What is evil?

[All Men Must Rhyme]

And - are any people, fictional or not, evil or do they commit evil deeds which after a certain, subjective, amount of them have piled up, force us to judge that character as evil? Big difference: are we willing to see the person first or only the perpetrator?

You may have just solved a lot of problems in defining characters with that. I suppose it is impossible for a person to be either good or evil. Every person goes through life making choices. Each individually can probably be construed as either good or evil. I suppose this does not make them evil, just guilty of performing an evil deed.

On a side note, to disagree with myself, I remembered a quote of Melisandre's from ACOK:

" ' A grey man,' she said. 'Neither white nor black, but partaking of both. Is that what you are, Ser Davos?'"

" ' What if I am? It seems to me that most men are grey.' "

" ' If half of an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil.' "

Interesting insight from a character who most of us judge as evil :P

[Woman of War]

The question isn't whether or not he is a murderer, but whether or not that makes him evil

ahem, you caught me. Obviously I am shying back from answering that question in a definite manner because I like that character so much and don't want to see him as evil. Throughout the board we have the same phenomenon with posters arguing about their faves like Daeneris, Jaime, Cersei, Sandor..... to take those who start the most heated and sometimes agressive debates. Obviously these characters in between of evil and , ah what is the contrary? Good?, are those who cause the most emotional reactions. There won't be so many disagreements about Gregor or Ramsay.

So I now try to answer: Tyrion's character is perceived as spiteful and mischievious by some, others see him as witty, clever and interesting. And that tends to dye the moral judgement. Tyrion has done some truly evil deeds, and some very positive ones, I believe he has as a literary invention the potential to be caring, compassionate, moral and courageous. So if someone nails me I would judge him as not evil so far. His murders of Tywin and Shae were understandable, but still murders.

Judging a character by his potential would though hardly stand in court...

And it is great achievement of Martin to challenge a debate like that, even if in numerous threads (Daeneris and Tyrion e.g. again and again) the style sometimes gets rather ugly. No easy answers.

It seems to me that while the perception of moral values is certainly heavily subjective, it is possible and very desirable to fight that subjectivity. After all, morality deals with the results of interaction among people, so it can not really afford to be purely subjective.

no, in every society you need a consciously fixed or or internalized contract of how human interactions work. Ideally it should apply to every member of that society in the same way without exeption by social position or gender, otherwise it's kind of worthless. Obviously you don't have that in Westeros or Essos: men are judged differenty from women, nobles from commoners or slaves.

Kant's categorical imperative seems to have a subjective component in it, open for interpretation: What is it that I don't want to be done to me? But I think this rule of behaviour could not be any more firm: your worth in society is as high as any other member's worth, don't even try to shape yourself your own personal morality depending on whatever circumstances......

[FanTasy]

'Evil is in the eye of the beholder' :devil:

[zalim]

My the Evil 12 list:

Jaime Lannister

Cersei Lannister

Hound

Sansa Stark

Littlefinger

Lysa Tully

Joffery Baratheon

Tywin Lannister

Theon Greyjoy

Ramsay Bolton

Roose Bolton

Freys

Though Jaime is changing slowly, he hasnt changed alot but it seems like he is going to but love? no still no love for him from my side, so for now he still is in my list.

Sansa also regretted her doings but her crimes were simply too big to forgive or forget so easily just like Jaimes, she has to prove herself worthy of being a Stark in order to come in "good" list.

Theon Greyjoy. in the company of other greyjoys, he turned more evil but i think he has suffered enough, being a Ramsay Boltons pet is worse thn beheading so he should die a good death now.

[Fearsome Fred]

Woman of War wrote:

Actually I am proud of being influenced by "modern culture", which is able to see a human being as person that may have done an evil crime

This idea was not alien to medieval culture. But whatever. I agree that that this ability is a good thing. However, if that is your goal, then confusing "Evil" with "Inhuman" does not help. That was my point.

When Tyrion killed Shae he committed murder. I am not familiar with the US-American legal system, but the degree of murder depends on interpretation by a jury: A spontaneous murder out of rage (Shae or Tywin) may not be seen as murder of first degree,

At common law (the English Common Law), there was a "heat of passion" defense, which, where applicable, would reduce the crime of murder to the lesser crime of manslaughter. All English speaking jurisdictions contain similar rules, almost always created by statute.

