Is there anything really wrong with the idea of an evil Paladin?

[jgbrowning]

Let's turn this question around and if we can answer it to our satisfaction, perhaps we'll answer the paladin question as well...

"Why is there no anti-blackguard?" Where is the Prestige Class that a reformed evil character can join?

normally i find myself agreeing with you sigil, but i have to disagree here.

the issue really isn't "why isn't there an anti-paladin" so much as "why do people get so offended when you suggest making one?"

If you wanted to create a PrC that is an Anti-Blackguard you wouldn't have a single person saying "The Blackguard is so unique that you can't apply his abilities to any other alignment."

The paladin is unique, but no more unique than many other classes.

joe b.

 

[Endur]

First, there is a internet rule that any thread that cites Nazis or Hitler has outlasted its usefulness.

Second, its ok for Paladins to be on opposing sides. The Paladins of King Arthur's day fought each other. Its arguable that during the Crusades, some of the leaders of the Moslems (Saladin, etc.), might have been Paladins.

I think the answer to a Paladin is not an Anti-Paladin, but rather a Paladin that supports a different country or religion.

Still, the idea behind a Paladin, is that he or she is the Iconic Champion. And Lawful Good is the best alignment for the Champion. You can theoretically have other alignments, but they tend not to work as well. The Chaotic Good character is too individualistic. The Chaotic Neutral is random. The Lawful neutral doesn't care so long as you follow the rules. etc.

Tom

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I would suggest that objection to the anti-paladin idea is not simple concern for the paladin's uniqueness. It would raise fewer hackles to make a Lawful Neutral or a Chaotic Good or a Neutral Good paladin.

I think it has to do with the concept of the paladin and an instinctive knowledge that any opposite-of-a-paladin type concept is more likely to result in a Dr. Evil type caricature than a realistic villain. It implicitly depends upon the concept of good and evil as opposing teams rather than actual moral forces, ideals, or ideas with actual content.

normally i find myself agreeing with you sigil, but i have to disagree here.

the issue really isn't "why isn't there an anti-paladin" so much as "why do people get so offended when you suggest making one?"

If you wanted to create a PrC that is an Anti-Blackguard you wouldn't have a single person saying "The Blackguard is so unique that you can't apply his abilities to any other alignment."

The paladin is unique, but no more unique than many other classes.

joe b.

 

[Oracular Vision]

Paladin of Vecna

I have a Paladin of Vecna (he was raised by evil clerics who hid their alignment, and lied to about Vecna.) He spends his time trying to convert others. He is told that it is rude to check people for evil, so he doens't do it (he has the Paldin's curse, he needed stat points everywhere, so his INT is low).

He is perfectly legal in 3rd edition, but he is bound to learn the truth some day.

He likes to tell people that he has a part of his god in a little bag, and that his god has a secret plan for them all...

 

[I'm A Banana]

How did the Vecna paladin reconcile the honesty part of being a paladin with the secretive part of being a Vecnaite?

I mean, it's a REALLY interesting idea, so I want to know more.

 

[Dash Dannigan]

Ashram, if he ain't a LE Paladin, no one is!

Amen brother!

Ashram, from Records of Lodoss War exemplifies what it means to be a LE Paladin. He champions that might makes right, and that the powerful should rule all with an iron fist. Honorable too, a good bad-guy as some NPC villains are described in DM advice columns.

 

[Wayside]

Hmm. I didn't think I was espousing a particularly egoist interpretation of the nature of evil. I thought that the interpretation of evil I was going from has more Thomistic--if evil is a privation of good with no real existance of its own, it's impossible that it could be valued for its own sake. Anything about evil that was valued would really turn out to be a perversion of something good.

Sorry, by egoist I meant the denial of possibility argument, not that your take on good/evil was in any way egoistic--it was the similarity of the proof you tried that I was referring to. When you say "this can't be evil because evil is x and what this guy is doing does not fit x, therefore his act, being not x, is not evil" it reminds me of an egoist arguing that all actions are self-interested.

I guess there is a certain similarity to an egoist (or emotivist for that matter) definition of evil, however. Neither view of evil allows evil to be valued for itself. I think that the only view of evil that would allow it to be valued for its own sake is probably a utilitarian view of evil. Even then, however, to value the suffering of others would most likely locate pleasure or some other measure of utility in it. I'm not sure any conception of evil really would allow it to be valued in itself rather than for something it perverted or produced.

