‘Can anybody play characters in service to Napoleon and think of themselves as the good guys?’
A gobsmacking comment (55 minutes in) from Mr Cule there, I thought -- not complaining; it’s for those comments that I especially love the show -- but presumably millions of people did follow Napoleon and definitely they thought of themselves as good guys. This interested me because a few days earlier I’d come across a note I made a few years ago:
‘Has anybody ever written a novel like Lord of the Rings but instead of being “good” vs “evil” in a generic sense, we actually get to hear the ideologies on each side? It is in effect left vs right, Dems vs GOP, or whatever.’
The thing is, that’s a very modern take on how people justify themselves. We expect to be presented with a manifesto and then pick a side. Or at any rate we think that’s how we pick a side, but other than William MacAskill and a few monks most of us really only pay lip service to these high ideals of ours, don’t we? ‘I’ve given up meat,’ we plead in our defence, while enjoying a comfortable life that three quarters of the world are denied.
As hypocrites we’re no worse than our ancestors. They would say they fought for God, but it’s funny how often God just happened to support their own country. Throughout the 18th century, most Christian groups other than Quakers were in favour of slavery. Freethinkers too; Tom Paine argued against slavery, but few of the Founding Fathers listened to him. In the French Revolution, most of the left-wing firebrands (if calling them left-wing means anything*) entirely overlooked equality for women. And "Kill them all; God will know His Own" and "Slay the pagans" show that total war and the butchering of civilians began with people who claimed to be fighting on the side of the angels.
The best we can say of most human beings is that they are basically good with a lot of blind spots. (And, yes, in that we must include ourselves.)
To return to the Napoleonic period, if we asked Marshal Ney why he considered himself a good guy I’m sure he’d talk about patriotism (admittedly a bit of a grey area for him), honour, and loyalty to the Emperor. I don’t suppose he’d cite the specific revolutionary aims he felt the Emperor stood for, though many at the time (even in England) did find that a reason to praise Napoleon, whereas nobody in the world would have declared support for the Houses of Hanover or Bourbon on the basis of their professed ideology.
So we can see a new era dawning at the start of the 19th century, one in which some men wouldn’t simply fight for tribal symbols like king, country or religion, but instead expected those to be backed up by specific principles chosen of their own free will.
Yeah, but did they, though? Was the USSR really a free federation of states based on egalitarian principles? Or was it the Russian Empire under a cloak of socialism? Did Mao whip up the Cultural Revolution to bring about a utopian society, or simply to shore up his own power? Did the average Wehrmacht soldier charge into battle to bring about a thousand-year Nazi reich or because he believed he was doing his duty for his country? Did any major world power ever march into Afghanistan in the interests of the Afghan people themselves? Or just because of their own geopolitical or economic needs?
Do people today decide disinterestedly which side to take in a dispute, or do they see which side their tribe takes and then find reasons to justify it?
The British used to be under no illusions about that. In the First Gulf War, US troops were given leaflets that explained why their cause was just. ‘Saddam has invaded a sovereign state and that is against international law,’ one GI explained on TV. The same camera crew interviewed a British squaddie, who had not been given any leaflet. ‘I got nothing against this Saddam bloke personally,’ he said, ‘but he’s in Kuwait and we been told to kick him out.’
So would it make sense to tell the story of a fantasy world, or any period in history, as if ideology actually made a difference? I don’t think so. This revisits an earlier post in which we discussed whether any non-modern society could usefully be described in modern terms. For example, SF writer Damien Walter posted a tirade about how the Spartans were fascists (he also calls them cowards and pederasts) but to try to squeeze them into a modern box like that is not only cultural chauvinism, it's plain dumb.
There was a bit of a pram fight a while back about "evil races" in D&D. Before the movies came out I assumed orcs were in fact supposed to be people just like the Gondorians (if that's the right word) and that Tolkien only described them as monstrous and evil because that's how "our" side saw them. I don't have any problem with utterly inimical species in fantasy. #NotAllDaleks? Gimme a break. But I think that's a less interesting way of looking at Lord of the Rings than my misconception.
