Breaking the stereotype of the chaste paladin

[fusangite]

Depending on your sources and interpretation, up to four knights achieve the grail: Galahad, Bors, Perceval and Gawain. But in all cases, rejection of the carnal is one of the themes.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

2) In some historical cultures, it was acceptable for both men & women to have several lovers, even if married (Greece, for example, as well as some Polynesian & Eskimo cultures). If a paladin was in a Greek-like society, it may be less lawful for him to stick with 1 woman than it would be for him to sleep around.

I'm curious about this contention regarding Greek culture. In many historical cultures male infidelity has been "officially" frowned upon but generally accepted anyway. However, it seems at odds with what I know of greek culture to say that female infidelity enjoyed the same acceptance. The trojan war was fought over Helen, Ulysses killed all of Penelope's suitors (and his wife was intentionally putting them off), and Aphrodite was punished for her unfaithfulness to Hephaestus (even though that is portrayed as a rather horrific mismatch in the tales). Plato, of course thought all of these tales of the gods' infidelities to be scandalous and expected the audience of his dialogues to agree with him.

That doesn't sound a whole lot like acceptance of married women having multiple lovers to me. (Even if it is usually the womens' lovers who are killed rather than the women themselves--a more likely read on the attitude might be that taking another man's wife is an insult to him and if he doesn't repay you with violence then you're obviously stronger and better than him. (An attitude that Elijah Anderson finds to still be present in the street codes of inner city youth). So, taking another man's woman gets you respect if he doesn't do anything about it but his killing you in revenge gets him respect. That would account for nearly all of the literary reactions to infidelity I know of: Menelaus had to get Helen back, Ulysses had to kill his wifes' suitors, etc but Ulysses time with Circe and Calypso just makes him more the man).

For that matter, the tales of Hera's wrath at Zeus and Medea's vengeance upon Jason seem to indicate a certain ambivalence towards even male infidelity.

And, of course, it's a huge leap to step from tacit acceptance of infidelity to positive expectation of it.

3) Any adventurer runs the risk of dying & leaving children without a parent. As does any knight or man-at-arms. Heck, Bob Peasant could get kicked in the neck by a mule and die in the fields if he goes out of the hovel. I think with a paladin, at least, his connection to the church would at least make the nearest cleric of that religion see to the child's upbringing. Would the local thieves' guild do the same?

Given my experience playing D&D and the knowledge that only actual PCs have their encounters (generally) crafted to be winnable, I would say that there are several orders of magnitude in the difference of the odds of the paladin dying and not coming back and Bob Peasant being killed by an angry housecat. (Not that the housecats aren't a grave danger )

 

[Agback]

Ulysses killed all of Penelope's suitors

Odysseus (we are discussing Greek here) not only killed all of Penelope's suitors, he also hanged all of his own concubines who had not repulsed the suitors.

Ulysses time with Circe and Calypso just makes him more the man).

Well, I seem to recall that Odysseus tried to resist the advances of both Circe and Calypso. I think that Calypso even offered to have him made immortal if he would put out. But he preferred to return to his wife, son, and homeland.

I think a better illustration of your point would be the existence of Odysseus's harem.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Odysseus (we are discussing Greek here) not only killed all of Penelope's suitors, he also hanged all of his own concubines who had not repulsed the suitors.

Yeah, but see, I always misspell Odysseus and that's rather embarrassing. Ulysses may be latin, but I can remember it when I'm not looking at someone else's post with the right spelling.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

I wonder how you can say that, when Arthur winds up struck down by his own bastard son, Modred. It isn't just the Arthur/Gwen/Lance triad. There are examples of romance causing issues all over Arthurian legend.

I think his point was that there's also plenty of good sex that doesn't bring about bad influences... the good sex between Arthur and Guenevere is never a problem. And the Lancelot Guenevere thing is the main story arc in so many of the more basic retellings of the Arthurian legends - there are some in which Mordred barely gets a mention (not saying this is a good thing... just that it's happened).

My take on Paladins and sex and marriage... it really has to depend on the campaign.

If your campaign is going for the high chivalric fantasy in the Arthurian vein then faithfulness is required, celibacy is showing an admirable devotion to your god, lechery and casual sex are indescribable sins and will bring about your ultimate downfall.

If you have a different campaign style then the decision has to be based on the god that the paladin worships. Someone like Tyr is probably less concerned about celibacy that someone like Helm or Heironious. I have my own gods - Paladins of Kin (Goddess of Community, Justice and Tyranny) would probably be required to abstain from all sexual conduct, Paladins of Lymos (God of Light, War and Prejudice) would be expected to marry, have many offspring, but also to remain faithful (and your spouse better be of the same race). We currently have a Paladin of Fera (Goddess of Nature, Life and Lust) and he is required to NOT remain celibate, though he is required to be faithful to his chosen partner (he is lawful after all).

I feel the important point is that the paladin, whilst derived originally from the Arthurian legends (and the various works of fiction that they inspired), should not be limited to such. I don't have Eberron but my brief skims through it at the FLGS certainly don't inspire me with tales of knights in shining armour, neither does FR. Greyhawk itself probably more so, but not absolutely. Kara-Tur, Al-Quadim definitely not. But all these worlds have paladins, and the concept of a paladin has to be geared toward a holy warrior of a particular culture... so the prevailing culture and their social mores have to be what's used to determine whether or not sex is permissible.

