Guest Article: Are You Sure We're the Good Guys?

[Flux]

Guest Article: Are You Sure We're the Good Guys?

http://purediablo.com/columnists/a-who-good-guy.shtml

This guest article by TiredCliche is meant as a bit of dry humor, but reads more like a serious examination of the morality of Diablo II. It's even got movie quotes and stuff, and might provide you with some food for thought.

 

[Ravisher]

Of course we're the good guys, through out history there has only ever been one real meaning to the term good as applied to wars. "On my side"

 

[Dawnmaster]

"I would say that the evidence is much clearer that it is in fact we who are in the wrong. We go out in the desert, forest, caves, and even a molten hell - and until we arrive all is relatively peaceful! All the creatures seem to coexist just fine, there is no fighting, no hurling of spears, no rampant breeding of forces to help defend territory -- just milling about by creatures of all shapes and sizes. The only evidence of prior torment occurs in the molten area, where prior players are found bound to poles and otherwise constrained. Notice they still live! Perhaps they are merely bound to prevent them doing any more mischief as we engage in, 'jailed' in a sense to preserve the relative peace?"

I'm having a very hard time trying to believe this.
relatively peaceful????
these creatures invaded the countries of rogues, desertpeople, kurastcity and barbarian highlands.
they killed those people and made sure none could leave the town.
they claim leadership over the lands and take the souls from the fallen people (in act4 hell you free a lot of poor souls)
the previous 'players', if you mean rogues, are laying dead on the ground or hung up on poles, they don't seem to be alive at all

Now, apart from the necromancer I think all chars are good guys (or girls)
they come to the aid of mankind to free the town of the invading creatures
but in war, what is right and what is wrong, is it wrong to take up the weapon of your slain enemy? I say no, that is the way of life
but these creatures only have interest in ending all other life, we only end their lives in order to protect people and give back the land which was theirs

the necromancer may be a good guy too, but he uses too dishonering skills he actually uses the skills of the enemy to defeat the enemy, in my opinion, that isn't good, you cant fight evil with evil, only with good

So to sum things up and define good:

Doing the good thing, is actually helping your kind for the purpose of Freedom and Righteousness using only the necessary methods*, not disturbing any other kind that has not disturbed your kind and keeping your honor.

I think that was very safe to say and correct, in my opinion all chars are true to these words, except for the necromancer, but that guy has always seemt strange to me, playing good with an evil char?

Notice the creatures are evil for they disturb other kinds and rob them from their freedom and use unnecessary methods** and have no honor** whatsoever.

* you can take up the sword of a fallen enemy or friend
** you can't go and torture people/things for your own pleasure

But thats just my two cents, everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, but I don't think I'm far from the truth with mine, any comments?

 

[Ravisher]

{ot so very much}

Doing the good thing, is actually helping your kind for the purpose of Freedom and Righteousness using only the necessary methods*, not disturbing any other kind that has not disturbed your kind and keeping your honor.

Oh my, where to begin? Freedom and Righteousness? The two are practically opposites. One is self determination (and limited self determination, for as they say 'Freedom without limits is just a word'), the other is, well to be honest I can't think of many ways to describe "righteousness" without reference to religious moral codes and the imposition of those on everyone around you. Whether they want it or not. Morally war and killing are reprehensible, they are however sometimes nescessary. Violence does solve problems, but only the really big ones. (Also why should the rogue's freedom to live outweigh the demon's freedom to kill them? From the moral standpoint of both the obliteration of the other is the "righteous" thing to do. Isn't it an infringement of the Demonic freedom to stop them? Again one must have limits on that freedom, and limits that are not based on sectarian morality, else we lose the point of the limits)
Sorry but freedom and righteousness should never be a reason, it's not only oxymoronic, it's scary.
{/ot}
Great article by the way, making people think at least (and rant a little too in my case )

 

[Fearox]

Good article, and short. I wish more people understood the benefits of keeping things short.
Well, as I see it the big question is not about IF what we're doing is evil or not. It is what good and evil is, and where to draw the line between them.
It's just about definitions as I see it; definitions depending on different philosophical, religious and cultural views of things.
Good and evil are made opposites through language, but are just abstract definitions as I see it. In this view of things evil is nothing with the absence of good, and the other way around. Mere illusions.

