Before humans had words for good and evil, they understood light and darkness. The sun meant safety. The night meant danger. This primal distinction embedded itself so deeply in our consciousness that every culture on earth tells stories about it.
From the ancient Zoroastrian conflict between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu to the Star Wars saga's Force and Dark Side, the battle between light and darkness transcends language, geography, and era. It speaks to something fundamental about human experience.
Why Children Understand This Immediately
When I told my daughter about Lightman—a boy who could illuminate the entire sky—I didn't need to explain why that mattered. She knew instinctively. Light means you can see. Light means the monsters can't hide. Light means someone is there with you in the dark.
Children live closer to the primal realities than adults do. They haven't yet built the sophisticated defenses that let us pretend we're not afraid of the dark. They know what it feels like to wake at 3 AM and see only blackness. They understand, in their bones, why a boy who can make light would be a hero.
But it wasn't a light that blinded you. It was a light that gave you warmth. It gave you peace, gave you love, and gave you hope.
The Biblical Foundation
Scripture opens with darkness covering the deep and God's first creative act being the summoning of light. This isn't coincidental. The biblical narrative understands that before anything else can exist, there must be light to reveal it.
Jesus declared himself the light of the world. John wrote that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The entire Christian story arc moves from the darkness of sin to the light of redemption, from the shadow of death to the brightness of resurrection.
Lightman draws from this well. The hero doesn't just fight evil—he illuminates it. He doesn't just defeat darkness—he replaces it with something better. This is the Christian promise in narrative form: not merely the absence of bad, but the presence of good.
Light as Revelation
In the story, when Lightman rises into the sky and illuminates half of America, people can finally see. The lost boy is found. The path forward becomes clear. Truth becomes visible.
This is what light does in every meaningful story. It reveals what was hidden. It exposes what was concealed. It makes possible what seemed impossible in the dark.
Children need this message. They live in a world that often feels confusing, where adult problems cast shadows they can't understand. Stories about light tell them that clarity exists, that someone can see even when they cannot, that eventually the darkness will be pushed back.
The Darkness Has a Purpose
Without darkness, light has no meaning. Without evil, good becomes merely ordinary. The story of Lightman requires the invasion from Litron, the brother's betrayal, the forces that want to extinguish the light. These aren't gratuitous—they're necessary.
When we tell children stories about light overcoming darkness, we're not pretending darkness doesn't exist. We're teaching them that darkness is real, and it can be defeated. This is not naive optimism. It's the most practical hope available.
The child who grows up on these stories learns to look for the light in dark situations. They develop the habit of hope. They expect redemption because they've rehearsed it a hundred times before sleep.
The Light That Remains
At the end of Lightman, when the new kingdom is established and peace reigns for a thousand years, the light doesn't go away. It becomes the natural state of things. The story ends not with a final battle but with an eternal illumination.
This is the promise embedded in every light-versus-darkness narrative: the darkness is temporary, but the light endures. Night always gives way to morning. Winter always breaks into spring. The tomb is always empty on the third day.
When you tell your child a story about light conquering darkness, you're not just entertaining them. You're programming their souls with the pattern of reality. You're teaching them how the universe actually works, underneath all the chaos and confusion of daily life.
The light wins. It always has. It always will.