Disclaimer: This is a discussion of general ethics in fantasy. I am a firm advocate for personal freedom of decision, action, and belief up until the moment these cause harm to or incite violence against another person or group. Furthermore, while this video is about the general fantasy landscape, its argumentation could be interpreted to discuss behaviour at TTRPG tables. As firmly as possible, I want to state that the way we run our tables must abide by agreed-upon ethical standards, and that abuse of power dynamics (either in player character Vs player character, or player Vs player) should not be tolerated at any table. While I do stand by my argument in this video from an external, top down perspective, its implementation is likely to be messy, uncomfortable, and has potential risk for harm if used uncritically. Coercion, intimidation, or abuse of power against another person is always wrong, when our gods do it, when our ancestors did it, when our fantasy characters do it, and when we do it. This video is, however, an exhortation to get into the minds of the peoples of our worlds a little more, and see the ethical quandaries under the hood of our favourite fantasy systems. Thanks for reading, -Tom.
Thanks for assuming that literally all of your viewers are manipulative assholes, geez. If you felt the need to chastize all of us for something most of us probably aren't doing you shouldn't have made this video in the first place.
Great video. When it comes to D&D the chaotic alignment represents those who are more connected to freedom and free will. But even they tend to live in structured societies where might makes right
Dragon Age has an especially important line regarding this type of magic: "Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him." That applies to both raising undead and controlling people's minds. A mage who uses these for the powers of good can exist, but they would adopt an unprincipled stance on magic, which is dangerous when social orders breaks down. Bodily autonomy is the foundation of human rights, and it would be stripped away as soon as you cross such a mage. It doesn't matter if the gods, fey, devils, or men do it - it is all the same.
I'm going to be real here: Pre-modern people in medieval worlds would absolutely consider enchantment evil. Consider exorcisms. Where a spirit or demon is expelled from a body they have usurped control over? That's very similar to enchantment and likely to elicit a similar response. From a more philosophical point of view, how about the divine right of kings? Where any attempt to depose the king or to restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God. Including taking over control of the king's lands and people?
If animating undead is effectively the enslavement of a soul, it could certainly be understood to be a form of slavery. Of course, some applications of enchantment magic might also be interpreted as being tantamount to slavery. In those particular instances, some forms of enchantment magic and some forms of necromancy may both rightly be understood to be instances of enslavement.
And that also brings up things like summoning elementals, celestials, fey, and fiends. Like it depends on how summoning spells work but if it just plucks one of these creatures out of the world then yes that also counts as slavery.
I feel like this brings up a broader point: magic in D&D is a concealable deadly weapon that doesn't care about money or social class. It's more dangerous to the social order than firearms are today. A Suggestion spell on a shopkeeper might be a crime but one on a king can change the balance of power in a region. In the face of that, wouldn't you expect to see draconian social controls on who is allowed to practice magic at all? The witch hunts of history make a lot more sense if Subtle Spell Sorcerers with a grudge against the state demonstrably exist.
This is something I’ve been considering a lot in my current dnd game. The players are epic level and are able to overthrow (or at least decapitate) governments on a whim, and have a chaotic bend so even the governments they don’t oppose, they will waltz into the throne rooms unannounced regardless of what the guards do if they want a meeting. Most governments in the world have a few high level characters, but at this point, the PCs have outstripped them
You could go this route, or magic is an arms race where mainly the elite/nobles practice magic and ordinary people do not have the means to get into it. Of course a king will have protection against spells in some way, either with an antimagic field or just a few spellcasting bodyguards that use abjuration to make sure the king is never subject to harmful spells.
@@Lilith_Harbinger the problem is that DnD as a ruleset isnt a world where this kind of thing is realistic possible. You could do it in a setting like Mage The Ascension (where someone needs generations of training to do magic), or like warhammer (where magic is so chaotic that it's impossible to not found a caster). But DnD (and most other rule sets derivatite from them) is a world where someone just pops up with magic at random (sorcerers and warlocks, and at some degree Paladins / Clerics), and a lot of casters dont interact with one another (druids, Rangers, warlocks...). You cant keep an eye on casters if they never centralize, nor can you control who is or isnt if they keep spawning at random.
I'm more curious how monarchy even holds in setting like DnD and such. IRL kings' ruling was justified by them being god's viceroys on Earth and their government protected by military power. How is it justified in DnD that one family hold power in a certain country, if there are many deities with their own agendas and mages exist? One magic user can put down all royal guard (if they don't have magic user themself) and claim the throne. By the discrepancy in power level between mages and common folks all countries should roll down to magical tyrannies.
Not exactly true. Magic in D&D is extremely hierarchical and strongly favors the few elites over the many commoners. D&D magic would be integrated into the power structures and actually make society much more vertifically stratified with far less class mobility outside of mages.
So the thing about Tom's point here: he's being very, VERY gentle. Content warning for what follows. You want to know what the abuse of these powers looks like? In a way you will never be able to stop thinking about? The Graceling series by Kristin Cashore has a villain with these powers. But you have to read only Bitterblue to understand exactly how deeply, deeply awful they can be. If you want the reveal faster, but no less chilling to think about, Erin M Evans' Empire of Exiles explores the same problem, and the harm that can linger from it. Back in 3.5, the Book of Erotic Fantasy explored this in depth. Haha yes, the silly sex book. Hey, what if the horny bard skips rolling a Nat 20 and goes directly to Charm or Dominate Person? And maybe to Modify Memory? Not as funny anymore, is it? That book settled on the idea that most societies would have firm laws against any enchantment that could control people regarding intimacy. Even the spells that just make the caster more compelling or convincing were seen as a gray area. Enchantment isn't as flashy as other types of magic, sure. But in the hands of someone willing to abuse it, there could never, ever be anything more terrible.
I have unfortunately been bitten by that bug of all the horrible things a character could do with enchantment magic. In the settings I run, I would not say that enchantment or necromancy are "evil", it's all about the intent and results, but any civilized society would *have* to have laws about their use. Necromancy would likely to be treated like disease research. Useful and maybe needed, but if it gets out of hand the consequences are dire. I think Enchantment magic would only be allowed for official use or licensed individuals, with unlicensed use or abuse receiving dire consequence, likely capital punishment. The possibility of enchantment magic erodes the social contracts of society faaaar more than any other magic. At that point, it's not about right or wrong but whether or not society can exist with it as a possibility.
I'm not quite sure why you said 'content warning', and then didn't actually tell us any disturbing uses of enchantment magic. I'm working on a story where the main characters are asked by villagers to find a criminal in the woods, but they aren't initially interested. The villagers then start to explain just how awful these criminals are; in one instance they used magic to make a 12 year old boy hang himself, in another they used magic to make a woman eat her own baby, and when knights were sent after them they were enchanted to cut their own feet off. Do the books you mention have disturbing examples liek this? If so, would you be willing to share any?
@@cheesypoohalo Basically I was invoking sexual assault and didn't want to smack anybody with it without warning. Giving specific examples from Bitterblue or Empire of Exiles would be spoilers. But in the case of the former, the kingdom it takes place in is, to quote the dust jacket, "still waking up from the 35 year long rule of a madman". Someone with the power to alter minds and absolutely no ability for empathy.
People historically hated necromancy not for the desecration of a corpse (although it was seen as HIGHLY disrespectful) but for desecration of the immortal soul. Absolutely nothing was taken more seriously than potentially robbing someone of their afterlife and i believe no matter how high fantasy a setting got the belief would remain the same. Enchantment has a bit of grey area with things like charm person but becomes blatantly and overly evil by the standards of ANY time with domination because you can control them in life. Through this you ALSO rob them of their afterlife since they can no longer express free will and make ANY choices in life and cant be determied as sinner saint or otherwise. You literally reduce them and by extension their soul to less than human less than living even since they are only capable of moving at your behest. Enchantment is different from other forms of exertion of power in that even if your choices are often terrible (say murder someone or let them kill your loved ones) you do at least HAVE that choice and by making that choice have the ability to form the person that you are. With enchantment you are literally nothing more than an object or tool to be ordered and used
I'd say charm is worse than dominate if I understand the both of them correctly with dominate I may torture and kill my loved ones but at least I'd feel horrified about it; with charm I'll do it willingly and cheerfully with dominate I lose control of my body but I still have my mind, with charm everything that makes me me gets destroyed
I don't really play 5e, but in Pathfinder there's a lot of spells with the Evil tag, meaning that they are considered Evil acts regardless of the intent. A majority of those are Necromancy, presumably because the gods decided so. Having said that, any spell can be evil depending on how its used. I don't think that Enchantment is necessarily any more evil, even using a modern lens. Making an enemy surrender with a Dominate spell could be seen as more merciful than killing them with an Evocation spell, after all. On the other hand, mind-controlling a vender into giving you all of their items is just as evil as threatening to blow up their shop with fire instead.
You can make an enemy surrender with your sword, you can steal a vendor's items with your sword. But you can only control someone completely with enchantment magic
Kinda short changing the kind of F’d up things one can get up to with strong enough mind control. Some minor league Jedi mind tricks might just be “ethically dubious”, but by the time mind control in a setting gets to “R***, murder, and eat your entire family. Then get over here and act as my footstool.” levels of control, it would be rather weird for a setting *not* to have strong opinions on the topic. Raising a few animated corpses is practically peanuts in comparison. Hell, take the Witcher setting. A lot of the settings history of witch hunts seem to largely stem from the various rulers being not exactly “fond” of the mage’s favorite hobby of screwing around with their minds and lives.
@@Dunstan9 While you are absolutely correct on how terrible it can be, I was looking from the point of view of an otherwise morally decent caster who has the option of Enchanting a person to bypass a fight as opposed to raising the body of their dead son to scare them into moving. Can you do something absolutely terrible with Enchantment? Absolutely. But I don't think it makes the school of magic any more evil or taboo than any other, especially the one that lets you play with the immortal souls and sacred remains of innocent people for your own pleasure.
@@rolypoly4920 The difference between Enchantment and every other school, is in 10th criminal claiming "A mage put a spell on me!", and depending on how common magic is in the setting, every 10th one of them likely telling the truth in saying so. Much like with necromancy, there comes a point were the whole school would just fall under guilt by association, regardless of how benign some branches can be. Which of course, is aside from the question of whether or not the settings religions, or just outright gods, gives someone a free pass for actions committed under mind control. Hell, on the level of the settings metaphysics, would a soul even regain their mind and identity in death if it was crushed into nothingness in life?
@@Dunstan9 While criminals could certainly do that, spells like Discern Lies exist, so Court Mages could determine if someone was really under magical control or not. Also most good deities should grant a pass to actions beyond their followers' control. If they die during a mind controlling, I think their minds would snap back to normal since the spell can't affect their souls, only their brains. Sidenote: It depends on your setting, but most D&D adjacent worlds assume that there are very few high-level npcs that would be capable of casting a true Dominate spell. That's at 5th level spell. A wizard capable of that should be a high-ranking member of the Mage's Guild or a well-known adventurer. There shouldn't be a lot of hedge wizards running around that can do that sort of thing.
Something to note about enchantment specifically: it was far scarier in 3.5 than in later editions where it got the nerf treatment so hard... there was a spell that literally rewrote the mind where if you were careful could be limited to a freaking wish to undo (mindrape in book of vile darkness), there was a spell that at most had the only restriction that they could make a save to resist following one specific order if it went against their ethos but even if they succeeded that extra save they'd only refuse to act not break the spell (monstrous thrall, originally in bovd with no duration limit then reprinted in spell compendium with a duration limit), there was a prestige class that could give you permanent charm and dominate effects (mindbender in complete arcane), there was a psionic prestige class that could give you a hoard of mindlessly obedient followers (thrallherd in the SRD/expanded psionics handbook)... yeah enchantment was whack way back then...
@@pheralanpathfinder4897 Modify Memory can do similar memory alteration, but it is still a hell of a lot less scary given how fast and potentially nigh-irreversible Mindrape was (after all, a Remove Curse removes _all_ curses in 5e making accidental removal of MM quite possible).
I have thought of this before but thought I was the only one who saw it that way. Someone was talking about killing cultist in their campaign and I asked " but if they arnt hurting anyone why interfere, what they belive in is real inside dnd" it became apparent he just thought any kind of religions real or fake was evil to him.
The only 2 instances I recall of the Jedi Mind Trick being used ("These are not the droids you're looking for." and "You don't want to sell me Deathsticks. You want to go home and rethink your life.") seem to both be instances of diffusing conflict passively. I think that's why we don't see it as evil. Can passive conflict resolution be so bad?
I think my 1000 skeletons can be a passive conflict resolution against 2 troopers though. Sure, there might be some intimidation involved, but at least their choice is 100% of their own making. "Don't mess with me, or you will have to deal with my horde of skeletons."
@theravenousrabbit3671 but in that example you have disturbed 1000 bodies and done an evil act 1000 times before marching with your army of skeletons.
It's not a matter of the end but the means. Obiwan completely changed the deathstick dealer. If something could come along and fundamentally change who you are without you having any say it, it doesn't matter if they mean well
@@eldritch3465 Obi-Wan was gentle with what he did to that drug peddler. He did know harm and didn't choose what he would do forward on in his life. Tyler Durden did similar at gunpoint, no bullets but pure threat. The comparison of means is drastically different for a supposed similar outcome of the target's better future.
The most EVIL Magic in all of fantasy is Soul Trapping because Soul Trapping people takes away their intended afterlife & dooms them to a horrible afterlife.
Did you do any research into actual historical magic for this video? You have a lot of philosophy here but all reading about real life, historical "magic" I've done, enchantment and necromancy were about equally reviled, followed by any magic meant to harm another person. Never forget that people thought magic existed. You don't have to make up how people viewed it from thin air.
