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.)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've never considered Animating Dead to be inherently evil, but it's an act that generally offends people, and evil people will often delight in (or just not care about) offending people. So, while it's possible that one could participate in Necromancy in a respectful way, it's often perpetrated by evil sorts, which only serves to make society see it as an evil act, in a vicious cycle.

I think if people see the bodies of the dead as having some special significance or sacred quality, there simply isn't a way to respectfully animate a dead corpse. Just look at the real world. Would anyone ever suggest it is okay to use a person's body for some other purpose? Maybe if they donated it to science? But we just had a big case here in Boston where a medical facility at Harvard was selling body parts on the black market. It was getting used in things like macabre art, who knows what else. I think there is a reason people see this as a serious violation of morality, and it goes beyond merely offending peoples' sensibilities. It gets into the ideas of the soul, of what happens to us after we die, and into respecting the life that was once inhabited by the body. Even when hundreds or thousands of years have passed and we are doing things like excavating tombs of people who believed in gods we long stopped worshipping for research, there is a sense that this could be wrong (and I think you see that play out in things like the idea of a mummies curse).

I get one could have a purely material view of humanity and see the body, once it is dead as nothing more than flesh. So I get that an individual might be unfazed by it. but I just don't think the evil here is in daring to offend people. It's in the act itself. I would imagine if you took a poll of all humanity, the response would be one where the idea of animating a corpse (lets say through electric and mechanical means, in order to keep it grounded in the real world) was widely regarded as evil, not just offensive, but evil.

 

[jgsugden]

I think if people see the bodies of the dead as having some special significance or sacred quality, there simply isn't a way to respectfully animate a dead corpse. Just look at the real world. Would anyone ever suggest it is okay to use a person's body for some other purpose? Maybe if they donated it to science? But we just had a big case here in Boston where a medical facility at Harvard was selling body parts on the black market. It was getting used in things like macabre art, who knows what else. I think there is a reason people see this as a serious violation of morality, and it goes beyond merely offending peoples' sensibilities...

You want to look at the real world? In the real world there are still 9 or so places that practice cannibalism. We've used real corpses as movie props. We've used them, as you note, for scientific research and education. We also put them on display at museums ... which tends to be more of a draw for the macabre reasons over the educational ones. Historically, humans built tools out of human bones. In some instances people had to choose between starving to death and eating that that had already passed. Someone decided to do all of these things - so the idea of putting a corpse to use is not so absolutely derided as you suggest.

If you learned that two of your friends had been trapped, one perished and the other had to resort to eating the one that had passed to survive - would you feel more pity or outrage?

Now go to a fantasy world. There is a wizard. The wizard is with a whole village worth of people that are trapped in a cave in while hiding in the cave. The only hope for the entire village is to clear a path - but the cave is blocked by a cave in - in a long and flooded tunnel. The people can't hold their breath long enough to clear the tunnel. Choice 1.) Everyone suffocates and dies. Choice 2.) Someone volunteers to die so that they can be animated as a zombie and have their corpse be used to clear the path and drain the water.

What is the moral choice? If the wizard slew a volunteer and animated them - and then saved the entire village that way - what would the reaction be? Would the volunteer be cursed by the village for contributing to necromancy? Would the wizard be executed for necromancy? Would people just try to pretend it didn't happen?

How does that change if the animating of the dead so near their actual village means that the veil between worlds weakens and more undead are likely to spawn? What if only 10% of the village was there and now the entire village is at risk of ghouls appearing and dragging people off?

When I was young I was told that animating dead was uniformally evil in D&D. I wasn't sure why, but I decided that I should explain it .. so in my lore, animating undead weakens the veil between the planes of the undead and the Prime - meaning that there is a chance undead spontaneously rise after you animate undead. If you cast animate dead today, a ghoul might spontaneously arise a year from now. So in my campaign, I don't explore this idea that animate dead might not be all evil - because it is inherently evil in my game. But I sometimes regret making it so black and white because there is storytelling to be done there that I shut off by making it so clear.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You want to look at the real world? In the real world there are still 9 or so places that practice cannibalism.

That is 9 places out of the whole world. It is one of the biggest taboos there is. And I am till not even sure cannibals would be okay with animate dead

 

[Bedrockgames]

You want to look at the real world? In the real world there are still 9 or so places that practice cannibalism. We've used real corpses as movie props. We've used them, as you note, for scientific research and education. We also put them on display at museums ... which tends to be more of a draw for the macabre reasons over the educational ones. Historically, humans built tools out of human bones. In some instances people had to choose between starving to death and eating that that had already passed. Someone decided to do all of these things - so the idea of putting a corpse to use is not so absolutely derided as you suggest.

