The Evil Hour

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Narrativized as one possible prequel to Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, The Evil Hour juxtaposes Nietzsche’s prior work The Joyful Wisdom (sometimes translated as “The Gay Science”) with Augustine’s early work on True Religion, situating both pieces as life-affirming answers to the spiritual threat of negative self-talk. The narrative setting of a Zarathustra character's origin story functions strictly in service of the work’s chief aim: to see The Gay Science and True Religion in a new light.

More specifically, The Evil Hour points to parallels between these two works through the accusations hurled at Z by S, the game’s primary antagonist. Having been branded a heretic by his colleagues in the Priestly Council, Z faces an imminent threat of death by hemlock; S, who would have Z go the way of Socrates rather than escape with his life, seeks to draw Z into a self-destructive nihilism. In response, Z can answer S’s remarks with verses drawn from Nietzsche or Augustine, illustrating how The Joyful Wisdom and True Religion address comparable issues in comparable ways.

A secondary purpose of this game is to suggest an alternative interpretation of the four-book structure of The Gay Science. Passages selected from Nietzsche are intended to be (relatively) representative of the Book (I, II, III, or IV) in which they are located. Scholars are invited to consider whether any merit might be found in mapping S’s four disparagements to the core themes of the four books included in the first (1882) edition of Nietzsche’s work (disregarding for the moment the Prologue and fifth Book added in 1887).