The Year of the Villain #4: “Elidor” and Formless Evil

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Happy May Day everyone, especially all those in the Northern Hemisphere. J

Being May 1, that means it’s time for another Year of the Villain post (in our wonderful Fantasy genre, of course!) – #4 to be exact. As the title indicates, I’m looking at Alan Garner’s Elidor and formless evil.

I say “evil” rather than “villain” because, being formless, there is no one antagonist, nor yet a gallery of villains, as in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

Elidor is a children’s book, but like Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea, I believe it’s very readable for adults, particularly the sense of constant unease, morphing into outright menace, created from the outset. 

Original cover

The protagonists are four siblings, in the tradition of CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, although in this case it’s three brothers – Nicholas, David, and Roland – and a sister, Helen. Again similar to Narnia, it’s the youngest sibling, in this case Roland, who is the main point-of-view character.

Although the story is chiefly set in our world (i.e. it’s an early urban fantasy), initially the four stumble through a portal into the world of Elidor, which has fallen beneath an all-consuming darkness. Three of the four fortresses that once guarded the land have fallen to the dark and the lord of the fourth charges the children with taking the realm’s four treasures – the spear, sword, stone, and grail of Celtic myth – back to our world to keep them safe.

Audiobook cover

Yet the darkness, too, can cross between worlds so the children must still contend with it in order to keep the treasures safe. What they face, though, is never clearly defined beyond a darkness that stains walls and congeals in the corners of rooms. Its power manifests as static on television sets and eyes at keyholes, looking in from the other world. Warriors serve it, with terrifying persistence, but the children can no more name them than the darkness. The exact nature of both remain a mystery.

Thus proving, in Alan Garner’s expert hands, that the unknown, and allusion rather than explanation, may be more terrifying than a named and clearly understood villain, however powerful. Because make no mistake, the sense of menace, and outright terror, remains constant throughout Elidor. 

Ebook cover

© Helen Lowe

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About the Author

Helen Lowe is an award-winning novelist, poet, and lover of story. With four books published to date, she is currently completing the final instalment in The Wall Of Night series.
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Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog, monthly on the Supernatural Underground, and tweets @helenl0we.

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Previous “Year of the Villain” Posts:

January:      Ushering in 2024 -- & the Year of the Villain

February:    The Year of the Villain #1: The Lord of The Rings Pantheon

March: The Year of the Villain #2: Ursula Le Guin & “Earthsea”

April: The Year of the Villain #3: Tigana and Brandin of Ygrath