Love the Light Through Dark Stories

It is a good thing to have bad things in our favorite stories. All the best stories have dark parts. Harry Potter’s mother murdered by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named; Aslan slain on the Stone Table; Macbeth’s bloody hands, which all the world’s oceans cannot wash; the rage of Achilles; the scouring of the Shire; the man on the cross. In a way, great stories seem to demand great evil.Yet not all narrative darkness is created equal. There is certainly such a thing as too much of a bad thing. Here we com