Good vs. (Incompetent) Evil

The struggle between good and evil is one of the classic staples of storytelling. The protagonist (usually representing good) goes up against the (usually overwhelming) forces of evil and, after great struggle and sacrifice, manages to defeat them and save the day. Admittedly the trend of late has been to blur the lines between "good" and "evil" a bit and make the protagonist and their opponents a bit more grey, but it is still obvious to us who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are.

Unfortunately, the trend of late also seems to be to make the bad guys less and less competent. We want to see good triumph over evil, but when it seems that evil really isn't trying that hard then good's victory seems a bit hollow.

As an example, let's look at the latest struggle between good and evil to hit the screen, James Cameron's Dances with Aliens Avatar.

Quick recap: Jake Sully arrives on the moon Pandora where the evil Colonel Quaritch is trying to mine Unobtainium. Unfortunately, the local natives have inconveniently placed their Tree of Souls on top of the richest vein of Unobtainium on the moon and Quaritch wants Sully to disguise himself as a local, infiltrate their tribe and convince them to move.

Sully decides he likes the natives better than he likes Quaritch and tells him to shove it. Quaritch then launches an attack on the natives, blowing up the Tree of Souls and killing untold numbers of the natives before the circle-of-life connected life forms of Pandora are able to defeat him with a combination of bows and arrows and flying dragons.

Yes, good has triumphed over evil again and the forces of life and nature have defeated those of violence and greed. But if you stop and think about it, how hard was evil really trying to be evil anyway?

Consider this... Quaritch has already demonstrated himself willing to kill any number of natives and destroy their Tree of Souls in order to get to the Unobtanium. He also has a starship and at least one shuttle at his disposal.

Instead of launching a fleet of helicopters that can't even protect their occupants against bows and arrows, suppose he had simply taken the shuttle out, found a conveniently-sized asteroid and given it a nudge. A few weeks or months later he could have sent the natives a message telling them to say hello to the dinosaurs for him as the asteroid smashed into Pandora, wiping out most of its biosphere. He could then send any mining team out anywhere that he wanted since there wouldn't be much above the level of a lichen left on the planet to bother them.

He could even almost maintain a level of deniability back on Earth. "Oops. Didn't see that asteroid until it was too late." He could deny knowledge of that better than his all-out attack on the natives anyway.

For that matter, he could simply tell Sully the plan and tell him he would implement it unless the natives cooperated. There wouldn't be much they could do to stop him.

(Alternatively, given how much they must know about the native's DNA in order to create the avatars in the first place, they could simply have genetically engineered a fatal disease and passed it on to the natives. They could even have infected Sully's avatar with it. Of course Dr. Augustine probably wouldn't have had anything to do with it, but infecting the locals isn't exactly something that we humans have shied away from in the past either.)

Of course, this would make a much more unsatisfying movie. In real life it seems that we see greed, corruption and evil winning all the time so in movies we want to see the good guys win. That's one of the things escapism is for. But the good guy's victory just doesn't seem the same when it feels that the only reason for their success is because the author deliberately handicapped the other side just to allow the victory. Willing suspension of disbelief fails when we have to accept that the bad guys are just so stupid that the good guys can't help but win. A better story would be one where evil lives up to its full reputation and good is still able to win.

Or, maybe the thought that good can really win over evil is the level of disbelief that most are unwilling to suspend. In that case, maybe we let good win in fiction because that is the only place we feel that it can. And that is really a sad thought.

---

1 comment on Good vs. (Incompetent) Evil:

---

Leave a Comment:

Name:

Comment:

Offensive, irrelevant, obsolete or just plain annoying comments may be removed at any time without notice.