indulgence of all our desires. People or situations who throw off these constraints are intriguing because they manifest our deepest drives. The eternal battle between Self and Others is the conundrum of civilization. When do we demand our due? When do we sacrifice for others? The allure of Evil may well be the allure of doing just as we desire, without having to consider anyone else’s well being.

  A great example is Ian Richardson playing unscrupulous Francis Urguhart in the BBC miniseries House of Cards, To Play the King, and The Final Cut. We see Urquhart’s villainy at the very beginning, yet as he breaks the fourth wall and comments to us, we are drawn into his Machiavellian manipulations, and we watch with fascinated horror as he uses other people’s faults and foibles to hoist them on their own petards.

  Also, there’s no doubt we have a morbid fascination with destruction. Maybe it’s instinct. Maybe it’s perversity. Maybe it’s an inherent disassociation of our soul from our body. Witness lookieloo slowdowns for highway crashes and the sexual aberration focused on car accidents explored in J.G. Ballard’s book and David Cronenberg’s movie Crash.

  Then there’s awe of the sublime, our fascination with the mystery and sheer beauty of power, be it a raging storm or a pouncing tiger. We respond in different ways: freeze like deer in headlights (Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs), challenge it (The Perfect Storm), submit like weaker dogs to an alpha (Ian McShane and Powers Booth’s alpha-male characters in the HBO series Deadwood), or take power up and wield it over others (Aragorn and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings).

  We desire to test our mettle, and what better way than against the truly worthy opponent. What’s the value of fighting a small thing? Going up against the really big bad guys brings much more glory. Clarice going up against Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs takes a lot of courage, and it makes her a heroine.

  IN YOUR CREATIONS

  Be clear what aspect attracts your character. Show us the ups and downs. Reveal the attraction in small bits, beginning with curiosity, moving to fascinating, then to sign-on, and ultimately to satisfaction or sorrow.

  WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE

  BETWEEN EVIL AND BAD?

  Motivation. Or the lack thereof. Evil has intent to harm. Bad is simply the opposite of good, a bit of antisocial rebellion. It’s the difference between bunko squad and homicide. It’s misdemeanors versus felonies.

  Danny, Rizzo, and Kenickie in Grease are bad; Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin in The Wild One ride towards evil. In Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, outlaw Vin Diesel is a bad man — and the only one who can stop the really evil guys. The vigilante twins of Boondock Saints may be bad, but they’re not evil. They’re balancing the indifference of good men towards evil men.

  Philadelphia is about a bad impersonal disease (AIDS); Angels in America is about the evil tendency to ignore that disease and punish the victims.

  In Armeggedon, Bruce Willis battles a rock. The rock has no intent – it’s not evil, it’s just really bad for us. The alien antagonists of Independence Day have evil intentions of taking over earth. In both cases it’s a bunch of deadheads who save us, led by Willis in Armeggedon and Randy Quaid in Independence Day.

  IN YOUR CREATIONS

  It’s all about motivation. Have characters discover the difference through the course of the story. In Double Indemnity and Body Heat, the men think the women are just bad, but they’re really evil. Conversely, when the supposedly evil turns out to be simply bad, typical dialogue goes, “I was wrong about you,” as in Road Warrior when the refuges discover Mad Max isn’t one of the evil marauders. In Boondock Saints, the discovery is an hilarious scene with Willem Dafoe in a Catholic confessional.

  WHAT CAN WE LEARN

  FROM EVIL?

  What not to do. Or if you’re leaning towards the Dark Side, some good tips.

  By confronting Evil we learn our strengths and weaknesses. We learn what counts. We learn our prejudices and the weaknesses in our systems and defenses. In psychology as in physics, stress will occur at the point of least resistance, offering instant analysis on what needs fixing.

  Tragedies offer catharsis and instruction. German philosopher Friedrich Nietszche advises, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Would we condemn the fire that tempers the steel? Without it there is no sword.

