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RPG Evolution: Older Than You Look
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8799352" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>The ethics of interspecies relationships are not obvious, much less the ethics of relationships that extend beyond death. In general, I feel most interspecies relationships are immoral and that death is a reset button, but there could be reasonable exceptions. Even in Tolkien, the interracial relationships between male humans and female elves that reoccurs a few times feels dodgy, short-sighted, and selfish at times and justifying them is complicated. Arwen in particular seems to have not considered the relationship fully when she entered into it, and its hard for me as a man to think about putting a loved one through what he is asking of Arwen especially given that Aragorn has no assurance at all of any existence after death. Is it really love or is it lust at that point? Maybe they should have just stayed friends?</p><p></p><p>Probably the healthiest example we have in popular canon is actually Sarak and Amanda, whom seem to understand what they are getting into and solemnize their unusual relationship in a completely healthy manner by creating artificially a child that is the genetic heir of both of them. However, even this has problems of seeming selfish since by one perspective Spock is the only member of his species "Half-Vulcan" and this doesn't seem very fair to the child. (On the other hand, Spock eventually seems to both be accepted as and accept himself as a full member of both species, resolving the conflict positively.)</p><p></p><p>There are extremely unhealthy examples such as the parasitic relationship of the Asari in Mass Effect although it should hardly be surprising that Mass Effect is uninterested in the ethics of sexual relationships considering the demographics it is appealing to and the way it treats "romance" in the game.</p><p></p><p>In any event, I think that we can sort of guess at the ethics involved based on what we think the ethics are of humanity, but it requires reflecting on why we think those are the ethics and not relying on unreliable feelings or squeamishness. For example, in my game there was a romance between an 80 year old half-elf and a nearly 400 year old elf. The intuition on this is that this is suspect. She's emotionally a 20-year-old, and he's emotionally a 40-year-old, and he's five times her age. But if we step back a bit, their remaining lifespans are reasonably similar, and none of the motivations that normally make age difference relationship suspect are present. He's not attracted to her because of a transient aspect of her being that when it goes away is going to end the attraction. This is a relationship that logically makes sense as a life partnership for both of them, given her inability to find peers, his failure in romance thus far, and their ability to produce viable offspring that in many respects would be better adjusted and healthier and less risky than the relationship of her own parents (which was ultimately tragic). </p><p></p><p>So who knows, maybe relationships between kobolds and dragonborn are healthy? Maybe the match makes perfect sense.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8799352, member: 4937"] The ethics of interspecies relationships are not obvious, much less the ethics of relationships that extend beyond death. In general, I feel most interspecies relationships are immoral and that death is a reset button, but there could be reasonable exceptions. Even in Tolkien, the interracial relationships between male humans and female elves that reoccurs a few times feels dodgy, short-sighted, and selfish at times and justifying them is complicated. Arwen in particular seems to have not considered the relationship fully when she entered into it, and its hard for me as a man to think about putting a loved one through what he is asking of Arwen especially given that Aragorn has no assurance at all of any existence after death. Is it really love or is it lust at that point? Maybe they should have just stayed friends? Probably the healthiest example we have in popular canon is actually Sarak and Amanda, whom seem to understand what they are getting into and solemnize their unusual relationship in a completely healthy manner by creating artificially a child that is the genetic heir of both of them. However, even this has problems of seeming selfish since by one perspective Spock is the only member of his species "Half-Vulcan" and this doesn't seem very fair to the child. (On the other hand, Spock eventually seems to both be accepted as and accept himself as a full member of both species, resolving the conflict positively.) There are extremely unhealthy examples such as the parasitic relationship of the Asari in Mass Effect although it should hardly be surprising that Mass Effect is uninterested in the ethics of sexual relationships considering the demographics it is appealing to and the way it treats "romance" in the game. In any event, I think that we can sort of guess at the ethics involved based on what we think the ethics are of humanity, but it requires reflecting on why we think those are the ethics and not relying on unreliable feelings or squeamishness. For example, in my game there was a romance between an 80 year old half-elf and a nearly 400 year old elf. The intuition on this is that this is suspect. She's emotionally a 20-year-old, and he's emotionally a 40-year-old, and he's five times her age. But if we step back a bit, their remaining lifespans are reasonably similar, and none of the motivations that normally make age difference relationship suspect are present. He's not attracted to her because of a transient aspect of her being that when it goes away is going to end the attraction. This is a relationship that logically makes sense as a life partnership for both of them, given her inability to find peers, his failure in romance thus far, and their ability to produce viable offspring that in many respects would be better adjusted and healthier and less risky than the relationship of her own parents (which was ultimately tragic). So who knows, maybe relationships between kobolds and dragonborn are healthy? Maybe the match makes perfect sense. [/QUOTE]
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