Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
The strange thing is:
Why, in every fantasy novel, is the evil always *way* more powerful than the good? Even in Lord of the Rings, I have the idea that:
- Saruman is more powerful than Gandalf.
- The Nazgul King is more powerful than both Gandalf and Saruman.
- They all can't even begin to compare to Sauron... let alone Morgoth, who is Sauron³.
Also, many fantasy stories seem to be an ending, instead of a beginning. Lord of the Rings always refers to the Second and First age, The Sword of Shannara refers to the Second and First war of the races (and even a world before that), for example.
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In a way, I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective?
Some of your points, for example, can be summarized as: why is a lot of fantasy similar to Lord of the Rings?
And the answer to that is that a lot of fantasy is derivative of Tolkien. The Shannara for example was Del Rey's immediate attempt to cash in on the Tolkien craze and a lot of D&D-ish fantasy (either the properties themselves like Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance; or those that were clearly based on it like the Riftwar series) drew significant (but not the only source) inspiration from it.
As for evil being more powerful than good:
1) From a narrative standpoint, there's not a lot of conflict if good is equal to--or more powerful--than evil. All the heroes need to do is track down the villain (although that too could make for interesting conflict) and viola, end of story.
2) Strictly speaking, doing good is usually more difficult. Or rather, evil has more options. Evil, for example, can use hostages, hurt the loved ones of their enemies, lie, etc. So it's natural for evil to have the advantage, especially during an equal fight.