Which is my problem with the story. The stories shown are not about good vs evil. What passes for good in this story is a guy willing to brainwash or kill everyone in a country instead of saving them. This isn't a hero (except in classical sense maybe) or good and should not be treated as such.
A Practical Guide To Evil: Jolly Cooperation, But With More Scheming And Murder
- Thread starter Lord Chungus
- Start date
- Books
Which is my problem with the story. The stories shown are not about good vs evil. What passes for good in this story is a guy willing to brainwash or kill everyone in a country instead of saving them. This isn't a hero (except in classical sense maybe) or good and should not be treated as such.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
What deadcrystal said, essentially. Going without a helmet being safer than not isn't a story, it's at best a piece of dramatic convention, and while that does still happen in Practical Guide, it's not reliable, and isn't treated in-universe as reliable, in the ways that things like patterns of three or #42 from the heroic axioms are. Especially when the prince isn't doing it because it's safer, but rather is doing it as a concession to his vanity, so that it is framed from the beginning as an unrighteous weakness.
Well, no, 'what passes for good', small g, is people like Hanno, Tariq, and the Kingfisher Prince. The Lone Swordsman was always pretty firmly cast as on the grimmer end of the heroic scale, one of your brooding antihero types who get their hands dirty.
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- Location
- Australia
You know, I actually believed this. For all of today, I thought that I had dreamt this up. I could not find it. I was prepared to post about you being right and me needing to be in a straitjacket. But then I had one last look.
Chapter 24: Theft
“Wisdom is a tower built of failure and rue.” – Ashuran saying It wasn’t even an hour before the Third Army’s banners hung above the hills that were now to my east ins…
practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com
Phew, not so crazy after all.
So a bit different from how I remember and in a different place then I remember, seems the order was the other way around. Vivienne has realized that the occupying army isn't the enemy, the only enemy is the colonial government that the occupying army is rebelling against. Even though said army still occupies near every position in the government and military, and the original leaders are denied a voice in government and later silenced(sure they were plotting a coup, but isn't that convenient for the author?). Yay for racial equality?
I hope you don't think of me as a feudalist for supporting the Callowan nobility or something but the Legions are colonizers. They're also the unambiguous good guys and the story thinks its silly for anyone to think differently.
1. This doesn't fit with the earliest parts of the story when for example William had to live because of the Rule of Three or later when Cat/Black hinge their plans around their certainty of what stories are going to play out.
2. Yes, that's part of the problem. Good isn't allowed to actually be morally good (at least for the parts I've read), for Cat to be unambiguously good.
- Location
- Somewhere
That's kinda tge point though. Calling them Good and Evil is wrong, and that's a major theme. It's Above and Below that bestow Names, with good and evil being something entirely outside of that. Remember that Summer and Winter were the prototypes, and neither of those is remotely "good". Above just had better PR, because they do their dirty work in secret.You know, I actually believed this. For all of today, I thought that I had dreamt this up. I could not find it. I was prepared to post about you being right and me needing to be in a straitjacket. But then I had one last look.
Chapter 24: Theft
“Wisdom is a tower built of failure and rue.” – Ashuran saying It wasn’t even an hour before the Third Army’s banners hung above the hills that were now to my east ins…
Phew, not so crazy after all.
So a bit different from how I remember and in a different place then I remember, seems the order was the other way around. Vivienne has realized that the occupying army isn't the enemy, the only enemy is the colonial government that the occupying army is rebelling against. Even though said army still occupies near every position in the government and military, and the original leaders are denied a voice in government and later silenced(sure they were plotting a coup, but isn't that convenient for the author?). Yay for racial equality?
I hope you don't think of me as a feudalist for supporting the Callowan nobility or something but the Legions are colonizers. They're also the unambiguous good guys and the story thinks its silly for anyone to think differently.
1. This doesn't fit with the earliest parts of the story when for example William had to live because of the Rule of Three or later when Cat/Black hinge their plans around their certainty of what stories are going to play out.
2. Yes, that's part of the problem. Good isn't allowed to actually be morally good (at least for the parts I've read), for Cat to be unambiguously good.
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deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
They absolutely are about Good vs Evil. They're just not often about Right vs Wrong.
This is very much the point of the setting though, you have sides that (in the view of predominant culture) are definitionally correct or incorrect. The guide serves as an exploration and rejection of the idea that morality can be bestowed or commanded. The Heavens see all, and the Choirs are literally divinely correct, and a very major point is Anaraxes rejecting the idea that the Choir of Judgement's infallible foresight is even valid or relevant.
