D&D 5E Why is animate dead considered inherently evil?

I'm having a troublesome time understanding why the animate dead spell is considered evil. When I read the manual it states that the spall imbues the targeted corpse with a foul mimicry of life, implying that the soul is not a sentient being who is trapped in a decaying corpse. Rather, the spell does exactly what its title suggests, it only animates the corps. Now of course one could use the spell to create zombies that would hunt and kill humans, but by that same coin, they could create a labor force that needs no form of sustenance (other than for the spell to be recast of course). There have also been those who have said "the spell is associated with the negative realm which is evil", however when you ask someone why the negative realm is bad that will say "because it is used for necromancy", I'm sure you can see the fallacy in this argument.

However, I must take into account that I have only looked into the DnD magic system since yesterday so there are likely large gaps in my knowledge. PS(Apon further reflection I've decided that the animate dead spell doesn't fall into the school of necromancy, as life is not truly given to the corps, instead I believe this would most likely fall into the school of transmutation.) PPS(I apologize for my sloppy writing, I've decided I'm feeling too lazy to correct it.)
 

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tomBitonti

Adventurer
One other thing I've been noodling over when it comes to good and evil is the color blue. Now, before you accuse me of adding something special to my morning tea, let me explain. The color blue doesn't objectively exist. A specific wavelength of light that we interpret as blue does exist, but as far as we know we've only distinguished blue as a separate color in modern times. The ancient Greeks for example didn't even have a word for it (1). To this day, some cultures can't distinguish between shades of green and blue, although they can distinguish shades of what we see as green that most people can't (2). For that matter, Russians have different words for dark blue and light blue and can spot the difference much more quickly than most westerners.

So something we think of as an objective thing, a color we see on a regular basis when we look up during the day unless we live in Seattle is only something we have a word for, and only distinguish from other colors because of cultural norms.

So we can confidently say that the color blue doesn't really exist, just like good and evil do not. But if I want to tell you the color of my wife's car I can be confident that when I say it's blue you'll know what I'm talking about. Unless of course you happen to be a member of the Himba tribe. So when we talk about acts that are intrinsically good and evil, people generally know what we're talking about unless you're a philosophy major. ;)

That's useful for the game because it gives us a shared common starting point, one that can be easily ignored if you want.
“We” don’t think any such thing.

Color practitioners know very well that color perception is not absolute. They don’t think of color as being objective. Not in a terribly precise sense.

This is opposed by sound. Perfect sound perception (perfect pitch) is a real thing. Perfect color perception is not.

One of my books on art color theory spent a lot of effort to show that color is not absolute. Physicists define precise wavelengths and attach color labels to them. Artists live in the world of (human) color perception, where such attempts at precision fail.

Color perception varies by observer, by adjacency, by lighting, by brightness, by viewing angle, by observer history (were they just looking at red in a bright light?). Depending on factors such as these, everyday people might reasonably assign different colors to your wife’s car.

TomB
 

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tomBitonti

Adventurer
Not quite the reading I would give. Not whatever you prefer but whatever is preferable. The good choice of only evil options is the lesser evil option.

""For the lesser evil can be seen in comparison with the greater evil as a good, since this lesser evil is preferable to the greater one, and whatever preferable is good."
-Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics"
“Whatever preferable is good” seems highly disputable.

I take the statement as an attempt to unify relative measurements (better than and worse than) with absolute descriptions (good and evil).

I don’t think the statement, by itself, succeeds.

Very probably, the statement must be understood in context.

TomB
 

tomBitonti

Adventurer
Even here I think most people are uneasy with corpses on display. I am not against using the human body for research and learning, but my point was even when we do it isn't without unease because we recognize it as a kind of violation. That doesn't mean there aren't and haven't been exceptions. My point wasn't that it is an absolute, it is that most people would object to animate dead on moral grounds. I don't think it requires that much immigination to understand why it is labeled evil

Also, in cases where people have no choice but to eat the dead, those kinds of accounts are usually regarded as horrendous situations where people face a choice between two horrible options
There are definitely cultural aspects to this. That is, dead bodies, bones, graveyards, present themselves very differently in different cultures. My sense is that the modern western sensibility is quite at odds with historical cultural norms.