Well, an egoist doesn't really believe in Good and Evil. They might say something about 'the good,' but not Good. What I meant to get across initially was that morality, when stripped of a religious focus, can manifest itself in a LOT of ways. In a religious system good is valued for itself and evil, as you say, can't be (though plenty of psuedo-satanist goth kids would argue with us about that). But, strip away the religious mores, ideas like 'innocence' and 'grace,' and what do you have? A person who acted only according to what logic dictates could very well be "evil" to a religious person, because many religious beliefs have no logical basis. And logic *can* be valued in itself, while at the same time being looked on as evil by someone else, so you see how something can easily be valued for what it is while being evil (albeit to someone else).

I completely agree with you that someone can't really think of themself as evil and be a paladin-like figure, but the Knights of Takhisis in Dragonlance sorta provide a counterexample to this as well. I suppose it could happen if being an anti-paladin was a way to promote oneself, but now we'd be combining moral psychology with ethics, and you aren't likely to get any kind of concensus whatsoever under those circumstances.

I can imagine someone, though, serving some powerful infernal lord, thinking of themself as evil, but acting in a manner befitting a Paladin, say, because the love of his life died accidentally at the hands of someone good. He simply wouldn't care. He would do whatever he had to do to acquire the power necessary for revenge, including staining his heart black and bowing to a demon. Once he got his revenge, though--or speaking archetypically, once he accomplished whatever task he set down the path of darkness consciously to achieve--he would probably just kill himself.

As to the Nazi paladin, I suspect that he's have a very short life as either a character, Nazi, or Paladin. I'm assuming from the outset that the hypothetical Nazi Paladin would pursue the ideals of good and law and also support a collectivist, nationalist, and racialist National Socialist government.

Since I view good and evil as objective qualities, the Nazi paladin could only continue to be both a Nazi and a paladin as long as his pursuit of good order and his support of the collectivist, nationalist, racialist (since I'm already watering down Naziism right here, we could probably just say you can't be a Nazi paladin right now unless you want to assume that what I just described is still Naziism) government didn't conflict.

But this is exactly what I mean. Good and Evil were objective qualities to the Nazi's, their definitions were just different than ours. The Nazi Paladin *would* be pursuing his ideals of good and law by doing what Nazi's did. It's true that many of them had no idea how bad the atrocities were, but then there were many who did as well. And there are still people today who hold these kinds of ridiculous views of racial inequality. Many of these people are well-educated. I know of one who is even a professor at Berkeley. We think of them as evil, or misguided, or simply racist, but they do not see themselves this way. I'm sure they have plenty of names for us as well.

Now, if you were asking whether a paladin can hold the following beliefs:

1. Society as a whole is more important than its individual members.
2. Countries have an obligation to advance their own interests before those of other nations.
3. People have greater obligations to those of their race or nation than to those of other races or nations.

the answer is a qualified yes.

Ok, so I got some of my gist across. But let's make an example: Fantasy nation X faces constant border raids from surrounding goblin or orc tribes, or even elves or dwarves etc. Now, after a while of this nation X gets fed up and embarks on a campaign to put these people down. Nation X is already proceeding according to your 2 and 3. What if that nation believes, that is, considers to be a scientific fact, that these goblins/orcs/elves/dwarves are an inferior race.

When ants or rats get in your home, don't you exterminate them?

It's something of a simpler question in a fantasy campaign, where goblins really *are* an inferior race (so it's not a just a question of a mistaken belief), but by the same token it seems to me that most adventuring parties are evil anyway. They go traipsing about the countryside, invading the caves and dens of non-agressing creatures, killing them for money and experience. You want an evil Paladin? You've probably played with or as one already! But they attacked you when you entered their cave? Well, wouldn't you attack them if they broke into your house? The reason I brought up the Nazi Paladin in the first place is because I've seen that archetype of a character far too many times.

They are also, IMO, low principles on the totem pole of principles. In fact, even enunciating most of them--especially the third--may give them more significance than they actually have. If they were to conflict with principles like justice or benevolence, they ought to be disregarded. And any paladin who favors a lesser principle over a higher is treading on very dangerous grounds.

