The most famous of these night stalkers is Grendel from Beowulf. A surprisingly human monster that wreaks havoc on the mead hall of Heorot, Grendel is a descendent of Cain who loathes humanity and all the joy, festivity, and revelry he sees and hears from the hall each day and night. This loathing is born of envy, however, not a fundamental hatred of community. Grendel despises that which he can never have. In his monstrosity, a level of humanity is found.

Grettis Saga, our other literary text, follows the life and deeds of Grettir the Strong as he goes from hero to villain. The turning point of his life can be seen in his fateful confrontation with the draugr Glamr. Glamr’s story is fascinating on its own because even in life he was a disagreeable man who found himself on the edges of society. He held to pagan ways while most of Iceland had already been Christianized.

While working as a farmhand, Glamr does battle with a night stalker of his own, eventually vanquishing it, but dying while out in the snow. By the time his body was found, it was too late. He was accursed and his body could not even be dragged onto hallowed ground. Glamr returned in the night to terrorize his former employer at Thorhallsstead, gaining a fearsome reputation.

Upon hearing these stories, Grettir travels to Thorhallsstead to rid it of the draugr. Here, we see a clear difference between Beowulf and Grettir. In his battle with Grendel, Beowulf was clearly superior to his opponent, while Grettir is outmatched by Glamr. In the end, however, Grettir bests the draugr and as Glamr lies in the snow, his eyes catch the glint of moonlight and, for the first time, Grettir is paralyzed with fear. Just before his death, Glamr speaks a curse over Grettir:

You have expended much energy, Grettir, in your search for me. Nor is that to be wondered at, if you should have little joy thereof. And now I tell you that you shall possess only half the strength and firmness of heart that were decreed to you if you had not striven with me. The might which was yours till now I am not able to take away, but it is in my power to ordain that never shall you grow stronger than you are now.

Nevertheless, your might is sufficient, as many shall find to their cost. Hitherto you have earned fame through your deeds, but henceforward there shall fall upon you exile and battle; your deeds shall turn to evil and your guardian-spirit shall forsake you. You will be outlawed and your lot shall be to dwell ever alone. And this I lay upon you, that these eyes of mine shall be ever before your vision. You will find it hard to live alone, and at last it shall drag you to death.

With this, Glamr falls back dead and Grettir is left with the consequences of his recklessness and his dealings with evil. After his battle with Glamr, Grettir is eventually outlawed. His great strength and abilities that had once made him a hero, now made him a monster.

Our final text, Historia rerum Anglicarum by William of Newburgh, is not a work of literature but is instead a historical chronicle. Within the text, William discusses five episodes of strange occurrences in towns across Britain. The dead return and terrorize the living, including a foul priest and an abusive husband. These revenants range in severity from simple nuisances to existential threats to entire villages, bringing pestilence and crop failures with them.

Each of these stories is written as a historical event, not a work of fiction. They detail the ways these communities survived the assaults of the revenants and how they eventually put a stop to the terror. This often required them to step outside what would normally be considered acceptable or ethical, including the cremation of the revenants to prevent their continued hauntings. Cremation was, for many centuries, banned due to its connection with paganism. It was understood as a denial of the resurrection of the dead on the last day. Facing their destruction, however, the villagers turned to these unsavory means to end their afflictions.

Through these stories we can see examples of how evil often acts as a contagion. Philosophically understood, evil has no being in itself. It is a privation or an absence of the good, not something with its own unique or independent existence. In this way, we might imagine it as an ever-expanding chasm, a maw that draws things and people into it through corruption and the slow march of entropy.

In Glamr, we have a man who chooses to live on the outskirts of society. When he is confronted with evil, he himself becomes a monster. The very same sequence occurs with Grettir. Though Grettir does not become a draugr, he is diminished and brought to villainy as a result of his meddling with dark forces. A favored Nietzschean aphorism among edgy teenagers is relevant here: “Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster. And if you gaze longingly into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

This is not to say that battling against evil is necessarily doomed or that we inevitably fall victim to darkness when we face it. Rather, it means that the reckless pursuit of evil will eventually overtake us. It is very easy to become what we fight against if we do not have a moral center anchoring us. Our weakness can become their strength. In the opening of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell recalls an encounter with real evil. This reflections ends with a rumination on the risks of a profession where one’s primary task is quarrelling with evil:

Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I don’t want to confront him. I know he’s real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him. It aint just bein older. I wish that it was. I cant say that it’s even what you are willin to do. Because I always knew that you had to be willing to die to even do this job. That was always true. Not to sound glorious about it or nothing but you do. If you aint they’ll know it. They’ll see it in a heartbeat. I think it is more like what you are willin to become. And I think a man would have to put his soul at hazard. And I wont do that. I think that maybe I never would.

It’s an interesting connection that both Grettis Saga and No Country For Old Men reference eyes in the corruptive nature of evil. Glamr tells Grettir that his eyes shall haunt the man for the rest of his life while Sheriff Ed Tom Bell felt the eyes of the prophet of destruction upon him, frightening him out of the battle altogether. Both of these, of course, are joined by Nietzche’s aphorism of the abyss gazing back into us. Eyes are often referred to as the windows of the soul, and evil in these examples is depicted as a robber creeping through them to steal our resistance from us.

There is true evil and darkness in the world, and the willingness to confront it may involve virtue and courage, but it can just as well involve the fall from grace. In a sense, this is reminiscent of the Lough Foyle Colloquy between St. Columba and the mysterious youth of unknown origin. After their strange conversation, Columba is asked by his followers what was said between them and Columba refuses to tell them even a single word, stating that mortals ought to remain in ignorance of some things for our own benefit. It has been theorized that the youth was some unfallen human, an angel, or perhaps even the devil himself. Regardless, the encounter was deemed dangerous by Columba.

There is a sense that interaction with the Other, the Strange, is also dangerous to an extent but that is a topic for another time. For now, we’ll focus on how the encounter with darkness can blind us to the light, or at least dim our sight. We might understand it as a gradual callousing of the spirit until our conscience no longer recognizes that we are committing or engaging with evil, but there are more radical ways to frame it as well. With Grettir, the curse laid upon him by Glamr is itself sufficient to bring him into full corruption.

Beowulf himself does not become a monster, though we do see him eventually meet his match in his battle with the dragon. His battles do prove fatal. Grettir clearly falls victim to this cycle, his heroism inverting and leading him to destruction and the loss of his status. We do not know what ended up happening to all the villagers in the revenant episodes of Historia, but we can grasp that they did not become monsters likely because their actions were anchored to their faith and the defense of their communities.

Inside of us all are monsters like Grendel and Glamr. Each one of us feels the siren call of the destructive prophet. It is not folly to battle evil, but it is folly to assume that we are immune to its wounds and influence. Taking heart and pursuing what is right, for just reasons and for something greater than oneself, may be a shield against the abyssal gaze. It is not by our strength that we overcome darkness as the light does not originate within us.

If we remember that when its eyes land on us, we will not blink.

This is a difficult balancing act and, overall, I would say that Dark Souls III does it well. It is a worthy successor and conclusion to the trilogy with plenty of references (almost too many at times) to the original game as well as several to Dark Souls II. Mechanically, Dark Souls III owes quite a lot to the second game of the series, but lore-wise it certainly takes more from the first.

As with the last two posts, we’ll go over the absolute basics of the game’s lore and narrative so that a discussion of its themes can be more fruitful. Countless ages have passed between the beginning of the trilogy and the start of Dark Souls III, and the Fire has been linked by innumerable would-be heroes. And once again, the Fire is fading and the Undead Curse has returned.

Prince Lothric was appointed to be Lord of Cinder so that he might link the Flame and continue the Age of Fire for a bit longer, but he refused. He chose instead to let the Fire die. As a result, several of the previous Lords of Cinder were brought forth from their eternal rests so that they would fulfill their duties and link the Fire once more. They also refused and dispersed across the crumbling lands.

In a final effort to preserve the Fire, the Unkindled were raised, those who had previously attempted to link the Fire but failed. Playing as one of the Unkindled, the Ashen One, you seek out the Lords of Cinder to bring them back to their thrones so that you might use their powers to link the Fire yourself. As you venture through the broken lands of Lothric beneath a dying sun, it becomes clear that the Age of Fire is coming to an end, even if the Fire is to be linked again.

The Dark has been held off for so long that the world has begun to rot and a new place, known only as the Deep, has emerged and threatens to consume all that it touches. Once all the Lord Souls are acquired, the Ashen One ventures onward to the Kiln of the First Flame where everything began. There, they are confronted with the Soul of Cinder, the Fire manifest. So desperate to remain linked, to stop the inevitable, the Fire itself battles you fearing that you mean to let it extinguish. Taking on all the powers and abilities of all those who previously linked the Fire, most especially Lord Gwyn, the first Lord of Cinder, it desperately clings to life.

Even if you are to link the Fire at the end, there is little more than a flicker that remains. A pitiful flame that will soon die. If the Dark is embraced and the Fire dies, all that remains is shadow and the call of the Firekeeper’s voice asking, “Ashen One, hearest thou my voice still?”

The true conclusion, however, comes in the distant future. At the end of time, the true and final end of the world, amidst the ashen ruins of all great kingdoms that came before, the Ashen One battles with another hollow warrior over the Dark Soul which the furtive pygmy (so easily forgotten) discovered before the Age of Fire.

Lore in the Dark Souls Trilogy is far too ambiguous and complex to do justice to in a single post, but a basic summary is serviceable. An obvious theme to start out with is that of fighting the inevitable. This theme is present in all three entries, but it comes to a head in this game. After countless ages, the end has come, yet the world is not done fighting. Even the Fire itself fights for life, grasping for just a few more moments of light before the long dark. Despite this major theme, many in the land of Lothric have already accepted that the end is nigh and they have no desire to continue the Fire. The Lords of Cinder are key examples of this. Each gave their lives to link the Fire in the past and they refuse to do so again.

This acceptance of the inevitable is most clearly seen in Prince Lothric and his elder brother, Lorian. They have turned their backs on the world and await the coming dark. Despite being called upon to become the next Lord of Cinder, Lothric determined that the Age of Fire was not worth saving and that the Dark must finally be permitted to fall. When confronted by the Ashen One, he denounces the linking of the Fire and the system it has created.

Oh, dear. Another dogged contender... Welcome, unkindled one. Purloiner of cinders. Mind you, the mantle of Lord interests me none. The Firelinking curse, the legacy of Lords -- let it all fade into nothing. You’ve done quite enough, now have your rest.

In contrast to Lothric’s refusal of the call, there are many throughout the ruined lands who wish to salvage the fading embers. The Ashen One is pushed along and is expected to bring the souls of the Lords back to their thrones, but the ultimate decision to link the Fire, usurp it, or led it fade is left to you alone. Is there valor in clinging to the fading light, and is there courage in embracing the encroaching dark? We are given no clear answers as to what the world will be like after the Fire fades for good. All that is known, is that in the effort to stave off the long Dark, the world has fallen to deeper corruption through countless eras of Firelinking. The temporary salve has caused wounds of its own, and the result is beyond our understanding.

The world is destined to end, shattered and ruined, its great monuments and kingdoms buried in the ash of its burnt glories. All will perish beneath a dying sun and eventually no histories will be left to tell the stories of great heroes or their foes. Death comes for the world as much as it comes for us. This is not necessarily the end of all things, however, as it is often through destruction that something new may be born.

Back in the first game, one of the optional areas, the Painted World of Ariamis, showed that new worlds could be made. Ariamis decayed and fell to ruin and rot as the lands of Lordran beyond also succumbed to the Undead Curse and the fading Fire. The concept of a painted world returned in Dark Souls III with the Painted World of Ariandel. We find the Painted World, having been restored by Ariandel sometime in the past, now in a state of rot once again. Despite this, there is hope that a new painting can be made so that the world will thrive and flourish once more.

As the great question of the world’s fate looms over us, we must face not only the inevitability of our own personal death, something we have become intimately familiar with across the trilogy, but with the death of the world. One of the most striking images in Dark Souls III is that of a lone hollow standing on a crumbling bridge, mind warped and rotted by the Undead Curse, enraptured by the sight of the dying sun on the horizon. Death is a core theme in nearly every great human story, and this trilogy is no different, but the final installment is less interested in our personal death than the death of worlds.

The final act shows us the bleeding together of all the great lands of history until nothing remains but dust and memories soon to be forgotten. Just as with the hollowing of the Undead Curse, it is the loss of self that stands as true death. When one can no longer remember what it is to be alive, to love, to fear, and to persevere, then one has truly gone hollow and has died in a way worse than physical death. It is just the same with kingdoms.

In Dark Souls II, King Vendrick built a great kingdom that came to ruin due to his failure to defend it against his wife’s corruptive influence. The memory of his kingdom faded, barely known even by the narrator in the game’s opening cinematic (“I believe they called it Drangleic”). A world dies as the memory of it fades, and upon the ash heap at the end of time, they are no longer distinguished and merely wait for oblivion.

As the sun dies and darkness stretches across the world, our final decision is to persist in the broken system we were thrust into, to break the system in the fading hope that something better might emerge in its place, or usurp the power for ourselves and become the very tyranny that subjected us to our fate.

There are no clean answers in a world without clear hope. The only enduring truth in the broken, weary lands of Lordran, Drangleic, and Lothric is that change and death come for us all.

The Chosen Undead, the Bearer of the Curse, and the Ashen One live in worlds without hope and without a true, unyielding light. The perseverance demanded of them, and us, in their adventures is Sisyphean in its futility yet nonetheless noble. In our world, however, we do have hope.

We are not doomed without hope for the light as they are, but we can still be lost. Let the doomed heroes be for us an example of how persistence in the face of darkness and the inevitable is still right and true, no matter the outcome.

As always, don’t you dare go hollow.

All that said, I will assert wholeheartedly that Dark Souls II is a worthy successor to Dark Souls in many ways. It retains much that is familiar from Dark Souls while not trying to copy its predecessor. It attempts to stand on its own, and it does. As with the first one, the lore is phenomenal, but once more, we will not be diving into the lore in any real depth here. A summary of the basic lore is sufficient for a discussion of the themes.

You begin, as before, as one afflicted with the Undead Curse. In a time long after the events of the first game, you awaken in the Land Betwixt as you begin your journey through Drangleic. The Fire has been linked countless times to stave off the dark and kingdoms have risen and fallen with the ebb and flow of the Fire. This time, Drangleic, the kingdom of King Vendrick, flourished during the renewed Age of Fire until the embers once more began to fade.