It's explicit that Amadeus has been slowly destroying Callow's capacity for self-governance for decades. Catherine:
a) Utterly despises nobles
b) Is thin on the ground for options
c) Has personal loyalty as a noted character flaw.
Catherine does actually want Callow to be self-governing, but most of the only people left don't have her personal trust and only have a self-serving interest in returning to form (because they believe their blood entitles them to it). There are exceptions, people who actually put Callow first and despite Cat's loathing of nobility she bites back her dislike and gives them power.
Ultimately rebuilding Callow is going to take a long time.
They really really aren't. Catherine finds the 'One Sin One Grace' ethos deeply fucked and a sign of Amadeus' madness. She has a personal attachment to them, and they're a vital tool, but they don't have a moral imperative because the legions don't have any morality or ideal beyond 'win the war'.
There's a wide gradient depending on how prominent or widespread the stories are. Roles and Names also make a major difference. Bumbling Conjuror is a name linked to providence far more than average, they're basically powered by ass-pulls, but if you just keep hitting them they'll stretch it too far and get killed. The previous Black Knight to Amadeus got killed by a random scrub because they ran into a group of soldiers and just got tired and overwhelmed.
Rule of three is a very hefty story, and if it gets properly set up there's no real avoiding it (Except through things that aren't subject to narrative, like Demons). Although there's usually more than one 'allowable' resolution. Rule of three fight with a villain will end with the villain losing, but it could be death, or it could be redemption (followed by death. Redeemed villains almost always die in short order)
There are actually quite a few Good characters who are actually good, in varying ways. And Cat definitely isn't unambiguously good. She goes through a lot of development over the books, and later Cat regards a lot of her earlier decisions and beliefs with disgust. What Cat does is refuse to abrogate responsibility for her actions. She won't submit to an ideal and wipe her hands of agency. She and Amadeus have that in common, that that method of thinking repulses them.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
This is important, yeah. Again, one of the big things I like about Practical Guide is that exploration of what we know about why people join 'villainous' groups like violent gangs and occupying empires in the first place, the recognition that sometimes your situation just plain is shitty enough that there aren't good options, so you do the best you can with what you've got. 'What you've got' may still be pretty shitty, but it is still what you've got, and your only means to make something better. And like, you can say this is so because the author has contrived to write a situation so that there are no better options, and that would be true, but that situation isn't actually uh... untrue to life? That happens. It's happening right now, even.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- It/Them
Well, well, well. That was a pleasant switch and bait. Reveals a few new questions about the world building that makes the guide unique too.
Wouldn't it be glorious if at the finale we get villain stories turned back on and the bard and dead king get sealed away, fated to contain each other for eternity?
Wouldn't it be glorious if at the finale we get villain stories turned back on and the bard and dead king get sealed away, fated to contain each other for eternity?
That sums up why I really didn't like A Practical Guide to Evil even though I enjoy villain protagonists.
It's one of those stories where the protagonists are always justified regardless of what they do (and everyone else is written as 'eviler' and/or incompetent to make them look better), any evil deeds they do unwillingly are treated as THEM making personal sacrifices as opposed to them sacrificing others, and characters are demonized or portrayed as stupid for opposing the protagonists and not having a reader's nigh-omniscient perspective. Which is at best authoritarian and most often a fascist trope.
Add in the military dictatorship apologetics and I'd say it leans way more towards fascism.
- Location
- Australia
I mean, you've just told me that the problem doesn't get better, that Bothsides are still an issue. Because again, our protagonist's side is an military dictatorship and colonial empire, using the same institutions of a regime that murdered children who showed heroic tendencies. The other side is ineffectual, hypocritical, judgemental, fanatical, unfairly advantaged and just as bad.
This site has no shortage of evidence that Gary Gygax's morality was deeply unsettling. He thought there were inherently evil races and that it was better to kill
I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Guide is fascist propaganda or anything. Given how clear of a Darth Vader expy Black is and the references to impractical flying fortresses I think the author is just a really big Galactic Empire or Thrawn fanboy and things spiralled off from there.
deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
I don't know when you gave up on the Guide, but you missed a lot.
To say nothing of the fact that the Guide is generally a lot more interested in power dynamics, realpolitik, and the realities of how nation-states actually operate.
This doesn't really land what with the Empire proving again and again that no, it cannot be trusted and will always fuck Callow over. That the Dread Empire, as both an institution and a culture, is incapable of not fucking the other players at the table.
