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

[JetstreamGW]

Ultimately, whether the end result of the act was a good thing or not, Vaarsuvius' REASON for doing it is based wholly around the concept of revenge, around the concept of making that creature feel PAIN.

For that reason, regardless of whether killing every black dragon in the world is good or not, what Var just did was extraordinarily evil based upon his motivation.


Also, you know, accepting the deal from the Archfiends, creating an undead creature... Both evil acts in their own right He's goin' to hell, ya'll!

 

[Orius]

It's evil, no question about it. I said as much over in the thread about the strip and I'm not going to repeat everything I said again here.

V did it to make the dragon suffer, which itself is evil. And the whole justification of protecting V's family is ridiculously flimsy. Dragons often don't have the same bonds of kinship that humans (or elves in this case) have, so many of the dragon's family is simply not going to care that V offed her and come looking for revenge. As evil beings, they're likely to care even LESS. It's also a highly disproportionate response.

There's no way a spell of this nature could be anything less than evil.

Of all the points made in this thread, I will agree with this one:

Also, no, it's not justified. The whole idea of evil is that it's the easy path. Being the good guy isn't supposed to be sunshine, flowers, and rainbows. You see some do something unquestionably evil, yes, you stop it and then. You don't then kill it's family because they might be evil too, that makes you no different then the evil bad guy you stopped. I can't think of a single game or setting that has a meter of alignment or morality that wouldn't mark you down for it.

Yes, that's it. Two wrongs do not make a right. That's one of the whole points of good. Evil wouldn't think twice about proactive mass-murder or genocide, but good would, and might even try to stop it because that it what distinguishes it from evil. Good and evil could be defined like obscenity, you don't know how to define it, but you know it when you see it.

V did this for an evilgasm, and it's self-evident from the strip.

And the whole argument, "kill this person who's about to do a nasty evil act to protect innocents", is a lie. When we see this argument being used in fiction, who's using it? Always an evil tempter. I can't recall seeing the agents of good using this argument. The future isn't set in stone. And hey, let's bring some quantum theory into this: if alternate realities exist for every decision we ever made and will ever make, then killing someone to prevent an evil act doesn't just kill that person in the quantum realities where he does that act, it kills him in the realities where he choose NOT to make that act. It kills him in that realities where he spends an entire lifetime not doing evil or even living virtuously. Is that not evil? (And yes, if the theory is true, there are probably quantum realities out there where Hitler spent his whole life as a painter.)

Anyway, I see more or less two arguments being made for not evil here. One is V fans defending their favorite. Sorry, but V has crossed into the dark side here. Anything else is denial.

The other is the side that thinks D&D alignment is stupid as written, and the side that tends to come up with some truely ridiculous moral arguments to say alignment should be banned. Yes, there are occasional flaws to the alignment system, but as I've said before in alignment thread, often they're a result of a DM throwing a half-assed ethical dilemna on a party so the paladin becomes a fighter, or to screw some other alignment-dependant character for little more than whim. In any case, the logic behind "killing evil = good" can't possibly be sound in my mind.

And careful folks, there's a couple of places where this thread has danced around the politics and religion bans. Don't get this thread locked.

 

[Ariosto]

These are things that may be defined differently from campaign to campaign. Alignment is a contentious subject, and the Good-Evil axis seems to account for 90%+ of debates.

In my campaign, I would not take a utilitarian approach.

Significant deeds are not things that "just happen" but results of volition. A natural phenomenon such as the wind is morally neutral. The very needed rain it brings to my fields is denied to someone else who may thereby suffer drought. In that light, it is sensible that the D&D Druid (treated, at least in not very closely examined theory, as regarding the Natural Order above all) should be rated Neutral. That is likewise the alignment of natural animals; only beings in the realm of "people" are Good or Evil, unless they are somehow extensions of the power of people.

Deeds are the product of character. What else can it mean to rate a creature as Good or Evil than that its thoughts are so inclined?

Suppose the Red Dragons see what has happened to the Black, and (using the same reasoning as V) commit "Familicide" against V's family?

In the real world, a list of dire vices is likely to be a litany of character traits rather than of kinds of action. Hatred and Selfishness tend to be prominent, and I see those qualities expressed in V's deeds. Those deeds are by intent cruel, and it appears that V takes pleasure in the cruelty.

