Why the Good Guy Always Wins

I spent this last week in beautiful Bellingham, Washington attending the Northwest Student Institute of Campus Ministry. SICM (as it is affectionately known) is a week of intensive leadership training and practice that focuses on developing student leaders for campus ministry, specifically through Chi Alpha. This was my second time through SICM and it was at least as valuable this time around as it was last time. Though there is plenty to tell about SICM, that is not the intent of this post. In fact, the only reason I mention it is to say that there was a book table at SICM from which I purchased C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. This is the first Lewis that I have read, though I have been made familiar with several of his other works through enthusiastic friends and acquaintances and the occasional fanatical stranger in a bookstore (which is my favorite kind of bookstore stranger, by the way :). I am not very far (would the appositive to that be "short" or "near"?) into the book and I have come across an idea that I would like to muse on. Conveniently, I have this little blog here for things just like that.

Before I begin my musing, a quick note regarding my "Bible in 90 Days" plan. Once more, my ambitions have exceeded my abilities. I will still be reading straight through the Bible and blogging about each book as I finish it, but these posts will be fewer and further between than they were before due to my less expendable schedule during my internship. This is a humbling admission for me, but it is also reminiscent to the origins of this blog, so that is a source of hope that good will still come out of this. Now, to the point.

I would like to open the eyes of my readers to a particular pattern that I have noticed in most every story that I have ever been told through any medium. In the breadth of my experience, my thematic analysis of stories has revealed a pattern that has carried on throughout time and across cultures and throughout civilizations: the good guy always wins. No matter the impression of insurmountable odds or the numerous defeats along the way, the character in a story representing the moral Good will almost assuredly prevail. I say "almost" here because there is the occasional author who desires to tell a tale that goes against the grain and will therefore have the moral Good be defeated for the sake of expressing individuality and uniqueness. My point remains no less.

Pseudo-intellectualism aside, I've always wondered why the good guy had to win. It seems obvious that the protagonist should prevail, that's why he is the protagonist. But why should the protagonist have to stand for things like love and truth and honesty and Good? Surely the hero must stand for something, otherwise he would be seeking a means to an end and there would be little to admire in him. And I think that's why he must stand for moral Good. Evil is nothing to stand for. Not because it is frowned upon, but because it has no ground of its own. Good can be done simply for the sake of good. I might tell the truth even though if it would certainly get me in more trouble than lying because telling the truth is right. But I would never lie if it would get me in more trouble than telling the truth (except, maybe, because of a lack of foresight, but not knowingly). I would only lie if I thought that there were some benefit to lying that would make it profitable over telling the truth. So Good is something to stand for, it has some grounds to it where is might even be sacrificed for. Meanwhile, Bad is simply a means to an end. This is reflected in every story we as humans have developed. Even in the stories where the bad guy wins, he is still seeking some end (power, money, safety, love, etc.) through means that are morally Bad. This explains why the good guy wins and why the winner must stand for Good (maybe those are the same point). As the good guy, he stands for something larger, perhaps eternal. The bad guy, however, is a simple utilitarian. He stands for nothing; he simply seeks something. One character that seems to challenge this assertion is the Joker from the Batman series. The Joker appears to exist for the sake of Bad. The bad things he does are not means to a certain end, but rather are an expression of his desire for Evil. So here we have a villain who stands for something, an antagonist we might cheer for. But when we truly examine the character of the Joker, we discover that Evil is simply his pleasure of choice. From destruction and pain he gets the same sort of feelings that most of us get from creativity and love. So even for the Joker and real people like him who we might call psychopathic maniacal sadists (those are real terms with real meanings, not just empty derogatory language), Evil is a means to an end. One might argue that there could hypothetically be some individual who genuinely stood for evil. Given an adequate description of this supposed individual (which is something that I have never encountered), I may agree that one could, hypothetically stand for Evil on its own (again, I have never encountered such a description nor heard of its existence). The problem with this is that the point would be entirely hypothetical. This individual does not exist. No matter the hypothetical evidence, we would not be dealing with reality. Accepting this hypothetical description as truth would require the acceptance of a false reality. But there are real people who really do stand for Good on its own, even when it is to their personal detriment.

The point of all this? I'm not sure. It's mostly just an exploration of human story telling. It does appear to reveal that Good is an inherently greater force than Evil, but that doesn't feel like a very profound or mysterious discovery. I would love to hear any feedback or thoughts you might be having on the issue, as it is easy to assume that what I've written is complete and correct simply because I wrote it. Also, I kind of just like conversation, it's a great garden for ideas and perspective :)