In the “good guy, bad guy” mentality which is so reinforced by Hollywood, we often attribute a “good guy, bad guy” schema to the Book of Mormon. However, whenever the Nephites are at war, they are no longer the good guys. It is only because they have become sufficiently wicked that the Lord was forced to scourge them with the Lamanite armies in fulfillment of the word of the Lord to Nephi, ’[the Lamanites] shall have no power over thy seed except they shall rebel against me also. And if it so be that they rebel against me, they shall be a scourge unto thy seed, to stir them up in the ways of remembrance’ (1 Nephi 2:23-24).
So, the Nephites are the bad guys, and the Lamanites are the other bad guys—but not for long. Soon the righteousness of the Lamanites will exceed that of the Nephites (Hel 7:24).
Hugh Nibley
"Critics like O’Dea have told the world that the Book of Mormon is a rather naive tale, a typical ’Western,‘ in which the ’good guys‘ fight the ’bad guys.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. At every confrontation of the Nephites and Lamanites in war, the Book of Mormon is at pains to point out that the conflict is to be attributed to the wickedness of both parties. Indeed, the greatest battle before the final debacle was fought not between the Nephites and Lamanites but between Nephite armies (3 Nephi 4:11). ’They shall have no power over thy seed,’ the Lord promised Nephi, ‘except they shall rebel against me also’ (1 Nephi 2:23). The ‘also’ is important--it means that whenever the Nephites and Lamanites fight it is because both have rebelled against God. It is never a case of ’good guys versus bad guys.’