The Books Briefing: Sympathy for the Devil
Almost every story has good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, winners and losers. Convention goes that readers are supposed to root for the former, but let’s face it: The “good guys” aren’t always the most interesting.
Take J. K. Rowling’s Voldemort, for instance. Harry Potter might be the Boy Who Lived, but how did a young man named Tom Riddle come to despise half-bloods, split his soul seven ways, and become one of the most powerful wizards in the world? Thewriter Julie Beck argues that while it would’ve been simpler to make Voldemort a thoroughly wicked villain, the human elements of hisdoes something similar by letting readers into the mind of the ultimate baddie to understand Lucifer’s motives. The contrast between heaven and hell, and God and the devil, isn’t as binary as one might imagine.
