What made Nihel so evil - DANGER: PHILOSOPHY [entire thread contains spoilers]

[Bongo Bill]

Just finished the book. I'm going to skip the obligatory "You suck, Brian" and get straight on into the literary analysis.

What was it about Nihel that made him so evil? There can be no doubt that he was evil - more so than any of the other villains - but there was something about his Evil that set him apart.

It certainly wasn't his desire to destroy everything just for the sake of his goal - remember, although for humans freedom is a goal worth blowing everything up for, the same cannot be said of gods; it would be akin to a human blowing up everything for omnipotence (humans aren't supposed to be all-powerful, gods aren't supposed to have free will, it said somewheres) - because his goal was fairly plausible and even mundane.

It could not very well have been his callous disregard for humanity - I mean, even some of the heroes did that. Hell, the book itself did that! Even presented seriously, it's just not all that evil.

It definitely wasn't because he was fated to do this - if anything, that would detract from his evil.

It wasn't even because he punished innocents for the crimes of others. The arguably most pathetic villain in the book did that: Judge Hangemall, Radar, Mort, Superion (okay, so Superion wasn't exactly pathetic).... Nihel didn't even take it to a whole new level.

No, the most evil of Nihel's traits was his failure to understand the concept of freedom. It was his utter hatred for humans who, as he saw it, refused to take advantage of their freedom and wasted it wallowing in banality. Nihel never realized that it was this very banality that made humans free in the first place. What good is freedom if some omnipotent thug will come and blow you up if you don't use it the way he wants you to? No, this materialism is the expression of humans' freedom: the freedom to be stupid. The right to do what's not best for you. Nihel didn't understand that.

I suppose, then, that Nihel would be an allegory for some major societal issue either today or for all eternity. A societal issue that I'll come back and look at some other time.

[Krylo]

I would say he wasn't really evil at all. He did it because it's what he was. He had no choice in the matter. He was Nihel, and killing is what Nihel does. He was created for that purpose. He couldn't stop it.

To quote another story, "Because of what he was," I explained, as I turned to walk over to Aki. "Because he was turned into a monster, and that's what a monster does.

You can't blame something for its nature. That's just how it is.

[Bongo Bill]

Sure, it was in his nature - but that nature was an Evil one. It's simultaneously detestable and piteous. You can't blame Nihel for his nature, sure, but the fact that his actions were in his nature doesn't make them any less Evil.

[Krylo]

I'd disagree. If a bear mauls a human because the human got too close to it we don't call the bear evil. We might kill it because animals that get a taste for human blood tend to keep going after it, but we don't call it evil.

If a person mauls another person with no more reason than his victim got too close, we're probably going to call him at least sick, and, quite possibly, evil.

What is the difference? The fact that a person has control over their actions, while the bear does not.

The same applies here. Nihel couldn't help his actions. He's more of a tragic figure than a villainous one.

Not that he didn't need to be stopped. He did. Just like that bear that gets a taste for human blood. He merely wasn't 'evil', persay.

However, if we're going to talk merely about why his actions were evil, then there are multiple reasons. There was the lack of feeling he expressed at murder, there was the painful ways in which he commited those acts, repeating the same line about being angry since the beginning of time, so on and so forth. His inability to understand freedom is only one aspect.

[Bongo Bill]

Well, no - the bear was still something to be hated. If I get mauled by a bear (and somehow survive), I'm not going to excuse the bear just because mauling me was "in its nature." I admit that the bear didn't even know that what it was doing, and that's what separates evil from ignorance: if you have the capacity to understand evil, then you have the capacity to be evil.

Now then. About the actions. Nihel's inability to understand freedom was, indeed, just one facet of his tremendously Evil actions, but it was the one that set him head and shoulders above all the other overvillains. None of the others were as Evil, and it's his misunderstanding of freedom that makes this true. Just about everyone in the book, from Mechanikill to Nuklear Man to Dr. Genius, had a lack of feeling for relatively evil acts. Crushtacean, I'd argue, was plenty more painful. I don't doubt that Superion would have done killing on as large a scale as Nihel did if the overheroes hadn't intervened. The repetition of that line was another evil part, yes, but not a big one.

