Was V's act evil? (Probable spoilers!)

[Klaus]

The motives weight as much as the act.

Killing someone who is evil, even though you don't know he is evil, just because you can, is an evil act.

V commited genocide just to cause further pain to an enemy. That's teranazi material!

 

[Cadfan]

Arguably, even the deaths of the occasional non-evil black dragons and half dragons is not enough to make this act evil. It seems to me that you've got to go with intentions, if you want to argue that this act is evil. Either that of you're committing yourself to a moral position that says... not very nice things, lets say... about every modern act of warfare or embargo to occur since at least world war 2. I can only pursue this line of reasoning so far under the code of conduct, and the analogy between enemy soldiers and inherently evil monsters isn't perfect, but the basic idea- that its not generally considered morally wrong to kill off even relatively large amounts of civilians (non-objectively evil creatures) in pursuit of the reduction of your side's casualties- remains the same.

Maybe we'd have a better world if people didn't think that way, but they do.

 

[Wormwood]

It wasn't a Good act or an Evil act.

It was a METAL act, and I can only approve.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Thanks Alzrius. I didn't schlep upstairs to get the MM.


That said, unique (1) or very rare (<1%, and probably a lot less when we compare that to unique- i.e. only one in existence) is a pretty reasonable casualty of war when your job is to go out and kill stuff every day (i.e a D&D adventurer).

Add to that that the very rare or unique individual is just as likely to be LE, NE, N, CN, or LN...and all of those are reasonably acceptable kills in D&D.

Mathematically, if you give all the other alignments an equal chance, the individual who is not CE still has a 5/8 chance of being an acceptable non-good kill

Statistically, if you use my 1% or less, and my 5/8 chance, for every 267 acceptable dragons killed one good dragon would be killed.


In real life, I couldn't live with that. In D&D, I TOTALLY could.

This was not problematic because of killing an evil race in D&D. THAT IS THE GOAL in D&D, much of the time. This WAS evil for a number of other reasons.


Anyone who has ever shot a kobold brigand (or, heck a human brigand) in the back while they are running away from their botched highway robbery should appreciate that the morals in D&D are a bit different than in our world.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

in reference to Warfare...

This wasn't conventional warfare. This wasn't the equivalent of one country attacking another country and the other country retaliating to protect it's citizens.

This was the equivalent of some guy trying to kill me and my family, failing then me killing the guy and proceeding to hunt down and kill EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF HIS FAMILY. His mom, his dad, his paraplegic cousin Dwight, his sister and her 3 kids aged 3, 12 & 16. This is me killing my way across creation to end his bloodline.

I'm sorry but that's just frakkin EVIL.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Yes-

His mom, who boils children to death.

His dad who flays virgins.

Dwight- paralyzed because he was shot while taking hostages and now rots in jail, organizing bombing attempts on orphanages for ransom.

His sister and her three kids- all cannibals. They like to find hikers who they drug and then eat alive.

 

[Thasmodious]

I'm with the guy surprised that 13% of those polled think it was a good act.

V makes a deal for his soul with epically powerful archfiends for power. This makes him an unambiguously evil character at this point. He is evil, the actions that follow are evil by default, but moving on, we have -

He allows the souls of the most evil, powerful wizards to be grafted to him.
After killing the dragon, he uses that power to turn the dragon undead.
He casts an epic level [Evil] spell created by the most powerfully evil necromancer in all of the Abyss.
This spell exists to kill off an entire family line, no matter how far it stretches.
These deaths include plenty of evil black dragons, but not every single black dragon is evil (as the MM glossary establishes)
It also includes non-dragon offspring such as half dragons and other spawn which are not alignment restricted, so hundreds of good and neutral beings could have been killed and V has no way of knowing, nor does he care.
He tortures the dragon with the knowledge that her entire line will end.

Really, where do people find the good in this? This is about real world morality. D&D alignment has rules and V's actions are outright evil, starting with the deal with the devils and anything that flows from that, even saving his family, is tainted. He became an evil creature. Can a Balor apply for paladinhood after killing enough devils? Evil creatures killing evil creatures are not committing good acts and V has certainly become evil. Rich hints at this with the subtle changes in V's appearance.

