Evil.

[emeraldfool]

We all seem to romanticise evil in PS, and the Roleplaying scene in general, but I feel we all forget what 'evil' really is. There's evil in killing, or even gratuitous torture and violence, but the raw reality of 'evil' always seems to be left out in our RPs.

After reading this CNN report, I've begun to re-think the concept of evil.

For one thing, the evil we portray is not an accurate description of what pure evil is. But do we really want to emulate that? (ignoring the issue of PS being a PG-rated game, I'm talking in a more broad sense)
Real evil, like the stuff evident in that report, seems wide-spread through-out the world, and is thusly an integral part of it. Without it, there wouldn't be locks on doors or a police force.


So, what are your thoughts? Do you think that being a good RPer is most important (i.e. RPing/creating a soulless rapist for realism's sake), or do you feel we should keep the sinister stuff toned down, but in the process create a faker 'utopian' society (again, I'm talking more about 'good RPing vs. tasteful RPing', rather than avoiding it for the younger audiences).

Just something I've been contemplating...

[Atomica]

That's interesting
(Your moral dilemma, not the rapey-killy stuff in the report. I'm not that screwed up )

Personally I'm all for a nice seedy novel/RP - the grisly details give it a more immersive (and darker) feel.

The thing with RPs though is that not everyone might feel the same, and it could get awkward if one of the other RPers has had a real-life experience with the subject matter (one of my friends was raped. S'all fun and games 'til someone makes a 'surprise sex' joke. Probably the most awkward I've ever felt, if you can believe that )

[Kiirani]

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip011.html

What the hell?

[emeraldfool]

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip011.html

What the hell?

LOL. Sorry, not that. This.

I was right the first time

[Atomica]

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip011.html

What the hell?

Huh? What the heck just happened here...?

[emeraldfool]

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip011.html

What the hell?

Huh? What the heck just happened here...?

I was trying to juggle two comically mis-matched URLs and I got confuzzled. Let's pretend that never happened, m'kay?

[dying_inside]

"Pure" is nothing like whats in that article. That is evil but its  not  completly soulless.
"Pure Evil" is like it doesnt need to proclaim itself to be heard, you know that when somthing like that appears you dont screw it around, or your likely to end up on the floor without much hope of ever coming off said floor.

It doesnt care. I view pure evil as in some ways an ultimate strength. The ability to cast aside all ties if it suits you. Whats more, is that  pure evil takes ultimate satisfaction in what its doing. Rape/Torture/killing/mentally breaking someone, basically inflicting pain on somthing in all sorts of  ways. You experiment, you branch out and you have fun. much the same way  have fun playing video games.

That article doesnt portrait pure evi;l. it just portraits evil. Thats Evil that uses other, doesnt care weather they hurt or not, its for self benefit, and not much else. There is  no real feeling of fun. If it was "pure" evil they wouldnt have made a profit off of it. They wouldnt have drugged the girls. They wouldnt have sold them. it would have done it all itself. rape without drugs, beatings, mental and physical torture that type of thing.

Because it gets you off.

[emeraldfool]

You're right, but you're talking about evil as an entity - as a person who is doing evil things.

I'm talking about evil as an action - a choice that results in horrifying consequences.

It doesn't really matter to the victim whether or not the rapist is taking full pleasure in her torment. And they could never really know that anyway - the trauma is just the same.


What I'm wondering is whether there's enough evil in the world without glamourising or virtually re-enacting it. Then again, I'm also wondering if that would make literature a whole lot less interesting

[lordraleigh]

Did someone ever surpassed this individual in brutality, lack of humanity and oppression?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

I do not know any other larger example of the concept of evil in a person or organization, except for this one, if it is a fact, not another fruit of paranoia... "The Truth is Out There":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_%28conspiracy%29

Scary...

What they pretend to do in politics, if they exist

    * Enforced Political Correctness
    * Gradual loss of civil liberties, with the Constitution being reinterpreted and rewritten along pro-UN lines
    * Gun control, leading to the eventual elimination of private gun ownership
    * Homeschooling and private schooling made illegal, with not only a UN-approved public-school curriculum, but also the possibility of forcing all students to remain in school until graduation
    * Local responsibilities taken over by the Federal government
    * Black helicopters, paramilitary militias organized from urban gangs, and the imposition of martial law; FEMA concentration camps for dissidents
    * All national and local elections monitored by the UN
    * The UN taking the responsibilities of the US government
    * Foreign troops on US soil
    * The US constitution replaced by the UN charter
    * World-wide economic equalization under UN control
    * All cash money eliminated (and the use of such being made illegal), with payments made using implanted microchips; See VeriChip
    * Surveillance, implants, and mind-control
    * Only approved religions permitted, leading to world-wide introduction of an official "New Age" religion
    * The Mental Health system to be used to keep critics in line
    * Those who are Fundamentalist Christians/Pagans/Muslims to be executed, or imprisoned in concentration camps and/or in mental hospitals

Hitler is just one of their pawns, if this is true:

The conspirators thought to be responsible for the new world order are also suspected of staging many historical events such as World Wars and UFO sightings. New world order conspiracy theorists say that world leaders throughout history have successfully manipulated their people into wars (so-called false flag operations). To support their assertion that the take-over they fear is possible, they cite what they consider to be previous examples of such manipulations:

    * The Nazis capitalized on the Reichstag fire by blaming the Communists for it, thus eliminating support for the Communist party in Germany, and leading to Nazi domination of the legislature.

