I have a great story to tell you. And it’s about me, Evil.
Yes, me, Evil. My name is Evil. You might have heard of me. Faint whispers in the dark, that cold breeze that tangles your hair into knots and draws marks on your skin, and that eerie feeling you get looking too long into someone’s eyes.
I came to this world all on my own. Not with Good. Everybody always pairs me up with Good. And Good always gets all the credit. It’s always “Good conquers Evil” or “Good wins in the end”. I never seem to be able to get rid of Good. It’s like an itch way down in a place you can’t reach – annoying and frustrating. I was here first, not Good. Or God. Whatever you want to call Good.
But anyway, I’m Evil. Not Good. Don’t get us confused.
Don’t get me confused with my friends either. Lust is great and beautiful – all kinds of positive – but she is a little excessive at times. She’ll have you on your knees, begging for more and then, she’ll flake on you. Just like that. She’ll disappear and you’re left with empty hands and empty pockets.
Gluttony will probably fill that emptiness. He’ll shower you with the richest, warmest foods. Food that drips with hot, sweating oil, and smells that fill the whole room until you’re suffocating for fresh air.
Greed is good friends with Gluttony. They’re very similar, except Greed hates to share. She has so much money that it would make Smaug salivate until the fire inside of him goes out.
And if you want to learn how to get absolutely nothing done, find Sloth. He’s always in his room. I don’t think he’s even seen the light of day. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen him.
But, of course, I can’t forget about Wrath. Don’t ever forget about Wrath or you’ll have to face him. And he is not a pretty sight.
Envy and Pride are two peas in a pod. They work well as a unit, always trying to rise to the top and always looking down their noses at everyone else. They are very good at what they do and will do almost anything to obtain what they want. Be wary of them, but aim to be them. That’s my advice.
So be careful. Don’t get me confused with Good and my seven deadly friends. They will tell you things – crazy stories – and you won’t know what to believe. And you will be left with dreams and half-awake fantasies of the unimaginable, teetering on the edges of sense and nonsense. Don’t listen to them, trust me, because once you do, you won’t be able to forget them.
So let me tell you my story. It’s better than any story you will ever hear from lousy Good or any of my lousy friends. It’s a story that’s won me many contests, especially with the Witches of Silko who are always looking for the best, the scariest, and the most kingly of things. It was so great they told me to take it back; they wanted to forget it. I’m guessing so I could tell them all over again.
So sit down, get comfortable, and listen. I have a great story to tell you.
*
I wrote this version of the story intending to replicate the same reaction I had with the original retelling of Leslie Silko’s story by Thomas King. Of course, I wrote it in a much more overt way than the way King told it. After telling the story to my two younger sisters, I got the reaction I wanted. And felt –well – an evil glee upon witnessing their expected pain of not knowing what the “great story” is. I found an irony in not knowing exactly what the story full of “murderous mischief” was and designed my story in the same way. Truly, this is one form of evil: hooking someone in with words and promises and never fulfilling them.
References
King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi, 2003. Print.
Hey Crista,
What a tease! How anticlimactic of you 😉
Nonetheless, excellent story! What a unique pre–amble to Thomas King’s version of Leslie Silko’s story! I have never heard of the seven deadly sins. It’s very interesting that you mention them because I recently came across something similar, yet entirely different. In Sufism, an esoteric division of Islam, there are seven souls to represent one’s evolution from bestiality through transcendence: The mineral, vegetable, animal, personal, human, and secret souls, and finally the secret of secret souls.
While I am no expert in Sufism, far from it, I can see connections between the seven souls and the seven deadly sins. In both theories, a balance of all souls/sins is needed to establish equilibrium. Here is a (very long, sorry!) link to a preview of a great book called Heart, Self & Soul: The Sufi Psychology of Growth, Balance, and Harmony by Robert Frager, a Harvard–trained psychologist: http://books.google.ca/books?id=_P3t7p-VH9gC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=mineral+soul+sufi&source=bl&ots=pAf8vTWFM1&sig=qK9J0Jt0abB-N5DRiDfbVkTis_g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=J0XnUprrJMiIogS_poHoBg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=mineral%20soul%20sufi&f=false
P.S. I hate to admit it, but I have yet to watch The Desolation of Smaug. I heard Legolas is the movie, so I’m definitely excited to see it 🙂
“Heart, Self & Soul: The Sufi Psychology of Growth, Balance, and Harmony.” Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
Hi Zara!
