Why does Undead=Evil

[Moff_Tarkin]

Most books I have read and people I have talked to believe that raising undead is an evil act, and I cant figure out why. Is it becouse of some belief that the body is sacred and must not be defiled? Or are they just simple minded people who say "If its nasty and evil looking it must be evil." The same logic some people use when they go "Look. He's dressed in black. He must be evil." I've never got why raising undead was such a big deal. Its no different the animating an object to attack someone. I think that most peole dont have an IQ large enough to understand the shades of gray between good and evil, their minds just work on very simple logic. What do you guys think.

 

[Caliban]

I think that most peole dont have an IQ large enough to understand the shades of gray between good and evil, their minds just work on very simple logic. What do you guys think.

I think it's a very poor idea to start off by calling everyone with a different viewpoint than yours "stupid".

Your supposed to wait until a few people have disagreed with you first.

 

[Zweischneid]

I've never got why raising undead was such a big deal. Its no different the animating an object to attack someone.

Animating Objects to fight for you is evil too! (Check Darth Vader throwing Boxes Luke's way in The Empire strikes back!... and he wears black too!)

Good guys fight their own fights and don't let others fight it for them!

Either way.. there are a few concepts of good, neutral or "the ends justify the means" necromancy out there. Hollowfaust comes to mind.

But in the end, necromancy as evil is a staple of fantasy literature (for some of the very reasons you mentioned btw) and D&D, to be honest, ain't there to change these stereotypes. It's there to play them for all their worth.

 

[Fieari]

This is my wife Alice*. I've spent the past twenty odd years with her, and yet my love grows more and more each day. And then comes the plague, and not even the local cleric has been able to hold back the tide of disease. I did what I could, everything I could, but in the end she died, and I wept for weeks.

One day this man came into town. He seemed like an okay kind of guy, but then he went to our graveyard and dug up my wife's corpse, along with several other bodies. He then defiled her, made her corpse to rise up and walk... but my wife was not there! Her decaying corpse shambled across the landscape, doing this man's bidding, and the horror of it disgusted me. Have you no honor, no respect for the dead?!? Let my wife rest in peace! Your depraved and wicked acts drag her memory through the mud... nay, worse than the mud!

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Beyond even that, what happens to the soul of someone raised as the undead? In literature and myth and folklore, the soul of the zombie is bound to the corpse, but is locked away and enslaved without thought. More than that, the soul is prevented from proceeding to the afterlife. Eternal enslavement (or at least enslavement until the body is thankfully destroyed beyond use by some blessed adventurer). That sounds evil to me.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Is this a serious question or are you just trolling?

Assuming you're serious, raising the dead is considered evil for pretty much the same reason that desecrating a grave/cemetary in the real world is considered evil. I can't think of too many things worse than defiling the remains of someone once they're been laid to rest (which is supposed to be for eternity). While corpses are treated as objects in D&D, they are not in the real world. Go ask a marine if the body of his friend who was killed in action is "just an object" and would he mind if you used it for target practice. Now, of course, this is fantasy so perhaps your game world doesn't have a problem with it. But I think such worlds are rare to the extreme and definitely not the default.

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

Well, has far as defiling the body goes, I belive the body is just an empty shell. There is nothing sacred about it. The soul as moved on an the body is just waste thats left behind.

As for my remark about people with low IQ, I should explain that better. I am not trying to insult people who have opinons different then my own. I was just pointing out that "some" people are very simple minded and work of the logic of "If it looks evil, it must be evil"

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Well, some would argue that what you think of a person's corpse is irrelevant as it is not yours to begin with. To pass judgement in such a manner on someone else's remains is what makes such a person evil in the first place.

How's the saying go? Ignorance is the greatest evil of all...

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

OK, I think we have pegged it down to an evil act as it difiles a corpse. No one wants me raising their dead wife or army buddy to do my bidding, but what about rasing some evil goblins that attacked us. I know you could say that goblins have families as well but that might be going to far. Or what about my favorite tactic. Most of my characters who can animate dead will always kill their horses and animate them. Now he is stronger and never gets tired. It's just a horse, his purpose it to serve me as best he can, and the best way he can serve me is by being animate so he can do his job better.

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

Also, I have played clerics who would use the speak with dead spell to ask the soul for permission to use his or her corpse for my cause and would only animate them with their permission. "Hey I want to use your corpse to help destroy the evil SOB who killed you. Is that ok?" Now is that really evil?

 

[ThirdWizard]

Skeletons and Zombies are evil. Creating an evil being is evil.