Why is Animate Dead [Evil]?

[The Kender]

Okay, this one has always bugged me in 3E. Why does the spell Animate Dead have the [Evil] tag anyway?

A few common arguements:

1. You're using Negative Energy
As shown in Manual of the Planes, the Negative Energy Plane is Neutral. Negative Energy does not mean Unholy.

2. Undead are EEEVVIILLLL!!!!
The Skeleton & Zombie are both listed as having the Neutral Alignment in the Monster Manual

3. It involves forcing somebody's soul to do your bidding
This is the most common one I've seen. And I quote the Magic Jar spell. 3rd Paragraph.

In a group of life forces, you can sense a difference of 4 or more HD and can determine whether a life force is positive or negative energy. (Undead creatures are powered by negative energy. Only sentient undead creatures have, or are, souls.

4. You have to dig up corpses to animate, so you must be evil!
You'd be surprised how many times I hear that. Personally, I would much rather animate the corpse of those Ogres that we just killed in a Dungeon than Timmy's dead grandmother.

Can anybody else think of any possible reason why Animate Dead has the [Evil] descriptor? We'll throw out the possibility that they want to force people to play a gothic, grave robbing, extremly evil character.

Thanks
-Jared

 

[jaerdaph]

Just disturbing the remains of the dearly departed from their eternal rest/graves could be considered an evil act, and thus the descriptor.

 

[Zappo]

It's desecration of corpse.

 

[The Kender]

Just disturbing the remains of the dearly departed from their eternal rest/graves could be considered an evil act, and thus the descriptor.

COULD be evil. A fireball can evil when it's burning down an orphanage. A sword can be evil when you're chopping off innocent commoner's heads.

 

[Thorntangle]

Mucking about with the dead is taboo in most cultures. At the very least it's considered bad manners.

I'd be pretty ticked off at the guy who dug up my ancestors to be servants. Who wants to see their loved one walking around saying, "Brraaaaaiiinnnsss"?

 

[Zappo]

Ok, it's evil because it's evil. In D&D morals are absolute and one of their dogmas is that casting [Evil] spells is evil. It beeps on Detect Evil, so it's evil. There is no need for further reasons.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I think that Thorntangle's got the right of it—it's something that people (in pretty much any culture I can think of) would consider a bad thing. Part of it, I think revolves around the fact that animated corpses violate the natural order; it's bad business to turn loved ones into zombies and what not. You just don't mess around with the dead.

That said, I think that you could, if you wanted, create a culture and situation in a homebrew world where it wasn't an evil act to animate the dead. It'd need pretty good reasons for doing so, IMO, far beyond expediency and cheap manual labor—raising those ogres that the party just killed as skeletons or zombies in order to use them as cannon fodder isn't a good act, I don't think. It's not evil, but it's dodgy enough not to be good.

Best,
tKL

 

[Alcamtar]

1. You're using Negative Energy
As shown in Manual of the Planes, the Negative Energy Plane is Neutral. Negative Energy does not mean Unholy.

My understanding was that negative energy WAS evil in earlier editions of D&D. 3E seems inconsistent on this matter. Turning undead is "good" (not possible for evil clerics) and is defined as channeling positive energy; rebuking undead is "evil" (not possible for good clerics) and is defined as channeling negative energy. Yet the energy is neutral. Creating undead is evil, yet the undead themselves are neutral.

I think the idea is that good people create life and evil people destroy it; positive and negative energy are neutral tools that are used for good or evil ends. But I still think the big picture i smuddy and not well thought-out.

2. Undead are EEEVVIILLLL!!!!
The Skeleton & Zombie are both listed as having the Neutral Alignment in the Monster Manual

IMO they should be evil, though they never have been except in Basic D&D -- In Basic they are Chaotic, which more or less means "evil" in that game. But then Basic D&D is not an ancestor of 3e, which was derived from the AD&D line. In white box D&D (which was an ancestor of AD&D and 3E), monsters didn't have alignments.

Part of the problem is that D&D has two types of undead and has never gotten around to reconciling them. They should either be labeled differently, or treated the same.

Mike

 

[Anditch]

Evilness

If you had a choice whilst you were alive that u were going to walk the world as an undead. Your sould being controlled by someone else. Would you like that idea of being manipulated and you dont have a say in the matter.

 

[The Kender]

I'll give Thorntangle credit here.

But also keep in mind, I never said I was using human or even demi-human bodies. I mean like an Ogre, Kobold, Goblin, something like that. I'll agree that it is probably violating some local laws, but still, a cleric should still be able to cast it without having to be evil.

Alcamtar: Positive & Negative Energy are neutral. Look at it this way, if negative energy was evil, Inflict Light Wounds would be [Evil] also.