Would you allow this paladin in your game? (new fiction added 11/11/08)

[Sigg]

As others have said, my only real problem with this paladin concept is his extreme cynicism coupled with his severe lack of humility. Why would a god choose as his/her champion a man who has no faith in their patronage? Then, not only does he display an appalling lack of faith, but then he gives the patron no credit for his successes and accompishments. He sounds more like Conan than Paksenarrion.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I do not believe women should be objectified, at least, not more than they want to be. This last part is relevant in my opinion. I have a friend who was a stripper in university. It is how she chose to pay her way through university. She went to law school. She only stripped for 2 years, as after the initial 2 years, she was on scholarship, but she still dropped in occasionally for a little money, or to see old friends. She told me between stripping for hundreds an hour and Subway for 60 a day, she'd take stripping any day. Plus, as something of an exhibitionist, she found it fun, and exciting. She wasnt abused, raped, or beaten, she made good money, and people saw her naked. If she was demeaned, it was no more demeaning than she chose it to be. She wasnt touched in ways she didnt want. She made good money. People like you, of course, insult her, and all she stands for, in the interest of "The betterment of society."

This is kind of a sticky situation, and is rather part of this discussion. IMHO, people who demean themselves shouldn't be insulted, they should be helped, pitied. This is because I believe that people can be "enslaved" internally as well as externally. People who objectify themselves, no matter how much they will argue otherwise, see themselves as an object. This isn't a very healthy image as it tends to devalue your place in the world.

I don't want to live in a society where a portion of its members don't even care about themselves (yes, I'm aware I already DO live in such a society).

How this relates to this discussion? It has to do with Honor, which is one of the tennents of the Paladin's code. Honor is about doing what is "right", even if there are easier ways, even if ways that might not be evil or chaotic are available, if the act is in question, it should be done.

For instance, in a society, it might be considered commonplace to ask a woman's father for her hand in marriage before marrying her. It might not be illegal not to, it certainly isn't evil not to. However, it shows a lack of honor, which a Paladin must display. This means honoring themselves, honoring traditions, and honouring the people around them. Treating tham all with respect, dignity, and valuing them all as people. Staring at someone's naked body isn't valuing them as a person, it is valuing them as an object. It is removing half of the person (their mind/soul).

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I actually do have another problem with the Paladin, that is his cynism. In a mod, by Monte Cook, there is a Paladin who has almost lost his powers because he doesn't believe that his god will lead him to victory and since he believes he is doomed, he spends most of his time sitting around in a tavern, drinking. He has heard there is evil around, and he makes some basic inquiries, but he knows that he's just going to die one day eventually, so why try too hard to find his death. His god believes this is a lack of trust in him, so has almost removed his powers.

Basically, I see a Paladin needs to have faith that his god will bring him through anything. There was a good D&D novel about this. Just imagine how you would feel if you went through life knowing that you were a chosen of a god, and that the god followed you around wherever you went, answering your call for power whenever you asked for it. You just need to put your hands on people and your god heals them. A few choice words and your sword is filled with the righteous fury of a GOD. You feel his calming influence in your mind at all times. He protects you from spells and diseases. Now, if you could walk around 24 hours a day with these powers at your disposal and knowing that your god watches your every move and if you do the wrong thing, you may lose them forever. Would you doubt your god? Would you think even for a second he'd let you fall? You are an example for others, they look up to you, would you let them down?

This is what being a Paladin is about.

 

[ThoughtfulOwl]

I actually do have another problem with the Paladin, that is his cynism.

...

Basically, I see a Paladin needs to have faith that his god will bring him through anything.

There is a far cry between cynism and realism.
Cedric is realistic: he doesn't step down from his duty at all; he is just smart enough to realize that said duty is an uphill battle and that at some point he won't manage to beat the odds. That said, there is nothing in the initial writeup suggesting that he is trying to take less risks to prolong his life; to the contrary, he keeps up the fight despite the risks involved, because he believes that it's the right thing to do.

Frankly, if I were a LG deity in a D&D world I would trust much more a champion like Cedric that is willing to do the right thing no matter how desperate or hopeless it looks, than one who needs a naive belief that 'good always wins in the end and my god will always save my back' to keep going. The latter's self confidence will shatter at the first major defeat, leaving a road open for temptation and fall; Cedric would just grit his teeth and redouble his efforts.

 

[Voadam]

Now, if you could walk around 24 hours a day with these powers at your disposal and knowing that your god watches your every move and if you do the wrong thing, you may lose them forever. Would you doubt your god? Would you think even for a second he'd let you fall?

Paladins fall in battle all the time.

Paladins can fall from grace with one action.

Why would a paladin think his god wouldn't let him fall? It is his job to enter battles where he could fall. With one misstep he knows he will be stripped of his powers and be fallen. Sounds to me that it is reasonable to think the god will let him fall.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I am not sure if this has been said before, as I am too lazy to read the whole thread. But isn't part of the Paladin deal a spiffy afterlife in some equivalent of the Seven Heavens? Would that not make the "gonna die real soon" part easier to bear?