However, the defense simply does not apply here. Tyrion climbed a ladder with loaded crossbow in hand, and broke into another person's dwelling with evil intent. He is 100% to blame for placing himself in the situation to begin with. A judge would not instruct the jury on the heat of passion defense, and the jury would not be asked to consider it.

You are still free (or course) to claim that Tyrion could not help himself. But that argument can always be made by any criminal, and in this case, the law would refuse to consider it.

whereas a murder to cover up for a crime (killing his father) yet to come or to silence Shae as witness in order to get away would certainly qualify as murder of first degree.

Yes. Here in New York, that is one of the few things that can earn murderer the death penalty. Another is the retaliatory murder of a witness for having testified against you.

Would saving the world via dragon or book knowledge redeem a character from murder?

Would saving one child ( Arya or Sansa) redeem from murdering another (Mycah)?

Would freeing the slaves redeem from crucifying 163 hostages? What is the arithmetics of redemption?

No in all cases. It has nothing to do with arithmetics.

Or take the arc of the literary character Tyrion. I insist on mentioning "literary character" because we should always bear in mind that there are not RL persons to be judged but literary inventions who fulfil a function in a storyline.

I have an entirely different approach. I am forbidden by my religion to judge the souls of RL persons; and for this reason would hesitate to claim that any RL person was "evil". I have less compunction about this in a literary context.

[Grail King]

My the Evil 12 list:

Jaime Lannister

Cersei Lannister

Hound

Sansa Stark

Littlefinger

Lysa Tully

Joffery Baratheon

Tywin Lannister

Theon Greyjoy

Ramsay Bolton

Roose Bolton

Freys

Though Jaime is changing slowly, he hasnt changed alot but it seems like he is going to but love? no still no love for him from my side, so for now he still is in my list.

Sansa also regretted her doings but her crimes were simply too big to forgive or forget so easily just like Jaimes, she has to prove herself worthy of being a Stark in order to come in "good" list.

Theon Greyjoy. in the company of other greyjoys, he turned more evil but i think he has suffered enough, being a Ramsay Boltons pet is worse thn beheading so he should die a good death now.

She's not fucking evil , she is 11-13 year old child who was taught to believe in fairy tales and got a gruesome lesson for it.

[Jojen]

Khal Drogo is a savage. The notion of evil comes from having a society based on laws and peace. He is a warrior, who knows no other way. How can he be evil if he doesn't know better? Safer to call him uncivilised than evil.

Sorry, I can't give Khal Drogo a pass on his behavior because he's "uncivilized." Murder, rape, and slavery are evil, regardless of whether a barbarian does it or a nobleman. He killed a defenseless man (Viserys) in cold blood because he could and because his wife wanted him to. Viserys wasn't even a real threat. Dany used Drogo to get rid of an inconvenience because she wasn't willing or able to do it herself. She knew that Drogo was very good at killing, so in that moment she saw him as a tool to be used to further her own ends. You might say that she acted out of self defense, but she could have had him taken out to the middle of nowhere and left to survive on his own. She could have at least given him a clean death. He was her brother and her king, after all. Instead she used a sledgehammer to take down a paper wall.

[Alexia]

Sorry, I can't give Khal Drogo a pass on his behavior because he's "uncivilized." Murder, rape, and slavery are evil, regardless of whether a barbarian does it or a nobleman. He killed a defenseless man (Viserys) in cold blood because he could and because his wife wanted him to. Viserys wasn't even a real threat. Dany used Drogo to get rid of an inconvenience because she wasn't willing or able to do it herself. She knew that Drogo was very good at killing, so in that moment she saw him as a tool to be used to further her own ends. You might say that she acted out of self defense, but she could have had him taken out to the middle of nowhere and left to survive on his own. She could have at least given him a clean death. He was her brother and her king, after all. Instead she used a sledgehammer to take down a paper wall.

