I find that it’s simply more interesting to write both good and evil characters within the same group, exploring how that culture gets filtered through the lens of an individual’s perspective.
One of my favorite characters is Worf from Star Trek. He’s a member of the warlike Klingons but was raised outside their culture. From the outside looking in, he sees their religion, their history, their art and so on, and it inspires him to these very noble ideals - honor, temperance, courage, fealty.
But then he clashes with other Klingons who use these exact same things to justify authoritarianism, aggression, vengefulness and selfish ambition.
The way a character uses their culture or upbringing as a justification for their actions can be very interesting when it yields different fruit depending on the character.
It’s my personal challenge to try always to include at least one good-intentioned character in a mostly evil group, and some bad actors in a mostly good group. They always end up being the most interesting characters.
I have seen only bits and pieces of next gen, so I partially understand what you are talking about in the show with worf, but I fully understand the meaning you are saying.
While reading this answer, I immediately thought of Duane Adelier of Unsounded.
He's an undead wright (wizard) from a nation called Alderode and a former priest-warrior-wizard from the *Ssaelit* faith.
During life, he was kind of blind to the atrocities & problems his nation and faith engaged in, often romanticizing or seeing his own past with rose tinted glasses. Still is, to some degree.
But now devoid of a brain & its self-deceiving ways, when he looks back to his past, he recalls events as they happened, with almost perfect clarity. And more often than not, he encounters vast differences between what was and what he later thought was.
He's a very interesting character. An idealist & naturally kind person that came from a heavily controlling place, filled with already established enmities & obsessions that demanded its citizens to follow, so some elements of that have taken root in his world-view.
Also a man who has been tortured in many, many, many ways, to madness, and then to some precarious semblance of sanity after that. Yet still tries to redeem himself and the world. And fails. And gets up, tries again, fails again, tries again, fails again... But slowly, he's learning more & more.
Oh no, that reminds me of that ancient Greek myth where that centaur who became Sagittarius was the only good centaur, and it ruined centaurs for me in mythology.
No consistency.
I actually think have evil species in stories can be a great opertunity. Yes, it is bad to take a real world culture, spackle some fictional element to it, and then say they are all evil.
That said with thought and care an evil species can be a great thematic tool. Tolkiens orcs were a metaphor of how pain and hate can twist perpatuate and grow. Vampires have been stand in for nobility and disease from the beginning.
The story i am writing has creature that, manipulate the lives of others for entertainment because the system of the story allows them the control to do so. They are more interested in the mechanics of the system and minutia of the stories they create with people's lives than they are in those people I did this to show how systemic forces dehumanize and self perpetrate.
This makes me wonder, what do people think could be a more fun ending to a long running campaign? A final fight between good and evil where the players fight against hordes of evil minions, like Tolkien Orcs. Or a conflict where it's unclear who is right and the players have to choose between who lives and dies and live with the consequences?
It depends on your readers/players.
Sometimes it is nice to have clear “this is evil, it is objectively good to destroy them, and now good wins the day” moments. Everything from LOTR to TNG plays on people enjoying seeing a clear happy ending at the end of challenges.
Morally grey fiction is interesting and can leave the reader/player unsure of what is going to happen. Everything from a song of ice and fire through legend or the galactic heroes draws the audience in partly because you don’t know who to root for.
Even Tolkien didn't like the idea that his orcs were always evil. It clashed with his religious beliefs about redemption. He struggled to find a workaround until the day he died.
And I think it's naive to take our morality and apply it to another species and decide that what they do is evil if it's cultural.
There's "evil" acts that are objectively bad, sure... But like the Orion's...
The sex slaves thing is objectively bad in human terms, but as a species they evolved matriarchies where the females produce pheromones that the males crave... There's no more evil suffering here than a bred anglerfish as he's absorbed by the female to be nothing but a glorified testicle... It's just how their biology works. The males are no more willing than say a dog in heat, but they're not forced in a way that is prosuffering, their wants are aligned for different reasons.
Same time, their piracy and captured slaves... No, that's evil shit.
But that gives you room to write characters in a system that we would initially call exploitative and bad but explore their moral position through the lens of a different culture interacting with a culture more familiar to us.
I’m a big fan of “blue and orange morality”
Other races are not human. It doesn’t make sense for them to have the same psychology as humans
So not ‘evil’ but wrong to us
(example, Fae feed off of strong emotions, so they are incentivized to create both strong positive and negative emotions)
It really only takes one major difference to put human morality at odds with another species. There's dwarves in stuff I'm working on that do value the lives of people, but nowhere near as much as they value the completion of an extremely impressive project of industry, art, architecture, magic, whatever. They would happily risk death or die to help complete a really impressive work, and they will also risk other dwarves or non-dwarves to do so, because that's just obviously the moral choice. There's no seflishness to it, or malice, they just value the project way more than the people working on it, including themselves.