You enter Drangleic and meet a woman known as the Emerald Herald who tells you to seek the king and take your place as heir to Drangleic. Before you may have an audience with the king, however, you must acquire a greater soul. To do so, you pursue the holders of the Lord Souls or Great Souls previously collected in the first game. They have passed to new owners through the ages and must be collected once more before you are strong enough to truly become Vendrick’s heir.

Through the game you are told to seek the king so that you might link the Fire as he once sought to do. However, upon reaching Drangleic Castle, you find only his wife, Nashandra present. The king has gone missing. Deep in the crypts beneath Drangleic, you find Vendrick, guarded by his ever watchful knight, Velstadt, aimlessly wandering a darkened chamber. He has gone hollow and is now a shell of a man. The man who once battled giants and drove them out of Drangleic and who sought the Flame. You learn that he hid his soul away so that Nashandra could not corrupt it.

Nashandra and her sisters were Daughters of the Abyss (but that goes deeper into the lore than we need to), and each one married a king. Alongside Vendrick, there was the Iron King who became corrupted and undone by his lust for immortality. There was the Sunken King who brought doom to his people through the slumbering dragon, Sinh. And there was the Ivory King who so dearly loved his wife that she was cleansed of her dark nature. Unlike the other kings, he did not fall into corruption or flee from his post, but he gave his life to seal away the Old Chaos which threatened his kingdom.

The setting has changed but the decision remains the same: link the Fire or let it fade. Upon the throne of Drangleic this is your decision to make. Seek the kings and the Great Souls, take the throne to place the fate of the Fire within your hands, or leave it behind to strive for a cure beyond the reach of the Fire.

As you venture through Drangleic, you are repeatedly confronted by Vendrick’s brother, Aldia, who is known as the Scholar of the First Sin. The First Sin likely being Gwyn’s linking of the Fire and the creation of the Undead Curse. Aldia sought to cure the Undead Curse independent of linking the Fire, but he failed. He follows your progress and questions your intentions showing that perhaps there is another way.

There are many overarching themes present throughout the trilogy, but each entry focuses a bit more on some than others. Dark Souls II places significant emphasis on memory and identity compared to the others (I even quoted DS2 in a paper on memory for my PhD last fall, perhaps a first for the program). As you trudge through the world of Drangleic, you meet several characters on their own journeys.

One of the most interesting among them is Lucatiel who is following in the footsteps of her brother who came to Drangleic to seek a cure for the Undead Curse. She, as well as many others you meet in your quest, slowly loses her memories as she nears hollowing. She soon forgets her reason for coming to Drangleic, her past and sense of self, and when you leave her for the final time, she fears that she will soon forget her own name. Her final words to the player:

My name is Lucatiel.
I beg of you, remember my name.
For I may not myself…

Dark Souls II (and the whole trilogy to an extent) has been described as a metaphor for depression and dementia, and the struggle to overcome suffering. You are in a land forgotten by itself, seeking renewal through ancient souls, seeking a fate that you do not understand, and all the while you cannot recall when or how you came to be in this place.

This emphasis on memory and the search for identity connects with another major concept explored in the game, that of destiny or fate. Aldia repeatedly questions the fate of the undead and the nature of life. As you near to the end of your journey, he asks you how you intend to deal with your fate and the fate of all undead:

All men trust fully the illusion of life.
But is this so wrong?
A construction, a facade, and yet...
A world full of warmth and resplendence.
Young Hollow, are you intent on shattering the yoke, spoiling this wonderful falsehood?

It is the fate of the undead to have death, and therefore life, robbed of them. Their life is an illusion because it does not end with death but instead lingers until they are no longer themselves. This is the fate of hollowing, that you lose who you are but remain undying. Aldia sought to break the wheel of fate so that the cycle of linking the Fire might end. His brother, Vendrick, once believed the Fire was his destiny until he fled to prevent his own corruption. Hollowing, instead, was his fate.

With the stories of these kings, we see a critique of power. Three of the four failed in their duties either due to fear, foolishness, or ambition. Vendrick feared Nashandra’s corruption and abandoned the throne. The Iron King sought immortality for himself, his power, and his empire which only led to the destruction of all three. And the Sunken King brought ruin to his kingdom when he brought them to worship Sinh, the Slumbering Dragon, leading to their inevitable end as the dragon woke. Only the Ivory King passed the test of power, the others were all found wanting.

The Ivory King gave his own life to stop the Old Chaos. He did not risk his people for his own gain and he did not abandon them in the face of danger. If we add Gwyn to this list as well, the Ivory King remains the only one who did not fail in the use of his power. Gwyn feared the dark to such an extent that he cursed all of the humanity with undeath to keep the Fire alive just a little longer. This critique of power is present across all three games, but Dark Souls II is the clearest with its exploration.

All this leads to the question of who we seek to be. As memory and identity fade, as our fate reveals its inevitability, as we struggle with the choices given to us, we become who we always truly were. When speaking with the Emerald Herald near the beginning of your journey, she tells you what is required for you to be worthy to take the Throne and make the choice:

Bearer of the curse, seek misery.
For misery will lead you to greater, stronger souls.
You will never meet the King with a soul so frail and pallid.

To be magnanimous is to possess a “great soul.” The cultivation of virtue requires suffering and the embrace of life’s difficulties so that they might be overcome. Comfort does not produce greatness, discomfort and the disquiet mind do. Hardship and suffering bring perseverance, trials bring resilience, and pain brings endurance. All great meaning in this life is not found easily and cannot be grasped without effort. To find joy and peace, one must suffer despair and war first. Even if one’s struggles are not epic in proportion, they are necessary features on the path to eternity.

Seek misery, but don’t you dare go hollow.

Obviously with the advent of more recent FromSoftware titles like Bloodborne, Dark Souls III, Sekiro, and Elden Ring it pales in comparison when it comes to mechanical fluidity and boss fight complexity. Nonetheless, these games and many others would not exist if it weren’t for the original Dark Souls.

This post is not intended to be a retrospective on the game itself or an exploration of the game’s deep lore. If you want those, there are countless videos on YouTube that you can find. This Substack is not focused on such discussions anyway. Instead, I want to explore the themes of the game (and its sequels in later posts) to shed light on their philosophical and narrative implications.

In order to explore the themes, however, the absolute basics of the setting and lore must be overviewed. We are presented with these basics in the opening cinematic of the game.

During a period known as the Age of Ancients, the world was formless and dotted with Archtrees. Ruling over the primordial world were the Everlasting Dragons with their scales of stone. Then came the First Flame, and from the flames came those who would claim the Lord Souls: Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight and Lord of Cinder; Nito, First of the Dead; the Witch of Izalith; and the Furtive Pygmy (so easily forgotten) who would claim the unique Dark Soul. Together, with the aid of the betrayer Seath the Scaleless, they warred against the dragons and ushered in the Age of Fire. This was an age of flourishing civilizations and development, led by the god-king Gwyn.

Soon, however, the embers began to fade and an Age of Dark was approaching. In an effort to stave off the coming Dark just a bit longer, Gwyn linked the flames using his own soul as kindling. At the time of the game, the embers are fading once more. Prophecies speak of a Chosen Undead who will make pilgrimage to Lordran, the Land of the Ancient Lords, to ring the Bell of Awakening and link the fires once more to hold back the Dark.

As the Chosen Undead, afflicted with the Undead Curse—causing you to repeat the cycle of life and death endlessly until you lose all trace of humanity and go hollow—you scour Lordran to retrieve the Lord Souls and return them to the place where it all began. There, you must choose to link the fires once more or to embrace the inevitable turning of the age.

The lore goes far beyond this, but these basics are sufficient for our discussion of themes. If additional lore is required later on, I’ll provide a brief explanation to contextualize the point of issue.

A clear theme present throughout the series but most notable in the first one is that of perseverance. The Chosen Undead must persevere through the challenges of Lordran, the deaths and dangers of hollowing, and grasp his way to victory at the Kiln of the First Flame. Not only does the character need to persevere, however, so too does the player. This is a point that has been made by many in the past.

The various hollows you see throughout Lordran are those who could no longer persevere through the curse. They represent more than just the hollowed undead, though, they also represent the players who could no longer persevere through the challenges of the game. They gave up. They went hollow and now shamble through the ruined streets and pathways of Lordran as mightier heroes push onward before their unseeing eyes.

You are taught to persevere from the very start when you are confronted with the tutorial boss fight, the Asylum Demon. When it first appears, it is far beyond your abilities and you must flee to safety. But upon making your way through the Asylum, you find better equipment and you learn how to fight so that the next time you face the Demon, you prevail over it. On Steam, the achievement for reaching Lordran, which just requires that you kill the Asylum Demon, has been earned by 92% of players. So 8% of players went hollow before even making it out of the tutorial.

Even the first character you meet after escaping the Undead Asylum has all but given up. He is simply referred to as the Crestfallen Warrior. He has seen others arrive in Lordran with bold ambitions of ringing the Bells of Awakening, but all have failed, and so he gives you little hope for your quest. As you progress though, he eventually turns hollow and you must slay him to put him at rest.

Death is a key element in these games because your death is inevitable. Upon death, you will awaken at the most recent bonfire you visited and you must begin again. All enemies, with rare exceptions, will have returned even if you killed them before. You die, you restart that section of the game. Each time you push onward, you get a bit better and make it a bit further. J.R.R. Tolkien once stated in an interview that practically all human stories are ultimately about death. It is a central theme of The Lord of the Rings and, as discussed in a series of previous posts, of the Harry Potter series as well. Dark Souls is no different.

As an undead, you are cursed to die over and over again until you finally go hollow. Each death reminds you that the loss of everything you are is that much closer. Identity and memory play a much larger role in Dark Souls II, so we will explore those in more detail in the next post, but they are still crucial to the other games as well. The inevitability of change most obviously manifests in the inevitability of death. That is the ultimate change one can go through in life, whether spiritual or physical death.

In Lordran, death is merely a passing shadow under the Curse. This inevitability turns from the looming Dark to a fact of daily life. The presence, purpose, and meaning of death is thus diminished. Mankind is condemned to suffer death once in finality, and this is what contextualizes our lives and allows us to appreciate the grand narrative of history and our limited place within. Death itself is not what brings meaning to life but it contextualizes the meaning we discover in our lives.

Dark Souls is a journey that brings never-ending challenges as well as rewards when those challenges are overcome. The Chosen Undead prevails and comes to the decision to either follow in Gwyn’s footsteps and become kindling to link the fires once more, knowing that it will only stave off the long dark for a short time, or to let the fires die and accept the Age of Dark and whatever it brings. Roughly 30% of players on Steam have achieved either ending of the game. The rest went hollow.

The “right answer” is never given. We don’t know what the Dark entails. We know that the Fire brings flourishing for a time and then a Curse. Gwyn feared the Dark more than he feared the consequences of prolonging the Fire. When you finally face Gwyn at the end of the game, the Lord of Sunlight and the god-king of Lordran, you find that he himself has gone hollow in his fearful desperation to preserve the Fire.

It’s a fascinating question to end with because throughout the whole journey you must continue persevering so that you do not go hollow, but at the end you must choose whether it is worth it to continue the Fire or not. Is continuing the Fire, and the Curse, what you have persevered for? Or have you persevered for the Dark so that death may return to mankind and the flames can die out, even if only for a time?

The ambiguity is crucial to the story because the story is as much about you as it is about the Chosen Undead. This journey is your journey. Should you link the Fire, then you have condemned the protagonists of the sequels to their own hardships as they struggle with the same decision at the end of eras. Wrestle with fear, uncertainty, and the inevitable unknown, but in the end make your decision.

Don’t you dare go hollow.

The manorial system, the form of feudalism seen throughout most of Western Europe in the Middle Ages, was a system of relationships between individuals. In each relationship there was a superior and an inferior. The inferior swore fealty to the superior and was rewarded with land, privileges depending on rank, and protection. In return, the superior had the right to tax the goods and produce of the inferior and to call upon them in times of war.

This system was the same at every level, whether a serf to a minor landed noble or a noble to a king. The only notable differences were the privileges gained and the duties expected. The higher your rank, the more you were expected to provide and do. The superior always provides more benefit to the inferior than he receives. This is the standard agreement in feudal societies as well as between nations when one is suzerain over another.

Here, we see the cornerstone of chivalric masculinity. The oath. It’s still commonly stated today that a man’s word is his bond. The oath seals the relationship, outlining the duties and privileges of one’s station. A knight is a man who swears an oath unto death. If the oath is broken, death. And if the oath is fulfilled, also death, at least in some circumstances. The ideal of the knight is a man who upholds his oath, who defends the weak and innocent, and who embodies the virtues of strength, gentleness, mercy, and courage.

To be a knight is to understand that you are not at the top. You yourself have sworn fealty to a lord, and you have a higher duty to God. An oath is made to another person by invoking a higher power, God, and swearing to uphold the will of the superior and the customs of the land so long as they are within the bounds of the higher, divine law.

A common phrase found in oaths is promising to “love all that he [the lord] loves and to shun all that he shuns.” It is to align yourself fully with them in a manner more intimate even than with your family. The knight calls a curse upon himself should he ever forsake his duty. This is not blind obedience, however, and the knight’s duty extends beyond simply protecting his lord and realm.

The knight fights dragons and rescues princesses. It is in the Matter of Britain, or Arthurian Legend, we see the ideal of the knight most readily. Let us look at an exchange from Roger Lancelyn Green’s King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table from 1953:

“Well,” said Sir Tor, “ask a gift, fair damsel, and will give it you.”

“I thank you,” she answered. “And now I shall ask you for the head of this false knight Abelleus, for he is the most outrageous knight living, and the wickedest murderer.”

“Now I repent me of my promise,” said Sir Tor. “Cannot he make amends for any wrong that he has done you?”

“Not possibly,” said the damsel, “for he slew my own brother before mine eyes, and would not spare him, though I knelt half an hour in the mud begging him for mercy. So strike off his head quickly, I beg of you – or else I shall shame you as a false knight at the court of King Arthur.”

Sir Abelleus heard all this, and now he stood a little way off and begged Sir Tor to spare his life.

