Good and Evil

The Good Charmed Ones and their evil counterparts

In the Charmed universe, morality is not a matter of perception, but an objective absolute. "Good" and "Evil", rather than being a label for a particular pattern of behavior, is set affiliation, as if they are the political parties of the supernatural world. Each has a hierarchy, 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.

Nature

Leo: "Death is a part of life."

Alpha: "Natural death, yes. But not the death caused by the pointless, endless battles between Good and Evil."

Leo: "They're not pointless. They're necessary. And when good wins..."

Alpha: "Wins? Duality is self perpetuating. It feeds only on itself. That's why the battle has been raging since the dawn of time. There is no winner."

— Leo and the Avatars discussing about the nature of Good and Evil.

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 they are selfish and cruel; their 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 their selfishness and cruelty vanish of their own accord.

However, because the world is not just black and white, a good being can commit an act of great evil without being turned to the side of evil. Such an example was when Leo and future Chris ruthlessly Valkyries to help the Charmed Ones. While the reasoning behind this is not clear, it could be because they felt guilt for their actions, and their actions were motivated by a desire to serve the Greater Good. Another example is Christy Jenkins believed she was serving the Greater Good by killing the Charmed Ones, and Neena believed she did what she did for the Greater Good. Evil creatures, however, generally enjoy killing, and generally only have petty reasons for doing so.

Organization

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

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

Balance

An intended part of the Grand Design is that there must be a balance between Good and Evil, or the world will literally stop spinning. Any switch between the two sides must happen naturally, over time, and upon the creature's free will. Any other type of conversion is dangerous. As shown in "It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World", a world with too much good is just as dangerous as a world with too much evil.

In "It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World, Part 2", the "perfect world" that Gideon created in his plot to destroy Wyatt proved the dangers of a world that was entirely dedicated to punishing the guilty. In this world, every small break of the rules was a capital offense, with the penalty often nothing short of the removal of limbs, and, more often than not, death.

Neutrality

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, such as an Avatar and an Angel of Destiny, will not necessarily be friendly to one another.

Other Neutral beings include the Avatars, who do not align themselves with good or evil, but act independently in their attempt to create Utopia. They seek to change the Grand Design rather than maintain it as is.

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.

Change of Morality

Turning Evil

Phoebe, possessed by the Shadow, trying to attack Piper

Throughout the series Charmed, there are examples of witches, humans, Elders and other beings that strayed from the Greater Good and let evil to spread within their persona, either by their own choice or by magical means.

This phenomenon is known as the Lucifer Effect in the real world where people stray from being individually moral to committing acts of evil, and become corrupt and cruel towards others as a result of pressure under specific circumstances, such as fear for one's life, peer pressure or simply being destructive because of collected anger and hate.

Turning Good

There are cases where a magically evil being, such as a warlock or a demon chooses to resist their dark nature and choose the path of good as long as they are given a solid reason, such as falling in love with a good being or developing a conscience.

By Choice

Witches

• Tuatha was originally a good witch before she started using her craft for evil and started killing innocents and good witches.
• P. Russell was originally a good witch before she met Anton and turned down a path of evil.
• Christy Jenkins was kidnapped and corrupted by the Triad over the next fifteen years, turned her into a killer whose main goal was to destroy the Charmed Ones.
• Wyatt Halliwell grew up to become evil due to being traumatized by Gideon's multiple attempts to sacrifice him and made him into a power-mad tyrant who cared for nothing but showing everyone how powerful he was. His brother was able to save him by going back in time to change the outcome.
• Bianca was raised in the ways of the Phoenix. She worked as a cold-blooded assassin witch until she met and fell in love with Chris, and decided to help him change the future for the better.
• Billie Jenkins was misled by her sister Christy and Dumain to believe that the Charmed Ones were evil and had to be stopped. She eventually realized the error of her ways and turned back to the side of good.
• Phoebe Halliwell chose to become Queen of the Underworld to be with Cole and betrayed her family. But she ultimately had to choose to sacrifice Cole to protect them.
• Paige Matthews was nearly turned evil when the Source tried to use the Window of Opportunity to lure her to the side of evil.

