The most lucrative story arc of our era is the inversion of good and evil. One could say it’s the most common and profitable arc of the 21st century. Wicked is the simple example of this narrative: taking a well-known story that everyone remembers from childhood and inverting the hero and villain, telling the story with “empathy” for villain and a complete revision of the backstory. Wicked is the second-highest grossing musical of all time at $1.7 billion, just after the Lion King, which debuted six years prior. It’s the highest-grossing musical ever adapted for film, earning $750 million at the box office. But look around and you see the Wickedification of every narrative. It’s a seductive and powerful formula. There’s no story arc I’m more skeptical of, mainly because it’s so easy to write and highly lucrative for its authors.

Many of you are pointing out this isn’t new, and it definitely isn’t. The difference now is how lucrative it is, and how easy it is to repeat the form every week. It used to be very hard to write books, publish, and create a body of work with distribution. It’s not anymore. You can take every myth and produce the counter narrative once a week for your audience. It’s popular, always has been, because evil is seductive, so it monetizes well and encourages the form. The defense against it is to notice the narrative arc. Notice it. And call it what it is.