Reflections on Good and Evil

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Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Mithreas » Tue Jan 30, 2018 4:12 am

An excellent article about the prevalence of "good vs evil" in modern pop culture.

Well worth a read, with all sorts of implications for role playing (as well as the real world :)).
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Karris the Anarchist » Tue Jan 30, 2018 7:20 am

I found the notion of Star Wars and LOTR inspiring young men to throw their lives away in geopolitical economic missions due to a misplaced notion and well-bred thought of superior morality, quite a disturbing.

Good read!
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Marsi » Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:55 am

Interesting read, its a thought that deserves more exploration. The author makes bucketloads of assumptions though, the premise falling flat to anyone familiar with the titles she haphazardly throws around -- and the central assertion that folklore=nationalism=genocide was just weird tbh. Plenty of pre-nationalist cultures had no trouble genociding and recruiting young men to die for them.

At a guess I think a more reasonable albeit less sensationalist conclusion is the influence of Christianity, or that these folk tales have passed orally, or from translation to translation, culture to culture, for thousands of years -- so its unlikely that a unifying moral theme would remain preserved.

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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by -XXX- » Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:13 pm

I think that the real issue here is whether we should abide by the deliberately absolute FR alignment setting that is meant to streamline and simplify these concepts on purpose in order to allow players to focus on the actual roleplay rather than leaving room for their sessions to derail into philosophical disputes regarding principles and morality.

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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by The GrumpyCat » Tue Jan 30, 2018 4:06 pm

This is a long one. Small apology for mentioning Religion, know that I do not mean to disparage any faith what so ever. I fully respect anyone's faith, and I apologise most profusly if I in any way offend, it is unintended.

That being said:

I'm afraid I really can't agree with the thrust of this argument, interesting though it maybe. It seems to make a whole lot of assumptions which occur to me as vastly flawed.
I won't claim that nationalism doesn't have at least impact sure, but Religion is surely far more of a base of morality in opinions of most people. Religion is full of examples of people swapping sides, (Nebakaneza, Saul, Judas, Loki, just a few names that cross my mind, I suspect there are far more). It holds a set of values and edicts high, and shows how people fall when they do not match up to them, how they 'go evil.' (I'm thinking of the Norse Myths here which, the writer seems to forget, were a deeply set religious beliefs at one point, and still are in some places.)
Maybe the Greeks Vs Trojans didn't seem to have clashing sets of values, but that's because they were both fighting under the auspice of the same faith.
To contrast Norse Mythology DOES have a set of bad guys, they're called the Ice Giants and whilst their morality isn't particularly explored that I recall, they are certainly the adversaries in the tale.
Maybe it's true we cannot as easily see the different sets of 'ideals' come into play, but that's because such tales are very old, and often translated by Christian writers, who sometimes hedged their own belief systems onto them.
Religious wars are fought on battles of ideals, far more than national ones are. And indeed in most 'good vs evil' conflicts, the central 'stem' of it all seems to be from deeply held personal beliefs, rather than any nationalistic ones, though I'll admit there is an amount of that.

More to the point I think the growth of 'good vs Evil' conflicts comes less out of nationalism, and far more out of religious conviction and mass media.

Let's use Star Wars as an example.

Two thousand years ago, a wandering story teller would go around speaking of the Great Luke Skywalker, and he or she could change that tale a bit according to his audience. So for a tribe that valued peace and harvesting – the bard might highlight the pacifistic side of the tale. For a tribe that was more warlike- the fighting part. Further more, if all your tribes believed in the same God(s) you can claim Luke's powers come from that deity, and if they don't – you can even change that aspect to an extent.

Fast forward to a mere two or three hundred years ago, you find that things are slightly different. Your story is now in a book, and thus requires more consistency. You can't write down that Luke was a Christian in one, and a Buddhist in another. You have one story, not necessary a ever shifting molding tale you can change to your readership. But that's fine, because if you're , say, an English writer then your readership is likely to be white, western, and Christian. You can make a fair guess at their values, belief system, and be sure that 90% of them will like your story well enough.

