---

The Discipline of Small Evil

by Arthur H. Manners

Big evil is cheap, lazy, unimaginative. Release a deadly plague. Steal a continent. Shoot the moon with a giant laser. Everyone pays attention, everyone screams, and the supers come and there’s a showdown and a monologue and sharks.

Blah blah blah.

Where’s the art in that?

Supervillains always fail. They invite heroes to rise, invoke Newton’s Third Law: action, reaction. The trick is to slip unseen through society, widening cracks in the psyche.

Big evil is just a cry for help. Look at me, validate me, for the love of God someone save me.

Real evil is small. It’s turning all the pictures in someone’s home just a little askew. It’s using show bathrooms at hardware stores. It’s pineapple on pizza. Leaving the seat up. Puns.

Real evil is talking in the cinema. (Continue Reading…)