Forked Thread: Was V's act evil? (Probable spoilers!)

[Starfox]

Forked from: Was V's act evil? (Probable spoilers!)

There is an underlying assumption in many of the replies that, generally speaking, killing a black dragon who is not a current or imminent threat is considered "good" or at least "not evil," and therefore, the mass murder of potentially hundreds of them falls into the same category.

However, I want to call that assumption into question.

A party of adventurers entering a town are told "there's a black dragon living in the swamp a few miles away, but he hasn't harmed any villagers in hundreds of years, and as long as the alligator population stays high, he doesn't bother the livestock. You see, the local cleric brokered an agreement between the village and the dragon long ago, which the dragon has complied with for all of these years."

Under such circumstances, if the party of adventurers sought out the dragon in order to kill it, I would consider that an evil act. They would be justified in killing the dragon only to the degree that the dragon represents a direct threat. Same with goblins, orcs, and kobolds.

In the case of OotS, the original black dragon slaying took place, they blundered into the dragon and were immediately attacked. Arguably, they could have attempted to escape, prepare spells, and then reassess, instead of staying put and doing so, leading to the "disintegrate" moment, but it was nevertheless a situation where the dragon was hostile to them, attacking them, and representing a threat. That is what made the dragon killable, not "being a black dragon."

I didn't want to post this in the original thread, as it is quite off topic.

The Japanese (and I suppose other people whose religion has animist roots) have a very interesting idea bout evil spirits. You shrine them, thereby "taming" them, trying to channel their destructive tendencies into good things. Europeans in ancient times had a similar idea about placating evil spirits with sacrifice, but the Japanese took this one step further.

To mee, this is a MUCH more attractive idea than the Last Man Standing ideas advocated by soe in the original thread.