In real life I admire the rigidity of your morality. You sound like the kind of person I'd want to watch my back, i.e. not a car salesman . It is probably pointless for us to argue this much further, though, since obviously by your view an evil Paladin is totally impossible, which I agree with. If I had your view of right and wrong and a hierarchy of goods, principles and virtues, I would say the exact same thing. If you are willing to entertain the hypothetical world where our world's morality does not apply (i.e. where the gods make their presence felt, there are no 10 commandments or categorical imperative, etc., and where moral philosophy is at the level of sophistication of an Aristotle, or a Cicero), however, I think there is more to say than simply that one cannot be both evil, and paladin-like.

Originally posted by Endur

First, there is a internet rule that any thread that cites Nazis or Hitler has outlasted its usefulness.

There is also a grammatical rule about using 'an' before a word that begins with a vowel.

Anyway.. I don't think this is true. Conceptually a Nazi seems like a prototype for an evil knight because he still serves an empire, is still lawful, etc. The reason I brought it up, however, is that so many PC parties run around like this; invading, conquering, stealing, killing, like they're out to commit goblin genocide. This mindset goes for clerics and paladins too, sadly.

The way you solve this is like you say though: don't tie paladins to any concrete notion of good or law. Let them have different takes on the issue and voila, you have paladins that are evil (in the eyes of someone else).

 

[Darrin Drader]

First, there is a internet rule that any thread that cites Nazis or Hitler has outlasted its usefulness.

Well, all good rules are meant to be broken. How was Hitler and the Nazis not the epitome of evil in the last 100 years? OK, I'm not going to go down this road any further except to say that if you want to find a motivation for pure evil, study them and their philosophies. Watch the holocaust movies. After losing your lunch, their relevance to this discussion will be apparent.

Now, on to the issue at hand. I think the blackguard makes more sense than a core class. Why? It makes more sense for an evil god, demonlord. etc. to invest a character with power once he has already proven a knack for survival. In fact, it makes more sense to specifically try to corrupt a champion of good. At first level, what's to stop a novice character from seeing the light and denouncing evil? No, evil wants much more of a commitment than that.

The main point that Eric Cagle makes in this month's Dragon Magazine is that evil doesn't form in a vacuum. It comes from disappointments in life, poor upbringing, conditioning, and societal prejudices. In fact, I'm convinced that if you take selfishness, the most common form of evil, out of the equation, the next most common form of evil is the person who does evil while thinking they are acting for the greater good. If X group causes non-stop problems to group Y, how is it not a good thing to eliminate group X? What if this person has suffered at the hands of group X? What if the physical appearance of group X is revolting to him or her? What if group X wears strange clothing, worships pagan gods, and speaks in a harsh sounding language? Once the character obtains the ability to eliminate group X, the person tallies the pros and cons of doing such a horrific thing and acts accordingly. They may be so convinced that they are doing right that they are willing to sacrifice themselves for group Y, and even considers themselves holy.

So, bring a 1st level character into this scenario. Maybe he has all the reasons to do something horrible, but he's a minor schemer, or a punk streetfighter. He's just as likely to end up dead as he is to really do something aweful. Evil might watch him with interest, but its going to wait to see if he survives the hard knocks that comes his way. If so, and if he buys into their philosophies, then he might be worthy of advancing to blackguard status.

A final thought is that even in a fantasy world, evil may not recognize itself as such. Evil can take the road of necessary compromises, such as decreasing individual freedoms in the name of protection, or torturing someone to gain information necessary to thwart another evil being's horrific plan. This is the slippery slope of evil, and one must begin this journey from the point where they are trying to do good.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, an egoist doesn't really believe in Good and Evil. They might say something about 'the good,' but not Good. What I meant to get across initially was that morality, when stripped of a religious focus, can manifest itself in a LOT of ways.

For that matter, I don't think that morality has any authority if stripped of its religious sanction myself.

In a religious system good is valued for itself and evil, as you say, can't be (though plenty of psuedo-satanist goth kids would argue with us about that). But, strip away the religious mores, ideas like 'innocence' and 'grace,' and what do you have? A person who acted only according to what logic dictates could very well be "evil" to a religious person, because many religious beliefs have no logical basis. And logic *can* be valued in itself, while at the same time being looked on as evil by someone else, so you see how something can easily be valued for what it is while being evil (albeit to someone else).

I'm not convinced that your example demonstrates what you want it to demonstrate. If Tertullian, a religious man has standards of good and evil and Diogenes, who is not religious, acts only according to what logic dictates, it doesn't make logic evil if Diogenes acts wickedly.

