>ENTER the King of Rape
Molag Bal isn't a counterargument, he's evil as frick and a mega bastard precisely BECAUSE he willingly and voluntarily chose to be the fricking biggest butthole in the universe. Nobody held a gun to his head and said "YOU MUST RAPE THEM NOW, MOLAG!" and he wasn't born from an Always Chaotic Evil Rapist species. He's just a fricking butthole.
If you lack free will you lack the capacity to be considered evil or an butthole. That's a rapist robot programmed to frick your mouth and sodomize you, the guy who built it is evil but the robot itself is just that, a robot
>Bob the Orc is evil >Bob the Orc is the only evil orc, this means he has free will >The exact same Bob the Orc, except that the other orcs are also evil, this means that Bob the Orc no longer has free will
Bob the Orc's life, personality, and nature have not changed any way, it is only your perception of him that has changed. I'm not going to say that "free will" doesn't exist, but I am gong to say that your concept of free will doesn't exist, this is not a rational analysis this is just something in your head.
I would assume bob the orc has free will and chooses to be evil and every other individual within his collective also chooses evil but that they ostensibly have the awareness to make that choice.
I agree with you
Things which cannot choose to be evil lack the awareness to be truly evil, other anons are too small brain to realize that that isn't justification for their actions.
A rat likely does not understand what it is doing when it shits all over your kitchen and tears holes in your ricebags, that doesn't mean it's not a pest to be removed at the soonest opportunity.
If you lack free will you lack the capacity to be considered evil or an butthole. That's a rapist robot programmed to frick your mouth and sodomize you, the guy who built it is evil but the robot itself is just that, a robot
What a moronic post >He chose to be an evil super rapists >b-but that's different from absolute evil so its more sophisticated
Someone willingly choosing to do mass evil is as much an absolute evil as the mindless rape beast you dipshit
Good and evil is absolute and it isn't arbitrary. Seeing low iq brains like yours destroyed by postmodernism is pitiful. Just stop thinking you've got anything smart to contribute and never post or talk again.
You don't have free will and yet you do petty evil shit all day long. It could be argued that you npcs are absolute evil because you don't have free will, rather than in spite of it.
>be innately destructive >love to destroy >have no real will to stop being destructive >somehow this means I cannot be considered destructive
Nah, in situations like this, in settings like this, an object can be an object of morality.
NTA, but the whole western, Christian morality is based on the idea of personal moral choice. A being without free will isn't able to make moral choices, so it can't be judged as a moral agent.
>be innately destructive >love to destroy >have no real will to stop being destructive >somehow this means I cannot be considered destructive
Nah, in situations like this, in settings like this, an object can be an object of morality.
Beings without free will can't be judged by moral standards based on personal choice. However, that doesn't mean that a being can't be destructive or bad.
If it isn't a moral agent, its a moral object. A being which then cannot choose but to be evil is not treated as a being, but it can still be evil regardless and be treated as a force or an object which causes evil things to happen. In practice, nothing changed, especially the evil it causes.
You're not giving anyone a gotcha moment, you're just moving the goalposts to "no we can't judge because its not a person", I'm just going to state then its an object because you've depersoned them. You can't really counter this because you yourself are telling they can't be judged as a person, so I'm just going to judge them as a force or object. And that force is evil.
He said it could be judged as bad or destructive but that's not the same thing as evil.
Termites start destroying your house. They're not evil, they're mindless, but they are destructive and a pest to be removed.
[...]
Predetermination is just a matter of perspective. Predicting the outcome of a thing doesn't change the nature of the thing. Attaining perfect knowledge of the world around you wouldn't change the nature of the world around you.
Obviously there's one path which this timeline goes along, but moral agents made the choice to be on board the train they're on, doesn't seem fair to judge those who are on board without a choice or ever even having been capable of making one.
I do think attaining perfect knowledge of the world around would potentially change the nature of some decisions, depending on what is revealed.
2 months ago
Anonymous
Evil effectively just means "Bad for Humans" in all ways that matter. Acts which ruin people, damage them, make them innefective, practices which are sadistic, unproductive and plainly fricking useless are Evil, because they're Bad for Humans.
A termite invasion is Evil. A termite invasion in a city, ruining a frickton of buildings including very important ones to production and caretaking, is Extremely Evil. I don't fricking care what your personal love for termites might be, they're Bad for Humans, they hurt us, it doesn't fricking matter if they're just getting food, a wolf murdering a 5 year old to get a snack is Evil too.
And in settings where Evil and Good are actual energies,actual realms and forces, a termite, for all it matters, is Evil in the context of a city. Because it is Bad for Humans.
2 months ago
Anonymous
>moral agents
Also relative. Dogs have moral agency relative to a dog's level, a dog that gets on the table and eats the bacon is a bad boy, a dog that doesn't is a good boy. But the dog's owner probably could have told you which was going to happen, that doesn't negate the dog's choice, it just means that the dog's choice exists on a lower level than human choices. We may not have moral agency relative to hyper-intelligent aliens, hyper-intelligent aliens may not have moral agency relative to God, and God may not have moral agency relative to its creator.
You're talking about a being that has human-level intelligence and a human-level capacity for self direction but which is inclined to do evil based on inborn traits and/or environment. On an individual level there are humans, orcs and demons who all fit that description, all of which have the same level of intelligence, all of which have the same capacity for self-direction. An butthole is an butthole. Human buttholes don't choose to be buttholes any more (or less) than demons do.
>I do think attaining perfect knowledge of the world around would potentially change the nature of some decisions, depending on what is revealed.
Sure, it has moral ramifications for the one with the knowledge, but not for the one being observed. The basic nature of your actions doesn't change based on whether or not you have an omniscient observer watching you.
2 months ago
Anonymous
Human buttholes certainly do choose to be buttholes
Some factors may nudge them in one direction or another but at the end of the day it is ultimately an individual's choice unless they're really just a meat-machine, at which point, I don't give a shit, we're all meatware anyways, do what benefits you most within your extremely limited capability to potentially nudge things in the direction your programming allows for
2 months ago
Anonymous
>Human buttholes certainly do choose to be buttholes
So do demons, so do orcs, an butthole is an butthole. The fact that they're all predisposed to be buttholes doesn't make them any different from a human that's predisposed to be an butthole.
To dig a little deeper, people make direct choices as they try to get to what they want, they don't directly choose what it is that they want.
2 months ago
Anonymous
I might be coming into the conversation late or maybe I replied into the chain incorrectly but yeah I don't disagree with the idea that demons or orcs or humans could have free will and be evil(depending on setting).
Some people do certainly choose to be malicious and sadistic to get what they want, I've seen people turn down opportunities to straight up have what they claim they want most because it wouldn't require other people to suffer or be forced to prostrate themselves to them.
2 months ago
Anonymous
>I might be coming into the conversation late or maybe I replied into the chain incorrectly but yeah I don't disagree with the idea that demons or orcs or humans could have free will and be evil(depending on setting).
