Oh, it’s so fun to wail on the bad guys! It’s so fun to kick their butts, give them their just desserts, and stand victorious over them with your foot (hind paw?) on their chest! But … what if one of them … repents and really means it? What if, without coaxing or threatening – on their own – they have realized what they’ve done, and they try to make amends? Can the victory be as sweet? Do we lose the overwhelming feelings of vindication and domination when our enemy humbles himself in front of us and pleads for mercy?
We can disregard their “convenient” change of heart as an attempt to slip free of punishment, but could someone convince you that they truly did mean what they said? Would you stop? Would you “stay your wrath?” How are we best judged, in how we accept defeat or how we accept victory?
Some of the villains in The Fallen go down exactly as some would hope – in disgrace, humiliation, and with debilitating personal losses. However, one has already suffered those losses, a consequence of the evil of his own paws ruining his own life in a tragic backlash. Broken, he watches as each of the other conspirators fall, and he knows his time is coming.
At the end of the scene where he’s confronted, it is very emotional – especially judging from my wife’s reaction. It’s very difficult for those who are parents to even consider what happens to him as a consequence of their actions, although it does happen in real life, tragically enough. I think my desire here is to remind us that just because someone has perpetuated what we consider to be a horrible evil and a miscarriage of justice, they may have just been fighting to protect what they felt was threatened – their friends, their family.
General Robert E. Lee is and remains, in the minds of many in the south, an upright, noble, and admirable man. For some, however, he will always be the most sinister of villains because he fought on the side of slavery. I think, if you’ve read my books, you know where I stand on the subject of slavery (solidly against), but I am also compelled to look with some degree of honesty on the life of a “General Robert E. Lee” type figure. A man who, in the end, accepted the outcome of the war – accepted that he had lost. A man who surrendered honorably, without acrimony or rudeness. A man who, in the end, saved a boys university by serving as its President. A man who supported Andrew Johnson’s program of reconstruction and interracial friendship. A man who served the wrong side, but … was still, at least in some respects, was a truly good man. Can we have room in our hearts to look at someone who has done tremendous wrong, but still appreciate their willingness to accept such a loss? Can we admire their determination to continue living and start again, even though they have been utterly defeated? I hope so. I think it would speak well of us, if we did.
Take care,
JTL