KATANAGATARI 2

You need to be careful about when to say this, and exercise caution in how you phrase it, but there is such a thing in this world as the “Allure of Evil,” and depending on the time and the place, in certain cases it seems as if it can be more alluring than the “Allure of Justice.” In manga and in novels, even beyond the picaresque, it’s often not the hero but the villain who becomes the favorite, and it’s not rare for it to seem as if the author constructs his or her argument with the help of the villains, not the heroes. What is evil anyway? I would need far more than these two pages to list up every example that comes to mind, and no matter what I say, the logic is apt to be a total mess, completely full of holes, so I’ll save that for another day, but in extremely general terms, for the time being, I might say that evil must involve “somebody else.” You could define evil a number of ways, like “breaking the rules,” or “causing people trouble,” but if you plug in the concept of “allure,” evil starts looking more like “someone who can do the things I can’t do,” or “someone who can say the things I can’t say.” Allure is all about the grass being greener on the lawn next door. Even if it’s something that you have no interest doing, the fact that someone else is doing it, that they have a completely different value system and ethical sense, can be enough to make us “jealous” and start to find that thing attractive. But sadly, the weak have the greatest weakness for allure; and while I won’t sit here and tell you it’s delusional, it’s usually a mistake. Different values simply mean a different way of life, which is nothing to be jealous about. The person who you think is evil probably thinks the same thing about you, or maybe even envies you. And if you take this feeling of envy, the idea of otherness being inherently alluring, and turn it on its head, it can become a justification for total hatred and utter disregard, so maybe our systems of ethics and morality develop in a place separate from our sociability. But at the end of the day, evil things are bad, and evil deeds are bad. All that matters is avoiding the grave error of declaring you and your people to be on the side of justice.