Hello everybody, I am dealing with a very delicate issue, and I would like to know your opinion about it : Evil is clearly appalling and any christian novel should be very clear morally speaking, yet, probably because I've been influenced by Milton, I can't help thinking that Evil portrayed, not under a monstruous appearance, but an attractive/seductive one is much stronger and subtler in a story, and can produce very efficient results : indeed, Evil is all the more dangerous under the appearance of beauty or goodness - and that's the whole point of temptation I believe, to be deceptive. Yet, portraying a seductive Evil is also dangerous for the reader, because he can be definitely misleaded -for exemple, Milton's Satan has been often misinterpreted by the readers all through the centuries, and even arised some luciferian sympathies...I feel very uncomfortable about it because, well, do you think it would be moral to portray a seductive evil ? I am thinking about it because I would like the villain of my story to be inwardly demonic but very charming and persuasive. What do you think ?

My personal favorite type of villain is the one you're describing, I'd say do it, because if you have that gold thread of truth woven in the story, then the black one disguised as silver (the evil that is seductive and influential) will show its true colors in the climax. Because of you think about it, that's how evil is on the world today. It's very seductive. That's how I'd justify that kind of villain--as long as you do show the contrast between his lies and the protagonist's truth at some point.

2 Corinthians 11:14 says that "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light," so writing charming villains whose disguises are ripped away can be beneficial. Getting the opinions of a variety of Christian test readers should help with being certain that the portrayal of the villain is clear and effective.

I think one case where this was done a little close to the dangerous side of things was in Charles Williams' 'The Greater trumps', if you've read that.

He made the magic in the story heavily connected to real-world... I suppose you call it occult. And he made it seem so big, and amazing. And one of the main characters, at least partly good, was involved in it all, and used it himself, for bad. But you still felt like maybe the bad, maybe it was worth it....

The presence of good was also very strong. But at the same time, for me, there was such a blurring between the good, and the bad, that I hardly knew what each was sometimes. Maybe the character was simply using what he had wrong – or maybe it was the reason for what he did – or maybe he was only wrong in some details of what he was planning to do. The good characters seemed to accept some things that could easily have been bad, perhaps – only in the story they weren't. It made me feel oddly unsure of things.

Then there is 'That Hideous Strength' by C S Lewis, and there is a lot of seductive evil in that too. In the beginning, you feel just like the main character. There doesn't seem to be anything very bad about everything that's going on – and a little pride, and a little self-satisfaction couldn't get him into that much trouble, right? But you keep going, and finding out more and more, and it's still so seductive because you're already part of it, and if you've gone that far already what's the difference of one more step on, and.... well, and then it turns out to all be startlingly hideous.

And at the end everything is torn up and I almost could hardly believe how far I had gone myself in being taken in farther and further into the evilness that was happening.

I didn't find 'That Hideous Strength' to be as dangerous a book to my own mind as 'Greater Trumps', and it really all had to do with how the two authors handled their 'seductive evils'.

So yeah. I think you can certainly do it, and it makes for a powerful book, but you have to watch yourself to make sure it doesn't slip into confusing the readers more than they need to be. That's my thought on it.

Also, I think a genre that does this fairly commonly is Romance. The villain, in some story archetypes, is quite charming, and that's why he's so dangerous – because the heroine might marry the wrong man and ruin her life. But from the reader's perspective, it always ends up being quite clear which man is the villain and which one they should cheer for. I don't know, maybe looking into how those sort of books do it could help give you some ideas... I'd never thought about it that way before so I've never tried it.

Thank you everybody for your answer ! So what I understood is that "seductive evil" does not question the morality of the book as long as there is a champion of Good to face him ; then the reader, examining both arguments and characters, makes his choice by comparison -and Mistress Rwebhu Kidh, I had never thought of Romance this way before And I find your view very relevant ! But what about a character which is overtly and obviously evil, but still attractive ? The major issue I wanted to deal with was the fascination for evil, and I am ashamed to confess it, but it is something I've felt many times, especially before I became a christian -what do you think of it ? Is it moral to play on the reader's fascination for genuine evil ? I don't know if I make myself clear enough ??