Thanks for the great link! It’s interesting how different faiths, beliefs and religions are but how similar they are as well. I will definitely take a look at Sufism and the seven souls.
You shouldn’t definitely watch The Desolation of Smaug. Legolas was pretty badass in the movie and a little different than how he was in the majority of LOTR.
You definitely had my heart, mind, and ears craving Evils own personal story. Yes, I admit defeat, I wanted Evil! And I absolutely love your style of writing. It was music to my eyes. It starts off soft and gentle, then it picks up a radical beat. The bass starts to jazz up the tunage, and then the climatic electric guitar solo punches you right in the face. And…BAM! It’s over. Maybe you could write up your own version of the story and post it here for the pleasure of your readers? I mean really, you’ll be doing us a service.
I found it interesting how you associated good with God. My family is Catholic, however I have chosen to not believe in God, which is a very long and boring story I wish not to subject you to. Have you thought about maybe playing evil out in a different setting? Perhaps Evil could take the face of Hades in a Greek setting.
I loved the suttle hints of the great Seven Deadly Sins, I mean friends. The way you played out their friendship and describing their personalities, very sly. I am not going to lie, the moment I read “Smaug,” the voice of your story turned into Gollum. Why? Because my brain loves dragons and how can dragons be evil. Gollum is the evil one…apparently. Getting back on track, all in all, a really great story. I will definitely be sharing this with my friends.
Thanks for the read!
-Kayla
Thank you for the comment! And haha, to be completely honest, I don’t even know what Evil’s story really is. It’s probably something worse than what I wrote with lots of cliffhangers and sinister plots and deep gruesome secrets.
I had originally wanted to tell the story of how Evil explored the earth and found Good but Evil always met, along the day, the Seven Deadly Sins. In that version, Evil was more of a lost soul than the confident, cheeky one in the story posted. And to be honest again, God was actually a typo! And I thought it would be fitting, what with the Deadly Sins so closely associated with Christianity/Catholicism. I am Protestant myself and the idea of hell and sin is not as prevalent as in Catholicism. I didn’t hear about about the seven deadly sins until I read part of Dante’s Inferno. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)).
How interesting that you started to read in Gollum’s voice! He IS super evil, after all. 🙂
Thanks again for the comment!
Hi Crista,
The way you tackled the story was definitely a pleasant surprise. It was refreshing, creative, and I loved how you added in the other deadly sins to expand on the point.
What I’m really curious about is how you finished the story when you were telling it to your siblings. As I was reading the last sentence aloud, to the audience of myself, I caught myself saying something like “And that’s it…” at the very end because it was such an abrupt ending. Of course, it’s perfectly fine when written, but the dynamics of a complete halt like that completely changes the way its presented in the form of orality. Did you add any addition phrases as you finished telling your story to your sisters? Do you think it changes the message of your story at all?
Cheers,
Edward.
Hi Edward,
I actually told my sisters my story in two separate ways. I read my story out loud to my youngest sister, with a funny voice throughout and my other sister heard parts of the story through the wall (they’re rooms are next to each other and our doors are always open). I offered to read it to her again but she told me to just send it to her through Facebook. (In hindsight, I should’ve included these little details! So thank you for asking such important questions.)
While I read the story aloud, I had to explain to my sister (she’s 11) words like Gluttony and Lust and Wrath and had to break out of character. She also asked who the Witches of Silko were and again, I had to retell Thomas King’s retelling of Leslie Silko’s story. It did lose a bit of its mystery when I read it aloud to my sister and in the end, I kept the line in the story the same. And when she asked what was Evil’s story, I shrugged and did a little cackle and ran out of her room, earning some yelling from her for not finishing the story.
I think I got the reaction I wanted and my message was clear: that Evil was evil and so evil that the story would never be told, or at least not until you beg on your knees for it.
But, again, thank you for asking these questions! They’re really important 🙂
Hi Cristabel,
Your post included a lot of key elements that I used as well in my own post: writing from Evil’s perspective and the usage of the seven deadly sins. Great minds think alike!