 

[Krensky]

Arguably, even the deaths of the occasional non-evil black dragons and half dragons is not enough to make this act evil. It seems to me that you've got to go with intentions, if you want to argue that this act is evil. Either that of you're committing yourself to a moral position that says... not very nice things, lets say... about every modern act of warfare or embargo to occur since at least world war 2. I can only pursue this line of reasoning so far under the code of conduct, and the analogy between enemy soldiers and inherently evil monsters isn't perfect, but the basic idea- that its not generally considered morally wrong to kill off even relatively large amounts of civilians (non-objectively evil creatures) in pursuit of the reduction of your side's casualties- remains the same.

Maybe we'd have a better world if people didn't think that way, but they do.

V's spell was E-VEEL because of his intentions (torture the dragon, demonstrate his superiority, etc.) and because of the act (killing everything related to her). This would be like dropping a nuclear bomb on Detroit because someone from Detroit tried to kill your grandmother. Or, engineering a virus to kill everyone of a specific ethnic group for doing the same.

Heck, the demons (devils, whatever) even gave him an out in having the Imp take his head to Durkon. Which he rejected because of his pride and arrogance.

It was an E-VEEL act with E-VEEL intentions and it is going to cost him.

Also, unpreventable civilian casualties in pursuits of military goals are not moral (they aren't necessarily immoral either). They may, depending on a number of factors, be legal. They may also be illegal. The laws of war don't say where the line is, for good reason. Killing an entire population to prevent them from maybe attacking you at some indeterminate point in the future is both immoral and illegal.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Since I cast the disintegrate spell, I am the one that's getting blamed for the entirety of my group's actions? And therefore, my family must be tortured?

V stopped the dragon. What is being discussed is what happened afterwards.

C'mon now. The black dragon parent took this to another level, and V is now making sure that no other member of this family will take it upon themselves to exact revenge on V and his/her family.

Genocide isn't taking things to a whole other level?

V killed a black dragon, and in such a way to make it very difficult to raise it (disintegrate leaves no corpse). The mother wanted to go beyond simply killing V, but killing V's immediate family. Now, the extra things the dragon was going to do (soul bind) were escalating things. However wiping out not just the immediate family, but tons of relatives, is a whole other level of escalation.

At best V was being EQUALLY evil as the dragon. Was the dragon stupid for leaving it's child behind to defend the horde? Perhaps. V was equally stupid for not trancing, for going off alone, and choosing a banned school that ended up preventing access to teleportation (although that was unintentional on V's part an was due to changes to the universe). V made mistakes that enabled the dragon to achieve it's plan ... JUST like the dragon made mistakes that allowed V to kill the dragon's child.

[quot]
What if that stupid half-dragon centaur was GOOD? Who cares? It could just as easily find out about V's actions and try to kill V, leaving V's children with only one parent. Just because it's good doesn't mean it's going to go down every other peaceful avenue, figuring out what its cousin did to deserve this, etc.
[/quote]

No it will wipe out the entirety of V's family line, because that is at best neutral

Also, if it was actualy V's plan to avoid retribution and not revenge (there is no indication by V that this is any more than spiteful revenge on V's part) then there is a huge gap in that logic as BLOOD relatives aren't the only people that may go after V. For example, the centaur half of the half-centaurs family are just as likely to be upset about the massive slaughter. Not to mention Tiamat.

If the goal is kill anyone that might be upset and come after V in revenge ... it would require destroying all intelligent life (and unlife, and sentient immortals, etc). If anything the greater the slaughter the more likely there is going to be someone seeking revenge.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Anyone who has ever shot a kobold brigand (or, heck a human brigand) in the back while they are running away from their botched highway robbery should appreciate that the morals in D&D are a bit different than in our world.

In the real world, I don't think shooting a brigand in the back as they are fleeing is not "good" or "evil," it's unsportsmanlike (and often a cowardly act if the brigand was completely unarmed). Just ask Robert Ford.