“I may not now,” said Sir Tor, “or I should be false to my promise. Moreover, I offered you mercy a little while ago, and you would not yield.” (71-72)

Here we have two knights, Abelleus and Tor. In the former we have a man who refused to show mercy who then begs for it for himself. In the latter we have a knight who has shown charity to a damsel who requested his aid, who first sought to provide justice with mercy and then fulfilled his oath without delay. Sir Tor embodies the heart of chivalry in this encounter. He does the bidding of his lord, King Arthur, and on his honor he provides aid to a damsel with whom he had no previous connection. When the avenue of mercy was closed, he took up arms and cleaved Sir Abelleus’ head from his shoulders.

Chivalric masculinity calls for gentleness and charity by default, unyielding adherence to oaths and duty, and relentless bravery and the capacity for great violence when the circumstances call for it. Knights were called to be gentle-men in the most literal sense of the term. Humility and patience stand between the world and the knight’s wrath. The meek shall inherit the earth, and the knight will clean his bloodied sword before sheathing it once more.

The masculine is most often associated with roughness and ambition today, often in a negative light. Even many modern figures pushing a positive view assert the conquering nature of men throughout history as the centerpiece of masculinity. They see the masculine figure as a man who owes no loyalty to a wife or children, no call for humility or peace-seeking, and no value for gentleness or mercy. They do not understand that only the strong can show mercy and only the dangerous can be gentle.

The knight is a conqueror, but he is first a servant of his lord and of his realm. He is gentle and merciful, and he does not turn to violence except when necessary. He understands that his strength comes from such restraint.

Peddlers of weak forms of modern masculinity revel in power and prestige and create slaves to baser instincts that only mask their own deficiencies in virtue. They, alongside their anti-masculine counterparts, only see the masculine through the lens of power. They consider a man’s base form to be that of a king or a warlord.

The default masculine archetype is not the king, however, it’s the knight. The Hero of the Monomyth is a knight first and foremost even if he is also a king. This is the form and duty set before man. It is a call to cultivate virtue, to exercise body and mind, to act with gentleness and mercy, and to brave dangers when others cannot. As I wrote in “The Princess and the Knight,” the masculine is revealed alongside the feminine. One cannot be understood without the other and if one is held in higher esteem than the other, it is done out of ignorance of both.

If the oath is at the heart of chivalric masculinity, then what virtue comes first? Honor. This honor is manifested in one’s loyalty to his lord and people, his willingness to put others before himself, and the care he shows to the vulnerable around him. There is a hierarchy to virtue and to its exercise, as with all things. A knight’s loyalty is owed first to God, then the one to whom an oath is made.

It is not ambition, pride, or power that set the foundation for the masculine, but the promise, the pledge, the covenant.

We know it’s there, we know it’s not false, but we don’t always know what it looks like. Sometimes the path to healing feels like a betrayal to the pain we’ve experienced. The light is a traitor that wishes for us to leave behind that which was so powerful to have left us in despair in the first place. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves as tears streams down our faces and anxiety burns in our chests. Healing must be a betrayal, redemption must be death.

Within the human imagination, there have been many truly great redemption arcs within fiction. These sometimes take the form of a villain turning to the light, a last minute redemptive act, or a sufferer who climbs out of the pit. Each of these can act as a powerful showcase of resilience, both physical and mental, and the unyielding nature of the good.

We all experience redemption in our own lives, whether it is small scale or life-changing. Not every story is dramatic, nor do they all need to be. Even life-changing redemption can feel mundane in the middle of that journey. It only gains its epic scope in retrospect. In the midst of my own suffering, there has been no impressive display of resilience or strength. Nothing that would appear overly dramatic from an outsider observer has occurred, yet the storm roars within.

When we talk about redemption, we often think about some great triumph over difficulty, the indomitable human spirit overcoming the obstacles which lay before it. That’s not really the case, however, because we do not, in fact, redeem ourselves. Redemption is an inherently internal process brought about by external factors. Take for example what is perhaps the single greatest redemption arc in television history, Zuko from Avatar: the Last Airbender.

When we first meet Zuko, he is a callous and arrogant young man with a clear sense of destiny set before him. He must capture the avatar because doing so would restore the honor he had lost by disrespecting his father in a war council. Joined by his war-wearied yet joyful uncle, Zuko scours the world for his prey. In the first season (referred to as books), we see his true nature begin to shine through the bravado as he shows resourcefulness, selflessness, and resilience.

Over the course of season two, after he has lost everything, he finds himself empathizing with the struggling citizens of the Earth Kingdom, a nation which his homeland has invaded and torn asunder. He sees the horrors of the war firsthand and embarks upon a journey of self-discovery to determine what his destiny truly is.

At the climax of the second season, Zuko faces a decision to either join his sister in defeating the avatar, or else join the avatar and seek to bring about peace. After his internal conflict had simmered throughout the season, it finally boiled over as he chose the path his father had chosen for him. He chooses his sister and rejoins the effort to conquer the Earth Kingdom. His uncle, Iroh, who had been encouraging Zuko to seek peace, defends the avatar and gives himself over to the Fire Nation in an act of self-sacrifice.

After returning home, Zuko finds his internal conflict even worse than before. He struggles with his past, his decisions, and his sense of duty. This leads him to visit his uncle in prison and learn about the history of his family so he might see the future more clearly. Ultimately, he chooses to turn against his father and to seek out the avatar once more to help bring about peace. He determines that his destiny is to help train the avatar and to lead the Fire Nation out of the war.

Zuko’s journey is long and complex, filled with back-steps and mistakes. His redemption arc provides a thorough character study of a young man who believes he knows what his destiny is, only to later realize he had been blind. Iroh had undergone a similar character arc prior to the start of the series. He had served as a general in the Fire Nation army, believing it was his destiny to capture the Earth Kingdom capital, Ba Sing Se. Only later did he realize that he was meant to reconquer it from the Fire Nation in order to restore its freedom.

Destiny intertwines with redemption as we struggle with the futures we thought we knew, or we thought were important and inevitable. The light shines out the darkness, however, and clarity comes as we gradually understand what truly matters. We do not redeem ourselves in this process. We are redeemed by others. It is the love and dedication of others that lights the path out of darkness. Zuko did not redeem himself, he was redeemed by his uncle, by the avatar, by all who opened the path of change for him.

The redeemer and the redeemed can never be one and the same. We do not create ourselves, nor do we save ourselves. Redemption comes as we traverse the tightrope held taut by others. Our failings hold us in darkness and we may seek the light, begging for it even, but redemption comes when others commit and join hands with us to pull us through.

All great redemption arcs have the wise friend, teacher, lover, savior, or the saved who shines out the darkness along the path. As we explored in the image of the princess and the knight, they are redeemer for each other as they sacrifice and commit themselves to serving the other. Redemption is the ultimate act of service as it risks oneself for the betterment of another. Perhaps not all redeemers take high risks, but the greatest ones risk everything.

We are redeemed by those who clear the way and shine light upon the path as we journey out of darkness. We may persevere, but that in itself is not redemption. Redemption is the embrace of our brothers and sisters at the end of the road. Their welcome redeems us into the land of sunlight so that we can look once more to the future without shadows on the edge of our vision.

While none of the women that shall be discussed here fall into the modern trope of the female action hero, they each acted with heroism in their own right. They did not do so by imitating the men around them or by rejecting their femininity, but by embracing the natural strengths of the feminine in times when the masculine had failed them.

Great examples abound, but we shall keep the discussion limited to Western Europe in the Middle Ages and early modern period here, because those are the women of valor I am most familiar with. One such example is Empress Matilda, also known sometimes as Maud. She was the daughter of Henry I of England and had been wed to the late Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor.

Her brother, and heir to the Kingdom of England, was killed in an incident known as the White Ship Disaster in 1120. As a result, Henry I chose to name Matilda, now widowed, as his heir. The lords of England swore fealty to her at Henry’s request, but upon his death they rallied behind her cousin, Stephen of Blois. A bloody civil war known as The Anarchy erupted across England and England’s French holdings.

Her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, later known to history as Geoffrey Plantagenet, was her strongest and most ardent supporter. Together, they rallied troops and held onto the French territories of Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine. Their endeavor did fail, however, and Matilda never sat upon the throne of England as the kingdom’s proper monarch. She eventually passed the struggle to her son, Henry, who would become Henry II after defeating Stephen in the second phase of The Anarchy. Matilda’s story, though unsuccessful, highlights her resourcefulness as she strove to bring peace to a kingdom torn by civil war.

Another example, from a few centuries later, is Catherine of Aragon. Originally married to Henry VII’s eldest son, Arthur, she was widowed after a few short months. In order to retain the sizable dowry Catherine had brought with her from Spain, she was wed to Henry VII’s second son, who would become the (in)famous Henry VIII. Early in Henry VIII’s reign, he went to war with France and left Catherine as regent with full authority over his kingdom.

Almost immediately upon her placement as Governess of the Realm, the Scots invaded. With the aid of Sir Thomas Lovell, she raised an army and rode north. Despite her pregnancy, she donned full armor and remained present on the battlefield as her army drove out the Scottish invaders. The battle claimed the life of James IV of Scotland, ending the invasion. This endeared her to the English people, and Catherine became one of the most beloved foreign-born queens in English history.

Likely the most famous woman of valor in European history is Joan d’Arc. Her story is such that if we did not know that it happened, it would be considered far too fantastical to believe. After receiving heavenly visions and coming to believe that she was a virgin prophesied to save France from the English, Joan eventually met with Charles VII of France at Chinon. She was seventeen years old and convinced the king to place his armies at her disposal so that she might break the siege of Orléans. While she was not placed in direct command of the armies, and she did not aid in strategizing, she was a beacon of hope among the French forces and her image drove them to victory.

Wearing armor specially commissioned for her by the Dauphin (crown-prince of France), she served as an icon of French resistance to English occupation in France. Her courage and virtue drove the French to victory. While not every battle she attended saw a French victory, she remained an influential figure in the tumultuous kingdom. Her eventual capture and execution by the English in 1431 (she was 19) only further rallied the French. It would not be an overstatement to say that she played a key role in the ultimate French victory in the Hundred Years’ War two decades later.

A literary equivalent for Joan d’Arc is Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings. At the time of Tolkien’s saga, Eowyn lived in the declining kingdom of Rohan, beset with challenges both internal and external. The Westfold fell to the orcish invaders from Isengard and her uncle and king, Theoden, had come under the corruptive influence of Saruman and his formerly loyal advisor Grima Wormtongue.

This left the land in shambles, as the only men who were truly loyal to Rohan, including Eowyn’s brother, Eomer, were driven away. It is in this time of desperation that Eowyn chose to take up the sword to fight and risk death alongside the men of Rohan. She was denied this during the Battle of Helm’s Deep, but as Rohan marched for Gondor’s aid at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, she disguised herself as a soldier and, along with the disguised hobbit Merry, rode into battle.

In the midst of the chaos, she witnessed the death of her uncle. He had been renewed by the intercession of Gandalf, and had led his kingdom against the darkness, but it had cost his life. While defending the body of Theoden, she found herself face-to-face with Sauron’s most dangerous servant, the Witch-King of Angmar, leader of the Nazgul. An ancient prophecy had foretold that no man could kill the Witch-King whose power was drawn from his connection to Sauron.

Revealing the dual meaning of this prophecy, the Witch-King was stabbed by Merry, wielding a blade of the barrow-downs, and was then struck dead by Eowyn. The prophecy was fulfilled as it had been Merry (not a man in the racial sense) who severed the Witch-King’s connection to Sauron with his blade, and then Eowyn (not a man in the gendered sense) delivered the final blow.

After the battle, while recovering from her injuries, Eowyn met and fell in love with the wounded Faramir, captain of Gondor. Eowyn was a woman of valor who never rejected her femininity, nor did she attempt to become masculine. She instead sought to help preserve her falling homeland by taking up arms in a time when the strength of men was fading. She chose to ride with them into the face of death because to sit back and do nothing in such a time was, in her eyes, evil. She says to Faramir, after his declaration of love, that her eyes have been opened and her path has been made clear after he brush with death:

I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,’ she said; ‘and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.’ (The Lord of the Rings, book 6, chapter 5)

After the war, she sets aside her arms and embraces the path of healing, the path of peace. This is the only true path one can take after battle, or else the battle shall never be over. This is her strength, a feminine strength that understands the need to seek peace and to restore beauty to a darkened world once the battle has been fought.

All of these women, historical or literary, continue the tradition of the great biblical heroines like Deborah and Jael who helped to overcome the Canaanites during the pre-monarchic period of ancient Israel. Deborah, a judge and prophetess, rallied the Israelite armies under a man named Barak and saw victory against the Canaanite general Sisera. Upon victory, she composed a song praising the Lord for the victory and hailing the heroism of the tribes that had come to their aid while denouncing those that failed to heed the call. After his defeat, Sisera fled and sought shelter in the tent of Jael who drove a tent spike through the general’s head once he had fallen asleep, thus ending the conflict.

In each of these examples, we find women who answered the call when no others could. While the details of each story complicates matters, as they always do, we would do well to look at the narrative power of their lives and appreciate the virtues they displayed during times of need. The feminine is not the same as the masculine, but this difference is not one of inequality.

As I wrote in “The Princess and the Knight,” there is no imbalance of power in such dynamics, only the complement of two fundamental and primal aspects of creation. One is not complete without the other, and the true strength of one is revealed in the presence of the other. And, when the day arises that one is unable to fulfill its duties alone, the other will rise to the occasion and they will shine the brighter, for good is made great in weakness.

This quote is often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte (r. 1799-1814, 1815), though we do not know for sure whether or not he actually said it. Regardless, it has been used in movies dramatizing the events of Napoleon’s life, and for good reason. It showcases the dramatic power of kingship and the responsibilities found beneath its weight. France had been long plagued by an elite class that cared little for the peasantry, and the indifference of her kings did not assuage the situation.

From the time of Louis XIV, the French monarchy emphasized the divine right of kings, the idea that they had been installed by God to bear the burden of the crown for one of God’s earthly kingdoms. This mandate of heaven, to use the equivalent Chinese concept, granted them absolute authority as representatives of the French nation.

A forgotten element, however, was that of good rule. This divine right exists only so long as a king pursues the good of his people. We see King Saul in 1 Samuel lose his right to rule due to his rejection of divine guidance and his selfish purposes. The mandate of heaven was then passed on to David. In the case of France, Louis XVI’s rule was overthrown in revolution leading to his and his wife’s executions. The power vacuum left by the empty throne led to years of endless and bloody revolution in the Reign of Terror. France and her traditions were left in a gutter overflowing with the blood of innocent and guilty alike.

