Evil Races in Fiction
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- A video exploring the problem of evil races in fiction such as orcs, trollocs, goblins etc. The video looks at questions of whether such races are good story design, ethically good, and how such questions might be addressed by aestheticists, functionalists, and realists.
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Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Collier-MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, and more! #aesthetics #gamedesign #fantasy
This video resurrected a memory of my first time reading my first fantasy novel The Eye of the World. I was not familiar with fantasy tropes or of evil races, so my expectation when the Trolloc named Narg spoke to the protagonist Rand was that Rand would impress an idea into Narg's mind that what Trollocs were doing was evil and that they need not follow the Dark One. Narg would have his own character growth and would learn humans meant no harm to the Trollocs, that they could live in peace. I expected Trollocs to be similar to Klingons in this story arc (see this video's citation of Klingons' change from The Original Series to The Next Generation).
Nope, I was wrong. Narg was just talking to buy time for his reinforcements, and Rand straight-up kills him. Then no Trolloc ever spoke again, removing any reminder that they were conscious beings or had possible moral agency.
Yep. It raises the question of whether Jordan meant for them to be made more nuanced, or was just teasing the possibility of it, then quashing it.
This is a really interesting topic to explore! great video as always
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. :)
I like that you cover social issues in your videos.
It makes for a better story when the villains have some motivation. The story does not necessarily need to spend time explicitly focusing on that motivation if it is beside the point of the story, but still the story can have the motivation as a background detail that affects the subtleties of how the villains behave. For the villains to be "just evil" is extremely shallow. Everyone has some sort of reason for what they do. Maybe it is a good reason or maybe it is a bad reason but there is always a reason, and acknowledging that a reason exists will also neatly resolve whatever real world ethical concerns we may have.
The problem more often arises not with the principle antagonist, but rather with the hordes of minions and cannon fodder. Many would consider a story where the main villain lacks clear motivation beyond "doing evil" might be poorly written, but if you are interested in writing about a giant war, detailing the motives of each member of the hordes of evil soldiers may distract from the purpose of the story. And simply providing them with a common cause (i.e. they all follow X evil ideology), seems to merely mask the nuanced ethical questions (are they really following that cause or is soldiering the only job available to them in their country? Were they brainwashed to believe X ideology? etc.). Some stories want to focus on characters and motivation, other want to explore battle tactics and clever strategies. It seems overly prescriptive to say that a story that ignores the motivations of every common "evil" foot solider for the enjoyment of puzzling through wartime strategies and tactics is a bad story, as it seems like that is more a matter of taste and preference than objectively good storytelling. I expect few would think the works of Tolkien or Jordan are shallow because they include some hoards of antagonists that are evil races, since they do include villains with complex and interesting motivations.
So if neither fantasy nor real races are evil--and are thus not inherently deserving of violence--what could an 'adventurer' be other than an armed robber?
Some books, such as Orconomics, explore exactly this question. That said, even if you are concerned about the morality of including evil races in a work of fiction, clearly sone authors do, so it seems hard to claim that they don't exist or cannot exist in fiction, and when those authors do it seems that the characters are in some way justified in attacking them, at least within the morality of the story. This can get challenging when it is ambiguous whether members of such fantasy races have the ability to do otherwise, or if they are being forced to do evil.
Wraiths in Stargate. Probably some of the races in Babylon 5. In fact, Babylon 5 might provide the best examination of the topic.
Nice video! you covered many aspects of the topic. May I ask: is this an analytical or continental approach?
I would say it is analytic, largely because that is my background, though I think the structure of the arguments and the concepts referenced would better fit the analytic framework regardless.
would love to see an analysis of species like The Ood from dr who (for those who don't know, they are an inherently subservient species)
Dr who did a follow up episode where it was revealed that the Ood in there natural state were much more behaviorally normal and a company had been forcibly brainwashing them for sale as slaves, though it does feel like the first episode with them was a genuine failure to think through the implications of what they were writing and the follow up was a big mea culpa.
@@avaevathornton9851 true, I forgot about that.
I would like to hear about the concept of that kind of species if it wasn't explained away in a later episode. Obviously they'd only exist as concepts, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
There is no moral issue. If you cant tell the difference between reality and fiction then you are the problem, not the literature. There is no moral agency or moral judgment of fictional creatures that only exist in ones imagination. And neither can the author of such fiction be morally judged for imagining non-existent things.
That’s true. But that doesn’t mean people are obligated to like your literature. The people who find it offensive may be stupid or wrong or even right but what matters is they have the right to dislike anything.
Interesting topic, but given the principle of alternate possibilities, I think it's fair to say there cannot be an evil race. If a being cannot do otherwise, they cannot be morally responsible.