Fair enough, it was probably a different guy who said that, but I still say that free will is a matter of perspective and thus isn't really relevant to a theoretical system of objective morality.
D&D says that you need at least 3 INT to be good or evil, which means that even mindless undead can have a neutral alignment depending on the edition (despite their innate tendency to kill the living for no reason). Frankly I think it would have been simpler to just apply the same standards to all creatures even if it meant that some predators detected as evil.
how can predetermined action be good or evil?
its just nature, programming, there's no intent or awareness to or behind it
is a lion evil when it kills one of its own kind?
is a fox good when it shares food with its family?
[...]
NTA, but the whole western, Christian morality is based on the idea of personal moral choice. A being without free will isn't able to make moral choices, so it can't be judged as a moral agent.
[...]
Beings without free will can't be judged by moral standards based on personal choice. However, that doesn't mean that a being can't be destructive or bad.
Predetermination is just a matter of perspective. Predicting the outcome of a thing doesn't change the nature of the thing. Attaining perfect knowledge of the world around you wouldn't change the nature of the world around you.
you're approaching "we're all atoms in motion, rocks and humans are carbon in different arrangements" skeptic idiocy at that point
a fox feeding foxes is Good for foxes. a lion killing lions is Bad for lions. Good and Bad then must have a point of reference.
we're all humans, so our point of reference is "for humans"
I don't understand how I'm approaching that.
I'm saying a calculator or an algorithm can not be a moral actor, that only a conscious being can be a moral actor.
If anything I'm on the opposite end of the humans are just material skepticism because I believe there is something more to man than just the wetware and it plays a part in the decisions men make.
What that something more is I don't quite have a clear answer on but I've yet to see anyone give something especially concrete an answer on it with objective proof to back it up.
Good for humans vs bad for humans is not a great measurement of morality in itself imo.
Evil effectively just means "Bad for Humans" in all ways that matter. Acts which ruin people, damage them, make them innefective, practices which are sadistic, unproductive and plainly fricking useless are Evil, because they're Bad for Humans.
A termite invasion is Evil. A termite invasion in a city, ruining a frickton of buildings including very important ones to production and caretaking, is Extremely Evil. I don't fricking care what your personal love for termites might be, they're Bad for Humans, they hurt us, it doesn't fricking matter if they're just getting food, a wolf murdering a 5 year old to get a snack is Evil too.
And in settings where Evil and Good are actual energies,actual realms and forces, a termite, for all it matters, is Evil in the context of a city. Because it is Bad for Humans.
You seem to think I'm justifying the actions of termites or that I wouldn't see a wolf who killed a child executed. That's not the case, I'm just saying there likely wasn't malice in those actions, which is what defines evil.
What is good in a utilitarian sense isn't necessarily morally good either. If you need to rip the stem cells out of human children to create genetic modification technology that will ultimately end up saving many more humans than those who were murdered horrifically, that would be a net good for humanity, despite being, I would believe, morally abhorrent.
2 months ago
Anonymous
>I'm just saying there likely wasn't malice in those actions, which is what defines evil.
Incorrect. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, malice is not required for Evil, which again means Bad for Humans, you can do Evil without intending to do Evil and that has been true in every system of morality possible. You might not even understand you are doing Evil, you might be culturally insensitive to other people and their identification of Evil, your perception might be muddled and utterly ruined and you cannot even understand on a mere perceptual or cognitive level you are doing evil. It is often the case that malice is tied to it, but its not a need.
Evil means Bad for Humans. Ripping stem cells by the kilo out of abortion clinics you funded and encouraged because you wanted extra freedom for people who couldn't keep it in their pants is Evil. The fact you sell stem cells for treatment later doesn't make the act Not Evil, because you are still effectively murdering babies, if anything it makes it even more evil as its all economically fueled rather than even ideologically fueled in the sense of trying to heal people with a sacrifice, you're just being plain and sincere without even good intentions. The end result of the moral equation is still Evil, you're still encouraging the murder of innocents by the hundreds, who cares if you do it to heal a few.
2 months ago
Anonymous
In the long term, the health benefits and potential human ascension afforded by that slaughter will far outweigh it.
The industrial revolution overall was good for humanity's ability to continue its survival and advancement as a species, but many people died or were horrifically maimed during it, and many more lost their jobs and status as valued craftsmen.
If you murder hundreds of humans to save thousands of humans you have done good by the standard of is it good or bad for humans.
Maybe you even disagree with the examples I brought up, and I'm not trying to debate those, I'll even concede you're right about those things being bad if it rushes past that bit of conversation, I'm saying by the standard of good for humans or bad for humans, you can easily end up with scenarios that justify the murder of humans, so does that remain truly moral because it will benefit a greater amount of humans?
I do think malice is required to do evil, there's a reason why we judge manslaughter differently than murder, even if they're both awful.
2 months ago
Anonymous
I never said it wasn't going to be worth it in the end, I said it was Evil. You can do whatever justification or cognitive work of acrobatics to make anything fine and be justifiable for you, I'm not your moral guide, I'm just stating my truth which is contrary to yours.
Will it be worth it, will it not be worth it, I don't care because the base acts for it are Evil, meaning Bad for Humans. Intent is a *multiplier*, malice is intent, but Evil still exists in both as murdering or accidentally killing someone are both Bad for Humans. You're not actually contradicting anything I'm saying Anonymous, if anything, you're missing the point that my view's arguably more complex than yours.
2 months ago
Anonymous
I must admit I am totally and utterly missing your point, and it does seem far more complex than what I am espousing.
If bad is done to attain good it remains bad?
If good is done and attains bad, does it remain good?
The end result has no bearing despite the standard being good for humans = good and bad for humans = bad?
Is it what is good or bad for an individual human?
>Stating my truth which is contrary to yours
So morality is subjective? Sure, I can buy that I guess, but it throws out the previous standard of good vs bad for our group.
2 months ago
Anonymous
In our path to do good, we can do evil. In our path to do evil, we can do good. Our actions can also be neutral, irrelevant for context and others, but in the many steps we take on our paths, we must simply be aware that some stuff is in either of the three poles. Good, Neutral, Evil.
Intent is a multiplier, but Reality is what matters. When you hurt someone, that is Evil. That you hurt someone for your pleasure, for their pain, that *multiplies* the Evil. That a wolf does not intend to murder your child with glee does not absolve it from having committed Evil, because again, Evil is Bad for Humans, and the wolf has eaten a child.
Every step is its own step and should be calculated, NOT ignored. Murdering children is Evil, and to extract their cells is Neutral (they're dead, they don't need them), but then you decide to make research with an economic focus (Greed, negative intent) to try and heal people (A positive intent, even if still Greed is the focus). Every step mattered. Every step is calculated. You do not ignore that children are murdered, deprived of a life. You do not ignore the Greed, the wish to make money off this death. You do not ignore the Healing, how its going to some help. You calculate it, by admiring every single step, and making your own conclusion, never ignoring a single step and just saying it is or is not worth it. That is how you forgive atrocities, that is how you love murderers, that is how you forget reality and how muddied the water is.
