| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| SirUrza |
Posted - 26 Nov 2013 : 19:53:39
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151858985944811&id=54142479810
Sounds like Bob is sticking to his 2 novels a year pace.
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-King-Companions-Codex-II/dp/0786965150/ |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Seravin |
Posted - 13 Mar 2014 : 19:51:36
Haha Madpig, I thought the same thing. There has certainly been a lot of debate about the orc kingdom here and whether or not goblinoids are pure evil to be hunted/killed on site or if they are just "misunderstood". |
| Madpig |
Posted - 13 Mar 2014 : 06:32:52
I have to say, it almost look as RAS has been reading our furry friends replies in this scroll and wrote those in he's book :D |
| yurilowell |
Posted - 13 Mar 2014 : 00:35:52
quote:
Originally posted by Seravin
They did sort of handwave away the opinions by saying this was Mielikki's opinion and not necessarily the truth, but I did enjoy the conversation and the throwback to the Dark Mirror story.
Interesting. I never thought of it that way. I took it as since an actual God came out and said 100% Orcs/Goblins are purely evil it was more legit as opposed to just an opinion. Like since she (I think Mielikki is a girl right?) is one of the Gods she has some insight to this sort of thing so we should put more stock into it.
I guess there are a lot of different Gods in the realms though so I can see this being 'debated' between certain Gods if you will. |
| Seravin |
Posted - 12 Mar 2014 : 18:29:37
They did sort of handwave away the opinions by saying this was Mielikki's opinion and not necessarily the truth, but I did enjoy the conversation and the throwback to the Dark Mirror story. |
| yurilowell |
Posted - 12 Mar 2014 : 18:19:57
Possible spoilers I suppose.....Although I doubt it is but...
...in the first few chapters of 'Night of the Hunter', Salvatore's new Drizzt book, there is a pretty lengthy conversation about the whole Orc/Golbin being a pure evil race vs. having a bad rap for being evil but can change. I was actually pretty surprised by what the characters said about the whole thing. |
| Mournblade |
Posted - 24 Feb 2014 : 13:42:45
quote:
Originally posted by Entromancer
Mournblade, read Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. You would like the Shanka, I think.
Many thanks!
I will search for it via google.
|
| hashimashadoo |
Posted - 24 Feb 2014 : 11:16:18
As to Eberron orcs, weren't they fairly typical orcs until they turned to nature to fight devils? I'm nowhere near my books but wasn't their history before the fiendish incursion on the world still the reason for prejudice against them?
Edit: Nope, I was wrong. They are merely primitives who run the gamut from good to evil. If anything they tend towards CN and keep to themselves in tribes - though orcs dedicated to the Dragon below can be worse than your orc stereotype. Distrustful of outsiders and insular, they only work together for coin or against major common threats. |
| Entromancer |
Posted - 24 Feb 2014 : 05:43:38
Mournblade, read Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. You would like the Shanka, I think. |
| Mournblade |
Posted - 24 Feb 2014 : 04:46:46
quote:
Originally posted by BEAST
quote:
Originally posted by Mournblade
WHY? Because Creationism is the source of Origin of species in these fantasy world's and not natural selection. Orcs in Middle earth were perverted elves. Bred to be evil. Orcs in the D&D Universe were created by Gruumsh. It is perfectly acceptable to slaughter orcs.
Do you have a source for your creationism claim? All I was aware of was that the creator races were responsible for gating orcs into Toril. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they created them.
Regardless, even if they were created originally for a specific purpose, that doesn't take away the fact that people are individuals. They are more than just the sum of their blood and culture. They can make their own decisions. Fatalism does not rule all.
Did the Descent of the Drow make it OK for people to try to whack Drizzt earlier in his life? Understandable for them to fear him, sure. But OK to go so far as to try to kill him, too?
quote:
As if anyone that thinks the wholesale slaughter of goblinoids is not sophisticated enough to understand the modern problem of racism.
It's not that.
It's that people who think it's OK to slaughter goblinoids don't seem to want to consider the potential medieval problem of racism in Faerûn. They seem to want to have easy targets for bloodthirsty wasting, instead of giving their fantasy much thought.
And as I said before, I think writers have often wanted an easy way out, themselves, so they gladly took up the notion of an automatically assume evil race, so they could throw their heroes against representatives thereof with abandon, and depict mayhem with impunity. I admit, there's something awfully intoxicating about such simplistic warfare tales, even for me.
