The essence of evil

[archer]

I'm not really sure if "evil" is really all that much different in a fantasy world than real life. But most role players tend to run into evil more in their games than real life.

 

So what is the essence of evil in your game world if you were to boil it down to a few sentences?

 

Here's mine.

 

The essence of evil:

 

There are plenty of people you can exploit in the world but only a few who you can trust to guard you while you are sleeping.

 

Treat those people like the most precious of treasures...so you can get back to ripping off everyone else.

[Tjack]

   Every time I get into a discussion like this my blood pressure shoots up to bad places.....I’m gonna give this one a pass.  Best of luck and well wishes to you and yours.

[Lord Liaden]

For me it boils down to two dimensions. One, motivation from arrogance, hatred and fear, versus humility, compassion and hope. Two, priority in all things is always to the self rather than to others.

[Grailknight]

When trying to come up with some possible guidelines for a story from a villain's perspective, I came up with this spectrum.

 

Altruistic - Beneficial - Necessity- Expedient - Sadistic.

 

Combine any two elements and you can generalize the motives and methods behind an action. 

 

For example, let's say our protagonist overthrows a cruel and corrupt regime. The act is Beneficial and could even be bumped to Altruistic if a new benevolent and just regime is started.  Necessity and Expedient could dictate a public trial and imprisonment/execution or slit throats and unmarked graves. But if he privately tortures the king and his knights to death and and enslaves the queen and princess, he's gone Sadistic and it's an overall evil act.  

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Tjack said:

   Every time I get into a discussion like this my blood pressure shoots up to bad places.....I’m gonna give this one a pass.  Best of luck and well wishes to you and yours.

 

 

I'm with you, Chief!

 

I'll follow along until I feel my pulse get excited. 

 

 

[archer]

8 hours ago, Tjack said:

   Every time I get into a discussion like this my blood pressure shoots up to bad places.....I’m gonna give this one a pass.  Best of luck and well wishes to you and yours.

 

 

Well, I was kinda hoping by laying out the parameters like I did in the OP that this thread would be a loose collection of witty and pithy sayings that reflected the game world you either played in or GM'ed rather than a deep dive into the topic.

 

More like "give me your attention for a moment" then showing off an aspect of your game world rather than "my philosophy is correct".

 

I mean evil in your world could be a desperate fight against Dormammu and his Mindless Ones who kill everyone in sight and destroy ever building. Or it could be playing Robin Hood against the crown's tax collectors.

 

The difference is just a stylistic one of where you characters hang out, rather than a discussion of which world has the best, or only correct, interpretation of what constitutes evil.

 

Of course, maybe I was too optimistic when I made the thread. I was pretty punch drunk at the time from lack of sleep and had a number of silly conversations.  

[LoneWolf]

Evil is a deliberate choice.  It does not happen accidently or unknowingly, that is tragedy.  It does not happen because of your nature that is instinct.  It is not something that you can be forced to do, you have to willing choose it.  

[Hugh Neilson]

21 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

For me it boils down to two dimensions. One, motivation from arrogance, hatred and fear, versus humility, compassion and hope. Two, priority in all things is always to the self rather than to others.

 

The "selfishness" aspect is one I look to a lot. 

 

As a Good person, I might step aside and recommend a colleague for a promotion because they are better suited for the role, so it will be better for everyone, even if it is worse for me.  I might do so just because we are equally qualified, but my colleague really needs that raise to put her kids through college.  

 

As a Neutral person, I will compete for the promotion to the best of my ability, even to the point of embellishing my skills relevant to the role and disparaging other candidates.

 

As an Evil person, I might sabotage the organization to make my competition look bad, get compromising pictures to blackmail the decision maker or even have other candidates removed from the equation (cut brake lines, for example).

 

However, in many larger than life gaming milieus, "true Evil" might be absolute and unselfish devotion to an evil cause, organization, deity, etc. 

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

However, in many larger than life gaming milieus, "true Evil" might be absolute and unselfish devotion to an evil cause, organization, deity, etc. 

 

Well, that begs the question of, what makes the organization evil?  For my part, I find it hard to believe that any cause which we would define as "evil" would be capable of inspiring such unselfish devotion, and not play on the qualities I defined on my previous post.

 

Let's take Nazism. I'm willing to concede that there can be Nazis who believe firmly in that philosophy, and would be willing to put themselves in harm's way to preserve and promote it. But what they're devoted to is repression of the majority by a minority which exists only due to an accident of birth, to the point of resorting to violence and even murder in support of that cause; and which targets specific groups for particular oppression and vilification.

[DShomshak]

So, without going on a long, tiresome philosophical rant, I'd agree with LL and others that selfishness is the Essence of Evil, whether for fantasy or any other genre.

 

"At best, you are a means to my ends. At worst, you are a stench in my God's nostrils that I must eradicate."
 

The egotism can sometimes be collective. Evil people can appear selfless, but only because their "I" is my tribe, my country, my cult of my god, etc.

 

There is also probably some self-serving lie to justify that egotism. Likely, several. I suppose one could postulate villains or whole "evil" races that honestly say, "Um, yeah, we hate everybody else and want to kill them and take their stuff, it's just how we roll." But I find it rather dull. I'd rather give heroes the satisfaction of knowing they have struck a blow for truth or some other selfless cause, not just, "We kill them because they try to kill us."

 

Dean Shomshak

[assault]

15 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Let's take Nazism.

...

But what they're devoted to is repression of the majority by a minority which exists only due to an accident of birth, to the point of resorting to violence and even murder in support of that cause; and which targets specific groups for particular oppression and vilification.

 

That's not Nazism, that's Tuesday. Even "Democracy" or "Freedom".

[assault]

Less important answer: supernatural evil exists, and if you line up with it, you end up being evil. You can also do nasty things without this, but your evil lacks a Big E.

 

The answer I am currently working with: "evil" and "dishonourable" are more or less synonymous. Yes, of course there are different definitions of "honourable", but within a specific social framework, the equivalence holds.

[DoctorImpossible]

In any campaign, I like to check if there is a form of in-universe "official" *Evil*, like hell and demons. If so, then "Evil" is merely any connection to a hell or a demon, which is a potentially still moral person/place. You are theoretically capable of finding nice, moral demons, who sense as "Evil" because they are demons. You could also find nasty and immoral angels, who sense as "Good" from their angelic divinity. You mostly find those who are neither "Evil" nor "Good" whether or not they are moral, immoral, neutral or anything else.

 

Often, however, there is no such thing as a "Detect Alignment" spell or any such thing, and the only form of evil is the regular kind with people being selfish or immoral. For a quick judgement, generally speaking, any who cause pain, sorrow, stress, and things like that, either intentionally or, to a lesser extent by simply not bothering to consider other people, is said to be an evil person.

 

People who either restrict other's freedom or their free will, and those who deny that which others need while they could give it relatively simply, are the worst sort of evil. Slavers, tyrants, merchants who're making money from droughts, plagues, and wars. 

 

Bigots, such as racists, sexists, and terfs, are not even brought up in the games I'm playing in. If they were, they'd be killed by everybody on any side, good or evil, very quickly. Which is part of why we don't use bigots as villains. They don't last long to become major plot elements, and they're unpleasant to be around while they remain.

 

If you want a pithy saying, maybe:

 

Good Guy: There is no such thing as "Evil". There is only freedom, and those who would oppose it.

 

Bad Guy: There is no such thing as "Evil". There is only power, and those too weak to take it.