@@SnipeOSRS true, but the argument he's making is back in the medieval times we didn't place as much of a value on free will (at least for the lower classes). Even ignoring that coercion is different from straight up enchantment, the idea is still easily counter-able because magic works on nobility and merchants, not just the lower classes.
@@bobbycrosby9765 And the argument is categorically false. Free will was a *primary* concern in the Christian diaspora during the Middle Ages and was one of their most intense areas of debate and contention with more fatalistic philosophies such as Stoicism. While the ethos of hierarchy was certainly not perfectly consistent, to say that they did not care about free will or personal autonomy at all is unequivocally ahistorical. The nature of privileges and hierarchical structures was considered to be part of the fallen state of the mortal world to be redeemed in the final salvation.
It's interesting how enchantment and charming have been swapped in modern language usage. I actually was wondering if this was going to delve into the Elder scrolls version of enchantment. Fun philosophy, thanks dude!
A dowry is less about "selling" a woman, and more about proving that the family that wants to take the woman in is actually capable and willing to support them. Hence why the practice all but disappeared after WWII, when the woman was now expected to be more financially self-sufficient.
I can only speak for the medical field, but a lot of things we do could be and were considered as necromancy (organ transplants and donations, blood transfusions and tests, grave digging, and so on). I once made a character with this concept, really wanted to go for the “friendly neighborhood necromancer” concept. "All that grows must also wither and die. All dies and rots, and will then nourish the living. This is the Great Cycle of Being…"
For a more recent example: The Purple Man from the Jessica Jones series, whose power is to make people do whatever he tells them to, and his deeply disturbing philosophy: "If they didnt want to do it, then they wouldn't."
I decided to test this one. The late Western Roman empire had a scale of pentalties for use of magic in the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis and Veneficis. The penalty for having "binding magic" most likely speaking of what scholars now call Erotic Binding Magic AKA '"love" magic' was crucifixion. Arguably enchantment could be seen as "OK if the state does it, like killing" but it clearly freaked the ancients out too.
Man i just love your channel we have similar thoughts and you talk about alot of the things i think on in relation to fantasy. Id agree necromancy is only evil when it effects the soul or prevents it to pass to an afterlife. I disagree though enchament is certainly the most evil. Even in a world where might makes morally right there is a difference to being subservient while understanding you are so because the individual on top can strike you down and being subservient and having your mind in a clouded haze unable to even muster a thought of your own. One could argue in the first example you have the ability to become mighty yourself and become the morally right. If under enchantment magic you could be entirely barred from having thoughts that would lead to you breaking the enchantment. That is not might makes right, it is removing the ability for anyone to obtain their own right.
In the real world, Suggestion and Charm Person would be far more dangerous than a Fireball. A criminal mastermind with these spells could have people all around him serving his agenda. He could amass tremendous amounts of power by manipulating people through his magic.
I would argue that people would find enchantment just as abhorrent as necromancy becasue its the only type of magic that can make a King surrender his lands without a fight. A King would rightfully fear such magic to the point of making it a cultural norm to revile enchantment just for the sake of keepng control of his lands easier. The fear of enchantment might not be as organically rooted as the fear of necromancy but I would say that it would be just as important as necromancy becasue the ones in charge tell you its just as bad if not worse. In this sense you can justify enchament being considred just as bad if not worse than necromancy even in the context of a fantasy world.
Enchantment can be used to effect the soul. Charm or Dominate someone to signing their soul away. Just as evil as necromancy could ever be. You could also Dominate a person who in a fit of despair is about to fling themselves off a cliff and make them reconsider while the despair passes. What you do to someone with the magic counts more than the school of magic. My philosophy is that no magic is really evil, it is what you do with it, and what other side effects it has. You could have a necromancer who cast speak with dead so people can say their last goodbyes before sending them off to the care of the gods.
You might get away with charming them into it. You can't dominate someone to signing away their soul. The context is that you need to willingly sign. Being coerced and tricked through words works but brute force doesn't. Charm is magically impairing their thoughts just like alcohol or other intoxicants, you're still able to be you. That's not the same with dominate.
In D&D cosmology, the vast majority of time that a conscious creature exists, will be after it's dead. A mortal lifespan is tiny compared to eternity in whatever plane you end up in afterward. Disrupting a soul's ability to reach it's destination intact would be a curse to those bound for a... enjoyable.. afterlife. And for those bound to eternal torture, it would be among their best options.
The thing that makes necromancy evil, besides potentially using one's deceased loved ones against them as a weapon, is that you could possibly bring vampires or ghouls into existence that create more of their kind. That or even just zombie flesh could be full of disease.
In D&D, at least, creating undead creatures is evil by nature because undead are animated by negative energy. Living creatures are animated by Positive energy, and the two are diametrically opposed. So pretty much by their very nature undead are driven to consume and destroy life and bring death and suffering to the living. The necromancer's magic might keep them on a leash for a time, but every new day brings a risk that they'll escape and go on a killing spree.
In my setting, necromancy is not inherently evil, but it's frowned upon because it's the only way to bring a soul back from the afterlife without permission from the soul. That, and the requirements for various undead to consume living creatures.....
The only form of necromancy that can realistically be called evil in a world where gods actually exist and conpete with one another would be resurrection spells that specifically state that they bring the souls back from the afterlife. Spells like animate dead don't mention the soul at all implying that the soul would stay in the afterlife which is the best of both worlds for any deity since their get the soul in the afterlife and the body stays active aiding the living members of the religion. Even vampires and ghouls existing wouldn't be a problem if they fought for that god. And zombies being filled with disease literally means nothing when lesser restoration exists so I don't even know why you mentioned that.
@@TheStartrek99obviously specific setting not withstanding, I believe necromancy generally has nothing to do with the soul. I could not quote a source at the moment.
"...we would still be living in a society where following the orders of those above you is the most important thing..." Um... if the average person stopped obeying the orders of those above them, they would be fired and cease making money, eventually starving to death.
There are two types of necromancy. The kind that raises the dead The kind that enslaves the dead to your will and they are denied agency, free will and rest. With resurrection magic, i believe the soul has to be willing to return for the spell to take. Same is true with enchantment. It isnt the magic itself that is evil.. It is the intent of its user.
I'm not sure I agree with 'how necromancy would be viewed', here. Especially the lower sorts (animating a corpse to be a husk moving around as a puppet), it would only be universally condemned if it truly harmed the soul (not something made apparent in D&D). It may prevent resurrection, of course, but that really is only a concern for the highest of the high, anyway; normal people live, die and rot just like they do in the real world. And in a world with a confirmed pantheon (as opposed to a monotheistic culture), much of the morality of the issue would depend on the views of an individual's personal patron deity. So when designing your pantheon, it might be more appropriate to figure out how each god feels about different forms of necromancy--instead of good-evil, more important would be encouraged-ignored-taboo. A good goddess of the arts, for instance, might have no issue with necromancy that is used in an artistic fashion; an evil tyrant god might regard it as acceptable only for those who have authority otherwise (and thus, are entitled to use their serf's bodies as they want); the god of the harvest might be fine with undead laborers. One additional issue--the PCs in a game, or the protagonist in fantasy literature, tend to be outsiders, those who have opted to reject the social order. Such individuals, quite likely, would find enchantment magic distasteful, at best.
As far as I'm concerned, in Runequest, when necromancers raise skeletons, their "soul" is long gone. Which ask, except for running away with the ex mortal coil what does it matter? (Well except the family like to think the corpse lies in a grave, not running around. But hey, if the amount of coins are high enough who wouldn't sell their dead relative) Necromancers could build a business around it. Sell your body for say 50gold. When your been dead for a week, The necromancer can take over and do what he/she want to do with it, The dead person wont need it anymore.
@@genrabbit9995 that's a big assumption to make, but potentially valid. Does a vampire still have a soul or did the innocent depart leaving behind body and duplicate memory?
@@pheralanpathfinder4897 As far as soul gone, My thought where on skeletons and zombies. I didn't think on vampires. In a way a vampire operates under its own/masters free will, zombie and skeletons do not. But can a vampire be called a true undead in the same league. If they do not rot are they truly dead? (or at least I have never heard about a vampire complaining their rotting away)
I think a fantasy world would be less likely to evolve into a feudal state then the real world both because A: magic is very powerful and it would make sense to educate as many people in it as possible (unseen servant basically makes someone 5-6 times as efficient) B: with magic items more similar to modern technology it could make sense for ideas of personal ownership in the lower class to evolve a lot sooner.
Actually i think the opposite is the most powerful individual. It is very hard to get out of a fudal system. If the king can cast powerful magic, the might of many becomes barely palple vs. the might of individual so things that ended monarchys would be less likely to succeed such as the french revolution would be much harder if each noble could cast fireball let alone actual charm person style spell
i think another important thing to consider when it comes to necromancy being evil is that the soul is intrinsically tied to the body in some religions, so the reanimation of the body can have effects on the soul
Dowries are paid by the womans family. So not selling the woman. Just helping give a start to the family. The husband would often get inheritance from his parents deaths.
First of all, thanks for treating religions with respect. I agree with you that we sometimes overvalue free will and consent. Those are certaintly important topics. But sometimes we stretch an issue that is important at the core to a place where we overvalue it in edge case situations. For example it is important that we do bedroom activities with consenting people. But some people enjoy the powerdynamics in those very bedroom activities. If there is a chase or some surprises, sometimes those happen without consent and they are still entirely welcome. And sometimes people missjudge those surprises and it lands flat. If you have a generally consenting partner, but some non consented activity lands flat, is that really the worst thing that can happen? Just because you have hierarchical structures and social class, this doesn't mean you don't value those domains of freedom you still have within your class. For example in mediveal England, kings had more priviledges, but also pretty strongly defined duties. Sure, their moral contract was based on God being the fair judge where both the plebs and the king have equal standing in front. Also the higher classes were dependent on the lower classes. If the lower classes were mistreated enough, then they could rebell and change out the rulership. But it is still a situation where strenght based social classes were not entirely based on the will of the powerful. In the following point I disagree with you. The question of morality is not exclusive to the people on the top. If that were the case, then no rebellion would ever happen. I would say the question of morality is a luxury of those who have enough freetime to think about it and who have the luxury to at least have the hope of changig anything about their situation. And in some cases, changing anything about their situation includes commiting suicide to not compromize on a cause. Enchantment that is strong enough to even rob the capability to commit suicide is probably frowned upon in most societies. Of course, not everyone who is in a position to ask those questions will. And both genetics and culture influences how likely we are to ask those questions. I agree with you that typically a fantasy world would have less concerns about free will and other topics which we western people love to think about. But those questions can still have a logical backing in the world, if the author justifies it sufficiently. Fantasy worlds with adveturers may have a societies, which build on the social mythos where "the weak can turn into the strong through luck and effort". In such a system free will can be a valuale topic, even if there are large powerlevel differences. And that will be even more pronounced, if anger increases the chance of someone turning strong. That way strong people may be hesitant to mistreat weak people because they may accidentally create a monster that tries to get revenge on them at any cost. Another good point which you raised is that our world has a very ridgid view of human rights. Sure there is some debates about where it applies. How about unborn babies, elderly people who are sick of living, neanderthals (if they were alive today), or how much should human rights be extended to animals. But in principle we picked up the torch of Christianity which says that every human was made in the image of God. In a fantasy world there are two major questions. - What is the philosophical justification to think a useless human and an important human are of the same value? - What are the borders of what can be considered a "human" who deserves human rights? Most fantasy mangas I've read answer that question in the following way. Which species are historically considered a political allay. Those are the species which deserve human rights. All the others are either treated as non humans or as enemy "humans" who we have to fight war against. I think within that fictional cultural setting, this is a justified mindset. One thing you haven't brought up is the "enchantment spells" of our world. - Some sales people apply pretty manipulative strategies. - Some food companies deliberately make their food addictive with the help of specific chemicals. - The entire field of management is about how to make new customers, how to keep old customers and how to profit off those customers. - The entire field of social media and smartphone games is built on manipulating dopamine. - The world of adult entertainment such as gambling and other things also know their fair share of manipulation tactics In which way exactly is enchantment magic different than those aspects I've mentioned here? There are some people who oppose and call out those practices, but it is rarely talked about as badly as satanists performing human sacrifices. Because of that I would claim all enchantment magic of lower skill level would be treated the same way. Of course if you have an enchanter who can turn entire countries into living dolls with a flick of a finger than this is something different. But that is about as evil as a fire mage who turns an entire nation into a burning wasteland with one of his worldclass spells. I guess the difference between that fire spell and that enchantment spell is that fire spells can be used for good, but enchantment spells is only used to manipulate humans in an egoistical way. Also if you have a chivalry among fighters, then attakcs that are of obvious nature and attacks that are of a visual nature where we can display our skills in a playful way are superior to attacks that are sneaky and difficult to defend against. But that would also mean that if enchantment is common enough that it has a balanced attack and defense pattern then it would turn into a different form of dueling. But even if the enchantment magic isn't according to the chivalery code, it still wouldn't be evil. It would just be shady. In my opinion we treat that question the wrong way. We shouldn't ask, _is enchantment magic actually evil?_ We should ask _Is there a cultural incentive to single out enchantment magic as evil?_ And in my opinion the only reason to do so is if it is connected to some societal trauma or if it is some new thing that a rebellious movement is applying. Basically it is a question of PR, not a question of morality. Unless of course you make it so that the entire nation consists of honest people and enchantment magic is the only way to trick people.
It might make sense for enchantment magic is made the domain of the ruling class by simple virtue of the fact that when you know enchantment magic you have the power to rule over others. Wizards not of noble blood likely would be restricted from learning enchantment. And if they did they may be punished, or perhaps simply made nobility themselves, if they were strong enough. Noble lines may boast about their great great grandfather who invented an enchantment spell, giving them the power to begin their noble line. This would also tie sorcery even more to the aristocracy. Bards as well. Music and artistic expression would be clamped down everywhere, it would become the domain of nobility to perform, to make sure that the power of enchantment stays where it should. Perhaps this is where the stigma of warlocks comes from, they make a deal and have the potential to take for themselves the divine right to rule that is enchantment. Perhaps this is why they are called oathbreakers.