But it's still laziness, both on the part of writers and readers.
The thing is this...the racism is due to the evil nature of the humanoids. I am a very sophisticated reader with a lot of heavy reading under my belt. When I want to contemplate the real problem of racism I know where to go.
Any racism in faerun especially towards orcs and goblinoids is actually not a problem at all.
It could be orcs and goblins are not capable of the emotions humans posses and so they remain evil. Humanistic studies need not apply.
It is not a matter of laziness. Fantasy does not need to reflect the real world. I play it simply like this: racism vs. Goblinoids are necessary for the good races. Mary Shelley explored the monster long ago, I don't need to read feeble attempts to make orcs and goblins misunderstood. I really don't see much sophistication in treating goblins as misunderstood. |
| BEAST |
Posted - 24 Feb 2014 : 04:05:04
quote:
Originally posted by Mournblade
WHY? Because Creationism is the source of Origin of species in these fantasy world's and not natural selection. Orcs in Middle earth were perverted elves. Bred to be evil. Orcs in the D&D Universe were created by Gruumsh. It is perfectly acceptable to slaughter orcs.
Do you have a source for your creationism claim? All I was aware of was that the creator races were responsible for gating orcs into Toril. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they created them.
Regardless, even if they were created originally for a specific purpose, that doesn't take away the fact that people are individuals. They are more than just the sum of their blood and culture. They can make their own decisions. Fatalism does not rule all.
Did the Descent of the Drow make it OK for people to try to whack Drizzt earlier in his life? Understandable for them to fear him, sure. But OK to go so far as to try to kill him, too?
quote:
As if anyone that thinks the wholesale slaughter of goblinoids is not sophisticated enough to understand the modern problem of racism.
It's not that.
It's that people who think it's OK to slaughter goblinoids don't seem to want to consider the potential medieval problem of racism in Faerûn. They seem to want to have easy targets for bloodthirsty wasting, instead of giving their fantasy much thought.
And as I said before, I think writers have often wanted an easy way out, themselves, so they gladly took up the notion of an automatically assume evil race, so they could throw their heroes against representatives thereof with abandon, and depict mayhem with impunity. I admit, there's something awfully intoxicating about such simplistic warfare tales, even for me.
But it's still laziness, both on the part of writers and readers. |
| BEAST |
Posted - 24 Feb 2014 : 03:50:29
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Uh... Wha? 
Hashimashadoo had cited my comments on the first page, so I think Gyor went back and read them more closely. At one point, Chosen said that he didn't like the story idea of an exceptional member of a race defying the prevailing patterns of a race, because he didn't consider that to be all that original or compelling of storytelling, or something along those lines. I then defended the idea, and gave as one of a few different examples the idea of a Muslim woman rising out from her fundamentalist culture to seek empowerment/education/etc. elsewhere in the West. It was just an example. But Gyor has apparently offered an exception to my exception.
It doesn't undermine the general observation that I was making. It just provides a specific inconsistent incidence thereto. |
| Entromancer |
Posted - 23 Feb 2014 : 23:23:06
quote:
Originally posted by Mournblade
In a world of magic and supernatural the scientific method can garner no better information than meta studies.
What about non-magical folk? I could see them using scientific method, ultimately for the betterment of others. Devising ways to nullify, negate magic. Like that orb Entreri used at some point in the Paths of Darkness. I think it was at Morik the Rogue's place, to defend against Kimmuriel or some other Bregan D'aerthe agents.
As for Orcs, could you reconcile the old standard if, to uniformed humans, the appear to simply be chaotic evil? Perhaps their beliefs, culture and social mores are incomprehensible to mankind. So we label than as a bunch of evil brutes and think nothing of slaughtering them for glory and coin. To the Orcs, mankind can be just as chaotic evil as they (Orcs) are from mankind's POV. |
| Mournblade |
Posted - 23 Feb 2014 : 17:09:08
quote:
Originally posted by hashimashadoo
I'm not saying Mournblade is wrong - fantasy races created to be evil can certainly be irredeemably so - I'm just saying that fiction can easily influence the real world and if you publish a controversial work, whether realistic or fantastical, things can go badly wrong.
I'll deliberately avoid discussion about religious texts but you can probably see where my thought processes would lead if I did go down that route.
I would not disagree on the influence fiction can have on the real world.