Warlocks

• Brendan Rowe was born a warlock, but he was brought up by a lovely and caring human mother. For this reason, Brendan fought his dark nature and his destiny to become evil. In the end, his good nature won and he stripped his powers by becoming a priest.

Demons

• Cole Turner was a powerful and ruthless demon who killed witches and innocents for over a hundred years before falling in love with Phoebe Halliwell and deciding to turn to the side of good. For a time, his love for her was enough to fight the evil that lingered within, but ultimately he returned to the side of evil. After his death, however, he shed his dark half and returned to the side of good, helping the sisters when possible and finally sacrificed his soul to save Coop Halliwell.
• Kyra used her power of Premonition to help other demons, but her centuries of witnessing good made her grow weary of life as a demon and desired to become human. Though she was vanquished by Zankou, Prue used a spell to bring her forward in time and made her human after getting her help to get some answers.
• Drake dè Mon learned to read at an early age and used his time to learn as much as he could about humans, humanity and goodness. For this reason, he was the only demon who never harmed an innocent. To fulfill his desire to become human, he went to a sorcerer for help. The sorcerer made him a Faustian deal where he would make him human while keeping his powers intact, but he would die one year later. Despite this, Drake chose to go through with the deal and used his last year to experience as much as he could and taught at Magic School for his last two weeks of life.
• The Manticore Baby was rescued by his human father, Derek, and on his way to being nurtured to goodness.

Angels

• Gideon, convinced that Wyatt would be corrupted by his power, schemed to sacrifice the boy for the greater good. For this reason, he worked with Darklighters, the game masters and Barbas to accomplish his goals, even sacrificed his assistant, Sigmund and Chris Halliwell, and put the Grand Design in jeopardy.
• Leo Wyatt became corrupted by what Gideon did to Chris and tried to do to Wyatt that he went on a mission to kill Gideon and later hunted down Barbas and multiple demons. His killing spree was corruptive and made him an easy target to the Avatars and demons.

Other magical beings

• Shadow, a familiar, turned against his witch Ariel and became a Familiar Warlock. He nearly shedded his nine lives and became immortal until the Charmed Ones vanquished him.

Mortals

• Tom Peters entered the Academy and nearly became a demon until Prue appealed to his human side and reminded him what it is like to love someone. He turned against his trainer, Kellman, and became human again.
• There is the particular case of Kyle Brody who viewed all Avatars as evil because of his scarred life, leading him to act recklessly toward them, including Leo, who was an Elder when they met.

Magical Corruptions

Transformations

• Prue Halliwell was turned into a Warlock once.
• Piper Halliwell was turned into a dark being on multiple occasions: a Wendigo, a Warlock, a Fury, a hulking monster
• Phoebe Halliwell was turned into a dark being on multiple occasions: a Banshee, a Warlock, a hulking monster
• Paige Matthews was turned into a dark being on multiple occasions: a Vampire, a hulking monster

Other means

• The Woogyman once corrupted Phoebe to use her as a tool to spread its evil influence on others, but Prue and Piper convinced her to fight the darkness.
• Novak used Buddha's Mystical Staff to turn the Charmed Ones evil, but Billie was able to turn them good again with her power of Projection.
• The Order used a Morality Scepter to reverse Wyatt's morality and turn him evil, but Piper was able to make him good again with Chris's help.
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse corrupted people all around the world, made them emotionally unstable, aggressive and violent, and nearly caused the Apocalypse. The Charmed Ones were able to stop them.
• Prue Halliwell was slowly corrupted by the Grimoire, which prompted her to take Kyra's power, awaken Tyler Michaels's power and merge with Heremus. She nearly destroyed the world and her family until Piper stopped her with the Ancient Athame.

Notes and Trivia

• A pentagram was a symbol of good energy, before the forces of evil stole it giving it negative connotations in the public eye.