| rdfs:comment | - This is a very common Fantasy-genre trope. It's a way of explaining away various others, such as Joker Immunity, Failure Is the Only Option, etc. Basically, Good and Evil are unionized, and have rules they must follow. These rules are usually towards overall self-preservation; no one side is allowed to "win" too much, and the Big Good and Big Bad restrict their fighting to a Divine Chessboard rather than going at it in person. Examples of Balance Between Good and Evil include:
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| abstract | - This is a very common Fantasy-genre trope. It's a way of explaining away various others, such as Joker Immunity, Failure Is the Only Option, etc. Basically, Good and Evil are unionized, and have rules they must follow. These rules are usually towards overall self-preservation; no one side is allowed to "win" too much, and the Big Good and Big Bad restrict their fighting to a Divine Chessboard rather than going at it in person. At times, this can get silly, with there being no reason behind why the absence of evil would be a bad thing. Sometimes this is explained with the universe becoming boring, society stagnating or collapsing from within in the absence of something to struggle against or giving people a chance to show real nobility and virtue by risking their lives to defend each other. Other times, its enforced by depicting ultimate good as repressive (often Lawful Stupid), or by declaring positive or neutral concepts such as free will or ambition as evil. This can confuse people who equate Good (the opposite of Evil) with good (the opposite of bad), as preserving the Balance of Good and Bad eventually means that you have to, for example, defend a murderous rapist's right to murder and rape. In those cases, "Good" and "Evil" become something more similar to physical forces like "Hot" and "Cold" and don't seem to have much to do with morality at all anymore. Further, only Good seems to ever care about actually respecting the balance, while Evil almost never holds back. This can be especially problematic if Evil Only Has to Win Once to badly upset the balance. However, the penalty for this is usually permission for the hero to finally kill the villain. Occasionally it's reversed with a "Good" Well-Intentioned Extremist and "Bad" Anti-Villain or Villain Protagonist, invoking Light Is Not Good. In extreme cases, both the Good and Evil sides are bad and the protagonists form a third party trying to stop either side from taking over. The irony though is that the writers don't seem to recognize that "good" guys who don't do good things aren't good any more, but rather villains with good publicity. Good may be portrayed as being intrinsically weaker than the "unbalancing" forces of Evil, implying that maintaining the Balance is the best outcome it can even hope for. Which makes the struggle not functionally different from standard Good Vs Evil fare, just with the word "balance" mentioned a lot. It may also be motivated by the belief, right or not, that the universe always spawns a new, bigger evil every time the good guys win. Occasionally, this is used as justification as to why the Big Bad needs to be sealed away instead of killed, because killing him would create an inbalance resulting in a Bigger Bad stepping up to fill the void. By sealing away the Big Bad, they neutralize his threat (he can't cause death and destruction anymore) but he's still technically in the world (just imprisoned), so balance is maintained. Sometimes, this refers directly to the heroes and villains in the story, instead of Good and Evil as a whole. In this case, the villain doesn't need to actually be DOING evil at the time, they're just evil, so good must balance them out. Likewise, the hero doesn't have to perform acts of heroism all the time, merely just being good provides balance for the villains evil. Also sometimes this can be done by an ancient organization which have carried the duty for hundreds of years. they can be presented as neutral or in some case help the hero cause the villain is breaking the balance. Often relies on Good Is Boring. See also Good Is Dumb, Good Is Impotent and Evil Is Cool. The heroic and villainous versions of the Idiot Ball also usually play a part in allowing this trope to function. Lawful Stupid might also rear its head, as might Stupid Neutral if an outside force enforces the balance. You can substitute Light and Darkness, Heaven and Hell, Order and Chaos, or any Yin and Yang for Good and Evil with the added bonus of making more sense linguistically--a balance between Order and Chaos probably is better than either extreme. Examples of Balance Between Good and Evil include:
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