"How do we know Set isn't evil?"

This again. I am at the point where I bite my tongue whenever this comes up. We've been over this. 

 "Yes, but given the myths, how do we really know he isn't evil? How did we end up trusting him and including him in our faith?" 

"Look, I know chaos can be useful, but the chaos in my life certainly isn't, so I would definitely steer clear of him."

The number of times I have heard it. The questions all blend together for me and I can't remember who asked what anymore. I see it mostly on the general forums but sometimes on the House forum as well. The problem is that I can think about this far more coherently and calmly than I can write about it. That’s why I don't answer these types of questions on the forums anymore and why I hesitate to post about it here, but I’ll give this a try anyway because I'm feeling ranty this evening: 

When I first read Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods seven years ago, I read it with an eye toward understanding Netjer themselves and not with an eye toward mythology. The bits of mythology that did catch my attention were largely the ones concerning Set, though I already knew to take a lot of it with a grain of salt since the book presents thousands of years of often contradictory mythology as one comprehensive narrative which pays no heed to the context of the changes that were made over time.

Everyone likes to drag out the ugliest versions of the murder of Wesir and the Contendings, ignoring that they are more recent versions that were heavily influenced by both outside cultures leaking into the late mythology and a politically motivated demonization of Set stemming from His time as the patron god of Kemet’s Hyksos conquerors during their occupation of that territory. My early studies of Set were actually of academic materials concerning the Hyksos, rather than the more popular Egyptology texts, for exactly that reason: because during and prior to the Hyksos invasion, Set was portrayed very differently than He was after.

All of this has been said before and I’ll second the recommendation on the forum of reading Te Velde’s work on Set to get a better idea of how He actually fit into the pantheon. (If anyone needs help getting access to it, just PM me on the forum and I can direct you to a source)

On a snarkier note: what, you read the myths literally? How do you deal with having four or so different versions of the creation myth then? It’s symbolic folks. Hell, Heru-sa-Aset cuts off His mother’s head at one point. I don’t see anyone calling Him evil on account of a little violent dismemberment.

Of course I can also answer this tired question on a personal level: How do I know He's not evil? Because I know Him personally and He isn’t. And because now I can also say with 100% certainty that He’s one of my fathers and He comprises at least half the essence of my being. So unless you think I’m evil (or at least half evil), clearly He isn’t either. And for the record: I cheat at cards, yes. I do not dismember people.

Look, I’m not going to tell people what to think—if you want to read the myths literally and be one of those people, go ahead. If you want to be someone who washes over contradictions in earlier sources because the later ones make more sense to you, and/or are more exciting, and/or are not as hard to parse, go ahead. If you need Set to be your personal boogeyman I can assure you He’s up to the task.

But if you completely cut yourself off from Him you run the risk of forgoing the strongest protection you have against A—p. This is why Ra tried to tip the scales in Set’s favor during the trial and why He insisted on having Set on the solar boat when His initial bid failed: because uncreation is a far worse danger than destruction and as a creator, Ra’s primary goal is preserving His creation—at all costs. Set shares that goal in His role as the slayer of A—p.

 I understand that people don’t like Set’s particular brand of medicine. Tough. Would you rather be broken into little pieces or erased from existence? I’ll give you a hint for answering that question: little pieces can be put back together, once something is erased it is simply gone.

Go ahead and fear Him if you need to. Blame Him for all the awful things in your life. Beat your fists against His chest and cry about how unfair it is. He’s seen it before, He’ll see it again. He can take it. But understand that the reason He does is because He would rather see you suffer for a time, would rather receive your hate, than surrender you to oblivion.

I don’t know about you, but that’s not my definition of evil.