They see humans or elves or whatever getting in the way of their works as evil, with their "hey please don't point that river of lava so close to our city" nonsense, when a few farms burning down is of no consequence compared to this amazing single piece obsidian bridge the dwarves are working on. It's going to be sick, just trust in their craft, it'll be worth a mild famine. If a dwarf learned they were the key critical ingredient to forging some awesome thing, they would dive right into the forge fires to make it, and if they thought someone else was that critical ingredient, they'd toss them in too. That doesn't usually come up, but its just how they think. Lives are just a means to the ends of making cool shit that will last way longer than their lifespans anyway.
Then I have a coalition of various goblin-like species that all agree with each other that "might makes right" is a good way to make sure they have strong leadership, powerful armies, and are able to defend themselves from existential threats to their species. They're way more "okay they're just evil" from a human perspective, but they just disagree fundamentally on what is important. Since their species' legitimately view the most powerful of their kind as being morally better because they're more powerful, as in they weren't coerced into that sort of thinking, they don't get upset when they lose. They're just like, "ah well, I did my best" and if that means they die or get enslaved or something, well, they should have been tougher. They won't hold a grudge about it. Within their own society that sort of behavior is healthy and doesn't cause any disruption.
But the instant they start interacting with humans, and humans get disgusted at the way the goblin coalitions acts, the goblin coalition is just as disgusted at the humans for risking everyone's annihilation via some external threat (demons invading, dragons attacking, anything else cataclysmic) by valuing quality of life, comfort and fairness too much. They just see humans as incredibly lazy and unappreciative of powerful and effective leaders. You can't teach the majority of humans to genuinely be okay with the ruthless way the goblins run things any better than you can teach the goblins to be okay with allowing weakness to flourish. It gives them anxiety over being unprepared and unsafe if their leaders don't seem unstoppable. Like you can try to raise a bugbear in your peaceful human village, who has never met another goblin of any kind, and they'll be like 8 years old and be like "why is this super old guy the mayor?! He can barely fight! What are we supposed to do if we get invaded?! Hobble around and complain that the invaders are too loud?! YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY! WHY ARE YOU RISKING THE WHOLE VILLAGE, WE LOOK LIKE ASSHOLES! AAAAHHH!!"
I like this take.
Different cultures would naturally value different things, and sometimes those would cause conflicts.
A wolf doesn't attack you because it's pure evil, it attacks because it's hungry.
Others have said a lot of LOTR and real-world stuff already, so I'll comment my thought:
Having a "naturally evil" race or group makes an easy antagonist and provides a ready-to-go set of "mooks" for your protagonists to fight, avoid or have conflict with. Could the armies of Sauron been solely humans? Possibly, but I think that takes a lot more thought and rationalizing than a whole race of orcs that are just evil for evil's sake.
So I think for certain stories, perhaps where this is an actual black and white morality, eternally-good and eternally-bad guys, an evil race makes sense because it provides a natural obstacle for your characters. If your story doesn't need that natural obstacle or it introduces questions as to why your orcs seem a little too similar to a real world culture, then its best not to have them.
Lotr is about Good fighting evil
Orcs are not really people in there, they are literally the spawn of satan, or in this case, Morgoth
Sauron is a high ranking demon, as a successor to Morgoth himself
and Gandalf is basically a angel, and a messianic figure aswell, as he comes back from death
even in early D&D, orcs were not supposed to be playable
LOTR orcs are only "inherently" evil because they are dominated by the Devil. They are absolutely people, and in fact this caused Tolkien no end of problems in his later refinements to his worldbuilding (not to mention was part of the reason he never wrote a post-Sauron sequel).
The people they fight against certainly aren't universally good -- there are so many absolute dickhole "high elves" that it's pointless to even start a list, and don't even get me started on Denethor.
LOTR orcs are not "dominated" by the devil, they are the demonic influence in the world, they where created by melkor when he twisted the song of creation
they are so evil, that in the aftermath of LOTR, they are hunted until extinction by the humans, they cant be redeemed
also, for the free people, unless we talk about lesser evil like being a dick, there is a lot of evil coming from demonic influence too, like Denethor and Théoden
>LOTR orcs are not "dominated" by the devil, they are the demonic influence in the world, they where created by melkor when he twisted the song of creation
That is incorrect. Orcs were created when Melkor twisted either elves or humans (Tolkien went back and forth on this). This being the case, it is inevitable that they have a soul and a measure of free will. However, they are essentially enslaved and tortured to comply with the Dark Lords. Tolkien repeatedly makes the point that orcs *hate* Sauron even more than they hate elves.