I don't know what book you read but it isn't the same one I did. Dany tried her best to save Viserys' life. Viserys deliberately violated a sacred tenet by drawing a sword in Vaes Dothrak. He challenged and insulted Drogo before 5,000 Dothraki. He put a sword to his sister's belly and said that he would cut out her child and leave the "bastard" for Drogo. The molten gold was overkill, but Viserys' death was essentially assisted suicide. And Dany couldn't save him after what he did.

[The Shadowbinder]

Quote:

Tyrion killed Shae in a fit of uncontrollable passion

Pure speculation on your part. All the text establishes was that he felt like killing her, so he killed her. He killed Symon too, or was that also uncontrollable passion?

He climbed the ladder with a crossbow in his hand. What do you think he meant to do to anyone he met? Let them live and sound the alarm? Or was it uncontrollable passion that made him climb that ladder?

No it's really not my speculation, I'm pretty sure almost everyone would agree that finding a former lover who just betrayed you in the bed of your father who just condemned you to death would be an extremely emotional moment. We already know how much Tyrion loved Shae, and despised his father.

Tyrion didn't climb the ladder with crossbow in hand jackass, he found the crossbow hanging on the wall after killing Shae, he had to climb on a chest to get it down. Keep making yourself sound smart.

[kissdbyfire]

Interesting thread. Thought-provoking and polemic as well, and one of those threads with no ‘right answer’ despite the assertive tone of some posts, I think.

To me, evil is the lack of empathy; pure evil is the absolute lack of empathy.

And even my empathy (or lack thereof) for some characters will vary depending on the day I’m having. I’ll use an example: the passage that ends with Lady getting killed – something that was Eddard’s fault, not Sansa’s. If I’m having a good day, the sun is shining and I have no troubles weighing on my mind, I’ll empathise with Eddard and the decision(s) he makes about not telling the truth to Robert; if I’m having a really bad day, the sky is dark and overcast, I’ll totally blame him for not stepping up and telling everyone he knew what Joffrey had done. So, to me, it’s extremely difficult to simply point a finger at anyone – or any character – and say: ‘evil’.

[Fearsome Fred]

No it's really not my speculation,

Yes, it really is. Nobody questions the idea that there was an emotional component to Tyrion's decision to murder Shae. What I questioned is your claim that he could not help himself.

I'm pretty sure almost everyone would agree that finding a former lover who just betrayed you in the bed of your father who just condemned you to death would be an extremely emotional moment.

Not for Tyrion it wasn't. His though, at that precise moment was: "That might have hurt me once, when I still felt pain." He speaks softly to her, cups her cheek, and then strangles her to death while reciting poetry. Please note that it takes more than a single "moment" for someone to die of strangulation.

We already know how much Tyrion loved Shae, and despised his father.

He did not love Shae at all (nor Tysha). He loved the idea that they loved him.

If he had loved Shae he would have sent her to safety long before. He had a hundred opportunities and at least a half-dozen warnings. Shae is in this situation because Tyrion put her their, in deliberate disregard for her safety.

Tyrion didn't climb the ladder with crossbow in hand jackass, he found the crossbow hanging on the wall after killing Shae, he had to climb on a chest to get it down.

I stand corrected.

Still, the fact remains that burglars do not get the benefit of the "heat of passion" defense when they encounter residents of the home they have invaded.

Also, his actions after murdering Shae indicate a clear lack of remorse. Instead of fleeing in shame, he decides to go commit another murder. Or was he still under the influence of "uncontrollable passion" when he climbed up and got that crossbow off the wall.

Keep making yourself sound smart.

If I make any mistakes, I am sure you will call me a "Jackass" again. I guess you are just that kind of person.

[Woman of War]

Woman of War

At common law (the English Common Law), there was a "heat of passion" defense, which, where applicable, would reduce the crime of murder to the lesser crime of manslaughter. All English speaking jurisdictions contain similar rules, almost always created by statute.

However, the defense simply does not apply here. Tyrion climbed a ladder with loaded crossbow in hand, and broke into another person's dwelling with evil intent. He is 100% to blame for placing himself in the situation to begin with. A judge would not instruct the jury on the heat of passion defense, and the jury would not be asked to consider it.

You are still free (or course) to claim that Tyrion could not help himself. But that argument can always be made by any criminal, and in this case, the law would refuse to consider it.