When Napoleon took power, he did so at first as Consul, later becoming Emperor through the mandate of the French people. His own failures as a ruler led to his defeat and subsequent exile to Elba, then to his final defeat at Waterloo and a second, more permanent, exile to St. Helena. His ambitions to rule over Europe cost him his right to rule, the mandate of heaven. He had rescued the crown from the gutter and had restored order to France, but he was still a flawed man whose mistakes cost him. In Napoleon we see the return of the king, the restoration of glory to a nation in chaos, and we also see the fall from grace.

History abounds with examples, the most famous of which might be that of Richard I the Lionheart (r. 1189-1199). Richard inherited the throne from his father, Henry II, who had himself been a king restoring order to a fractured nation. Upon his ascension, Richard set sail for the Holy Land to battle Saladin for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He left behind his younger brother, John, who was to be watched by their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. During Richard’s absence, the men he had set over his kingdom as regents proved incapable, leading John to prop himself up as a makeshift king.

This proved disastrous as England and the Angevin territories fell into turmoil under John’s attempted leadership. Richard returned to England in early 1194, having been delayed due to imprisonment in Germany. At once, John and his forces surrendered the kingdom to Richard’s authority, not daring to fight against him. It was enough to know that the true king was returning. Richard, ever the knight, pardoned and forgave his brother who then served loyally for the remainder of Richard’s reign. England’s problems were not solved by Richard’s return alone, but the chaos was quelled and the nation was given a respite to heal.

The return of the king is a powerful image in stories and history, and we find it deep within our subconscious. In the literary realm, we have Arthur, the Once and Future King, as well as Aragorn, the Heir of Isildur. These are figures who embody the virtues of kingship which are the virtues of knights writ large.

Like the knight, the king slays the dragon. He brings peace and stability, not chaos and division. The true king is a man who has fatherly affection for his people, embracing the culture and traditions of his nation. A king is nothing if not the avatar of his nation, and if he does not love his countrymen and the land in which they live, he has no right to claim the title of king.

Usurpers and pretenders bring disorder as they seek power and glory through vain ambition, but the true king fulfills his duty by bringing prosperity. Power and duty are dangerous and potent forces in human endeavors. They are inextricably linked, and those who seek power without recognition of the duties implied are doomed to tyranny. And those who recognize duty but fail to understand power shall inevitably see their realms fall into well-intentioned chaos.

The battle between kings and chaos is as old as stories, seen in its most primal form through Chaoskampf, the struggle against Chaos. This is a trope seen in countless cultures worldwide, most prominently among Indo-European cultures. A king, often the sun god or god of the sky, comes to do battle with a serpent or dragon of darkness.

The king casts down the serpent and brings order to the cosmos. Examples can be seen in Marduk vs Tiamat of Babylonian myth, Baal vs Yamm of Canaanite myth, Indra vs Vritra in Vedic/Hindu myth, Ra/Aten vs Apophis is Egyptian myth, and Zeus vs Typhon in Greek myth. Each legend depicts a king bringing peace to a world torn asunder.

In history, these kings are rarely as virtuous as though ought to be, but in them we see the shadow of something greater. They are imitations, anticipations of something more fundamental to the world. History is itself a story, and we best understand the world around us through narrative. This speaks to the grand narrative of all history, and in these stories and in these men, we can see the imprint of that narrative in our imaginations.

We find metaphysical truths in the stories of Richard I and Napoleon. But let us add others to this list: Octavian, Alfred, Casimir III, Alexander II, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. These were men of destiny whose stories, in their own flawed ways, echo the deepest story of all. This is a truth that humanity has grasped since the beginning. Darkness came, and the light will someday cast it away. Disorder has spread, but order will be restored.

The King is good. The King has gone. The King will come again.

This is something I’ve never actually shared in any length apart from with a small number of friends: a portion of my literary world’s deep lore. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the very basics of angels or angelic-equivalents today. We begin with the very act of creation:

In the beginning, there was naught but silence and the long dark 
till the Light shone from the nothing and a whisper sounded from the deep.
Thus spake the Voice, "Be," and all flourished at the Word of Arvolei;
a thousand eyes sparked from the expanse, and all was still in His presence.

Those thousand eyes belonged to the Great Ones, the Priosi, the witnesses of creation. As the firstborn of all creation, they stood in the presence of their Creator as He shaped the cosmos with His hands, yet they could not perceives His ends.

Next came the Mighty Ones, the Exair, whose thunderous song echoed in harmony with the Voice of Creation as all was put to order. They heard the melody of all creation, yet they could not discern it depths.

From the warmth of His Light emerged the Holy Ones, the Allyxe, the ministers and servants of the realms of creation. In their glory, they esteemed all of creation as higher than themselves, and they sought only to spread the warmth that had birthed them.

The Priosi were raised up to be members of the divine council, stewarding all of creation according to the will of Arvolei, who knows Himself as Iolan. Serving beneath them as guardians and priests of the divine will were the Exair who maintained the eternal chorus of the heavenly realms of Vinori. As the highest orders of the celestial court, they ruled over the universe, each one declared as prince over the mortal nations and tasked with guiding them through the eras. In service to these greater orders were the Allyxe who were carried on the winds of the cosmos, fulfilling the Will of Arvolei in the furthest reaches of existence.

Together, the Children of Light, va Kern ux Sior (or Sioric Kern) in their own language, spread across the cosmos in service to creation. They presided over the physical and mortal realms, including the world home to ev Annari, or the Others as the humans would later call them. In certain realms such as that of the Others, the Children of Light took special interest and governed directly as princes with authority delegated to them from Arvolei. In these early physical realms, the denizens held tight to the spark of life, Prin Iskra, and thus never knew the true sting or power of death.

The gift of death was reserved for the children of Tsalem, known after his rebellion as Demut, who lived in the world of Roth. The race of humans, referred to as the Children of Dust by the Others, enjoyed special communion with Arvolei even in spite of their fallen state. That story is for another post, however, so we will return to the Children of Light. In such realms as that of the Others, cosmic governance was given to the Children of Light. They were not to be worshipped, but were revered as servants of the Most High who guided the well-being and flourishing of the realms.

Among the Priosi, those who witnessed the birth of all else, came Auctros who stood preeminent among his brethren in glory and might, but not in wisdom. Observing the beauty and wonder of creation, the power of the Voice which whispered and moved the stars, Auctros sought greater virtue and glory in honor of his Creator. In pursuit of greater esteem, his desire to be good led to disappointment and obsession as he could never ascend the heights of the transcendent Good possessed solely by Arvolei. As he turned inward to pursue his own glory, Auctros collapsed, becoming a wound in the cosmos. It was not enough to have glory of his own, he desired to have glory independent of Arvolei, glory and virtue equal to his Creator.

The shadow cast by his collapse became known as Kaanos, or the Eternal Night, and all that looked with longing at the autonomy of Auctros fell with him. Within that abyss, he became known as Myrkar, named after the darkness he had become, ev azik Sathair, the First Calamity. Those who fell with him were ev Azik Vathosi ux Sioric Kern, the First Fallen of the Children of Light, or simply as the Vathosi, the Fallen.

Those who remained loyal to Arvolei defended the physical realms from the influence of Myrkar and the Vathosi. The abyssal powers often sought influence over the affairs of what they perceived as lesser creations such as humanity, seeking to corrupt them and draw them into the Eternal Night in continuation of their blasphemy. Within the human world of Roth, the Vinoric Cycle dawned when societies began to call upon the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars for guidance, grasping for the Children of Light to become their gods as they had long forgotten the Voice of Arvolei.

The wars in the heavenly places spread beyond even the conflict between those who remained loyal to Arvolei and the Vathosi, consuming countless with the desire for power and status. Wars between the nations became proxy wars between the celestial powers. These days of disorder continued for an age until the emergence of va Myrk Annar, the Other Darkness, which is a topic for another post.

I may take time to write out lore basics for other subjects, maybe focusing on the abyssal powers in another post. I may also talk directly about the fantasy novel/duology I have already drafted, and maybe about my current project as well. Otherwise, I will return to posts closer to my previous work on this Substack and keep that the primary focus.

We knew that the creaking of the house was it settling in for a nap, and that chairs grow uncomfortable when they are tired of being sat on. When we return to fairyland, our eyes open once again to the magic that surrounds us and we realize what had been stolen from us through an immature attempt at maturity.

When we read stories as children we understood that they were real, just as real as anything else in the world, but we also understood that they are different in their reality. Our unfamiliarity with the world as children allows us to see how large and wondrous it is, though of course we see the dangers present. There are dragons, goblins, and monsters in the dark and to ignore them is foolish.

As we grow older, however, we find ourselves assured of our knowledge of the world and we leave behind the magic we once saw around every corner. We begin to believe that the monsters are simply shadows, the heroes are contained within stories, and adventures belong to the distant past or worlds other than our own. We begin to see these as no more than figments of our imagination as though the imagined is somehow unreal.

I recall being at a restaurant once and hearing a young boy ask a server which brick on the far wall opened up the secret passageway. There was no question about whether or not such a passageway existed, it was simply known. The only question was how to gain access.

This server told him that she was not given access to the passageway and unfortunately could not tell him which brick would work. While many adults may have “played along” with the boy, few would truly believe alongside him. It feels silly to do so because of course there’s no secret passageway because such things either do not exist or would be found in places like old castles or the White House, not a local restaurant.

I will admit that I was not always of the mind to accept fairyland. It was combination of factors, both human and providential that opened my eyes. I now see that fairyland is indeed more real than the world most of us are used to dwelling in. We are told that the imaginary is simply “make believe” because we pretend that something is real when it must not be.

Why though? Why should we accept that there is not, in fact, a brick in the wall that might lead one on an adventure to another land? Is the adventure any less real simply because it is found in our imaginations? Of course not. To imagine is to create. It is to embrace the world as it is and to not rob yourself, or others, of the wonder that remains even if we have not allowed ourselves to see it.

In fairyland, we see the beauty of the world alongside the ugliness. The beauty of the princess is matched by the ugliness of the witch. The valiance of the knight is matched by the cruelty of the dark lord in his dark tower. G.K. Chesterton noted that fairy-tales are not responsible for showing dragons to children, they instead show that dragons can be defeated. This is echoed by C.S. Lewis in his essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”: “Because it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least hear stories of brave knights and heroic courage.”

There is no illusion to fairyland, fairies are instead fond of enchantments. It is not an idyllic utopia disconnected from the realities of the created order. Fairyland is part of the created order and thus is home to heroes and scoundrels alike. G.K. Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy:

It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one thing following another), which are, in the true sense of the word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We in fairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit that reason and that necessity.

When we return to fairyland, we do not return to ignorance of the world as though we are small children who are experiencing the world for the first time, instead we see the world without the illusions of disenchantment. In fairyland, all things return to their fundamentals, their most archetypal and primal realities.

As I said in “The Princess and the Knight,” these stories display the feminine and the masculine in their purist forms, in the forms that we should all desire to fulfill. Fairyland washes away the illusions of the mundane and returns us to the clarity of the enchantment under which we were made. To be enchanted is not to be deluded. Enchantment is not illusory, disenchantment is. Gazing at the moon and admiring its beauty is truer and more serene when you understand that the moon wants to be admired. More from G.K. Chesterton:

Now, the fairy-tale philosopher is glad that the leaf is green precisely because it might have been scarlet. He feels as if it had turned green an instant before he looked at it. He is pleased that snow is white on the strictly reasonable ground that it might have been black. Every colour has in it a bold quality as of choice; the red of garden roses is not only decisive but dramatic, like suddenly spilt blood.

The moon is beautiful by its very nature, and it chooses to display it awe-inspiring presence in the night sky. It does not always choose to do so, but it is important to recognize it when it does. When one admires a beautiful woman, or tells her that he loves her, he is doing so because it is right and true. Not to do so would be a crime against the Good. Her beauty is her own, yet it is also something much deeper, and we see that more clearly when we understand that she is a princess in fairyland who casts light against the darkness.

The expression of her beauty, like that of the moon, is a choice, though she does not decide to be beautiful because that is intrinsic to her and the moon alike. The sun does not choose to be radiant or powerful, but it chooses when to express its power and to what extent. Returning to fairyland allows us to see the freedom of the world around us and to better admire the wonder present therein.

Fairyland returns the imagination to its proper place of providing and discerning meaning within the world. When our imaginations are subject to illusions, we find them trapped within cliches and stale ideas that do not stir our hearts to adventure. We find ourselves unable to appreciate the world around us for what it is, a living work of art which has been granted freedom by the Artist.

The expression of this freedom is found in fairyland. We may learn the cold processes of nature through science, but we will not grasp the true beauty of the freedom of the trees and their changing colors without returning to fairyland. We will not hear the songs of praise sung by birds without the enchantment of fairyland, instead we will hear only mating calls.

Find the brick and enter the secret passageway that leads to fairyland and adventure. Speak with a child, a harbinger of fairyland wisdom, and be renewed in your search for beauty and wonder.

Perhaps the single most famous example is that of St. George and the dragon. In his travels, St. George came across a young princess who had been condemned to serve as a sacrifice to a dragon that had been terrorizing her homeland for many years. In defense of the princess, St. George struck the dragon down and bound it to her as little more than a pet. When the townsfolk were terrified by its presence, he commanded them all to repent and be baptized, and he would slay the dragon for them once and for all.

Despite her cries that he save himself and flee, George took up arms against the beast because there was no other choice to make. Either you answer the call or you fade into nothing. You persevere or you perish. You take up your spear and you fight, or else you disgrace the call. There’s more to be found in the image of knights and princesses however, and we must look more deeply at what is being expressed.

The knight is a man who has taken an oath to serve his lord and his lord’s people, to uphold what is true and just, to seek the good, and to help those in need. The chivalric code demands the pursuit of virtue and character, to practice war only for the sake of peace. While many knights in history have fallen short of these ideals, the knight who rescues the princess is no such figure. He is the embodiment of chivalric virtues and the selfless love demanded of men by God.

The princess is a woman who exemplifies the virtues of the feminine, the strength of empathy, the discipline of humility, the honor of devotion, and the courage of charity. She is the one so immersed in what is true, good, and beautiful that the forces of darkness cannot bear to leave her be. Her very character is an assault on the evils of this world and it demands that others rise up to defend what is just and right. Her station is that of the lighthouse beckoning others to safety.

