Good and Evil

In the Charmed universe, morality is not a matter of perception, but an objective absolute. Good and Evil, rather than being simple labels for patterns of behavior, are treated something like the political organizations of the supernatural world. Each has a leadership, agents, and an agenda. As with political groups, characters are fully aware of their affiliation and have the ability to switch between the two with relative ease.

The forces of Good, lead by The Council of Elders, consists of good witches, Whitelighters, angels, and benevolent supernatural beings such as leprechauns and nymphs. Good beings provide healing, foster positive emotions, and attempt to vanquish evil.

The forces of Evil, under the leadership of The Source of All Evil and The Triad, consists of demons, warlocks, evil witches, Darklighters and assorted malign supernatural beings such as banshees, vampires and harpies. Evil beings are chiefly concerned with acquiring power, performing acts of cruelty, destroying powerful Good beings, and increasing its influence in the mortal world.

Oddly, good and evil behavior seem to be a consequence of a character's affiliation, rather than the reverse. That is, a character does not belong to Evil because he is selfish and cruel; his selfishness and cruelty are the result of being affiliated with Evil. An otherwise-good character who is forcibly converted to Evil will begin to manifest selfishness and cruelty. An otherwise-evil character who is forcibly converted to Good will find his selfishness and cruelty vanish of their own accord. One exception to this rule seems to be that a good being who willfully kills an innocent automatically turns evil.

The world appears to be slightly offbalanced to the side of Good, but not by so much that the entire balance between good and evil crashes, and the world becomes too good, as what happened in It's A Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World, Part 2. For the grand design to be maintained, there must be a certain amount of good and evil existing. In the parellel universe, the position is reversed; that world is slightly offbalanced to the side of Evil.

Some supernatural beings are Neutral, like The Angel of Death, They are not aligned with either Good or Evil, and do not participate in the eternal struggle between them. Instead, they perform other functions in maintaining the Grand Design, or are free to pursue their own agendas. It should be noted that Neutrality is not an affiliation-- it only indicates a lack of affiliation with Good or Evil. Two Neutral beings will not necessarily be friendly to one another.

It is said that there will be a final battle between good and evil, for which all the Valkyries train for, to fight for the side of Good. It is never quite mentioned in Charmed as to when this will happen.