You
can’t have a hero without a villain. You can’t have a story without conflict.
Without bad guys, the good guys are just a bunch of guys.
Now,
hold on a second. Did that last assertion seem like a leap? Is it the same to
say that there’s no hero without a villain, and to say that there are no good
guys without bad guys?
Thinking there is no good without evil -- that to be a good guy
you need a bad guy -- is called dualism (by people with a tendency to name
these things), and it is a prevalent concept in pop-culture. Sometimes this is
because it has been actively embraced by the makers of pop-cultural artifacts
(such as “alignment” in Dungeons and Dragons, or the light and dark sides of
the Force). But, there is also a tendency toward this way of thinking which is
engendered by the very structure of the stories themselves.
 |
| Can't be a hero without a villain? Yeah, can't have a pain in the ass without something to give it to you. |
Ever
since I started wanting to