Fast forward to now.

You've a medium that's essentially fixed, and and audience which is world wide.

Making Luke Skywalker a Christian just doesn't fly any more. For one it would annoy or put off those of other faiths in your audience, (which there are quite a few) for another it might even insult the Christians in your audience if you happen to slide something they disapprove of.

But a lot of faiths seem to have a certain amount of agreement. I don't pretend to be a theologen, but from what little I've witnessed most seem to agree that kindness, honesty, bravery, self sacrifice and love are Good Things.
Further more most would agree that needless torture, spiteful murder of subordinates, impoliteness, deceptiveness, and mass murder are Bad things.

So, far easier when making your narritive to avoid the whole mess of 'religion' and instead package your set of values, a set which bind most people together, into something more palatable and simple.

TL:DR

I don't agree with the nationalism aspect.

But I dothink pople do like the idea that Their Set of Beliefs are in the Right, and that Their Side is thus going to succeed. It's an itch that religion scratches very nicely. Sure, life may be tough, but if you remain Faithful and Obedient to your deity/s then it'll turn out alright.

Making a story specifically about religion however is far too decisive. So it's better to take the basic precepts agreed by most religions, repackage them, and turn them into something like Love, or The Force, or such like.
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Tue Jan 30, 2018 5:40 pm

(I might go in circles here and on a tangent or two, so forgive me. It is an interesting topic, though, and one that can get me going.)


As other people have said, there are quite a few assumptions made in the article that I disagree with, plus the article does revolve mostly, or just, around european / western mythology and culture.

The concepts of good and evil, of living a moral and decent life (according to the culture you are born into), have been present all over the world for thousands of years, due to both religion/spiritual doctrines and nationalism. Consider Anubis' Weighing Scales, in ancient Egypt. Consider the warring city states of ancient Mesopotamia, and the Babylonian god Marduk, who represents light and order fighting against chaos and darkness. And then you have the whole of Asia and its thousands of ancient myths and legends.

All of that means, to me, that Pop Culture is not obsessed with the battle between good and evil. Culture itself is. It is an old and instinctive manifestation of being human, THE social animal.

With this being said, for me personally, good and evil, right and wrong, are not a luxury of these macro concepts such as religions, nations, or humanity as a whole.

Witnessing first hand (or feeling it or on your own skin) the apparently random, insidious and vicious cruelty that people can inflict on one another, specialy at a young age, is a very good way to learn, real quick, the very first notions of what is right and wrong. Good and Evil. Without a need for fantasy, sci-fi, folklore or religion to point it out for you. Pain and the absence of it are the best teachers. And there are few things more terrifying than realizing the kind of murderous darkness that can dwell inside of other people (and yourself).
Anyone reading this that grew up in the type of shitty neighbourhood that I did (and they exist all over the world), will know what I speak of. The day to day chaos of survival. Knowing that on any given time you might be the target of someone else's impulses, for no other reason than being at the wrong place, at the wrong time. In short, being very aqquainted with violence, misery and the fight or flight impulse.


As for the root of evil, in its many shapes and forms?

I think we as a species, in every culture, have been asking that question for a long time, and have come up with many different answers. For some people evil is caused by those that do not look like them, or by those that do not pray like them. Or they see evil in those that do not speak the same language. Some will say evil is simply born out of chaos, of a world without order.

For me, your regular fellow human? Evil is created by ignorance. It is ignorance that fuels dictatorships (they love nothing better than controling what people know), it is ignorance that allows myth to become doctrine, and it is ignorance that makes people think the Other is not like them and thus disposable and without humanity.


Where does Pop Culture come in on all of this?

