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Spike almost destroyed Ponyville when he became a greedy giant; Starlight brainwashed an entire village so they would live by her rules.
When the two have a chance encounter at midnight, the two discuss their evil past, and what may have been their evil future.
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Only thing I hate about this is the one-shot feel. Would love to read more of this Starlight and Spike fiction. Great job.
Yes.
Unless you are doing my bidding.
Then it's ok.
(Evil Overlord rules and stuff)
Also, Spiiiiiiiiike, it feels AMAZING for dragons to swallow ponies whole. You should totally try it. (He'll never be able to stop afterward, then his soul will be mine! MUWAH HA HA!!)
That twist in their conversation at the end honestly tricked me. I really enjoy these philosophical ponderings that you give spike bro. Especially this duo. Keep it up.
The question is kind of superfluous. If hurting others and caring only for your own needs didn't feel good, why would we ever do it?
Someone please give this story better cover art!
Let consult it with the professionals, shall we?
7266966
There's a difference between doing evil because it feels good to do so, and doing evil because it leads to things that you desire. The former has you take actual pleasure in hurting others, while the latter merely requires disregard for the welfare of others.
7266992
In ethics, we call the latter "deferred gratification." Morally speaking, it's considered the same thing.
7266984 What? You don't like ms paint?
I don´t have another word to speak more this story than PERFECT. It´s so perfect that I want to read more and more, a sequel, another universe where they are evil, and another universe where they are the future heroes. Well Done. You are amazing man. Fav. and Watch.
I always love your work!
7267165 As I am in love with yours.
... Update If Only I had Time, asshole.
7267008
You must subscribe to different ideas of morality than me, and most people I discuss morality with. I think it's naturally worse for someone to revel in hurting others than for someone to merely not care about it.
7267292
I suppose I do, yes. Have you ever heard of the term "the banality of evil?" It informs a lot of my opinion on that. Active cruelty is, if nothing else, cruelty against a person. It is a form of caring, because even if you want to hurt them, you still acknowledge that they are people, who have feelings that can be hurt and whose feelings matter to you. Apathy, on the other hand, reduces a person to a thing. It's the kind of evil that can send Jews to the ovens from nine to five by the trainload and then go home to play with its kids after a job well done as if nothing had happened all - because it genuinely is nothing to it. That's what real evil means, in my opinion.
7267307
I have, but I don't agree with it. Cruelty might be a form of acknowledgement of someone, but it's a negative form of acknowledgment that strives to bring said person as low as possible, and I feel that negative enough attention is generally worse than inattention. Treating people as inconsequential to you can lead to things such as the holocaust, yes, but nothing inherent to the human psyche prevents people from doing the same scale of crimes out of pure cruelty, either. I think a theoretical Hitler that killed millions of people solely because he loved the thought of so many people dying painfully under his orders is worse than a theoretical Hitler who killed millions of people because he thought he was improving the state of the human race or because he thought it necessary for his personal power (and yes, I am aware that the actual Hitler was at neither of those two extremes).
In addition, if you look at it another way, cruelty-type evil can be seen as more dehumanizing than banal-type evil. With banal-type evil, the perpetrator sees your value as minimal compared to the goal, and you being victimized is only done because the goal exists. With cruelty-type evil, it means that they consider your life's value to be even lower, since there's no longer any goal necessary to "justify" your pain. If someone killed you because he wanted to steal a million dollars from you, It means that he valued your life as less than the enjoyment he would gain from having an easy million dollars. However, if someone killed you for no reason at all, then it means that the maximum he valued your life is lower than the fleeting enjoyment he gained during the event.
I feel that large-scale crimes like the Holocaust are more often the banal-type because banal-type evil is inherently less evil than cruelty-type evil of the same actions. Crimes with that much pain and suffering inflicted require the participation of many, many people, and it's easier to gain followers/helpers who believe in the goal to the detriment of the welfare of the victims than it is to get enough people to do it solely for the sake of cruelty.
7267406
I'm not in the habit of putting a monetary value to my life in the first place, so frankly, this doesn't make a whole lot of a difference to me.
That was really good.
I....must have more! Feed me!!!!
