Deception - Good and Bad

Evil-Lyn has any number of powerful magics at her disposal, but the one she uses to greatest effect is her power of deception. Specifically, she can transform her appearance into anything from a sweet old lady to a defenseless young maiden. She’s used this trick on more than one occasion to fool a hapless Eternian or even a member of the royal family into divulging secrets or going along with one of her evil schemes (unwittingly, of course). Deception is one of the most powerful tools of the forces of evil. Deception allows evil to take advantage of the unsuspicious before they can put up a defense.

We must remember that the forces of good also use deception, mostly in the service of keeping secrets. The biggest instance, of course, is Prince Adam’s secret identity. (CAUTION: Spoiler Alert. Prince Adam is ACTUALLY He-Man! I know, right? Didn’t see that one coming.) Adam keeps this secret, he says, to protect the well being of those closest to him, like his mother and father, and his friend Teila.

Teila also has a secret. In her case, she’s not in on the secret; it’s being kept from her. What secret? Her true parentage (her mom is the Sorceress) and her true destiny (eventually taking over the job of the Sorceress, which seems to consist in being a dispatcher for He-Man). It is Man-At-Arms, her adoptive father, who keeps this secret. And why? To protect her well-being, of course. Man-At-Arms and the Sorceress want to wait until Teila is “ready” to handle her destiny.

So both Adam and Man-At-Arms are keeping secrets for the same reason: to protect the well being of others. Whether this is the case or not (I for one favor telling the truth in both cases) we can at least see the difference between the forces of good and evil. Evil-Lyn keeps her identity a secret so she can do harm to people and Prince Adam keeps his secret to prevent harm to people.

Clearly, there is a difference. Again, whether it is acceptable to lie to someone for good reasons (i.e. to protect the well-being of someone) and if so, in what cases, is an old debate that has many positions. Plato, writing for Socrates in the Republic, his treatise on the nature of justice, says

Aren’t there times when it [a lie] is useful and so does not merit hatred?
What about when we are dealing with enemies, or with so-called friends who,
because of insanity or ignorance, are attempting to do something bad? Isn’t it a
useful drug for preventing them?
(The Republic, 382c5-10, C.D.C Reeve
Translation, p. 63, c.2004 Hacket publishing company.)

Sometimes we may even lie to help someone experience pleasure, like lying about a surprise party. Parents and other moral educators may find themselves loath to mention such exceptions to merit-less mendacity because the lure to lie may already be so strong that the slightest excuse will be used unwarrantedly by children.

As soon as there are good but hard-to-define exceptions to important rules, plenty of people will line up to exploit those exceptions in cases where they don’t really apply. Imagine a case of aldutery: “Of course I wanted to tell you about the other woman, dear, but I didn’t really want to hurt your feelings. I was only thinking of you.” Boy, I hope the person telling that whopper wasn’t married to Teila. I don’t think she or her mad sword skills would be very forgiving.

So yeah, there’s a difference between Evil-Lyn and Prince Adam when it comes to their acts of deception. Sure, maybe Adam is over-estimating the dangers lurking in wait for the parents of He-Man. Or maybe he’s right about the danger, but wrong about the relative importance to his parents of them knowing their son’s true nature versus their relative safety. It gets complicated.

My advice is this: beware of endangered young maidens and kindly old ladies. They may just be an evil sorceress in disguise.