Voices in Someone’s Head
We have a different approach to a voice within someone’s head. I also have to wonder if this wasn’t a ’70s trope, since it’s also used in Star Wars in a somewhat similar way.
How it’s set up is that the main character has a voice in his head, and basically that voice is (for lack of a better term) the “good” force in the world. It helps set up and move the main character along. I’m assuming the evil character also has a voice throughout his life, although we don’t get to see that—at least not that I can remember.
In the end the good voice takes over, and we have a clash of good vs. evil with the two characters basically as the chosen heroes meant to represent the sides.
On a tangent, I had thought I read that George Lucas wanted to do something similar with Star Wars, where there were some being(s) behind the Force that were helping move things along, and the Force users were part of that plan or struggle. We have that here in The Belgariad, where those forces (not the gods themselves) are at work. It would have been amazing if Star Wars had gone in this deeper direction, but they didn’t—and that’s another post.
On a Wheel of Time tangent with this: Robert Jordan is described by Brandon Sanderson as a discovery writer—someone who doesn’t have a firm plan and plays out fun ideas as they come up. I have to think (and it’s my theory) that he wanted to set up Wheel of Time similarly to this, with the force of good and the voice of good vs. evil. However, he went in a different direction.