The Hoard

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I never had the impression that a paladin had to be chaste or celibate in any edition of DnD.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

FWIW I see the paladin's code as a sort of modified "Asimov's laws of robotics" - i.e., a set of laws, which when applied to any given situation, will tell the paladin either how he must act or that it doesn't matter how he acts (e.g., applying these laws tells you that it doesn't matter whether or not you order the roast mutton or boiled chicken in most circumstances - it's a neutral choice unless church or local law proscribes one or both).

Law 1: The paladin will never harm an innocent, nor through inaction, allow an innocent to come to harm.

Law 2: The paladin will always offer evildoers a chance to repent in order to bring them from guilt to innocence except where doing so would violate the first law (e.g., if the villain is about to offer up a child sacrifice, you do not wait to save the child in order to offer the villain a chance to repent).

Law 3: The paladin's conduct must always be honorable and truthful, except where conducting oneself honorably would put him in violation of one of the first two laws (e.g., when you stumble upon the villain about to offer up the child sacrifice, you are permitted to attack immediately; you do not have to waste the time announcing your presence and challenging him to a formal duel while he kills the child).

Law 4: The paladin will protect those/that to whom/which duty binds him (including deity, kin, church law/tradition, kith, and local law in that order) except where doing so would put him in violation of one of the first three laws (i.e., the paladin cannot lie to save his dishonorable comrades as this puts him in violation of Law 3; where the paladin must choose between local law and his "church law", he sides with his church, etc.).

Law 5: The paladin will seek self-preservation only when it does not violate one of the first four laws (i.e., a paladin is permitted to withdraw from danger, but only after all others to whom duty binds him have already withdrawn AND provided he does it in an honorable fashion AND provided there are no innocents put at risk by his withdrawal.

Using this standard, a paladin who sows wild oats, under most circumstances, would lose his paladinhood as he is in violation of the fourth law, neglecting his duty to kin (unless, I suppose, the paladin's deity personally commanded the paladin otherwise; church law/tradition is lower on the heirarchy than duty to kin so culture is not an excuse).

Thoughts?

Sigil - I like this... personally I don't use as strict a form of defined morality in my homebrew (my gods don't have alignments), so some of your starting points about culture vs alignment don't quite fit... means I'm going to have to take into account a magic item's culture as and when that has to be considered. Could have some fun implications.

However your set of rules work out fairly well. I don't want to codify too much - mainly I'll go with as long as the Paladin is doing what Clark Kent would do it's pretty much the right action. However this is a good basis to go from.

I certainly agree that any Lawful character that want's to remain so has to show faithfulness. That doesn't require marriage but some sort of bond, the breaking of which would have lose their status. That said if the other partner broke the bond would the paladin be required to remain faithful to someone that has shown themselve unworthy? Would that betrayal of the bond free the paladin to seek a new partner.

Will have to give this all some thought

 

[fusangite]

My take on Paladins and sex and marriage... it really has to depend on the campaign.

If your campaign is going for the high chivalric fantasy in the Arthurian vein then faithfulness is required, celibacy is showing an admirable devotion to your god, lechery and casual sex are indescribable sins and will bring about your ultimate downfall...

I feel the important point is that the paladin, whilst derived originally from the Arthurian legends (and the various works of fiction that they inspired), should not be limited to such. I don't have Eberron but my brief skims through it at the FLGS certainly don't inspire me with tales of knights in shining armour, neither does FR. Greyhawk itself probably more so, but not absolutely. Kara-Tur, Al-Quadim definitely not. But all these worlds have paladins, and the concept of a paladin has to be geared toward a holy warrior of a particular culture... so the prevailing culture and their social mores have to be what's used to determine whether or not sex is permissible.

I think this is just a difference in GMing philosophy. In the campaign I'm currently in, we had a similar disagreement over the Monk class. Some people believe that the core classes should be used in all settings; others believe that they should only be used in settings where they correspond to a cultural archetype. For me, having the Paladin class exist outside of medieval Christendom and Islam is as absurd as the Monk class existing within medieval Christendom and Islam.

In my view, if one wants to create a non-spell casting holy warrior for another sort of culture, the Paladin is a less than ideal starting point, just as the Monk is a less than ideal starting point for a generic or European-style ascetic. In my view, non-chivalric holy warriors shouldn't be locked into the code requirement, alignment requirement or pushed so vehemently towards mounted combat.

I have no objection to what people who are trying to universalize the Paladin are trying to achieve. I'm just questioning whether universalizing the Paladin is the most efficient or logical way to do it. Aren't there prestige classes or variant core classes that do a better job of creating warriors dedicated to Tyr and other gods ill-suited to code-following men on horseback?

 

[shilsen]

I never had the impression that a paladin had to be chaste or celibate in any edition of DnD.

True. Chastity/celibacy only becomes an issue if you think all D&D paladins should aspire to be like Galahad, which is apparently the aim for some people (fusangite, for example, if I'm not misreading) posting to this thread. I personally find that incredibly reductionist and not borne out by the PHB paladin's description, so I do not.

 

[NewJeffCT]

True. Chastity/celibacy only becomes an issue if you think all D&D paladins should aspire to be like Galahad, which is apparently the aim for some people (fusangite, for example, if I'm not misreading) posting to this thread. I personally find that incredibly reductionist and not borne out by the PHB paladin's description, so I do not.

Agreed - my original post on this subject over a week ago was me wondering if people played the paladin any differently than the chaste/celibate/sexless Sir Galahad archetype. I've been gaming for a good 25 years and that always has seemed to be the stereotype for a paladin, even though there was nothing in the rules specifically requiring a paladin to be sexless.