On the nature of evil in the Wheel of Time
Just jotting down a few things I was thinking about in the car on my way to drop a T-Day plate off to a friend.
So, WoT has several analogues to LotR, but it's not a one for one copy, and again, though WoT isn't nearly as meta GoT is the series does very deliberately explore the nature of evil and what drove several people to serve the Dark One. Of the Forsaken, one of them chose to serve the DO for philosophical reasons, one because some event that we don't specifically know about shattered their worldview/moral framework and they decided "oh fuckitall, why not be bad, since doing good did nothing for me and has left me miserable", most of them out of envy of some sort, and two very specifically felt that the normal rules shouldn't apply to them.
But, unlike LotR, WoT establishes that one does not have to serve the DO to be evil and do evil. In fact, there are two distinct evil forces that are not under his control and that his servants fear just as much as anybody else. One of the evils came out of a culture that decided that "the victory of the light is all", that is to say, the ends justify the means, and that ultimately turned them into something just as vile as that which they despised ... before that evilness became manifest and killed them all.
The 2nd evil force is more akin to a force of (super)nature, and a case might be made that it is actually just a deeply unpleasant and destructive force of nature, and to call it evil is to call a tornado or an earthquake evil. I say it's aware enough to know what it is doing, its hunger is insatiable, and it delights in cruelty
There is also one character in particular who would fight to her dying breath against the DO and his minions, but she's also some Grade A nasty because, ultimately, she's more concerned about what she wants (and often what she wants right now), than what is best for everybody else, and/or herself. Her evil is rooted in narcissism and self-absorption.
Which brings us to the thread that links all the evil in the world of WoT. To be evil is to be, in one way or another, selfish. Be it through vanity, lack of compassion, or even the philosophical view that evil's going to win, I might as well throw in with the winners.
So, WoT has several analogues to LotR, but it's not a one for one copy, and again, though WoT isn't nearly as meta GoT is the series does very deliberately explore the nature of evil and what drove several people to serve the Dark One. Of the Forsaken, one of them chose to serve the DO for philosophical reasons, one because some event that we don't specifically know about shattered their worldview/moral framework and they decided "oh fuckitall, why not be bad, since doing good did nothing for me and has left me miserable", most of them out of envy of some sort, and two very specifically felt that the normal rules shouldn't apply to them.
But, unlike LotR, WoT establishes that one does not have to serve the DO to be evil and do evil. In fact, there are two distinct evil forces that are not under his control and that his servants fear just as much as anybody else. One of the evils came out of a culture that decided that "the victory of the light is all", that is to say, the ends justify the means, and that ultimately turned them into something just as vile as that which they despised ... before that evilness became manifest and killed them all.
The 2nd evil force is more akin to a force of (super)nature, and a case might be made that it is actually just a deeply unpleasant and destructive force of nature, and to call it evil is to call a tornado or an earthquake evil. I say it's aware enough to know what it is doing, its hunger is insatiable, and it delights in cruelty
There is also one character in particular who would fight to her dying breath against the DO and his minions, but she's also some Grade A nasty because, ultimately, she's more concerned about what she wants (and often what she wants right now), than what is best for everybody else, and/or herself. Her evil is rooted in narcissism and self-absorption.
Which brings us to the thread that links all the evil in the world of WoT. To be evil is to be, in one way or another, selfish. Be it through vanity, lack of compassion, or even the philosophical view that evil's going to win, I might as well throw in with the winners.