I find the argument of "treating orcs as creatures to be slaughtered, can lead to racist thinking," akin to children playing video games spark them to violence.
I am not claiming that is your argument. It does lead to it though.
Thought has to be put into these things, and I believe that explaining orc origins by Natural Selection means you CANNOT have them be the EVIL race. I think it works in D&D and other fantasies because of the creationist assumption.
Eberron I beleive does not treat orcs as standard D&D, and I beleive they have the naturalistic origin. That is a good alternate and fits with the world.
I think for the conventions of the FR which is largely a world of D&D assumptions having orcs be the EVIL race fits just fine.
Judging from early Ed Greenwood articles, I would say cosmic Alignments play an important role in the Realms.
|
| hashimashadoo |
Posted - 23 Feb 2014 : 16:42:50
I'm not saying Mournblade is wrong - fantasy races created to be evil can certainly be irredeemably so - I'm just saying that fiction can easily influence the real world and if you publish a controversial work, whether realistic or fantastical, things can go badly wrong.
I'll deliberately avoid discussion about religious texts but you can probably see where my thought processes would lead if I did go down that route. |
| Mournblade |
Posted - 23 Feb 2014 : 08:22:14
quote:
Originally posted by hashimashadoo
There have been a lot of good arguments in this scroll (BEAST did particularly well on the first page) and more than a few godsawful ones.
In my view NO sentient race is inherently good or evil. You have very few anomalous individuals who are vastly more likely to be amoral (not evil, just lacking a 'traditional' moral compass) but where people always seem to get confused is the difference between race and culture.
Your race is who you are - you can't help being your race but at the same time, your race (as long as you aren't born under the influence of magical/planar alignments) has little to no effect on who you will become. Your culture however, has a massive effect on your life - your upbringing, your peer groups, your education, your sex life, your work, your life expectancy, etc.
Orc CULTURE is violent, rapacious, sexist, racist and fills the orcs that follow it with a very strong sense of entitlement.
Drow CULTURE is divisive, sexist, racist, devious, devout and amoral. Neither RACE possesses any of those qualities until they grow to view them as a cultural norm.
Both groups have maintained that culture for many millennia and it is up to them to change it.
Traditional Ondonti are pacifistic because their culture revolves around the worship of Eldath but those ondonti born in Zhentil Keep act very much like 'normal' orcs because they're raised differently. Drow born in Eilistraeean enclaves don't all grow up to turn on their parents, because they're born 'always chaotic evil' - they've been raised in a completely different cultural setting to their Dark Seldarine-following cousins.
Until such beings AS A WHOLE change their cultural identity, the perception of them in the eyes of the 'goodly races' (a term that I really don't like) is going to be along the lines of "Kill them before they kill us." It's simple self-preservation.
As to historical conflicts: Ask a palestinian to embrace an israeli as a brother; ask an american WW2 veteran to embrace the japanese soldier who tortured him in an internment camp; ask someone to forgive their rapist; Ask a rashemi citizen to forgive the red wizard who turned his daughter into a zombie. You think many of them would do that?
Race is not determinate of behaviour but neither is forgiveness easily given. If people percieve a threat, they are much more likely to flee or defend themselves than to ask "Are you going to hurt us?".
Orcs have been defined as evil monsters of some kind or another since the 10th century. Who was Gary Gygax to say otherwise? Writers of novels should feel free to create orc cultures that can be viewed as good but I doubt Wizards of the Coast would LET them turn all orcs into upright citizens of civilised lands.
Race Can DEFINITELY be a determining factor of behaviour in a FANTASY world where creationism is responsible for the origin of species. We live in a world of science where species have evolved. Orcs did not evolve they were created. They were created for a purpose.
Drow were elves that were perverted do to their evil. In these methods of origin, I honestly believe our studies and sensibilities of what we know as race does not apply.
The scientific method works in our world because the supernatural has very little if ANY influence. In a world of magic and supernatural the scientific method can garner no better information than meta studies. |
| Mournblade |
Posted - 23 Feb 2014 : 08:15:50
quote:
Originally posted by Chosen of Asmodeus
You know what I'm tired of? I'm tired of people telling me that orcs are evil because Gary Gygax decided they would be back in the seventies and every writer since is bound by sacred law to obey that decree. I'm tired of people telling me that because racism is something that was built into the fantasy genre decades before I was born, that I shouldn't expect modern writers to move passed it. That I should shut up, smile, nod, and go along with the race war.