In light of this, it strikes me we can discuss 3 kinds of things that might be called "evil races":
1) A race that will act immorally if not stopped. Ex: Werewolves "lose control" and harm others during a full moon.
2) A race that will die unless they act very immorally. Ex: Vampires that can only survive on the blood of healthy innocent children harvested by killing them.
3) A race biologically predisposed to evil. They can do otherwise, but tend not to.
(1) and (2) can be seen as a species-disease, as moral function is normally compatible with healthy life, so if we could cure them, we should. Without a cure, we might ask whether genocide is moral. Given (1) can be stopped, it strikes me it's not acceptable, but given (2) will die unless they act immorally, then it seems like letting them die or killing them is the only option.(Note I think a case can be made that (2) is not evil; but it's a sloppy egoist case that doesn't place value on others.)
(3) seems trickiest, but it strikes me that morality might preclude childbirth in such cases. If it's wrong to give birth to a child who will likely have a terrible genetic disease, it's immoral to give birth to a child who will be biologically compelled to likely do evil. Like (2), this "problem" kind of solves itself; good species members will die w/o giving birth (unless that, too, is outside of their control), and bad ones are fair game to kill.
Wow, I never once thought that hypothetical races could raise metaphysical questions on morality.
If you can't help but do evil, is it evil? What even is evil at that point?
Carnedes said he wouldn't get into determinism this video but it does seem essential in this conversation
Agency seems really important when questioning wrongdoing
If the choices of the evil races are pointless, would that make the hero's choices pointless as well? If both parties are acting out of necessity, than is there morality in this scenario whatsoever?
@@notarealperson1481 Morality and reason are tied together; you can't have an immoral, rational race. James Rachels says the right thing to do is the thing one has the best reasons to do.
I suppose a "defective" genetic trait could lead to one over-estimating reasons of a certain kind; but even such species could appeal to experts. Consider people who fancy themselves psychopaths and claim not to be able to understand ethics. They can still appeal to experts here; "Kant says I ought to treat people as ends, not as means only, and he's a smart guy, so I'll do that!"
Partial moral blindness is also a problem, but it's as exculpatory as anything else.
In short, the idea of an "evil, but rational" race seems inherently problematic.
A gun can be used to protect or destroy. Is the gun immoral? People will say yes it is. Others will say the gun isn't immoral, the people who use it to destroy are. I don't like much using inherently evil races in my stories because i think it sometimes is lazy writing. If an author knows what they are doing, however, they can write a book using evil races and not feel lazy. So should we use evil races in our stories? Only if we have to and if we know how to write a good story using them.
Regarding escapism into a morally simpler world, I'm reminded of what JRR Tolkien said to George RR Martin:
Oh, we all know the world is full of chance and anarchy,
So, yes, *it's true to life* for characters to die randomly,
But news flash: the genre's called fantasy!
It's *meant to be unrealistic* , you myopic manatee!
I find it very amusing that philosophers are pointing their fingers at Tolkien and Lovecraft and goblins and demons etc etc when there's Hegel
You've read, I assume, his "Philosophy of History"? You remember, I hope, what he said about "Oriental civilization", and (even worse, FAR worse!!) Africans?? Talk about racism! OMG!!
And Hegel wasn't trying to write fiction. Oh no no no no!! This was FACT. This was TRUTH!
There are these boring, dry, art theorists like Nelson Goodman, and Arthur Danto (possibly Sussanne Langer as well) and their respective theories of art are centered around this dry, clinical prose. And for Goodman, formal logic, and possibly mathematics, and it's just the worst reading experience.
The reason how/why things can be used for racist propaganda, has little to do with a race being evil or not (at least, by your definition -- which I think is correct btw). It has more to do with the characteristics a race (generally) has. Being predisposed to specific characteristics however doesn't make a race is 'evil'. So that whole part of the argument seems like a massive strawman to me.
And don't get me wrong, I hear those arguments all the time, I've however always thought they were absurd.
Just think about it: if orc/goblins/... could do something else, but it was culturally enforced for them to still do the same thing, do you really think people would view them differently? The answer is clearly: no. In fact, non-evil races are used just as much for racist propaganda. Just think about the goblins from Harry Potter.
So the real argument people like these should make(and probably want to make), is that you can't use specific characteristics(or a combination of characteristics) in characters, because it will be possible to use them for racism. This would however be a much less popular argument, because it is way more censorious.
Tolkiens goblins and orcs are NOT inherently evil. Youre probably wrong about everything else if youre wrong about that. Honestly if you read the books or did any research at all you would know that. The rules of the universe Tolkien came up with requires that all living creatures are redeemable.
Only if you're based.
so based is just racism right?
romulans...