I enjoyed your overall style of writing. The evasive nature of the story (which I also used) creates an air of mystery and suspense that flat out information cannot provide. You define each sin clearly and imply that Evil is much worse than anything you just mentioned. How eerie.
Like Kayla’s post above mine, the association between God and Good is what stood out the most for me. Coming from a very religious family, I’ve always gone back and forth with my beliefs. I struggle with the idea that God is truly good. The biggest bone of contention for me is the fact that so many horrible things occur in the world because of clashing religious beliefs. War and violence are complicated matters — it would be wrong of me to assume blame on one idea — but it still leaves me wondering whether God is really “good”. As a potential atheist, it’s fascinating to see the instant connection you made to Good and God. I also liked how you used the term “whatever” right after your initial opening of God; it was a subtle hint at Evil’s nonchalant manner and its disregard of higher beliefs.
Anyways, the story was great! Thanks for the interesting read.
Hi Deanna,
Yes, great minds do think alike! 😀
If you haven’t read my reply to Kayla above, “God” was actually a typo I made and so I went with it. I’m glad you picked up on Evil’s nonchalant, slightly bitter, manner about Good/God.
I grew up Protestant myself and I struggle a lot with my faith, to a point where I might even just give up and call myself an agonist (but not quite yet – it’s a long story of course!). One of the struggles I deal with is the perception of God. If you’re not familiar with Protestant/Christianity, we have a Bible with an Old and New Testament. God can seem very different in these Testaments. In the Old, he can be seen to be quite unforgiving, while in the New, it is all about forgiveness and finding Jesus. Many Christians like the romanticized, loving version of God over the God that did not hesitate to drown the world when it became too corrupted (Noah’s Ark).
I don’t always equate God with Good, personally. But I know many people do – perhaps not to a Christian God but to a higher deity. It’s this unwavering connection between God and Good that fascinates me sometimes and which I struggle with too.
Thank you for the great comment that really made me think!
Hello Crista,
Thank you so much for this blog post. I was immediately drawn in to your story by the way you wrote from the perspective of a very confident evil. This perspective did not cross my mind when I was retelling my own version and it was quite refreshing to be taken into your story and to be introduced to your creativity. I loved how evil was guiding me through and warning me against the seven deadly sins. by the end I was convinced that I should not be listening to any of evils friends, unless I wanted to be lead astray or told an insufficient story.
Not knowing an awful lot about the seven deadly sins myself, I am interested in how you assigned a gender to each of the sins. Did the sins take on a gender when you were thinking about them, or did you arbitrarily assign a gender to each character? I noticed that lust and greed are female, gluttony,sloth and wrath are male, and pride and envy are unknown. The evil narrator is also unknown. Perhaps this is an unimportant point in your version of the story and to the sins in general, but I would be interested to hear how you made these decisions. Thank you once again for this most enjoyable prequel to the story of good and evil.
Thanks so much for the kind words! I really don’t deserve them!
I actually struggled a lot with the genders of each character. Evil, being the hardest. In my earlier version of Evil’s story, I was going to settle with Evil as a man – only because, and I wrote this in the story, that everyone equated evil with men and felt the need to give such a label to men. I wanted Evil to be both man and woman and as well as more – not just restricted to the dichotomy of male/female. But ultimately, I decided against that version of Evil’s story and also against the third person narrative. First person helps to keep gendered pronouns out and I found myself writing this story, now posted, instead.
As for the other characters, I picked their genders both at random and on purpose. Lust was on purpose, since Lust is so often depicted as a female trait and sexuality is so closely related to the “evils” of women. I decided Gluttony should be male as well since Greed is so closely related and Greed is usually considered a male trait – but then Greed is female and I tried to break that assumption by gendering Greed the opposite of what would be expected.
And the rest, were just gendered at random and non-gendered to give out the point that not everything/eveyrbody needs to have a female or male gender.
I’m glad you asked this question! In Silko’s story, the witch was neither female or male and I wanted to keep that feature in my story. It’s also interesting to me that the WITCH was neither female or male when “witch” is such a gendered term.
Hi Crista – a great story! I love your sense of humour – and you have certainly sparked some excellent reflections – thank you