Balance Between Good and Evil: Difference between revisions

== Tabletop RPG ==

 

** In the later editions, they only need to be ''partially'' neutral; the alignments there are the nine combinations of [good, neutral, evil] and [law, neutral, chaos]. In the basic game, neutral was one of the three alignments, along with law and chaos, which were originally just euphemisms for good and evil, respectively.

** It's also stated on occasion that the gods won't interfere directly much, because doing so will inspire opposing gods to step in and add their own influence.

* According to [[Word of God]], the first [[Crash Bandicoot]] game was filled with symbolism about this.

* In the late 80's rpg ''[[Dungeon Master]]'', the backstory is that a magical experiment gone awry separated The Grey Wizard into Lord Chaos and Lord Librasulus (obviously an order counterpart). The protagonist, the Wizard's now ethereal apprentice, has to guide a group of heroes to obtain the Firestaff (which caused the incident) for Lord Librasulus. However, on the way you find several scrolls about how dangerous the staff is in the wrong hands, how neither order nor chaos is truly balanced, and so on. If you take the staff back to Lord Librasulus, he rewards you... with death. Instead you have to complete the original experiment, then use the staff to trap Lord Chaos and fuse the two sides together into a balanced whole again.

* In ''[[MARDEK]]'', this (in the variant of Balance Between Light and Dark) is the argument of Clavis {{spoiler|and Qualna}} make against Rohoph, who is more on the side of bringing good to his homeworld. It is also a recurring theme in that chapter, as balance in general seems to be crucial to the peace between reptoids and Sun Temple priest, the Elemental Crystals to Belfan (the planet you're on), {{spoiler|and the governments of both Belfan and Anshar (where Rohoph and Qualna are from)}}. The irony is that though the [[Omniscient Council of Vagueness|Governance de Magi]] is villainous, {{spoiler|Rohoph's [[Knight Templar]] tendencies are not much better. Indeed, Qualna comes off as an [[Only Sane Man]], killed by a light-obsessed fanatic.}}

* Deconstructed in the [[Rance]] Series. The balance is maintained by the [[Jerkass God]], Ludo-Rathowm, to ensure that the eternal conflict between the two forces will cause pain and suffering. Why? [[For the Evulz]].

* A more mundane example: in ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', evil is quite literally [[Weird Trade Union|unionized]], in the form of the Guild of Calamitous Intent; they have arrangements with the various law-enforcement agencies in order to secure non-interference, with the price of accepting certain restrictions on their activities, thus creating a sort of ersatz balance. When one side violates the agreements, retaliation by the other side is swift and brutal.

* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]: [[Recycled: the Series|The Series]]'' had Al help out the weak, fearful Good half of a pair of supernatural brothers in the [[Far East]] (they're named Yin and Yang, obviously). Once the good brother actually stands up to evil, competent brother, they... merge into a white dragon that starts helping everybody and fixing everything.

* ''[[Yin Yang Yo!|Yin Yang Yo]]'' played this trope straight and surprisingly well: early on season 1, Yin and Yang got rid of their worst traits, Yin's bossiness and Yang's agression. Master Yo then said that everybody needs their good and bad traits to be complete, much to everybody's (viewers included) confusion. However, this action aslo led to the birth of [[Evil Counterpart|Yuck]], and Yin and Yang found that their bad traits helped them into being better warriors (Yin's bossiness helped her to come up with plans and strategies, and Yang's aggression gave him the motivation to fight).

 

[[Category:Morality Tropes]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]