King's Quest - Good and Evil

Good and Evil

In the series, the player, as the main character, always plays on the side of that which is right and fair. King Graham, Queen Valanice, Prince Alexander, Princess Rosella, and Connor strive to serve the greater good. The main character is often motivated by a desire to protect his or her loved ones or protect the innocent from evil. The villains of the series have been characters who threatened the safety of Daventry or sought to rule other kingdoms as tyrants. In the first seven games of the series, emphasis is placed upon avoiding violence whenever possible. Many of the villains are not killed but instead are magically imprisoned or otherwise neutralized. Sometimes, especially in the earlier entries, there are multiple methods of defeating adversaries. When dealing with adversaries who are dangerous but not necessarily evil, non-lethal methods are always rewarded with more points and sometimes more tangible rewards too (most notably the snake in King's Quest II). Still, violent methods are used against certain villains. In KQ1, Graham pushes the witch into a burning stove or cauldron. In KQII, he kills Dracula with a wood stake. In KQ3, Alexander slays the three-headed dragon. In KQIV, Rosella kills Lolotte with a love arrow. In KQV, Graham kills a Yeti (indirectly, by causing it to fall over a cliff), and he also kills Mordack during a magical duel. In KQVI, Alexander uses a red scarf to cause the minotaur to fall into a pit of fire. This drastically changes in King's Quest VIII, where every villain the player encounters is killed with the exception of Lucreto, who cannot be killed and is therefore banished into a void.