  IN YOUR CREATIONS

  Craft your story such that your heroine is challenged both within and without, so your audience can be enlightened and informed in a similar way.

  Whatever Evil or Dark Side your characters face, be sure they learn some lesson and that both they and we get it, even if they don’t apply it in this story.

  HOW DO WE DEFEAT/

  DEFUSE EVIL?

  Various answers have impelled people to toss virgins into volcanoes, wear hair shirts, and crawl cruel miles on their hands and knees. Others have been impelled to shrug at the seeming injustice of existence, then set about bettering the world.

  Just as many mythologies have Teacher Gods, they also have Protector Gods. Artemis/Diana protected Greco-Roman mothers during childbirth. Resurrecting Saviour Gods — Egyptian Osiris, Mesopotamian Dammuz, Norse Baldur, and Christian Jesus — are often called upon as protectors from evil and death. The Asian goddess Kwan Yin protects homes, and Catholic Saint Christopher protects travelers.

  IN YOUR CREATIONS

  In Chapter 12, “Confronting the Dark Side,” there are many more suggestions that vary according to the nature of the Evil, the abilities of your protagonist, and the tools at hand.

  CONCLUSION

  It is fatally naïve to believe there is no real danger, no Dark Side, no evil in humanity and the world. Most of our energies are dedicated to holding back the tide of Darkness, be it battling our own flaws, those who wish us harm, fighting disease, struggling against the elements, or resisting the march of time. How we approach this endless challenge molds our stories and our very lives. The seemingly eternal conflict between good and evil, the light and the dark, is what makes good stories. Your conscious use of varying attitudes and approaches to this conflict can make great stories.

  II

  THE THREE

  LEVELS OF THE

  DARK SIDE

  Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you, but it may not be Darth Vader himself causing you all that trouble.

  Common sense as well as the Ageless Wisdom divides the Dark Side into three aspects: personal, impersonal, and supra-personal. It’s the classic paradigm of only three storylines: man against man, man against nature, man against the gods.

  2.

  THE DWELLER ON

  THE THRESHOLD –

  PERSONAL

  Our own Shadow

  Illness, wounds, and death

  When bad things happen to silly people

  Dark night of the Soul

  Gang-related

  Karma

  Can’t finish that script? Don’t have the relationship you want? Others don’t appreciate your genius? Too often we blame our failures on the indifference or wrath of the gods or the evil actions of the Dark Ones. Most often though, it’s just us getting in our own way. The Devil Tarot Card shows a naked man and woman chained to a block upon which crouches a devil. Their chains are loose — the bondage is of their own making. It’s more the Dim Side than the Dark Side. Then there are illnesses, phobias, stupidity, social ills, and spiritual dilemmas… all hold us back.

  These internal glitches are called “The Dweller on the Threshold.” Whatever its source or manifestation, the Dweller blocks the doorway to our dreams. The Ageless Wisdom says the only way to mov
e through the doorway is to “become the doorway.” Once your character admits the problem and deals with it, they can move on. Indiana Jones conquered his snake phobia in Raiders of the Lost Ark and saved the day. Alan Rickman’s Dr. Lazarus softened his arrogance in Galaxy Quest to give a dying young alien, and himself, the gift of true acceptance.

  Here are some major Dwellers that block our Thresholds.

  OUR OWN SHADOW

  Cynicism, laziness, petulance, procrastination, phobias, arrogance, entitlement, obsessions, guilt, etc.: Our core wounds and fatal flaws are triggers for drama. They foil our plans, hold us back, and like a wicked magnet, seem to draw misfortune down upon us.

  Reincarnationists say our foibles are the blowback of deeds from other lifetimes. Other religions blame our own tendencies and/or supernatural temptation and persecution. Psychologists look to early experiences and unconscious desires. Astrologists talk about being born under a bad sign. Psychiatrist Carl Jung called unacknowledged and unexpressed parts of our selves our Shadow. Mythologist Joseph Campbell pointed out the parallel psychological symbolism of Threshold Guardians in Hero’s Journey myths.