Cat can't stand the people making charges on empty rhetoric without considering the material conditions of the citizenry, or wrapping themselves in righteousness to serve their own interests, but as she progresses through the books her willingness to tolerate the Empire wanes the more it continues to kick over sandcastles.
- Location
- Australia
I wasn't talking about just the Empire (more specifically, about the beginning's rebellion), I was also primarily talking about Cat after she de facto took control of Callow and her feeling affronted that heroes were coming in to try and kill her instead of recognizing the obvious truth that she is best for Callow.
Also, you keep bringing in evidence that heroes are actually bad like that doesn't prove my point further. The heroes are both fanatics and self-serving all at once. They're too uncompromising in their desire to do Good(which is not actually good conveniently enough) and also don't care about the little people. The author has purposefully written heroes this way in order to make them unsympathetic.
The issue is as @Avaricious Ego said above:
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Yeah, I'm with deadcrystal, you missed a lot. Cat does too much grumbling about the shit her old (and sometimes present) decisions have gotten her into for saying she's always right to be at all defensible, and like...
Okay yeah, I think the story pretty much does argue that Cat is what's best for Callow (for now; her coming abdication has been a recurring element for I'm pretty sure multiple books now, and the character of her successor is very much not 'Cat 2.0, more of the same'), but as I've consistently argued, I don't think that's at all unrealistic, and the story doesn't actually act like it's a good or desirable state of affairs, simply making the best of a bad situation.
Okay yeah, I think the story pretty much does argue that Cat is what's best for Callow (for now; her coming abdication has been a recurring element for I'm pretty sure multiple books now, and the character of her successor is very much not 'Cat 2.0, more of the same'), but as I've consistently argued, I don't think that's at all unrealistic, and the story doesn't actually act like it's a good or desirable state of affairs, simply making the best of a bad situation.
- Location
- my house
Unrelated, but while that was a thing in DnD I don't think it represented how he thought about real life. Unless I missed something.
- Location
- Academy City
- Pronouns
- They
I got a bit past the drow arc, and honestly no, that's right on the nose. Maybe it does get better in what happens since then, that's not impossible, but it's a fair criticism of the majority of the story at least.
Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
Cat being grumpy about it in her internal narration doesn't really impress me, because that's already standard for her character. She complains about things the narrative agrees with her about, other things that it doesn't. A pretty large portion of the serial is Cat op-eding about whatever is going on at the moment and how much it sucks.
The problem is that it rarely intersects or effects the events of the story. She'll think these things and then just kill anyone who gets in her way anyway. Little solid pushback from legitimized sources, and she's rarely directly involved with anything too brutal or faces the worst effects of it. Nor do we really get to question her motivations or view her with ambiguity because the 1st person POV is just pure tell all.
By this point in Worm the edgy teen antihero shot a baby. If this was written by Yoko Taro she'd be killing hundreds of babies by now. The morality stuff here is kinda weak in comparision. And with them hammering home the Heroes not being heroes (except for V. Champion), sometimes it makes good and evil stuff feel more like aesthetic than anything. Evil is cynical snarky jerks you like, good is lame religious people and dogmatic carelords.
Also I find the argument that the Callow nobles are in the wrong because their claims are based on blood inheritance really funny because seriously Cat you live in a feudal society, no shit. And you're literally an autocratic military occupier who kills peasants who fight and serve under said nobles and eat the food other peasants grow on their fields. There really is no playing the 'my social hierarchy is more legitimate than yours' game here.
The problem is that it rarely intersects or effects the events of the story. She'll think these things and then just kill anyone who gets in her way anyway. Little solid pushback from legitimized sources, and she's rarely directly involved with anything too brutal or faces the worst effects of it. Nor do we really get to question her motivations or view her with ambiguity because the 1st person POV is just pure tell all.
By this point in Worm the edgy teen antihero shot a baby. If this was written by Yoko Taro she'd be killing hundreds of babies by now. The morality stuff here is kinda weak in comparision. And with them hammering home the Heroes not being heroes (except for V. Champion), sometimes it makes good and evil stuff feel more like aesthetic than anything. Evil is cynical snarky jerks you like, good is lame religious people and dogmatic carelords.
Also I find the argument that the Callow nobles are in the wrong because their claims are based on blood inheritance really funny because seriously Cat you live in a feudal society, no shit. And you're literally an autocratic military occupier who kills peasants who fight and serve under said nobles and eat the food other peasants grow on their fields. There really is no playing the 'my social hierarchy is more legitimate than yours' game here.
