GUILT, GRIEF, AND SHAME
These emotions are dumb, Velcro animals that rub up against you and if you’re not careful, carry you along their plodding path into the Darkness. Characters need to learn that guilt, grief, and shame are signposts, not destinations. They need to get the lesson and then move on. Drama occurs when they don’t. Films that show what happens when people get stuck there are Fisher King and The Prince of Tides (guilt), Ordinary People and Don’t Look Now (grief), and The Elephant Man and Quasi Modo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (shame).
BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN
Nature or nurture? Are some people just wicked from the womb? Science can almost pinpoint the places in the brain where imbalances mean a person will be a criminal of some sort. Does that take away the blame? Watch Stanley Kubrick’s troubling A Clockwork Orange for an exploration of social engineering on born-bad boys. How will neuroscience affect our judicial system if a person can’t help being who they are?
KARMA
Millions of people believe in Karma — the balancing out of actions over lifetimes. Build this into a character’s belief system or your story’s plot logic and you can have repercussions from the past playing out in your here-and-now. The Fountain does this, with Hugh Jackman in three disparate lifetimes. Dead Again follows a murder plot over two lifetimes. Remember there’s also family Karma, cultural Karma, racial Karma, and species Karma.
CURSES AND VOICES
If your story’s supernatural, then your characters can be lured or snatched into the Darkness with little regard for real-life logic. Be sure you’re consistent within your own story, though. Ultra-religious people are prone to possession and can be led into Darkness by the flip side of their supposed righteousness. See more at TV Evangelists and sanctimonious politicians.
Possession is very real to many people. Research why and how it works for them; offer other explanations for the process; give us characters who buy into it and others who don’t. See The Exorcist, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, The Mummy(s), spooky movies, and mental patient stories for how it can work in stories. Research neuroscience for how it actually works in the brain.
ALIENS
In the Koran, the angel Gabriel removes a dark spot (the Ha’ab) from Mohammed’s heart. This concept is highly effective in sci-fi stories such as the Cold War allegory Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Alien, where the demon seed grows inside your chest then violently bursts out; The Thing, where it commandeers your DNA; or Babylon 5, where the controlling aliens attach to your neck and the only way to get free is to get them dead drunk by drinking your own self silly. Show a real difference in your character before and after the takeover. Show them fighting it; or that it allows their Dark Side to finally flourish.
CONCLUSION
In many stories the antagonist is challenged to explain why she’s doing all the bad things she’s been doing. In Who Killed Roger Rabbit, slinky cartoon dame Jessica Rabbit huskily whispers that she isn’t really bad, she’s just drawn that way. Film noir characters offer cynical excuses. In the TV series 24, many people doing really bad things think that’s just the price they must pay to bring about good results.
In your creations, give us that moment of revelation where the character explains the whys and wherefores of her actions. The answers can be surprising, maddening, pitiful, or pathetic. Will this revelation make any difference to your protagonist? Will the antagonist change after this admission? This revelation offers an opportunity to present that bit of wisdom or wit you want us to take away from your story.
11.
DEVICES OF THE
DARK SIDE
Sleeping with the enemy
Seemed like a good idea at the time
Slippery slope
Deal with the devil
Power corrupts
Cover your ass
Violence
Go along to get along
Dumb and dumber
Your audience also wants to find out how people and things go bad.
Writers usually up the stakes by increasing the power and influence of the Villain and/or that Dangerous Situation.
This section delves into various triggers and processes that turn people bad. Sometimes it just takes a nudge; other times they must be brutalized to let go of good. For nonvillains, there are those occasions where to feed your babies or save your loved ones, an otherwise upstanding person must lie, steal, or kill; sometimes they get lured further into the Dark.
The variations are endless and the process fascinating, so show us at least some of your character’s arc and reveal some of how he becomes the way he is, not to excuse his behavior, but to get us engaged in his story as well as the protagonist’s. Here then are some of the ways it sometimes just all goes to heck in a handbasket.
SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY
Since Adam took a bite from the apple Eve offered, humans have done all sorts of bad things because of love, lust, and sex. People break society’s rules, leave jobs, abandon families, betray countries, lie, steal, and kill for love, or some version of it. Some relationships are so torrid and troubling, so love-hate, it can feel like the Stockholm Syndrome where hostages actually bond with their captors.
Great desire is subject to manipulation via great deception. Espionage organizations have sex schools to train agents in the arts of seduction. You’d think alpha males and femme fatales are more effective than nesting men and nice women, but that makes the latter better spies because you typically don’t suspect them.
It’s not unusual to hate the person you passionately desire — she makes you feel weak and addicted. Abuse and stalking can result, as well as torture and death. Crimes of passion usually get special legal treatment, akin to a plea of temporary insanity.
Love is blind, moves mountains, and can bring down kingdoms. Watch Double Indemnity, The Night Porter, Body Heat, Dangerous Liaisons, No Way Out, In the Realm of the Senses, Monster, and Basic Instinct for excellent examples of sex as the steamy road to perdition. On the lighter side, watch Grease where squeaky clean Olivia Newton John turns black-leather for love of bad boy John Travolta.
SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA
AT THE TIME
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s the Law of Unintended Consequences, when one seemingly good thing causes something else to happen and that leads to another, and to another, and the eventual outcome stinks.
Military strategy sessions ideally plan for fourth- and fifth-level consequences, but are often faced with Mission Creep, when things just get bigger than you thought possible. Rabbits were introduced into Australia for sport hunting but they quickly propagated into horrific pests, destroying much of the environment. Fire-retardant asbestos is a good insulator but really bad for the lungs. The drug Thalidomide stops morning sickness but causes deformed babies. Some dams for flood control and hydroelectric power have become ecological disasters.
In Finding Nemo the well-meaning dentist crows that he had found Nemo struggling for life and saved him, but the little fish was effectively kidnapped, and both he and his dad had to brave many dangers to get him back home. In the film Under Fire photojournalist Nick Nolte fakes live pictures of a dead leader to shore up the Nicaraguan rebels and keep American support, but his actions lead to the death of many others, including his good friend Gene Hackman.
Have your characters either not see or willfully ignore the unintended consequences of their seemingly good ideas, and remember the old saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
From the little white lie to Hitler, from the Prince of Dimness to Darth Vader, once you set foot on the Left Hand Path it’s a slippery slope with little hope of return. Most cautionary tales begin with the single misstep; usually the audience knows it’s a bad idea but the protagonist either doesn’t know, thinks it’s inconsequential, or is in a state of denial.
Sitcoms are mostly about someone telling a fib and then getting deeper and deeper entangled in the reper
cussions. Geoffrey Rush in The Tailor of Panama fabricates the truth about local intrigue in ways that quickly get out of hand, bringing in the British Secret Service and ultimately a U.S. military invasion. In the Wachowski brothers’ Bound, lesbian sexual straying leads to larceny and mob murders. Other films using this device are Wall Street about ambition and greed, The Hunger about a reporter’s curiosity about vampirism, Badlands about a young girl’s fascination with a bad boy, Heart of Darkness about European colonial rule in the Congo, and Apocalypse Now about a military commander in Viet Nam taking on god-like powers.
Marijuana is called a gateway drug to the hard stuff, though the evidence is sketchy and many recreational users never go beyond pot. Likewise, people who experiment with a bit of bondage may never get into hardcore S&M, and taking a drink needn’t lead to alcoholism. But stories are ever so much more interesting when they do.
This downhill ride can be quite hypnotic. It begins with the initial bite, then the denial, the larger crime, the cover-up, the grip of guilt, giving up any remaining inclination to do good, hardening the heart, and embracing evil. Create effective drama by focusing on three or more of these steps. How is someone lured into the first step? In most of the mentioned films, there’s someone already there who guides or lures the protagonist in via charisma. What’s the “gateway drug” of the setup: sex, money, position, knowledge? What’s at stake: reputation, marriage, career, life? Why is the cover-up worse than the crime? Show how the thing snowballs and is soon unmanageable.
A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL
Sometimes people just decide to make a deal with the devil and sell their souls for some great desire. They know it’s wrong, they know it’s risky, but they do it anyway.
Ordinary people’s jealousy often attributes this device to people with extraordinary accomplishments: Simon Magus from the New Testament, 13th-century alchemist Roger Bacon, 19th-century composer and violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini. Legend has it guitarist Robert Johnson met the devil at the crossroads and sold his soul to become the greatest blues musician ever.
Dr. Faustus sells his soul to Mephistopheles. In some versions it’s for sex and power, in others for knowledge. At the end of the former he’s whisked down to hell, but in the latter he’s redeemed for having had the courage to search for deep answers.
Though the Dark Brotherhood can supposedly defer their personal Karma from lifetime to lifetime, for a regular human who makes a deal with the devil, it may be “No money down and no interest,” but there’s always a huge and horrid balloon payment at the end. Show us that, as in Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni,” where the villainous seducer sinks through the dining room floor directly into hell, and in Oscar Wilde’s A Portrait of Dorian Gray, where the portrait had been aging instead of the man.
POWER CORRUPTS
Julius Caesar, today’s news, your big brother, your bitchy boss — we’ve all seen lots of examples of power getting out of hand when in the wrong hands. Sometimes the corruption is petty, like security guards with badges and guns. Sometimes it’s deadly, like Hitler, Pol Pot, and tribal warlords.
There’s a little something in all of us that wants to be right, to be in charge, to be in the spotlight. The more we feel wronged or ignored, the more desirous we are of power to balance that out, and the more dangerous we are if we actually get that power and there’s no one around who can or will stop us.
The movie Viva Zapata opens with barefoot hat-in-hand peasant Marlon Brando being rejected by a corrupt official behind a big desk. After leading a successful revolution and falling prey to the lure of power, the movie ends with now corrupted Brando behind the same big desk, rejecting the pleas of a barefoot hat-in-hand peasant. Political reformers often fall prey to the same process.
In Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas complains that Jesus is a glory hog, inflated by the power of his celebrity. The Masterpiece Theatre series I, Claudius is an excellent study in the abuse of power among Roman Emperors, even to apotheosis – declaring themselves gods. Throughout history, king-as-god has corrupted many a throne.
