Presenters
Marilyn Roxin Stern
Abstract
With the recent release of Disney’s Maleficent, critics have noted a trend in the way in which we view our fantasy villains. Once upon a time, villains such as Morgoth and Sauron, like Iago, were evil because evil existed. Now, literature and film demonstrate a compunction to explain evil, creating alternative backstories, origin narratives for characters such as Maleficent or the Wicked Witch of the West. When this trend is examined in parallel with the moral ambiguity of such fantasies as George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games Trilogy, a clear trend emerges suggesting that we, in the 21st century, are reconfiguring the definition of “evil.”