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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2151299" data-attributes="member: 27012">I curious for two reason.  First,several people claimed that this sort of thing is clearly and undisputably Evil.  Neutral is not Evil.  I'm more curious about the claim that it's always Evil.  Second, there is the claim that heroes don't do this sort of thing.  Does a hero necessarily need to be Good?Of course to other issue that comes into play is whether Good characters are obliged to stop a Neutral character from doing something that is not Good but also not Evil.  In other words, maybe a Good character wouldn't execute a bound prisoner who works for an Evil force but are they obliged to stop a Neutral character from doing so?Absolutely.  And even Fezzik starts out working for Vizzini with Inigo to kidnap Buttercup.  Yet they get to redeem themselves and ride off into the sunset with Westley and Buttercup as heroes, while the Count is killed and the Prince is spared.  And let's not forget that Westley not only threatens people with death as a Dread Pirate but also essentially threatens to maim the Prince to get him to surrender.There is an interesting episode of Stargate SG-1 where the team visits a planet where Teal'c had killed a crippled man in cold blood under orders from his Gou'ald master (SPOILER WARNING for this paragraph and the next paragraph if you haven't seen the episode).  The dead man's son demands a trial that will likely result in Teal'c's execution.  Teal'c accepts the justice while the rest of his team doesn't.  When they return to Earth to ask General Hammond for help, he points out that Teal'c likely did some really nasty things while working for the Gou'ald, that he's pretty much a war criminal, and that we don't forgive war criminals because they have a change of heart.  (SPOILER WARNING for this paragraph) Of course at the end, the son forgives Teal'c because he has the opportunity to show that he really is a changed man.  But even then, the writers had to be sure the audience would accept the resolution, so they made sure that Teal'c's "crime" was somewhat defensible on utilitarian grounds.  They didn't have him commit a really horrible or senseless act of violence that he had to be forgiven for.  Why?  Because the audience might have balked at letting a real war criminal off the hook, just because he's had a change of heart. Babylon 5 addresses the same problem from a different angle in the episode Passing Through Gethsemane.So there is also the thorny issue of redemption with respect to forgiving the sins of those who do horrible things.  If they repent, should they be punished anyway or should they be forgiven?  Should they be forgiven for whatever they've done?  Should they receive no punishment if they repent?  Is forgiving them the only Good option?  Is punishing them anyway Neutral, Evil, or could it be Good?  Can this assessment even be made without consideration of the religous context of the setting and how the afterlife is handled? (I'm talking about a game settings religion -- I don't want to discuss real religion and invite the wrath of the moderators.)</blockquote>

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