When a dragon steals away a princess or else demands she be handed over, it is seeking to destroy what is innocent and beautiful. It desires to tarnish the unblemished and to cast into darkness that light which draws others forward. Both the knight and the princess act as signposts to what is even greater than they, the transcendent True, Good, and Beautiful. By assaulting the princess, the dragon hopes to wound that transcendence and to cast the knight into darkness along the path so he might become lost.

One of the most striking and memorable scenes from my childhood comes from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). It typifies this love between the knight and the princess, the roles they play and the absolute character required of the knight. Near the end of the film, after killing the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin rushes to Marian and embraces her. Breathlessly, she expresses her shock and joy that he’s alive and he came for her. Without a thought he responds, “I would die for you.”

This is what honor demands of knights, that they be willing to suffer and die for what is true, good, and beautiful. He must be willing to sacrifice and to risk his heart, his mind, his body, and his life for the princess. She stands not as a prize to be obtained, but as a woman of valor who rightly enjoys the love and devotion of the knight. It is through the self-sacrificing love the knight has for the princess that he is able to travel the thorny path of the transcendent. It is through the service of the knight that the princess is able to flourish in the light of the transcendent.

This princess is not a damsel in distress who is rescued because she is helpless. The knight does not save her because she is little more than a child. He does so because he loves her and he will pursue her safety and well-being even and especially at his own expense.

She does not wait for him to save her out of cowardice or weakness, but because she understands that it is his path to take and it is her duty to cast light upon it. There is no imbalance of strength in the tale of knights and princesses, only the harmony of the masculine and the feminine in their most primal and mythic conditions.

The dragon is defeated as it dared to mar the beauty of the innocent and to stand in the way of valiance. It desired what did not rightfully belong to it, that is, what is beautiful. It must steal away the beauty of others and keep it captive for it has none of its own.

The knight and the princess work in tandem to display the selfless love and duty which the world has been called to imitate. In their roles, they exemplify the bonds of marriage and the joyful duties therein. In both, there is a willingness to suffer for the other, to serve the other in the deepest and most profound of ways, and to stand in the face of darkness if it means the salvation of the other.

Always a knight, ever a princess.

Despite its far reaching influence, this has also become a much-maligned trope due to many examples of poorly written and developed Chosen One characters. I can sympathize with people who dislike or are tired of them, but the good examples are often of such quality that they shine out the bad. This character trope speaks so deeply to the human psyche that we will never be rid of it, so we might as well learn to live with and appreciate it.

There are different forms this trope takes that must be explored before we can get to the bottom of the trope as a whole. It seems to me that there are two primary forms: the hero foretold by prophecy, and the hero anointed at a particular time.

Heroes of prophecy probably make up the lion’s share of this character trope as it is the easiest to do and to integrate within a narrative. The most obvious example from recent fiction is, of course, Harry Potter. His rivalry with Voldemort was foretold in prophecy, and his knowledge of that prophecy propelled him forward into war. Another example, though ‘hero’ is obviously a complex term to lay at his feet, is Paul Atreides from Dune.

These are the Chosen Ones whose roles are determined in the conflict without their knowledge or consent, often being determined years before they are even born. They are beset with the weight of destiny and often struggle with their path due to their inability to change it. This can lead to fascinating character development and internal conflict.

It can also lead to boring, rehashed, and cliched character woes and self-pity. There is a delicate balance required. Chosen Ones benefit from reference to other great Chosen Ones, but they need to stand on their own as well and not merely act as one story’s messiah transplanted cheaply into another.

Generic characters do not go far regardless of their tropes, but for Chosen Ones it can be even more grating and frustrating. Why exactly is this prophesied hero so boring and plain? Being average is no issue, but being uninteresting is unforgivable.

I think part of people’s exhaustion and disillusionment with Chosen Ones has come as a result of YA fiction taking culture by storm. Many of the prominent YA protagonists of the last twenty years have been Chosen Ones of one sort or another. It is unfortunate that many of these protagonists are quite bland as characters and cannot stand on their own. They mostly act as hollow shells for the audience to slide into while reading.

Though some people would cite Harry Potter as one such protagonist, I actually disagree. I think he has a fairly complex and interesting personality on his own, and his struggles with destiny are effectively conveyed and explored. He has become the template, however, and has therefore been cheapened in retrospect due to so many subpar characters attempting to fill his shoes.

The other form of Chosen One is that character who is called to action at a particular time. He is not foretold by prophecy, but in the moment of battle, he is called and he answers the call. A great example from history/legend would be the story of Cincinnatus. A man of a simple life who was called to defend his homeland. He answered the call, then returned home. I often find this sort of Chosen One to be more interesting, narratively speaking. They stand at the break of destiny not because they were foretold to be there, but because they were the ones who took the burden on.

Perhaps the greatest example from literature is Frodo from Lord of the Rings. He was not a prophesied hero, but a simple hobbit who took on the weight of the world. One of the features often present with this type of Chosen One, and it is seen very clearly with Frodo, is the movement of providence.

They may not be foretold by prophets and sages, but they are still chosen by forces beyond their understanding. At the Council of Elrond, Frodo responds to the movement of providence within his heart and declares that he will take the Ring to Mordor.

At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.

‘I will take the Ring,’ he said, ‘though I do not know the way.’ (Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, 270)

Frodo will answer the call, leave behind his home with little hope of returning, and set forth on adventure. He has no claim to special status or powers, no unique properties that make him a greater hero than others. His smallness is the reason he is chosen, because he is ultimately not the hero of the story. He is the instrument of divine will, the activity of Eru Ilùvatar.

A key aspect of the Chosen One is the surrender of the past life. Whatever came before the call or the activation of prophecy is left behind in order to follow the path. It is an all-encompassing command upon their hearts, and they cannot resist, even if they wish to. They are called, and they must answer.

They leave behind the plow and the oxen in the field to follow the path set before them. This sacrifice of what came before is a necessary feature of the Chosen One. They are chosen, they cannot simply remain with their mundane life and hope to bear the burden of destiny. They are called to change, to sacrifice, to prevail, and sometimes to die.

There is no discussion of Chosen Ones without recognition of the greatest Chosen One present within the human consciousness, Jesus Christ. Many of these characters simply become Christ-figures, though perhaps our idea of what that means has been watered down over the years.

The Christ-figure is the greatest of all Chosen Ones, and this character may be foretold in prophecy or be anointed, as Jesus himself was both. What ultimately matters is that they make the ultimate sacrifice for the salvation of those they care for. The Christ-figure is not only one who is called by destiny to conquer evil, but to sacrifice everything in order to do so.

Cincinnatus may have turned away from his simple life for a time, but he returned to it after the adventure was done. There is no return to the mundane for the Christ-figure. Frodo is unable to return to normal life in the Shire after the wounds, physical and spiritual, he suffered on the journey to Mount Doom. He instead ventures forth to the Grey Havens for peace. He may not have died, but he lost everything that had come before his adventure and he returned a fundamentally changed person.

Christ rose again, but not to the mundanity of earthly life. The Christ-figure is the Chosen One who must lose everything. There is fear and pain involved in this, fear and pain at unfathomable levels. Jesus sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane as he awaited his fate, yet he submitted to his duty nonetheless.

These are figures who call us to higher action. We cannot read the story of one chosen for greatness and not be filled with wonder and feel a demand press in upon our hearts to take action ourselves. A truly great Chosen One should inspire others to answer the call. Their very stories are our calls to action.

They have been chosen and have walked the path before us, and their footsteps invite us forward. We desire saviors in our lives, but we often neglect the reality that saviors demand sacrifices of those they save. When they sacrifice for us, we cannot remain in the mundanity of our lives either. There is work to do, and we must play our part. We are called to act and to follow.

Just as they die to what came before, so too must we.

Why should they be considered less interesting, even boring? Is it because we find it less realistic to see a character with great virtue fighting for what is right? Of course, figures like that have always existed in reality, but they often don’t look quite the way we’d expect. I suppose part of us assumes that truly virtuous people do not have internal conflicts or complicated histories. They must have been sheltered from an early age, or else their tragic past has not impacted them in a realistic way.

Another way of looking at it is the sheer amount of evil we see across the world in media and news, not only today but down through history. In this way, perhaps evil feels more familiar to us than good. To us, a hero with true virtue and discipline is an alien come to earth as a messiah, not a human who has been forged by trial and pain. There may be an underlying assumption that evil is simply more ‘real’ than good. The ubiquitous nature of cruelty and our dark fascination with it both in fiction and reality seem to testify to this fact. Goodness and virtue are lofty ideals only truly seen in mythologies and fairy-tales. Of course evil must be more real than good.

But why should this be true? Is the shadow more real than the light casting it?

We live in a materialist culture, not merely in the sense that we value too highly material gain but that we often reduce all things to the material by default. If something does not have tangibility, something our senses can experience directly, then it must be unreal or at least less real than the things that do and can. We cannot live according to this assumption, however, and no one would dare try. Virtue is assumed to be real, even if we do not often seek it. We see acts of good and love in charity, kindness, mercy, but these still feel less real because they seem to occupy a minority of our attention or awareness.

True heroes must then feel somewhat less real than villains, as though their responses to the world around them are less likely or more fantastical. Maybe we can sympathize with the Joker and his ‘one bad day’ more than Superman and his perfectionist ideals. Maybe the cruelty of the big city streets feels more real than the peace of life on a Kansas farm.

In reality, we have always found good to be more interesting than evil in purely conceptual terms. Great philosophers have written countless more tomes and treatises on virtue and goodness than they have on wickedness and evil. It has always seemed clear that evil is less real than the good.

If you were to commit to learning about the great virtues and heroic acts of past figures or about those atrocities which scar the human past, you would quickly realize that the men and women behind such atrocities were seldom very interesting or worthy of study. Of course, we all know the great evils of history, we know their names and many of their deeds, but when we are confronted by a truly good person in history, there is a clear difference.

Consider the story of Private Desmond Doss from the Pacific theatre of the Second World War. He was a man of great faith and virtue, whether he considered those factors in the moment or not, who saved dozens of lives at the Battle of Okinawa. The person who would choose to study more closely the banal ambitions of Nazi leadership over the life that led Private Doss to heroism is someone who ought to self-reflect more intently.

We are more inspired by acts of heroism than we are horrified by acts of evil, but we pay them less attention and we are presented with them less often. A good man’s life story is more interesting than a bad man’s, though one might think the opposite. A bad man may live counter to social mores and norms, but ultimately he is giving into his weaker and more primal drives. A good man lives counter to the widespread darkness he sees around him, and his toil is made greater, his light is made brighter, by the darkness he overcomes.

Some of the great and classic heroes of the modern era remain pure of heart, despite our fascination with anti-heroes. Examples are Frodo, Sam, and Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Aang from Avatar: the Last Airbender, Superman, and Captain America.

Purity of heart does not necessarily mean perfection or being unharmed by the evils of the world. It simply means that these characters pursue the good amidst great evils, good for its own sake because it’s the right thing to do. Love is best understood as willing the good of the other, even at your own expense. Purity of heart is to love and to sacrifice for others, even when it hurts. To persevere in the face of suffering because of what’s true and right.

Some of these characters may feel more mythical and unattainable than others, but none of them fall outside the bounds of human virtue. Men like Desmond Doss are proof of that. Perhaps we have grown content with holding ourselves to a lower standard, and anti-heroes allow us to feel that we might still be good even if we allow the world to bend us. True goodness may be ultimately far beyond our abilities, but there is value in the ascent. For now, we simply grasp at shadows, but the pursuit of virtue and perfection is more fulfilling and meaningful than choosing to remain in the dark.

Whatever it is that draws a person to a villain, it is clear that something fascinates us with the darker elements of stories. Sometimes the hero and villain are inextricably connected, like many superheroes and their arch-nemeses, and other times the villain outshines the hero. It’s an interesting turn of events that we should so often favor villainous characters in media and find them more intriguing or satisfying to watch than the heroes.

Many people consider heroes, especially those pure of heart, to be rather boring. Villains tap into some taboo that culture just can’t get enough of. It’s gotten to the point where even our heroes today have become anti-heroes more often than not. Some might argue that this is because it feels more realistic due to the moral complexity of our world. There’s merit to that argument, but it’s not quite enough because it doesn’t explain our general preference for straightforward villains, even when they don’t have tragic pasts or sympathetic motives. The question becomes, what makes evil so fascinating? And is evil actually all that interesting?

If one were to survey the most impactful characters of 21^st century media, I guarantee there would be an inordinate amount of villains on the list. Figures such as Sauron and the Witch-King from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptation, Heath Ledger’s Joker and Tom Hardy’s Bane from The Dark Knight Trilogy, Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men, Voldemort from the Harry Potter series, Ramsey Snow and Joffrey Baratheon from A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, Thanos and Loki from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and many others would certainly be in the discussion, and rightly so.

If we look at some of these figures more closely, then we can see what about them strikes us so potently. Let’s take Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men. One of his defining features is his soullessness. He feels more like an automaton than a man in many of his scenes, and his moral compass is utterly divorced from human ethics and remains mostly incomprehensible throughout the film (I cannot speak to the book as I have not yet read it). Lives are retained or lost based on the flip of a coin, but refusal to play the game at all is losing it straight away in his eyes.

His philosophy seems to focus on the pathways people take in life and the risks they take along the way, the rules they follow that guide them on their journeys. When speaking with a gas station attendant, he claims that the attendant has been putting his life up on the table since it began, he just didn’t know it. He had chosen a safe and simple life, but he had been playing the game nonetheless. When Anton eventually confronts a bounty hunter named Carson Wells, he asks him if the rule Carson followed that had led him to that moment was of any actual use if he still wound up at the nonexistent mercy of Anton.

Perhaps Anton fascinates people because of his inhumanity. He feels like something completely other, like a force of nature, but we can imagine someone like him potentially existing in the real world. We know that evil people exist. Some of us have known evil people in our own lives. Evils like Anton are real, and seeing them on the screen reminds us of that fact. In the controlled context of a film or novel, a villain may appear fascinating due to their connection or lack thereof to the real world. In reality, however, most villains are quite boring.