At its best, it is an attempt to fill in the gaps. To keep ignorance at bay. Literature and art and theater and music and science. They are all the best tools to keep that inner darkness as small as it can be, because they allow us to see more than what you'd typically be exposed to. They take you places, and can show you things, that will put your mind at work. Asking questions. Questioning yourself.

At its worst, pop culture, like anything else, can be misused. It can be reduced to propaganda and a means to dumb you down.



To finish off this kind of aimless rant...I do not even know what my own conclusion is. Is Evil a real thing? Yes. There are some very dark and twisted human-like creatures in this world. Is Good a real thing? Yes. There are also amazingly wonderful people running around everywhere.

Should Pop Culture not obsess with good vs evil ? Nah. It makes for fun story telling. The only kind of story telling? Nah. And that's been shown over and over again.

Should rpgs / D&D get rid of its own take on Good vs Evil? Nope. Serves a clear purpose for the gaming part of it. Should they limit themselves to it? Nope. That'd be ignorant.
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by The GrumpyCat » Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:26 pm

-XXX- wrote:I think that the real issue here is whether we should abide by the deliberately absolute FR alignment setting that is meant to streamline and simplify these concepts on purpose in order to allow players to focus on the actual roleplay rather than leaving room for their sessions to derail into philosophical disputes regarding principles and morality.
Sorry for posting again, but I kind of want to adress this - though I believe it is a little aside from the topic (if the topic is the discussion on the article.)

Alignment is, alas, a deeply ingrained part of the FR setting, and thus the Arelith setting, not to mention the mechanics of the base game. Removing the concept of 'Good' and 'Evil' is a thing that I fear is just not possible. Even if we were to somehow carve it out of the setting (and that would likely involve also removing Demons/Devils, Celestials, Tieflings, Aasimar, Warlocks, and heavens knows what else) removing the various mechanics associated with it currently is impossible without Haks.

That said the concept of 'Moral Absolute' is also an extremely difficult think to properly express in a Massive (alright large) Multiplayer game like this. It sort of works on Tabletop, which is far more restrictive in every way, but in a situation where you have over one hundred players, playing 24 hours a day, and no more than a dozen DMs, it becomes very sticky very quickly.

The problem being that whilst Forgotten Realms may have Moral Absolutes, the Real World has... well, I hesitate after Borin Drakkmurl's post to say 'Doesn't' but I'll say that they're at least a log more vauge.

Here's a good example: The Trolly Problem.
Here's a link if you want to know more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

The jist of the problem is this:
There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person tied up on the side track. You have two options:

Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

Which is the most ethical choice?
Now in real life, this is definatly a thing people can debate. And that's fine. But in FR, if we presume that Ethics are Absolute, then there is a definate Good and Evil answer to the issue. And if we construe that there is a definate Good and Evil answer to this, then it must follow through in all similar issues, even to logical extremities where to our morality they would no longer hold up.

Either the Paladin does Nothing and thus avoids doing evil ever- sitting around drinking tea and watching the world burn, but safe in the knowledge his soul is 100% sacrosanct and being perfectly blessed by the Goodly Gods- because he never did Evil.

Or the Paladin is able to do whatever justifies the need. He is able to sacrifice 10000 people, murder hundreds of children, torture and violate whoever he needs to - so long as the ends are justified and his soul is 100% good and pure.

You see the problem here?

It's generally why, as DMs, we do tend to tread carefully when forcefully shifting alignments. It does happen, and we do try to enforce the cannon of the setting, but at the same time we end up caught between that- and also wanting players to be able to fully express the nuance of their characters.
This too shall pass.

