I’m not a fan of the daily news as
interpreted by the television networks—any of them. I don’t watch cable or broadcast
news on a regular basis; I don’t follow any pundits; I don’t even tune in to
the local news except to hear the weather. I get my news at a week’s remove,
from a magazine that distills the stories from a variety of sources to produce
a more balanced viewpoint. This keeps me relatively sane.
But occasionally something happens—a hurricane,
a mass shooting in Las Vegas—to break through the barriers I’ve
erected, and I’m forced to participate in the tragic moment with the rest of
the nation. And, in the case of yet another mass shooting by a crazy individual
with a bunch of guns, I pause to pray for all the victims’
families. And wonder why.
This is not a post about gun control,
although I certainly think as a nation we should ask ourselves some hard
questions about that issue. It’s not even a post about mental illness and the
community response to people in trouble, though that’s a legitimate issue, too.
This is a post about the motivations of villains, and
whether, as writers, we can simply say our bad guys are “evil” without any
underlying reason.
As most of you know, I’m a huge Stephen King
fan, and I’ve been avidly watching the television adaptation of his novel Mr. Mercedes on the Audience Network (created
by David E. Kelley). The story follows retired detective Bill Hodges (Brendan
Gleeson) as he revives the cold case of a mass killer driving a stolen Mercedes
who deliberately ran over 23 people lined up for a jobs fair. As the killer
becomes aware Hodges is on his trail, he first cyber-stalks the detective, then
tries to kill him, instead blowing up Hodges’ lady friend with a car bomb.
In this week’s episode, Hodges is asked why “Mr.
Mercedes” does these things. He answers that some people just have a “great
black hole” inside them, they were born that way, and eventually the black hole
just swallows them up. He says this—and believes it—even though he suspects a
lot about the man’s true background.
King the author takes pains to show us everything about his villain, Brady
Hartsfield (Harry Treadway). We know his father died when Brady was a child,
electrocuted at his linesman’s job; his younger brother choked on a piece of
apple, was revived, but survived brain-damaged, and Brady, still just a child, pushed
the toddler down the basement stairs to his death. Brady’s mother, as a result
of these tragedies, drinks to excess and abuses Brady sexually. And Brady works
at a crummy job at an electronics store, berated by the boss and the customers
alike.
So, which is it? Does Brady just have a “black
hole inside?” Or have the circumstances of his life made him the way he is?
King is quite capable of depicting “pure
evil” in his novels. The antagonist in It
is a good example. The clown figure is simply a personification of a greater,
deeper evil that haunts the town. That evil must be cleansed for the town (and
its pre-teen defenders) to survive. (The latest film adaptation of this classic
novel is faithful to the concept in every way. The film is a must-see for King fans.)
Though it is “horrible,” the Mr. Mercedes tale
(actually spread across three novels—Mr.
Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch) is meant to be a crime story,
not a horror story per se. Brady
Hartsfield, aka Mr. Mercedes, is not
meant to be pure evil in the It sense.
He’s meant to be human. But if you
know anything about Stephen King, you know people can be every bit as
horrifying in their humanity as any supernatural monster he can come up with.
Like the kind of human who could kill indiscriminately
with a stolen Mercedes—or by shooting a specially modified weapon at an outdoor concert crowd
in Las Vegas.
Sadly, Donna
Great post, Donna. I do truly believe there is evil in the world and that some people become consumed by it. As writers, we're encouraged to let the reader see inside the villain's mind and know (even if they may not agree) why the protagonist is doing the things he or she is doing. In real life, it's not that simple. We can't always know what another human being is thinking when he takes aim at a crowd of innocent concert-goers, or starts stabbing his fellow passers-by on a street, or flies a jet full of passengers into a skyscraper. In the real world, evil just is, and it doesn't have a weapon of choice.
ReplyDeleteAs a writer, I find myself thinking about this question a lot. We are taught that our villains must have believable motives, but real life ones don't always, do they? During this last tragedy I found myself not interested in the least in the shooter's motive. Because it's not really the point, is it? Whatever his reason was, it is never going to make sense to me. The point is that people died senselessly and needlessly, and what could have been done to prevent it? I believe some people do have a black hole, or as I tend to think of it, are broken beyond repair. How much is nature and how much is nurture is a question we can never quite answer, it seems. We are a complicated life form.
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