Make Me a Villain: The treatment of successful women in 'Darkly' by Marisha Pessl
What a book to kick off Season 10 with!
There are so many layers to Marisha Pessl’s ‘Darkly’, but one of the most interesting for me is how Louisiana Veda is portrayed throughout her life, and her death, in the novel.
Louisiana Veda is the founder of Darkly, a company that made dark, intense and morally grey board games in the 70s and 80s that went as viral as they could in that period. Now they are revered as pieces of art that are worth millions, and the mystery surrounding the abrupt ending to production following an outcry about the questionable lessons of the games and Louisiana’s untimely death, almost shrouds the experience and artistry of the games themselves.
We learn about Darkly and Louisiana in bits and pieces throughout ‘Darkly’ and the outcry over Veda’s last game with the safety of the players turned the world’s perception of Veda into one of suspicion, quickly overriding her genius and the artistry of the games. The outcry is focused on the ‘safety’ of the public, particularly children and teens, but the underlying tones reek of misogyny.
“Put art and commerce first—if you’re a man, you’re a pillar of society. If you’re a woman, you’re monstrous. This is it. This is what is real in our world.”
The backlash from the death of a player is so severe that Louisiana becomes a recluse, Darkly shuts down, and no further games are made, and the whole story becomes a mystery and eventually a fandom. But the criticism remains around how Louisiana was single, did not have children and refused the help or partnership of a man to help her run Darkly - it was all hers - and therein lies the fault and the downfall of the company.
“Darkly games are not evil. Yet they contain evil. They teem with murderers, captors, goblins, tormentors— many of whom appear at first glance to be trustworthy or benign. The goal of the player, the pawn, is always to root out the evil, unbury it and bring it into the light, no matter how impossible the task or how chilling it is to see. The end goal, the win, is always truth, freedom, strength— and even love.”
The emphasis is always on the way that society expects woman to only create and act in ways that encourage what are traditionally seen as the ideal feminine traits: love, light, softness, meekness, malleability. The Darkly games, especially Valkyrie, push the players outside of what is expected of them by others and by society, to push and think and reach, something that we all know that men in power are terrified of when that power is in women’s hands.
They help represent the real world and the risks and evils that women combat every single day, evils and horrors that can’t be beaten by softness and meekness.
When women like Louisiana act outside of the boxes assigned to them and do so successfully and become adored, they are pushed and punished and ostracised for their art, intelligence and creativity. It was the case in the 1970s and it’s the case now more than ever when I write this in the beginning of 2025.