I cannot calculate if, in the end, all these dead children will truly help us or if it will be just some hidden research for the Few. Thousands of lives wasted for gene therapies my son will never benefit from. I don't know if this will not unlock a better life, a better tommorow, cures for things which ruin lives. Neither can you, but you can calculate the steps to your knowledge and to your own multipliers of how much everything matters.
Some steps are just Bad for Humans however.
2 months ago
Anonymous
Honestly I can see where you're coming from and it does appeal to me so I'm inclined to agree with it though I'm still inclined to think of a murderous wolf as at most(unless it truly is cognizant in it's little dogbrain) as committing an evil action without being truly evil. But that might just be a personal thing so I'll concede here for the time being.
I will say, altogether, I appreciate your words here, I don't know why but they make me hopeful.
2 months ago
Anonymous
I'm glad to have cleared things up then Anonymous. I understand that the point was going to be fairly hard to grasp without me laying it all out, so I do appreciate your curiosity and will to listen and read it to understand it then. Minor disagreements over the details are fine, not exactly proselytizing a pure faith in here, it'd be kind of tactless or just plain rude.
I think your hope is due to the discussion itself, both its nature and its content. The fact you and I talked with one another without devolving into insults in whats clearly a substandard quality thread and reached an understanding is itself great, but I think there's also something to the fact that the morality system presented refuses to ignore the nature of some acts as excusable and insists on accounting for everything and to make your own judgement. I've been presented with parts of this myself and it was reassuring to know that out there, people still calculated it all, remembered reality, the true harm of some actions and didn't excuse atrocities executed or to be executed on flimsy excuses and structurally unsound arguments.
Might be wrong, but seeing responsibility and civility are things that have always given me hope when I'm around others. A mutual agreement to try our best, in a way.
2 months ago
Anonymous
Well evil being defined as being opposed and harmful to humanity is a thing.
2 months ago
Anonymous
Isn't this just utilitarianism by extension, though? Evil is bad ends regardless of means? Or is evil bad means AND bad ends independent of each other?
2 months ago
Anonymous
A utilitarian would probably declare that the murder of 200 babies that totally weren't liked is absolutely a good thing because it'll boost the longevity and efficiency of people who are liked and not a burden on a society by using stem cells and regenerative sciences. I consider the act of murdering 200 babies, either with malice or not, Evil, as you're murdering 200 babies. That the end result is positive or not is irrelevant, as a part of it is Evil and should be accepted as Evil as to not blind ourselves to the steps we take in the things we do.
I do not care if you sacrifice 100 people to curb the entire world hunger, you killed 100 people. If this is worth it or not is entirely up to you, but it is an evil act, supposedly done with good intentions. You can have bad intentions and do good, you can have good intentions and do evil, you can be neutral and live your life as you like and do either. But the actions we do can be summed up as Helpful for Humans, Neutral for Humans or Bad for Humans. I don't claim moral highground divination on if murdering 100 babies for stem cell research is going to be a boon to humanity or not, I'm just stating that murdering the 100 babies is Evil, alongside the termite infestation in the library and the wolves killing children.
I'm just an anonymous user online, not a philosopher. I don't claim to have it all cracked.
2 months ago
Anonymous
>Evil means Bad for Humans
No. A tornado is Bad for Humans, but not Evil. It just is. A mountain lion can be Bad for Humans, but it is merely a dangerous beast. Evil requires a thinking entity that actively chooses malice, that seeks out opportunities to be nasty.
Also, are we talking objective evil or subjective evil? Objective evil is that which remains evil even when you change your perspective, perhaps to that of a member of that threatening barbarian's tribe. Subjective evil is substantially easier to demonstrate.
2 months ago
Anonymous
We've already gone over this, you can do evil even without malice or any intent, positive or negative, and forces of nature can be evil, same with nature, same with people, same with actions of automata and more. Evil means Bad for Humans, and a tornado, when it harms humans, just is Bad for Humans. A mountain lion may have no ill intent in particular but is still Bad for Humans, and as such its actions are evil.
2 months ago
Anonymous
>No. A tornado is Bad for Humans, but not Evil. It just is.
Causing tornados on purpose is evil. Causing destruction is evil, tornados don't get a pass, it's just that D&D arbitrarily does not assign non-evil alignments to anything with an INT lower than 3.
NTA, but he's basically right, "evil" in D&D means "Having an INT of 3 or higher and doing things that are bad for humanoids".
2 months ago
Anonymous
Excuse me, I meant non-neutral, unintelligent things are always neutral (or unaligned, in 4e, but "unaligned" is much broader than neutral).
2 months ago
Anonymous
>Evil requires a thinking entity that actively chooses malice
Against who? > that seeks out opportunities to be nasty
Against who?
>You must kill these evil demonic cultists! >Actually just peasants minding their own business >Called evil cultists because they (correctly) recognize the god the powerful corrupt church worships as evil based on actual Scripture where he does evil stuff. >Land grab for neighboring nobles >Kill them all! God will sort out the heretics from the believers!
I'd play a campaign based on the albigensian crusade
Because they are just normal people who made a choice. They could have been good and may even do good things at times in their day to day life but ultimately made a conscious decision to pursue selfish power from inherently dangerous beings over all else.
And people think Steve Ditko had anything to do with what made Spider-Man good. According to his logic Peter deserves to die for being moderately selfish during his origin story.
I used to think so but that was because I was 12. "Black" and "white" do not exist in human form, they only exist as ideas that people strive for or compare themselves to. People are varying shades of grey, it's just that the varying shades matter a lot, lighter is good and darker is better.
Absolutely evil entities are great narratively because they expose the depth of how actually good OR evil your other characters are when pressured.
Absolute evils bring out the best in good characters by giving them something they pull out all the stops for. It's like the saying that proof of Satan is proof of God or whatever. Good characters are annoying because they're chivalrous, sympathetic, and empathetic, to pedestrian evils. Encountering something unquestionably & ostensibly evil should really invigorate somebody 'good'.
Absolute evil should also really stress-tests the moral compass of ambiguously or contextually evil characters. "Am I really THAT evil?", Absolute evil should really scrutinize and put a spotlight on why a 'normal' evil person does what they do. I think Miyazaki calls it a "smiling villain", but in the face of something ostensibly evil you should quickly find out if an evil character is actually just a cowardly, feeble, fricking worm- or somebody who'll truly just persist in their personal convictions no matter what.
I'm doing it intentionally to make you suffer, Mike. I want you to stop coming to game. We've had this talk before and now Lord Terror Von Puppykicker is on his way to rape your character's mother.
That's nonsense.
I'd anything lesser evils undermine every accomplishment of the heroes.
Every lesser evil they defeat and destroy represents a failure of the hero or heroes to reason with or redeem them.
I dont play games with narratives. I dont even play games with character creation. It all sucks. We just roll dice and then solve random low grade mathematical tasks with some rng in it for hours so we can experience the true game.
OK this IS SO HECKIN BASED!! Finally someone who understands what roleplaying GAMES are all about and doesn't fall for any of that cringe woke nonsense.
So true brother. REAL role players who actually UNDERSTAND THE RULES don't do any of that cringe s0i theater kid shit. Imagine thinking that rolling dice means you're supposed to have some kind of delusions or schizophrenic visions in your head. Storyshitters btfo!
So true brother. REAL role players who actually UNDERSTAND THE RULES don't do any of that cringe s0i theater kid shit. Imagine thinking that rolling dice means you're supposed to have some kind of delusions or schizophrenic visions in your head. Storyshitters btfo!
frick you schizo unironically eat a fricking bullet you're one of the banes of this fricking board with those threads you spammed endlessly for years on end if you died nobody would grieve for you they would only be thankful that you're finally out of their lives.
Absolute evils are great for combat fodder and situations when you don't wan't the players to go for a nonlethal option. Sparing the demon just gives it a chance to frick with you or betray you if you make a pact with it.
In any case an -absolute- good, evil or otherness should be beyond human comprehension and only tangentially observable (and not necessarily conforming to some mortal race's, let alone an individuals worldview). Different cosmologies work for different settings.
Mechanical alingment systems are mostly meaningless and even a child can circumvent them (or they become needlessly robust)
That depends entirely upon what the point of the narrative is. If you think a narrative needs to be realistic to be engaging, you are not interested in narrative, you are interested in simulation.
>If you prefer good narratives you're not interested in narratives
Grats anon, this almost on the level of "fun is a buzzword". You've got my vote for the next copypasta.
Pic related does the somewhat nuanced absolute evil surprisingly well in how it's writing and mechanics portray external ontological evil affecting complex men who have a choice but might find themselves in despair or unfortunate circumstances (player characters included).
Orcs are of course simply just sword fodder.
nooo anon you dont understand, the big bad is only bad because he was heckin abused by his father who had stunted emotions because of his relationship with HIS father who suffered from chronic ibs.
nooo anon you dont understand, the big bad is only bad because he was heckin abused by his father who had stunted emotions because of his relationship with HIS father who suffered from chronic ibs.
What happened to bad guys being bad guys because they are bad guys?
pic related is arguably pure evil, but in the context of the universe he's just selfish and afraid of death. pure evil characters rarely ever work in a serious setting. pure evils are just there so we can be okay with a character torturing another out of revenge.
They're israelites. They worship a demon who demands child blood sacrifice. Of course they're desperate to wriggle out of their responsibility for the evil they are at best a knowing party to and at worst directly involved in.
The truth is neither one of these is better or worse, both are good. It’s pretty clear which this dragon thinks is better, which shows he still has that trademark draconic pride. The source of his eventual downfall is clear and present
Tell it to John Milton, Homer, Shakespeare or any other literary genius. Just because you're sub-part at writing doesn't mean you can dismiss a trope or idea out of hand. That's how you get a reddit.
You mean the three literally geniuses who literally avoided modern "ultimate evil" trope? Come on, Shakespeare is literally world famous for his focus on personal motivations and character flaws over impersonal evil.
DESU, my knowledge of him is basically limited to Macbeth, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, which are specifically the character focused tragedies. All of these stories feature people who are evil, but their evil is born from combination of their personal flaws and personal, moral choices. Neither one of them features the "ultimate evil" villain.
Shakespeare went ham on villifying Richard III, because Richard was from House of York and Shakespeare wrote under patronage of House Tudor, it was a simple case of populist revisionism.
Well, I'm not sure what happened but somehow this forum script turned start of my sentence into "DESU" lol.
>somehow this forum script turned start of my sentence into "DESU" lol.
That makes sense. Still, I do consider Shakespeare one of the authors famous for writing characters who are evil due to their personal flaws and choices instead of being evil for evil's sake.
As a side note, is your pic from some Galko-chan doujin?
2 months ago
Anonymous
So, never read Othello, huh?
2 months ago
Anonymous
NTA, but what does Othello have to do with this?
2 months ago
Anonymous
You've never read othello either, huh.
2 months ago
Anonymous
Othello has clearly identifiable character flaw. He's statistically predetermined, one may almost say doomed, to violent crime.
As someone who has seen the completed Shakespeare canon, while Shakespeare did villains who had complex motivations, he also had plenty of ones which where motivated solely by evil or malice.
Perhaps the best example would be Honest Iago from Othello. He actually has several moments during the play were he attempts to justify all the horrible shit he is doing, but by the end he outright admits to himself that their is no true reason for him to make Othello suffer he just enjoys it and hates the guy. And even if you do take his stated motives at face value they ultimately boil down to nothing more than racism and jealousy. Others include Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It both having villains whose motivations can be summarized as "is a villain". And this isn't even getting into debates about how sympathetic some of Shakespeare's characters are actually meant to be and how much is more modern interpretation, Shylock from Merchant of Venice being a prime example.
Your mind is so poisoned that you can't even comprehend that the morality you are trying to defend is based on the concept of personal, moral choices. Your idea of "ultimate evil" is closer to Buddhism than western morality.
I'm not even a israelite. I just think that you are either a moron or schizo. A false witness that's either so dumb or delusional he believes his own lies. Again, morality you claim to defend condemns you.
NTA, but I don't even understand what this comment is supposed to mean. israelites are all about absolute morality. The typical accusation is their morality being myopic and self serving, but the idea that the might makes right is opposite of the typical accusations against them.
Why? Why is being born evil terrible? Think about it really what you are saying. Imagine having the choice not to be evil, but then going out of your way to commit it. War, Genocide, Segregation. Is that what you want OP? A world where people deliberately choose to be evil than it always being inside of them?
I'd rather be born of evil than make it of my own free will unlike you.
No amount of good redeems nor undoes your wrongdoings. Being born good and falling to evil or being born evil and turning good are both equally shit signs of weakness from untrustworthy people because if you turned once yo clearly can go back. Pick a single path and follow it thoroughly, narratively speaking.
glas this was posted as I am starting a UESTRPG campaign soon.
So I'm the DM, we have 2 players playing Khajiit as part of a caravan in Skyrim (a warrior and spellsword) , one player a Nord bard and one player a Breton Necromancer.
The Necromancer is a worshiper of Molag Bal and I have no idea how to run this campaign of "heroes" when I have a necromancer in the party.
ENTER the King of Rape
I bet he has a huge collection of hair.
>ENTER the King of Rape
Molag Bal isn't a counterargument, he's evil as frick and a mega bastard precisely BECAUSE he willingly and voluntarily chose to be the fricking biggest butthole in the universe. Nobody held a gun to his head and said "YOU MUST RAPE THEM NOW, MOLAG!" and he wasn't born from an Always Chaotic Evil Rapist species. He's just a fricking butthole.
People born from Always Chaotic Evil Rapist species are also fricking buttholes.
If you lack free will you lack the capacity to be considered evil or an butthole. That's a rapist robot programmed to frick your mouth and sodomize you, the guy who built it is evil but the robot itself is just that, a robot
>If you lack free will you lack the capacity to be considered evil or an butthole.
Ancient Greek Drama vehemently disagrees with you.
Hey sorry, what year is it?
>muh current year
The audacity staggers me
Depends if you are judging the intention or the outcome of an action.
Nope.
>be innately destructive
>love to destroy
>have no real will to stop being destructive
>somehow this means I cannot be considered destructive
Nah, in situations like this, in settings like this, an object can be an object of morality.
>Bob the Orc is evil
>Bob the Orc is the only evil orc, this means he has free will
>The exact same Bob the Orc, except that the other orcs are also evil, this means that Bob the Orc no longer has free will
Bob the Orc's life, personality, and nature have not changed any way, it is only your perception of him that has changed. I'm not going to say that "free will" doesn't exist, but I am gong to say that your concept of free will doesn't exist, this is not a rational analysis this is just something in your head.
I would assume bob the orc has free will and chooses to be evil and every other individual within his collective also chooses evil but that they ostensibly have the awareness to make that choice.
I agree with you
Things which cannot choose to be evil lack the awareness to be truly evil, other anons are too small brain to realize that that isn't justification for their actions.
A rat likely does not understand what it is doing when it shits all over your kitchen and tears holes in your ricebags, that doesn't mean it's not a pest to be removed at the soonest opportunity.
What a moronic post
>He chose to be an evil super rapists
>b-but that's different from absolute evil so its more sophisticated
Someone willingly choosing to do mass evil is as much an absolute evil as the mindless rape beast you dipshit
But that's true. Guy who chose to become a self styled lord of all rape is much more evil than a simple monster.
Okay.
Good and evil is absolute and it isn't arbitrary. Seeing low iq brains like yours destroyed by postmodernism is pitiful. Just stop thinking you've got anything smart to contribute and never post or talk again.
It's reality. You don't play a game called FANTASY without reason.
Good v evil is an absolute that absolutely demands a monotheistic worldview in which God can't be a deceiver.
>that absolutely demands a monotheistic worldview
And you were doing well
In the ancient world, every deity had their own right and wrong. How do you have laws of physics if every mythological power has their own set?
The laws of physics is the universal set of laws. It is the aspect of God.
What is Zoroastrianism for 500
Good and Evil are absolute, and you are Evil. Don't bother arguing, you are evil and everything you say can be dismissed.
you can't have good or evil without free will and therefore it isn't absolute.
You don't have free will and yet you do petty evil shit all day long. It could be argued that you npcs are absolute evil because you don't have free will, rather than in spite of it.
>you can't have good or evil without free will
What does that even mean?
NTA, but the whole western, Christian morality is based on the idea of personal moral choice. A being without free will isn't able to make moral choices, so it can't be judged as a moral agent.
Beings without free will can't be judged by moral standards based on personal choice. However, that doesn't mean that a being can't be destructive or bad.
If it isn't a moral agent, its a moral object. A being which then cannot choose but to be evil is not treated as a being, but it can still be evil regardless and be treated as a force or an object which causes evil things to happen. In practice, nothing changed, especially the evil it causes.
You're not giving anyone a gotcha moment, you're just moving the goalposts to "no we can't judge because its not a person", I'm just going to state then its an object because you've depersoned them. You can't really counter this because you yourself are telling they can't be judged as a person, so I'm just going to judge them as a force or object. And that force is evil.
He said it could be judged as bad or destructive but that's not the same thing as evil.
Termites start destroying your house. They're not evil, they're mindless, but they are destructive and a pest to be removed.
Obviously there's one path which this timeline goes along, but moral agents made the choice to be on board the train they're on, doesn't seem fair to judge those who are on board without a choice or ever even having been capable of making one.
I do think attaining perfect knowledge of the world around would potentially change the nature of some decisions, depending on what is revealed.
Evil effectively just means "Bad for Humans" in all ways that matter. Acts which ruin people, damage them, make them innefective, practices which are sadistic, unproductive and plainly fricking useless are Evil, because they're Bad for Humans.
A termite invasion is Evil. A termite invasion in a city, ruining a frickton of buildings including very important ones to production and caretaking, is Extremely Evil. I don't fricking care what your personal love for termites might be, they're Bad for Humans, they hurt us, it doesn't fricking matter if they're just getting food, a wolf murdering a 5 year old to get a snack is Evil too.
And in settings where Evil and Good are actual energies,actual realms and forces, a termite, for all it matters, is Evil in the context of a city. Because it is Bad for Humans.
>moral agents
Also relative. Dogs have moral agency relative to a dog's level, a dog that gets on the table and eats the bacon is a bad boy, a dog that doesn't is a good boy. But the dog's owner probably could have told you which was going to happen, that doesn't negate the dog's choice, it just means that the dog's choice exists on a lower level than human choices. We may not have moral agency relative to hyper-intelligent aliens, hyper-intelligent aliens may not have moral agency relative to God, and God may not have moral agency relative to its creator.
You're talking about a being that has human-level intelligence and a human-level capacity for self direction but which is inclined to do evil based on inborn traits and/or environment. On an individual level there are humans, orcs and demons who all fit that description, all of which have the same level of intelligence, all of which have the same capacity for self-direction. An butthole is an butthole. Human buttholes don't choose to be buttholes any more (or less) than demons do.
>I do think attaining perfect knowledge of the world around would potentially change the nature of some decisions, depending on what is revealed.
Sure, it has moral ramifications for the one with the knowledge, but not for the one being observed. The basic nature of your actions doesn't change based on whether or not you have an omniscient observer watching you.
Human buttholes certainly do choose to be buttholes
Some factors may nudge them in one direction or another but at the end of the day it is ultimately an individual's choice unless they're really just a meat-machine, at which point, I don't give a shit, we're all meatware anyways, do what benefits you most within your extremely limited capability to potentially nudge things in the direction your programming allows for
>Human buttholes certainly do choose to be buttholes
So do demons, so do orcs, an butthole is an butthole. The fact that they're all predisposed to be buttholes doesn't make them any different from a human that's predisposed to be an butthole.
To dig a little deeper, people make direct choices as they try to get to what they want, they don't directly choose what it is that they want.
I might be coming into the conversation late or maybe I replied into the chain incorrectly but yeah I don't disagree with the idea that demons or orcs or humans could have free will and be evil(depending on setting).
Some people do certainly choose to be malicious and sadistic to get what they want, I've seen people turn down opportunities to straight up have what they claim they want most because it wouldn't require other people to suffer or be forced to prostrate themselves to them.
>I might be coming into the conversation late or maybe I replied into the chain incorrectly but yeah I don't disagree with the idea that demons or orcs or humans could have free will and be evil(depending on setting).
Fair enough, it was probably a different guy who said that, but I still say that free will is a matter of perspective and thus isn't really relevant to a theoretical system of objective morality.
D&D says that you need at least 3 INT to be good or evil, which means that even mindless undead can have a neutral alignment depending on the edition (despite their innate tendency to kill the living for no reason). Frankly I think it would have been simpler to just apply the same standards to all creatures even if it meant that some predators detected as evil.
how can predetermined action be good or evil?
its just nature, programming, there's no intent or awareness to or behind it
is a lion evil when it kills one of its own kind?
is a fox good when it shares food with its family?
Predetermination is just a matter of perspective. Predicting the outcome of a thing doesn't change the nature of the thing. Attaining perfect knowledge of the world around you wouldn't change the nature of the world around you.
you're approaching "we're all atoms in motion, rocks and humans are carbon in different arrangements" skeptic idiocy at that point
a fox feeding foxes is Good for foxes. a lion killing lions is Bad for lions. Good and Bad then must have a point of reference.
we're all humans, so our point of reference is "for humans"
I don't understand how I'm approaching that.
I'm saying a calculator or an algorithm can not be a moral actor, that only a conscious being can be a moral actor.
If anything I'm on the opposite end of the humans are just material skepticism because I believe there is something more to man than just the wetware and it plays a part in the decisions men make.
What that something more is I don't quite have a clear answer on but I've yet to see anyone give something especially concrete an answer on it with objective proof to back it up.
Good for humans vs bad for humans is not a great measurement of morality in itself imo.
You seem to think I'm justifying the actions of termites or that I wouldn't see a wolf who killed a child executed. That's not the case, I'm just saying there likely wasn't malice in those actions, which is what defines evil.
What is good in a utilitarian sense isn't necessarily morally good either. If you need to rip the stem cells out of human children to create genetic modification technology that will ultimately end up saving many more humans than those who were murdered horrifically, that would be a net good for humanity, despite being, I would believe, morally abhorrent.
>I'm just saying there likely wasn't malice in those actions, which is what defines evil.
Incorrect. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, malice is not required for Evil, which again means Bad for Humans, you can do Evil without intending to do Evil and that has been true in every system of morality possible. You might not even understand you are doing Evil, you might be culturally insensitive to other people and their identification of Evil, your perception might be muddled and utterly ruined and you cannot even understand on a mere perceptual or cognitive level you are doing evil. It is often the case that malice is tied to it, but its not a need.
Evil means Bad for Humans. Ripping stem cells by the kilo out of abortion clinics you funded and encouraged because you wanted extra freedom for people who couldn't keep it in their pants is Evil. The fact you sell stem cells for treatment later doesn't make the act Not Evil, because you are still effectively murdering babies, if anything it makes it even more evil as its all economically fueled rather than even ideologically fueled in the sense of trying to heal people with a sacrifice, you're just being plain and sincere without even good intentions. The end result of the moral equation is still Evil, you're still encouraging the murder of innocents by the hundreds, who cares if you do it to heal a few.
In the long term, the health benefits and potential human ascension afforded by that slaughter will far outweigh it.
The industrial revolution overall was good for humanity's ability to continue its survival and advancement as a species, but many people died or were horrifically maimed during it, and many more lost their jobs and status as valued craftsmen.
If you murder hundreds of humans to save thousands of humans you have done good by the standard of is it good or bad for humans.
Maybe you even disagree with the examples I brought up, and I'm not trying to debate those, I'll even concede you're right about those things being bad if it rushes past that bit of conversation, I'm saying by the standard of good for humans or bad for humans, you can easily end up with scenarios that justify the murder of humans, so does that remain truly moral because it will benefit a greater amount of humans?
I do think malice is required to do evil, there's a reason why we judge manslaughter differently than murder, even if they're both awful.
I never said it wasn't going to be worth it in the end, I said it was Evil. You can do whatever justification or cognitive work of acrobatics to make anything fine and be justifiable for you, I'm not your moral guide, I'm just stating my truth which is contrary to yours.
Will it be worth it, will it not be worth it, I don't care because the base acts for it are Evil, meaning Bad for Humans. Intent is a *multiplier*, malice is intent, but Evil still exists in both as murdering or accidentally killing someone are both Bad for Humans. You're not actually contradicting anything I'm saying Anonymous, if anything, you're missing the point that my view's arguably more complex than yours.
I must admit I am totally and utterly missing your point, and it does seem far more complex than what I am espousing.
If bad is done to attain good it remains bad?
If good is done and attains bad, does it remain good?
The end result has no bearing despite the standard being good for humans = good and bad for humans = bad?
Is it what is good or bad for an individual human?
>Stating my truth which is contrary to yours
So morality is subjective? Sure, I can buy that I guess, but it throws out the previous standard of good vs bad for our group.
In our path to do good, we can do evil. In our path to do evil, we can do good. Our actions can also be neutral, irrelevant for context and others, but in the many steps we take on our paths, we must simply be aware that some stuff is in either of the three poles. Good, Neutral, Evil.
Intent is a multiplier, but Reality is what matters. When you hurt someone, that is Evil. That you hurt someone for your pleasure, for their pain, that *multiplies* the Evil. That a wolf does not intend to murder your child with glee does not absolve it from having committed Evil, because again, Evil is Bad for Humans, and the wolf has eaten a child.
Every step is its own step and should be calculated, NOT ignored. Murdering children is Evil, and to extract their cells is Neutral (they're dead, they don't need them), but then you decide to make research with an economic focus (Greed, negative intent) to try and heal people (A positive intent, even if still Greed is the focus). Every step mattered. Every step is calculated. You do not ignore that children are murdered, deprived of a life. You do not ignore the Greed, the wish to make money off this death. You do not ignore the Healing, how its going to some help. You calculate it, by admiring every single step, and making your own conclusion, never ignoring a single step and just saying it is or is not worth it. That is how you forgive atrocities, that is how you love murderers, that is how you forget reality and how muddied the water is.
I cannot calculate if, in the end, all these dead children will truly help us or if it will be just some hidden research for the Few. Thousands of lives wasted for gene therapies my son will never benefit from. I don't know if this will not unlock a better life, a better tommorow, cures for things which ruin lives. Neither can you, but you can calculate the steps to your knowledge and to your own multipliers of how much everything matters.
Some steps are just Bad for Humans however.
Honestly I can see where you're coming from and it does appeal to me so I'm inclined to agree with it though I'm still inclined to think of a murderous wolf as at most(unless it truly is cognizant in it's little dogbrain) as committing an evil action without being truly evil. But that might just be a personal thing so I'll concede here for the time being.
I will say, altogether, I appreciate your words here, I don't know why but they make me hopeful.
I'm glad to have cleared things up then Anonymous. I understand that the point was going to be fairly hard to grasp without me laying it all out, so I do appreciate your curiosity and will to listen and read it to understand it then. Minor disagreements over the details are fine, not exactly proselytizing a pure faith in here, it'd be kind of tactless or just plain rude.
I think your hope is due to the discussion itself, both its nature and its content. The fact you and I talked with one another without devolving into insults in whats clearly a substandard quality thread and reached an understanding is itself great, but I think there's also something to the fact that the morality system presented refuses to ignore the nature of some acts as excusable and insists on accounting for everything and to make your own judgement. I've been presented with parts of this myself and it was reassuring to know that out there, people still calculated it all, remembered reality, the true harm of some actions and didn't excuse atrocities executed or to be executed on flimsy excuses and structurally unsound arguments.
Might be wrong, but seeing responsibility and civility are things that have always given me hope when I'm around others. A mutual agreement to try our best, in a way.
Well evil being defined as being opposed and harmful to humanity is a thing.
Isn't this just utilitarianism by extension, though? Evil is bad ends regardless of means? Or is evil bad means AND bad ends independent of each other?
A utilitarian would probably declare that the murder of 200 babies that totally weren't liked is absolutely a good thing because it'll boost the longevity and efficiency of people who are liked and not a burden on a society by using stem cells and regenerative sciences. I consider the act of murdering 200 babies, either with malice or not, Evil, as you're murdering 200 babies. That the end result is positive or not is irrelevant, as a part of it is Evil and should be accepted as Evil as to not blind ourselves to the steps we take in the things we do.
I do not care if you sacrifice 100 people to curb the entire world hunger, you killed 100 people. If this is worth it or not is entirely up to you, but it is an evil act, supposedly done with good intentions. You can have bad intentions and do good, you can have good intentions and do evil, you can be neutral and live your life as you like and do either. But the actions we do can be summed up as Helpful for Humans, Neutral for Humans or Bad for Humans. I don't claim moral highground divination on if murdering 100 babies for stem cell research is going to be a boon to humanity or not, I'm just stating that murdering the 100 babies is Evil, alongside the termite infestation in the library and the wolves killing children.
I'm just an anonymous user online, not a philosopher. I don't claim to have it all cracked.
>Evil means Bad for Humans
No. A tornado is Bad for Humans, but not Evil. It just is. A mountain lion can be Bad for Humans, but it is merely a dangerous beast. Evil requires a thinking entity that actively chooses malice, that seeks out opportunities to be nasty.
Also, are we talking objective evil or subjective evil? Objective evil is that which remains evil even when you change your perspective, perhaps to that of a member of that threatening barbarian's tribe. Subjective evil is substantially easier to demonstrate.
We've already gone over this, you can do evil even without malice or any intent, positive or negative, and forces of nature can be evil, same with nature, same with people, same with actions of automata and more. Evil means Bad for Humans, and a tornado, when it harms humans, just is Bad for Humans. A mountain lion may have no ill intent in particular but is still Bad for Humans, and as such its actions are evil.
>No. A tornado is Bad for Humans, but not Evil. It just is.
Causing tornados on purpose is evil. Causing destruction is evil, tornados don't get a pass, it's just that D&D arbitrarily does not assign non-evil alignments to anything with an INT lower than 3.
NTA, but he's basically right, "evil" in D&D means "Having an INT of 3 or higher and doing things that are bad for humanoids".
Excuse me, I meant non-neutral, unintelligent things are always neutral (or unaligned, in 4e, but "unaligned" is much broader than neutral).
>Evil requires a thinking entity that actively chooses malice
Against who?
> that seeks out opportunities to be nasty
Against who?
Nope it's completely relative the only thing that defines good and evil is popularity and might to enforce it. That's it.
If that's true then why are demon cults so kino to put to the sword?
>You must kill these evil demonic cultists!
>Actually just peasants minding their own business
>Called evil cultists because they (correctly) recognize the god the powerful corrupt church worships as evil based on actual Scripture where he does evil stuff.
>Land grab for neighboring nobles
>Kill them all! God will sort out the heretics from the believers!
I'd play a campaign based on the albigensian crusade
Because they are just normal people who made a choice. They could have been good and may even do good things at times in their day to day life but ultimately made a conscious decision to pursue selfish power from inherently dangerous beings over all else.
Basest man on the thread rn
Anon those are Cathars
>narrative
It's a game not a novel.
Sir, this is the traditional GAMING board. If you want to discuss writing, please frick off to Ganker and stay there.
Yeah we heard you the first time
>narrative
>narrative
>narrative
Frick narrativegays
You might be on the spectrum.
Then start listening
Stop being wrong.
Yeah, but you can't really run a game without the PCs, so just accept their existence in the setting.
>narratively
Good thing we're not reading a book, but playing a game, moron.
Also, you're wrong, but that is beside the point.
Absolutely 10/10.
Really good argument
And people think Steve Ditko had anything to do with what made Spider-Man good. According to his logic Peter deserves to die for being moderately selfish during his origin story.
He was an objectivist self-interests wasent a big deal commie
I used to think so but that was because I was 12. "Black" and "white" do not exist in human form, they only exist as ideas that people strive for or compare themselves to. People are varying shades of grey, it's just that the varying shades matter a lot, lighter is good and darker is better.
Death to all moderates!
I'm here to roll dice and kill dragons, you can keep your narrative
Good thing I'm playing a game and not writing a book.
Skyrim is terrible narratively.
>Absolute evils are terrible narratively
Absolutely evil entities are great narratively because they expose the depth of how actually good OR evil your other characters are when pressured.
Absolute evils bring out the best in good characters by giving them something they pull out all the stops for. It's like the saying that proof of Satan is proof of God or whatever. Good characters are annoying because they're chivalrous, sympathetic, and empathetic, to pedestrian evils. Encountering something unquestionably & ostensibly evil should really invigorate somebody 'good'.
Absolute evil should also really stress-tests the moral compass of ambiguously or contextually evil characters. "Am I really THAT evil?", Absolute evil should really scrutinize and put a spotlight on why a 'normal' evil person does what they do. I think Miyazaki calls it a "smiling villain", but in the face of something ostensibly evil you should quickly find out if an evil character is actually just a cowardly, feeble, fricking worm- or somebody who'll truly just persist in their personal convictions no matter what.
14thpbp
If you have absolute evil you don’t also have relative evil, so this falls apart immediately.
I don’t think you understand what “evil” is or that there are different types and definitions of “evil.”
completely untrue
Elaborate, moron.
rare good /tg/ post
I'm doing it intentionally to make you suffer, Mike. I want you to stop coming to game. We've had this talk before and now Lord Terror Von Puppykicker is on his way to rape your character's mother.
That's nonsense.
I'd anything lesser evils undermine every accomplishment of the heroes.
Every lesser evil they defeat and destroy represents a failure of the hero or heroes to reason with or redeem them.
Terrible narratives are absolutely evil
wow careful we need some mitts to handle this piping hot opinion
>knuckle dragging moron opinion
>posts a vidyaslop screenshot
Checks out
I dont play games with narratives. I dont even play games with character creation. It all sucks. We just roll dice and then solve random low grade mathematical tasks with some rng in it for hours so we can experience the true game.
