(Fictional) Good, Evil, and Free Will in Ortha

Good, Evil, and Free Will in Ortha

 

The first time I considered the subject I was in high school, and approached it in a rather mythopoeic way:

“In the Eye of the Vortex [of Chaos] was formed Shyreen Morlakor, the essence and spirit of All. He sat and darkly considered Chaos. Then he reached out his hand and separated Eternity into Time and Space. So things now happen in one certain place, at one certain time. In the void that was the absence of Chaos, he shaped cosmic residue into the Earth, from which arose Orathil. But as yet he took little notice of this fellow spirit of Chaos.

Now it came to pass that as he stood on the top of the tallest mountain of Earth, terrible strife began to rage in his head, causing him pain. Two spirits, components of creation, were battling within him. And to ease his pain, he cast them forth before him. One spirit was perfectly formed and pleasing in every way, and possessed of all virtue; whereas the other was loathsome and full of all wickedness. To the first Shyreen said "You I name Aman," and to the second he said, "You I name Belg. You are both my sons; go forth through the world and do as I do."

He turned to Aman. "Because you were willing to submit to my judgement, I shall favor you. Whenever I weave the webs of Fate, you shall have a favorable thread, although I will not help you to utterly defeat Belg. In token of my favor I give you the power of the sun and the moon." He turned to Belg. "Because you defied me, I turn my face from you. No aid you shall have from me, but neither shall I hinder you. Be cunning, and the Earth may yet be yours."

There was a lot more fol-de-rol, but that was the basic set-up. It might do for a simple myth-within-the-world, a story simplified and superseded.

In Korm’s Master (2017) there was this exchange:

Korm: "Oh, well, the Ogres. What's their true character, I mean, what are they really like? This question borders both on the study of Nature and of History. Could we reach some understanding between us, in spite of what's gone before? I mean, we've had quarrels with Men, and now we're the best of allies. It would probably involve some sort of delegation going North, but the benefits should it succeed might far outweigh the danger...”

Belmok: "Every fifty years or so someone with more hope than wisdom raises the same idea as yours and toddles off North; sometimes the patrols find their skeletons. I recall the last Morg to test the idea found a young Ogre runaway and tried to raise it; it ate his baby son out of the cradle." He turned from the display and started to leave. "Those of us with long memories try to discourage the experiment."

And then I wrote this in Eye of Darkness (2019):

“Don’t give yourself so much credit,” Raksil scoffed. “Spawn of Belg, Children of Aman – you’re all half-brothers of dirt through Orathil. You’re not so different, any of you flesh-bags, even the dainty Ivra. There is potential in all thinking creatures, even the Yorn when we are in this world, to choose our way. I know what you think, all of you: that you’re the ‘good’ ones. Well let me tell you, it’s no done deal, and you’re not more virtuous than anybody, no, not even the Ogres! There have been plenty of wrathful Morgs, and lazy Men, and violent Ghamen who’ve served Norda just as well. And Ogres? You all hate Ogres. Well let me tell you something. There is in all of us, every descendant of Morlakor Shyreen from the beginning, a will, a tiny secret will. But in you physical things the will has a special place to stand. Even an Ogre has this. Even an Ogre could - if he chose – be as good as you. Oh, they have no natural bent for it, and everything is done to discourage it, what is allowed in their culture, what is encouraged for their world view, but it still remains, by some infinitesimal chance, possible that an Ogre could choose to be just as good as any of you. We [evil spirits] can’t breed it [completely] out.”

Raksil, because he is basically a demon, might be discounted as a liar, but I don’t think so in this case. He means it as a degrading fact to torment and demean Belmok.

In high school, in my naïveté, I described Morlakor Shyreen as something of a Demiurge; he is not Ultimate Being because he emerged from another source. He might be termed the Supreme Being as he is the most powerful, personal thing (being) in the Universe, but he’s not the ground of all Being.

I also now would not describe Good and Evil as equal elements. That is Manicheism. “The dark is the diminution of light until it deepens to the unseeable, just as Evil is the diminution of Good until it collapses into the destruction of itself.  Darkness depends upon the creation of light, just as Evil depends upon Good for the possibility to exist.” In the beginning, Aman and Belg must have both been created good, as must all of the Yorn.

I imagine this must have been both for companionship and for what has come to be called ‘good healthy competition.’ Their efforts were supposed to spur each other on, to complement each other’s creations, to have a sort of conversation, to encourage diversity.

Belg, in time, must have ‘wanted all the blocks,’ to envy his brother’s creation. This caused him to fall into evil, and to take other Yorn with him. These produced or corrupted shadow, decay, fear; all which have their proper place, but which were tainted and tinged with evil. Having fallen, Belg ‘fathered’ the Ogres in envy of Aman’s Men, Morgs, and Ghamen. But through Orathil, the material world, their mother, they still hold a tenuous toehold in Free Will.

Why are Ogres evil? Because their origin is from spiritual Evil. Aman and the Good Yorn rue this, but they will not destroy them. That would be an evil in itself. Incarnate Beings in the Material World (i.e., Morgs and Men) are allowed to kill Ogres in self-defense, but not to hold a race-cleansing crusade; that would also be an evil.

The Ivrans hold a philosophical concept that may be of interest here. They have one of their jaw-cracking 14-legged terms for it. Let’s just say ‘goodness is diverse, creative, and original, evil is essentially parasitic, repetitive, and drearily the same. Goodness is manifested in endless, unique ways.’- C. S. Lewis. Japanese culture has the concept of wabi-sabi, of beauty expressed through imperfections, irregularities, and transience. Vulcan philosophy espouses IDIC, ‘Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.’ The Ivran term is an odd combination of all three concepts. It allows that no incarnate beings have to be perfectly good to be “Good,” that in fact their admixture of virtues and failings make them unique and interesting.

So my search for a perfectly evil mook who can be killed without compunction leads me down an interesting philosophical and ethical mode. I don’t even know if this is the end of it. All I know is that the ‘Good’ people have to give the ‘Evil’ people a chance to surrender or run away. “Do not hurt where holding is enough; do not wound where hurting is enough; do not maim where wounding is enough; and kill not where maiming is enough; the greatest warrior is he who does not need to kill.” - Stephen R. Donaldson, channeling Buddhist teaching.