 

[Dawnmaster]

(Also why should the rogue's freedom to live outweigh the demon's freedom to kill them? From the moral standpoint of both the obliteration of the other is the "righteous" thing to do. Isn't it an infringement of the Demonic freedom to stop them? Again one must have limits on that freedom, and limits that are not based on sectarian morality, else we lose the point of the limits)

A demon's freedom to kill them?

I think you misunderstood my concept, I meant freedom exactly, not freedom to do things, but to be really free yourself. Still the 'freedom to kill' would oppose with the fact that you'd disturb other races/kinds, and thats generally not a good thing to do, I took that in my defenition as well, get my point?

With righteousness I also mean that a war being good only comes forth from the defenition itself like I stated it, you can't disturb any other races, but if races disturb you and rob you from your freedom, you can defend yourselves, you can strike back to the ones that disturbed you, that is a right you have than, it is righteous to do so. You don't have the right to disturb other races, only if they disturbed you in the first place.

I'm looking forward to the next attempt to unravel my defenition.
(keep in mind, the main cause is not disturbing other races unless they disturbed you, to explain this even better: you can't evade a land which isn't yours by birthright, so you have no reason to disturb a race if they stay on their own lands and don't disturb you, and that's exactly what evil does and what good tries to compell)

So again to the original poster, for our cause, we are the good guys
(our methods may be unearthy (necromancer) though)

 

[Ravisher]

right·eous Pronunciation Key (rchs)
adj.

1. Morally upright; without guilt or sin: a righteous parishioner.
2. In accordance with virtue or morality: a righteous judgment.
3. Morally justifiable: righteous anger. See Synonyms at moral.

For future reference righteousness does not refer to an act based on exercising one's rights. It has moral implications and links strongly with religion and the notion of sin. It is righteous to kill someone (who may not be bothering you in any way) if your religion demands it. (q.v. god's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the judeo-christian writings).

The Humans consipired with the Demon's greatest enemies (Angels), attempted to slay their leaders, but failed and incarcerated them instead. The Angels have an outpost in the demons own homeland, which is populated by humans and has the sole purpose of keeping the demons imprisoned. From the Demons' point of view they're seeking vengence for old wrongs, and to gain the freedom of the world they were banished from by the Angels and Humans long ago.

The Human/Angelic point of view is that the Demons are morally wrong and should be killed for it. (Now that's righteousness). Remember if you will that this game, nor Diablo, is the start of the war. The demons were banished in the sin wars and their taint was trapped in Hell, their leaders rendered impotent, and 'good' ruled Sanctuary.

You say one cannot invade another's land without provocation. Really? If one tribe is starving in a drought, while a neighbouring tribe, sticking to their own land, has plenty, is it so wrong for the starving tribe to take some of the fertile land to feed themselves? Is it wrong for the tribe on the fertile land to defend what they see as theirs? When you get right down to it, what right does any of us have to claim ownership of part of the world?

Moral absolutism has no place in war, war is destruction and violence. No matter what the reason you may have to go to war, it's only a good reason to you. If it were a good reason to all surely there would be no need for war as we'd all agree. Once more I say that the only "right" side for anyone in a war is their own side. In the long run, the "right" side invariably turns out to be the one who won, and of course their methods were the correct, honourable ones.

Fearox has it here, the words "good" and "evil" are just names. Both sides have the same aim and the same methods.


Sidenote, Diablo 3 would rock if you played through D2 as the dark wanderer. having to battle Tyreal and the forces that imprisoned you as you seek to liberate your brothers from them.

