Evil Good and Good Evil

**Originally written April, 2020...**

     So, over the course of these weeks of "sheltering" at home, I have had the luxury of tackling some books that have been on the back burner for some time. One of those books is the literarily acclaimed Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. You may find this hard to believe, but I'd never even seen the Disney movie before reading the book. I say "hadn't" because I have since watched it --  once I'd finished the 19th century novel of course. 

     When I picked up that book though, I approached it with a few preconceived notions. I knew it was a Disney movie, so I assumed there would be an obvious moral-to-the-story, relatable characters, a bit of romance (ie damsel in distress & knight in shining armor), a relative status quo of family friendliness, and a general sense of closure & "happily ever after." Having read the book, I can attest that (SPOILERS AHEAD) none of that is true of Hugo's book. It is instead a dark twisted story if ill-fated and poor choosing humans. Every debase desire and practice is manifested in the lives and story of those who walked the streets of Paris in 1482. There is no "true beauty is within" moral; I can't say that any character is good, or admirable, or enviable; there is only lust & unrequited love (the damsel is indeed in distress from herself; and the knight is in armor but he is far from shining); the book earns an "O" for objectionable content for children; and the only thing like closure is that (SPOILERS AHEAD!!!) everyone is dead at the end. literally. 

     Okay. But this isn't a book review. I actually *did enjoy reading it if you were wondering: more so than his Les Miserable! This is instead me stream of thought-ing about why I was so disturbed when I watched Disney's animated interpretation. It wasn't how they trimmed the story down, or how they made Quasimodo not deaf and rather friendly, or changed the role of Claude Frollo from archdeacon to some magistrate or something, or how every other primary character was struck from the script, or how they made L'Esmerelda an actual gypsy of 20 rather than a girl of 16 who'd been stolen from her non-gypsy mother as an infant that bothered me the most. It was their redesign of Phoebus. 

Victor Hugo depicted the captain as the most stereotypical, self consumed, shallow, lustful, vulgar creep that every girl should be wary of but that every stupid 16 year old girl will lose her mind and heart over. Turns out, L'Esmeralda lost more than that because of him! There is not one ounce of kindness or selflessness or humility in that man. If given the choice between self or literally anything else, he would always choose self!! There is no development. There is no improvement. He is not changed. He is not touched. His view of the world or himself never changes. He is flat (because he's literally so shallow!). And the only consequence he has for his life choices is that he finds himself married in the end - to a rich girl. The poet/comic relief of the book insists that that is punishment enough. But is it? Because he is the worst!! And Hugo took great pains to paint him as such, and my skin crawled right on cue in response to his skilled descriptions. "Phoebus" was the perfect name for him -- he believed he was the sun and that the world revolved around him. 

Well, then, there's Disney... 

Disney went and made Phoebus the hero. Handsome (accurate), kind, selfless, gentle, thoughtful, winning, endearing, charming (accurate), understanding, brave, and heroic: the stereotypical "Prince Charming." 

And I hated it. I think anyone who knows the real Phoebus and the real story would hate it. It's not fair. It's not the truth. It's a sham and a shame. L'Esmeralda is dead because of him, and now he's the hero?!

If that kind of nonsense burns your biscuit, too, you're actually in agreement with God. He says in Isaiah 5 "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." There is just something so repulsive about that "Topsy Turvy" injustice. 

I'm not even going to go down the path of tying this into christianity, or our country, or politics, or our education system, etc, etc, etc. *You fill in the blank. 

But stop and ask yourself, are you okay with good being called evil and evil being called good?! Because there is a Just God, and he finds that abhorrent. And His "justice cannot not sleep forever."