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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9858486" data-attributes="member: 18">I think that's a very interesting question because the sheer common-ness of the concept does suggest a common ultimate source, but I'm 47 and have been thinking about this for a long time, but haven't really seen any pop-culture place this "We need like, good and evil both maaaaaaaan" concept comes from (and you'd expect it to be present in the 1950s through 1970s).Maybe it's just a general fusion of dodgy "Orientalist" takes on Eastern religions which were common in the 1960s and 1970s fusing with Michael Moorcock (who used to be incredibly influential in fantasy) and his work which does hammer on about a balance between Law and Chaos. There's obviously also Gnostic/Manichaeist thinking involved too - again stuff that sort of made a come back in the 1960s and 1970s.But what's so remarkable to me is that this "balance" concept is so... unreflective. It's so unquestioned, so mindlessly assumed, in so many of these things. There's little to no philosophical (let alone rational) justification of it, at best it might be sort of breezily stated by some omniscient narrator as "There must always be a balance between light and darkness", and it's like, who says? No, seriously who says? And why do they say that? Never a good answer to either question.I am also tempted by the idea that certain people might have popularized concepts that light and darkness had to both exist because it gave them cover for being awful people and doing objectively awful things, and certainly there was some of that going on in the 1960s and 1970s generally. Not suggesting this is why it became popular in fantasy, I think that's more mindless "totally superficial concept that sounds cool/profound so long as you don't think about it for even one second" probably, but hmmmm.</blockquote>

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