Depends on the game world, doesn't it? In my languishing homebrew, the dead go to a place where they slowly fade away as they are forgotten in the world, including the paladin dead... unless they were very memorable people, who have a different fate.

Of course, even in a world where there is such a guarantee for the paladin who dies with a free soul, but there's also the possibilty that in the course of his duty a paladin could be soul trapped or somesuch by some demonic minion of the god of awkward conversation and unpleasant chairs.

That makes for a less idyllic afterlife, no?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...This is what being a Paladin is about.

Sounds like you're offering up a much more omnipotent sort of god than D&D typically posits. In a D&D world, Cedric's god is most definitely NOT the only game in town. There are numerous entities just as powerful as Cedric's god (and probably several more powerful) who would quite enjoy eating Cedric's liver for breakfast. And very often, Cedric's god isn't going to be able to do anything about it.

Being a paladin in such a world is not about believing really, really hard in nonsense. It's about knowing exactly how bad the evil outside the door is, and charging out at it anyway.

And if a paladin finds some cash out there smiting evil, and decides to spread it around among the poorer side of the community directly, rather than giving it to the church, which will take 80% of it and go buy a really impressive hat for Archbishop Jerkwater before maybe getting around to giving a pittance to the poor... more power to him. He's acting compassionately, and with a nice Lawful efficiency.

And if a paladin manages to crawl home of sound body after smiting that evil, and he doesn't have a marriage bed to crawl into, let him crawl into whatever bed is most comfortable, with these two caveats: 1) it's not someone else's marriage bed, 2) he jumps back out of it right quick if another evil comes around the door.

That completely fits the RAW of both the paladin's code AND the definition of Lawful Good. If someone has rewritten those definitions for their game, that's a different story. And generally a good idea, anyway, IMO. The RAW defintions of those make my hands twitch.

And to address the objectification thing again.... load of pop psychology claptrap. And I know from psychological claptrap. Sometime in the next few years I'm going to have a doctorate labeled "Behavioral and Evolutionary Neuroscience."

Yes, yes, I know the validity of credentials on the internet. I'm also an astronaut, you know. And I make the world's best pina coladas.

This might lead outside the boundaries of the board rules, but can anyone who believes in it give me a decent operational definition of objectification?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This might lead outside the boundaries of the board rules, but can anyone who believes in it give me a decent operational definition of objectification?

As an aside, I've always defined it as treating someone as an object. For instance, you understand that a pen is for writing and you are more than willing to pick it up and use it to do so whenever you want because it doesn't have feelings or desires. If you need to write something, you find the nearest pen and use it to write.

A similar thing with people. If you objectify them, you don't care about THEM as a person, you could care less about their feelings or desires. If you need sex, you find the nearest woman that you are willing to tolerate and use them to have sex. Obviously, they have to at least somewhat agree. However, since, in my experience, people with low self esteem are good at fooling themselves into believing they are in love with people in order to get around their own morals.

This is off topic slightly, but I'd like to say that in my (limited) experience that women who have low self esteem and feel bad with their own self image turn to sex as a form of making themselves feel needed. If a man wants them, it makes them feel special. I assume it works the same with low self esteem men, although I don't have experience with that.

So far my experience is with a couple of women who felt they should wait until marriage to have sex, or at least for someone they really, really loved. Then, things happened in their life to make them depressed, and then they tried to commit suicide, then after they "recovered", they felt that sex should be with as many people as possible. It may be that since I've managed to have...a couple of these experiences that it may be colouring my view.

 

[The Sigil]

IN this sense, I think the first definition of "Objectification" from dictionary.com works just fine: "To present or regard as an object."

We do not (usually) get into relationships with objects (when we do, a "personification" has developed - we treat that old car or the dearly loved teddy bear as a person with whom we have a relationship). In other words, objects are easily replaced with no remorse or emotional attachment provided the function is the same - if I need to write something down, I will pick any pen & paper provided they provide enough function (i.e., the paper is big enough to contain what I need to write and the pen lets ink flow freely).

When Person A regards Person B as an object, the relationship (in the eyes of Person A) is all about "does this person satisfy the function I desire" and nothing else - in the example at hand (women), "objectifying women" would be (to use a fark-ism) to look at a woman and say, "I'd hit it!" Any sufficiently attractive woman can easily be interchanged for the present partner because it's not about HER so much as it is about the functionality you desire - the sex.

I'd post a longer explanation because I know everyone's going to nit-pick and parse every word of this, but I don't have time. But basically, objectification boils down to, "do you care about HER" or do you only care about "what she can do for/to you?" If it's the latter, and she can easily be replaced by any other female of similar physical specifications willing to do the same things for/to you, you've objectified her. An easy example, IMO, is porn - my guess is that the appeal of the centerfolds is the titillation of the images (in which case one centerfold is as good as the next), and not in the discovery that "hey, she likes sunsets, dark chocolate, and listening to Mozart's Requiem just like I do! I wonder what I can do to make her life more enjoyable."

--The Sigil

 

[ZuulMoG]

The only way this character is a paladin in my game is as a CG or CE paladin of the god or goddess of love/hedonism.

A Lawful Good paladin is Lawful AND Good. Legalising prostitution doesn't make it right.