If we look at the mechanisms behind the Nazi regime, we don’t see mustache twirling monsters who laughed with glee as they signed the death warrants of thousands, tens of thousands, millions. Instead, we see bureaucrats with families and friends who got up for work in the morning just as people do today, bureaucrats with pets and hobbies and favorite songs, only to sign such death warrants without a second thought. No wicked joy, no evil laugh, no cruel smile. Just banal clerical work you might even have mistaken for a present day DMV. This fact reminds us that they were human and not under-the-bed monsters, but their humanity only makes what they did all the worse. It provides complicating context to our understanding of the human condition.

Villains in stories give us a glimpse of evil characters, or tragically flawed characters, from a perspective that demands interest as they relate to the plight of our heroes. If they were to be removed from the drama of the story—if we were to see their day-to-day lives—they would lose much of the mystique they carry.

Most evil actions throughout history have been done for relatively uninteresting reasons and in uninteresting ways. Bureaucracy, incompetence, apathy, the vain search for human perfection or absolute equality, or the mere desire for power and wealth. None of these are especially interesting in their own right, and the great evils of the past century were mostly committed by either buttoned-up administrators or simple soldiers ‘just following orders’. Hardly the dramatic flare of villainy one would expect from the stories.

If we saw extensive footage of Darth Vader sitting at a desk simply administering bits of the Empire, he would lose a significant portion of his ‘cool factor’ or intimidation. If we saw the Joker lie down in bed at night and count sheep to help himself fall asleep, he would, for a moment, not be quite so menacing. If we saw Anton Chigurh stop to go to the bathroom, perhaps he would begin to feel a bit silly to us. Evil exists in the mundane, not solely in dramatic moments, but in stories villains thrive on their disconnect from daily experience.

Our fascination with villains comes from the drama through which they are presented. People want to see the darker bits of the world, of humanity, but we don’t necessarily want to see it within daily life. But that’s where it actually lives. By contrast, the heroic figures of stories can lose their luster in comparison, not only because we simply see them more often but because their actions don’t feel quite so dramatic by comparison. There are many nuances behind the depiction of good and evil in stories, and one could spend a lifetime studying one side or the other. Perhaps next week we’ll look at the flipside of this coin.

In writing good villains, there are a number of approaches one can take. My personal preference has always been to keep the villain’s screentime to a minimum. The less you see the villain, the more power he/she has over the narrative. They remain a relatively unknown factor. They require a strong entry to show the danger they pose, but they should not be seen very often. Personally, I would never give the main villain of one of my stories a point of view within the narrative. They’ll only ever be seen from the perspective of other characters, characters who learn to fear them. That is my preference, but it is certainly not the only option.

I found while growing up that villains in TV series seemed more interesting and stronger the less they were shown. If we look at the big bads from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, most of them are all over their respective seasons. You see them constantly, and by the end of the season they just feel like one character among many. Maybe they’re still threatening, but there’s little mystery left. I don’t say this to disparage the show, I did enjoy it when I watched it, and my mom remains an avid fan of the series.

It does, however, contrast with the practice of the first five seasons of Supernatural. Personally, I consider all seasons after season five to be nothing more than fanfiction of varying quality. In the first five seasons, the main villains are rarely seen. They might show up three or four times over the course of 20+ episodes, most of those appearances being quite short. The villains remain mysterious and powerful in the audience’s imagination because of their rarity. They do not become mundane and boring as normal evils actually are.

Looking famous examples, it's easy to understand why villains make such an impact on us in their stories, but we do seem to disconnect when considering evil in reality. People remain complex and, oftentimes, more morally grey than black or white. Villains show us the flashy, dramatic flare of a character working toward darkness without all the crummy details mixed in. This makes it easy for us to forget the full picture. Have you ever considered if Baron Harkonnen has food allergies? Would he become perhaps a little less threatening if you knew he couldn’t drink milk without tummy rumbles? Something to think about.

Which villains have most fascinated you? Why?

If one wishes to practice art, writing, or music as a hobby in their spare time, so be it, but they do not contribute to the material benefit of society at large. The arts bear no burdens for social or political development, no obligations for financial gain and public policy. Why pursue art if there is no consistent material benefit?

Another question: Who wants to live in a world that doesn’t appreciate or conserve beauty?

Let’s back up and explore what is meant by ‘beauty’ and ‘art.’ The study of beauty, specifically in visual form, is called aesthetics, while the counterpart for written works would be poetics. For brevity’s sake, I will simply refer to creative endeavors as ‘the arts’ throughout this piece. Beauty is an intrinsic feature of the created order which can and ought to be admired by observers.

It is a fact of reality and things which are beautiful are beautiful in themselves and not simply from the perspective of the witness. The old adage that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” finds only limited value when actually speaking of beauty. Preferences may exist, but beauty itself is an objective feature of the world and when one speaks of something as being beautiful, they are appreciating it in proper form.

In one of his greatest works, The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis references a story involving the poet Samuel Coleridge at a waterfall:

You remember that there were two tourists present: that one called [the waterfall] ‘sublime’ and the other ‘pretty’; and that Coleridge mentally endorsed the first judgement and rejected the second with disgust. (2)

The tourist who called the waterfall ‘sublime’ was giving an appropriate level of reverence to a place of true beauty and majesty, whereas the second tourist is only correct in labeling it ‘pretty’ in an imagined black and white scale of ‘yes’ or ‘no’. No such black and white scale exists, however, and to label something truly worthy of recognition as ‘sublime’ as merely ‘pretty’ is a disservice and a failure to apply proper appreciation. To label the waterfall ‘sublime’ is to recognize the true and intrinsic merits of the waterfall. It deserves such a label because it is sublime. The first tourist spoke something innately true about the waterfall.

To dismiss both tourists as making value statements contingent on their own feelings leads us to dismiss all that is beautiful and good within our use of language and thought. If a man says to a woman that she is radiant like a sunrise, we should then recognize that the statement is useless and has nothing to do with the woman, or the sunrise, but instead has to do with the feelings welling up inside the man’s heart. The external figure being referenced is of little consequence when the important factors of judgement are internal.

If I were to be conditioned to associate the taste of chocolate with getting sick, then such a judgement would be equally reasonable as one who associates it with joy or pleasure. Instead, we ought to understand that the former association is not in line with reality. C.S. Lewis references his own dislike of being around small children, but that he recognizes that this is a defect and not a preference of equal value to one who enjoys such company.

Like the waterfall, there is an intrinsic value to the fellowship of small children, whether we understand this as an evolutionary biological drive to continue the species and look after our young, or as a sacred duty to procreate and pass one’s heritage on to the next generation. One who dislikes children does so in defiance of the natural order, denying the proper valuation of younger persons and our natural instinct to care for them. The tourist who described the waterfall as ‘pretty’ was denying the waterfall its proper valuation.

As C.S. Lewis puts it, there is “a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not.” (19). Beauty is such a feature of reality. It demands to be recognized as such, as an awe-inspiring sight that humbles us or else wells up strong emotions of joy, courage, or motivation. To recognize beauty is to see the world as it is, as a reflection of the beauty of its very design. Beauty points us upward, to deeper consideration of what lies beyond our senses and our reason.

The arts must therefore be understood as reflections of the beauty we see around us. Just as a waterfall, a mountain, or a forest each reflect some deeper beauty in the world, so too do the arts, either as reflections of those very subjects or as a grasping toward the highest beauty. When the true poet sits down to do his or her work, the goal is not to rhyme words meaninglessly but to speak of something that manifests itself in our hearts. A former instructor of mine once said that the purpose of poetry is “to move the soul.”

The arts seek to explore and bring to mind those things which are in themselves so beautiful or meaningful that they must be expressed through beautiful means. It is here we see a firm line drawn in the sand between ‘art’ and ‘entertainment’. That is a conversation for another post, however, but it is important to note that there is nothing wrong with entertainment as long as we recognize it is of a lower order. While it may still grasp at beauty, it does so secondarily.

The question we return to is what makes the arts valuable if they provide little, or at least inconsistent, material benefit? In a culture and society which prioritizes practicality and career-prospects, we have little patience for the pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful. The arts may not be the clearest pathway leading to monetary success, unless you wish to launder money through modern art, but they are made free by that fact. The arts, the humanities, are free from the burden of outcome, of practicality. They speak of the world, not to the world. The arts are those subjects and practices we pursue out of love and passion, not with financial gain at the forefront of our minds. They are things to be enjoyed in themselves rather than based on what they may provide.

One can imagine fewer things more practically useless than standing in the Louvre and admiring da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. What that person takes away from those moments is not to be measured in finances, credit scores, assets, or physical health. Rather, they step away having taken a moment to admire a work of beauty that grasps toward something even more beautiful. Our imaginations were not given to us to be squandered over an obsession with pragmatism, but to seek truth through the beautiful and to uncover the mysteries of our world and lives. We do not gain much from pondering our existence or appreciating good literature, but we are enriched by it nonetheless.

There is an inherent value to life and there are intrinsic meanings in this world. They are not imposed by us out of preference or simple enjoyment, but rather are discovered by us in the authentic search for truth. The philosopher Iain Thomson describes this in the 2010 documentary Being in the World:

Life is made most meaningful when you respond to meanings that are independent of you. This is a point that goes back to Kierkegaard [who] said that if you think all meaning comes from you then you can just take it back. You’re a king without a castle. You’re a sovereign of a land of nothing.

When we pursue the arts, either as creators or appreciators, we are recognizing the meanings and beauty naturally occurring in the word around us. Participation in the beautiful is a natural feature of a life lived authentically, not in servitude to mere practicality, but with eyes set to the horizon of what is greater. While all life must be bound by pragmatism to a degree—and there’s nothing wrong with that—we were not made to take a walk during the sunrise without feeling awe. Even the Lord rested on the seventh day, admiring and appreciating the beauty of creation. We were not made to ignore the stars.

The most powerful examples of media remain with you long after the initial feeling subsides. Horror is not different. The reaction sought is perhaps a bit more visceral, and the lingering impact may have you checking over your shoulder for a few days, but it is ultimately an art form that conjures powerful responses when done effectively.

Now, not all horror is made equal. I would utterly disregard the majority of slashers as the genre-equivalent of generic, dumb action films. They are intended to show gore and provide a few jump scares, not to actually frighten the audience. You jump in your seat, shock and surprise override your emotional range for a moment before subsiding. You then take your friends to see the film so you can mock them for jumping at the same part you did. Thus is the nature of mainstream horror. The primary response is shock, not fear. Fear is paralyzing, not something you leap from your seat over. A consistent failure in horror films is the use of stingers, or loud musical cues that tell the audience they are supposed to be afraid. More often than not, the best horror uses silence.

The character lies in bed amidst a torrent of rain and thunder. The camera settles on them, lying on their side and facing away from the bedroom door. Lightning flashes, illuminating the room behind them. Thunder. The light cuts out—darkness. Another flash. Thunder. Darkness. Another flash. Thunder. Darkness. Another flash and the vague outline of a figure peering from behind the doorway is illumined for a split second before a blast of thunder and a return to darkness. All the while, the scene is silent.

With a stinger, or musical cue, the audience might jump and be surprised for a moment. Their heart-rates may rise before settling back down as they grab another fistful of popcorn. But silence changes everything. The silence draws your focus, demanding that you pay attention because the film won’t tell you when the scary bit happens through music. Instead, your eyes wander and steadily focus on the shadow that’s not meant to be there. The realization burns in your chest and your fight or flight response short circuits, causing your muscles to tense in a momentary paralysis as you comprehend what you’re seeing.

Terror is the true basis of horror media. It is the steady build-up of dread and anxiety. You know something bad is going to happen, but you don’t know when or necessarily what. In the cheap formula of your average jump scare, there is a false scare then a cut to silence just before the stinger erupts alongside the actual scare. The sense of surprise overrides the feeling of dread which had been building, and the tension of the scene ends. Effective horror relies on terror far more, denying the audience the relief brought by the jump scare. If only you could finally see what’s lurking in the darkness, then the dread would end and you would know. But terror denies this for as long as possible.

Horror is when you are at last confronted by that which you have been dreading. The killer appears, a body is discovered, the demon manifests. These do not need to occur as jump scares, though they can be effective as such when done well. The question remains, however, why in the world would someone enjoy this? As I said, horror evokes a visceral reaction from audiences, more so than most other genres. There’s a clear taboo in watching things that are intended to frighten you, but I think it goes beyond that. There is a sense of danger to it, a controlled sort, that can provide an immersive sense of adventure. But even beyond that, horror forces us to deal with aspects of reality that we oftentimes refuse to acknowledge.

Ari Aster’s debut feature film Hereditary (2018) is a supernatural horror film centered around a family troubled by a curse. The film is primarily interested in the discomfort and horror of grief and the sundering of familial ties amidst tragedy. There are supernatural elements to it, but the thematic focus is grief and our human inability to cope with drastic and devastating change. Much of the movie feels like an intense family drama, allowing the emotional turmoil of the characters to build dread toward their inevitable end. Horror of this sort is many leagues ahead of the usual drivel put out into theatres, as it attempts to speak to real human experiences and fears.

Effective horror, as with all fiction, taps into and participates in reality through some connection to human experience or the nature of the world. The various subgenres of horror have diverse themes, but effective examples always lean into genuine fears. My personal favorite subgenres are folk horror and cosmic horror. There is a fair amount of overlap in their dominant themes, but they diverge in several ways.

Folk horror is comprised of stories which include, you guessed it, folkloric elements such as pagan/nature deities, shamanism, and mystery cults. Folk horror stories oftentimes emphasize feelings of isolation, strangeness, and lack of belonging. Oftentimes characters in folk horror find themselves to be trespassing in some way, leading to the story’s conflict. Film examples of the subgenre are Children of the Corn (1984, 2009), Midsommar (2019), Apostle (2018), and the seminal classic The Wicker Man (1973). Recent novels I have read in the genre are A God in the Shed (2017), The Hollow Kind (2022), and The Only Good Indians (2020).

Folk horror leans into our fear of old things, things that we don’t quite understand in our cultural mindset, or bits of the past that haunt us. Characters in folk horror are normally confronted with ways of living that are deeply strange or foreign, or places that aren’t like home. The old ways are not like our ways, and that is terrifying.

Cosmic horror is often tied with science fiction, but not always. It relies on feelings of insignificance, fear of the unknown and unknowable, the loss or change of self, and the horror of being confronted with the ‘other’. Cosmic horror is notoriously difficult to capture in film, so non-literary examples are rare, but some prominent ones are The Thing (1982), The Void (2016), and The Endless (2017). It is worth noting that season 1 of True Detective (2014) has many elements of cosmic horror, however the horror is not placed centerstage. In terms of novels, both A God in the Shed and The Hollow Kind would fit within the cosmic sphere as well.