 

[Dawnmaster]

It is righteous to kill someone (who may not be bothering you in any way) if your religion demands it. (q.v. god's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the judeo-christian writings).

I understand what you are saying here, but can you approve something like this happening to your kind, your family, yourself? I can't. But I don't dare to say much further on this part, theology and discussions about religions is the same as walking on the edge of a razorblade.

The Humans consipired with the Demon's greatest enemies (Angels), attempted to slay their leaders, but failed and incarcerated them instead. The Angels have an outpost in the demons own homeland, which is populated by humans and has the sole purpose of keeping the demons imprisoned. From the Demons' point of view they're seeking vengence for old wrongs, and to gain the freedom of the world they were banished from by the Angels and Humans long ago.

Didn't know this one, I just assumed Demons lived in hell and that they broke free to conquer the world and that we and the Angels banished them back to hell and put the Pandemonium Fortress there to prevent them from coming back to earth. But then again, hell was created by a banished angel, so even then it wouldn't be right from my point of view.

The Human/Angelic point of view is that the Demons are morally wrong and should be killed for it. (Now that's righteousness). Remember if you will that this game, nor Diablo, is the start of the war. The demons were banished in the sin wars and their taint was trapped in Hell, their leaders rendered impotent, and 'good' ruled Sanctuary.

Hm, the first part is kinda tricky here, I don't kill demons in the game because they are morally wrong, I actually only kill the ones that try to attack me, but then again, I am a very defensive player. I'd like to learn more about those Sin Wars actually, if you can fill me up with some info on the full story or make some links, I'm always interested in expanding my knowledge on these matters.

You say one cannot invade another's land without provocation. Really? If one tribe is starving in a drought, while a neighbouring tribe, sticking to their own land, has plenty, is it so wrong for the starving tribe to take some of the fertile land to feed themselves? Is it wrong for the tribe on the fertile land to defend what they see as theirs? When you get right down to it, what right does any of us have to claim ownership of part of the world?

Well, I'm gonna works backwards on this one, you can 'claim' ownership of a part, when you where the first person to reach that area and when you worked very hard to grow crops on those fertile grounds. To get to the first sentence of this part: that tribe would be very stupid to try to attack the fertile lands since they are already starving, they are no match, they risk open war and since they are the weakest, they risk to lose everything, to get total revenge of the other tribe. But then again, stealing when you're starving may morally be wrong to be punished about, you're right about that. The 'good' thing (I'll define this part after my explenation) of the fertile ground tribe would be to offer help to the weak tribe, without asking special favors in return. (the 'defenition' of good here) The other tribe may refuse help on all grounds 'cause they may see this help as an invation or disturbance of their ground. So the rich tribe (even though true to their word) may offer help, but'll have to respect the other tribes wishes not to be helped at all. Ofcourse if the weak tribe tries to steal from the rich tribe after the rich tribe offered help, they lose all moral rights and the rich tribe has the fulll right to punish the weak tribe for their actions. Atleast in my opinion.

Moral absolutism has no place in war, war is destruction and violence. No matter what the reason you may have to go to war, it's only a good reason to you. If it were a good reason to all surely there would be no need for war as we'd all agree. Once more I say that the only "right" side for anyone in a war is their own side. In the long run, the "right" side invariably turns out to be the one who won, and of course their methods were the correct, honourable ones.

Nicely said, I've heard words like these before, not sure when or where:

"War knows no winner, both sides suffer losses."

You can go to war, you'll always partially lose, but there are several ways of fighting a war. And that's where the honour part kicks in. In an army of 100 soldiers, howmany would kill an unarmed (possibly even wounded) enemy? According to the 'war-rules' 0 soldiers would have that right, even if is the enemy that killed your child an hour ago. But the truth is different, the soldiers have different personalities and feelings and not all will obey the rules.
Would you leave a man alive that killed your child if you had the clear oppertunity to kill him and no-one would ask questions? I know I wouldn't. Still, does this action make you 'dishonourable'? It's a fine line to tread. But it's definatelly not honourable if soldiers start killing unarmed enemies for no reason at all. Orso, atleast in my opinion (again).