This is more of an argument against the legitimacy of the establisment hierarchies in a lot of fantasy than a defense of necromancy. The only 'problem' with necromancy is where it involuntarily afflicts souls rather than exclusively the inert matter of corpses or where there is a defined teleology that it violates. Otherwise, no, enchantment is unequivocally worse. And your history is very incorrect; a lot of these exact sorts of magic were regarded *explicitly* as violations of human autonomy and were often considered ethical and sometimes legal infractions in real world history.
I'd imagine that necromancy would more so be a popular sort of taunt, to your enemies like how Hector was trying to bring the corpse of Patroklos back to Troy to feed it to the dogs. You wouldn't do it on your allies, since you could revive them at some point, but on your enemies quite plausibly. I think enchantment, depending on the availbility of magic, might be seen as a sort of cowardly way to deal with enemies, I think this would be particularly predominant with tales of strong and powerful adventurers, using overt means being highly visible in fantasy cultures. If we think back to history, political intrigue and manipulation have the worst reputation in heroic cultures of direct conflict. In a fantasy world I think this would be turned up to eleven, unless magic was so widespread naturally that you had to accept it as a daily part of practical life.
The way i see it Enchantment Magic is as evil as lying is evil, yeah it is evil, but its not as evil as straight up murder Necromancy depending on how the spell works, can be both just as evil as murder, just as evil as enchantment is, or not evil at all If your spell requires you to enslave a soul/forbid a soul form going to their afterlife, cause it pain, etc, then its just as evil as murder/torture (or even more evil than even that considering you can re-cast it on the same person over and over until boredom) If your spell is simply used to speak with the death, forcing them to reply truthfully then its not different from using enchantment magic or being really really really persuasive, evil? yes, but nothing out of the ordinary if your spell doesn't require any soul manipulation and just makes a corpse move and follow orders like a soulless fleshy robot, or if the spell its simply an offensive spell like a vampire drain or a bone chill attack, then its not really evil, its just a neutral "tool", and like all tools it can be used for good AND evil depending on the user's morality
Enchantment is not "lying", it is changing how other people see you, forcing them to do your will, stripping them of the ability to resist you, and worse. It is several times worse than simple harm and damage. Though i agree with the other part, necromancy that doesn't affect souls really should not be considered evil. Especially in a world where souls are known to exist and a dead body has almost no relation to the soul (with few resurrection spells being the exception for requiring a body part to work).
On a cultural level, any potential “good” powerful mind control might be capable of, is likely to get buried under a whole mountain range worth of the REALLY messed up things it can be put towards. There’s only really so many absolute atrocities that a setting is likely to put up with before they just start categorizing the entire branch of magic as innately evil.
Enchantment as detailed by Gary gagax is particularly abominable because he basically took the concepts of imbuing objects with mystical properties and said now what if we added mesmerism hypnotism fascination and general enthralment of people's minds the resulting combination was a horror show I don't necessarily think enchanting objects has anything to do with mesmerism but the way it's written oh God it's terrifying it's Cthulhu nonsense
I think given the topic risen in this video you would love jocat's belcanus "necro hunt campaign" as one of the players ends up having this exact conflict in the live play
Love this kind of video. Great exploration of the philosophy and the development of philosophy in our world and how that can be applied to a fantasy world
"we not judge these fantasy worlds by our moral standards?" would a group thinking torture is ok make it moral? I could be completely missing the point however I don't see how else this could be understood
We're not trying to understand what is objectively good (and that is a whole other topic I'm leaving well away from the table), we're trying to understand the perspectives of a people who live in a different world, and don't have access to the same kind of culture and education we do, but do have access to some other kind of education, or culture, or typically both. This is exacerbated by the fact that their world literally is not assumed to operate on the same fundamental principles as our world. If you assume a certain species is literally born into evil and cannot change its ways, why would torturing it be wrong? This isn't even assuming that these people are CORRECT about how their world works - All we care about is what they've been taught or could figure out for themselves based on their environment and interactions. If you study history in any serious capacity, you'll know that many cultures had very different perspectives on various things. Yes, this includes torture. I'm not about to tell you torture is good, acceptable, or even effective, but someone else might. Understanding their perspective is worth something, especially if you plan to prove them wrong.
@@Woodledude It would bring a whole new meaning to every "monster race" in D&D being willing to fight to the death once you find out the "good guys" are okay with torturing them because they were "born evil." Remember, people, the monster manuals are written from the perspective of the humans. 😇
Problem with that type discussion is how badly morality is defined in RPG. D&D especially mix many contradicting core moral sources that don't even applied consistently making this mess. (especially good example is Harpers and Elminster) In practice DM should use max 2 sources of morality and preferably not contradicting ones. Like cosmic alignment and gods, making "good" gods always good and all they tell you is good is good. Irony is that most widely use sources irl are contradicting, ergo intent and outcome/perception in society. This is what make irl. one bad to use in game as mechanic, because it is for interpretation and this breed conflict at the table.
It is actually defined pretty precisely in D&D. The issues are that 1) it is buried in implications and subtext and only explicit in the deeplore and 2) pretty much no one IRL actually agrees with the ethical theories most of the official D&D settings use. Most of the D&D settings define Good and Evil as very literal teleological quintessences with some mild variations by setting, such as it being related to the covenant between mortals and the gods' hierarchy and structure in Forgotten Realms. It is uselessly vague for casuals and infuriatingly nonsensical for a lot of the hardcore.
@@NevisYsbryd I agree that core is precisely defined in cosmology, but even og creators couldn't stick to that in they own sessions and lore build of that. As i told Elminster and Harpers are best examples of that. Not to mention new stuff of wotc (dropped aliment spells etc.) and PH entry about aliment that was made as encompassing as possible. As you told all you need is deeplore but surface lore often cotradict that and you either ignore that or you need correct it. Not to mention base lore is less flexible for all type of setting than aliment chart by themselves.
Love the channel, I'm unhappy about the way you described dowries.. it's not as if the bride had value, she was an expense, the dowry is the loan, which the groom will be repaying for decades in the form of room and board
I feel like this could be an interesting discussion if it wasn't for all this being dependent on matters of setting/ world building. Is enchantment more evil than necromancy well that depends. If necromancy is used to raise a corpse is it only the body or does this magic actively harm the soul even in the after life?, torturing a spirit that should be at rest, does it corrupt or warp the mind of the user and further more even if all this is "no" to what end and what effect is the undead being used What about enchantment? Is it evil, well that depends, is it being used to against an individual to rip away or warp thier free will or is it being used on a consenting party to help easer thier nerves so they can speak of something pain in something more akin to therapy, thier is a reference to enchanters using thier magic for that in the book. All of this is so depend on lore, setting, cultural content that it all may as well boil down to " is enchantment more evil than necromancy? Well it depends"
Might as well say the use of force in place of enchantment magic. I mean, you even mention that the group with the force gets to decide what is moral...
I'd have to say mind manipulation magic depends on a lot on use. If it's used to achieve a bad result or make someone do a thing they'd strongly be against doing, it's probably bad, but if that person is an enemy and the magic is in effect just a weapon used to fight them with then it's in some ways comparable to hitting them with an axe. If the magic is used to avoid violence and achieve something that prevents or reduces harm to good people then it has some clear justification, but it still has the debatable issue of whether the person subject to it deserves it or if the specific situation has other considerations affecting the use of such a thing. Ultimately using mind manipulation stuff comes down to personal ideas on what one considers justifiable and is always gonna be questionable depending only on uses, situations and personal beliefs. When it comes to the augmenting stuff like just making someone stronger, I really can't come up with any reasonable way to call that bad, aside from if its use is to enable a maniac to murder some people. Any effect that grants a person extra or just improved capabilities without a detrimental effect included like the haste spell, those are no more questionable than hugging someone without asking, feeding a man with no arms, or moving a person away from a harmful force. Since these are obviously very normal things that almost anyone would agree are acceptable and all have some form of clear comparison to an empowerment spell like Skyrim and many other worlds have, those things being questioned at all is rather ridiculous.
My problem with enchantment magic in TTRPGs specifically is less a moral quandry, although that certainly exists, and more one of player agency. Illusions I'm far more fine with. The player can still choose how their character reacts. But even the Confusion condition in Pathfinder where the GM rolls a die to determine who you attack so you might be attacking an ally or a foe frustrates me as a player in a way the reverse - An NPC being taken out of my control by a player's magic - doesn't as a GM since I control _literally everything in this world except for about 4 individuals_ rather than just a single person, meaning that an NPC being taken away from my control doesn't negatively impact my agency as one of the people around the table creating this shared experience nearly as much. Basically I don't like mind control stuff in TTRPGs for the same reason that I don't like "skip your turn" stuff in board games. Outside of TTRPGs I'm more open to enchantment magics - mind control specifically since this issue doesn't apply to illusions for me - within fiction.
Do you think you'll do a vid on the speedy courier spell someday? It reminds me of how much sending would change a world with just communication, now imagine you can send things to people on the other side of the world, instantly...
I had to ask as soon as I had the thought, so I'm not sure if you mentioned it in the video, but what if the consent to enchant was given willingly by the target? Same with Necromancy if the resurrectee gave permission to be brought back while they still lived... Just curious.
In my current writing project, the country the main character comes from would consider both enchantment and necromancy equally evil, as they *are* a very individualistic, semi-democratic, and powerful society, and would view both as "highjacking someone else's story," which is a huge, if vague, taboo.
There's little difference between a guard using a taser or using command to halt you. In these instances, enchantment magic isn't just not evil, it is a *NON LETHAL* way of subjugating criminals! If anything, with enchantment magic being both potent and non lethal, it's easy to see enchanters as guards or the crowd control unit, pun intended And I imagine with that as a tool, death caused by guards can be seen as a massive failure from them when enchantment magic similarly immediately neutralizes the threat, at range too! I think there's a lot of positive use cases of enchantment magic when it's both seen and used not for freedom control or coercion, but for safe neutralization
Nah that doesn't make sense, how is enchantment evil? I just put XP points into empowering my netherite or diamond tools and weapons... Oops gotta go fix my mending pickaxe at the mob farm.
The point about fantasy peoples not having the luxury to be free because of the constant conflict of deities and deific entities over their minds and bodies is one of the reasons why I love the Pathfinder setting so much. The fact that there are not only gods specifically fighting _for_ the freedom of mortals (Desna, for example), but also "atheism" is a valid option for your characters (in this setting meaning the belief that no deity in particular is worthy of worship or praise). There are many cultures on Golarion that have broken free of the oppression of godlike beings' control, both with positive and negative outcomes (e.g. Andoran, an actual representative democracy), and on the flipside their are cultures that have embraced rule by mortals who specifically use enchantment magic to control the hearts and minds of their subjects (e.g. Razmiran, ruled by a despotic god-king who's really just a powerful enchantment-focused wizard). In addition, mortals ascending to godhood through various means is fairly commonplace, with the vast majority of the pantheon actually having been mortal at some point, blurring the divide between beings with power and beings without (and turning Absalom, the city where most gods ascend, into a kind of land of broken dreams where everyone from across the world comes to try to ascend to godhood but ultimately ends up as like... a tavernmaid or something). Many of the ascended gods just act like mortals would if they had power (like Norgorber, who is basically just a god of crime and effectively acts like a batman villain among the gods). Pillars of Eternity is another D&D-adjacent setting that attempts to deconstruct the relationship between gods and mortals, where the gods sre actually [spoiler] and so [spoiler]. But also there is a form of manipulation of the soul separate from necromancy, called "animancy", that manipulates a _living_ soul, carving it up, altering it, grafting it together, and guiding it in a way that can fundamentally change a person's mind or nature, and such magic is pretty central to how that world works and its main conflicts.
@@MarshmallowRadiation D&D also has freedom fighter gods and the only reference to atheist beliefs is that no God will claim the soul after death so it suffers in the realm of the dead. Does Pathfinder have a god bringing the souls of atheist people to something similar to paradise?
I can't remember which edition or book I read it in, but they described necromancy as evil because it forces the soul back into the body to aninate it. This is why if you awaken a undead it has the same skills and abilities. This never made sense, your telling me my 10th level Necromancer is stronger then a God? I can just yank a elven soul out of Arvandor, with a 3rd level spell and some black onyx? I've always thought enchantment was more evil.
Zoinks, Scoob! I think our wizard is more evil than the evil villain's necromancy and not just because he wears a bag on his head! According to our modern libertarian conception of free will, enchantment magic is evil and he just totally became friends with that guard. Violating his not-at-all divine free will is way worse than violating the religious sanctity for the dead dead and burial practices which is appropriate for the time period. We're going to need more scooby snacks to get through this one!
The idea that gods would view necromancy as violating their sanctity doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Realistically it would be necromancy spells like revivify, raise dead, resurrection, etc that should actually be viewed as "evil" since it deprived gods of the souls of their followers in the afterlife. Spells like animate dead would actually be more ethical since it allows the soul to remain in the afterlife to aid their god while the physical body continues to aid the living members of the religion. Either way it's definitely more ethical to use necromancy which every religion would try to make use of in some kind of regulated official capacity than the literal mind rape that is enchantment magic. That part I don't really see how you can argue it just by saying it's somehow a modern idea to not want to be forced to act against your will. Literally no human desires that modern or otherwise.
@@Tupadre97 I don't mean to say pre-moderns would find enchantment to be without wrong. They would find it wrong but most wouldn't ascribe to it nearly the evil that they'd consider necromancy. Fantasy societies of course will differ as much as we decide to too them. It is our modern framework which can make that difference between "wrong" and "more wrong than necromancy". It's anachronistic to apply that back in time.
