The Dark

[larryhammer]

(Reposted with apologies because it never made it on friend lists.)

The darkness lies.

The darkness says things like "it's the sensible thing to do" and "you have no other choice." The darkness hides the world around you, keeping you from seeing other options, from seeing all of the truth. The darkness takes part of the truth, then twists it to its own ends. The darkness claims that everything is black and white. The darkness rigs the game in its favor. The darkness seduces and pleads and bullies and blackmails and wheedles and baits and switches and uses every ad hominum trick in the book (and three more the Greeks missed). But the darkness lies.

Pain is real. The need to escape pain is real, the most so for pain of the soul. The darkness uses pain for its own ends. The darkness claims it is the only escape. But the darkness lies.

The darkness lies very well. But the darkness lies.

---L.

Comments

[jankenstein.livejournal.com]

And their singer reminds me of Tiny Tim in a catsuit ;-)

[larryhammer]

Yet another sign of how evil the darkness is.

---L.

[1crowdedhour.livejournal.com]

Brilliant.

May I quote this in an e-mail to three friends? Due credit will be given, naturally.

If I may not quote directly, may I paraphrase?

Caroline

[larryhammer]

Quote away.

---L.

[1crowdedhour.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[writerkatie.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You're quite right, it does.

[djonn]

Very cogent, this.

I've pointed elsewhere in the LJ metastream at Diane Duane's Deep Wizardry, and it strikes me that her formulation of the Lone Power in the Young Wizards novels as a whole runs very much along the above lines.

Actually, that series' overall ethical/cosmological structure is unusually well-developed; to the extent that it's the one fantasy series I can think of that I can look at and think "you know, she could be telling the truth here about How The World Works"....