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Can't stay for long, so I'll be brief and come back later if it needs fleshing out.
But I've always been attracted to the Stephen King line that "the half-life of pure evil is invariably short" (I think that's the right quote). The idea is that evil is... well, evil: inherently and unmitigatedly destructive and therefore ultimately self-destructive. In the fantasy stories I write I often take the side of the villain (who generally gets what he/she/they deserve in the end) because the question fascinates me: can you actually build any kind of lasting creation, be it a society, a religion, a world-destroying plot and so on, out of evil ingredients? Well, none of my characters have managed it: the fact that the characters are arrogant, egotistical, obsessive, unable to see beyond themselves and so on is what makes them the villains in the first place. (The chapter "Sauron and the Nature of Evil" in whats-his-name's MASTER OF MIDDLE EARTH is a good source on this).
This isn't to try to defend the cardboard cut-outs that try to pass for a lot of fantasy characters, but to me one of the interesting things about fantasy is the way it lets you write a story with the dimensions of a fable, in a world where good and evil are tangible absolutes.
Gotta run. Any thoughts, anyone?
B.
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