EDIT: if you respond to this reply, we have an equal amount of posts made: in total 563 :surprise:

 

[Absolutian]

Moral absolutism has no place in war,

Sure it does. In fact, it may be essential to get one started, and you need a propaganda machine to propel this myth. It doesn't matter if the stormtroopers belong to Hitler or Palpatine. The enemy are always faceless demons, people who have no family, no conscience and no resemblance to your best friend back in high school. (I think Joseph Campbell talks about this, and his student George Lucas never shows us a stormtrooper face.)

Now, you can sustain this in a book, movie or computer game. I have no problem killing creatures who's business card lists Demon as their political affiliation.

But in real life this myth starts to wear thin. Talk to some people who've been there, face to face. If they're willing.

Even in fiction: have you read any of the Star Wars fiction, where some stormtroopers turn to aid the rebellion? Changes the color.

 

[Graily]

History is written by the victor

... and Diablo II is just a game. I am certain that the only reason the Demons aren't fighting amongst themselves is that they aren't programmed to do so. Consider the Demons and Devils in "Dungeons and Dragons" lore - Demons are "chaotic evil", while Devils are "lawful evil". The difference is that any "hierarchy" in a group of demons is temporary, and enforced by the strongest demon (who is the leader). As soon as the leader (or "alpha demon" to coin a phrase) shows any sign of weakness, the others in the pack will fight to claim leadership. The devils organise themselves - they have hierarchies where the stronger devils respect the smarter devils for their ability to organise battles and prepare strategies.

In the world of Diablo II, you might be wandering through Hell and see a bunch of finger mages over here, leapers over there, ghosts and oblivion knights over there. Do you presume that the oblivion knights aren't in some kind of eternal conflict with the leapers or other denizens? They developed their great skills in magic somehow, and according to the history given to us through the game, it wasn't by invading Sanctuary.

Note that the three Prime Evils were incarcerated in Sanctuary through a coup by some lesser evils - this indicates that the burning hells are in a constant state of war, similar to the eternal war between the Devils and Demons in Dungeons and Dragons mythology.

While you - the human adventurer from Sanctuary - are passing through the hells, the Demons and Devils unite (for a time) to combat the common enemy ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend" or so the saying goes). The only reason they don't keep fighting amongst each other when you're gone is that they're dead. Otherwise, the Damned would be continuing their fight against those who hold them under siege in the City of The Damned. The Plains of Despair would be a perpetual battle ground.

Let's not forget that even the humans of Sanctuary are no strangers to war themselves - the soldiers of Westmarch weren't fighting demons all the time, so where did their weapons prowess come from? Necromancers mastered their arts during the various wars between factions in Sanctuary. Even during our games, we have conflict continuing between small bands (we call them "parties" of "players") who are allied on the flimsiest pretext of being in the same place at the same time - and those "players" who seek to cause grief to those "parties" by killing their members and sowing distrust (we call them "player killers").

"Good" and "Evil" are such relative terms.

 

[prion]

demons are evil because they're hoarding items that i need

 

[Absolutian]

demons are evil because they're hoarding items that i need

lol. But I'm hoarding stuff you need, too. Does that make me evill? :xgrin:

 

[SinRomanDragon]

the good and the evil are subjective.

If I was a "demon", born in the "hell", my fathers teach me to kill as the only way of life (I cant imagine any production of food among the monters...), I would kill to defend my land, my wife, my child. I would kill to feed my family. But... who I would kill? That little human right there! Yes! That invader! He doesn't belong here, he will die for it and feed my son, who will become more like me, his father.

Im I EVIL because I want to protect my family, feed my son?

 

[Tarantella]

Hmm , a lot of discussion and angst in this thread.Too much for me!


