Good vs. Good vs. Evil vs. Evil

While Good Versus Good and Evil vs. Evil are both Tropes that see tons of usage, I’ve been wanting to write a story with both Tropes in play, with the hero groups sharing protagonist status with a lone wolf Sixth Ranger. But due to its rarity, I’m not sure as to how I could pull the concept off without it getting too complicated, or giving one set of heroes/villains more spotlight at the expense of the others.

Edited by GeneralGigan817 on Jul 11th 2020 at 11:44:06 AM

Regarding the latter issue, the one of the spotlight, might that perhaps be fixed in subsequent drafts? My thought being that if you write the thing and find that the spotlight is skewed, you revise the work to adjust said spotlight.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jul 11th 2020 at 11:27:19 AM

I’ve personally considered a “good guy team A this episode, good guy team B next” model.

That could work, I imagine. Still, it may be the writing of it that'll show how it works out, and whether changes or exceptions to the pattern are called for.

You have to determine the context and motivations first. Why are there two groups of each instead of one? What makes them different and at odds with each other?

If you want to make things simpler, try evil vs good vs evil. I think this is an interesting dynamic that isn't explored very often. Instead of the dualism present in most modern stories, both evils are extremists on opposite ends of a spectrum and the good has a more balanced, harmonious view. As an example, consider X-Men; Magneto hates humans (evil), some humans hate mutants (evil), and the X-Men want to protect both (good).

Edited by shiro_okami on Jul 24th 2020 at 10:31:25 AM