A Practical Guide to Evil

[Rynjin]

The sole bastion of Good just underwent a nation shattering civil war and is utterly unprepared for a war with Evil as a unified force. The crusade lost to Praes and Callow, then got blindsided by the other two evil bastions invading. If Cat weren't really neutral Evil would be wrapping up this conflict right now, as it is two of the four evil factions have to side with Good to save it.

Even in your own spoiler the series has treated Evil people with just as much luck as Good people, the Woe win conflicts by blatant lies and stealing suns just as often as Good does. Even your argument about Evil needing to be there for Good to destroy works in reverse; Good acts as a ground for Evil to launch undead hordes on. Defining winning as destroying the other side is the source of Black's complaints; the moral forces want equilibrium punctuated by struggles. Neither side is ever going to win.

That's because the Woe isn't Evil, though they might in some cases be evil. None of them even really pay lip service to Below. They use Good tactics to win, relying on a mix of providence, wit, and moxie to get them through. They're plucky underdogs for the most part, and get a narrative push to almost assured victory from that alone.

It does seem odd that despite Evil supposedly having it so bad, that they keep somehow surviving to pose a threat once more, and that Praes our prime example, was canonically incompetent and a laughingstock for generations yet still stands. you'd think that if they were so bad at ruling they'd be wiped out by now.

Praes seems like it's existed as a target to knock down for years. It's "allowed" to exist by falling into a confluence of different narratives that keep it running. Their cartoonish brand of Evil puts them permanently lower on the totem pole than more direct, immediate, and practical brands of evil closer to home for other Good nations. Any time they accomplish something it solves itself; either by their own plans backfiring (sentient tigers, etc.) or by Callow's Good standing pushing them back.

While being irrelevant in the grand scheme, they also seemed to serve a purpose in creating more Good than their Evil wiped out, with any number of heroes being created to push back their latest threats, who continue to exist after Praesi villains have been defeated (and usually killed).

Which I think is kind of the point. For every hero Praes struck down, five more rose to avenge them, and those five went on to crusade against more evil. Good for the world, if bad for Callow specifically.

That's the kind of grand scheme advantage Good has, and what characters like Amadeus rebel against. In the near term it looks like Good and Evil are evenly matched, with heroes and villains each having their own advantages in direct conflicts. But when a villain dies...they're dead, generally speaking. And the nature of Evil generally precludes any narrative power-ups to avenge them or continue on their great work.

A villain's work dies with them in other words. Nobody take sup a villain's torch, or if they do it's a very rare circumstance.

But heroes get LEGACIES. In the grand scheme this is a war of attrition, where every generation of Good gets stronger, lives longer, and feeds on the power and narrative weight of those who came before them. Villains? They stay the same in power, or even get weaker, since all they have is their own power to function under.

Which is the values divide between Good and Evil in this setting in a nutshell. Community vs Individualism; Greater Good vs Free Will; whatever else you want to call it. Villains stand alone, heroes do not. That's why they lose.

And that's why the Calamities and Woe are so successful. They value their own individual freedoms...but attracted like-minded individuals to share their own values not through force, but through shared interests, goals, and genuine camaraderie.

Black's pragmatism was probably beside the point compared to that borrowing/melding of heroic values and villainous ones.