D&D 5E Why is animate dead considered inherently evil?

[Tolerable Tyrant]

I'm having a troublesome time understanding why the animate dead spell is considered evil. When I read the manual it states that the spall imbues the targeted corpse with a foul mimicry of life, implying that the soul is not a sentient being who is trapped in a decaying corpse. Rather, the spell does exactly what its title suggests, it only animates the corps. Now of course one could use the spell to create zombies that would hunt and kill humans, but by that same coin, they could create a labor force that needs no form of sustenance (other than for the spell to be recast of course). There have also been those who have said "the spell is associated with the negative realm which is evil", however when you ask someone why the negative realm is bad that will say "because it is used for necromancy", I'm sure you can see the fallacy in this argument.

However, I must take into account that I have only looked into the DnD magic system since yesterday so there are likely large gaps in my knowledge. PS(Apon further reflection I've decided that the animate dead spell doesn't fall into the school of necromancy, as life is not truly given to the corps, instead I believe this would most likely fall into the school of transmutation.) PPS(I apologize for my sloppy writing, I've decided I'm feeling too lazy to correct it.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

If one wants necromancy to be inherently evil it is good idea to add some sort of metaphysical drawback like suggested here in some posts. Zombies being somewhat dangerous if the operator screws up really doesn't rise to the level of inherent evil to me.

Reposted from earlier-

Okay, let's see. Here's 10 (I only needed 10) quotes from the PHB. Read them together and see what you think.

1. School of Necromancy (PHB 118)
"Most people see necromancers as menacing, or even villainous, due to the close association with death. Not all necromancers are evil, but the forces they manipulate are considered taboo by many societies."

2. School of Magic (PHB 203)
"Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act, and only evil casters use such spells frequently."

3. Animate Dead Spell (PHB 212-13)
"Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature. ... The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you’ve given it."

(note that if you are creating zombies and skeletons, you are creating evil creatures where there were none ... you are not summoning or binding already existing critters)

4. Druids (PHB 65)
"Druids accept that which is cruel in nature, and they hate that which is unnatural, including aberrations (such as beholders and mind flayers) and undead (such as zombies and vampires)."

5. Paladins (PHB 82, 84, 86)
"Even so, their martial skills are secondary to the magical power they wield: power to heal the sick and injured, to smite the wicked and the undead ... The presence of strong evil registers on your senses like a noxious odor, and powerful good rings like heavenly music in your ears. As an action, you can open your awareness to detect such forces. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any celestial, fiend, or undead ... As an action, you present your holy symbol and speak a prayer censuring fiends and undead ..."

6. Detect Evil and Good (PHB 231)
"For the duration, you know if there is an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead within 30 feet of you ..."

7. Hallow (PHB 249)
"Everlasting Rest. Dead bodies interred in the area can’t be turned into undead."

8. Raise Dead (PHB 270)
"The spell can’t return an undead creature to life."

9. Resurrection (PHB 272)
"You touch a dead creature that has been dead for no more than a century, that didn’t die of old age, and that isn’t undead."

10. Negative Plane (PHB 300)
"Like a dome above the other planes, the Positive Plane is the source of radiant energy and the raw life force that suffuses all living beings, from the puny to the sublime. Its dark reflection is the Negative Plane, the source of necrotic energy that destroys the living and animates the undead."


So, does a necromancer absolutely have to be evil? No. It's says so. But ... repeatedly animating the dead is evil, because:
A. It's taboo in most societies; and
B. It violated the bodily autonomy of the individual (in a world where there is certainly an afterlife); and
C. It prevents the person from being raised; and
D. It creates an evil being where none existed before; and
E. It uses the energy of the Negative Material Plane, which is NOT GOOD BOB; and
F. Read in its entirety (including the existence of spells to prevent people from coming in and raising the dead) it's clear that the base rules strongly mean that animating the dead ... aka, creating evil creatures to serve your bidding and keeping those people from ever having the chance to live again, not to mention not getting their consent, is an evil act.

You are welcome to modify your campaign world so that this isn't the case, and you're welcome to ignore ideas like what constitutes "good" or "evil" (or even having those ideas), but that's the base rules.

 

[Maxperson]

What other purpose do fireball, cloudkill or a longsword have than to kill people? In fact it is far easier to invent non killy uses for zombies than for those. You can have zombie miners, zombie firefighters, etc. A lot of spells and and implements in D&D are designed mainly to harm sentient creatures. There is a weird double standard going on here.

The difference is that none of those are evilly aligned and run around engaging in murder sprees when you die or if you fail to do something every 24 hours. Unlike zombies, those are simply tools.

 

[Maxperson]

Does that make fireball not evil then? How many people it's likely to kill?

The fireball can never be evil. It has no alignment and can make no choices. Only the user can be good or evil, or engage in good or evil acts with it. Skeletons and zombies on the other hand are evilly aligned intelligent beings who themselves revel in murdering the living.

 

[Maxperson]

Slavery is evil because it harms actual people. You don't need gods or overgods to tell you that. And the Aerenal elf example was about an actual culture from Eberron, an official D&D setting. The undead elves of the Undying Court canonically are not evil.