As an artist you’re probably not primarily driven by power, so you might well wonder, “Is power enough of a motivator?” The mystic explanation is that when prana (life force) is flowing through the Lower Solar Plexus, the Center of personal power, it feeds the energy needs of the entire body and is very, very invigorating. The sense of being super-alive is exhilarating, particularly for someone who hasn’t felt it before. This dynamic has been the downfall of many an artist through self-importance and greed.
Your character arc could begin with any of these: powerlessness, feeling dead inside, being used by others, lacking or being denied something greatly desired.
Show a character flaw that isn’t so awful, mostly because there is no opportunity to pursue it, e.g. fine food, kinky sex, fast cars. Once she gains power, the character swells with explosive self-importance and the flaw goes wild; like plugging a toaster directly into a power pole, the overload bursts through those weak spots and wreaks havoc.
Redemption for the power-corrupted could be an expansion of your character’s concern and care for others, even at some cost to himself. Or, just have someone or some thing finally stop him, legally or illegally, verbally or violently.
COVER YOUR ASS
It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. Lots of people get snared deeper in the Dark Side while trying to escape blame or punishment. People turn stool pigeon and rat out their buddies to save their own skin, hence the Witness Protection Program.
Texans joke there are only two rules for politics: 1) Don’t get caught, and 2) If you do get caught, turn State’s Evidence.
Cover-ups compound the crime and escalate the consequences: President Nixon and the Watergate burglary, President Reagan and Iran-Contra, AIDS in many countries, bird flu in China, the Bush Administration’s outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, and many more.
VIOLENCE
Abuse breaks something in the human soul which once broken, can seldom be repaired. The Dark Side uses those sharp fragments to create more pain by harming others, passing on the pattern to one’s children, or turning on one’s self with disgust, shame, or the desire to escape at any cost.
Sometimes people are literally forced to be bad. Children kidnapped and turned into soldiers is a horrid but real example. Books by and about African child soldiers recount being “turned” by being forced to kill family members and other children, being made sex slaves to adult soldiers, and being thrust into battle.
Though there is an instinctual cruelty in children, it’s usually socialized out by positive upbringing and the wiring for empathy that occurs around ages three to five. However, those who gleefully inflict pain and torture at an early age seldom give it up. Whether it’s bad brain wiring or any of the other possible causes, children who torture animals or other people — physically, emotionally, or mentally — usually grow up to perfect those Dark skills.
As psychological experiments have shown, we all have a sadistic streak and when given free rein, many of us indulge it. Look into Dr. Zimbardo’s famous Stanford Prison Experiment and its relevance to the Abu Ghraib prison scandals for insights into situational evil, where it’s probably the bad barrel rather than the bad apples causing the problem.
Sometimes instinctual blood lust kicks in as in Bloodsport or Fight Club (or self-defense as in Carrie), but often it’s a cold-blooded fixation. Different from the Slippery Slope paradigm, this is more a hunger-for-more. Talk to anyone who’ll admit having done something bad while knowing it was bad but kept on with it, and you’ll pick up a fascination for the lure of power and pain. Investigate China’s Cultural Revolution, The Killing Fields, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and the TV series 24 for more details.
GO ALONG TO GET ALONG
Allowing evil to occur makes you partly to blame for whatever happens. In a landmark case from the 1970s, New Yorker Kitty Genovese repeatedly screamed for help, but 18 people in the middle-class neighborhood didn’t want to
get involved, and the young woman was knifed to death.
Many schools and military academies hold responsible anyone who knows about cheating and doesn’t report it.
Most of the world ignored the Rwanda genocide and were slow to move into Darfur, some say because the people are black and there are no valuable resources in the area. Many Turks still deny the Armenian Genocide of the early 1900s, and some people deny the deadliest example, the Nazi Holocaust, wherein millions were exterminated.
Excuses are, “It’s always been that way,” “You can’t fight City Hall,” “I’m just one person,” “It’s none of my business,” and “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown,” from the Robert Towne film starring Jack Nicholson as a detective uncovering corruption about LA’s water supply.
Whistle-blowers are the heroes of this category. The U.S. has laws to protect them, and Time magazine once made three whistle-blowers Persons of the Year. Movies about this device of the Dark Side include The Insider, Silkwood, The Constant Gardener, Road to Perdition, Prince of the City, LA Confidential, and Chinatown.
DUMB AND DUMBER
Remember those Bumblers from “Bad Boys and Girls”? Sometimes people are simply too stupid to realize what’s going on, like teenagers who have sex in the spooky woods where six of their friends just got massacred by a slasher who’s still on the loose. People who take ridiculous chances in sports or homemade stunts and people who’re careless with fire and sharp edges are open to Dark Side dangers. Blithely ignoring the warning signs from bad people or dangerous situations, as well as ignoring actual signs, gets people into lots of trouble. And for those nude photos that turn up once someone’s a celebrity? “I was young and I needed the money.” The Dumb(er) device is mostly used in comedies and the horror genre.
Power of the Dark Side Page 16