(On the other hand, how did people deal with mass death, either from disease or from battle?)

TomB
 

There are definitely cultural aspects to this. That is, dead bodies, bones, graveyards, present themselves very differently in different cultures. My sense is that the modern western sensibility is quite at odds with historical cultural norms.

(On the other hand, how did people deal with mass death, either from disease or from battle?)

TomB
It definitely varies by culture and time. But most cultures have some kind of burial ritual or procedure for handling the dead. A sky burial for example takes a much different approach. I am not saying there aren't cultural variations here, or that it is something present in every single culture. But most cultures have burial practices of some kind because how you handle the body after is still important. There is usually still a sense of how one ought to handle it. My point is just that given how many people regard the body as important and inviolable, it isn't hard to imagine how animate dead is considered evil in a fantasy setting. All it takes is any amount of familiarity with cultural taboos around desecration. It doesn't mean you have to agree with them. It just means it is entirely understandable in a campaign cosmology
 

tomBitonti

Adventurer
It definitely varies by culture and time. But most cultures have some kind of burial ritual or procedure for handling the dead. A sky burial for example takes a much different approach. I am not saying there aren't cultural variations here, or that it is something present in every single culture. But most cultures have burial practices of some kind because how you handle the body after is still important. There is usually still a sense of how one ought to handle it. My point is just that given how many people regard the body as important and inviolable, it isn't hard to imagine how animate dead is considered evil in a fantasy setting. All it takes is any amount of familiarity with cultural taboos around desecration. It doesn't mean you have to agree with them. It just means it is entirely understandable in a campaign cosmology
I think we are in agreement. My point in regards to cultural variation failed to convey that the cultural variations seem to have a much stronger regard for these things.
TomB
 

Oofta

Legend
“We” don’t think any such thing.

Color practitioners know very well that color perception is not absolute. They don’t think of color as being objective. Not in a terribly precise sense.

This is opposed by sound. Perfect sound perception (perfect pitch) is a real thing. Perfect color perception is not.

One of my books on art color theory spent a lot of effort to show that color is not absolute. Physicists define precise wavelengths and attach color labels to them. Artists live in the world of (human) color perception, where such attempts at precision fail.

Color perception varies by observer, by adjacency, by lighting, by brightness, by viewing angle, by observer history (were they just looking at red in a bright light?). Depending on factors such as these, everyday people might reasonably assign different colors to your wife’s car.

TomB
Most people consider a certain spectrum of light to be "blue". Same way that most people have a very general idea of right and wrong, good and evil. Of course some philosophers will have different approaches, just like color.

But in decent lighting conditions where people can see my wife's car? They'll call it blue. If people have a good understanding of why someone committed acts we would define as good or evil, most people will agree. Of course there's a lot of misperceptions and disagreements, see the blue dress picture as an example. Some acts people will consider good, others will consider them evil.

But my point is that for most games of D&D I've ever played we didn't deal in edge cases. We know Strahd is evil because we're told he's evil repeatedly. For game purposes, I think it works well. A cloudless sky during the day is blue even if the ancient Greeks wouldn't have had a specific word for it.

Meanwhile if you want to have a morally gray campaign with ethical frameworks based on advanced philosophical ethical frameworks, go for it. If you want to analyze color from a scientific perspective because it works better for you, great.

But for most people I've played with over the decades? We don't want to stress out over edge cases or debate deontology vs utilitarianism. Give us over simplified mass market appeal good and evil the majority of times. Just like most people will call my wife's car blue if it's well lit. Unless you're from Russia where light blue and dark blue are different things. ;)
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
“We” don’t think any such thing.

Color practitioners know very well that color perception is not absolute. They don’t think of color as being objective. Not in a terribly precise sense.

This is opposed by sound. Perfect sound perception (perfect pitch) is a real thing. Perfect color perception is not.

One of my books on art color theory spent a lot of effort to show that color is not absolute. Physicists define precise wavelengths and attach color labels to them. Artists live in the world of (human) color perception, where such attempts at precision fail.