From the moment someone sat down and put in the first monster manual the words “always chaotic evil” next to a sentient, mortal, non magical race, the developers were sending the message, whether they realized it or not, that good and evil are drawn along racial lines. That there are people who aren’t like us, are different, who can’t change, and should be sought out and killed, and can be killed with impunity and without thought to the moral consequences of doing so, because there are no moral consequences for doing so.
And I’m the bad guy because I expect modern writers in the twenty first century- writers who I know are well meaning, intelligent, forward minded, progressive individuals- to maybe take another look at this? Maybe inject some moral complexity into the equation? Maybe try sending the message that people aren’t simple, that a whole race or species can’t be summed up with three words describing their alignment? That diplomacy and coexistence might be a more favorable solution to these issues than war eternal? I’m the bad guy for realizing that the school yard logic of “HE STARTED IT!” isn’t justification for throwing away countless more lives in a potentially hopeless war?
I’m also tired of the notion of the singular exception. What sickens me most about Drizzt is what he represents. He doesn’t represent the idea of an evil being rising above and finding his better nature. He symbolizes the idea that for a minority to be a decent, progressive, productive member of society they have to abandon their people and cultural identity and adopt what the mainstream considers socially acceptable. And after all that, then he can be considered ‘one of the good ones’. He can be considered a credit to his race.
It’s not just orcs with me. The very fact that orcs, goblins, drow, and any other race that gets the always whatever evil next to them in the monster manual, the very fact that they’re going to be labeled as monsters at all, the fact that they exist solely as cannon fodder for pc’s, this whole concept which seems inherently woven in to the very fabric of the fantasy genre offends me. It offends me morally due to the previous implications it suggests, and it offends me intellectually because it suggests to me that the developers and the writers don’t think I as a reader or a gamer am capable of processing and dealing with more complex conflict than “these are the heroes(notice how they’re all attractive and have strong, European features), and these are the villains(notice how they’re all ugly and brutish).”
This is the kind of thought that got the ending to the film “I Am Legend” changed from a man realizing the creatures he’s been hunting are intelligent, thinking beings with relationships and a society of their own, to a man blowing up monsters, because apparently the idea of making peace with our enemies- especially ones who are different than us- is somehow more controversial than mass murder.
And no one wants it changed because no one wants anything to change in fantasy. They like their status quo just the way it is. It’s always been this way, so it’s always gonna be this way, and I’m just gonna be stuck out in the cold singing my same old sad song.
It's something that strikes a personal cord with me because so many of my relatives are bigots, themselves. Especially my brother-in-law. Fairly intelligent, well educated man, but a horrible racist. Honestly believes that black people are genetically, biologically, mentally incapable of having a stable society on their own, that they're incapable of being good, decent people on the large scale and that the people who are are exceptions to the rule. So when I see this same mentality made into a game mechanic in a game that I happen to enjoy, it makes me physically ill.
And BEAST, on a note more directly related to your post, I’ve never claimed that Obould was anything other than a villain. A noble villain, perhaps, but a villain none the less. I don’t think of him as the hero, and I don’t excuse any of the horrible things he’s done. Rather, it is because of those things that I find him to be a fascinating character, and in my humble opinion, the most interesting and well developed character Bob’s ever written for.
I find it extremely laughable and hyperbole when people link the slaughtering of orcs in a made up fantasy world, a convention made up by Tolkein, and not gygax, to real world racism. I have difficulty taking the argument seriously.
I suppose I am a bigot because I view Orcs and goblinoids as irredemably evil. It is OK to slaughter them.
WHY? Because Creationism is the source of Origin of species in these fantasy world's and not natural selection. Orcs in Middle earth were perverted elves. Bred to be evil. Orcs in the D&D Universe were created by Gruumsh. It is perfectly acceptable to slaughter orcs.
I roll my eyes when people try to point out the goblinoids are just trying to eke out a living. As if anyone that thinks the wholesale slaughter of goblinoids is not sophisticated enough to understand the modern problem of racism.
I am a liberal that understands it well. I still do not want my fantasy novels preaching about it. There is plenty of that in the real world.
Go ahead and slaughter the orcs. You will not be racist by doing so.
|
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 23 Feb 2014 : 00:35:32
Uh... Wha? |
| Gyor |
Posted - 22 Feb 2014 : 19:02:20
Iranian women despite living in a fundalmentist islamic nation have high levels of education and in fact more woman in Iran are enrolled in university then men I believe.
. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 22 Feb 2014 : 14:04:20
quote:
Originally posted by sillaric_culdanin
A couple things, I think that we all need to stop trying to apply real world logic to a fantasy world. Its fine if thats how your home Realms works (frankly I think its awesome, thats how I run mine).
I'm looking at internal consistency of the setting more than anything else. I'm extrapolating from thousands upon thousands of years of orc history.
Besides, there is no such thing as real world logic. We can't apply real world morality, true, but logic is logic, regardless of where it is applied. It doesn't matter if we're discussing France, Mordor, Lunitari, Alderaan, Narnia, or Xanth -- in all of those places, if A=B and B=C, then it's logical to assume that A=C as well.
quote:
Originally posted by sillaric_culdanin
Now as to whether orcs could found a non-chaotic nation, its important to remember that orcs were not CE in 1e or 2e. They were retconned a bit to fit the barbarian class for 3e. They used to be LE and should have been every bit as capable of creating a dark tyranny as hobgoblins.
Again, I never argued that they couldn't form a kingdom -- just that it's not logical for them go from being very warlike and aggressive to trying to peacefully coexist. It happened almost instantaneously, and without external causes.
Someone mentioned the scro, earlier... The scro did go from being the savage, attack anything in sight type of orcs to having a highly militaristic civilization. If nothing else, that proves it can be done.
But they did not steal a bunch of territory and then make friendly, to get there. They were defeated, destroyed, and then isolated from everyone else. They had the external cause to make them willing to embrace a new way of life, and they were separated from other peoples, so they couldn't just go back to being exactly what they were.
Even so, what they did was refine what they already were -- they didn't turn away from the aggression that was their culture and history, they figured out how to apply it better. They became civilized so that they could continue to wage war upon others, and that's what they did when they made it off Dukagsh -- they initiated the Second Unhuman War so that they could go back to killing elves.
And that's what I've been saying. The abrupt transition from attacking people just because they were there to actively trying to get along with them does not make sense, without something very dramatic having occurred.
If there was something that threatened all the peoples of the North, including orcs, then yeah, getting along with their neighbors is reasonable. But when all they've ever shown their neighbors is unrestrained aggression, it doesn't make sense that immediately after stealing land from those neighbors, they suddenly turn their backs on their culture and their history and try to become something else.
quote:
Originally posted by sillaric_culdanin
Also, I got from it that Dark Arrows didn't turn to farming overnight, didn't they have the 100 years of the Spellplague to adapt at least a little to a more peaceful way of life?
They couldn't have lasted 100 years without some means of supporting themselves. They had to have farming, animal husbandry, and trade. For them to have been able to live even a few years, they had to have these things.
This means that this army carved out its territory and then immediately put down their swords and started working on supporting themselves. And again, this happened despite living in a culture that embraces warfare, despite thousands of years of history of unrestrained, unprovoked warfare, despite the fact that they surrounded themselves with traditional enemies, and without anything external to make orcs think that the way their deities had told them to live was a bad idea. |
| sillaric_culdanin |
Posted - 22 Feb 2014 : 06:26:34
A couple things, I think that we all need to stop trying to apply real world logic to a fantasy world. Its fine if thats how your home Realms works (frankly I think its awesome, thats how I run mine). I completely agree with the argument that culture defines people rather than race, in reality. Traditional fantasy is founded on the idea that good and evil really truly exist, which in this situation invalidates the argument. Sure, you could likely find lots of examples of non-evil goblins, orcs, gnolls and drow. Orcs were not written in FR or Greyhawk to be morally confused or misunderstood noble savages. Orcs, goblins, gnolls and drow were made to be villains. They are from evil races. In my opinion what the examples given earlier prove is that the inverse of the culture vs race argument holds true in at least the Realms. A strong enough positive culture can overcome a race's predisposition towards evil. Culture or the hand of a deity like Elisstrea (sp?) or freak chance like Drizzt or Zaknafein.
Now as to whether orcs could found a non-chaotic nation, its important to remember that orcs were not CE in 1e or 2e. They were retconned a bit to fit the barbarian class for 3e. They used to be LE and should have been every bit as capable of creating a dark tyranny as hobgoblins. Also, I got from it that Dark Arrows didn't turn to farming overnight, didn't they have the 100 years of the Spellplague to adapt at least a little to a more peaceful way of life? |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 21 Feb 2014 : 22:35:20
My problem with you is your refusal to pay attention to anything I said. If you want to address things I've actually said, I'd be happy to continue this discussion. |
| Tanthalas |
Posted - 21 Feb 2014 : 19:44:00
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
You know what? I can only repeat myself, and see my words twisted and/or ignored, so many times. It's not worth the effort.