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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by LichBait » Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:39 pm

Quoted myself from another thread for my thoughts on Good and Evil in the FR setting.
LichBait wrote:My own view, and one in line with some books, is that evil and good are both based upon morality AND quantifiable forces in the Forgotten Realms. Arelith is based upon FR, so I presume it is similar. Doing an evil act for a good cause may be for the greater good morally, depending upon the situation, but it is still a quantifiably evil act. The morality for it is 'good', but the quantifiable repercussions (to one's self or possibly others) are evil. You are what you eat, and it's like drinking poison. Drinking poison once may not completely taint you, but if you keep on drinking the poison for a good cause you're eventually going to die from it/become the poison.
To clarify a bit more good/evil and morality are two different subjects as far as FR is concerned based upon source. A character can debate what is morally right/wrong for them, however it doesn't change what is (as far as the FR universe is concerned) an evil or good act. My quote also works in reverse for bringing someone "up" from evil.

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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:55 pm

Very good stuff by GrumpyCat and Lichbait.


As for the Evil - Good axis in FR / Arelith in specifc, I actualy do not think it'd be as hard to replace as all that.

Remove the Evil and Good out of the concept, but keep the Law - Neutral - Chaos dynamic, and a lot of it stays the same, including paragonic creatures like demons and devils. They just fall on different extremes of each point on the axis.

This works even better for Playable Characters, where a whooole lot more nuance is always welcome. To this day, one my favorite things to see on Arelith, were the Knights of the Road in which I played Ubaldo. There was such a different array of alignments, backgrounds, classes, and all so wonderfuly roleplayed and portrayed, that the notion of those people being Evil or Good got pushed to the background, while the fact that they actualy felt like living, breathing, complex beings, with virtues and faults, jumped to the foreground.

And that is what makes characters, and storytelling, interesting.


It is also one of the best things, I find, about D&D 5E. The way they removed alignment restrictions from so many things, specialy classes. It opens the doors for a lot more diversity and complexity (even if sacrificing some anthagonistic pilars of old.)
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:35 pm

It's like the author failed to mention Manichaeism and how St. Augustine/other Medieval scholars carbon copy'd this hardcore good vs. evil discussion into Christianity. And then how pagan fables were rewritten by Christian monks. And how, outside of medieval theology, discussions on "good and evil" were not really to be found.

We had a lot of discussions on morality, a la the Stoics, but didn't retell every story in this good vs. evil dialogue. It's why we the Disney movie Hercules is such an excellent example of modern retelling. Hades was not the bad guy (it sort of was Zeus), and the Olympians were also kinda messed up. It was not this good vs. evil telling, but we modern audiences would have a hard time accepting this ambiguous, uncomfortable, and disturbing story (which is a lot of mythology).

It's probably a lot to blame on 19th and 20th institutions trying to promote "good behaviour" and social control, more than anything. Messages of good vs. evil will influence people to be good, and a mass of good people is probably better than a mass of questioning, skeptical, and uncomfortable people.

edit: the Brothers Grimm self-censorship from first to later editions of their Fairytales is probably the perfect example of the underlying problem.

It also is exemplified by common sentiment in video gaming forums and communities, "I just want to come home [from work, school, hellish existence] and just kick bad guy Snuggybear, and be the hero."
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by The GrumpyCat » Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:01 pm

It was not this good vs. evil telling, but we modern audiences would have a hard time accepting this ambiguous, uncomfortable, and disturbing story (which is a lot of mythology).
Also to keep in mind, some of these mythologies may indeed have a 'good vs evil' approach, it's just that their own precepts of what is 'good' and what is 'evil' differ... sometimes vastly... from ours.

A simple example?

Take the old ledgend of King Arther. One of the centeral concipts of it is that Arther is the True King, and is as such able to draw Excalibre from the Stone. His Bloodline shows up in the end. Tolkien, who drew his own stories from a far more old english sensibility puts a huge amount on the importance of blood and family. Consider the Fellowship of The Ring! Legolas - son of the King of Murkwood. Gimli - also a distant relitive of Durin the Deathless (granted though I only found out that in the wiki.) Boromir - Son of the Steward of Gondor (also the lowest bloodied of the lot of them, save the hobbits, and thus an explenation maybe why he fell the quickest?) And of course then there's Aragorn, son of Arathorn.
Blood line, family history, the blood of kings plays a very important roll in that, it's pretty much undeniable and this is seen as a good thing.

