When last I posted, I named a couple of guys I consider my heroes: Jesus, the Buddha, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, I believe.
It's a pretty interesting list to consider in terms of what constitutes success and failure for a very good person. Jesus was tortured and murdered, Buddha was tortured, Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered (and perhaps tortured), Nelson Mandela was tortured. I don't think many people are going to say that they failed, however.
The case of Jesus is particularly helpful, I think, because he was both tortured <i>and</i> murdered by what can easily be construed as organized, evil forces. He refused to play by the rules of the Roman and Sanhedrin and, as a result, he was cruxified and killed. Should I go, "Way to go, Jesus"? Should I sneer? Should I say, "Way to let the Roman Empire continue to oppress and brutalize your people"? I don't think that would be appropriate for, as we pretty much know, Jesus <i>won</i>, and in a big way. Indeed, he won in large part <i>because</i> he was cruxified.
As that spins around for a bit, let's take a look at the life and times of perhaps the most famous organization of paladins out there: the Knights of the Round Table.
Few more dismal stories exist. Camelot fell. The quest for the Grail ended in failure. Did Camelot fail, however? As with the story of Jesus, I can't even remotely take that to be the case. For while Camelot's stones fell, the ideals of Camelot survive and flourish. The idea of fair play, justice, limited government, government existing within and not above the framework of law -- that the same laws apply to king and peasant, knight and merchant, has been a powerful force. Would the legend of Arthur be the same if he had tortured information out of people, poisoned the wells of his enemies, brutalized his foes instead of showing them mercy? No. He'd be the story of one more Middle Ages barbarian slaughering people willy-nilly and we would not remember him. He is remembered far more than Camelot than Mount Badon; he is remembered for the peace he brought, the justice he served, than the battles he won.
Paladins, IMO, see failure and success way differently than most other people. The real battle is won and lost not on the battlefields, but in people's hearts and minds. To do good when it would be easier to do evil, to show mercy when you know you'll be betrayed, to treat everyone -- demon and saint -- as if they had the same rights and dignity, is the way to go. Because to a paladin, to lower oneself to the level of one's foes for a single moment <I>is the loss</i>. That's where paladins win and lose. Paladins turn a physical loss into a lasting victory not because they win or lose battles, but because they change the context of the struggle from the physical to the spiritual. (The same is true, I believe, of all good clerics, as well, whether they bear arms or not.)
There is also the argument that is made that evil MUST be fought with, essentially, it's own tools. The argument seems to be given that evil is <i>stronger</i> than good. This is sheerest folly to even <i>consider</i>, I think. Evil is, well, it's evil. It's corrupt and divisive to it's <i>bones</i>. Think about a society where everyone is trying to screw everyone else all the time and that's a rough picture of the various lower planes. Imagine an army of everyone trying to screw everyone else trying to <i>do anything</i>. Sure, it has certain advantages, but even those work against evil in the long run.
For instance, if you're working for a leader who believes in treachery and murder are the best solutions for most problems, what are you going to do to him if you're as evil as he is? Or, heck, even if you're neutral! You're going to try to defeat him with treachery and murder -- you're going to endeavor to be worse than he is. So, yeah, while people in this society are going to be good at treachery and murder, at every dirty trick in the book, they're going to have to live with the consequences of society that runs in such a fashion.
Or if you feel that is a little too chaotic, what about the corruption usually endemic in lawful evil societies? In a good society, where the transfer of resources is efficient and benevolent, in an evil society the best of everything is going to be drained off into various private coffers and the like. Taxation needed for huge armies is going to suffer, thust he armies are going to be smaller and far less efficient than ones of lawful good people who cheerfully pay their taxes to tiny bureaucracies that see to it the money gets to the government to be spent wisely and well.
In short, evil is inefficient. So, for every strength you can propose for evil, I can propose a weakness. Sure, it has a wide range of action, but it's inefficient.
Not to mention that <i>no one wants to live under an evil overlord.</i> This is <i>vital</i> to understand. So, imagine a common sort of scenario in fantasy games: the evil necromancer tyrant has conquered half of the Kingdom of Peacefulilla. The people, of course, are horrified -- their peaceful existence is shattered by the brutal tyranny of the eeeeeeevil necromancer. Their natural urge is to rise up. But some damn paladin keeps striking behind enemy lines and <i>poisoning the wells</i>.
This happens! During World War II, the Russian people initially greeted Hitler's troops as liberating them from Stalinist tyranny -- but rather than seizing the fact the Russians <i>wanted</i> to be <i>freed</i>, Hitler's <i>evil</i> gave the Russian people back into Stalin's hands! A "paladin" going and acting like a sonofabitch, burning farms, poisoning wells, etc., is not going to be loved by the people. He will be seen as a brutal thug that is no different than the necromancer who rules them -- indeed, his horrible actions will justify the necromancer's rule! It <i>legitimizes</i> it! The necromancer can now say, "I wish I could do something to help you, but these so-called paladins keep destroying the infrastruction, so I must continue the high taxation and exactions in order to save our land and way of life from the brutal thugs who seek to destroy us."
No, no, the notion that evil must be fought with its own weapons is not supportable in any sense of the word.
Furthermore, as I've said before, if you encourage people to behave in nasty ways to their "enemies," you've still lost. If a "paladin" trains a group of people to poison wells, to torture, to do anything to win . . . when the war is over, that attitude isn't going to vanish.
Someone mentioned Gilles de Rais -- who is an interesting case to look at. It wasn't until <i>after</i> the war was ended that he became the monster we remember him as -- during the Hundred Years' War, he was the very model of French chivalry. It is pretty widely held the reason this is so is because de Rais, during the war, had an easily available outlet for his vile impulses: the war itself. If he felt in whatever sick mood he was in that caused him to defile children, well, during the war he could go out and slaughter some Englishmen and that was good! If the war had not ended during his lifetime, we'd probably think he was a swell guy, a skilled general and tremendous fighter. But the war did end and those horrific tastes he had nutured during his years of war didn't just vanish.
Who has won, now? How many Giles de Rais do wars fought with every trick of violence and brutality create? As I've said elsewhere, war is evil -- but there are still choices that can be made. We can chose to fight war as clean as possible, or as dirty as possible. If a person choses to fight a dirty war, you might have increased the chances of physically defeating your foe but at the cost of internalizing some of the behavior of your foe. Even in victory, you have already lost.
This is made worse in a game with active supernatural evil, too, I'd think. I seriously doubt clever demons and devils would care if they "lost" a war if, in the process, they got to drag serious chunks of society down to their own level. I think clever fiends would see that as a wonderful <i>victory</i>, one perhaps sweeter than if they'd managed to overrun the place. Now some of the ethics of evil -- torturing people for information, poisoning the wells of farmers who are just trying to survive, burning the enemies fields and depriving everyone (good and evil, supporter of the overlord or not) of food -- has entered into this kingdom. That's a good place to build from, I'd think, were I a fiend.
So, in short, I just can't seem to buy any of the arguments that paladins should cover themselves with feces when fighting evil. Not only does a noble loss sometimes mean far more than a brutal victory -- as it provides an Arthurian example, for instance -- I think goodness has intrisic qualities to it that almost ensure victory if left undiluted by what is disingenuously referred to as necessity. I also think that fighting a brutal war is a victory for evil in any event. So . . . I just can't see any reason for paladins to do other than be completely above the board.
<I>Edited an "insure" to "ensure."
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