On the world as villain

There’s two kinds of hopeful stories. One with the world as the villain, and one with the world as a victim.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I keep running up against well-written media, often recommended to me by friends, which should appeal and instead leaves me feeling drained. And I’m very emotionally tired lately (as are we all), so the wrong kinds of stories have been hurting a lot more. Even ones which are about forging hope, about characters moving ahead against all odds, spitefully and defiantly and finding their new ground. These are themes I love. So why haven’t I loved them?

Finally I realised that the difference is in the world, and how it’s treated in the narrative.

The Good Place is one of the recent shows I watched, based on recommendations. (Spoilers for The Good Place.)

My friends were super excited for me to watch The Good Place. It has everything: the hope, the perseverance, good being active not passive. And it’s spiritual, being about the afterlife, and that seems to be something they like my opinion on.

The first season was great. The beginning of the second season, also great.

It started losing me with the Judge, and her tests which were stamp the paperwork, not judgements. It kept losing me as it turned out the people who are meant to be good were caricatures, doormats, or just plain apathetic about the risk of a flaw. And it lost me completely when the protagonists won the stupid excuse for a trial, only to discover that this meant humanity would be erased.

This is a series where the world is the villain. There is no other interpretation for a character called a judge, who upon telling the protagonists ‘you’ve convinced me the system is flawed and humanity is a victim’ follows up with ‘so I’m going to erase humanity and start over’.

It lost me. And at first I couldn’t explain why to my friends, except that this is a ‘gotcha’: a series where the things which ought to be good are not, even though they were presented as if they were via the name ‘The Good Place’ and ‘The Judge’.

Even though the protagonists won in the end, even though they made things better, the journey there was still in spite of a world which was apathetic, malicious, and downright cruel.

To be clear, it’s not badly written. It’s very well written. But the real world is a shit-fire, especially right now. When I engage in fantasy, it’s because I want to be reminded of a world that does care. It’s because I want to believe in a world which is not cruel.

A story with themes of hope is not hopeful to me when the crushing weight of a relentlessly cruel world still remains, or was so recently present.

Then one of my friends asked about Tales of Symphonia. Tales of Symphonia is one of my all-time favourite video games, one of my all-time favourite stories. She recommended that one too. And the world, like in The Good Place, is a shit-fire. On the surface, the concept of the spunky group fighting the odds is the same. And at first I didn’t have an answer. It’s different, I said lamely. I know it’s different.

I was right. The difference is that in Symphonia, the world is a victim. It was made to die by the actions of past nations: it survives only on life-support, perpetuated by good people who fell to ruin: soon it will fail altogether, because of a villain whose hope is lost, whose bitterness drives him to destroy everything and recreate anew.

The world suffered. But the world is good. The systems which make it cruel are imposed by others; those ignorant in their hatred, denying in their lust for power, bitter in the loss of their hope. The story is how to recover the world, how to heal it, how to deconstruct everything that chains it and smothers the goodness inherent.

Some people need the stories of the grim persistence in spite of relentless cruelty. Some people need the stories of a world that cares, and has been subverted or prevented from doing so. They’re both stories of hope: but they’re different hopes, ones which look the same if you look only at the themes.

But for someone like me, to read the former – it isn’t an escape. It’s further pain. The fact that I can’t seem to find stories which aren’t that kind of relentless cruelty – well, I don’t read much anymore.

I’m writing this on Christmas Day. Christmas, at its core, is a story about a higher being who said ‘I care. I’m here. I’m sending someone. Let me help you. Tell me what you need.’

I grew up on this story. I was raised by a man, a minister, who understood that this story is about gentleness and graciousness; about those with power extending a hand to those without, and lifting them up; about a world which cares, which believes in goodness.

Some people would say I’m wrong about this. That the story of Jesus is about humanity’s unrelenting sin, and needing someone to save them in order to be changed. I’d say they’re missing the point. There’s a reason my friends thought I’d like the Good Place: where goodness is active, fought for every step of the way. I don’t believe in religion which is passive. I don’t believe in faith which is untested. I don’t believe in belief which is unyielding.

In my stories I need the world to not be the villain, and so these are the stories I want to write. Stories where the world is a victim seeking to shed its victimhood just as we are; stories where higher beings are gentle and the world trends naturally toward compassion. I write these stories. Sometimes I just wish I knew of others who wrote them too.

Wherever you are, and whomever you worship, I hope they’re being good to you, even if society has not been. I hope that in this season you’re able to find some measure of peace, however small, however fleeting; that for a moment, life is not a burden.

Merry Christmas.