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Duvalle
Ardent Flame
- Location
- The Hearth
The Guide has grown by over 1.2 million words from the time of the Everdark arc. It would be utterly ridiculous if the author didn't start showing nuance by that point. It's equally absurd to expect someone to read the equivalent of 2 Worms (or 5 Lord of the Rings) in order for it to finally get there.
Which I think gets to the heart of one of the issues here. Cat's consistent bemoaning of the status quo was more acceptable at the beginning of the serial. But the longer it's gone on, the more disingenuous it's become. We can't ever forget that if things had even gone slightly differently, she would have been the one to unleash the Dead King on Calernia instead of Malicia. And honestly that would have made for a much more interesting story, especially if she had a heel turn upon realizing what a horrible thing that would have been. Instead, the consequences that decision would have had for her were externalized onto the Dread Empire, which Cat didn't really need any more of reason to go against after Malicia funded the Doom of Liesse.
The scope creep of the setting is what's been the story's undoing in my opinion. The more development that the other sections of this world have gotten, the more bogged down it has become in a morass of side characters upon subplots upon tangents. It's all very well written and even compelling at times, but I think that it would have been better served to explore those ideas in sequel series about Procer.
PGtE was a stronger narrative when it's primary concern was the relationship and stories that formed the rivalry between Callow and Praes, and how that might be overcome through shared interests. The further it's strayed from that while keeping with the same character, the more convoluted it has become and the more frustrating it is to read.
Also, making the best out of bad situation was more believable before Cat attempted to release a genocidal monster on Procer and, in failing that, embarked on a mission of enslaving an entire culture to her whim. Or when she and her command staff pretty horrifically tortured Akua's shade for months on end only for Akua to be okay with that(???), Or the shrug of a reaction that Callow's army and population had to discovering that their Queen was holding consul with the architect of the Doom of Liesse.
Which I think gets to the heart of one of the issues here. Cat's consistent bemoaning of the status quo was more acceptable at the beginning of the serial. But the longer it's gone on, the more disingenuous it's become. We can't ever forget that if things had even gone slightly differently, she would have been the one to unleash the Dead King on Calernia instead of Malicia. And honestly that would have made for a much more interesting story, especially if she had a heel turn upon realizing what a horrible thing that would have been. Instead, the consequences that decision would have had for her were externalized onto the Dread Empire, which Cat didn't really need any more of reason to go against after Malicia funded the Doom of Liesse.
The scope creep of the setting is what's been the story's undoing in my opinion. The more development that the other sections of this world have gotten, the more bogged down it has become in a morass of side characters upon subplots upon tangents. It's all very well written and even compelling at times, but I think that it would have been better served to explore those ideas in sequel series about Procer.
PGtE was a stronger narrative when it's primary concern was the relationship and stories that formed the rivalry between Callow and Praes, and how that might be overcome through shared interests. The further it's strayed from that while keeping with the same character, the more convoluted it has become and the more frustrating it is to read.
Also, making the best out of bad situation was more believable before Cat attempted to release a genocidal monster on Procer and, in failing that, embarked on a mission of enslaving an entire culture to her whim. Or when she and her command staff pretty horrifically tortured Akua's shade for months on end only for Akua to be okay with that(???), Or the shrug of a reaction that Callow's army and population had to discovering that their Queen was holding consul with the architect of the Doom of Liesse.
And considering how long the conflict has been going (and the history of the Dread Emperors), it's entirely reasonable for the side of 'Good' to believe Cat's no different than any other 'Evil' warlord trying to seize and consolidate ever more power. Which she 100% is, it's just the author's deadset on convincing the readers that that's not the case because she's supposed to be new and better and shiny.
In my opinion A Practical Guide to Evil fails at all of those. It's trying to be both a world where narrative causality, magic, and 'realism' are all powers and it just becomes a jumbled mess where I simply can't suspend my disbelief. It's politics by authorial fiat.
Cat: "What was I supposed to do, NOT commit atrocities in pursuit of my own personal power? I'm the real victim here for having to sacrifice all these people! Why won't anyone believe I'm the lesser evil?!"
But seriously, the narrative bends over backwards to justify Cat's actions and act like it's completely unreasonable for anyone not to side with her.
I do think the scope problem would have been solved if the story wasn't squarely focused on one protagonist with everyone else serving her story though. I've seen it done well, even when it started out just focusing on one character.
