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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4719350" data-attributes="member: 4937">Killing a bunch of evil dragons and their spawn = not evil.Simply casting spells with the evil descriptor (as Familicide is likely to have) = evil.The problem with the question is that it depends on answering two questions with very little real world counterparts.  We have to make decisions about the nature of magic and the nature of monsters.If Dragons are true free-willed beings, then V has committed murder.  If Dragons are some sort of incarnated idea, some sort of spiritual force given flesh, some sort of inherent evil, some sort of scourge on the earth, then ridding the world of a bunch of Dragons is a very great good.Personally, I think of Dragons as the latter sort of thing.  They are incarnated engines of destruction, the animated will of a primal destroyer goddess.  Though sentient, they are no more free willed than hurricanes or earthquakes.  I prefer to think of them in this way because such a thing has no counterpart in the real world.If Magic is just technology, then the means by which V accomplished the feat are morally nuetral.  But traditionally, magic is not presented as morally neutral knowledge or technology.  Traditionally, magic is a thing of moral value in and of itself.  Philosophers and practicioners spoke of 'white magic' and 'black magic', and I think that it is pretty clear that V's tool - however apparantly good its ends at the moment - is in and of itself a thing of the darkest and foulest magic.  My interpretation is that 'black magic' when it is employed even with the best of motives (and V's motives are far from pure) and even when employed to achieve the best of ends (like destroying a bunch of dragons) is still inherently evil and corrupting and whatever harvest it ultimately brings is gauranteed to be evil on the simple principle of like begats like.  Whatever good V has incidently brought about is overshadowed at the least by the evil V is unleashing simply by being what V is right now (and will do in evil's service under the compact that he's under).  At the very least, every action he performs right now - however good and noble - gets repaid back by three actions of the most vile and evil sort.  There isn't anything that V could possibly do that action that will overshadow the evil that will be required in consequence of that.</blockquote>

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