Working For The Greater Good And Evil In 'Department 19' By Will Hill

Working for the greater good is a theme which presents itself in many texts. It is a broad idea which often causes the audience to question the morality of actions. This theme is evident throughout my chosen texts. In “Department 19” by Will Hill, the agents have the job of removing vampires so as to protect humans from them. Allen Zadoff’s “Boy Nobody” follows the story of a boy whose job is to assimilate into others’ lives in order to assassinate them or someone close to them. “Half Bad” by Sally Green uses the symbols of White and Black to represent good and evil, yet we see those known as White committing evil in order to protect themselves and their community. In “The Darkest Minds” by Alexandra Bracken, children have been locked
The Blacklight agents have a job of removing vampires to protect humanity. They hunt vampires and kill them whenever possible, no matter who they are or what they are doing. “Department 19” adapts the theme working for the greater good into committing crimes for the greater good. The Blacklight agents kill vampires to protect humanity. Early on we see a contrast to this when Jamie befriends Larissa, a vampire, and convinces Admiral Seward to allow her to become a Blacklight agent. Larissa is portrayed similarly to the other characters and there is a feeling that she is as human as them. She has done her best not to hurt others and is genuinely upset about the times where she has; “I’ve never killed anyone. Never hurt anyone, until the soldier and the boy in the garden, and I didn’t mean to hurt them.” This contrasting action of having a friendly vampire on the Blacklight team compared Blacklight’s task of eradicating vampires, causes the audience to think about what makes someone human and whether an action can really be entirely for the greater good. In the novel the greater good is defined as the destruction of vampires to stop them from harming humans and to stop humans from knowing about them. On the surface this seems like the right way things should be done, because most depictions of vampires throughout time show them all as evil, bloodsucking menaces. However, the character Larissa exists to show the audience that vampires are not dissimilar to humans because, like humans, there are good ones and there are evil ones. By making vampires human-like, the reader connects with them, sympathizing with their story. This is the opposite of Blacklight’s task and shows the complexity of the situation. Blacklight works from the stereotype, passed down through