When Tyrion killed Shae he committed murder. I am not familiar with the US-American legal system, but the degree of murder depends on interpretation by a jury: A spontaneous murder out of rage (Shae or Tywin) may not be seen as murder of first degree, whereas a murder to cover up for a crime (killing his father) yet to come or to silence Shae as witness in order to get away would certainly qualify as murder of first degree.

by me

i beg to be cited in complete paragraphs. I explicitly stated that Tyrion committed murder and never claimed that Tyrion "could not help himself". I believe you took my ideas for someone else's. Premeditation would, after German law, be the significant sign for murder of first degree, a coverup killing, as it would be seen in the case of Shae, to silence a witness, would as well form a murder of first degree. Tyrion would have a hard time to prove "heat of passion". But then, in a democratic law system, it is not the accused who has to prove his innocence but the persecutor who has to prove guilt, so Tyrion might get away with murder of second degree or manslaughter with a clever lawyer.

But that is not my argumentation, as I stated clearly. Here we argue about moral guilt and we all know without clever lawyers what happened. In the case of Tywin this may have been an extreme situation given the past, I am no lawyer, but in the case of Shae he murdered either as coverup or in hatred because of an offense in her part and this never justifies any killing, I had to look up the word "retaliatory" but this would certainly apply here. In fact, staying in RL, I am totally opposed to any death penalty. Nobody has a right to end another human life, death penalty dehumanises all of us, whether it is done by law or by so-called self justice.

To be even more "fundamentalistic" when it comes to human rights, and this may be seen as provocative ( I am an Amnesty International activist, sorry ): Killing a deserter who panicked is a war crime imo. So when Ned beheaded that man he, for my perception of human rights, committed an immoral war crime, at least in RL. Of course I know how ridiculous that argumentation is within this fantasy story although it is a sign for the books that they are able to start a debate like this.

I have an entirely different approach. I am forbidden by my religion to judge the souls of RL persons; and for this reason would hesitate to claim that any RL person was "evil". I have less compunction about this in a literary context.

I absolutely agree with that. Even the worst perpetrator is first of all a human being that deserves a certain respect and the application of a democratic law system. This means, I guess, that "arithmetics of redemption" do not exist for you? True remorse would make up for every bad deed, did I understand you properly?

There are different facets, RL and a book.

In RL, well, you can't wake up the dead and say I'm sorry. But in a democracy your crime is redeemed if you have done the time in prison that the judge or a jury have given you. Ideally you start with zero morally after that, at least this is the idea. For me this excludes any death penalty or revenge killing etc because then remorse and redemption are impossible, apart from errors that may have occurred.

In books, especially in these rather differenciated books:

"The reader" is used to satisfying story arcs. He may be spoiled by easier books to wait that his expectations into a satisfying storyline where everybody gets what he or she deserves are fulfilled. We read to escape the ugly boss, the mortgage, the tax declaration (me, right now) the sad relationships - in short: escapist. We want our favorite characters happy and we tend to favor those who act according to our moral ideas. The reader tends to dislike open endings and prefers thrillers with climactic solutions.

Martin does not so far fulfil all those expectations. The good guys get killed, the good girls turn bad and the villains rule.

And I think that Martin consciously includes moral breaks into his story arcs. See Tyrion: we liked him too much, that funny clever little rogue? See how he treats women! He was successful as hand? He has to murder the singer to keep his position! Daeneris tries to do the right thing and to free the slaves? See how she has to kill hostages!

Stay awake, Reader, don't let yourself get caught in a wonderful story! Martin will teach you to root for your favorites! Never stop to watch out, keep your brain active, never feel cosy within the books!

So maybe personal moral develoments of characters follow a certain logic and function in the books, different from RL. But we should definitely be warned to give a final moral judgement before the books are completely written and all the protagonists have found their final destination. Every character deserves our patience.

Can I say like every person in RL?

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Sansa Stark

Sansa also regretted her doings but her crimes were simply too big to forgive or forget so easily just like Jaimes, she has to prove herself worthy of being a Stark in order to come in "good" list.

What are Sansa's "crimes" that are "too big to forgive or forget," exactly?

[zalim]

She's not fucking evil , she is 11-13 year old child who was taught to believe in fairy tales and got a gruesome lesson for it.