@@Tupadre97 I wouldn't say the resurrection spells would be seen as evil by the majority of cultures. They're Cleric spells. Created by gods and given to followers who represent them on the mortal plane. Depending on how loose the interpretation is, the fact that a Cleric can cast it is already proof of endorsement....considering that unlike Wizards they have to ask their deity to use the spell each day. Furthermore, a Soul can refuse a resurrection, preventing most tomfoolery that could be used with it (if a resurrection were to go against a God's plan, they could just convince the soul in question not to go through with it from the other side.) ... But yes to am extent most enchantment spells are morally worse than Necromancy,...but when Necromancy IS bad, it goes all out on the evil meter.
@@Aarlaeoss enchantment has always been seen as evil throughout all of history. A "recent" example are witches burned for using magic that makes people behave differently than they would.
I think you're rather missing the point of speculative fiction, here. We're presented with the conditions under which a world exists, and seek to extrapolate from there as to how the world as a whole may function. In the speculative exercise of extrapolative worldbuilding, we must move from what is true, to what ought to also be true based on this first set of facts; it's ... kind of the point.
individual natural rights are morals independent of the state of the world or reality, say you have body less minds floating in space let's say that they are telepathic minds so they have real hard times telling the difference between collectives and individuals. even if they are mostly of one mind sometimes their will be differences between collectives of minds and other collectives of minds, even if it is only what is better for a fictional mind in fictional situation to do that will never arise for the minds. in this you can treat the two or more collectives in disagreement as individuals. you can have faith in the random that random chance made the correct winner of argument the more stronger and so might makes right, but this is flawed at it's core because if the correct winner of the argument is always the winner then the random choice is not random and now you must worry about the god of randoms morals or the god of might's morals. so it's just a abstraction to try to avoid solving the moral issue. if a God or king is at the core of your morals then the question "and what is God's morals" is the question to organically arise that removes the avoidance. the best technology our strongest and most robust arguments are based on individual natural rights this is likely because they are a expression of entropy that is fundamental to systems, those that want to rule can use might, censorship, and control to try to convince of anything else but it takes constant maintenance to do so and is draining eventually when it comes to justify their rule they are unable to do. if A is of 40% power and B is of 45% power who C allies with at 15% power decides the winner and that will be who presents the better argument for their rule for C. B can be at 51% or greater but not in all things at all times, this is how individual natural rights are a expression of entropy's slow slide in to a different state. eventually the body less minds will evolve individual natural rights it will just take a long time. the gods in dnd are subject to alignment not deciders of it, they are really far from monotheism where Gods are unknowable and not understandable as a hand wave to avoid debating what is moral regardless of capabilities and superpowers. we don't really know what necromancy does to the individual, we know perfect restoration of the dead is possible in places where imperfect resurrection of necromancy is possible. so what if necromancy also restores the individual just they just stuck in a rotting body with out any control over it. necromancy could fully eclipse enchantment in immorality. enchantment that is mostly temporary and does not trap you with the pain of feeling rotting, when you are a animated skeleton and no longer combat capable are you gone or does it take even more effort for someone else to actually free you?
I would rather know I am under the control of an evil overlord through military might, than be brainwashed to become their slave. Enchantment magic is for creeps.
Precisely. The argument in this video was extremely weak and contrary to its claims, quite inaccurate in its claims about real world history and mythology.
And as the idea of present to gods as a Norse pagan I can guarantee you not all religions had God's telling you what to do or how to behave the big thing the Norse gods wanted from you was to try and be a good example be heroic be better than cringing and cowardly failing that just be entertaining have Adventures do interesting things not everyone is sitting there like the Christian God with rules subsections and clauses that's why I think D&D gods are written kind of weird assuming monotheistic conceits on pagan pantheons but that's a whole other thing essentially the gods and the Norse belief system want you to learn from their example they don't necessarily want to be over your shoulder in your head that's a silly idea most of the pagan gods were much more human had flaws and personality quirks
Most fantasy settings are based on a vague European medieval setting but without God and the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. But players incorporate modern, post-Enlightenment philosophies and cultural norms based on ideals that make magic - all kinds of magic - an evil practice (manipulating people, nature, or reality) and using it would incur harsh penalties (see Salem, Massachusetts). Conversely, the premise in most D&D games is using magic is no more immoral as using any other tool or weapon. The disconnect comes from players bringing their modern sensibilities based on Christian morals to a setting based on a pagan world. This creates a conflict of moral relativity and revisionism. In a world without Christian ideals, then there is no absolute morality that makes using any type of magic - including necromancy and enchantment - an evil practice.
Not to start a religious debate here (seriously, I really don't want to do that), but one could easily make both secular and pagan arguments against enchantment and necromancy. If my moral system stems from believing in a pagan pantheon, I could make the same claims of objective morals a Christian could. "Enchantment is evil, because Bahamut, the god of justice, prohibits it", "You ought not practice necromancy, because the souls and bodies of the dead belong to The Raven Queen, the goddess of death". But even that is unnecessary. I can define "moral" as "improving the well-being of people", and "immoral" as "harming the well-being of people". This way, most cases of enchantment and necromancy would be immoral by definition. Enchantment subverts personal agency, which is an important part of well-being. And necromancy is immoral because people care about their bodies and live happier lives knowing they won't be raised as undead.
@ghurcbghurcb I agree with you. It's likely it would be in the best interest of fantasy religions prohibiting magic that transgressed against the tenets of their faith. I can also see government restricting, licensing, and even in some cases prohibiting the use of magic. In my own campaign, the government restricts magic to its military and police forces. The government claims it's concerned about doing the "right thing" for public safety, but in truth, it's all about control. They've fabricated "magic crimes" designed to outrage the public to sway public opinion to justify their campaign to eliminate anyone not reliant on the government, including those capable of inspiring civil disobedience, threatening their grip on people's personal lives.
Maybe it's just my 'tism making it hard for me to grok normal social dynamics, but it's always seemed to me that, by the framework you mention here of "enchantment is to emotions as illusion is to perceptions", there really is no hard line between ordinary persuasion and magical compulsion. Magic may be a more consistently reliable means of achieving the desired effect, but there are more and less reliable means of manipulating the emotions and behaviour of others IRL, even without getting into methods we would regard as immoral. It seems to me that the differences between an impassioned speech that moves someone to support your cause, manipulative gaslighting, and a Charm Person spell are ones of degree moreso than kind. In all cases, you're using some technique (either instinctive or practiced) to sway the target's emotional state to make them amenable to your ends. Some are more reliable or drastic in the effects they can produce, but the core mechanism and desired end is fundamentally the same throughout. There doesn't seem to be any particularly clear set of principles that governs what makes one means of doing so morally legitimate and others not so. We disapprove of means that seem to overly impinge on the target's autonomy, but since in all cases pure rational autonomy is being undercut by appeals to baser emotions it seems to me this is less of a principle and more of a fuzzy gut feeling. We disapprove of means that rely on fear and authority, except when we don't: For instance, public health campaigns where medical professionals warn people about the dire consequences of certain health risks employ precisely appeals to authority and fear, but we consider these perfectly legitimate. Whether or not deception/dishonesty is a problem is incredibly context-dependent; a white lie to flatter your significant other regarding an outfit that is not, in your honest estimation, as flattering as might be hoped is usually not regarded as wicked manipulation. There's a particular stigma against pharmacologic means of manipulation, except when it's perceived to be for a good end; eg, proposals have been made to add lithium to drinking water supplies for its benefits to mood and mental health, and opponents of such proposals usually object on the grounds of the *physical* health risks of unregulated lithium exposure, moreso than psychological autonomy. TL;DR -- I don't think the boundaries of licit vs. illicit forms of emotional influence over others are all that clearly defined IRL, let alone in a fantasy world where, as you rightly point out, there are plenty of other differences that could tip the balance of how things are weighed morally.
Think of Enchantment less like an persuasion and more akin to the drugs people mix in someone else's drink to have their way with them. ... because it's basically the same as dominate person. Something that will make the target unable to think properly for some time while you do what you want with them.
@@albertonishiyama1980 Read my whole post, my point is that I don't think the lines even with regard to IRL methods of swaying people's feelings and behaviour are actually as clear-cut as they seem. You don't need drugs to get people in a state where they aren't thinking clearly, and there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast principles as to why some methods of influence are licit and others aren't. More just...vibes. (To be clear, my personal conclusions on this conundrum in my own life is not to think that brainwashing and drugging people are ok, but rather the opposite: I have deep moral qualms with *any* kind of persuasion that doesn't rest entirely on dispassionate reason.)
I personally see necromancy is enchantment magic. The wizard got tired of manipulating minds and moved to messing with souls instead. Its not subtle anymore but blatant turning living intelligent beings into a puppet which is the dream of any control freak lol
No more evil than coercing someone through the threat of force, both take a Will- oh sorry, “Wisdom” save to resist and forceful coercion is usually the second option if enchantment fails anyway. There is always a way to resist, the weak and stupid don’t last long in a game world as dangerous and unforgiving as D&D.
Mh, not convinced. In many point in history unprotected people thought and put in action revolt, usurpation and similar thing, even against more powerful forces. Some failed, some succeded but they thought of it. Enchantment would have blocked it. Paesants rebelled against the King Li in China in 800 BCE and Sumerian did something similar in 2300 BCE. Those revolting weren't at the top and many thing were even more dangerous.
I don't think Enchantment is inherently evil. It depends on how you use it. If you're influencing people's minds to improve the situation for everyone, then it's moral. If anything, Evocation should be considered evil, because the vast majority of Evocation spells exist only to cause death and destruction.
So the ends justify the means? As to your second point, our Finnish komrades have a public instruction video on converting ordinary Fuel into thermobaric molotov cocktails, because they want their neighbors to know that this is common knowledge among the Finns; availability of Evocation magic could have the same effect on society.
@@galen-eu1vu Not necessarily. Again, it depends on what's being done. Using Charm Person or Calm Emotions to diffuse a potentially lethal encounter, coercing a baddie into giving you the McGuffin to save the world, or just generally avoiding violence and harm would be good. Enchanting someone into jumping out the window, killing their allies, throwing themselves into a fire, or generally harming or causing suffering against their will would be bad. The point is "would this action be wrong if I wasn't using magic to do it?" If the answer is yes, then it's not the magic that's evil, it's the action.
@@alexanderchippel So if someone has a gun to your child's head and is about to pull the trigger, it would be wrong for you to use Dominate Person to force them to put down the gun? Is it your position that it would be RIGHT in this scenario to allow the gunman to freely choose to unalive someone when you have the ability to stop them?
We alsp have to think from the perspective of a fuedalistic society there moght be no concept of ftee. Most peasants, knights and lords all held allegiance tp hogher ups. Even a king was subject to the church. In fact the whole concept as we see todays freedom is a very modern concept. Even in republics there were plebs amd slaves. Indentured servitude shpuld be as basic as breathing in a fantasy setting based on any historic society
Not to mention there's that US political party that wants to roll us back to obeisance as a routine of everyday life especially for certain groups (compared to the one that only wants to codify that disrespect is not respectable and is regularly dumbfounded by the constant cries that somehow not respecting bigotry is tyranny from their more vocal opponents... or at least that's what happens when it's halfway reasonable people and not idiots going too far in nitpicking)
Disclaimer:
This is a discussion of general ethics in fantasy. I am a firm advocate for personal freedom of decision, action, and belief up until the moment these cause harm to or incite violence against another person or group.
Furthermore, while this video is about the general fantasy landscape, its argumentation could be interpreted to discuss behaviour at TTRPG tables. As firmly as possible, I want to state that the way we run our tables must abide by agreed-upon ethical standards, and that abuse of power dynamics (either in player character Vs player character, or player Vs player) should not be tolerated at any table.
While I do stand by my argument in this video from an external, top down perspective, its implementation is likely to be messy, uncomfortable, and has potential risk for harm if used uncritically.
Coercion, intimidation, or abuse of power against another person is always wrong, when our gods do it, when our ancestors did it, when our fantasy characters do it, and when we do it. This video is, however, an exhortation to get into the minds of the peoples of our worlds a little more, and see the ethical quandaries under the hood of our favourite fantasy systems.
Thanks for reading,
-Tom.
Thanks for assuming that literally all of your viewers are manipulative assholes, geez. If you felt the need to chastize all of us for something most of us probably aren't doing you shouldn't have made this video in the first place.
Great video. When it comes to D&D the chaotic alignment represents those who are more connected to freedom and free will. But even they tend to live in structured societies where might makes right
Yes I have destroyed a kingdom with a changeling command silent cast meta magic
Magic that manipulates another person's mind is evil, so instead I will cast a morally-neutral Lightning Bolt.
Dragon Age has an especially important line regarding this type of magic: "Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him." That applies to both raising undead and controlling people's minds. A mage who uses these for the powers of good can exist, but they would adopt an unprincipled stance on magic, which is dangerous when social orders breaks down. Bodily autonomy is the foundation of human rights, and it would be stripped away as soon as you cross such a mage. It doesn't matter if the gods, fey, devils, or men do it - it is all the same.
@@Vatis93 do the ends ever justify the means?
@@pheralanpathfinder4897 Nothing ever ends.
@@pheralanpathfinder4897saving the world can justify animating the corpse of a long dead warrior who doesn't use it anymore
In other words - Learn enchantment magic for self defense
Having a sharpness V netherite sword does make me want to commit acts of evil towards certain mobs.
You mean the wandering trader?
@@benrex7775 Most Definitely.
@@benrex7775you mean the leash?
I'm going to be real here:
Pre-modern people in medieval worlds would absolutely consider enchantment evil.
Consider exorcisms. Where a spirit or demon is expelled from a body they have usurped control over? That's very similar to enchantment and likely to elicit a similar response.
From a more philosophical point of view, how about the divine right of kings? Where any attempt to depose the king or to restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God. Including taking over control of the king's lands and people?
