Humanizing evil allows us to see the world through the villain’s eyes. We understand their motivations, fears, and desires. Evil gods have tragic backstories, while evil factions are composed of goblins or post-apocalyptic raiders just desperate for a better life. This can create a richer, more nuanced world, and often creating those intricacies is at the heart of good worldbuilding. However, there are times when humanizing evil creates more problems than is needed and certain worlds benefit from an evil that is just plain evil and needs no other explanation.

Complex evil characters and factions can cause issues in many different ways. Everyone loves it when the forces of good overcome the forces of malevolence. This joy becomes tempered when that force of malevolence had kids of their own. And that tempered joy turns to puzzlement when the question of ‘are those children also evil’ arises. Once the horde of darkness has been vanquished, the true test of fostering a legions worth of orphans begins. And of course this leads into questions of nature versus nurture and if it is morally correct to just let the intrinsically evil children fend for themselves in the swamps of despair where all good people force all evil people to live.

While exploring the morally grey areas of a world and showcasing the complexities of the human condition absolutely has a home in some worlds, in others it does not. Sometimes it’s better to keep it simple and just let evil be evil.