To be clear though I'm not calling the author a fascist. Just pointing out fascist tropes that keep popping up in fiction like this. It's like the Ursala Le Guin quote in "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas":
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
- Location
- my house
I think.. for me, this is where PGTE failed? Maybe this was never the author's intention, but I was always more interested in a work exploring power dynamics, realpolitik, and the realities of how nation-states operate in a world where stories have power. How does that effect power dynamics when PR is directly related to your ability to project force? Using a real world example, what does it mean when The United States literally gets its power from embracing the narrative of bringing "freedom and democracy" to people. How is that narrative cynically twisted towards realpolitik ends, and how does it effect the way wars are waged.
Like, I have no problem with Cat using superior weight of numbers and practical, no-nonsense decisions to beat out those stories. I'm okay with heroes not being invincible and being able to be drowned in numbers. I play Exalted after all. But sometimes it feels like the idea of narrative magic is actively looked down upon and treated as stupid, instead of embraced and treated with the same practicality as getting good weapons or armor.
- Location
- London, England
I think Practical Guide wants to be a story about power dynamics and RealPolitick but the author isn't actually quite sure how to write that? Which is weird in its way because the Procer interludes have often been very interesting and compelling works, but I think the biggest example of this is that Callow stopped mattering a while back.
Cat is Queen of Callow, but for what is now the majority of the story that... hasn't actually mattered. She's been the Black Queen who theoretically rules but in practice just left Callow's borders literal years ago in-universe and has left the whole thing to a variety of offscreen agents and assistants to manage in her place.
Cat is Queen of Callow, but for what is now the majority of the story that... hasn't actually mattered. She's been the Black Queen who theoretically rules but in practice just left Callow's borders literal years ago in-universe and has left the whole thing to a variety of offscreen agents and assistants to manage in her place.
Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
Which is weird because it follows the general rational fiction tradition of having the magic system be a thing with objective rules that can just be used to produce results. That checks out for a magic system where it's like just supernatural laws of physics. But narrative is something that touches upon religion, culture, and how people see themselves in relation to their adversaries. It feels strange to me that some medieval r/atheism Andy who thinks that all of those things are bullshit can just freely game the system. You'd think the gods would want to prevent that.
It goes back to me seeing narrative as a... well, narrative crutch. Because instead of having to solve her conflicts the hard way, with armies, or diplomacy, making sacrifices of resources, political capital, and time to succeed, Cat can just find a very clever hack to the narrative system that might require her to make personal sacrifices, but while preserving her actual effective power and agency in the story.
Like, straight up the Dead King conflict is where you'd see the protagonist and their faction really start getting ground down with lots of soldiers dying, named character deaths etc. But there really hasn't been much of that because we and the story knows that the solution is going to be a narrative thing. Not an actually fighting the undead army thing.
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- Location
- Somewhere
It's not being looked down upon, it's being attacked. Going all the way back to book 1, the Story is the enemy. It's what keeps the endless destructive cycle going, over and over. Black pointed it out, the author made it even more blatant with how the fae, being even more story-powered, are trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth, Black flatly lays it out in the most recents chapters when he explains that he's trying to kill the story of the Tower. Remove the idea of "The Dread Empire".
the Narrative Force is as much or more the antagonist than the Dead King is.
Yeah, it really doesn't look good when the kingdom that a whole lot of the protagonist's evil deeds revolved around just gets shoved to the side to move the plot forward. If the point of the story is Cat triumphing over narrative causality then the story should be showing what's going to replace it.
The issue is Cat treats atrocities as if they're somehow better than using narrative causality. If you have a story where narrative causality is demonized but sapient rights abuses and worse are excused then that's incredibly problematic.
Cat's replacing the idea of The Dread Empire with an evil empire and that's not better. Heck, you could argue it's worse since Dread Empires are inevitably defeated but there's no such guarantee for a a 'mundane' vicious dictatorship.
- Location
- Finland
I think the worst part of Practical Guide to Evil, is that it is not.
The name is an artifact title at best, and i think the story would have been more interesting if it had actually embraced the fact that the protagonist is evil, and tried to be a guide about how to make that work for you instead of just ending up as the climactic end in someone elses story.
The name is an artifact title at best, and i think the story would have been more interesting if it had actually embraced the fact that the protagonist is evil, and tried to be a guide about how to make that work for you instead of just ending up as the climactic end in someone elses story.
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent