Should “good guys” ever require a definite article before itself? If yes, why?
Since I’ve never heard this collocation without a definite entry and why? If you like bad guys, “I thought you were a good guy?” In both given examples I can’t spot any reference to some specific guys.. What nouns could not get away with that one?
The good guys and the bad guys are standard narrative roles like the hero and the villain.
Every spectator or reader of a narrative expects these roles to be played by some character (character) so they are in that sense fully specified within any discourse about the narrative, and entitled to the definite article.
This doesn’t mean that the spectator/reader knows which characters in the narrative play those roles (figuring that out is part of the fun), and it doesn’t mean that those roles actually will be played in every narrative, merely that the roles are part of the expectations that a spectator/reader brings to the genre.
If a bad guy is good, then maybe good guy is villain or good guy by indefinite article. If you say “I think Jim is a good guy” or “a hero”, you mean something a little different: you think that Jim exhibits qualities which fit him to play that narrative role without asserting that he actually does play the role in some narrative.
