Exchange of Realities

In the beginning, there were stories, but there was no conflict—sure, little things like “His piece is bigger!” or “The property line is HERE!”, but not big-C Conflict. And the forces of narrative causality looked upon this and were bored. And in this boredom they split the light from the dark. And to the dark they gave the gift of angst, and said unto those who would become the Hands of Darkness, “Spread this gift across the world, that all who belong to the light or live between the sides may suffer from it, for that is Drama.”

And this went well, until some fools misread the instructions and felt that the Angst must be internalized by the dark rather than spread to the light. And thus it flowed through the stories of many a Hand of Darkness, causing those who had once laughed to brood and those who had once reveled at the thought of their upcoming conflicts to fall into ennui. Lo, said the Powers, there hath gone the neighborhood.

A pretty story and, unfortunately, very true of our side. Just look at us! We mope, we yearn for the light not because it’s a pretty treasure that we want to lock away, but because it has turned from us, we whinge about immortality or lack thereof and our upbringing and our mistakes, and we forget, in all this moping, what a powerful weapon it is we are ignoring.

Yes, I mean cheer. (What did you think I meant?)

The first advantage of a cheerful attitude is that it throws people off. Imagine you’re a Hero (yeah, it’s hard, bear with me), and you’ve just gone a-creeping into the citadel of your foe the Hand of Darkness, made it past half a dozen deathtraps, caught her alone with her minions too far away to call and her magic on the wrong side of the room—and she won’t. Stop. Smiling. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Does she still have tricks up her sleeve? Was this all part of her plan? Does she really just want a friendly spot of tea and a chance to come to a mutually beneficial conclusion? (I knew a girl once who actually did just want a friendly spot of tea and a chance to talk it out. Never saw her cornered, but I got the feeling I didn’t want to. She was her father’s best weapon, I think.) It makes you an unknown, and being an unknown makes you more dangerous to them and them hyperalert enough that they risk slipping.

The second is that it does something about that manic-depressive state so many of us find ourselves in. Within every otherwise calm villain, it seems, is a mood that swings more frantically than a politician among a true random sample of citizens. One minute glee and gloating, one rage, one destroy-the-furniture nihilism—no. Not healthy. But cultivating an attitude of good cheer may allow you to soften that, to take the minor setbacks as minor and thus carry on to the greater ones without having to worry about ill-considered vengeance in place of just assassinating the idiot hero quietly. It’s true; a pleasant attitude can indeed be good for your lifespan!

Third, it’s good for morale. If you’re running around the fortress chuckling under your breath, your minions will assume that everything is going according to plan. If everything is going according to plan, it’s probably less likely that their lives are about to be wasted. If it’s less likely that their lives are about to be wasted, they’re going to work with more enthusiasm, as they will be around to see the rewards of their work. See where this is going?

So smile. (Yes, you may extend it into evil laughter. You know you want to.) It’ll do you the kind of evil you want it to. So saith the Generic Villain.