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

[Darkness Eternal]

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

Vampires are products of Daedra, and Daedra are not evil. They are considered evil by mortals, but it doesn't make them evil. I knew someone was going to bring up the intelligence debate. We had it back in the Dawnguard sections of the Bethesda forum.

Vampires have to feed just like everything else. If we humans stopped eating, we would die, wouldn't we? Or suffer from hunger. When people are hungry, they do insane things. Some people have been known to even commit cannibalism when food was scarce.

They have to constantly drink blood. Every week. If they don't, they do become stronger, but of course they sacrifice their appearance. Like the ones from Cyrodiil. If they walked around with fangs on display with a pale face looking like they just rose from the grave, people will kill them or attack them. There is no law in the Elder Scrolls that protects vampires from harm. No legal decree or document. It makes sense for some of them want to blend in to do their daily thing, that's why some of them feed to survive in society.

Now, of course, it goes into a deeper level such as sanity. When a vampire is blood-starved, some go feral. They don't have control over their frenzy and of will attack people without second though in an uncontrollable state of orgiastic abandon. So which is worse? Feeding and killing using seductive methods to calm the victim's mind(far less malicious) or ripping out their throats?

They can't simply choose not to drink blood. It's like a werewolf with the normal strain of Lycanthropy trying to choose not to transform under the full moon. They live off blood. If they don't, they may slip into a coma.

"The worst effect, of course, had to be my blood lust. My hunger would gnaw at me, and any wounds I suffered would not heal no matter how much I rested."-vampires of Illiac Bay.

"Try as I might, I cannot free myself. I cannot breach the doors! If I don't feed soon, I feel I will go mad.-Journal of Lord Lovidicus.

Vampires don't need morality to apply to them because they aren't anchored by concepts of good or evil. They are predators and mortals are often made their prey. It is what it is. Of course, people may consider them evil for that, which in my opinion(sorry ;P) is subjective. It is all relative. One man's good is another man's evil. Vice versa. I don't think vampires are evil because they kill to survive. Preserving themselves in society and by not falling into a coma or going into madness is a form of survival.

[Lady Saga]

Vampires have to feed just like everything else. If we humans stopped eating, we would die, wouldn't we?

Yes we would, be we do not have to subsist on killing other beings nowadays just to survive. We don't have to factory farm (which I consider to be evil), we don't have to torture animals and make them live in pens or cages, and force-feed them just so we can continue to work our little jobs, drive our little cars, and play our little videogames when the day is over. And go to Costco.. .... all the trivial things we do in life. Some animals are being tortured and die just so we can continue to do all these little things. It's not right.

I don't really wanna get into a whole big debate on this because I like you DE, and I don't want this to turn into an argument like it would (for sure) at Beths' forums. I'm a vegetarian though, and one of the reasons I became a vegetarian is because one day I asked myself if I could take the life of a chicken, or a cow, or a pig, etc. I cannot do this. To me, such animals should have just as much of a chance to live a full life as we humans do.

I hear (see) what you're saying on vampires, and you make some very good points (as I expected you would) but we'll have to agree to disagree on this one! I just see vamps as essentially evil beings. And I admit that I enjoy being "evil" when I'm with mine. I actually wish Bethesda would have stepped up the reality of being a vampire a bit. I want to see NPCs struggle at the moment of blood-drinking, and get all awkward (and fearful) when my Stage 4 vampire rolls into town!

....I enjoy being a vamp with Mycharonna, but I dislike it as well in certain ways. I'm finding myself "RPing" certain moments a little too much, just like I did in Oblivion. Sigh.


This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Feb 12 2013, 03:23 PM

[flowerboom]

YES, lady saga is in a lore war!

I dont have time now but i will read both of your arguments later , no doubt dropping my own bombshell into the mess.

[Lady Saga]

I dont have time now but i will read both of your arguments later , no doubt dropping my own bombshell into the mess.

It's not an argument and it's not a war. It's a discussion.

[flowerboom]

I dont have time now but i will read both of your arguments later , no doubt dropping my own bombshell into the mess.

It's not an argument and it's not a war. It's a discussion.

dont get sniffy , its just a figure of speech

"lore war" - thought you would of got it