John M. Daniel is a freelance editor and writer. He has published dozens of stories in literary magazines and is the author of fifteen published books, including four mystery novels, two of which (The Poet’s Funeral and Hooperman) earned starred reviews in Publishers Weekly. He and his wife, Susan, own a small-press publishing company in Humboldt County, California.  I’m honored to have him as a guest today.

Good vs. Evil in Fantasy Fiction

Writing murder mysteries, the trick is to make the reader sort out the good characters from the bad ones. A crime has been committed, and our sleuth has to figure out who done it, and that means finding out who’s naughty and who’s nice. That’s not always so easy, because the bad guys and gals are often good at acting nice and fooling everyone, including the sleuth and the reader. But in the end, of course, good wins over evil and the perp’s brought to justice.

As a writer of mysteries, I have stuck to these rules more or less. But for my latest novel, I turned to the realm of fantasy, where it’s pretty clear at the outset who’s the villain or evil sorceress and who’s the hero or heroine. In The Wizard of Oz, for example, we know from the moment she touches down on the Yellow Brick Road that Dorothy represents good; and the Witch of the West is wicked through and through.

So it goes in my novel The King’s Eye. The damage is done in the first few pages of the novel. A stinky, howling giant named Clobber storms into a dinner party and gouges the good King Rohar’s crystal left eye out of its socket, right in front of witnesses from all over the Farther Isles, then disappears into the night.

Evil has been done, and the king must be avenged. Who will be brave enough to seek out and slay the giant and bring the treasured eye back to the good King? The only one brave enough to take on the challenge is Prince Frogge from the Isle of Fens, a chubby lad only twelve years old. The adventure begins. Oh yes, the reward? The good King Rohar promises, to the prince who will succeed, half his island Kingdom and the hand of his beautiful daughter, Princess Llanaa.

Frogge teams up with seventeen-year-old Rodney Trapper, the Goatherd’s son, strong and tall and basically good, but a common laborer. Together the two lads face impossible odds: storms, the mighty Giant, two evil princes who show up in time to steal the treasure, and an exhausting trip back, by way of a freezing winter, empty-handed in a boat that has a mind of its own.

Hopeless, right? Nay, for our two heroes have been assured by wise old women that the Stars will look after them. And, like all wise folk of the Farther Isles, these lads trust the Stars. The Stars are not always easy to understand, even to the Stargazer, Queen Llwkaa of the Island of the Stars. But trust we must. Faith is what matters.

The lesson: win or lose, trust the Stars. Look to the Stars, and they will look after you.

Or maybe there’s no lesson to be learned, for we already know that goodness triumphs over evil, right? Good deeds will be rewarded and bad ones punished. That’s how it works in fiction, anyway, once the dangerous, high-stakes struggle is over. Happily ever after.

Is that how it works in real life? Don’t ask me. Ask the Stars.

JIM:  Thanks, John.  Great blog.  Reader, if you have a minute, leave us your thoughts on Good vs. Evil.  For more information about The King’s Eye, and how to find it, visit: http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/king’s_eye.html

For more information about author John M. Daniel, visit: http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html

Check out John’s blog, The Joy of Story: http://johnmdaniel.blogspot.com