The Necessary Evil portrayed in The Girl in the Spider’s Web

I initially wanted to write a post on ‘the themes portrayed’ in the movie The Girl in the Spider’s Web but one theme was so overpowering that I’ve decided to just write on that. That theme is necessary evil.

SPOILER ALERT.

Before going on, we’ll have to define what evil means. I’m not going to open up a dictionary for this. I’ll give it to you in simple terms.

First of all, evil is very subjective. It depends on which value system you are using. We have of course our legal systems which vary country to country and also societal standards, which vary on an even more granular scale, place to place. If you break the law, that’s considered ‘evil’ in the sense that I’m referring to. If you do something that’s frowned upon that transgresses upon the rights of someone else, say, physically hurt them, then that is evil too.

Most of us don’t transgress these limits most of the time. But also, if everyone were evil, nobody would be evil. Makes sense? The systems that we have exist to regulate behaviour of members of society so that everyone can lead more peaceful and predictable lives.

Great, now let’s move on.

In the movie, adult Elisabeth Sander is introduced through the act of entrapping an abusive man. She also blackmails him and reappropriates his funds to be transferred to the two sex workers he physically abused and also his wife that has also been his victim. And oh, she also tazed his crotch while he was hung upside down, to the point that he peed himself. The urine flowing down his own body to his head was an excellent artistic touch.

All the above actions are evil by the legal standard. If she had been caught by legal enforcers, she would have been prosecuted, charged and imprisoned.

But all that, she committed in order to rectify the ‘greater evil’ that was committed by the man, which the legal system has failed to address. Since he was wrongfully acquitted by the courts, he was about to get off scot-free.

Aside from our main character, we also see Gabriella Grane from the Swedish Security Police - Säpo - crossing over the line.

Grane justifies her action of hiring a murderous criminal syndicate by the reasoning that a tool as dangerous as Firefall is safer kept in the hands of the Sweden, a country that has ‘never gone to war’, as opposed to in the hands of the United States, a country that ‘has started many wars’.

The difference between Grane and Sanders is that the former seems to be more consciously using the Necessary Evil card. Whereas Sanders is more like an outlier in the system, Grane operates within the system, bending the rules to fit her aims. Sanders seems to not have a pretence on the righteousness of her transgressions.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web, primarily through its main character, does not pretend that the acts necessary evil committed are vindicated. This is what is so brilliant about it.

In the real world, we have many codes of conduct. As mentioned before, we have our legal systems — the most rigid code of conduct that we have (which can still let the guilty get away). Then, we also have our societal norms, which are constantly changing over time.

To abide by all codes of conduct blindly would mean that we would be preserving the evils that it allows. The actions in the movie — perhaps as most acts of necessary evil are — are not suggested to be structural solutions to the problems, but are more like remedies.

They are carried out by people who recognise that there is a greater evil that is taking place or might take place, and that the existing systems are incapable of stopping it. Playing by the existing rules would then mean that they are letting the greater evil go unchecked and perhaps spread further. Their moral compass tells them it is unacceptable to abide by the existing definition of ‘good’, as that will support the spreading of the greater evil. So they act on that belief.

The question of whether certain acts of evil done in the name of stopping greater evil are justified will never have a simple answer. Ultimately, we are all trying to make sense of the world through our own moral lenses whilst trying to act in ways that would keep us in line with what we feel is morally right.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web has done a great job at sparking these questions on right vs wrong. I hope see more movies that provoke thought in the same way.