And its at times like this I reach for the Good Book*


Ah yes, it tells me all I need to know













*(the game manual from the original boxed set).

 

[Myrakh-2]

Well, I've always been Evil Incarnate.

Whenever I show up in ANY game whatsoever, bad things are GUARANTEED to happen.

I show up on a space station, and it WILL get attacked, invaded or blown up. I'll survive, but most everyone else will not.

I show up in a lonely mountain village, and evil invaders will rush in and kill most everyone but me.

I show up in a castle to visit the king, and he'll get assassinated.

And so on... nothing to worry about, that's just how I am.

 

[Ymp]

There is a difference between killing sand maggots or yetis, and killing demons. After all bears in the lands around Baldur's Gate attacked you only if u went too close. Unfortunately these all give xp.

 

[TiredCliche]

Ooops! Sorry, I was away when this got published. I only found out it made it after I got some emails - thanx! Glad you liked it, glad it provoked discussion. From the posts, I'm not sure if this was published in Oct or Dec, but either way neat!

Dawnmaster: I liked your points, but tend to think they were addressed well by Ravisher. It seems given the limited information we have about the struggle, all of which we are receiving from one side, it's difficult to call one side evil or the other good. We can't simply say who is good and evil based on how they label themselves or their outward appearance. We could try and distinguish them by their behaviors, but the seem to act the same - OR as noted the 'good guys' seem to be the aggressors!

Absolutian: the irony of your name/post made me giggle.

(Posts = 1. I had another name on here but I haven't posted in forever and forgot if it was Complete, CompleteLoser, Vicar, or this)

Now I have to brag to my legit playing buds at GuildMedieval that I am a published geek!

 

[Absolutian]

Well, I've always been Evil Incarnate.

Whenever I show up in ANY game whatsoever, bad things are GUARANTEED to happen.

I show up on a space station, and it WILL get attacked, invaded or blown up. I'll survive, but most everyone else will not.

I show up in a lonely mountain village, and evil invaders will rush in and kill most everyone but me.

I show up in a castle to visit the king, and he'll get assassinated.

And so on... nothing to worry about, that's just how I am.

Boy, you sound like that Dark Wanderer fella I've been trailing.

 

[spittlewad]

Well done, TiredCliche!

I love this article by TiredCliche. When I play d2 or any other game like this, I have those same thoughts playing in the back of my mind. Its like TiredCliche tapped into a subconscious sub-layer of the role-playing experience. On one level, its just a game. Things are this way because it makes the game what it is. But these game-play issues are in conflict (however small and insignificant) with the ability to fully immerse one's self into the role play level. When I played D&D, it was with pen, paper and dice. I didn't dress up in armor, grab a sword and go into the local sewers to act out the role in lunatic fashion. In fact, people that do that should be locked up for their own protection. So, when I play a computer role-playing game, part of me stays in reality and dismisses the heavy question about whether I'm really the villain or not. But its nice to have this nagging, uncomfortable thought brought to the surface so artfully as Tired has done. Now i know I am not alone.

In my own defense I will point out that I am merely walking thru enemy territory. Those critters don't know i'm after their leader or sacred relic. They attack me with no questions asked. Their aggression is appalling. And that pisses me off. It is with a sense of justified vengeance that I rid the earth of that kind of arrogant folly. Even after I have dispatched a crowd of 99 attackers, the 1 remaining survivor will stick around and fight as if he was the first. How stupid. The world is better off without them. Good riddance. Now, if the next big RPG comes along and forces the player to attack first in order for combat to start... or if monsters run away when its clear their party has been mostly destroyed... Everyone would hate that.... Its those dang, money grabbing programmers that are the true evil ones!

 

[Usufruct]

I don't think TC knows the storyline of the game very well. Try playing through Diablo 1 and 2, listening to every NPC's comments and additions to the story - then you'll understand the role of the "Hero" in Diablo 2.