Not even would, explicitly did. Allegations of magic equivalent to low-level Enchantment spells were the grounds for plenty of witch trials.
If animating undead is effectively the enslavement of a soul, it could certainly be understood to be a form of slavery. Of course, some applications of enchantment magic might also be interpreted as being tantamount to slavery.
In those particular instances, some forms of enchantment magic and some forms of necromancy may both rightly be understood to be instances of enslavement.
And that also brings up things like summoning elementals, celestials, fey, and fiends. Like it depends on how summoning spells work but if it just plucks one of these creatures out of the world then yes that also counts as slavery.
I feel like this brings up a broader point: magic in D&D is a concealable deadly weapon that doesn't care about money or social class. It's more dangerous to the social order than firearms are today. A Suggestion spell on a shopkeeper might be a crime but one on a king can change the balance of power in a region. In the face of that, wouldn't you expect to see draconian social controls on who is allowed to practice magic at all? The witch hunts of history make a lot more sense if Subtle Spell Sorcerers with a grudge against the state demonstrably exist.
This is something I’ve been considering a lot in my current dnd game. The players are epic level and are able to overthrow (or at least decapitate) governments on a whim, and have a chaotic bend so even the governments they don’t oppose, they will waltz into the throne rooms unannounced regardless of what the guards do if they want a meeting. Most governments in the world have a few high level characters, but at this point, the PCs have outstripped them
You could go this route, or magic is an arms race where mainly the elite/nobles practice magic and ordinary people do not have the means to get into it. Of course a king will have protection against spells in some way, either with an antimagic field or just a few spellcasting bodyguards that use abjuration to make sure the king is never subject to harmful spells.
@@Lilith_Harbinger the problem is that DnD as a ruleset isnt a world where this kind of thing is realistic possible.
You could do it in a setting like Mage The Ascension (where someone needs generations of training to do magic), or like warhammer (where magic is so chaotic that it's impossible to not found a caster). But DnD (and most other rule sets derivatite from them) is a world where someone just pops up with magic at random (sorcerers and warlocks, and at some degree Paladins / Clerics), and a lot of casters dont interact with one another (druids, Rangers, warlocks...).
You cant keep an eye on casters if they never centralize, nor can you control who is or isnt if they keep spawning at random.
I'm more curious how monarchy even holds in setting like DnD and such. IRL kings' ruling was justified by them being god's viceroys on Earth and their government protected by military power. How is it justified in DnD that one family hold power in a certain country, if there are many deities with their own agendas and mages exist? One magic user can put down all royal guard (if they don't have magic user themself) and claim the throne. By the discrepancy in power level between mages and common folks all countries should roll down to magical tyrannies.
Not exactly true. Magic in D&D is extremely hierarchical and strongly favors the few elites over the many commoners. D&D magic would be integrated into the power structures and actually make society much more vertifically stratified with far less class mobility outside of mages.
So the thing about Tom's point here: he's being very, VERY gentle. Content warning for what follows.
You want to know what the abuse of these powers looks like? In a way you will never be able to stop thinking about?
The Graceling series by Kristin Cashore has a villain with these powers. But you have to read only Bitterblue to understand exactly how deeply, deeply awful they can be.
If you want the reveal faster, but no less chilling to think about, Erin M Evans' Empire of Exiles explores the same problem, and the harm that can linger from it.
Back in 3.5, the Book of Erotic Fantasy explored this in depth. Haha yes, the silly sex book. Hey, what if the horny bard skips rolling a Nat 20 and goes directly to Charm or Dominate Person? And maybe to Modify Memory?
Not as funny anymore, is it?
That book settled on the idea that most societies would have firm laws against any enchantment that could control people regarding intimacy. Even the spells that just make the caster more compelling or convincing were seen as a gray area.
Enchantment isn't as flashy as other types of magic, sure. But in the hands of someone willing to abuse it, there could never, ever be anything more terrible.
I have unfortunately been bitten by that bug of all the horrible things a character could do with enchantment magic.
In the settings I run, I would not say that enchantment or necromancy are "evil", it's all about the intent and results, but any civilized society would *have* to have laws about their use.
Necromancy would likely to be treated like disease research. Useful and maybe needed, but if it gets out of hand the consequences are dire.
I think Enchantment magic would only be allowed for official use or licensed individuals, with unlicensed use or abuse receiving dire consequence, likely capital punishment.
The possibility of enchantment magic erodes the social contracts of society faaaar more than any other magic. At that point, it's not about right or wrong but whether or not society can exist with it as a possibility.
I'm not quite sure why you said 'content warning', and then didn't actually tell us any disturbing uses of enchantment magic. I'm working on a story where the main characters are asked by villagers to find a criminal in the woods, but they aren't initially interested. The villagers then start to explain just how awful these criminals are; in one instance they used magic to make a 12 year old boy hang himself, in another they used magic to make a woman eat her own baby, and when knights were sent after them they were enchanted to cut their own feet off.
Do the books you mention have disturbing examples liek this? If so, would you be willing to share any?
Yeah he seems pretty unaware of the consequences of what he's talking about.
That's particularly disturbing given that historically, one of the most popular and demanded fake "magic" items was the love philter or love charm.
@@cheesypoohalo Basically I was invoking sexual assault and didn't want to smack anybody with it without warning.
Giving specific examples from Bitterblue or Empire of Exiles would be spoilers. But in the case of the former, the kingdom it takes place in is, to quote the dust jacket, "still waking up from the 35 year long rule of a madman".
Someone with the power to alter minds and absolutely no ability for empathy.
People historically hated necromancy not for the desecration of a corpse (although it was seen as HIGHLY disrespectful) but for desecration of the immortal soul. Absolutely nothing was taken more seriously than potentially robbing someone of their afterlife and i believe no matter how high fantasy a setting got the belief would remain the same.
Enchantment has a bit of grey area with things like charm person but becomes blatantly and overly evil by the standards of ANY time with domination because you can control them in life. Through this you ALSO rob them of their afterlife since they can no longer express free will and make ANY choices in life and cant be determied as sinner saint or otherwise. You literally reduce them and by extension their soul to less than human less than living even since they are only capable of moving at your behest.
Enchantment is different from other forms of exertion of power in that even if your choices are often terrible (say murder someone or let them kill your loved ones) you do at least HAVE that choice and by making that choice have the ability to form the person that you are. With enchantment you are literally nothing more than an object or tool to be ordered and used
I'd say charm is worse than dominate if I understand the both of them correctly
with dominate I may torture and kill my loved ones but at least I'd feel horrified about it; with charm I'll do it willingly and cheerfully
with dominate I lose control of my body but I still have my mind, with charm everything that makes me me gets destroyed
I don't really play 5e, but in Pathfinder there's a lot of spells with the Evil tag, meaning that they are considered Evil acts regardless of the intent. A majority of those are Necromancy, presumably because the gods decided so.
Having said that, any spell can be evil depending on how its used. I don't think that Enchantment is necessarily any more evil, even using a modern lens. Making an enemy surrender with a Dominate spell could be seen as more merciful than killing them with an Evocation spell, after all. On the other hand, mind-controlling a vender into giving you all of their items is just as evil as threatening to blow up their shop with fire instead.
You can make an enemy surrender with your sword, you can steal a vendor's items with your sword.
But you can only control someone completely with enchantment magic
Kinda short changing the kind of F’d up things one can get up to with strong enough mind control.
Some minor league Jedi mind tricks might just be “ethically dubious”, but by the time mind control in a setting gets to “R***, murder, and eat your entire family. Then get over here and act as my footstool.” levels of control, it would be rather weird for a setting *not* to have strong opinions on the topic. Raising a few animated corpses is practically peanuts in comparison.
Hell, take the Witcher setting. A lot of the settings history of witch hunts seem to largely stem from the various rulers being not exactly “fond” of the mage’s favorite hobby of screwing around with their minds and lives.
@@Dunstan9 While you are absolutely correct on how terrible it can be, I was looking from the point of view of an otherwise morally decent caster who has the option of Enchanting a person to bypass a fight as opposed to raising the body of their dead son to scare them into moving.
Can you do something absolutely terrible with Enchantment? Absolutely. But I don't think it makes the school of magic any more evil or taboo than any other, especially the one that lets you play with the immortal souls and sacred remains of innocent people for your own pleasure.
@@rolypoly4920 The difference between Enchantment and every other school, is in 10th criminal claiming "A mage put a spell on me!", and depending on how common magic is in the setting, every 10th one of them likely telling the truth in saying so. Much like with necromancy, there comes a point were the whole school would just fall under guilt by association, regardless of how benign some branches can be.
Which of course, is aside from the question of whether or not the settings religions, or just outright gods, gives someone a free pass for actions committed under mind control. Hell, on the level of the settings metaphysics, would a soul even regain their mind and identity in death if it was crushed into nothingness in life?
@@Dunstan9 While criminals could certainly do that, spells like Discern Lies exist, so Court Mages could determine if someone was really under magical control or not.
Also most good deities should grant a pass to actions beyond their followers' control. If they die during a mind controlling, I think their minds would snap back to normal since the spell can't affect their souls, only their brains.
Sidenote: It depends on your setting, but most D&D adjacent worlds assume that there are very few high-level npcs that would be capable of casting a true Dominate spell. That's at 5th level spell. A wizard capable of that should be a high-ranking member of the Mage's Guild or a well-known adventurer. There shouldn't be a lot of hedge wizards running around that can do that sort of thing.
Something to note about enchantment specifically: it was far scarier in 3.5 than in later editions where it got the nerf treatment so hard... there was a spell that literally rewrote the mind where if you were careful could be limited to a freaking wish to undo (mindrape in book of vile darkness), there was a spell that at most had the only restriction that they could make a save to resist following one specific order if it went against their ethos but even if they succeeded that extra save they'd only refuse to act not break the spell (monstrous thrall, originally in bovd with no duration limit then reprinted in spell compendium with a duration limit), there was a prestige class that could give you permanent charm and dominate effects (mindbender in complete arcane), there was a psionic prestige class that could give you a hoard of mindlessly obedient followers (thrallherd in the SRD/expanded psionics handbook)... yeah enchantment was whack way back then...
@@Avigorus modify memory in 5.0 does some of the same stuff it just takes more casting over more weeks/years in some cases.
@@pheralanpathfinder4897 Modify Memory can do similar memory alteration, but it is still a hell of a lot less scary given how fast and potentially nigh-irreversible Mindrape was (after all, a Remove Curse removes _all_ curses in 5e making accidental removal of MM quite possible).
I have thought of this before but thought I was the only one who saw it that way. Someone was talking about killing cultist in their campaign and I asked " but if they arnt hurting anyone why interfere, what they belive in is real inside dnd" it became apparent he just thought any kind of religions real or fake was evil to him.
The only 2 instances I recall of the Jedi Mind Trick being used ("These are not the droids you're looking for." and "You don't want to sell me Deathsticks. You want to go home and rethink your life.") seem to both be instances of diffusing conflict passively. I think that's why we don't see it as evil. Can passive conflict resolution be so bad?
I think my 1000 skeletons can be a passive conflict resolution against 2 troopers though. Sure, there might be some intimidation involved, but at least their choice is 100% of their own making.
"Don't mess with me, or you will have to deal with my horde of skeletons."
"You will come with me to the Degovah system." - Obi Wan attempting to manipulate Luke. Epi 4
@theravenousrabbit3671 but in that example you have disturbed 1000 bodies and done an evil act 1000 times before marching with your army of skeletons.
It's not a matter of the end but the means. Obiwan completely changed the deathstick dealer. If something could come along and fundamentally change who you are without you having any say it, it doesn't matter if they mean well
@@eldritch3465 Obi-Wan was gentle with what he did to that drug peddler. He did know harm and didn't choose what he would do forward on in his life. Tyler Durden did similar at gunpoint, no bullets but pure threat. The comparison of means is drastically different for a supposed similar outcome of the target's better future.
The most EVIL Magic in all of fantasy is Soul Trapping because Soul Trapping people takes away their intended afterlife & dooms them to a horrible afterlife.
100% agree with this.
Elder Scrolls
Anyone know where I can fill some black soul gems?
@@kreiskhaos8516 Nope.
Did you do any research into actual historical magic for this video? You have a lot of philosophy here but all reading about real life, historical "magic" I've done, enchantment and necromancy were about equally reviled, followed by any magic meant to harm another person.
Never forget that people thought magic existed. You don't have to make up how people viewed it from thin air.
Why research history, when you can just browse the D&D subreddits?
You have the Esoterica and perhaps Religion for Breakfast channels for that
Hell, an enchantment spell, imperio, is one of the three "unforgiveable spells" in Harry Potter
@@SnipeOSRS true, but the argument he's making is back in the medieval times we didn't place as much of a value on free will (at least for the lower classes). Even ignoring that coercion is different from straight up enchantment, the idea is still easily counter-able because magic works on nobility and merchants, not just the lower classes.
@@bobbycrosby9765 And the argument is categorically false. Free will was a *primary* concern in the Christian diaspora during the Middle Ages and was one of their most intense areas of debate and contention with more fatalistic philosophies such as Stoicism. While the ethos of hierarchy was certainly not perfectly consistent, to say that they did not care about free will or personal autonomy at all is unequivocally ahistorical. The nature of privileges and hierarchical structures was considered to be part of the fallen state of the mortal world to be redeemed in the final salvation.
It's interesting how enchantment and charming have been swapped in modern language usage. I actually was wondering if this was going to delve into the Elder scrolls version of enchantment. Fun philosophy, thanks dude!
Same. I was wondering how creating magic items was somehow evil when I saw the video title.
Well: there are black soul gems... =)
A dowry is less about "selling" a woman, and more about proving that the family that wants to take the woman in is actually capable and willing to support them.
Hence why the practice all but disappeared after WWII, when the woman was now expected to be more financially self-sufficient.