Even if true, it doesn't change anything. A setting or creatures that creates a specific exception does not alter the default assumption of the game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So, does a necromancer absolutely have to be evil? No. It's says so. But ... repeatedly animating the dead is evil, because:
A. It's taboo in most societies; and
B. It violated the bodily autonomy of the individual (in a world where there is certainly an afterlife); and
C. It prevents the person from being raised; and
D. It creates an evil being where none existed before; and
E. It uses the energy of the Negative Material Plane, which is NOT GOOD BOB; and
F. Read in its entirety (including the existence of spells to prevent people from coming in and raising the dead) it's clear that the base rules strongly mean that animating the dead ... aka, creating evil creatures to serve your bidding and keeping those people from ever having the chance to live again, not to mention not getting their consent, is an evil act.

Making the dead person more difficult to be resurrect is only one of these that the sort of metaphysical drawback I mean. And that's very 1% problem, as no one was going to resurrect some poor peon in the first place. Rest is just judgemental language to make it sound scary and nasty. Evil energy from evil plane of evilness creating evil creatures is just meaningless nonsense. It doesn't really matter if you were killed by a zombie that accidentally got loose or a fire started by a careless fireball; you're dead in either case (and fire might destroy your body, making resurrection more difficult.)

 

[DavyGreenwind]

I'm having a troublesome time understanding why the animate dead spell is considered evil

Doesn't the spellcaster eventually lose control over the monster? Then you literally have a flesh-eating zombie or murderous skeleton wandering around. Maybe some individual Necromancers could be trusted to animate responsibly, but widespread use of these spells would definitely lead to a bunch of zombies killing and eating people, which is...
Evil?

 

[Maxperson]

If one wants necromancy to be inherently evil it is good idea to add some sort of metaphysical drawback like suggested here in some posts. Zombies being somewhat dangerous if the operator screws up really doesn't rise to the level of inherent evil to me.

Not if, but when the caster screws up. He will die eventually, even if he somehow amazingly never messes up the 24 hour thing. The screw up is inevitable. The monsters he created by using the energy of death to create evil semi-intelligent beings will one day get loose and start trying to murder people.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Doesn't the spellcaster eventually lose control over the monster?

No. If the spell is about to run out and you don't want to renew it, then you can just order the zombie to stand still as you blast it to pieces with your cantrips. Now not properly disposing your unneeded zombies would indeed be criminally negligent.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Making the dead person more difficult to be resurrect is only one of these that the sort of metaphysical drawback I mean. And that's very 1% problem, as no one was going to resurrect some poor peon in the first place. Rest is just judgemental language to make it sound scary and nasty. Evil energy from evil plane of evilness creating evil creatures is just meaningless nonsense. It doesn't really matter if you were killed by a zombie that accidentally got loose or a fire started by a careless fireball; you're dead in either case (and fire might destroy your body, making resurrection more difficult.)

You're missing a big part here. Intentionality.

Two mages cast a fireball. One casts a fireball to save a orphanage from a bunch of evil brainsuckers.
The other casts the fireball at the orphanage for giggles.

Both are fireballs. Both cause death. One is evil, the other isn't.

The argument that necromancy is almost always evil comes from that intentionality standpoint. It's not a tool.

You are-
1. Using evil power.
2. Animating corpses without the consent of the person.
3. Forever ensuring that person cannot be brought back.
4. Engaging in slavery. That is what you are doing, by the way.
5. And loosing that evil thing upon the world. Sure, it's under your control. But any loss of control, and you've unleashed it.

And the more you do it, the more likely (5) is going to happen. It's a numbers game, because no one is perfect. Look, I've said this before- you want to change the defaults, feel free. You want to create a Constantine-type Necromancer that understands that his power comes with a cost, and makes that bargain? Sure. Knock yourself out. But the idea that necromancy is not an evil act, in the base rules ... that doesn't fly. Arguments about fireballs and so on are just sophistry.

If you don't like the way that this is presented, change it. Make yourself a LG necromancer that just robs graves for the good guys. It's your game. But don't try to tell the rest of us that necromancy is the same as a fireball, because that's not what the rules say.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You're missing a big part here. Intentionality.

Two mages cast a fireball. One casts a fireball to save a orphanage from a bunch of evil brainsuckers.
The other casts the fireball at the orphanage for giggles.

Both are fireballs. Both cause death. One is evil, the other isn't.

The argument that necromancy is almost always evil comes from that intentionality standpoint. It's not a tool.

I agree it is about intentionality.

1. Using evil power.

That's a meaningless tautology.

2. Animating corpses without the consent of the person.

Not necessarily. In culture where necromancy was not seen as evil people might consent to being raised. Furthermore, whilst I think that utilising one's corpse without their consent is morally questionable, I don't think it is a massive sin. I just recently visited a museum which displayed remains of long dead people. They had not consented to this.

3. Forever ensuring that person cannot be brought back.

Which I admitted is a drawback. Though like I said, not a genuine one unless someone was going to raise the person in the first place, which in most cases is not in the cards. Furthermore, some powerful magic can still resurrect them, and destruction of the body has similar drawbacks.

4. Engaging in slavery. That is what you are doing, by the way.

Only if the undead are sapient creatures. Which most of them aren't.

5. And loosing that evil thing upon the world. Sure, it's under your control. But any loss of control, and you've unleashed it.

Well, better not lose control then. Sure it is somewhat risky, but people exaggerate how much.

Getting back to the intentionality. The crazy evoker magic missiles town guards to death and then fireballs the orphanage which they were guarding, and then runs away, laughing maniacally. A friendly necromancer happens to pass by, and decides to raise the dead guards as zombies, that rescue the orphans from the burning building. After this is done, the necromancer disposes of the zombies.

Do you think what the necromancer did here was evil? Would it have been more moral to let the orphans burn to death?