Who invented bad guys? |
Who invented bad guys?
The ‘evil god challenge’
The free will defence: a good god vs the problem of evil
The problem with dead women
How morals influence if you’re liberal or conservative
Do spoilers actually ruin stories?
Everything is a remix: AI and image generation
A brief history of the devil
Dispatches from the ruins
Kurt Vonnegut: the shape of stories
When did stories become so centred on good battling evil? And why?
Today, popular storytelling is dominated by good-versus-evil paradigms – think superhero films, and the Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises. In these narratives, the moral future of a realm, galaxy or multiverse must be protected from groups setting out to crush its most sacred values. However, as the US writer Catherine Nichols details in this video, which is adapted from her Aeon Essay, these sweeping moral narratives........