That is commonly given as a formal justification for it. But informally, it's obviously a system with an extensive history of being abused for profit.
funnily enough support spec necromancy is accepted in the real world.
I can only speak for the medical field, but a lot of things we do could be and were considered as necromancy (organ transplants and donations, blood transfusions and tests, grave digging, and so on). I once made a character with this concept, really wanted to go for the “friendly neighborhood necromancer” concept.
"All that grows must also wither and die. All dies and rots, and will then nourish the living. This is the Great Cycle of Being…"
Let's mot forget how Da Vinci was attacked by the church because he used dead bodies to study anatomy.
For a more recent example: The Purple Man from the Jessica Jones series, whose power is to make people do whatever he tells them to, and his deeply disturbing philosophy:
"If they didnt want to do it, then they wouldn't."
Interns, unpaid involuntary interns...
I’d say that philosophical conversations are EXACTLY what I am missing in most RPG games.
@@josephbenjamin6426 me too. Fantasy used to be a safe space for philosophy without depending upon emotional real world examples
I decided to test this one.
The late Western Roman empire had a scale of pentalties for use of magic in the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis and Veneficis. The penalty for having "binding magic" most likely speaking of what scholars now call Erotic Binding Magic AKA '"love" magic' was crucifixion.
Arguably enchantment could be seen as "OK if the state does it, like killing" but it clearly freaked the ancients out too.
Man i just love your channel we have similar thoughts and you talk about alot of the things i think on in relation to fantasy.
Id agree necromancy is only evil when it effects the soul or prevents it to pass to an afterlife. I disagree though enchament is certainly the most evil. Even in a world where might makes morally right there is a difference to being subservient while understanding you are so because the individual on top can strike you down and being subservient and having your mind in a clouded haze unable to even muster a thought of your own. One could argue in the first example you have the ability to become mighty yourself and become the morally right. If under enchantment magic you could be entirely barred from having thoughts that would lead to you breaking the enchantment. That is not might makes right, it is removing the ability for anyone to obtain their own right.
In the real world, Suggestion and Charm Person would be far more dangerous than a Fireball. A criminal mastermind with these spells could have people all around him serving his agenda. He could amass tremendous amounts of power by manipulating people through his magic.
VERY evil; it's taboo in my setting along with Necromancy, though that's more due to people abusing charming magic.
I would argue that people would find enchantment just as abhorrent as necromancy becasue its the only type of magic that can make a King surrender his lands without a fight. A King would rightfully fear such magic to the point of making it a cultural norm to revile enchantment just for the sake of keepng control of his lands easier. The fear of enchantment might not be as organically rooted as the fear of necromancy but I would say that it would be just as important as necromancy becasue the ones in charge tell you its just as bad if not worse. In this sense you can justify enchament being considred just as bad if not worse than necromancy even in the context of a fantasy world.
Enchantment can be used to effect the soul. Charm or Dominate someone to signing their soul away. Just as evil as necromancy could ever be. You could also Dominate a person who in a fit of despair is about to fling themselves off a cliff and make them reconsider while the despair passes. What you do to someone with the magic counts more than the school of magic.
My philosophy is that no magic is really evil, it is what you do with it, and what other side effects it has. You could have a necromancer who cast speak with dead so people can say their last goodbyes before sending them off to the care of the gods.
You might get away with charming them into it. You can't dominate someone to signing away their soul. The context is that you need to willingly sign. Being coerced and tricked through words works but brute force doesn't. Charm is magically impairing their thoughts just like alcohol or other intoxicants, you're still able to be you. That's not the same with dominate.
The phrase is 'unpaid interns'. ;)
Involuntary valued employees
In D&D cosmology, the vast majority of time that a conscious creature exists, will be after it's dead. A mortal lifespan is tiny compared to eternity in whatever plane you end up in afterward. Disrupting a soul's ability to reach it's destination intact would be a curse to those bound for a... enjoyable.. afterlife. And for those bound to eternal torture, it would be among their best options.
The thing that makes necromancy evil, besides potentially using one's deceased loved ones against them as a weapon, is that you could possibly bring vampires or ghouls into existence that create more of their kind. That or even just zombie flesh could be full of disease.
@Jeromy1986
or in some version enslaving someone's soul.
In D&D, at least, creating undead creatures is evil by nature because undead are animated by negative energy. Living creatures are animated by Positive energy, and the two are diametrically opposed.
So pretty much by their very nature undead are driven to consume and destroy life and bring death and suffering to the living. The necromancer's magic might keep them on a leash for a time, but every new day brings a risk that they'll escape and go on a killing spree.
In my setting, necromancy is not inherently evil, but it's frowned upon because it's the only way to bring a soul back from the afterlife without permission from the soul. That, and the requirements for various undead to consume living creatures.....
The only form of necromancy that can realistically be called evil in a world where gods actually exist and conpete with one another would be resurrection spells that specifically state that they bring the souls back from the afterlife. Spells like animate dead don't mention the soul at all implying that the soul would stay in the afterlife which is the best of both worlds for any deity since their get the soul in the afterlife and the body stays active aiding the living members of the religion. Even vampires and ghouls existing wouldn't be a problem if they fought for that god. And zombies being filled with disease literally means nothing when lesser restoration exists so I don't even know why you mentioned that.
@@TheStartrek99obviously specific setting not withstanding, I believe necromancy generally has nothing to do with the soul. I could not quote a source at the moment.
"...we would still be living in a society where following the orders of those above you is the most important thing..."
Um... if the average person stopped obeying the orders of those above them, they would be fired and cease making money, eventually starving to death.
There are two types of necromancy.
The kind that raises the dead
The kind that enslaves the dead to your will and they are denied agency, free will and rest.
With resurrection magic, i believe the soul has to be willing to return for the spell to take.
Same is true with enchantment. It isnt the magic itself that is evil.. It is the intent of its user.
I'm not sure I agree with 'how necromancy would be viewed', here. Especially the lower sorts (animating a corpse to be a husk moving around as a puppet), it would only be universally condemned if it truly harmed the soul (not something made apparent in D&D). It may prevent resurrection, of course, but that really is only a concern for the highest of the high, anyway; normal people live, die and rot just like they do in the real world. And in a world with a confirmed pantheon (as opposed to a monotheistic culture), much of the morality of the issue would depend on the views of an individual's personal patron deity. So when designing your pantheon, it might be more appropriate to figure out how each god feels about different forms of necromancy--instead of good-evil, more important would be encouraged-ignored-taboo. A good goddess of the arts, for instance, might have no issue with necromancy that is used in an artistic fashion; an evil tyrant god might regard it as acceptable only for those who have authority otherwise (and thus, are entitled to use their serf's bodies as they want); the god of the harvest might be fine with undead laborers.
One additional issue--the PCs in a game, or the protagonist in fantasy literature, tend to be outsiders, those who have opted to reject the social order. Such individuals, quite likely, would find enchantment magic distasteful, at best.
As far as I'm concerned, in Runequest, when necromancers raise skeletons, their "soul" is long gone. Which ask, except for running away with the ex mortal coil what does it matter? (Well except the family like to think the corpse lies in a grave, not running around. But hey, if the amount of coins are high enough who wouldn't sell their dead relative)
Necromancers could build a business around it. Sell your body for say 50gold. When your been dead for a week, The necromancer can take over and do what he/she want to do with it, The dead person wont need it anymore.
@@genrabbit9995 that's a big assumption to make, but potentially valid. Does a vampire still have a soul or did the innocent depart leaving behind body and duplicate memory?
@@pheralanpathfinder4897 As far as soul gone, My thought where on skeletons and zombies. I didn't think on vampires. In a way a vampire operates under its own/masters free will, zombie and skeletons do not. But can a vampire be called a true undead in the same league. If they do not rot are they truly dead? (or at least I have never heard about a vampire complaining their rotting away)
I think a fantasy world would be less likely to evolve into a feudal state then the real world both because
A: magic is very powerful and it would make sense to educate as many people in it as possible (unseen servant basically makes someone 5-6 times as efficient)
B: with magic items more similar to modern technology it could make sense for ideas of personal ownership in the lower class to evolve a lot sooner.
Actually i think the opposite is the most powerful individual. It is very hard to get out of a fudal system. If the king can cast powerful magic, the might of many becomes barely palple vs. the might of individual so things that ended monarchys would be less likely to succeed such as the french revolution would be much harder if each noble could cast fireball let alone actual charm person style spell
15:50 Where does it say that being reanimated affects your odds of being returned to life?
It has said that, although it varies by spell and in those same spells across editions. The official lore on that is very inconsistent.
i think another important thing to consider when it comes to necromancy being evil is that the soul is intrinsically tied to the body in some religions, so the reanimation of the body can have effects on the soul
Dowries are paid by the womans family. So not selling the woman. Just helping give a start to the family. The husband would often get inheritance from his parents deaths.
Look, Tom has a social agenda to push here and he can't be bothered with trivial details like facts.
First of all, thanks for treating religions with respect.
I agree with you that we sometimes overvalue free will and consent. Those are certaintly important topics. But sometimes we stretch an issue that is important at the core to a place where we overvalue it in edge case situations. For example it is important that we do bedroom activities with consenting people. But some people enjoy the powerdynamics in those very bedroom activities. If there is a chase or some surprises, sometimes those happen without consent and they are still entirely welcome. And sometimes people missjudge those surprises and it lands flat. If you have a generally consenting partner, but some non consented activity lands flat, is that really the worst thing that can happen?
Just because you have hierarchical structures and social class, this doesn't mean you don't value those domains of freedom you still have within your class. For example in mediveal England, kings had more priviledges, but also pretty strongly defined duties. Sure, their moral contract was based on God being the fair judge where both the plebs and the king have equal standing in front. Also the higher classes were dependent on the lower classes. If the lower classes were mistreated enough, then they could rebell and change out the rulership. But it is still a situation where strenght based social classes were not entirely based on the will of the powerful.
In the following point I disagree with you. The question of morality is not exclusive to the people on the top. If that were the case, then no rebellion would ever happen. I would say the question of morality is a luxury of those who have enough freetime to think about it and who have the luxury to at least have the hope of changig anything about their situation. And in some cases, changing anything about their situation includes commiting suicide to not compromize on a cause. Enchantment that is strong enough to even rob the capability to commit suicide is probably frowned upon in most societies.
Of course, not everyone who is in a position to ask those questions will. And both genetics and culture influences how likely we are to ask those questions.
I agree with you that typically a fantasy world would have less concerns about free will and other topics which we western people love to think about. But those questions can still have a logical backing in the world, if the author justifies it sufficiently. Fantasy worlds with adveturers may have a societies, which build on the social mythos where "the weak can turn into the strong through luck and effort". In such a system free will can be a valuale topic, even if there are large powerlevel differences. And that will be even more pronounced, if anger increases the chance of someone turning strong. That way strong people may be hesitant to mistreat weak people because they may accidentally create a monster that tries to get revenge on them at any cost.
Another good point which you raised is that our world has a very ridgid view of human rights. Sure there is some debates about where it applies. How about unborn babies, elderly people who are sick of living, neanderthals (if they were alive today), or how much should human rights be extended to animals. But in principle we picked up the torch of Christianity which says that every human was made in the image of God. In a fantasy world there are two major questions.
- What is the philosophical justification to think a useless human and an important human are of the same value?
- What are the borders of what can be considered a "human" who deserves human rights? Most fantasy mangas I've read answer that question in the following way. Which species are historically considered a political allay. Those are the species which deserve human rights. All the others are either treated as non humans or as enemy "humans" who we have to fight war against. I think within that fictional cultural setting, this is a justified mindset.
One thing you haven't brought up is the "enchantment spells" of our world.
- Some sales people apply pretty manipulative strategies.
- Some food companies deliberately make their food addictive with the help of specific chemicals.
- The entire field of management is about how to make new customers, how to keep old customers and how to profit off those customers.
- The entire field of social media and smartphone games is built on manipulating dopamine.
- The world of adult entertainment such as gambling and other things also know their fair share of manipulation tactics
In which way exactly is enchantment magic different than those aspects I've mentioned here? There are some people who oppose and call out those practices, but it is rarely talked about as badly as satanists performing human sacrifices. Because of that I would claim all enchantment magic of lower skill level would be treated the same way. Of course if you have an enchanter who can turn entire countries into living dolls with a flick of a finger than this is something different. But that is about as evil as a fire mage who turns an entire nation into a burning wasteland with one of his worldclass spells. I guess the difference between that fire spell and that enchantment spell is that fire spells can be used for good, but enchantment spells is only used to manipulate humans in an egoistical way. Also if you have a chivalry among fighters, then attakcs that are of obvious nature and attacks that are of a visual nature where we can display our skills in a playful way are superior to attacks that are sneaky and difficult to defend against. But that would also mean that if enchantment is common enough that it has a balanced attack and defense pattern then it would turn into a different form of dueling. But even if the enchantment magic isn't according to the chivalery code, it still wouldn't be evil. It would just be shady.
In my opinion we treat that question the wrong way. We shouldn't ask, _is enchantment magic actually evil?_ We should ask _Is there a cultural incentive to single out enchantment magic as evil?_ And in my opinion the only reason to do so is if it is connected to some societal trauma or if it is some new thing that a rebellious movement is applying. Basically it is a question of PR, not a question of morality. Unless of course you make it so that the entire nation consists of honest people and enchantment magic is the only way to trick people.
It might make sense for enchantment magic is made the domain of the ruling class by simple virtue of the fact that when you know enchantment magic you have the power to rule over others. Wizards not of noble blood likely would be restricted from learning enchantment. And if they did they may be punished, or perhaps simply made nobility themselves, if they were strong enough. Noble lines may boast about their great great grandfather who invented an enchantment spell, giving them the power to begin their noble line. This would also tie sorcery even more to the aristocracy. Bards as well. Music and artistic expression would be clamped down everywhere, it would become the domain of nobility to perform, to make sure that the power of enchantment stays where it should.