Oh I just love when people end arguments by accusing others and then running off.
Your problem with me isn't that I'm twisting your words or ignoring them, your real problem is that I don't just roll over and agree with you and instead keep pointing out the flaws in your arguments. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 20 Feb 2014 : 21:24:28
You know what? I can only repeat myself, and see my words twisted and/or ignored, so many times. It's not worth the effort. |
| Tanthalas |
Posted - 20 Feb 2014 : 20:35:14
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Holy mother of Lurue, are you deliberately misreading my posts? What I have said, more than once, is that change is not going to be instantaneous and without cause. Thousands of years of history don't get reversed in a couple years.
Except in this case there were two causes at least, that I have mentioned already: an Orc with a vision and the power to implement it, the orcs achieving a powerful foothold that prevented their neighbours from easily sending them back to the mountains.
But your responses to these?
"In thousands of years of history there was no other Orc in these conditions", aka, things don't change. Even though we don't actually have a detailed description of these millenia of Orc history that you keep bringing about. Have you forgot the city where Orcs and Dwarves lived peacefully together?
"The external circumstances haven't changed", even though they did. Not to mention that not all change has to be due to external forces. But you have this thing that Orcs have to kill everything in sight and that the only way they can become civilized is if they run out of stuff to kill.
The biggest problem with your argument about millenia this and millenia that? There's always a first time for everything.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly RupertAgain, how many real life examples can you give of people that did nothing but wage war for millennia, without any attempts at all at peaceful coexistence, before suddenly settling down to farm their stolen land?
Any conquering empire or country (hell, or even a tribe) that stopped its expansion at some point? Do you really need names? |
| hashimashadoo |
Posted - 20 Feb 2014 : 17:08:57
Nojheim the goblin was not evil. Gisbertus the bugbear was not evil. There's a small tribe of goblins in the Qoya Desert who, when shown a little bit of kindness, rejected evil - the same goes for Sheemzher of Weathercote Wood. I am positive there are other examples of nonevil goblinoids. Page 20 of the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide specifically states that goblins can be downright altruistic. |
| Eilserus |
Posted - 20 Feb 2014 : 15:57:39
Goblinkin are evil. They were created to destroy. They are not nurtured to evil, evil is their nature.
In real life, we tend to believe culture affects how a person acts. I think it's a mistake to believe this would hold true with the various goblin races. |
| hashimashadoo |
Posted - 20 Feb 2014 : 14:18:03
There have been a lot of good arguments in this scroll (BEAST did particularly well on the first page) and more than a few godsawful ones.
In my view NO sentient race is inherently good or evil. You have very few anomalous individuals who are vastly more likely to be amoral (not evil, just lacking a 'traditional' moral compass) but where people always seem to get confused is the difference between race and culture.
Your race is who you are - you can't help being your race but at the same time, your race (as long as you aren't born under the influence of magical/planar alignments) has little to no effect on who you will become. Your culture however, has a massive effect on your life - your upbringing, your peer groups, your education, your sex life, your work, your life expectancy, etc.
Orc CULTURE is violent, rapacious, sexist, racist and fills the orcs that follow it with a very strong sense of entitlement.
Drow CULTURE is divisive, sexist, racist, devious, devout and amoral. Neither RACE possesses any of those qualities until they grow to view them as a cultural norm.
Both groups have maintained that culture for many millennia and it is up to them to change it.
Traditional Ondonti are pacifistic because their culture revolves around the worship of Eldath but those ondonti born in Zhentil Keep act very much like 'normal' orcs because they're raised differently. Drow born in Eilistraeean enclaves don't all grow up to turn on their parents, because they're born 'always chaotic evil' - they've been raised in a completely different cultural setting to their Dark Seldarine-following cousins.
Until such beings AS A WHOLE change their cultural identity, the perception of them in the eyes of the 'goodly races' (a term that I really don't like) is going to be along the lines of "Kill them before they kill us." It's simple self-preservation.
