Going to the dark side... Options

[flowerboom]

Do you enjoy being evil ? Overall do you enjoy characters being evil or are you just opposed / dont enjoy the idea or playing of it

I love going to the dark side , it gives a lot just like being good does.

Also : do you think there comes a "point of no return" or can any character turn around

Do you think being a vampire makes you "bad" ?

And which people in the game / acts do you consider truely evil?

[Darkness Eternal]

My characters are usually necromancers or vampires or werewolves. I hate playing as noble characters. For some reason it gives me a bad feeling.

My vampire characters don't consider themselves evil at all. Because they know they need to kill to sustain themselves and survive, and it's just a matter of life and death. They know innocent people die but it is a price that must be paid. Everything dies, and it's just time and method.

Do you think being a vampire makes you "bad" ?

Do you consider a lion is evil for stalking a man and killing him? Or a serpent waiting at the bottom of the ocean to snatch up a swimming fish? Or a wolf striking the weakest prey or the diseased one? Vampires are not so different. If they don't feed they become feral or lose their sanity and even in some cases, may fall into a coma. Of course, there are some who are extreme and cruel who feed on people while they are still alive and suffering for prolonged periods of time such as the vampires in Castle Volkihar. Also, they keep people as prisoners in their cattle cells.

My Cyrodiilic vampires are the same but less cruel. They feed on sleeping people, or seduce them into a trance/hypnotic state before draining them. In my story they have political power, and can easily transfer criminals and prisoners from jails to other locations so they can do what the Whet-Fang clan does, which is put a victim into a deep coma where they can never awake, and slowly the vampire can harvest blood from them like spiders do sometimes. They own blood-farms composed of criminals and the general threat to society. Not because they want to be heroes, but because it's more efficient to kidnap people who no one will miss than say, a noble's daughter or a prince-rich-boy.

Janus Hassildor feeds. He says he embraces his vampirism and even refers to it as a "gift" if he gives it to the player(PC only). He has the Pale Lady in his dungeon harvesting prisoners' blood to give to Rona. I am sure he also drinks blood of the criminals or sometimes his own servants while they sleep. Sybille Stentor also feeds on prisoners.

On werewolf characters: Ah. They are much the same, except they don't go around kidnapping people. They are literally wolves twice a month or on certain days and will have to hunt people to survive. There is a whole philosophical and moral issue here. Ever read "Posting of the Hunt" in the ES games? It somehow ties in with the aspect of hunting.

"In the highest aesthetic realization of the ritual, the ecstatic rapture of the kill is balanced by the Huntsman's identification with the sadness and despair of the Innocent Quarry. As in pieces the body of the innocent Hare is torn, the Huntsman reflects on the tragic imbalances of power and the cruel injustices of the world."

The truth is the world is inbalanced. There is violence everywhere. and not even the innocent can escape its wrath. Tamriel is even called "The Arena" because it is so violent. For my hard-boiled werewolves, they understand that Lycanthropy has a price. Hircine is the Daedric Lord of the Hunt, obviously, and his sphere shows no mercy to even children. Hircine is also known as "The Sacrifice of Mortals", and it's no coinscedence he hunts down creatures that represent purity such as the unicorn in Oblivion, the Spirit Bear in Bloodmoon and the White Stag in Skyrim. Or how his rituals of curing Lycanthropy has to have a sacrifice of flesh and innocence.

Werewolves are a whole different story because they sometimes have no control over their lupine form. And their natural instinct and bloodlust, guided by Hircine's power, are driven to hunting specifically men and women and children. Because in both hunting them down and devouring them, werewolves are sustaining themselves with the blood and flesh of their prey. That's why in Daggerfall and Bloodmoon you lost health periodically if you didn't feed. Or in SKyrim where only the blood of people can heal you. So they are hunting people down to survive and because it is their instinct. And that, in and of itself, is not entirely evil.

This post has been edited by Darkness Eternal: Feb 11 2013, 10:05 PM

[Lady Saga]

Do you consider a lion is evil for stalking a man and killing him? Or a serpent waiting at the bottom of the ocean to snatch up a swimming fish? Or a wolf striking the weakest prey or the diseased one? Vampires are not so different.

I disagree (sorry!) Animals don't have any sort of concept of what they are doing when they attack and kill, so far as if this is right or not, they are merely surviving. Good and evil does not apply to them (from their perspective) because they are not able to think and rationalize like intelligent beings are.

A wolf sees a rabbit. It's not going to stop and think "well, this is gonna hurt the rabbit if I eat it. So maybe I should not eat it". No, they can't even conceive of any of this. They merely react, and employ their strategies, which are their instincts.

An intelligent being (including a vampire) has a choice. They know what they are doing causes harm to others. Most of the time, they don't care, of course. Now there are also some vampires that don't have this super sort of intelligence. I've read about these in various books from Anne Rice to Stephen King: these vamps are more animalistic types, not much different from wolves. They merely react and survive.

But the typical vampire we see in the game? Evil. These vamps have a choice to not drink blood ever. It will not kill them to stay "dry". In fact, it makes them stronger if they avoid drinking blood (assuming they stay out of sunlight). But my new vampire character? She is evil, and I don't have problem admitting this

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Feb 12 2013, 01:08 AM