    * The United States supposedly knew in advance of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, and President Roosevelt used the attacks as a "legitimate" reason for entering World War II.

    * Operation Northwoods, a proposed series of false flag operations to be used as a pretext for an invasion of Cuba, was rejected by President Kennedy shortly before his assassination.

    * The Gulf of Tonkin Incident led President Johnson to escalate U.S. hostilities in Vietnam


Other new world order theorists see the conspiracy at work in globalization, or in the various intellectual movements evolved from Marxism, ranging from social democracy to the Frankfurt School. These are thought to be intended to homogenize cultures and values by political normalization, as in the European Union and African Union's gradual "communitarian construction" scheme of a common economic and legal framework.

[zanzibar]

We all seem to romanticise evil in PS, and the Roleplaying scene in general, but I feel we all forget what 'evil' really is.

No.  PS is a game, and the stories are stories.  People here know about evil in the world.  I don't see a need to stop romanticising things given that this is a fantasy game with an emphasis on storywriting.

There's evil in killing, or even gratuitous torture and violence, but the raw reality of 'evil' always seems to be left out in our RPs... the evil we portray is not an accurate description of what pure evil is.

There is no accurate description of what pure evil is because "evil" is a construction.  You will get a different definition depending on who you ask.  For instance, your use of the word "gratuitous" suggests that you think that torture and violence can be ok in some situations.  Ask someone else and they might say that such things are never moral.

The evil in PS is Shakespearean and I don't see anything wrong with that.

(Pure evil is) the ability to cast aside all ties if it suits you.

Oh, you mean like Buddhists?


*****

@lordraleigh:  The article you quoted is bullcrap.


The constitution is being rewritten by neo cons along ANTI-UN lines.  The neo cons are anti-Kyoto, anti-Geneva Convention, anti-Habeas Corpus, etc etc.

"All national and local elections monitored by the UN", which would be so much worse than the last two American elections, right?

"Foreign troops on US soil" - a nice change from US troops on foreign soil.

"World-wide economic equalization under UN control" - bad because Indonesian people don't deserve the same quality of life as us Westerners?  Neo cons are not for this.  Neo cons want to keep things IMBALANCED so that they can exploit 3rd world labour.

"mind-control" - oh no!  They have magic!

"Only approved religions permitted, leading to world-wide introduction of an official "New Age" religion" - New Age meaning something like Unitarian Universalism?  You mean a religion where people believe in tolerating other religions?  Again, this is wrong.  Neoconservatives believe in Christianizing the world.

"Those who are Fundamentalist Christians/Pagans/Muslims to be executed, or imprisoned in concentration camps and/or in mental hospitals" - neoconservatives are by and large supporters of fundamentalist Christianity.


The only conspiracy is the haves versus the have-nots.

[lordraleigh]

The only conspiracy is the haves versus the have-nots.

LOL I said "or another fruit of Paranoia"

Anyway this reminds me of a certain concept from a certain writer...

The Haves Versus The Have-nots

Who is willing to play?

[bilbous]

Hey I think I saw that game at a convention 20 years ago...nice!

[derwoodly]

Emerald, I don't believe you need to re-think your concept of evil.  You read the CNN article and recognized evil for what it is, and it turned your stomache. 

As to your discusion on roleplay evil, it is my opinion that it should be done as tongue in cheek as possible.  PS is very public, you are on display for all to see, and any acts that could be misunderstood should not be done at all. In this reguard, I agree with Zanzibar on the Shakespearean evil.  Although, I would prefer more of a James bond kind of evil than Shakespear.

It almost goes without saying, but there have been lots of threads on this very topic. Most of them center on the idea that evil is more of a social concept than absolute.  On this topic may I sugest reading Immanuel Kant instead of Nietzsche.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil

[zanzibar]

Shakespeare's works have plenty of secret agents and assassins.  Plenty.


Kant was a Christian moralist and his idea of the "Categorical Imperative" is filled with as much assumption as any of Nietzsche's one-liners.

[derwoodly]

Shakespeare's works have plenty of secret agents and assassins.  Plenty.

You say that like you think I did not know that.  I sugested "James Bond evil" because I personally find the Bard to dark for my tastes.  I am not suggesting that you could not rp an assasin via Shakespeare.  But for my self, evil is best, when it puts the giant self destruct button on the front of the control panel of the death ray cannon.