Perhaps this is where the stigma of warlocks comes from, they make a deal and have the potential to take for themselves the divine right to rule that is enchantment. Perhaps this is why they are called oathbreakers.
I enjoy your sociological and philosophical slants that you place on your discussions of D&D and look forward to your next video.
another goated video by the grungeon master 🤝 i think the philosophical deep dives are very interesting !!! keep it up :)
This is more of an argument against the legitimacy of the establisment hierarchies in a lot of fantasy than a defense of necromancy.
The only 'problem' with necromancy is where it involuntarily afflicts souls rather than exclusively the inert matter of corpses or where there is a defined teleology that it violates. Otherwise, no, enchantment is unequivocally worse. And your history is very incorrect; a lot of these exact sorts of magic were regarded *explicitly* as violations of human autonomy and were often considered ethical and sometimes legal infractions in real world history.
I'd imagine that necromancy would more so be a popular sort of taunt, to your enemies like how Hector was trying to bring the corpse of Patroklos back to Troy to feed it to the dogs. You wouldn't do it on your allies, since you could revive them at some point, but on your enemies quite plausibly.
I think enchantment, depending on the availbility of magic, might be seen as a sort of cowardly way to deal with enemies, I think this would be particularly predominant with tales of strong and powerful adventurers, using overt means being highly visible in fantasy cultures. If we think back to history, political intrigue and manipulation have the worst reputation in heroic cultures of direct conflict. In a fantasy world I think this would be turned up to eleven, unless magic was so widespread naturally that you had to accept it as a daily part of practical life.
You said your first sentence about enchantment and necromancy backwards 😅
That's an interesting point that settings like the Forgotten realms would be more collectivist because of the prevalence of gods
The way i see it Enchantment Magic is as evil as lying is evil, yeah it is evil, but its not as evil as straight up murder
Necromancy depending on how the spell works, can be both just as evil as murder, just as evil as enchantment is, or not evil at all
If your spell requires you to enslave a soul/forbid a soul form going to their afterlife, cause it pain, etc, then its just as evil as murder/torture (or even more evil than even that considering you can re-cast it on the same person over and over until boredom)
If your spell is simply used to speak with the death, forcing them to reply truthfully then its not different from using enchantment magic or being really really really persuasive, evil? yes, but nothing out of the ordinary
if your spell doesn't require any soul manipulation and just makes a corpse move and follow orders like a soulless fleshy robot, or if the spell its simply an offensive spell like a vampire drain or a bone chill attack, then its not really evil, its just a neutral "tool", and like all tools it can be used for good AND evil depending on the user's morality
Enchantment is not "lying", it is changing how other people see you, forcing them to do your will, stripping them of the ability to resist you, and worse. It is several times worse than simple harm and damage.
Though i agree with the other part, necromancy that doesn't affect souls really should not be considered evil. Especially in a world where souls are known to exist and a dead body has almost no relation to the soul (with few resurrection spells being the exception for requiring a body part to work).
On a cultural level, any potential “good” powerful mind control might be capable of, is likely to get buried under a whole mountain range worth of the REALLY messed up things it can be put towards.
There’s only really so many absolute atrocities that a setting is likely to put up with before they just start categorizing the entire branch of magic as innately evil.
The busker in the street draws in a crowd and casts mass suggestion.
Yes, charm spells are inherently evil.
Enchantment as detailed by Gary gagax is particularly abominable because he basically took the concepts of imbuing objects with mystical properties and said now what if we added mesmerism hypnotism fascination and general enthralment of people's minds the resulting combination was a horror show I don't necessarily think enchanting objects has anything to do with mesmerism but the way it's written oh God it's terrifying it's Cthulhu nonsense
I think given the topic risen in this video you would love jocat's belcanus "necro hunt campaign" as one of the players ends up having this exact conflict in the live play
Love this kind of video. Great exploration of the philosophy and the development of philosophy in our world and how that can be applied to a fantasy world
"we not judge these fantasy worlds by our moral standards?" would a group thinking torture is ok make it moral? I could be completely missing the point however I don't see how else this could be understood
There are people who believe torture is good. Most of them work for the US prison system.
We're not trying to understand what is objectively good (and that is a whole other topic I'm leaving well away from the table), we're trying to understand the perspectives of a people who live in a different world, and don't have access to the same kind of culture and education we do, but do have access to some other kind of education, or culture, or typically both.
This is exacerbated by the fact that their world literally is not assumed to operate on the same fundamental principles as our world. If you assume a certain species is literally born into evil and cannot change its ways, why would torturing it be wrong?
This isn't even assuming that these people are CORRECT about how their world works - All we care about is what they've been taught or could figure out for themselves based on their environment and interactions.
If you study history in any serious capacity, you'll know that many cultures had very different perspectives on various things. Yes, this includes torture.
I'm not about to tell you torture is good, acceptable, or even effective, but someone else might. Understanding their perspective is worth something, especially if you plan to prove them wrong.
@@Woodledude It would bring a whole new meaning to every "monster race" in D&D being willing to fight to the death once you find out the "good guys" are okay with torturing them because they were "born evil."
Remember, people, the monster manuals are written from the perspective of the humans. 😇
@@Woodledude Thank You for the clarification
I certainly saw D&D as a much easier idea for the afterlife, if you go to the afterlife of the god you worship, then just pick the one you like best
Problem with that type discussion is how badly morality is defined in RPG.
D&D especially mix many contradicting core moral sources that don't even applied consistently making this mess.
(especially good example is Harpers and Elminster)
In practice DM should use max 2 sources of morality and preferably not contradicting ones.
Like cosmic alignment and gods, making "good" gods always good and all they tell you is good is good.
Irony is that most widely use sources irl are contradicting, ergo intent and outcome/perception in society.
This is what make irl. one bad to use in game as mechanic, because it is for interpretation and this breed conflict at the table.
It is actually defined pretty precisely in D&D. The issues are that 1) it is buried in implications and subtext and only explicit in the deeplore and 2) pretty much no one IRL actually agrees with the ethical theories most of the official D&D settings use. Most of the D&D settings define Good and Evil as very literal teleological quintessences with some mild variations by setting, such as it being related to the covenant between mortals and the gods' hierarchy and structure in Forgotten Realms.
It is uselessly vague for casuals and infuriatingly nonsensical for a lot of the hardcore.
@@NevisYsbryd I agree that core is precisely defined in cosmology, but even og creators couldn't stick to that in they own sessions and lore build of that.
As i told Elminster and Harpers are best examples of that.
Not to mention new stuff of wotc (dropped aliment spells etc.) and PH entry about aliment that was made as encompassing as possible.
As you told all you need is deeplore but surface lore often cotradict that and you either ignore that or you need correct it.
Not to mention base lore is less flexible for all type of setting than aliment chart by themselves.
Love the channel, I'm unhappy about the way you described dowries.. it's not as if the bride had value, she was an expense, the dowry is the loan, which the groom will be repaying for decades in the form of room and board
I feel like this could be an interesting discussion if it wasn't for all this being dependent on matters of setting/ world building.
Is enchantment more evil than necromancy well that depends. If necromancy is used to raise a corpse is it only the body or does this magic actively harm the soul even in the after life?, torturing a spirit that should be at rest, does it corrupt or warp the mind of the user and further more even if all this is "no" to what end and what effect is the undead being used
What about enchantment? Is it evil, well that depends, is it being used to against an individual to rip away or warp thier free will or is it being used on a consenting party to help easer thier nerves so they can speak of something pain in something more akin to therapy, thier is a reference to enchanters using thier magic for that in the book.
All of this is so depend on lore, setting, cultural content that it all may as well boil down to " is enchantment more evil than necromancy? Well it depends"
Yes. Enchantment magic is evil.
I enjoy all of The Grungeon Master videos 🎉🎉😊
Might as well say the use of force in place of enchantment magic. I mean, you even mention that the group with the force gets to decide what is moral...
I'd have to say mind manipulation magic depends on a lot on use. If it's used to achieve a bad result or make someone do a thing they'd strongly be against doing, it's probably bad, but if that person is an enemy and the magic is in effect just a weapon used to fight them with then it's in some ways comparable to hitting them with an axe.
If the magic is used to avoid violence and achieve something that prevents or reduces harm to good people then it has some clear justification, but it still has the debatable issue of whether the person subject to it deserves it or if the specific situation has other considerations affecting the use of such a thing.
Ultimately using mind manipulation stuff comes down to personal ideas on what one considers justifiable and is always gonna be questionable depending only on uses, situations and personal beliefs.
When it comes to the augmenting stuff like just making someone stronger, I really can't come up with any reasonable way to call that bad, aside from if its use is to enable a maniac to murder some people. Any effect that grants a person extra or just improved capabilities without a detrimental effect included like the haste spell, those are no more questionable than hugging someone without asking, feeding a man with no arms, or moving a person away from a harmful force. Since these are obviously very normal things that almost anyone would agree are acceptable and all have some form of clear comparison to an empowerment spell like Skyrim and many other worlds have, those things being questioned at all is rather ridiculous.
Another great video! Always giving us something interesting to think about 🤔
My problem with enchantment magic in TTRPGs specifically is less a moral quandry, although that certainly exists, and more one of player agency.
Illusions I'm far more fine with. The player can still choose how their character reacts. But even the Confusion condition in Pathfinder where the GM rolls a die to determine who you attack so you might be attacking an ally or a foe frustrates me as a player in a way the reverse - An NPC being taken out of my control by a player's magic - doesn't as a GM since I control _literally everything in this world except for about 4 individuals_ rather than just a single person, meaning that an NPC being taken away from my control doesn't negatively impact my agency as one of the people around the table creating this shared experience nearly as much.
Basically I don't like mind control stuff in TTRPGs for the same reason that I don't like "skip your turn" stuff in board games.
Outside of TTRPGs I'm more open to enchantment magics - mind control specifically since this issue doesn't apply to illusions for me - within fiction.
Do you think you'll do a vid on the speedy courier spell someday?
It reminds me of how much sending would change a world with just communication, now imagine you can send things to people on the other side of the world, instantly...
Also, apart from the spell suggestion, most of these enchantment spells don't last long.
Have you considered setting up a Pat? I'd be happy to support your channel as I very much enjoy your analyses.
I had to ask as soon as I had the thought, so I'm not sure if you mentioned it in the video, but what if the consent to enchant was given willingly by the target? Same with Necromancy if the resurrectee gave permission to be brought back while they still lived... Just curious.
In my current writing project, the country the main character comes from would consider both enchantment and necromancy equally evil, as they *are* a very individualistic, semi-democratic, and powerful society, and would view both as "highjacking someone else's story," which is a huge, if vague, taboo.
Awesome deep dive! 😊
Here talking about the greater evil beetween enchantment and Necromancy, so i will make a chaotic fireball wizard to make a point
There's little difference between a guard using a taser or using command to halt you. In these instances, enchantment magic isn't just not evil, it is a *NON LETHAL* way of subjugating criminals!
If anything, with enchantment magic being both potent and non lethal, it's easy to see enchanters as guards or the crowd control unit, pun intended
And I imagine with that as a tool, death caused by guards can be seen as a massive failure from them when enchantment magic similarly immediately neutralizes the threat, at range too!
I think there's a lot of positive use cases of enchantment magic when it's both seen and used not for freedom control or coercion, but for safe neutralization
Brain-wash, manipulate, gaslight. -Enchantment described.
Have you though of doing simmilar videos on other TTRPG magics?
I personally play GURPS and would live videos on it's 700+ spells
Nah that doesn't make sense, how is enchantment evil? I just put XP points into empowering my netherite or diamond tools and weapons...
Oops gotta go fix my mending pickaxe at the mob farm.
i default to thinking of enchantment magic as object augmentation, rather than bewitching people.
The point about fantasy peoples not having the luxury to be free because of the constant conflict of deities and deific entities over their minds and bodies is one of the reasons why I love the Pathfinder setting so much. The fact that there are not only gods specifically fighting _for_ the freedom of mortals (Desna, for example), but also "atheism" is a valid option for your characters (in this setting meaning the belief that no deity in particular is worthy of worship or praise). There are many cultures on Golarion that have broken free of the oppression of godlike beings' control, both with positive and negative outcomes (e.g. Andoran, an actual representative democracy), and on the flipside their are cultures that have embraced rule by mortals who specifically use enchantment magic to control the hearts and minds of their subjects (e.g. Razmiran, ruled by a despotic god-king who's really just a powerful enchantment-focused wizard). In addition, mortals ascending to godhood through various means is fairly commonplace, with the vast majority of the pantheon actually having been mortal at some point, blurring the divide between beings with power and beings without (and turning Absalom, the city where most gods ascend, into a kind of land of broken dreams where everyone from across the world comes to try to ascend to godhood but ultimately ends up as like... a tavernmaid or something). Many of the ascended gods just act like mortals would if they had power (like Norgorber, who is basically just a god of crime and effectively acts like a batman villain among the gods).
Pillars of Eternity is another D&D-adjacent setting that attempts to deconstruct the relationship between gods and mortals, where the gods sre actually [spoiler] and so [spoiler]. But also there is a form of manipulation of the soul separate from necromancy, called "animancy", that manipulates a _living_ soul, carving it up, altering it, grafting it together, and guiding it in a way that can fundamentally change a person's mind or nature, and such magic is pretty central to how that world works and its main conflicts.
@@MarshmallowRadiation D&D also has freedom fighter gods and the only reference to atheist beliefs is that no God will claim the soul after death so it suffers in the realm of the dead.
Does Pathfinder have a god bringing the souls of atheist people to something similar to paradise?
