‘It felt as if there were something deliberate about it, something preordained by a bored and evil force.’ This is a quote from the perspective of Simon not long after he believed Joe to be dead. In this context, Simon uses the phrase evil force as a metaphor to describe the dangerous atmosphere that is the mountain. Simon is enraged that the ‘evil force’ was toying with them because after all the trekking, climbing and surviving the storm, the mountain and the constant danger the evil force decided it was ‘bored’ and try to take Joe’s life and suck him right into the ‘void’. Simon believed that this whole mission was not going to go completely well and that he knew something bad was going to happen which took the form of him losing his partner to the ‘evil force’ that is this very mountain. Believing in these dark forces posses as a danger to both Simon and Joe psychologically as it will result in misjudgment and can lead to their will to go on to diminish. However, Joe does not believe in these evil forces as he says on page 141 ‘There were no dark forces acting against me’ meaning he is out of the danger of psychological damage and he can find the strength to get crawl out of any dangers he is in because he knows if there were evil forces he would be dead already.