No need to swear my friend. In westeros kids grow quickly. Dany is only 2 years older and she is conquering the cities.

Age is no excuse, Arya is younger thn her yet she alone is doing better thn any other Stark. Even cripple Brann did things

which much older men wouldnt do. Age is no excuse here, She was always selfish, she always chose evil shithead like Joff

and bitch queen like cersei over her family, just so she can get laid by good looking monster.

What are Sansa's "crimes" that are "too big to forgive or forget," exactly?

The only crime that makes her evil in my eyes is, her choosing Joff and Cersei over her own family.

She lied before king, she betrayed her father and her sister and she knew how joff was when she had her first

experience with him when arya threw away his sword. Betraying your own blood for your OWN SELFISH REASONS is the

biggest evil deed you can comimit. It should have been her instead of Robb.

[kimo333]

so...

is all of you're guys definition of an evil person anyone who has ever done anything wrong to anyone or anything even under duress or on accident.

[LuisDantas]

To me, evil is the lack of empathy; pure evil is the absolute lack of empathy.

Aren't you forgetting something, such as maybe some degree of capability of perceiving situations and acting on them? Because it seems to me that without that, you are saying that inanimate objects are supremely evil.

[Val the Wildling Princess]

I'm not exactly a fan of Sansa but how on earth can someone say she's evil? :dunno: A bit stupid in AGOT, yes, but evil? No, sorry.

[LuisDantas]

Sansa is arguably being corrupted by Petyr Baelish in AFFC, but it remains to be seen how succesful he will be. As for AGOT, she made bad choices, but certainly not due to "being evil".

One could argue that the choice itself was evil, perhaps. But even then, the only two that qualify IIRC were lying about why Nymeria attacked Joffrey and telling Cersei about their flight from King's Landing.

And in both cases she was under a lot of pressure. Give her a break.

[kissdbyfire]

Aren't you forgetting something, such as maybe some degree of capability of perceiving situations and acting on them? Because it seems to me that without that, you are saying that inanimate objects are supremely evil.

Are inanimate objects capable of empathising? I'm sorry if my post didn't make it clear. I'll give it another go:

I think an evil person is someone who is incapable of empathising. Better? I felt that, for obvious reasons, it was implied that an inanimate object wouldn't qualify as good or evil, my apologies.

[Fire Eater]

Evil can be one of those things where you know exactly what it is, but you can't find the words. The Buddhists said that the three roots of evil are hatred, greed and delusion. The best explanation I can give of evil is an act of malevolence, or cruelty that lacks any form of empathy or compassion.

Gregor Clegane performs plenty of actions that could be called evil, because he larger and stonger than anyone else in the realm, combined with the fact that he's hollow at the core he does as he pleases without an ounce of sympathy or compassion for others.

Tywin Lannister, he may say all the horrible things he did, he did for his family. He is one of those people who acts selfishly and says he is being altruistic since he is acting in the interest of his family. Yet, in his mind, being the head of House Lannister, he is the family, as you saw in his interaction with Jaime in ASoS, it's about what he wants, seldom thinking about or asking what they want. When Jaime's wishes are in contrast to his father's, Tywin responds by disowning him. As a result Tywin suffers from increasing isolation as a result of pushing everyone away.

Melisandre is one of those characters where, you can see her lack of compassion as well as prejudice regarding the free folk:

None of his free folk mattered, they were a lost people, a doomed people, destined to vanish from the Earth as the children of the forest had vanished.

She suffers from a case of delusion, combined with a sense of smugness and self-righteousness,this makes a frightening picture. She feels that she is serving the supreme good even when she has men burned at the stake, and tries to do the same to a child, where her compassion is nowhere to be found. She never stops to ask if any of the actions she does to achieve her ends for the supreme good are right. She is akin to Anakin Skywalker who felt he was doing a good thing when he killed kids in Episode III, feeling he was ensuring peace for the galaxy. Like Melisandre, adhering to the philosophy of the end justifies the means, he didn't stop to look at what he was doing to achieve his goals for supposed good. As Yoda commented in The Empire Strikes Back:

This one, a long time have I watched, all his life has he looked away to the future, to the horizon, never his mind on where he was, what he was doing.