Becoming a Dark Lord/Lady

Is it possible to be a good Dark Lord (or Lady)? The term "good" in this context is ambiguous. It can mean competent, skilled at certain tasks, fit for his, her, or its purpose. Or it can mean morally and ethically virtuous. We could call Shakespeare's versions of Macbeth and Richard III "good characters," meaning they're well constructed, believable, and entertaining. But we wouldn't label them morally good. A character could be a good Dark Lord or Lady in the sense of a convincing example of a powerful villain (from the reader's viewpoint) or an expert in ruling villainously (within the fictional world). Could a dark ruler be morally good, though, or is that concept self-contradictory?

I recently read THE DARK LORD'S DAUGHTER, by Patricia C. Wrede. Fourteen-year-old Kayla is snatched from our world, along with her adoptive mother and brother, by a man who informs her she's the only child of the late Dark Lord of a realm reminiscent of the fantasy worlds in her brother's favorite movies and video games. To Kayla's dismay, everyone seriously expects her to deal with opposition and assert her power by exiling, torturing, or executing people on the slightest pretext. How can she hold her unwanted position (while working to learn enough magic to return herself and her family to Earth) without transforming into a villain? Surprisingly even to herself, she comes to care for some of the people under her nominal rule and can't just abandon them without trying to fix the more dysfunctional features of the lair and throne she has inherited.

THE DARK LORD'S DAUGHTER reminds me a bit of Ursula Vernon's CASTLE HANGNAIL, whose heroine, Molly, isn't drafted into her position but deliberately applies for it. She answers an ad seeking a wicked witch to take over a castle in need of a master or mistress. The minions of Castle Hangnail, desperate for someone to rule the estate so they won't lose their home, gradually warm to this twelve-year-old girl who does have magic but otherwise barely qualifies. To become the castle's permanent custodian, she has to check off a lists of achievements, including such tasks as smiting and blighting. Some people deserve a mild smiting, and blighting weeds in the herb garden qualifies as a dark action without crossing the line into true evil. Along those lines, Molly manages to fulfill the "wicked witch" role without becoming a bad person. Just when she's on the verge of approval as the official sorceress of Castle Hangnail, though, an unexpected visitor exposes the deception she perpetrated to get over the threshold in the first place -- but no more spoilers!

In case by any chance you've never read the Evil Overlord List, here's that exhaustive inventory of things a supervillain should never do:

Evil Overlord List

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

The Allowed Fool and the Law

In Tudor England, the only relatively safe way to tell truth to power (to coin a phrase), was to be reliably and consistently amusing about it. Kings, Dukes, dictators and tyrants have been understood to like a good laugh, and to very occasionally tolerate a really good joke at their own expense.

It helped for the longevity of the comedian if he could be excused for his impudence because it could be attributed to a harmless mental disorder.

An elegant modern term for such a repeating disorder might be "brain fart". 

College professor and Shakespearean scholar Steve Werkmeister writes an excellent blog about the allowed fool in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (January 6th), and suggests some contemporary comedians who perform this role.

https://stevesofgrass.wordpress.com/2016/06/12/twelfth-night-allowed-fools/

Some blogs age well. Observations made in June 2016 might seem even more perspicacious in January 2022.

The blog No Sweat Shakespeare offers a self-styled ultimate guide to Shakespeare's fools... and a heavy larding of irrelevant advertisements.

https://nosweatshakespeare.com/blog/ultimate-guide-shakespeares-fools/

Drew Layton writes a fascinating analysis of a song lyric copyright case (in which the plaintiff did not prevail). The words in a sentence may be identical, but copyright depends on original expression that has been created independently and separately from another work.

 https://www.eip.com/us/updates/article/music_copyright_case_discusses_originality_requirement

The same analysis might apply to jokes.

The defence in the lyric case was very well served because the defendant had kept very good records of his creative process, and had sound recordings of early versions of the song, including experiments with a variety of phrases (beginning with "tell me that...") before settling on the phrase in question.

Titles cannot be copyrighted, for instance, but documenting ones experiments might be a good idea.  The same might apply to punchlines.

Intellectual Property attorney Milord A. Keshishian of the Milord Law Group wrote an interesting blog about copyright litigation between an extremly popular comedian (and others), and an author who published a complilation work of other peoples jokes.

https://www.iptrademarkattorney.com/los_angeles_copyright_litigati/

The author made the monumental mistake of giving attribution by name to the comedians whose jokes she transcribed, published and distributed without permission.

One might use the search term "compilations of jokes" and find a great many YouTube videos of individuals telling jokes, but beware of appropriating them.

All the best,

 Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday