On Evil · 12:57pm Aug 25th, 2019
Okay, so, here's something I've been meaning to bring up for a while now, since the season opener actually. I just haven't had time to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.
I got to thinking about the villains in MLP and just how evil they are.
Now, in this world, I do not believe that there is such a thing as absolute evil. There are people who do evil things; Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mugabe, Pol Pt, etc., but they are not in and of themselves evil. Each one genuinely believed, in their twisted view of reality, that they were somehow doing good. They justified their actions and sought to legitimise them. No one on this Earth goes to bed asking themselves 'How can I do evil tomorrow?'.
Equestria, in contrast, seems to be quite different. Absolute evil does exist, and many of the villains seem to be evil for the sake of it. As I said before, no evil person considers themselves evil, yet as we saw with Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy, the villains of MLP embrace their role as villains. They are aware that they are the 'bad guys' as it were. They openly acknowledge the fact that they are evil.
But what I found more interesting is what happens to them as a result of their pursuit of that evil. Every villain has at some point sought to take over Equestria, subjugate the ponies, steal their magic, or some other grandiose goal. But what happens when they achieve that goal?
We saw with Sombra, he retook the Crystal Empire. That was his goal. But what did he do afterwards? Sure he held Shining, Cadence and Flurry prisoner, but he didn't really do anything. And after he was defeated there and briefly took over Canterlot, he didn't do anything once he had achieved that goal; he just sat on his crystal throne and cackled. He had no purpose after he had 'won'. The same was seen with Tirek. He got all of Equestria's magic, but he did little with it and had no real plan to use it. You can apply the same line of thought to the Pony of Shadows or Nightmare Moon. What were they going to do if they had won?
None of the villains have any reason to exist if they actually win. They seem to lack typical motivations, or any motivations beyond the defeat of good. After that is done, they don't seem to want anything. Sure they might want to rule over Equestria, but to what end? What do they actually want? They don't seem to have any sort of plan.
Here's my theory. They don't want anything, because that isn't the point of evil. Evil exists to defeat good; that is its raison d'etre. Turning back to Sombra, we saw in the comics that an alternate reality version of himself only became the Sombra we know when he was corrupted by dark magic. What if that is the case for all villains; they are all just driven by dark magic inside of them? And since dark magic, and by extension evil, has no goals beyond defeating good, nor do they when they are corrupted.
So, yeah, there's my theory of evil and its origins in Equestria. What do you guys think?
I wouldn't say they exist only to defeat evil and then fail, I would say it is because the villians in question are ultimately... empty. They don't truly have anything else but their goal.