THE PERSISTENCE OF MORALITY PLAYS

In a previous post (http://al261200.blogspot.com.es/2013/10/the-dark-side-of-everyone.html?showComment=1397475685822), I wrote about the Jikochus in Dokidoki Precure and the ? Eggs in Shugo Chara Doki, berserk monsters created by villains tempting bystanders with the promise of granting wishes (unselfish at heart) regardless of their consequences. The Fyggs (those pear-like "forbidden fruits") in Dragon Quest IX have the same effect: http://happyinnocentmusumesenshi.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/fyggs-and-wishes/
In 1995, the Seeds of Evil (another expy of the forbidden fruit) in Daemon Child Zenki started the trend of "monster of the victim's desire". The seeds looked like walnuts or fortune cookies when closed, and like red eyes with narrow pupils when opened. The open seeds latched with vein-like tendrils onto the body of a passionate person (usually male, only two female victims appearing in the series), making said person lose reason and act merely according to the passion of the week (voyeurism, greed, vanity, or whatsoever). Kama, the villainess, is created from desire, and she gives these statements in her final rant:

1. Desire lies beneath the progress of humankind.
2. As long as humans have desires, there will be Seeds of Evil.

One is easily tempted (never better said!) to think of Thomas Hobbes and his "war of everyone on everyone": in a world without the system (rules, limits, laws, regulations, interdictions...), all humans, carried away by passions, would wage war on each other, and their lives would be nasty, brutish, and short. Hobbes, an exiled Cavalier who had witnessed the horrors of war first-hand, speaks of this being fully convinced of it. Yet everyone, even the most firm and stern person there can be, has yielded at least once in a lifetime. Which has been stated in literature centuries before Leviathan.

A morality play is an allegorical medieval/Renaissance religious performance with a specific premise (shared by all examples of the genre): the male lead, Everyman, represents humankind as a whole. Everyman is charmed by a personification of evil (called most frequently "Vice", but also "sin" and "devil") and resists for a while, before finally yielding heart and soul to the dark side. The appearance of Death and/or virtues on stage makes Everyman regret having become a doomed sinner. In most morality plays, this occurs at the eleventh hour. But the plays being Catholic propaganda, the post-Reformation versions focused, instead, on the struggle between Vice and Everyman, culminating with the latter's surrender and hinting at redemption when it's already too late. Three morality-influenced character arcs in particular have attracted me. In each, the Vice presents itself in all his/her glory (no matter if as an honest ensign, a demonic shapeshifter, or a beautiful Red Priestess):

1604: Othello and Iago.

• Everyman: Othello.
• Vice: Iago.
• Exploitable flaws: Othello, a military commander at the service of a foreign power, is a veteran with decades of first-hand battlefield experience. His own older brother has been shot beside him on the battlefield. Othello is most likely to be dethroned royalty, and he has been enslaved and oppressed by his masters. Nowadays, he has married an innocent young noblewoman, Desdemona, for being the only one in his adoptive society who understands his suffering. Because of this, he loves her passionately, but his own culture values conjugal fidelity to a rather high degree, which, together with his war trauma, lies beneath his desire to protect his wife. Peace has recently been signed between Othello's adoptive homeland and the enemy, leaving the garrison of the outpost community ruled by Othello idle and in tedium ("what should I do after the war?"). The commandant himself, used to warfare for a lifetime, doesn't know how to understand peace or love.
• Heart's desire (most exploitable, deepest wish): For a stable relationship.
• Innocent victims sacrificed: Desdemona and Cassio, a young lieutenant presumed to be her lover (not deceased, but left disabled).

1808: Faust and Mephisto.