As to historical conflicts: Ask a palestinian to embrace an israeli as a brother; ask an american WW2 veteran to embrace the japanese soldier who tortured him in an internment camp; ask someone to forgive their rapist; Ask a rashemi citizen to forgive the red wizard who turned his daughter into a zombie. You think many of them would do that?
Race is not determinate of behaviour but neither is forgiveness easily given. If people percieve a threat, they are much more likely to flee or defend themselves than to ask "Are you going to hurt us?".
Orcs have been defined as evil monsters of some kind or another since the 10th century. Who was Gary Gygax to say otherwise? Writers of novels should feel free to create orc cultures that can be viewed as good but I doubt Wizards of the Coast would LET them turn all orcs into upright citizens of civilised lands. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 20 Feb 2014 : 05:26:53
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
See, you say that you never claimed that things don't change, but then all your arguments revolve around "millenia this, millenia that, things don't change".
Holy mother of Lurue, are you deliberately misreading my posts? What I have said, more than once, is that change is not going to be instantaneous and without cause. Thousands of years of history don't get reversed in a couple years.
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
Every single one of your rebutals was "things don't change", even though they in fact did. Every single one.
Again, I never said things don't change -- I said they don't change abruptly without outside cause.
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
History is full of conquering nations that eventually settled on borders, but you refuse to acknowledge this because those nations didn't exist for millenia.
Again, name one nation that did nothing, for the entirety of its history, but wage war against anyone and everyone before abruptly becoming farmers. I've asked you to do this repeatedly, and you have yet to offer a single example. |
| Tanthalas |
Posted - 20 Feb 2014 : 01:36:37
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
You refuse to acknowledge millennia of orc history. You refuse to acknowledge the proven nature of orcs. I don't refuse to acknowledge these factors -- and it is these factors that make the circumstances of the founding of Many Arrows implausible.
See, you say that you never claimed that things don't change, but then all your arguments revolve around "millenia this, millenia that, things don't change".
Every single one of your rebutals was "things don't change", even though they in fact did. Every single one.
History is full of conquering nations that eventually settled on borders, but you refuse to acknowledge this because those nations didn't exist for millenia. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 19 Feb 2014 : 22:22:34
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
I'm pretty sure that someone has brought the "because they're chaotic evil" argument up before, even if it wasn't in this specific scroll.
As to the specifics of your argument, my point is still the same. Things change, just like how they've changed in the real life world.
I never said things don't change. I don't think it is at all reasonable, though, for thousands of years of history to be swept aside at the drop of a hat, especially when the external circumstances haven't changed.
And why can change only happen due to external circumstances? That really just sounds like a lame excuse so you can just disregard the circumstances that lead to the creation of the Many-Arrows kingdom.
It's not a lame excuse. Entire nations don't set aside their history and go against their own nature without something pushing them to do so. It's not common for a single individual to do so; expecting thousands to do so is far from reasonable.
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
Many-Arrows happened due to mainly two reasons:
- You got an orc that not only had a different vision for his race but also had the power to implement said vision.
And in thousands of years of orc history, no other orc ever had a different vision? It doesn't even have to be all that powerful an orc, so long as this theoretical orc had some followers. If some prior orc had a different vision, he could have led his followers elsewhere and started a new society, which would have eventually gotten bigger and likely would have attracted other orcs.
And yet, there is no indication that this has happened before... Orc history, before Many Arrows, has always been the same: kill everything in sight until stopped, wait a while, and do it again.
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
- The orcs were able to gain a powerful position where the surounding nations were forced to live with them instead of being able to drive them back into the mountains (the external circumstances that you claimed hadn't changed).
The external circumstances haven't changed -- only the real estate. They are still surrounded by plenty of people they could war against, and those people aren't fond of them. And there is also no reason the orcs couldn't have done the same thing elsewhere. If they were so intent on having a peaceful nation, they didn't have to steal territory from others to do it, and they certainly didn't need to wage unprovoked warfare in order to find some unclaimed ground.
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
I know that you refuse to acknowledge that these are plausible circumstances, but that's actually how stuff worked in real life too.
Again, how many real life examples can you give of people that did nothing but wage war for millennia, without any attempts at all at peaceful coexistence, before suddenly settling down to farm their stolen land?
You refuse to acknowledge millennia of orc history. You refuse to acknowledge the proven nature of orcs. I don't refuse to acknowledge these factors -- and it is these factors that make the circumstances of the founding of Many Arrows implausible. |
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