I would be worthy of all disdain if I described cosmic horror without mentioning the progenitor of the subgenre, H.P. Lovecraft. The subgenre is often referred to as Lovecraftian horror due to his influence. Lovecraft was a man with many fears, but one of the most prominent which had a significant influence on his work was his deep loathing and fear of the ocean. Many of the creatures in his stories exhibit marine features such as tentacles, scales, and fish eyes. Due to the unknown of the ocean, his stories make reference to the ancient entities dwelling in that abyss, waiting for something to rouse them from their slumber.

While others may primarily find human and natural evils more compelling in a story or even in reality, I remain most interested in and affected by folk and cosmic horror. Evils where there is some semblance of escape or resistance are less frightening to me. I can fight a serial killer, though I may lose. I can arm myself against a wild animal. I can flee from a disaster. While in each of those cases I may, and very probably would, fail, it does not matter.

The mere possibility of escape and resistance is enough for them to be lessened. They are also dangers that solely affect my body. In the cases of folk and cosmic horror the evils are, most of the time, beyond resistance or flight. Not only are they beyond the reach of simple weapons, but their threat also goes beyond the physical and into the spiritual and mental. Such threats require powers beyond our own to combat them.

Both subgenres grasp at the natural human fear of the unknown, either as being beyond our lived experience (folk) or beyond our comprehension (cosmic). The question remains, however, why horror? What draws us to the experience of fear?

As I said above, I think part of it necessarily comes from the desire for adventure, the rush of adrenaline, the sense of danger that makes the day, in retrospect, more thrilling. Horror provides a controlled experience of these sensations. More importantly, horror forces us to confront the reality of evil within this world. Whether the evil is of a human variety such as a serial killer, a natural variety such as a disaster or animal, or of a supernatural variety such as a demon, horror confronts the viewer with evils we might otherwise wish to ignore.

Effective stories cause a change in the viewer’s perception of the events unfolding within the narrative. They immerse you to such an extent that you are able to, on a lower level, suspend your disbelief, or, at the higher level, acquire a secondary belief within the context of the story (this is a topic worthy of its own post).

When applied to horror, an individual who may not fear serial killers in daily life will come to fear them deeply in the context of an effective story. Likewise, an individual with no belief in demons will find them terrifying and dangerous within the boundaries of another story. This immersion is possible and worth pursuing in all genres of fiction and modes of art. Specifically applied to horror, it forces the audience to grapple with darker aspects of reality—to be unsettled and uncomfortable for a short time in an otherwise comfortable life.

Part of the ultimate appeal of horror is in its unsettling nature. Art can be lovely, captivating, and soothing, but it can also be terrible, haunting, and discomforting. Beauty commands both fear and awe, and that which is truly beautiful is equal parts unsettling and mesmerizing. Horror, as with any other genre or art, seeks the beautiful though not via the same pathways.

Perhaps the beauty is most often found in the ways horror reveals the comfort of our actual lives. The dark on the screen or in the pages sheds light on the good in our lives, and reminds us that greater suffering exists. I think another key message to be found in a lot of good quality horror is that there are fates worse than death, and we ought to be mindful of our lives.

Horror as an art form grasps at the beauty which haunts us, the wonder of creation that terrifies us when considered another way. The beauty we witness here grasps for something that is higher than itself. Our imaginations seeks nourishment in stories of all kinds, stories that participate in the fundamental truths of reality, and the battle with fear is an enduring truth.

There’s a sense of excitement and wonder than comes when you enter into a well-crafted world for the first time. Your mind races with the possibilities and mysteries that lay ahead, and you become antsy to learn more about the characters and the setting itself. I recall feeling this way with a number of worlds, and it is a feeling that naturally arises when we are introduced to worlds that scratch the wistful longing of the human spirit, the spirit that is dissatisfied with its own world.

Among the many worlds that have captured me in this way are Avatar: the Last Airbender, Game of Thrones, World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls, and Heroes. Regardless of opinions on the content or enduring quality of these examples, they were all successful at capturing my curiosity at least at the start. I’ll likely explore each of these in greater detail some time in the future.

The key to this sort of excitement is in gradually unveiling the setting through conversation and display. If too much exposition is revealed right away, the mystery never takes hold and the audience has no reason to feel antsy to learn more. Information becomes too free and is not acquired over time through the course of major events and interactions, therefore it feels cheaper and less interesting.

A large amount of exposition is not inherently bad, and is sometimes necessary, but it shouldn’t be dumped at the beginning of a story or all in one place. The beginning should provide a foundation or framework for the audience to use in understanding future revelations. It shouldn’t tear down the curtain right away.

An example of gradual and ambiguous story development, done effectively though imperfectly, is in the first Dark Souls game (the same basic practice continues in the other entries as well). The very basics of the lore are presented in the opening cinematic, allowing the player to see some prominent figures and events from the lore. We are not presented with a clear narrative though. In the end, however, a proper understanding of what happened and what is still happening in the game remains elusive.

The most exposition you receive up until you’re a third of the way through the game comes from a handful NPCs who provide vague dialogue describing what you need to do, but without explaining why. The why only comes later, and even then it is not presented clearly or objectively. Some people love the ambiguous and shrouded lore of the Souls Trilogy while others hate it. Personally, I think the lore itself is very well done, but it is only available to players who are willing to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to piece together a puzzle without form. I will be discussing the Souls Trilogy in more detail in the future, not focusing on lore but the central themes of each installment.

The main takeaway from this approach that I’m interested in discussing here is that you can present the basics of your story early on while still maintaining mystery. Another example is Game of Thrones. When I first watched it, I knew nothing about the series or the lore. The sheer scale of the setting and the very real presence of a complex past made it immediately intriguing. Legends of white walkers, the Wall, dragons, blood magic, Robert’s Rebellion, the Mad King, the Lord of Light, etc… all hinted at deeper and greater bits of lore.

The early seasons effectively set up these concepts, events, and figures as mysteries to be explored or solved later. In the end, however, the show-runners were incapable of writing to the standard of the early series, and thus botched or neglected the mysteries planted at the beginning. Nonetheless, the first four seasons of the series are masterclass examples of gradual exposition and exploration of deeper lore.

Another infamous downturn, the Game of Thrones of the previous generation of television perhaps, can be found in Lost. It began with strong characters, a mysterious setting, and a fascinating story but amounted to nothing as the writers didn’t actually know what to do once it came time to provide answers. Because of this, Lost falls out of the pantheon of great series and into the bin of promising disappointments.

Mystery is not enough in the end. There have to be answers eventually, whether provided directly or indirectly, objectively or subjectively, and satisfactory ones at that. When building a complex and compelling setting, there needs to be some sort of plan in place and some deeper understanding behind it, even if all the details will never be revealed within the story. Audiences can feel when there’s more behind the curtain, so there must always be more that they don’t see.

It’s important to plan out more than you actually intend to do or use. The sense that there is more that could be said or discovered is crucial to establishing a fascinating setting. It is difficult to tap into that sense if there really isn’t anything more to say about your story or your world beyond what’s already on the paper. If you’re the creator of this setting, you should have the answers, or at least be able to develop them when needed.

Despite the success and merits of the Harry Potter series, there are legitimate issues with the world-building. It seems clear enough that J.K. Rowling didn’t begin developing deeper lore until the fourth book. A few seeds were sewn in the early books, but the late showing of most deep lore leads to consistency issues and a shallow setting at times. The series is obviously an example that you can be successful and still make mistakes in your writing. I think we tend to be more forgiving of children’s and young adult fiction for flaws of this kind, just as we tend (and rightly so) to be more forgiving of younger people for their flaws.

The beauty of world-building is found in reflecting bits of reality, showcasing them in new and exciting ways. When we delve into a fantasy world, a science fiction world, or even a historical setting, we are, in many ways, exploring our own world placed through a filter. As I stated in the Truth in Fiction post, good world-building participates in reality through the universal human condition and the necessary features of the universe.

These fictional worlds give us the opportunity to take on the role of explorer and adventurer more directly. Good fiction ought to cause self-reflection, and the effective mystery of a well-crafted setting ensures that the audience will have a wealth of ideas to consider. Even if the reflection is passive, it still occurs, and the things which impact our imaginations may remain mysteries to us for years to come.

When was the last time you entered into a story, no matter the format, and right away became excited? What stood out to you the most? Was your excitement satisfied eventually?

I knew which movie it was though, and that was good. It popped into my mind fairly often when I would think about my own story ideas or even about bits of life. Something about it just stuck with me, but I couldn’t explain exactly why, because I’d only seen it the one time. A few scenes, lines, and images from the movie became ingrained in my imagination. One thought that I consistently had about it was that it was a real shame that more was never done with the film. A movie like that deserved a sequel, I thought. The character needed to return somehow, but by that point it had been the better part of twenty years since the movie’s initial release in 2000. It was too late.

Fast forward to 2018. A couple friends and I had a bonfire one summer night as a sendoff before I left for Scotland to begin graduate school. The conversation eventually shifted to horror movies, as it often does, and they began talking about a movie called Split. It sounded interesting, so I asked them about it. I was sold on the plot right away, but then they mentioned that it was a backdoor sequel to another Shyamalan movie from a long time ago.

The pure and impossible coincidence that it was connected to Unbreakable just floored me. I hadn’t even heard of Split when it was coming out, but more so the fact that a backdoor sequel to Unbreakable had snuck by me two years before was astonishing. I went home from that bonfire and found, through unsavory methods, both films online for free. Needless to say, I went to bed late that night.

Having watched Unbreakable multiple times since then, I now have a better idea of why it stuck with me for so long and why I wanted more. A major theme in the film is that of longing, or yearning for something more. Spoiler alert from here on out. The main character, David Dunn, moves about the events of the film as though he’s in a depressive fog. He’s gone most of his life without finding a real sense of purpose. He awakes in the hospital at the beginning of the story and learns that he is the sole survivor of a train crash, and that he has no physical injuries. Meanwhile, Elijah—a man born with osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bones—reaches out to David after the accident, inquiring about the nature of David’s survival.

During a conversation with Elijah he describes this as a sadness he wakes up with each morning. Of course, David finds himself drawn to helping others by working in security, but nothing quite satisfies that sadness. Their relationship is complicated throughout the film as David does not initially believe Elijah’s proposal that there is something superhuman about David’s survival.

As he comes to accept the reality of his abilities—apparent invincibility save for drowning, enhanced strength, and the ability to have brief visions of a person’s past or present crimes—David asks Elijah what he needs to do. Elijah tells him to go to where people are, and that it won’t take long. At the end of the film, once David has rescued a pair of children from the man who had murdered their parents, he goes to speak with Elijah. In the conversation Elijah asks David if he woke up that day with the same feeling of sadness. David answers no.

In a moment of vulnerability, after revealing himself as the terrorist who orchestrated the train crash David had been in, Elijah explains how he has also felt that sadness and aimlessness throughout his life. He states that it’s “just an awful feeling” to not know your purpose or place in this world. Elijah, in suffering from osteogenesis imperfecta, had come to believe that someone on the opposite of that spectrum must exist. Someone whose bones do not break. Both men had a deep, lingering sadness over not understanding their respective destinies. In the end, David understood that he was meant to help people, while Elijah tragically determined that he was always meant to be the villain. The movie is ultimately centered around the search for meaning in our lives and our ability to pursue what we understand to be our purpose.

That lingering sadness arrives when we live contrary to, or outside the scope, of what we find most meaningful. Elijah’s sense of aimlessness was in feeling like a mistake, feeling alone in a world that he didn’t belong to. He needed to find a reason for his own suffering. David’s came from not understanding his path in life or how to utilize his gifts. The men are simultaneously the same and opposite. Elijah is physically fragile, while David is unbreakable. Yet they both suffer from a yearning for more in their lives.

More than just about any other film I’ve seen, Unbreakable taps into that yearning. It’s a feeling I think most people experience at least once in their lives. In a day and age when career options seem endless yet impossible to obtain, there’s a very real sense of wanting to do something more in your life, wanting to achieve something or do something great. We can look to history with a romantic lens and find stories of great figures who built empires and changed the destinies of their nations before age 30. But what have we to do now? How do we effect change in the world today, despite being seemingly freer?

In the midst of our apparent options and opportunities, the ability to grasp at meaning and purpose in life is slipping away from many people. There’s a real sense of nostalgia at the heart of superhero media, something which Unbreakable tapped into a bit more subtly, and many years prior to the Marvel phenomenon. Not only is there a desire for heroic figures we can look to for inspiration, but there is a desire inherent in mankind to be heroic ourselves.

What is difficult to remember, is that even a simple life with a devoted marriage and deep bonds between parents and their children is oftentimes heroic enough. At the end of Unbreakable, it is not only David’s realization that he has the power and ability to save people which heals him of that sadness. His relationship with his son has been healed, and his marriage is working toward a similar level of healing.

When the film begins, David and his son are distant, almost cold with one another. His son, Joseph, is clearly uncomfortable and afraid each time they speak—not due to an abusive relationship, but due to the natural fear a son has toward a father who has become a stranger. David’s role as father is what ultimately inspires his pursuit of heroism. Joseph believes in David far more than anyone else, even once in an emotional outburst trying to shoot his father to prove his invincibility. As the film goes on, the softening of their dynamic coincides with David’s understanding of his own abilities.

This is not to say that all meaning stems from becoming a parent or spouse, though those are both incredibly important roles that may and should provide a great deal of meaning. It means that there is heroism in the seemingly mundane elements of life. Being a loyal friend, a devoted spouse, an inspiring teacher, or a good and active parent is meaningful and heroic. Whatever your hands and mind find to do, do your very best and seek what is enduringly meaningful rather than fleetingly enjoyable. Unbreakable is ultimately a superhero origin story, but it feels like a family drama at times. It is not flashy or larger than life like others of the genre, but it embodies the ideas and yearnings that still remain in many of the films released today.

David’s yearning to help people ultimately started with the repairing of his familial relationships. He came to understand that his purpose was outwardly focused, that the sadness leaves when he forgets himself and looks to how he can serve others. Elijah’s yearning came from a constant remembrance of self and personal suffering. David was merely the key to Elijah’s own destiny.