OK this IS SO HECKIN BASED!! Finally someone who understands what roleplaying GAMES are all about and doesn't fall for any of that cringe woke nonsense.
seething storyshitter lol
Another storyshitting thread
So true brother. REAL role players who actually UNDERSTAND THE RULES don't do any of that cringe s0i theater kid shit. Imagine thinking that rolling dice means you're supposed to have some kind of delusions or schizophrenic visions in your head. Storyshitters btfo!
have a nice day along with your shit forced meme.
stop seething and stop storyshitting then
frick you schizo unironically eat a fricking bullet you're one of the banes of this fricking board with those threads you spammed endlessly for years on end if you died nobody would grieve for you they would only be thankful that you're finally out of their lives.
seething storyshitter
seething storyshitter wow
Absolute evils are great for combat fodder and situations when you don't wan't the players to go for a nonlethal option. Sparing the demon just gives it a chance to frick with you or betray you if you make a pact with it.
In any case an -absolute- good, evil or otherness should be beyond human comprehension and only tangentially observable (and not necessarily conforming to some mortal race's, let alone an individuals worldview). Different cosmologies work for different settings.
Mechanical alingment systems are mostly meaningless and even a child can circumvent them (or they become needlessly robust)
No.
That depends entirely upon what the point of the narrative is. If you think a narrative needs to be realistic to be engaging, you are not interested in narrative, you are interested in simulation.
>If you prefer good narratives you're not interested in narratives
Grats anon, this almost on the level of "fun is a buzzword". You've got my vote for the next copypasta.
Then don't put them in the book you're writing.
huehuehue
>Simple evil is bad story
>Complex evil is good story
Not only is this wrong it is only believed by idiots who can't make either work.
Complex evil always just means said evil has material conditions that benefit being evil that’s not even complex that’s the simplest 1+1=2
Write a book, you hack.
Pic related does the somewhat nuanced absolute evil surprisingly well in how it's writing and mechanics portray external ontological evil affecting complex men who have a choice but might find themselves in despair or unfortunate circumstances (player characters included).
Orcs are of course simply just sword fodder.
No they’re based because they give you something you have to destroy to save the world
nooo anon you dont understand, the big bad is only bad because he was heckin abused by his father who had stunted emotions because of his relationship with HIS father who suffered from chronic ibs.
What happened to bad guys being bad guys because they are bad guys?
You don't need an epic sob story to be evil.
Absolute evils are narrative and gameplay tools. No more, no less.
pic related is arguably pure evil, but in the context of the universe he's just selfish and afraid of death. pure evil characters rarely ever work in a serious setting. pure evils are just there so we can be okay with a character torturing another out of revenge.
Not really. People coping that the absolute evil isn't actually absolute evil is interesting.
They're israelites. They worship a demon who demands child blood sacrifice. Of course they're desperate to wriggle out of their responsibility for the evil they are at best a knowing party to and at worst directly involved in.
Me when I’m schizophrenic
The truth is neither one of these is better or worse, both are good. It’s pretty clear which this dragon thinks is better, which shows he still has that trademark draconic pride. The source of his eventual downfall is clear and present
You’re wrong.
Tell it to John Milton, Homer, Shakespeare or any other literary genius. Just because you're sub-part at writing doesn't mean you can dismiss a trope or idea out of hand. That's how you get a reddit.
You mean the three literally geniuses who literally avoided modern "ultimate evil" trope? Come on, Shakespeare is literally world famous for his focus on personal motivations and character flaws over impersonal evil.
I'm not well versed in classic English literature, but wasn't Shakespeare's take on Richard III pretty much the "ultimate evil"?
DESU, my knowledge of him is basically limited to Macbeth, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, which are specifically the character focused tragedies. All of these stories feature people who are evil, but their evil is born from combination of their personal flaws and personal, moral choices. Neither one of them features the "ultimate evil" villain.
Well, I'm not sure what happened but somehow this forum script turned start of my sentence into "DESU" lol.
Shakespeare went ham on villifying Richard III, because Richard was from House of York and Shakespeare wrote under patronage of House Tudor, it was a simple case of populist revisionism.
>somehow this forum script turned start of my sentence into "DESU" lol.
That makes sense. Still, I do consider Shakespeare one of the authors famous for writing characters who are evil due to their personal flaws and choices instead of being evil for evil's sake.
As a side note, is your pic from some Galko-chan doujin?
So, never read Othello, huh?
NTA, but what does Othello have to do with this?
You've never read othello either, huh.
Othello has clearly identifiable character flaw. He's statistically predetermined, one may almost say doomed, to violent crime.
Lurk more, newbie.
You see, I've been there for years and it only happened once during this time.
It's kind of impressive to be able to pay so little attention.
As someone who has seen the completed Shakespeare canon, while Shakespeare did villains who had complex motivations, he also had plenty of ones which where motivated solely by evil or malice.
Perhaps the best example would be Honest Iago from Othello. He actually has several moments during the play were he attempts to justify all the horrible shit he is doing, but by the end he outright admits to himself that their is no true reason for him to make Othello suffer he just enjoys it and hates the guy. And even if you do take his stated motives at face value they ultimately boil down to nothing more than racism and jealousy. Others include Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It both having villains whose motivations can be summarized as "is a villain". And this isn't even getting into debates about how sympathetic some of Shakespeare's characters are actually meant to be and how much is more modern interpretation, Shylock from Merchant of Venice being a prime example.
Your mind is so poisoned that you can't even comprehend that the morality you are trying to defend is based on the concept of personal, moral choices. Your idea of "ultimate evil" is closer to Buddhism than western morality.
I'm not even a israelite. I just think that you are either a moron or schizo. A false witness that's either so dumb or delusional he believes his own lies. Again, morality you claim to defend condemns you.
israelite
NTA, but I don't even understand what this comment is supposed to mean. israelites are all about absolute morality. The typical accusation is their morality being myopic and self serving, but the idea that the might makes right is opposite of the typical accusations against them.
Why? Why is being born evil terrible? Think about it really what you are saying. Imagine having the choice not to be evil, but then going out of your way to commit it. War, Genocide, Segregation. Is that what you want OP? A world where people deliberately choose to be evil than it always being inside of them?
I'd rather be born of evil than make it of my own free will unlike you.
What about beings of absolute corruption instead, who twist everything they come into contact with, can they be done well narratively?
There's room for absolutionism and room for nuance in stories. Stop acting like one is objectively worse than the other.
No amount of good redeems nor undoes your wrongdoings. Being born good and falling to evil or being born evil and turning good are both equally shit signs of weakness from untrustworthy people because if you turned once yo clearly can go back. Pick a single path and follow it thoroughly, narratively speaking.
glas this was posted as I am starting a UESTRPG campaign soon.
So I'm the DM, we have 2 players playing Khajiit as part of a caravan in Skyrim (a warrior and spellsword) , one player a Nord bard and one player a Breton Necromancer.
The Necromancer is a worshiper of Molag Bal and I have no idea how to run this campaign of "heroes" when I have a necromancer in the party.
Any advice?