The balance is bullshit. Evil totally outbalances good in the Planescape universe. The Abyss is a literally ENDLESS hellhole of beasts that hunger for the suffering (and souls) of intelligent beings everywhere.
Also, the argument of "Good is the absence of evil" is also bullshit. If "Good" ceases to exist without "Evil", then even with Evil it doesn't mean anything. If you aren't helping people with your evil-punishing, all we have is an infinite vengeance loop. Good doesn't, or at least SHOULDN'T just care about the suffering that is caused on purpose, but should also give a shit about all the other flaws in the world.
"Evil" technically isn't the ultimate adversary of the good. Its just another pointless distraction.
Which actually makes "Holy Word" and the other "Good-aligned" spells that affect not only evil, but "Any Non-Good" is kind of silly. Heck, damaging and killing evil doesn't really fit the theme of what good is supposed to be.
I mean, okay...Power Rangers in Space ended with Zordon's death. The Red Ranger broke his energy tube and unleashed a shit ton of good energy in that part of the galaxy. He was basically carrying a "Goodsplosion" in that part of the galaxy. This is referred to as the "Z-Wave"
However, it wasn't quite a "Blasphemy" in reverse. It only killed those who had no good in them (or who had no good LEFT in them due to believing their morality pet being dead. That's kind of cruel...) For those with some good "buried deep down", like Rita and Zed (apparently...?), it turned them into normal humans with no memory of their lives as villains.
That's not what say, "Holy Word" (
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/holyWord.htm) does at all. " Any nongood (!) creature within the area that hears the holy word suffers the following ill effects. "
Will blind, deafen, paralyze, or outright KILL creatures that matching the caster's "Holier-than-thou" alignment, based on their
A Global "Holy Word" (which count only be invented and CAST by a ridiculously high level caster), wouldn't be a very good thing. Hell, it would DESTROY THE FOOD CHAIN BECAUSE IT WOULD KILL ALL THE ANIMALS.
That's right. This "Goodsplosion" would kill all the bunnies and kittens. Which actually makes the caster kind of the exact opposite of a saint.
Which is why the Z-wave didn't do that. It only harmed/changed a bunch of aliens (very few human, I notice, but I kind of believe Power Rangers subscribes to the idea that "people are basically good, and only something that comes from far, far away can actually be evil enough to be a real antagonist") and left all the animals INCAPABLE of higher moral thinking alone.
Actually, its a mark against the alignment system. I mean, animals are "neutral" because they couldn't reasonably be anything else. It would make more sense to have nonsentients be not neutral persay, but "No alignment"
I mean, a Goodsplosion would destroy all the plantlife for Tyr's sake!
...I was going somewhere with this but then I was interrupted with a lightning storm, and made a better post down below. Toodles.