[FR] Sun Elves as evil or neutral instead of good?

[Dark Jezter]

For starters, if anybody here would bother to actually read most of their FR books, they'd know there are VERY few Fey'ri out and running about. Most of the Starym were killed by the elves for what they'd done, and those that weren't killed were in stasis for a long time, only coming out relatively recently. I was rather suprised why they even made it to RoF, other than the coolness factor.
Also, the Eldreth Veluthra are quite another small group, although they appear to have at least a small amount of quiet support from some Sun Elves. I'd think that most elves would find them a little too heavy handed (yes, even the Sun Elves), and find their methods slightly too out there. Saying the Eldreth Veluthra and the Starym/Fey'ri are indicitive of the Sun Elf mentality is like saying everyone of the Middle-East persuassion is a terrorist. Even then, you get the kind of moral self-justifications that you get in the Israel/Palestinian conflict: to the Sun elves, they were there first, these things that stole their lands and destroyed their forest homes breed like flies and live as long, and the only thing that seperates them from orcs is that they smell less.

I do not believe that the Stayrm and the Eldreth represent the average sun elf mentality.

Other important thing to remember: being better than everyone else is part of their mindset. They consider themselves a Chosen people (pretty much like everyone else to some extent, just more so). They are even patronizing to other elves. In their eyes, they have a kind of "White Man's Burden" to show everyone else "true" culture.
To me, alignment w/ good and evil is alot like the definitions for legal insanity. True Evil (note the capital E) is well aware of right and wrongs, and violates a widely held belief for their own purpose. Now, while I wouldn't put the Sun Elves into this catagory, I would call some of them (Starym and Eldreth Veluthra) mis-guided. To their way of thinking, they are the ones going out and going good in an evil world. They justify the ends by the means. I think that comment about their racism was more an "this is one of their worst hang-ups," than an indication of evil.

By that logic, the drow aren't evil because they feel that they are simply exacting justice for their banishment to the underdark by killing surface elves.

As stated in above posts, D&D is a game of moral absolutes, not moral relativism. Justifying the means by the ends, feeling superior to other races to the point of being borderline genocidal, etc. are hard to classify as "good" behavior, even if your race does feel like it was chosen by Corellon Larethian to be the defenders of elvendom.

Oh, and the Starym and Eldreth Veluthra are evil, not misguided. If the Starym and Eldreth are only misguided, then the same could be said of any evil organization in Faerun. The Stayrm and Eldreth Veluthra have clearly commited acts of evil (the Eldreth still are commiting acts of evil). You don't accidently summon demons (who are the very epitome of Chaotic Evil) and mate with them to strengthen your own bloodlines, nor do you unknowingly wage a crusade against non-elven infidels who deserve death because of slights that happened against the elves several centuries ago. Think about it, if humans commited these acts, they would (rightfully) be branded as evil in a heartbeat. Why should elves be any different?

I stand by my original assessment: Sun elves are mostly Lawful Neutral, with more than a few of them being Lawful Evil.

 

[William Ronald]

An interesting thread, if a bit heated.

I am going to have to pick up Races of Faerun to fully understand this debate. However, I think some of you might want to check out this thread: new way to do subraces and reflect on it.

There may be several different cultural groups among the sun elves, thus explaining why it is hard to characterize the majority of them. (I do agree that the Starym and the Eldreth Veldura qualify as evil from what I have read here. Mating with demons to strengthen one's blood line cannot be considered good. Nor can committing genocide on those whose ancestors wronged the elves be considered a good act.)

It might be advisable not to drag in too many real world references into the thread, as politics can end a thread quickly.

 

[demiurge1138]

Well, as I read RoF, I noticed something. Maybe it was due to the "le't's not pigeonhole anyone into an alignment" mentality left over from Savage Species, but none of the races had any given alignments. So this entire controversy is sparked by the assumption given by the PHB and MM that sun elves are CG. It certainly doesn't say that in any Faerun books I've read, and so Faerunian sun elves, IMO and based on the info given on their outlook, are quite likely to be LN or LE.

PS: Looking in RoF, it does say that sun elves are likely to be the "foremost elven paladins and clerics". It's odd about the clerics, but the paladin mention seems to confirm a lawful outlook.

Demiurge out.

 

[Cernunnos]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough... the Starym were destroyed (well, they were THOUGHT to be destroyed) because they broke elven convention in a MAJOR way, and knowingly so. Thus, evil.
Eldreth Veluthraa... evil by any conventional sense, but I still see them viewing themselves as "freedom fighters" rather than terrorists. Granted, their actions clearly show where they stand. Sanctity of Life has always been a pretty big part of elven philosophy in ANY campaign world (except maybe Dark Sun... the elves there were downright social Darwinists). At the very least, I'd think even the most hostile gold elf would find it more indicitive of a civilized upbringing to talk out their problems before resorting to blows.
And I'm all about moral relativism and shades of grey in my campaigns. It makes characters think that much more when they can actually kind of understand an enemy's motivation. To me, the best villians are the ones that the characters can see the potential for in themselves. Its why I'm such a fan of the Eldreth Veluthraa... the fact that some Gold Elves would sink so low in the attempt to regain what they'd had has a nice air of tragedy to it.
Its been awhile since I've read it, but Elaine Cunningham's Thornhold had an excellent character who was a priest of Cyric. While evil, he had actually been raised that way, while his sister was a Harper. The fact that he'd been raised in the cult of an Evil god amongst the Zhentarim made him that much more of a believable villain to me.
I guess the biggest problem I saw with this thread was those comments by people who took those 2 groups as common gold elves (granted, they are the only ones you ever really hear or read about in the books).

 

[Alzrius]

Alzrius, I'm trying to understand your point here. What I've read so far is there CG because the book says so.

That is the gist of my point, yes.

It almost seems that your saying no matter what Sun Elves do on the whole, no matter how they act, there still CG just because the book says so.

Not quite. I'm saying the book is obviously the most correct source here. It's more likely to be correct because the most work has gone into it (and thats not even dragging the issue of canonity into it).

Sun Elves murder kids and put their heads on pikes outside their domain to warn the unclean races not to come near. Well that's CG, cause um killing kids is a good act.(not saying sun elves do this)

Way to prove a point there, by dragging in a completely irrelevant example.

It just seems your argument is the book says so, and that's it. While everyone else seems to be looking at actions and attitudes and coming up with what they see to be a more apropriate alignemnt than the one stated for elves in general.

Actually, for the most part they've just been mentioning some of the evil organizations, and somehow translating those to all sun elves in general. That said, you can't do something "more appropriate" than what the books say. Its their material, so whatever they do is most appropriate.

Even leaving that aside, I don't see how just being insular and not particularly caring for other races makes them lawful or evil. There is leeway there.

Me, I question elves in general being good. Chaotic sure, but good, only because of the cool factor described by Kamikaze Midget.

And thats your perogative. I'm more interested in finding ways to work within whats written than altering it. Thats just me. If you think you know better than the designers for your game, more power to you.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, my argument for those two groups (whom I think we can all agree at least ACT in a LN-LE fasion) representing perhaps a growing trend of all Sun Elves is the whole 'apple don't fall far from the tree' idea...

I guess viewing the world as any sort of heirarchy is, to me, almost completely antithetical to a Chaotic outlook...there are rankings, and there are things that shuold be just because of the rankings, and the rankings are the Right way to live, and breaking the chains of these rankings is Wrong.

The stronger a race tends to beleive this, and the less they act in other ways (which is what saves most elves), the more Lawful they get. If they see this heirarchy as a way to put themselves in power and subjugate others, it's Evil. If they see this heirarchy as a way to enlighten people and lead them as a single unit to victory over an enemy, it's Good. If it's somewhere in between, it's Neutral.

Shades of gray are all well and good, and that's illustrated in the fact that Alignment isn't determined from within, it's put on you from without. Someone in the world never knows what their alignment is (e.g.: players know it, CHARACTERS don't). These sun elves may think they're doing the Right Thing, but put simply, it's not judged Right based on what they think. What they think they're doing is irrelevant to the acts itself. And certain segments of Sun Elf have worked in ways that are Lawful Evil - Lawful Neutral. The reasons why or the motivations of or the true ideas are largely irrelevant. Alignment largely doesn't care WHY you do something, it only cares THAT you do something. It stems from motives, but is DEFINED by actions.

Thus, a character hears that there's going to be some great and wonderful event planned, they have to consider the source it's coming from and what events that source may see as wonderful. THERE's the shade of gray. Or in a human who is summoning a demon only for the greater good....at the very BEST, this can be neutral, as it is putting at risk a greater number of people, though admitedly for their potential benefit. The act isn't good, regardless of the goals -- at best, it's Neutral, and that's only if the summoner retains all the virtue of a Paladin in dealing with the creature.

Oh, and also:

If you think you know better than the designers for your game, more power to you.

To steal a line from Psion: I learned long ago that game designers are nobody to be put on a pedestal. They make mistakes and bad choices just like any amateur or 3rd party publisher of PDF's out there, oftentimes more. There is no reason *not* to believe that the sole reason Sun Elves continue to be CG is because either (a) someone made an editing boo-boo or (b) CG is the kewlist alignment, and the kewlist race (the elves) should all be that.

 

[Dark Jezter]

To steal a line from Psion: I learned long ago that game designers are nobody to be put on a pedestal. They make mistakes and bad choices just like any amateur or 3rd party publisher of PDF's out there, oftentimes more. There is no reason *not* to believe that the sole reason Sun Elves continue to be CG is because either (a) someone made an editing boo-boo or (b) CG is the kewlist alignment, and the kewlist race (the elves) should all be that.

I learned the lesson that game designers weren't infallable when I read The Silver Marches suppliment for Forgotten Realms. That book had numerous errors in it, not to mention one of the most overpowered prestige classes of all time, the Peerless Archer.

Game designers are only human, and sometimes they make mistakes and contradict themselves.

 

[Gez]

By the way, in Races of Faerûn, they say it's the dark elves that destroyed Myeritar (high moor). Every other sources blame the sun elves. This is just to add to the "game designers make mistakes too" chapter.

 

[Angcuru]

I would say that they are neutral concerning non-elves, not as a base alignment. Among other elves they are chaotic good, as listed, but have a great dislike of non-elves, and could care less about what happens to them. If they were evil they would actively seek the death of humans, but they don't. Not giving a damn is NEUTRAL.

Do you see Sun Elves making raids on human villages to use them as slaves, ritual sacrifices, and target practice? No, you don't. That would be the drow. But do you see the Sun elves interfering? Usually not, the only reason that they WOULD is that they don't like the drow....at all, and want to see them dead. So you might see some Sun Elves attack Drow who are attacking a human village, but those same Sun Elves would likely just return home when the battle was finished, leaving the humans to themselves.

Overall, they are not evil....at all. They just DON'T CARE = NEUTRAL.

 

[Dark Jezter]

I would say that they are neutral concerning non-elves, not as a base alignment. Among other elves they are chaotic good, as listed, but have a great dislike of non-elves, and could care less about what happens to them. If they were evil they would actively seek the death of humans, but they don't. Not giving a damn is NEUTRAL.

Unfortunately, characters don't possess seperate alignments depending on how they treat each race. It would be stupid for a paladin to be have this written on his alignment sheet: "Lawful Good, except when dealing with orcs, at which point he becomes lawful evil."

And I would even doubt that Sun Elves act chaotic good towards other elves; they are patronizing towards the moon elves and basically view them as misguided children, and the sun elves also believe that they should "civilize" the wild elves. I also found it amusing that Races of Faerun said that they view aquatic elves as "near-equals"; sun elves don't just think of themselves as being inherently "better" than nonelves, but they also believe they are above other elven subraces as well.

By the way, it dosen't list anywhere in Races of Faerun or the FRCS that sun elves are usually Chaotic Good, so you can't really say "as listed."

Do you see Sun Elves making raids on human villages to use them as slaves, ritual sacrifices, and target practice? No, you don't. That would be the drow. But do you see the Sun elves interfering? Usually not, the only reason that they WOULD is that they don't like the drow....at all, and want to see them dead. So you might see some Sun Elves attack Drow who are attacking a human village, but those same Sun Elves would likely just return home when the battle was finished, leaving the humans to themselves.

Overall, they are not evil....at all. They just DON'T CARE = NEUTRAL.

No, the sun elves don't commit genocide against humans (except for the elf supremecy group, the Eldreth Veluthraa, but they only have a small amount of members), which is why I've classified most of them as Lawful Neutral. Although with their mindset that they are racially superior over pretty much everyone else, it would be easy for many of them to slide into the Lawful Evil alignment.