Take by contrast Harry Potter, where the centeral conciet of the Villains is - Blood Matters. The family you're born to shapes who you are. And this is seen as a Bad thing. The more modern concept that it doesn't matter who your parents were, what your race is, what's in your family history - your destiny is your own and you can turn out to be someone wonderful.

Meritocracy vs Aristocracy.

My point being that the old ledgends may have had a strong 'good vs evil' narrative, but time, distance, language and most of all - a difference in those morals and judgemnts, seperates us so much that we simply cannot see it.
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by BegoneThoth » Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:05 pm

I like a lot of these points but don't see how to really roll them into a world where 'evil/good' is 100% detectable with a special kind of glance and may not reflect that characters goals/motives.
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Thanatosis » Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:10 pm

Good and evil in the Forgotten Realms don't have to mirror right and wrong, whether it be ours as people or that of our characters -- though one could reason that those who dwell in a universe where such physical forces of morality exist will have a different sense of what is right and wrong than we.

Also, that article makes my brain bleed.
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:20 pm

DM GrumpyCat wrote:
It was not this good vs. evil telling, but we modern audiences would have a hard time accepting this ambiguous, uncomfortable, and disturbing story (which is a lot of mythology).
Also to keep in mind, some of these mythologies may indeed have a 'good vs evil' approach, it's just that their own precepts of what is 'good' and what is 'evil' differ... sometimes vastly... from ours.

A simple example?

Take the old ledgend of King Arther. One of the centeral concipts of it is that Arther is the True King, and is as such able to draw Excalibre from the Stone. His Bloodline shows up in the end. Tolkien, who drew his own stories from a far more old english sensibility puts a huge amount on the importance of blood and family. Consider the Fellowship of The Ring! Legolas - son of the King of Murkwood. Gimli - also a distant relitive of Durin the Deathless (granted though I only found out that in the wiki.) Boromir - Son of the Steward of Gondor (also the lowest bloodied of the lot of them, save the hobbits, and thus an explenation maybe why he fell the quickest?) And of course then there's Aragorn, son of Arathorn.
Blood line, family history, the blood of kings plays a very important roll in that, it's pretty much undeniable and this is seen as a good thing.

Take by contrast Harry Potter, where the centeral conciet of the Villains is - Blood Matters. The family you're born to shapes who you are. And this is seen as a Bad thing. The more modern concept that it doesn't matter who your parents were, what your race is, what's in your family history - your destiny is your own and you can turn out to be someone wonderful.

Meritocracy vs Aristocracy.

My point being that the old ledgends may have had a strong 'good vs evil' narrative, but time, distance, language and most of all - a difference in those morals and judgemnts, seperates us so much that we simply cannot see it.
Just to poke out at this, GrumpyCat, but with the same example of King Arthur -

The medieval stories and poetry around Lancelot, Guinevere, and King Arthur undermine this struggle of good vs. evil. It's riddled with uncomfortable concepts of fidelity/infidelity, love, chivalry,etc.

I'd also contest that King Arthur is less about good vs. evil and more so British nationalism fighting off the evil Cornwall/pagans. But interpretation is good!
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Mithreas » Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:52 pm

Interesting thoughts all. I think I tend to agree more with the article than most of the responses against it, though would happily concede several flaws. My take is as follows.

Dipping into my psychology background a moment, the central thing about humans is that we are tribal creatures. We define an "in group" and an "out group" (the members of which may change situationally) and feel sympathy for the in group and apathy for the out group - they are "others" and where we come into contact with them, we are quicker to ascribe them negative motives.