Color perception varies by observer, by adjacency, by lighting, by brightness, by viewing angle, by observer history (were they just looking at red in a bright light?). Depending on factors such as these, everyday people might reasonably assign different colors to your wife’s car.

TomB
My wife and I have been arguing over the color of my car for 3 years. I say it's sage green and she insists it's army green. I've even pointed out real army green cars on the road, since apparently it has come back into fashion recently.

Lexus-ES-Sunlit-Green.png
 

jgsugden

Legend
My wife and I have been arguing over the color of my car for 3 years. I say it's sage green and she insists it's army green. I've even pointed out real army green cars on the road, since apparently it has come back into fashion recently.

View attachment 341695
Maybe it is just me, but I'd call that a "Sunlit Green" ... just like the image label calls it.

If you want to end the discussion, I'd go stop by a paint store, ask for paint samples in each color, drive to a divorce attorney to get ready for the obvious outcome, and then go place the two samples on the car and call the wife over.

My biggest question about all of this: Druids are all about nature, balance, etc... However, when we see a thematic element in a class, we also often see versions appear in antithesis to the core concept. Anti-paladins or Oath Breakers, for example. Where are the dark druids that animate dead and oppose the natural order? Where are the anti-druids?

In my setting, druids are tied to the Weave of magic that originates in the Positive Energy Plane and flows through all things until it reaches the core of the Negative Energy Plane. Powerful druids strive to bring balance to the Weave - and as the forces of darkness are usually ahead in the battle of good and evil tied to the Weave, they tend towards the magics of more positive energies ... now. However, in times of great prosperity in the past where the forces of darkness were at risk of being stamped out, the Druids found their role to require them to blight out the Light, embrace the Dark and show nature's ability to consume, destroy and kill. Some (a homebrew subclass) of those druids did this through becoming Anti-Druids, effectively, and animating the dead. Some used pure necormancy, others used spores like mycanoids, others corrupted fey and forced them to possess corpses. While these buggers are rare in the 'modern era' of my campaign, there are a few ... and when I use them as villains, they tend to be really popular with my players. The necromancer druid is an archetype that D&D has not done that much around, but it really works cohesively in the way that Anti-Paladins did for decades.

Critical Role has the Circle of the Blighted. That touches on dark themes, but not raising the dead. Circle of Spores can animate dead weakly - once they get to 6th level they can make 2 to 6 zombies ... but they each last only an hour and you have to wait for a long rest to bring them back.

That is not enough to build a necromancer style archetype around. I built a homebrew subclass that enacts my goals - primarily intended for use by NPCs.

Circle of the Dark -

2nd level: Your ties to the dark and undeath infuses you with the ability to cast certain spells. At 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th and 15th level you gain access to circle spells connected to undeath and shadow.

2: Find Familiar (see below), Shadow Veil* (All nonmagical light sources within 100 feet of your location are reduced - bright light becomes dim, dim becomes nonmagical dark, upcast to increase radius impacted by 20 feet, 1 hour duration, no concentration, immobile, spell not blocked by barriers)
3: Phantasmal Force, Death's Dark Mask* (Like Darkness, but upcasting increases radius by 5' - can't be cast on a moveable object)
5: Animate Dead*, Speak with Dead
7: Wall of Bone* (a weaker version of wall of thorns - but with bones - upcast similar to wall of thorns), Wraithform (similar to fly, blur, freedom of movement and able to go through small openings for 1 minute, concentration)
9: Danse Macabre*, Enervation*
11: Create Undead*
13: Finger of Death
15: Horrid Wilting*

* indicates the spell can be upcast - which is important for thre 6th level ability.

You gain a bonus homebrew cantrip that deals 1d6 necrotic damage, inflicts a critical hit on incapacitated targets, and gives the caster temp hp equal to half the damage done by the spell if the target dies from the hit (limited by max hp of the target). This cantrip is only avaiable to PCs with this subclass (so a bard can't take it, etc...).

Additionally, you are proficienct with a Scythe (heavy, d6, versatile for d8, two handed, slashing) and may use it as a weapon when casting Shilellagh.