[Maxfuk]

There are many things that confuse me about Nihel. First is whether or not he actually had the freedom he wanted, since all of his actions in this book were seemingly furthering his own self interest (although that interest was ironically the pursuit of said freedom). There is never any sign that he was the puppet of some other force or will, and since all other gods are supposedly bound by the same limitations, it could not be their will which he acted out. I wonder then if he was born as he was, a nature of self formed at the beginning of time and space, without growth or change over an eternity, like a man with no identity, memories, or childhood, imprinted with a soul engineered by some other being with a purpose and course preset. As though he is simply a computer programmed to react to stimulus in a preset manner without a soul of his own to question. However, his ability to learn and adapt to unexpected situations is suspect, where he has the ability to recreate and improve upon Menace's weapon designs, but he is still beyond change, since his opinions are set and cannot be swayed by her words later when she tells him that he has already failed, since he is still prisoner to fate and is not fated to stop the Ragnarok.
The second thing is his connection to Zurai and the Core Worlds Council. He seems to have originated with the beginnings of reality, and is therefore separate from the reigning mortal force in the galaxy, which if they are truly of so little import, then it begs the question of why they were brought up in the first place, and why go through the whole time travel schtick to explain it?

[Ronfar]

It's simple.
He killed Rachel.
What more could there be?

- Doug

[Bongo Bill]

It's simple.
He killed Rachel.
What more could there be?

- Doug

The mortal "Doug" raises an excellent point.

[Willowhugger]

Nihil's evil was to me something else entirely. It's the fact that Nihil DID react against his nature. Or at least, he WANTED to. It's one of the interesting dynamics of Nihil. Nihil believed he was totally powerless to do anything he wanted. Yet he spat on humanity, killed, maimed, and did whatever the hell he wanted.

If it was his "fate" to do all these things, it was still something he willingly thought of doing.

What would Nihil have done if he had freedom? Probably nothing different ironically becase he STILL would hate humanity.

His hatred was driven ironically by the very CONCEPT of something that really had no bearing on him whatsoever.

[Althane]

I wish to know why he stopped the missiles.

He acted very irrationally, and I really didn't get him. He seemed more like an excuse to unlock Nuke's past... sorry Brian...

[Kurosen]

He stopped the missiles because he could. You ever stomp on an ant hill? Why? Now imagine those ants have more control over their lives than you do and you've had to live with that for tens of thousands of years. It might drive ya a little mad.

He decided if the human race was going to kill itself, it'd be more appropriate to use their communication satellites. It's the human media that enrages him the most because humans have free will and they spend it watching TV.

[Gary Thunder]

Here's my thoughts on the matter:

Why was Nihel so enraged at humankind's lack of usefulness with their free will? They had no power over reality! It was one thing if they were free of fate AND could shape planets and such and STILL wasted all their time watching TV. But what are they really supposed to do? They have absolutely no physical power. If Nihel had his way, assuming his way didn't mean killing all who were under him, what would humanity be DOING?

[Kurosen]

Why was Nihel so enraged at humankind's lack of usefulness with their free will? They had no power over reality!
Not inherently, but but we can affect reality. I think it bugged Nihel that most people waste their lives rather than contribute meaningfully to culture and science and that, as a species, we've done nothing to make ourselves responsible members of a larger community and, in fact, can barely be trusted not to kill each other over incredibly petty concerns.

[Willowhugger]

It's a case of the "grass is always greener" in my mind. Nihil if he had free will would have hated the gods for having power. It's the great irony of things in my opinion.

Honestly, more evil than Nihil was Doctor Genius in my mind. The rampant pursuit of knowledge when there is honestly no purpose for it.

[ThanosOfTitan321]

I too believe that Doctor Genius was more evil than Nihel, but that's because of the reasons behind their actions. Nihel was evil because he HAD to be evil. It was fate. Genius was evil on her own freewill, because she wasnt bound by fate, she was just evil.

[RMS Oceanic]

Dr. Genius isn't evil, per se. Amoral would best describe her.

[Willowhugger]

Amorality is the nature of most evil beings (the other are those who are moral but in a way that is not what society labels as good). She was amoral enough to commit murder for her own aims.

So she fits both definitions of evil in my mind.

Apathy is no excuse for evil.