Even here I think most people are uneasy with corpses on display. I am not against using the human body for research and learning, but my point was even when we do it isn't without unease because we recognize it as a kind of violation. That doesn't mean there aren't and haven't been exceptions. My point wasn't that it is an absolute, it is that most people would object to animate dead on moral grounds. I don't think it requires that much immigination to understand why it is labeled evil

Also, in cases where people have no choice but to eat the dead, those kinds of accounts are usually regarded as horrendous situations where people face a choice between two horrible options

 

[Bedrockgames]

Now go to a fantasy world. There is a wizard. The wizard is with a whole village worth of people that are trapped in a cave in while hiding in the cave. The only hope for the entire village is to clear a path - but the cave is blocked by a cave in - in a long and flooded tunnel. The people can't hold their breath long enough to clear the tunnel. Choice 1.) Everyone suffocates and dies. Choice 2.) Someone volunteers to die so that they can be animated as a zombie and have their corpse be used to clear the path and drain the water.

What is the moral choice? If the wizard slew a volunteer and animated them - and then saved the entire village that way - what would the reaction be? Would the volunteer be cursed by the village for contributing to necromancy? Would the wizard be executed for necromancy? Would people just try to pretend it didn't happen?

I think most people would be deeply troubled by this scenario, mostly for killing the person or allowing the person to kill themselves to make the zombie, but also for the desecration. That doesn't mean we aren't going to judge the situation differently because it was about survival. I think most people would not be merely materialist about it, they would probably be deeply conflicted and regard the act asa necessary evil for that moment. Remove magic from the situation entirely and just imagine someone had no choice in a gunfight but to use the body of another person, whether it is someone they know or just another victim of the gunfire, to block the hail of bullets. People are not going to fault the person for doing what they had to do to survive (even if the person volunteered and said "use my body as a shield" moments before they died But most are going to understand the body was violated, and the person most likely wouldn't rest easy about using corpse to protect themselves.

We are naturally troubled by the defilement of a body after death. We have all kinds of rituals for how to deal with bodies after death because we feel it is important. You can be purely materialist about it, and some people are. I get that. I am not saying there isn't a case to be made for what some folks are arguing. The point is most people don't believe that. Most people believe we are supposed to treat dead bodies with care, respect and lay them to rest properly. This is what animate dead comes up against in terms of morality and why it gets labeled evil.

 

[MGibster]

What is the moral choice? If the wizard slew a volunteer and animated them - and then saved the entire village that way - what would the reaction be? Would the volunteer be cursed by the village for contributing to necromancy? Would the wizard be executed for necromancy? Would people just try to pretend it didn't happen?

Did you just invent the fantasy version of the trolley dillemma?

 

[Bedrockgames]

How does that change if the animating of the dead so near their actual village means that the veil between worlds weakens and more undead are likely to spawn? What if only 10% of the village was there and now the entire village is at risk of ghouls appearing and dragging people off?

When I was young I was told that animating dead was uniformally evil in D&D. I wasn't sure why, but I decided that I should explain it .. so in my lore, animating undead weakens the veil between the planes of the undead and the Prime - meaning that there is a chance undead spontaneously rise after you animate undead. If you cast animate dead today, a ghoul might spontaneously arise a year from now. So in my campaign, I don't explore this idea that animate dead might not be all evil - because it is inherently evil in my game. But I sometimes regret making it so black and white because there is storytelling to be done there that I shut off by making it so clear.

Something like this would certainly make it worse. I think there is an implication of this in a lot of how necromancy works (not that it weakens boundaries between worlds, but that it taps into powers that are like playing with fire).

If you need an in game reason why animate dead specifically isn't good, one explanation for a fantasy setting could simply be the body is still somehow important and that violating it has implications for the after life (and this could be anything from there is still residual spiritual energy in the body and desecration or violation of any kind is more likely to produce hauntings, to the body is going to be resurrected at a later stage buy the god or a priesthood, or is still serving some vital function).

I am all for morally gray settings. I think they can be a lot of fun. I do think D&D is not the best game for morally gray stuff, as alignment has long been embedded in it, and some of my favorite settings are ones like Ravenloft which, while it has its gray, the dark powers objectively react to the presence of evil.

That said, it is easy enough to adjust D&D so alignment or necromancy is different. I just think to the question of why animate dead and is evil, the answer is because in real life we are concerned about how bodies are handled after death.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Did you just invent the fantasy version of the trolley dillemma?

I was imagining this as a kind of walking dead scenario

 

[MGibster]

One of the interesting things is that medicinal cannibalism was a thing in Europe and many other places. If you had a headache you could get a drink made from chocolate and powdered human skull, mummies ground up and consumed were good for yoru stomach and if the gout got you down try rubbing a little human fat into it and see if that helps. Okay, so that last one isn't technically cannibalism. In most cultures that practice cannibalism, there's a relationship between the eater and the eaten. They might be dead loved ones you're consuming so they're a part of you forever, or they may be enemies you're eating to exert to further humilate them or steal their strength. In Europe, that personal connection didn't exist and people were simply reduced to their component ingredients.

But while medicinal cannibalism was okay in Europe, you wouldn't just eat a peasant because you got a bit peckish.

 

[tomBitonti]

So what about a culture like the Elves of Eberron, who have persistent ancestor worship and have their dead relatives walking around as Deathless? Sure, the Deathless are animated by positive energy, but they still look like decayed corpses!

Not everyone accepts that part of Eberron. I imagine most ignore it. In my games, when it comes up in play, the players all think the Elves are seriously deluding themselves.
TomB