But what if the element of torture were removed, and the genocidal massacre viewed in dispassionate and utilitarian terms? Dispassion is a falling away from the compassion widely held as a virtue in real-world moral metaphysics, especially when it becomes callousness. Witch-hunts and pogroms have been furthered in part by people who apparently thought that the atrocities were "for the greater good."

The scope of slaughter furthers the removal, requiring as it does a further denial of relationships with individuals as individuals. If Orcs (based on Tolkien's portrayal of Morgoth's creatures) are irredeemably Evil, then I can as DM countenance as non-Evil at least as much lack of compassion as might be shown Neutral natural pests and predators. I cannot easily quantify where to draw it, but there is a line that one can cross.

Perhaps it makes most sense if one considers Evil a form of insanity.

If Dragons are by nature Evil, then it seems to me that the more a man (or Elf) embraces Draconic values, the more Evil his own nature becomes.

 

[tsadkiel]

After they invaded its lair.

They didn't know it was its lair. Or that the dragon existed at all.

 

[Ariosto]

Oops -- double post

 

[Derren]

They didn't know it was its lair. Or that the dragon existed at all.

And yet they made no attempt to flee when they discovered that they invaded a dragons lair.
Also when you go back you will see that V killed that dragon not in defence. It didn't posed any threat at this point, so actually what V did back then was not self defence but cold blooded murder.

To those who think that familicide was not evil, do you also think that Miko would have been justified to kill Belkar?

 

[tsadkiel]

And yet they made no attempt to flee when they discovered that they invaded a dragons lair.

Running back into the sphere of darkness isn't attempting to flee?

Also when you go back you will see that V killed that dragon not in defence. It didn't posed any threat at this point, so actually what V did back then was not self defence but cold blooded murder.

The suggestion spell had just ended that second, and the dragon was about to, you know, kill them.

 

[Maggan]

So, killing to safeguard your family = evil.

V was done safeguarding her family after she slew the dragon.

What she did after that was simple enough: she condemned her family to doom and suffering. Assume there are other black dragons alive. Will they stand for this? Will the rest of the evil dragons stand for this? Heck, will the rest of dragonkind stand for this? What will Tiamat do about it?

And what will every single evil being in the world think about the fact that there is a flat out lunatic elf with glowing eyes that can kidnap one of their family and then ... murder anyone who traces blood to that person?

What will the forces of good think? What will the kings and queens, the emperors and empresses, the lords and ladies think about the possibility that somewhere, there's an elf with the power to wipe out a whole dynasty, seemingly at whim? Add to that any organisation with strong familial ties (such as any mob equvivalents) and countless other beings who would have reason to fear such a power.

In my campaign, once news got out (and it would get out, there's too many scrying spells for it not to), the hunt would be on. Quests would be issued, assassins would be dispatched, heck, crusades would be formed ... all with the express purpose of taking out the elf with the killer spell.

I could even see me having good and evil join forces to put the threat down (which would probably damn some of the good people, but hey, win some, lose some).

Else they would live under the shadow of fear of their whole families being wiped out, should they happen to entertain the wrath of V.

And V's family would be prime targets for anyone out to get V. Control the family and you control V.

So, casting familicide was not in any shape or form V safeguarding her family. Quite the opposite, IMO.

/M

 

[Zimri]

You made that way more confusing than it needed to be, but once I get through it, I find a good argument for doing something to provide further protection. What I don't find is an argument for committing this kind of indiscriminate slaughter. This was not even remotely the only option available for seeing to his/her family's safety.

And I certainly don't find an argument that morally justifies doing it with obvious glee, in a manner deliberately calculated to make one of those beings suffer as much as possible.

How , precisely, does the frame of mind or emotional response of the killer change the results of the action ? Grandma or 64 dragon's are no less or no more dead than they otherwise would have been had the killer been angry or morose instead of gleeful.

The reason for it being that "obfuscated" is because I know where my mind is going with the example and I'm trying to stay on the "not getting a holiday from posting" side of "don't mention RL politics".

 

[Zimri]

Wow.

Just... wow.

Glad to know that you might come murder me out of the blue for something sister (or cousins, or great-grandfather, or ...) did.

---------

I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I can't sit here and not say it.

This is the most morally repugnant, sickening, and revolting philosophy I have ever heard an actual person profess, and I'll consider myself lucky never to meet you or anyone who thinks like you in real life.

And I'll consider myself lucky to never meet anyone who thinks it's fine and dandy to want to kill my wife and kids because their brother and I got in a bar fight.