Earlier myths were often very tribal in nature. Norse mythology is a great example - the gods vs the ice giants. That's a tribal conflict right there, and yes, the ice giants are the 'bad' guys. But most of the myths don't focus on that conflict - they focus on interactions between the gods (such as Loki's trickery), and those that do don't make the gods out to be paragons - but they *do* make them out to be on the side of humanity, while the Ice Giants do not care about humanity's fate. Aesir vs Jotnar is the tale of two warring tribes, with the Aesir being "our" tribe and the Jotnar being the enemy. Neither side behaves with especial virtue, but the Aesir behave in ways sympathetic to humanity and the Jotnar do not.

In Norse mythology, neither side behaves as Vader does, killing their own at the slightest provocation.

So where does nationalism come in? A nation is a tribe of tribes - and in the last couple of centuries, we reached the point where older methods for keeping large groups of people aligned under one banner (e.g. religion, language) were no longer as effective - travel and communication were becoming too easy. Germany is a particularly interesting case because it doesn't have historic borders - some of the tribes in Germany at the time of the Grimm Brothers were historically part of other nations).

Older myths were generally linked to religions, and religion was once an effective method of defining the borders of a tribe. But the Grimm Brothers couldn't simply use religious tales, because Germany already had several religions practiced within its borders, and those same religions were also practiced by its neighbours. They needed a new basis for defining a national spirit, and hence values rather than alignment with deities becoming the new central theme.

(The work of Banjo Paterson in Australia is a similar attempt to capture and define a national spirit that diverse members of a country can coalesce around - to define what sets the Australian tribe apart from others, and particularly places like the UK that had strong cultural overlap with it).
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by RedGiant » Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:43 am

I have to dip in here, but since I come here generally to escape deep intellectual discussions much like this one (which I encounter nigh unto daily at work), I will keep my comments brief. I must say (with others) that some of the primary working assumptions of this article are demonstrably false.

Most notably, "The ostensibly moral face-off between good and evil is a recent invention that evolved in concert with modern nationalism – and, ultimately, it gives voice to a political vision not an ethical one."

Anyone with a basic understanding of history can easily refute this statement. The dichotomy between good and evil has been with us since the earliest points of recorded human history. Indeed, there are a number of patently ancient, dualistic cosmologies which readily testify to this fact. Zoroastrianism springs immediately to mind as a case in point.

I find this article mostly interesting as a display case for the post-modern/progressive/cosmopolitan/whatever-you-want-to-call-it world-view. I'm not here to throne stones, I just find it interesting that every few decades we find the need to dissemble our ancestor's world-views and replace it with an "improved" version. Yet, somehow we always fall short of uptopian singularity, and our efforts usually just serve to reveal our current preoccupations. (Which our children are sure to disassemble, a few scant years from now...)
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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by rookie » Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:36 am

D&D is kind of weird in that it has more of a cosmic good/evil as opposed to a "this action is justified and right" morality scale. A lot of times they're the same thing, but when they're different they'll spark pages of discussion.

I've personally always designed characters on here more from a personality and goal standpoint then just thought about who would really hate them to get the alignment. If the forces of good would hate them then some kind of evil, if devils and lawful authorities would hate them then chaotic. If a side would be more ambivalent/apathetic or if they'd be hated by both sides then some form of neutral.

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Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Harasha » Wed Jan 31, 2018 7:12 am

The D&D Alignment system is a great tool for handling NPCs. Let's a DM know instantly what a monster, town, deity, whatever is about. It's two dimensional and limiting but good enough for most creatures and beings you'll encounter.

PCs should have been left to the restrictions of their class and religion. I am thankful it's not micro-managed here by DMs like I've seen elsewhere.

JediZero
Posts: 175
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2016 3:33 am

Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by JediZero » Thu Feb 01, 2018 4:47 am

If I might add in a few other quirks that I have always assumed from the whole reason why celestials, devils, and even demons to some extent meddle in the affairs of Faerun is due to the fact that they cannot do something against their nature.