Part of the problem of the example is that logic doesn't really dictate anything without premises. Diogenes doesn't know whether it's logical to act like a good Roman and worship the emperor or whether it's logical to risk death by refusing to do so unless he first decides a few things:
1. Is this life all there is?
2. How valuable is this life?
3. Is there anything wrong with worshipping the emperor?
So, Diogenes may act according to the dictates of logic by worshipping the emperor. Tertullian may think it evil but that doesn't mean he devalues logic. It means that Tertullian and Diogenes may disagree on premise 1, 2 or 3. (Probably 1 and 3).

And suppose Diogenes agrees with Tertullian that there is something wrong with worshipping the emperor but thinks it's logical to do so anyway because he thinks that this life is valuable enough to justify it. That doesn't mean he's valuing something that Tertullian thinks is evil. It means that, if Tertullian is right, he is exaggerating the value of this present life.

I suppose that there could be someone who thought logic to be evil but I don't think you could build any kind of coherent ethic that classified logic as evil. And I can't think of anything objectively evil that could be valued for itself. (Although I suppose if you created a Gnostic fantasy world where matter and physical pleasure were really objectively evil it would be possible).

I can imagine someone, though, serving some powerful infernal lord, thinking of themself as evil, but acting in a manner befitting a Paladin, say, because the love of his life died accidentally at the hands of someone good. He simply wouldn't care. He would do whatever he had to do to acquire the power necessary for revenge, including staining his heart black and bowing to a demon. Once he got his revenge, though--or speaking archetypically, once he accomplished whatever task he set down the path of darkness consciously to achieve--he would probably just kill himself.

I could imagine this as well. But I don't think such a character would be the opposite of a paladin. He desires power or revenge rather than evil.

But this is exactly what I mean. Good and Evil were objective qualities to the Nazi's, their definitions were just different than ours. The Nazi Paladin *would* be pursuing his ideals of good and law by doing what Nazi's did. It's true that many of them had no idea how bad the atrocities were, but then there were many who did as well. And there are still people today who hold these kinds of ridiculous views of racial inequality. Many of these people are well-educated. I know of one who is even a professor at Berkeley. We think of them as evil, or misguided, or simply racist, but they do not see themselves this way. I'm sure they have plenty of names for us as well.

I suppose that's where it comes down to the question of whether morality really is subjective or whether it's possible to be wrong on moral questions. If I'm running the game, the Nazi paladin is just plain wrong. He may think he's a paladin but he isn't. (Maybe he's a blackguard). Even so, he's not an antipaladin. At the risk of making light of a serious subject, the evil Nazi who think he's a paladin wouldn't have inflict with touch or smite good abilities. He'd have smite Jew/Gypsie/Slav/Cripple/Orphan and Heal Aryan abilities.

Ok, so I got some of my gist across. But let's make an example: Fantasy nation X faces constant border raids from surrounding goblin or orc tribes, or even elves or dwarves etc. Now, after a while of this nation X gets fed up and embarks on a campaign to put these people down. Nation X is already proceeding according to your 2 and 3. What if that nation believes, that is, considers to be a scientific fact, that these goblins/orcs/elves/dwarves are an inferior race.

When ants or rats get in your home, don't you exterminate them?

A fairly common scenario really since most fantasy games assign moral status to groups.

It's something of a simpler question in a fantasy campaign, where goblins really *are* an inferior race (so it's not a just a question of a mistaken belief), but by the same token it seems to me that most adventuring parties are evil anyway. They go traipsing about the countryside, invading the caves and dens of non-agressing creatures, killing them for money and experience. You want an evil Paladin? You've probably played with or as one already! But they attacked you when you entered their cave? Well, wouldn't you attack them if they broke into your house? The reason I brought up the Nazi Paladin in the first place is because I've seen that archetype of a character far too many times.

Well, I'll grant you that you bring up a common caricature of fantasy games and one that's probably true in some cases. In most cases (judging by my experience and the story hours I've read), however, adventurers are invading the caves and dens of aggressive genocidal creatures intent on destroying or enslaving civilization.

In Piratecat's story hour, for instance, they are invading the lair of a ghoul kingdom bent on exterminating all life. Contact's "heros" and Cappellan's Company of the Random Encounter are much closer to your description. However, I don't think the Company of the Random Encounter has attacked any non-aggressors yet. And while one Contact describes Prisantha unthinkingly teleporting an assassin for the Lord of Stoink, she's not a paladin and that's very atypical for her. Contacts characters are pretty morally ambiguous (despite the supposed Holy nature of many of them) but I don't think that what you're describing would be a fair description of them either.

In games I've played, characters have invaded goblin caves--however there was at least the fig leaf of reclaiming invaded mines in that case. It's very rare that characters act without that fig leaf. (Although that same character did once kill a trio of goblins that a farmer had begged him to do something about--only to realize a day later that it was rather odd that they hadn't been killing or pillaging and that they might have been good goblins trying to find a place that they could be good).

In real life I admire the rigidity of your morality. You sound like the kind of person I'd want to watch my back, i.e. not a car salesman . It is probably pointless for us to argue this much further, though, since obviously by your view an evil Paladin is totally impossible, which I agree with. If I had your view of right and wrong and a hierarchy of goods, principles and virtues, I would say the exact same thing. If you are willing to entertain the hypothetical world where our world's morality does not apply (i.e. where the gods make their presence felt, there are no 10 commandments or categorical imperative, etc., and where moral philosophy is at the level of sophistication of an Aristotle, or a Cicero), however, I think there is more to say than simply that one cannot be both evil, and paladin-like.

Well, really polytheism does seem to mess with the foundations of morality--particularly D&D style Polytheism where you generally have equal numbers of good and evil gods. In such a world, you certainly can't base morality off the dictates of God (do you mean Nerull or Pelor? And why prefer one to the other?) Nor can one even use their edicts as evidence for the rightness of acts or principles. Maybe if there were a single god who were the judge of all the dead, his/her judgement would be sufficient. (But that's not most D&D pantheons).

You'd need a Kantian or Utilitarian ethic for such a world (although Aristotelian/Thomistic would do if you could come up with a reasonable argument for a good telos) and then you'd still lack an answer to the "OK, so that's right and this is wrong; why should I care? What's going to happen to me if I choose wrong?" rejoinder.

On the other hand, I think that far from providing a basis for evil paladins, such a world would vitiate the basis for even Lawful Good paladins. After all, if you don't have an ideal Good to pursue, you can't pursue it. And that's the essence of what a D&D paladin is about.

Anyway.. I don't think this is true. Conceptually a Nazi seems like a prototype for an evil knight because he still serves an empire, is still lawful, etc. The reason I brought it up, however, is that so many PC parties run around like this; invading, conquering, stealing, killing, like they're out to commit goblin genocide. This mindset goes for clerics and paladins too, sadly.

I suspect that says more about beer and pretzels gaming (I shouldn't knock it, it's fun sometimes) and DMs who encourage it than it does about the possibility of good or evil paladins though. (Come to think of it, I think that's the essence of the difficulty with MMORPGs as Role Playing Games--the inability to insert moral significance into the actions of characters; then again maybe I haven't played enough to know).

The way you solve this is like you say though: don't tie paladins to any concrete notion of good or law. Let them have different takes on the issue and voila, you have paladins that are evil (in the eyes of someone else).

I don't think you even need to divorce paladins from specific notions of good and law for paladins to fight each other. A moral code that requires loyalty to anything other than self (nation, people, cause, what have you) will inevitably have paladins face each other on the battlefield.

A tragic universe would do that too. The nature of tragedy is that moral claims sometimes conflict and that may not negate either of the claims. Antigone ought to bury her brother. But she ought to obey the law and allow a traitor to lie unburied. Creon needs to enforce the penalties of rebellion. But he should bury his relatives too. Both can even be perfect (but one has a stronger duty to family and the other has a stronger duty to the state) and still the play occurs as Sophocles wrote it. (Which raises some interesting but completely irrelevant (to this discussion) questions: is forgiveness an essential part or a moral universe? And is it possible to be morally perfect, given one moral flaw anywhere?)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Originally posted by Wayside
Good and Evil were objective qualities to the Nazi's, their definitions were just different than ours

As far as I can see it, D&D does not support relative alignments or truths.
Good, Evil, Chaos and Law are not defined by culture, but by the universe. Without this, the embodied creatures of good (like celestials) or evil (devils & demons) would make no sense.

Mustrum Ridcully