I can't remember which edition or book I read it in, but they described necromancy as evil because it forces the soul back into the body to aninate it. This is why if you awaken a undead it has the same skills and abilities. This never made sense, your telling me my 10th level Necromancer is stronger then a God? I can just yank a elven soul out of Arvandor, with a 3rd level spell and some black onyx? I've always thought enchantment was more evil.
Zoinks, Scoob! I think our wizard is more evil than the evil villain's necromancy and not just because he wears a bag on his head! According to our modern libertarian conception of free will, enchantment magic is evil and he just totally became friends with that guard. Violating his not-at-all divine free will is way worse than violating the religious sanctity for the dead dead and burial practices which is appropriate for the time period. We're going to need more scooby snacks to get through this one!
More seriously, enchantment as willing anesthetic is perhaps the most universally ethical use of enchantment I can imagine.
The idea that gods would view necromancy as violating their sanctity doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Realistically it would be necromancy spells like revivify, raise dead, resurrection, etc that should actually be viewed as "evil" since it deprived gods of the souls of their followers in the afterlife. Spells like animate dead would actually be more ethical since it allows the soul to remain in the afterlife to aid their god while the physical body continues to aid the living members of the religion.
Either way it's definitely more ethical to use necromancy which every religion would try to make use of in some kind of regulated official capacity than the literal mind rape that is enchantment magic. That part I don't really see how you can argue it just by saying it's somehow a modern idea to not want to be forced to act against your will. Literally no human desires that modern or otherwise.
@@Tupadre97 I don't mean to say pre-moderns would find enchantment to be without wrong. They would find it wrong but most wouldn't ascribe to it nearly the evil that they'd consider necromancy. Fantasy societies of course will differ as much as we decide to too them. It is our modern framework which can make that difference between "wrong" and "more wrong than necromancy". It's anachronistic to apply that back in time.
@@Tupadre97
I wouldn't say the resurrection spells would be seen as evil by the majority of cultures.
They're Cleric spells. Created by gods and given to followers who represent them on the mortal plane. Depending on how loose the interpretation is, the fact that a Cleric can cast it is already proof of endorsement....considering that unlike Wizards they have to ask their deity to use the spell each day.
Furthermore, a Soul can refuse a resurrection, preventing most tomfoolery that could be used with it (if a resurrection were to go against a God's plan, they could just convince the soul in question not to go through with it from the other side.)
...
But yes to am extent most enchantment spells are morally worse than Necromancy,...but when Necromancy IS bad, it goes all out on the evil meter.
@@Aarlaeoss enchantment has always been seen as evil throughout all of history. A "recent" example are witches burned for using magic that makes people behave differently than they would.
Yes, it is 100%. Enchantment is definitely evil.
All magic is evil… unless it is your magic
To turn an enemy into a friend is a powerful tool, Enchanters should just let CHR characters do the talking.
This is a rather wordy way to put forth an is/ought fallacy.
I think you're rather missing the point of speculative fiction, here. We're presented with the conditions under which a world exists, and seek to extrapolate from there as to how the world as a whole may function.
In the speculative exercise of extrapolative worldbuilding, we must move from what is true, to what ought to also be true based on this first set of facts; it's ... kind of the point.
Generally yes. I have it outlawed in most civilized realms
personally i would rule enchantment is true neutral, where as necromancy is true evil.
individual natural rights are morals independent of the state of the world or reality, say you have body less minds floating in space let's say that they are telepathic minds so they have real hard times telling the difference between collectives and individuals. even if they are mostly of one mind sometimes their will be differences between collectives of minds and other collectives of minds, even if it is only what is better for a fictional mind in fictional situation to do that will never arise for the minds. in this you can treat the two or more collectives in disagreement as individuals. you can have faith in the random that random chance made the correct winner of argument the more stronger and so might makes right, but this is flawed at it's core because if the correct winner of the argument is always the winner then the random choice is not random and now you must worry about the god of randoms morals or the god of might's morals. so it's just a abstraction to try to avoid solving the moral issue. if a God or king is at the core of your morals then the question "and what is God's morals" is the question to organically arise that removes the avoidance. the best technology our strongest and most robust arguments are based on individual natural rights this is likely because they are a expression of entropy that is fundamental to systems, those that want to rule can use might, censorship, and control to try to convince of anything else but it takes constant maintenance to do so and is draining eventually when it comes to justify their rule they are unable to do. if A is of 40% power and B is of 45% power who C allies with at 15% power decides the winner and that will be who presents the better argument for their rule for C. B can be at 51% or greater but not in all things at all times, this is how individual natural rights are a expression of entropy's slow slide in to a different state. eventually the body less minds will evolve individual natural rights it will just take a long time. the gods in dnd are subject to alignment not deciders of it, they are really far from monotheism where Gods are unknowable and not understandable as a hand wave to avoid debating what is moral regardless of capabilities and superpowers. we don't really know what necromancy does to the individual, we know perfect restoration of the dead is possible in places where imperfect resurrection of necromancy is possible. so what if necromancy also restores the individual just they just stuck in a rotting body with out any control over it. necromancy could fully eclipse enchantment in immorality. enchantment that is mostly temporary and does not trap you with the pain of feeling rotting, when you are a animated skeleton and no longer combat capable are you gone or does it take even more effort for someone else to actually free you?
Ultimately the argument is might makes right. The flavor of that might is superfluous
I would rather know I am under the control of an evil overlord through military might, than be brainwashed to become their slave. Enchantment magic is for creeps.
@@theravenousrabbit3671 thats the best part you won't know your being brainwashed and enslaved
Precisely. The argument in this video was extremely weak and contrary to its claims, quite inaccurate in its claims about real world history and mythology.
And as the idea of present to gods as a Norse pagan I can guarantee you not all religions had God's telling you what to do or how to behave the big thing the Norse gods wanted from you was to try and be a good example be heroic be better than cringing and cowardly failing that just be entertaining have Adventures do interesting things not everyone is sitting there like the Christian God with rules subsections and clauses that's why I think D&D gods are written kind of weird assuming monotheistic conceits on pagan pantheons but that's a whole other thing essentially the gods and the Norse belief system want you to learn from their example they don't necessarily want to be over your shoulder in your head that's a silly idea most of the pagan gods were much more human had flaws and personality quirks
Most fantasy settings are based on a vague European medieval setting but without God and the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. But players incorporate modern, post-Enlightenment philosophies and cultural norms based on ideals that make magic - all kinds of magic - an evil practice (manipulating people, nature, or reality) and using it would incur harsh penalties (see Salem, Massachusetts).
Conversely, the premise in most D&D games is using magic is no more immoral as using any other tool or weapon.
The disconnect comes from players bringing their modern sensibilities based on Christian morals to a setting based on a pagan world. This creates a conflict of moral relativity and revisionism. In a world without Christian ideals, then there is no absolute morality that makes using any type of magic - including necromancy and enchantment - an evil practice.
Not to start a religious debate here (seriously, I really don't want to do that), but one could easily make both secular and pagan arguments against enchantment and necromancy.
If my moral system stems from believing in a pagan pantheon, I could make the same claims of objective morals a Christian could. "Enchantment is evil, because Bahamut, the god of justice, prohibits it", "You ought not practice necromancy, because the souls and bodies of the dead belong to The Raven Queen, the goddess of death".
But even that is unnecessary. I can define "moral" as "improving the well-being of people", and "immoral" as "harming the well-being of people". This way, most cases of enchantment and necromancy would be immoral by definition. Enchantment subverts personal agency, which is an important part of well-being. And necromancy is immoral because people care about their bodies and live happier lives knowing they won't be raised as undead.
@ghurcbghurcb I agree with you. It's likely it would be in the best interest of fantasy religions prohibiting magic that transgressed against the tenets of their faith. I can also see government restricting, licensing, and even in some cases prohibiting the use of magic.
In my own campaign, the government restricts magic to its military and police forces. The government claims it's concerned about doing the "right thing" for public safety, but in truth, it's all about control.
They've fabricated "magic crimes" designed to outrage the public to sway public opinion to justify their campaign to eliminate anyone not reliant on the government, including those capable of inspiring civil disobedience, threatening their grip on people's personal lives.
Maybe it's just my 'tism making it hard for me to grok normal social dynamics, but it's always seemed to me that, by the framework you mention here of "enchantment is to emotions as illusion is to perceptions", there really is no hard line between ordinary persuasion and magical compulsion. Magic may be a more consistently reliable means of achieving the desired effect, but there are more and less reliable means of manipulating the emotions and behaviour of others IRL, even without getting into methods we would regard as immoral. It seems to me that the differences between an impassioned speech that moves someone to support your cause, manipulative gaslighting, and a Charm Person spell are ones of degree moreso than kind. In all cases, you're using some technique (either instinctive or practiced) to sway the target's emotional state to make them amenable to your ends. Some are more reliable or drastic in the effects they can produce, but the core mechanism and desired end is fundamentally the same throughout.
There doesn't seem to be any particularly clear set of principles that governs what makes one means of doing so morally legitimate and others not so. We disapprove of means that seem to overly impinge on the target's autonomy, but since in all cases pure rational autonomy is being undercut by appeals to baser emotions it seems to me this is less of a principle and more of a fuzzy gut feeling. We disapprove of means that rely on fear and authority, except when we don't: For instance, public health campaigns where medical professionals warn people about the dire consequences of certain health risks employ precisely appeals to authority and fear, but we consider these perfectly legitimate. Whether or not deception/dishonesty is a problem is incredibly context-dependent; a white lie to flatter your significant other regarding an outfit that is not, in your honest estimation, as flattering as might be hoped is usually not regarded as wicked manipulation. There's a particular stigma against pharmacologic means of manipulation, except when it's perceived to be for a good end; eg, proposals have been made to add lithium to drinking water supplies for its benefits to mood and mental health, and opponents of such proposals usually object on the grounds of the *physical* health risks of unregulated lithium exposure, moreso than psychological autonomy.
TL;DR -- I don't think the boundaries of licit vs. illicit forms of emotional influence over others are all that clearly defined IRL, let alone in a fantasy world where, as you rightly point out, there are plenty of other differences that could tip the balance of how things are weighed morally.
Think of Enchantment less like an persuasion and more akin to the drugs people mix in someone else's drink to have their way with them.
... because it's basically the same as dominate person. Something that will make the target unable to think properly for some time while you do what you want with them.
@@albertonishiyama1980 Read my whole post, my point is that I don't think the lines even with regard to IRL methods of swaying people's feelings and behaviour are actually as clear-cut as they seem. You don't need drugs to get people in a state where they aren't thinking clearly, and there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast principles as to why some methods of influence are licit and others aren't. More just...vibes.
(To be clear, my personal conclusions on this conundrum in my own life is not to think that brainwashing and drugging people are ok, but rather the opposite: I have deep moral qualms with *any* kind of persuasion that doesn't rest entirely on dispassionate reason.)
I think enchatment is more morally ambiguous
Nope haven’t heard that … until now.
I personally see necromancy is enchantment magic. The wizard got tired of manipulating minds and moved to messing with souls instead. Its not subtle anymore but blatant turning living intelligent beings into a puppet which is the dream of any control freak lol
Very interesting video
No more evil than coercing someone through the threat of force, both take a Will- oh sorry, “Wisdom” save to resist and forceful coercion is usually the second option if enchantment fails anyway. There is always a way to resist, the weak and stupid don’t last long in a game world as dangerous and unforgiving as D&D.
Mh, not convinced. In many point in history unprotected people thought and put in action revolt, usurpation and similar thing, even against more powerful forces. Some failed, some succeded but they thought of it. Enchantment would have blocked it. Paesants rebelled against the King Li in China in 800 BCE and Sumerian did something similar in 2300 BCE. Those revolting weren't at the top and many thing were even more dangerous.
I don't think Enchantment is inherently evil. It depends on how you use it. If you're influencing people's minds to improve the situation for everyone, then it's moral.
If anything, Evocation should be considered evil, because the vast majority of Evocation spells exist only to cause death and destruction.
So the ends justify the means?
As to your second point, our Finnish komrades have a public instruction video on converting ordinary Fuel into thermobaric molotov cocktails, because they want their neighbors to know that this is common knowledge among the Finns; availability of Evocation magic could have the same effect on society.
That's still evil. Robbing someone of their free will is always evil.
@@galen-eu1vu Not necessarily. Again, it depends on what's being done.
Using Charm Person or Calm Emotions to diffuse a potentially lethal encounter, coercing a baddie into giving you the McGuffin to save the world, or just generally avoiding violence and harm would be good.
Enchanting someone into jumping out the window, killing their allies, throwing themselves into a fire, or generally harming or causing suffering against their will would be bad.
The point is "would this action be wrong if I wasn't using magic to do it?" If the answer is yes, then it's not the magic that's evil, it's the action.
@@alexanderchippel So if someone has a gun to your child's head and is about to pull the trigger, it would be wrong for you to use Dominate Person to force them to put down the gun?
Is it your position that it would be RIGHT in this scenario to allow the gunman to freely choose to unalive someone when you have the ability to stop them?
@@chameleonx9253 Also, stop with that "unalive" shit. You don't have sponsors. You can say murder and rape and suicide all you want.
We alsp have to think from the perspective of a fuedalistic society there moght be no concept of ftee. Most peasants, knights and lords all held allegiance tp hogher ups. Even a king was subject to the church. In fact the whole concept as we see todays freedom is a very modern concept. Even in republics there were plebs amd slaves. Indentured servitude shpuld be as basic as breathing in a fantasy setting based on any historic society
Aha! You're using enchantment to make us agree that necromancy is worse. I see what you've done in this video.
Not to mention there's that US political party that wants to roll us back to obeisance as a routine of everyday life especially for certain groups (compared to the one that only wants to codify that disrespect is not respectable and is regularly dumbfounded by the constant cries that somehow not respecting bigotry is tyranny from their more vocal opponents... or at least that's what happens when it's halfway reasonable people and not idiots going too far in nitpicking)
Yes