The pursuit of meaning in life is found in the realization that our lives aren’t really about us at all. Our accomplishments might be remembered, but not in the context of how we accomplished them. They will be remembered by the way they impacted others. At the heart of Unbreakable is the understanding that life is best spent in service to others, whether in the context of your family, your work, saving people as a superhero, etc. If we were to inhabit this world alone, it would be nigh-impossible to discover any lasting sense of purpose or meaning. Our bonds with others help to draw meaning into our lives.

We’re called to take on the burden of being and move forward, but helping to shoulder a friend’s burden is often when we feel most fulfilled.

There’s an added realism and depth to stories that are based on or inspired by real events, assuming the story is still competently executed. We might even say that the fictionalized portrayal can tell us something real about the actual events. But can we go a bit further? What I mean here is to ask whether or not fiction can actually participate in reality rather than merely imitate it. By participate I mean that the story involves more than a simple reflection of real events or real people, but that it speaks directly to the nature of the world as we understand it or as it is.

One step toward this goal, especially within realms of speculative fiction, is internal consistency. The story world need not be subject to all the same laws and limitations of our own world, but it needs to be constrained by consistent internal laws. Strange and weird fiction that emphasize the story’s distinct madness and chaos are of a different sort (think Alice in Wonderland). There is nothing wrong with strange fiction, but the distinction is important.

For a story trying to talk about people and particular events in a world, there must be consistency that makes the setting and characters intelligible to readers. I talked about this in my post on world-building. This very practice of ensuring that a story remains internally consistent is a means by which it might participate in reality. In doing so, it speaks to our perception of the world and can therefore explore aspects of the world that we might be uncomfortable with or ignorant of.

The meaning or purpose of a story is also a means by which it participates in reality. A story built around the grief of a character, if done effectively, speaks to the reality of grief as experienced by real people. A film showcasing the failed relationship between a parent and child may speak to the reality experienced by countless people throughout the world. It may even, with a bit of self-awareness and reflection, lead to us having greater empathy toward those in the midst of grief or to work toward repairing failed and failing relationships in our lives.

Art and fiction have the ability to draw us toward such reflection and a greater attunement to those around us and the world we live in. It may even tell us things we do not wish to hear in other mediums. As C.S. Lewis put it in his essay “Sometimes fairy stories may say best what’s to be said,” stories have the ability to “steal past those watchful dragons” we place as guardians over our hearts and minds.

Stories also have the benefit of teaching us the lessons of life without all the boring bits. They are streamlined life. We don’t often see characters in the midst of the mundane, or if we do it is for a limited span of time and not for the bulk of the narrative. It allows us to see more clearly the themes present in the narrative as they are not bogged down by distractions or the small details of life. Our lives have themes much in the same way that stories do, but they are spread more thin and can easily become muddied.

Take a moment to think back on your life, perhaps the past five years in particular. What are the themes or recurring ideas you notice? I think one that has appeared in my life in recent years has been patience, though I have often failed to acknowledge or live up to it. Our lives are dominated by such themes, and stories can help to illumine them if we are willing to reflect. Sometimes the stories that draw us in most are the ones that speak to the themes in our lives, whether good or bad.

There is also a clarity of perspective to be found in stories and art more generally. Because a piece of fiction is so focused in comparison to our ever-changing and complex lives, there is simple wisdom to be found within stories. The outside perspective of a character or narrative can lead one to understand their own ideas, motivations, or shortcomings in ways that internal consideration might not. It is often easier to learn of ourselves from the outside.

We are not self-created beings, rather our identities are mutually-negotiated constructs between ourselves and those around us. We may not like it, but in many cases we are as people perceive us to be. If we are not, then we are not living authentically. The external perspective of a friend or a story can lend wisdom which would otherwise be hard to reach from within the churning madness of our own hearts and minds. Too much self-consideration leads to self-obsession and a loss of all that actually makes us interesting as human beings. If we allow them, stories can steal past the watchful dragons of our self-identity and align our perspectives, even if momentarily, to reality.

I’ve said that fiction of this sort must be internally consistent and participate with reality. In order to explore this further we must delve, rather shallowly, into the field of modal logic. There are two ways in which something may be said to exist, necessarily and possibly. If something possibly exists, then it is reasonable that it may in fact exist not only in our world but in other, possible, worlds. It is, by definition, possible. It is not assured. All things that exist are at the very least possible.

By contrast, those things of a necessary existence must, and in fact do, exist in this world and all possible worlds. A common example of this would be 2+2=4. The numerals themselves and the words we use might vary from world to world, but the fact that two quantities of two makes four is a logical necessity. If it were merely possible that 2+2=4, then we would have no certainty in our ability to comprehend basic ideas about the universe. As such, for a piece of fiction to properly participate with reality it must also be home to those things of a necessary variety.

An author need not list all the things that comprise their literary world conceptually or metaphysically, but we do get a good sense of how the state of a fictional setting lines up with our reality. The depiction of real and necessary things might be done in a more over-the-top fashion in order to call special attention to them, or they may be shrouded. Either way, there is an unspoken language which we intuit.

As with the personal examples used above, this feature of fiction’s truth-telling capability enables it to speak to more fundamental ideas about the world as well. Aspects of the universal human experience such as suffering and joy, or those we understand only as shadows of themselves such as transcendence and beauty, may be made clearer through exploration in art.

When Caspar David Friedrich painted Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, he was saying something true about the romantic yearning of the human spirit. When the anonymous poet penned the Anglo-Saxon elegy “The Wanderer” he was saying something true about loss of home, kin, and purpose. When C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, he was saying something true about childhood and the adventuring spirit. When Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy, he was saying something true about the journey of the soul and our struggle toward the transcendent.

In all cases, the work of art, visual or literary, expresses something true about the world and demands consideration. If something is true, really true, necessarily true, then it will be true in all other worlds as well.

Perhaps the most direct exploration of death within the seventh book comes in the Tale of the Three Brothers. I will not share the full story here but simply recount the basics.

Three brothers on a walk at twilight thwart Death by conjuring a bridge over a dangerous ravine. In a calculated move, Death offers each brother a gift in return for their cleverness. In the decisions of the brothers, we see three perspectives on death.

The first brother asks for a wand more powerful than any other, so powerful he might never know defeat. The second brother wished to restore life to his loved ones, receiving the resurrection stone. And the third merely wanted the means to live without fear of death.

For the first brother, he wished for the power of death. He wanted to mete out death to all who might challenge him, leading to hubris and an undignified death of his own. The second brother wished to defeat and humiliate death by denying him the spirits of the dead. When it turned out that such spirits could only live a feeble imitation of life, as they no longer belonged to this material plane, he took his own life in sorrow.

The third brother had no desire for power or to overcome death by force. He wished to live and not see the looming shadow of death in his life, thus he received the invisibility cloak. When his death finally came, he accepted it as the fate of all humanity and passed on his wisdom to his son. The invisibility cloak represents, in this story, the life lived without fear of or obsession with death.

Death is defeated not by gaining power or denying the natural end of life for oneself or others, rather it is defeated by accepting its inevitability and choosing to live outside its shadow. Those who seek to prevail over death or command it themselves end up being ruled by it. When Harry and Hermione visit the graves of Lily and James Potter, they find an inscription on the gravestone from 1 Corinthians 15:26, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

“‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’…” A horrible thought came to him, and with it a kind of panic. “Isn’t that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?”

“It doesn’t mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry,” said Hermione, her voice gentle. “It means…you know…living beyond death. Living after death.”

But they were not living, thought Harry: they were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents’ moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them. (The Deathly Hallows, 328)

Comforting ideas of the afterlife oftentimes ring hollow in the wake and presence of tragedy. How can death be defeated when it’s just won? A loved one has died, death is victorious. Where is the hope? We all must die, and recognizing this fact does not take away the sting of death so easily. There is still the dread of the long dark, the fear of the unknown.

Seeing the inevitability of death on its own does not defeat death. Knowing your impending doom may simplify things, but it does not vanquish death from our imaginations and fears. There are no easy answers. Part of overcoming the fear of death lies in recognizing that it is a fearful thing indeed, not in the sense that Death himself is worthy of fear but that we must leap into the unknown with hope of more.

Harry eventually comes to understand his role in the battle against Voldemort after seeing Snape’s memories. He understands that the final horcrux lives inside of him and that it must be purged if Voldemort is to be defeated. What follows is a powerful reflection on death as he makes his way toward the end.

Finally, the truth. Lying with his face pressed into the dusty carpet of the office where he had once thought he was learning the secrets of victory, Harry understood at last that he was not supposed to survive. His job was to walk calmly into Death’s welcoming arms. Along the way, he was to dispose of Voldemort’s remaining links to life, so that when at last he flung himself across Voldemort’s path, and did not raise a wand to defend himself, the end would be clean, and the job that ought to have been done in Godric’s Hollow would be finished: Neither would live, neither could survive.

[…]

Terror washed over him as he lay on the floor, with that funeral drum pounding inside him. Would it hurt to die? All those times he had thought that it was about to happen and escaped, he had never really thought of the thing itself: His will to live had always been so much stronger than his fear of death. Yet it did not occur to him now to try to escape, to outrun Voldemort. It was over, he knew it, and all that was left was the thing itself: dying.

If he could only have died on that summer’s night when he had left number four, Privet Drive, for the last time, when the noble phoenix-feather wand had saved him! If he could only have died like Hedwig, so quickly he would not have known it had happened! Or if he could have launched himself in front of a wand to save someone he loved… He envied even his parents’ deaths now. This cold-blooded walk to his own destruction would require a different kind of bravery. (DH, 691-92)

The kinds of deaths that Harry envies are those of randomness and purpose. Hedwig’s death was mere chance, the curse hitting the snowy owl and not Harry himself. Death without a moment’s realization. A quick cut to black. Painless. No fear involved. No drum roll.

Harry’s parents made tangible sacrifices for their child, casting themselves before Voldemort as he stalked his way through the house. Their deaths had clear and discernible meanings. Their sacrifices were concrete. Their deaths had purpose.

Sure, Harry’s death might enable the eventual defeat of Voldemort, but it is an abstract and ephemeral purpose to a very real and concrete death. There are no comforts in contingencies when your lifespan has been cut to mere minutes. Harry is forced to accept death not as a distant inevitability but as a conscious decision on his part, sacrificing himself for others.

There is a clear, though limited, Christian allegory here in that Harry moves toward death, not losing his life but giving it. His decision is a clear reflection of the words of Jesus in John 10:17-18, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” Harry must deliberately bring about his own death in order to vanquish evil.

On his long walk to the place of execution, Harry realizes that he has possessed the resurrection stone all along within the golden snitch. He utilizes it not to defeat death by robbing the afterlife of souls, but instead he uses it to steel himself for his own death, to find comfort in the reality that existence endures. He is able to see and speak with his loved ones who had died before him, each one having given their own lives in the struggle.

A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Harry’s brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision.

“You’ll stay with me?”

“Until the very end,” said James.

“They won’t be able to see you?” asked Harry.

“We are part of you,” said Sirius. “Invisible to anyone else.”

Harry looked at his mother.

“Stay close to me,” he said quietly. (DH, 700)

A life given and life protected. He dies. A cut to black. The purpose of his death still abstract, the effects unknown, but he faces it nonetheless. Upon waking up in King’s Cross, Harry’s conversation with Dumbledore helps to further illuminate the role of the Hallows as well as finally establishing for Harry that death no longer has its sting.

The Hallows are no prize. They do not make one master of death because none can truly conquer death in this way. Two of the three brothers in the tale attempted to master death with their own Hallows and both failed. Even the three Hallows together cannot grant one such power.

“Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.

“But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiosity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owner. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than to enable my self-sacrifice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows.” (DH, 720)

Self-sacrifice is the key to understanding the role death plays in this series. While many of the deaths are those of soldiers in battle, there is still the overarching idea that they died fighting for others. Even a random death like that of Cedric Diggory finds purpose in the path taken by Harry in defeating Voldemort. It is not death that has meaning, but life. Harry’s death was not meaningful, the giving of his life was. The conquest of death is the embracing of life and the understanding that we endure beyond the grave.

Harry is worthy of the Hallows not because they grant him power over death, but because he accepts that they do not. He is still subject to death in this world, but now there is nothing to fear.

“I think,” said Dumbledore, “that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does.”

Harry glanced again at the raw-looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair.

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say good-bye for the present.” (DH, 722)

Although no clear thoughts regarding the afterlife are given within the series, it is made clear that life goes on, both on earth and beyond. There are spirits that continue, and they are aware. There is love beyond the grave and hope in the loss of life. Death to Harry becomes merely a reunion with those he loves. It is not a childish fantasy, but a reality. It takes little courage to state that existence ends with death and all that exists is material. Harry’s parents are not mere bones resting beneath the snow. They live on, both in him as he carries their memories forward, and in the life to come.

Perhaps such a fate makes Voldemort’s fear of death all the worse. The fact that death is not simply a cut to black, but that existence endures, is far more horrifying for one so desperate to cling on to an imitation of life. Despite all his efforts, Voldemort dies an ordinary and unremarkable death. A meaningless end to a meaningless life spent in pursuit of mere survival.

And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. (DH, 744)

A death like any other man. Voldemort falls back without realizing what has happened. As to his fate in the next life, we can only guess. Perhaps his soul was so obliterated that what remained simply could not carry on and he truly did cease to exist. I don’t think so, though. I believe he endured, but only just. A life beyond life, one filled with love and hope would be agony to one such as Voldemort. He will find no rest among the dead, only more pain and fear.

When Harry tells him to try for some regret and remorse, to understand his actions properly, Voldemort is disgusted with the idea. It is this unwillingness to repent that makes Voldemort’s life and death meaningless. If he had repented and died right there, perhaps purpose might be found, but instead he died in pursuit of that which could never be his on his own terms: life without death.

In the end, there is hope. Death will come for us all the same, but where is death’s sting when we know that existence endures, that our loved ones remain with us and that we hope to reunite with them? Our lives are made more meaningful by the fact that they go on and that our decisions here have a true moral impact on the world around us and our eternal destinies.

Death does not truly separate those with hope. Love is what binds us to those no longer with us. It is what remains of us when we’re gone, lost to the world, our bodies turning to dust. It’s what leaves us in the memories of others. We are known either by how we loved or how we did not.

If love is a worthy pursuit, and it truly has meaning, then love continues beyond death. Love can never be one-sided, and as love endures, so do we all.