After Starlight left, she got lost in the halls again and wasn't able to find her room, forcing her to sleep in the hall.
It's an interesting question, but it does beg the more meta-question of what constitutes an evil thing. Starlight seemed pretty sure that what she was doing was for the good of all; not consciously evil, necessarily. Spike was just indulging his natural instincts.
To put it in MTG terms, I like to live by Green/Black philosophy. Acknowledge the truth of yourself and what you want, and then decide whether it's worth trading what you have to get it. It's not wrong to want, and to desire more from life, to be proud or to be willing to take selfish action. If you're not honest about that shit and yourself, then it's just going to boil over eventually (see Spike's musings re: Nightmare Moon). The more you ignore your basic nature, the nastier it strikes back when the time comes. Instead of reviling it, embrace it and find a way to parse it with the 'you' you wish to cultivate. They need not be at odds.
....that got kinda pretentious! Sorry.
Awesome story. I really enjoyed the introspection and makes me want for more.
Oh my gosh! I absolutely love that cover art!
Did anyone else find the princess bride reference?
Hehe... It's an inconceivable notion that I may have actually found it first!
dat amazing cover art, my new favourite!
When the author finds a cover art that fits just right.
i.imgur.com/mTvGsBo.png
This had some excellent characterization. I would enjoy a follow up to this tale.
7267589 Not at all. I enjoyed reading your comment.
7268087 I'm happy that someone found this.
7268221 7268119
Don't you know it? That 10,000 hours in ms-paint didn't go to wate
I like the duo that is Spike and Starlight. They seem to be really good at playing off one another and like Spike pointed out they've bother played the roll of the villan, even if Starlight has been one a lot longer. These two should go on an some epic adventure or heck someone should write them as a evil duo, they could take over Equestria with ease!
Very nice.
Some of the language choices and grammar is a little shakey, but I really love the idea behind this story.
There's something about Spike, the frustrated would-be hero, musing about taking the darker path and opening up about it to Starlight that's just really fantastic! The characterization is great too, though there are parts of dialogue I wish the characters had elaborated on or that we could have been allowed to dwell on in the course of a longer narrative.
All and all though, I was most pleased by this fic and hope to read more in this vein in the future.
Minor mistake there.
Food for thought
7267515 7267406
Sorry to get in the middle of both of your (thankfully peaceful, at the moment) discussion/argument. but I can't help that the topic of Cruelty vs Banal Evil is missing a key component more so on the Banal side, and that is motive.
Now, I'll just go straight tl;dr and say that while, in my opinion, cruelty, in terms of wanting to cause pain to another for no other person that to cause said pain, is an inherit evil, while banality, unfortunately, needs to be questioned about the motives and ethnics of the method to that goal, such as torture to provide accurate information that could save millions of lives, and thus falls, at least in my mind, in the relatively moral gray, as sometimes it does come down to intent.
So therefore I do not believe what Spike wishes to do is evil per say, as he has a quite understandable desire/motive, but the method is quite questionable and can be seen quite negatively easily as other avenues, if available, should be pursued first.
Would also like to add that the whole thing really does come down to the psychology of the person sometimes.
Let me try and bring up some scenarios of what I mean:
1. Greater Good
Let's say someone needs to commit a few thousand to die to save a million, for instance. Now, while I understand that the loss of life is a tragedy that should try to be avoided, there are sometimes where its not, or sometimes where you have to judge the value of someones life over another, or maybe even many. Sometimes this person you are sacrificing could really mean something special to you, and therefore the choice is made considerably harder. We could also put mercy killings under this list as to some they are considered an evil, as it is ending someones life regardless if they would survive either naturally or with medical help, however, can be seen as a greater good evil as it spares the person of pain, or a quick death.
Now I will believe the loss of one close or a few many will haunt the person who has to make that call, and some will probably call them evil regardless of their choice, but who can really judge them and call them evil or good?