• Everyman: Heinrich Faust.
• Vice: Mephistopheles.
• Exploitable flaws: Not much is known about Faust's past, but I imagine him as an only child, an orphan abused or overprotected by his guardians, raised without a peer group and having retreated from the outside world into books and science. He hasn't ever had any proper social life, interacting detachedly with other people as a mere spectator (as shown when Mephisto takes him out to experience Leipzig by night). Faust is still feeling empty within, yearning for something more than what he already has. Like Othello's, his background has made Faust inexperienced in love: when he falls for Gretchen, he falls in love passionately as well. But, unlike Desdemona, Gretchen does not return her lover's feelings. 
• Heart's desire (most exploitable, deepest wish): For getting rid of ennui.
• Innocent victims sacrificed: Gretchen and Valentin (Gretchen's military brother). Not to mention the countless casualties of a war in Part II.

1998: Stannis and Melisandre.

• Everyman: Stannis Baratheon.
• Vice: Melisandre.
• Exploitable flaws: Stannis was born at Storm's End (the Baratheon estate), the middle brother of three. Robert being the heir and Renly being the youngest, Stannis grew up in their shade, a reserved and unnoticed child. When Lord and Lady Baratheon were drowned in a shipwreck, Robert became the heir and went to live (as their ward) with the Arryns, then to war, then to court (after becoming King of Westeros). While Stannis and Renly remained at Storm's End, he was somehow "promoted" to eldest, yet the guardians paid more attention to Renly (being still a child, while Stannis was in his teens). When the Tyrells laid siege to Storm's End during the war, the young Baratheons were finally obliged to live on cats and rats: a traumatic experience that they never recovered from. After the war, Renly became lord of Storm's End in spite of being the youngest, while Stannis was reassigned to the harsh and cold island fortress of Dragonstone. Marrying vassal noblewoman Selyse (theirs would be a loveless marriage) and with reformed pirate Davos for a second-in-command, he became first acquainted with a certain red-haired foreigner (then the bride's family priestess) at his own wedding. That evening, King Robert, who had come over from the royal court to attend the wedding feast, was drunk and slept with Selyse. The resulting love child, a boy called Edric, was sent to Storm's End and entrusted to Renly's guardians. As for Stannis himself, he was not only cuckolded, but nearly all his children were stillborn (the only survivor, Shireen, a girl with lizard skin syndrome). Which explains the complete coldness of his relationship with Selyse (on top of that, there's no divorce in Westeros!). To cope with all his sufferings, Stannis turned to religion (the Red Faith's black and white worldview, vow of temperance, and intolerance towards other gods, fitting his own personality, were rather attractive to him).
• Heart's desire (most exploitable, deepest wish): For approval from others.
• Innocent victims sacrificed: Renly, the castellan of Storm's End (Renly's guardian), and many other casualties of both war and heretic persecution.

I am thinking of the Dragonstoners and how they relate to this. The Red Priestess has this black and white way of thinking (she tells Davos that there are no shades, everyone is either good or evil)... Her MO is corrupting Stannis (for goals still unknown). Meli fires Stannis up with the passions he has kept in check until he met her (jealousy of Renly, wishes for approval). And, once he is convinced, he finally has some pleasure: they make love on the Painted Table: the culmination of his surrender to her symbolized by this act: he literally yields to her, like Othello to Iago or Alexandra to Rasputin. Then come the regrets for having killed Renly (the old Cain and Abel story), but he has become WIRED on Meli and her "you're the messiah" rant. Davos doesn't trust Meli, like most innocent people disapprove of corruptors (like the female cast of Othello disapprove of Iago), but his words can't reach Stannis's heart. As little as Desdemona's words can reach Othello's.

Comparing Melisandre to the Jikochuu cadres and Loulou de Morcel... "I'll make your wish come true!" "This is a Magical Jewel. It will make your heart's desire come true". Even if that wish means killing lovable loved ones in a fit of rage. Othello, Heinrich Faust, and Stannis Baratheon are all three textbook cases of this phenomenon. Neither of them has his heart literally taken out, but all of them cling to their tempters, believing that they're doing "the right things", and regret upon having taken the life of a precious person.