Further, whenever you cast find familiar, you gain an undead familiar with the attributes of a normal animal familiar except the type is undead and it gains one of three abilities: Flight with a 30' speed, Blindsight 10', or Gaseous form (as the spell) once per LR for 1 minute. It is visibly undead and horrific.

Finally, you may communicate telepathically with any undead you control or create with a druid class feature, and you gain the Warlock Invocation Gaze of Two Minds, but it works on undead instead of humanoids.

6th level: When you cast any of the 13 bonus spells granted by the subclass, treat the spell as if you used a spell slot 1 levels higher. If you actually use a higher spell slot to cast the spell, double the increase in effective spell level for using the higher slot. For example, animate dead with a 3rd level slot is cast as if a 4th level spell slot was used. If a 4th level slot is used, the increase of 1 level results in 2 additional bonus levels for an effective level of 6th. If animate dead is cast using a 9th level spell slot, the effective spell level is 16th for 27 skeletons/zombies. A 9th level Shadow Veil (a 1st level spell) has an effective spell level of 18th and covers a radius of 440 feet.

Additionally, you can summon a shadow scythe as an action. It deals necrotic instead of slashing, is treated as a magical weapon, and if you hit with the attack you may use a bonus action to steal the shadow of a target that was in bright light when hit. The shadow becomes a shadow (as phb) under your control for 10 minutes, until you create another shadow, or until the target creature dies (whichever comes first).

You also treat magical darkness as if the magical darkness was bright light (at any distance). All magical darknes treated as bright light effectively creates dim light for you around it in twice the radius of the magical darkness. Other creatures, including your undead, do not benefit from this vision.

10th level: You can cast the find greater steed using spell slots, but the steed has an undead type, gains blindsight 10 feet, deals extra necorotic damage equal to your proficiency modifier when it hits with an attack, and regenerates 1 hp per minute if it has 1 hp or more.

Additionally, as an action, you may take control of large numbers of undead. Target all uncontrolled undead creatures you can see within 60 feet of you. The targets must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the targets must obey your commands for the next 24 hours, or until you uses this ability again. An undead whose challenge rating is equal to or greater than the druid’s class level is immune to this effect. Any abilities that impacts the saving throw for a turn ability also impact this saving throw.

Further, You lose your normal type and instead become undead.

14th level: You may travel to the Shadowfell from any plane, or from the Shadowfell to the prime material plane. Both require only an action. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
 

Voadam

Legend
My biggest question about all of this: Druids are all about nature, balance, etc... However, when we see a thematic element in a class, we also often see versions appear in antithesis to the core concept. Anti-paladins or Oath Breakers, for example. Where are the dark druids that animate dead and oppose the natural order? Where are the anti-druids?
Artificers are the anti-druid. :)

Nature versus industrialization, natural versus the artificial.

Druids revere nature, not really life. Life and death are both natural parts of nature.

I have not really seen anti-druids diving into the unnatural of undeath or aberrations or extraplanars or constructs straight out though.

I've seen dark druids but they are normally based around the dark aspects of nature, concepts such as nature red in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest, ecoterrorism, disease, and the apocalypse of winter as part of the natural cycle.

Otherwise druids as cultists of Shub-Niggurath or as evil witches also fit a dark druid archetype. The OGL Scarred Lands setting are full of dark druid types as well where they are titan worshippers contrasted with the worshippers of gods.
 

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Supporter
Artificers are the anti-druid. :)

Nature versus industrialization, natural versus the artificial.

Druids revere nature, not really life. Life and death are both natural parts of nature.

I have not really seen anti-druids diving into the unnatural of undeath or aberrations or extraplanars or constructs straight out though.

I've seen dark druids but they are normally based around the dark aspects of nature, concepts such as nature red in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest, ecoterrorism, disease, and the apocalypse of winter as part of the natural cycle.

Otherwise druids as cultists of Shub-Niggurath or as evil witches also fit a dark druid archetype. The OGL Scarred Lands setting are full of dark druid types as well where they are titan worshippers contrasted with the worshippers of gods.
3e had the Blighter as an anti-druid, complete with an undead animal companion.
 

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