2. Routine
Now I will admit, I didn't really start reading what banality of evil really meant until I was halfway through the first section, so I just decided to leave it there, but this one struck me, as it is something that I continue to see to this day, and shall be terming it as sheeple (sheep + people). One of the problems with sheeple is that they can also be generally good hearted people that unfortunately were raised in a community of other sheeple and therefore unknowingly accept the evil as just ordinary life. The absolute difficulty against this "evil" is that it's nigh impossible to get these sheeple to see another view outside that they have accept as fact. To them, it would be like saying the Earth revolves around the Sun when they are raised to think that our solar system is geocentrical. While we do call sheeple evil for blindly following a false belief, even when offered a different "truth" to follow, under whose subjectivity do we judge those kind of people when they full heartily believe that what they are doing is normal and right?
Now I put this in the middle because it's a combination of both the previous and next, and that would be the example of if a mother, with 100% certainty, believes that you have kidnapped their child, even when it's factual that you haven't, how do you tell that mother that she is wrong, and is she called evil if she where to hurt you?
3. Desperation
This example kind of came to mind when just reading your comments and just thinking of it, and that would be if there was a starving person, or some sort of person in desperation, the object of their desperation, in this case food, for example a sandwich, and someone stopping the desperate person from reaching/obtaining the item of their desperation, would that desperate person be evil?
On one hand, I can understand the yes, as they have hurt someone in the process, but I can understand that either there could be no other way, or the desperate person sees no other way, than to harm the person blocking them to gain the item of their desperation.
Now the last two I feel is where this is really questioned as they are probably the first things to mind when talking about this.
4. Self Gain
Now this one is the most trickiest of slopes sometimes, as I could almost lump what Spike desires into this, but the other side is things like thievery of something you already have, and willing to harm another to gain it, such as breaking into a home, stealing money, or items of value, and other acts such as ... rape. I really do hesitate to place acts like rape into this category, but as far as I know, sometimes, and when I say sometimes, I believe rarely, rape is about the self pleasure granted through sex, otherwise I believe it is the desire of power of another person which then makes it more of an act of cruelty. As far as the stealing one go, I would not place a starving person beside a well fed person and call them both stealing a loaf of bread the same act, as a person who has the capacity to get what they need without resorting to harm, but doesn't pursue such avenues, rides a very fine line when being judged, as sometimes it is the motive that needs to be judged along side the method, but who can be the one to judge? As I said, this is the trickiest one to judge as it really does, at least to me, ride down the line of banality and cruelty.
Now what Spike desires is difficult to place, as well as difficult to judge, as, in my opinion, place somewhere in the middle of desperation and self gain, as he is not completely starved of attention, but does honestly wish for a little more good attention, and does have the means to obtain it, but relies heavily, if not solely, on the whims of others, and that can be an extreme test of will, as you pretty much are at their mercy, and their capacity to listen and understand your plight, and it might not always end well, because they may not understand and therefore brand what you are prepared to do to gain what you wish as evil, but who, in the end, does gives the final verdict of if it's evil or not?
5. Job/Commitment
This is another one I saw upon reading, but also makes sense as to why it's brought into question, and that would be if your job was to bring hurt to others. This ranges from assassins to soldiers to interrogators to meat farmers. Heck, even some doctors, especially abortion clinics can be brought into this. Hell, you could just about create an entire morality chart based of the people in this section alone, where you have probably soldiers somewhere in the lawful section, because we trust them to protect us, yet they kill others and have committed horrendous acts, even from our side. You have assassins who could easily kill someone without though yet die if it meant protecting the ones they love, which would make them gray as all hell, and probably straight in the middle somewhere. Then you have interrogators, who would probably be in the chaotic sections, as they are supposed to cause as much hurt to extract information of use. The biggest thing that is brought into question with all of this section is the ethics of the action, which isn't always a clear cut black and white.
The main problem I see with judging the banality of evil, that apathetic thought, or even valuing an item over another being is the ethic and motive of it all. We are taught not to steal or hurt others when we are young, but as we grow up and venture through life, we find that hurt is inevitable, and sometimes, depending on the person situation, so is stealing. We also learn that because we are all different, we all have different views on what's right and wrong. Sure, some to match, but how can we honestly tell the other person that they are wrong, what gives us the right to do so, and who judges that our right is the true right? As our number in population grows, so too do the number of opinions of what right and wrong.