Perhaps what we're seeing now is D&D moving beyond its simplistic good vs evil origins towards a more realistic kind of world. Characters (whether human or nonhuman) are not motivated by alignment in Tekumel or Glorantha, or even in Legend come to that (apart from the actual devils, that is). Instead they have desires, foibles, personalities, political alliances, and so forth that all contribute to how they behave. Where it gets messy with D&D is the game inherited its elves and orcs and whatnot from Tolkien, for whom good and evil meant something. If you want to create a more believable and nuanced world then great, but maybe better to start from scratch in that case.
In one sense, of course, simplistically framing a struggle as Good vs Evil might be the most honest way to describe any human conflict. You just have to remember that both sides think that they’re the good guys.
* Roger from Improvised Radio Theatre With Dice has pointed out that there's almost no better use of left- and right-wing, seeing as the terms came from the seating plan of the Estates General and later the National Convention. Touché, citoyen!
Interesting stuff! It's part of the reason that alignment makes no sense in RPGs, except (as once pointed out by WebDM), if Good and Evil, Law and Chaos are defined in cosmological terms (which applies to D&D's multiverse). But that would be very different to the way we use the terms in day-to-day life. You would also need a setting where those cosmological forces are very active, or aligning yourself with one or the other would make no sense.
ReplyDeleteOne might define it in belief in Collectivism Vs Individuals, Authority Vs Anarchy (I'm an "Authoritarian Collectivist" rather than "Lawful Good", "Anarchist Individist" Vs "Chaotic Evil"). But even then, most people are indeed a convenient patchwork of ad hoc and often shifting beliefs.
In a military context, you have clearly defined sides (though there may be more than two!), with whom you can align, but - as you said - both sides see themselves as the Good Guys.
And I agree with your point about Orcs in Tolkien. It doesn't really make sense to describe a whole nation or race as having a uniform belief system. You might describe tendencies, but that's like saying men are taller than women. They mostly are, but not always!
I've often thought of the Orcs as like the Vikings. You would probably have a very different experience of Scandinavians if you were a monk in Lindisfarne in the late 8th century, than if you visited Denmark; and probably a different experience still if you were an Anglo Saxon living in Danelaw under Viking rule. Likewise, I guess your experience of the Romans was very different if you were one of the Britons in their first invasion, than if you were living in the Londinium once Romano-British culture had established itself. How long did it take for the Normans to go from being seen as invaders to being accepted as a rightful ruling class?
Have they been accepted yet? I think Gary Gygax's original intention with alignment was that it was cosmological, more like Moorcock's conception of Law v Chaos than the ethical positions it's now taken to model. Some of that is still preserved in Empire of the Petal Throne and its many descendants, where the gods are aligned with Change or Stability but that makes no difference to their worshippers.
DeleteGood v evil is presumably built into Lord of the Rings. (I will have to read it one day.) Tolkien's orcs look like Klingons in being considerably more aggressive on an individual level than human beings. I'm dubious if animals any more prone to aggression than us could ever build and sustain a society (even the supposedly peaceable bonobos are much more violent than H.sap) but maybe they can if a single authoritarian leader whips them into line?
When I was taught the history of England, the Kings and Queens always began with William the Conqueror - Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwinson only appeared as addendums to William's rise, and before that Alfred and Cnut only got mentioned in related to burnt cakes and a demonstration of not being able to turn back the sea respectively. So it always seemed to me that the Normans were pretty well accepted as the rightful establishers of the current English state (by virtue of being the last successful military conquest). But maybe my education was atypical?
DeleteI'd have to go back and brush up on Tolkien's lore - it's decades since I read Lord of the Rings, or the Silmarillion. But Good vs Evil is pretty clearly baked in - Morgoth and Sauron are presented more or less as fallen Angels who rebelled against Iluvatar.
So in that case, Middle Earth more or less shares a conventional religious definition of Good and Evil: you are either with God, or against Him. But even Morgoth regarded himself as the good guy, if I recall correctly. It's a bit less clear with Sauron, who just seems to want to control everything.
Having had a look back at the Tolkien Wiki to refresh my memory, I see that Orcs were bred deliberately from corrupted and tortured Elves, so it is not clear that they have much society beyond what can be enforced on them. But I am no Tolkien scholar - perhaps there is a more nuanced take in there!
I have just picked up a copy of Empire of the Petal Throne, having been meaning to for a long time. I shall be interested to see how this sort of thing plays out in Tekumel.
I have also (having seen it recommended here) been reading Suldrun's Garden, the first book of Lyonesse. I do find it interesting that while Casmir is pretty clearly a bad 'un, (and his personal motivations are a little suspect) his ambition is to restore the Elder Isles to their united state from his childhood, rather than to just steal land historically belonging to other people. It reminds me of a Song of Ice and Fire (recognising that Lyonesse came over a decade earlier!) in that people seem to be ruthless, rather than expressly evil.
Certainly there seems to be a lot of strong feeling on display at Hastings reenactments. It could be the preponderance of Norman names still in evidence among Britain's upper classes nearly 1000 years later?
DeleteIt's an interesting question whether having good & evil as character attitudes makes sense even in a Christian/Tolkienesque universe where those are objectively real things. After all, Law and Chaos are objectively real in Moorcock's novels, but people are still people.
In Tekumel there is the concept of lan v bussan -- technically good & evil, but with the assumptions of whether or not one's behaviour is socially responsible & in accordance with your station in life. Naturally in a society with slavery and human sacrifice, Tolkien's ideas of "good" don't work.
I was recently at Coleton Fishacre, which I am convinced must have been Vance's inspiration for Suldrun's Garden. I have a soft spot for King Casmir. He's doing the best he can according to his own lights. If Tsolyani terms we'd say his behaviour is noble even if we disagree with it.
I advice you to read the section dedicated to "Gamemastering Middle-Earth" in the former RpG "Lord of the Rings" by Decipher. They write clearly that "there cannot be such things a "friendly Orks and Dragons" for it would break the paradigms of Middle-Earth".
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it is no more a secret, Tolkien was deeply influenced by his Christian (Catholic) faith and thus oppositions like "Good vs Evil" was of paramount importance to him.
But we know other fantasy universes where that opposition isn't that major, think at Conan"s Hyboria by Howard. Conan is described as a barbarian, but he has his own code of honor that may seem as chivalrous sometimes, while civilized people are often viewed as decadent or even depraved.
In terms of rules, I'd manage "evilness" with some psychotic effects, ex: this character likes to humiliate people, to torture for pleasure, etc.
By the way, the Ukrainians nicknamed the Russian soldiers as "orks", there is surely a reason for that....
Likewise in Legend, the Dragon Warriors world. Goblins, trolls, etc, are faerie creatures; they aren't "races" like mortals. And imps and devils are damned, so always do evil.
DeleteI'm fascinated by where the fulcrum is between good and evil. How many good deeds outweigh a person's bad deeds, or vice versa?
ReplyDeleteIn the crime context I think almost all of us can distinguish between good & evil, but you're correct to say that doing so in armed conflict is much greyer. What WW2 taught us was that we were vulnerable to stories that would convince us to do what were otherwise evil deeds, and that we need to be vigilant to those who have messages that demonise the weak.
People are complex, that's the tricky thing. While we might describe a deed as good or evil, that's far too limiting a label for a person, who at different times could do things we'd describe as good or bad. And then an extra layer of complexity is that different cultures have different ideas of good and bad anyway. It's going to be hard to solve the alignment problem with AGIs given that we don't have a universal and consistent set of ethics ourselves.
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