I agree with this. Evil often looks beautiful to our blind and fleshly eyes.

A point to consider to make the evil aspect show its true side, might be consequences. When something is surely evil but looks beautiful, yet never actually shows the consequences of evil, then whatever that evil was stands in more danger of looking less dangerous. Or worth the sin.

Does that make sense?

It doesn't even mean that the perpetrator of evil has to come to his final justice in the end. Just show the pain, hurt, destruction, or other consequence of that evil - even on the innocent. Sometimes, it's even more powerful when it does land on the innocent.

Well, neither had I.

Aah.... I believe I see what you mean.

* thoughtful * I have experienced it as well.

I think... the one thing you have to remember when you write about evil like that is that evil is not nice, at bottom. If you get down deep enough, evil is sick, and miserable, not glamorous.

It seems that way, I think, because some of it has good things in it, and wrapped around it. Things that can be part of something good as well as something bad – passion or mystery or risk or daring or indulgence or power, any of them.

Sometimes it seems as if evil has those things, very strong and very sweet, and very seductive, because those things are good.

But the evil only has those things. The evil itself, when you strip it all off and get to the core, it's never... never nice. Never really. It's sick.

And I guess... that when I deal with seductive evil in my stories – or in my life for that matter – that's the thing I have to remember, and the perspective I have to realize.

I'm not sure if that'll help you at all, Sarai, I'm afraid I'm just muddling. But it's helped me to think about it, anyway.

What do you think?

Oh thank you for your answer ! Don't worry, I am aware it is a quite difficult subject, but I wanted to know how you would deal with it, in your story and real life, since I am a "recent" christian, I find myself struggling with theses issues rather seriously. After all we christian have to ask questions in order to think straight.
Anyway, I believe you are right : I believe we human are easily deceived and blind, and that we may be attracted by something wrong because it has a "good" glaze, but we would never like something for evil itself -otherwise we would be demons Evil is often associated with power, now I Wonder why : is it because it has no definite set of values, because it rejects every kind of prohibition or limit? But is it supposed to be a weakness, to have boundaries and to obey God ? I rather believe the contrary, for freedom is precisely the ability to confine ourselves with a certain set of principles which we defined as our own, and not to be the slave of our desires and illimited appetites.
But maybe the fascination for evil and some kind of "thrill" of transgression could also be a result of our Fallen state ?
You did well to remember me this Mistress Rwebhu: that we shall not forget that evil is absolute, and never to be belittled of nuanced.

I believe that everything in the world has a valid place in literature, pleasant or not. (The question is whether I as a writer, given my relationship with God and my comfort with the subject matter, can write about something without defiling myself, so to speak...and whether I as a reader, given my relationship with God and comfort with the subject matter, can read about something without defiling myself. I have some more thoughts on this but maybe that's off-topic here.) So then since evil is often attractive in the real world, that fact has its place in stories.

But I think that we as writers shouldn't just show the world; we should show the truth about it. We both believe that evil, no matter how attractive, is at root deeply wrong, twisted and sick. So if you can accomplish the goal of a writer and show the truth, you will show that truth that evil is evil even when it looks appealing. As the other posters said, one good way to do this is to contrast the evil of the villain and the goodness of the protagonist. And like Jonathan Garner said, getting input from Christian beta readers should help you to see if you've managed to communicate this effectively...


To me, if you can play on the reader's fascination with evil, and then suddenly turn it on them and make them realize how interested they've been in evil, that's awesome. That's using a story to make them realize some truth about themselves. So yeah, that's basically the same thing as the other posters were saying - it's fine to portray a seductive evil, as long as you ultimately use it to express truth.


Really interesting thoughts. I'm reminded of a quote from Dosteyevsky...can't quite remember how it goes, but it's something like, "Without God, everything is permissible."