Story Premise Idea

The basic idea is this: Long ago, the Dark Lord arose. He was defeated, but the hero that defeated him became a new Dark Lord. This repeats again and again.

Might sound kind of basic, and I’m guessing that some variation of this twist has been done before, but I think there are some cool things I could do with this.

I got this idea from lotr. In  lotr, someone like Gandalf could have theoretically used the ring to defeat Sauron, but if he had, he would have become evil.

I’m not sure if I want to have something equivalent to the ring in this scenario, but there will have to be some explanation for why the hero always turns evil. It might be cool to have that be a mystery at first though.

I really like these sorts of cycles. The historical precedent sets up expectations, but then you can throw a variable into the mix to upset the balance. In this case, there are all sorts of things I could do.

If there is a specific “chosen one” who becomes the hero each time, what happens if someone kills him off? What happens if one time, there is no chosen one? What happens if the Dark Lord dies of natural causes somehow?

(I also really like doing twists on the “chosen one” plotline, but I already have a different story in the works with one of those, so I’m not going to focus too much on that aspect of this idea.)

So what do you think? Anything you think would be cool to see? And does anyone happen to know of any stories with a similar premise so I can avoid doing something similar?

I guess I should tag some peoples. Let’s see… @highscribeofaetheriuum @rae @savannah_grace2009 @rae @thearcaneaxiom