A celestial cannot do any evil act. No matter how justified. thus why they so often send a mortal, because Mortals are flawed and able to do good and evil in turn.

Same with Devils. They want to corrupt and lure people to temptation, but if a task requires a more delicate touch, one that requires them to be able to actually do a nice thing for people, they get some stupid mortal to do it.

This also helpfully explains why most Celestials my characters meet are unrepentant jerks. Having been told by one celestial that the most 'good' that can be done in a DM quest is to allow a woman to sacrifice herself, mind, body, and soul, to a demon. To foil the plot of a devil.

Also the one who keeps laughing when you ask if you could meet a god. Seriously who doesn't want to lamp him one in the nose?

Hierony
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Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2017 2:54 pm

Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Hierony » Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:57 pm

There are many falsities in the article and the author constantly quotes works they clearly don't know.
Robin Hood has already been stealing from the rich since a version of the 16th century. The Edda contains a Vader-like character; Loki, who has a good link to the gods (part of the in-group) but turns against them.
Then she omits the Bible (which is a real error, you just cannot pretend that book doesn't exist), where there are many examples of good-turned-bad, of which Satan is the most prominent (he's also as omnipotent, malicious and inviting as Vader).

Then on the other side, she omits all those pop culture products that don't have a clear distinction between good and evil: the new Batman films, the Watchmen, and of course all the Breaking Bad, Narcos, the entire Polar crime novel genre, the gangsterism in pop music and many more.

Folk tales, religion and popular culture constantly /discuss/ good and evil. Sleeping Beauty's prince is by today's standards a rapist. Adam and Eve, the Apple, and the pursuit of knowledge. Faust, another romantic tale.

The fact that the author does not understand the /inclusive/ aspect of the romantic project is another very long discussion that I don't really want to dig into. But the Grimm's project was plainly going to show the commonalities of german-speaking peoples - some degree of segragation might have come from it, but we shouldn't accuse them of it.

This discussion is already present in FR with the Lawful-Chaotic scale. A lawful good character for example can ignore compassion because the lawful aspect is just too important for them. A chaotic good character can be a kantian anarchist who believes that doing good does not need laws. Good does not mean just, and sometimes a lawful good character can totally agree with a lawful evil one.

The lawful-chaotic scale is actually very interesting if we transmit it back into folk tales; Faust would probably be chaotic neutral, Vader clearly lawful evil, Skywalker chaotic good, while Siegfried would be lawful good.

I think in the game we always discuss good and evil in that way. With all earnest that we put into the characters, it's just important to remember how silly the whole setting is (ever tried to describe what you're doing every evening to another person?) and that in this game we are allowed to fully explore the gradients of the two-dimensional scale.

Huelander
Posts: 42
Joined: Sat Sep 02, 2017 10:20 am

Re: Reflections on Good and Evil

Post by Huelander » Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:16 pm

In Kara-Tur there's two dominant religious philosophies that are so prevalent on that part of the world that the entirety of Kara-Tur's souls of the dead are barred from entering the outerplanar heavens and hells. Instead they enter an ethereal realm parallel to Kara-Tur that they call the Spirit World, or Heaven. With a subsection to the west of it (parallel to the ocean) called the Underworld, or Hell.

I think what this shows us is that the metaphysical rules of good and evil, and their spiritual role in mortal affairs. Can be re-drafted by the dominant religious philosophies of any given realm on the prime.

One of these philosophies is The Way, a Daoistic view of good and evil. Which believes that, I quote; There were no separate forces of good, evil, chaos, and law, but only interconnected and interrelated forces that followers of the Way could shape.

The Way partially competes and overlaps with a philosophy that is about Goodness / Virtues / Being Li. Called the Path of Enlightenment. Which I believe is rooted in Confucian thought as opposed to the Daoism of The Way. Emphasizing what kind of behaviors would lead to a successful society and culture. Which is arguably floating somewhere between Lawful good and Lawful neutral.

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