That is where I believe the motive behind the hurt needs to be considered along side how the hurt has been done to get a bigger, more complete picture sometimes before passing final judgement.
For instance, I know of someone who sometimes isn't above hurting to get some much needed attention, as they usually do not have much. Now, while I do not agree with their methods, I can understand their motive and if I have hurt them in response, I would apologize for doing so while offering them different approach methods for gaining that same attention, and not thing lesser of that person. In the end sometimes the motive can lessen the blow of the judgement, at least in my opinion.
Now I know this was a big read, and if you have read it all, I thank you kindly. I would also like to hear your thoughts be they agreeing or opposing, though, I will apologize, I will not accept those that are aggressive or demean, but I doubt that you two would give such feedback based on your discussion to each other.
Wow. Second day and you're still going strong on the feature board.
Nice work!
7270163 That was quite the read. You bunch have covered most of the philosophical aspect of the title, which I did not expect to happen. Thank you guys for having a discussion that was far more intelligent than the fic itself.
I don't think I'll be able to add in anything new on the subject, so I'll try taking a physiological approach.
The will of Spike is depicted weak in this fic. It's at a point now where he doesn't even trust his own word or will, but that of almost anyone else. He can see his own potential, yet for some reason, he is unable to grasp it. Now, this is dangerous thing, like you have pointed out. As long anyone with a critical ability gives Spike the approval he yarns for, then he'll be cast under their spell.
It doesn't even have to be like the such. Starlight could've put him down in this fic, called his ideas bizarre or crazy, and Spike would go on believe so. A hatred would probably stir on its own, and Spike would think that the dark path is the only path he can take. It must suck to get that edgy, where your entire villain career could've been stopped by one simple talk.
But let's say Spike finally gets the approval from Twilight, and becomes your typically fantasy hero: he's still messed up. Because it wouldn't be him calling the shots, it would be Twilight. He couldn't think for himself, but rather, just offer his thoughts to Twilight and let her come to a supreme answer.
Which makes me wonder, what would be better? Spike's a hero who has no control over his will. Or he's a villain by his lonesome, but he at least makes his own choices.
I prefer the latter only for the concept.
It is bad to do evil things. How you feel about it doesn't matter, only what you choose to do.
Case in point, really. That kind of self-serving double standard is the favourite excuse of would-be monsters everywhere. "I was only following orders." "it was for the greater good." "I did what had to be done." It's a very convenient way to avoid having to take any actual moral responsibility for your own actions. You want to know how to get an entire country full of people to sit by and do nothing while the corpses pile up by the millions? Tell them they're not to blame, tell them the ends justify the means, tell them that some people just don't have the right to be treated with basic human decency. Nobody is responsible and you don't have to feel guilty, because murder and torture and systematic atrocity are only evil when they do it. It's just the way things are and we're the heroeis, because righteousness is on our side.
At that point, poof go any kind of guilt or empathy. People are now divided into "real" people with moral rights and acceptable targets who aren't. Human being becomes a description of which side you're on, not that you're a thinking, feeling being that some things just shouldn't be done to. It's as easy as that. What you do doesn't matter, just who you do it to.
All things considered, I have more respect for the sadistic thrill killers. At least they're not adding insult to insury by being complete hypocrites about it to boot.
7270163
I'm just wondering: Why do you have self-gain and desperation in different sections? I mean, the example you use for desperation implies that he would have died, but continued survival strikes me as a gain for himself too.
This could easily apply to Diamond Tiara. I'd love to read a story where she and Starlight are bonding over their past.
There's a great story in here that I'd love to see as a fanfic. I would so read It! Speaking of reading, I might want to check out The Count of Monte Cristo.
7273201 I recommend you do, as it is a great book.
Though, do keep writing for us.
I like it. It brings light to the surface on regret and thrill of being bad. Nice part about the villainous pair.
I believe Twilight wouldn't fight Spike really hard because she is ....... I don't know but she cares to much to put much passion into a fight. 
Love the points that were brought up.
7836653 i feel bad using that tag but never know why
7836839 i shy away from drama in real life, so it never dawn on me that drama is the premise to most of my stories, if that makes any sense.
7836844 Learn in one episode or just cry it out, brother.