"Writing Wrongs" - Myth as Theodicy?

Do we hold Jadice, “Queen” of Narnia, accountable for her actions in the Lewis’s Chronicles? What the Telmarines and the Calormenes? What about Weston and Devine? Wither and Frost? What about characters who fall under the “flawed” category rather than outright evil, such as Edmund and Mark Stoddard? These characters each have at least three things in common: 1) they are guilty of moral iniquities, 2) we hold them accountable for these, i.e. find them blameworthy, and 3) their actions were technically the result of an author’s decisions and exercise of will.

So is Lewis guilty of some crime for writing evil characters into his novels? We tend to think not. How, then, do we blame God for writing evil characters into his grand story? The problem of theodicy is this: how can evil exist in the world compatibly with an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God? I wish to suggest that a shadow of an answer may be found through art, specifically in this case literature. We do not intuitively blame an author of moral wrongdoing for writing evils into his stories, for making his characters suffer. Particularly if there is some resolutions, some recourse to justice, in the conclusion. As a matter of fact, I hazard to say that we dislike stories where no harm ever befalls anyone, and tend to value those which explore and depict the depths of suffering and depravity, given that ultimately the good triumphs (or that the story spurs the reader to better enact and appreciate the good in the real). An excellent author will properly utilize themes of evil in his work; it is a hallmark.

How can we expect any differently of God? I wonder if the Divine Author wrote evil into his story for the express purpose of making it exciting; that his story might be an adventure (CHESTERTON). Of course he could have skipped the Fall and everything and stayed right on track with a perfected creation helmed by a perfected mankind created in his image. Instead the perfect being created conflict, something he never had within himself. In Van der Leeuw’s terms, he created drama: “movement meets countermovement.” Moreover, he entered himself into the plot. He wrote himself into the story. And he created us, his characters, with a consciousness and creative/reflective capacity to create our own stories, mirroring him.
In short, we are the greatest work of art ever conceived.   

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