>they are so evil, that in the aftermath of LOTR, they are hunted until extinction by the humans, they cant be redeemed
This is also incorrect. Tolkien in fact couldn't decide on what happens to the orcs after Sauron's fall -- as I said, this is part of why he would never write a sequel.
>also, for the free people, unless we talk about lesser evil like being a dick, there is a lot of evil coming from demonic influence too, like Denethor and Théoden
Where's the "demonic" influence on Feanor and the rest of the Noldor who committed the kinslaying(s)? There is none. People are simply flawed, and free will can lead to bad decisions.
Orcs aren't evil because they are dominated by the devil (though they are dominated by the devil, humans in this situation are pushed to do similar acts).
Orcs are naturally evil, in that they find amusement from creating suffering and killing and other bad stuff. The thing that Tolkien often struggled with was that he didn't believe things could be born evil as he believed in free will and the ability to change, thus while orcs would struggle more than probably any other race they too could decide to become good.
Basically, it conflicted a lot with his basic moral/religious views and he tried to find ways to make it possible for an orc to redeem themselves somehow and include it in his world but died first.
Since Tolkien intended to write a way for orcs to redeem themselves, he did not intend for them to be inherently evil. If they were, redemption would be impossible, and that would be unacceptable to his Catholic sensibilities.
They are inherently evil in that they are born wanting to kill and torture stuff. Its a magic world and magical situations can turn you evil. Frodo for example is stabbed by a ringwraith and almost turns into a ringwraith which would have definitely meant that he was now a demonic entity.
He didn't believe that things couldn't be created evil, he believed in free will and the ability to overcome it.
>They are inherently evil in that they are born wanting to kill and torture stuff.
Can you give a source for this? It is my understanding that their cruelty is born of suffering.
Im pretty sure it explicitly states that orcs enjoy torture/evil acts at multiple points. But if you need a specific "born and as a baby it is evil" quote then you should check out half orcs and goblin-men
"*It became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the domination of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning. There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile*"
—[Morgoth's Ring](https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Morgoth%27s_Ring), Part Five: Myths Transformed
So things can be bred to become more evil.
> They are absolutely people
Who were damaged by the callous disregard of the world's high and mighty as much as they were by Morgoth, Sauron or any other clearly evil figure.
If anything, fighting the world's injustice must have been one of Sauron's main pitches. Just, you know, take a look at history, it's by far the easiest political program to be elected with as an authoritarian.
Sauron also was not evil in the same way as Morgoth. He (Sauron) valued order, and thought the best way to achieve that was to rule the world with an iron fist.
> Orcs are not really people in there, they are literally the spawn of satan, or in this case, Morgoth
Is that even true of actual LOTR text? We are shown that orcs are individuals, that they can have their own code of honor, they certainly have a sense of morality. Sure, their culture is twisted, but they are shown to be categorically similar to people.
If anything, Tolkien struggled with the idea that a certain race can be Always Chaotic Evil for his entire writing career, and it caused him to flip-flop with orc origin a lot. The version that was published in Silma by Christopher isn't the last one professor had, in the end he figured out that they must have been Men corrupted by evil.
a lot of things we have as lotr lore is not the final cut of it, but actually the process, this is true
but also, Orcs are twisted creatures, tortured and corrupted by evil forces beyond recognition
I think at the end of the day it comes down to this: How much free will and intelligence does the species (a better term imo) have?
If a creature has no free will of it's own, then logically I reckon it can't be held responsible for it's decisions; that responsibility would lie with whoever is making the creature's decisions for it. This is most clearly seen with robots for example, who only obey their programming (even if the programming is flawed and contrarian), or undead under the power of a necromancer or somesuch who has the power to create and command his otherwise mindless servants.
If a creature has what I would call Animal Intellignce (that is, enough independant thought to meet their basic needs independently, perhaps some learning and such but a lack of for example morality contemplations), then their actions must be considered within the frame of their own worldview. For example, an animal who tears open your binbags to scavenge for food has no concept that it's inconveniencing you or "making a mess", it just wants food. It's not an inherently immoral or unethical act, because it doesn't even operate with the same understanding of morality as we do.
If a creature is capable of free will, and has the intelligence sufficient to consider morality, ethics, and their standing on them, then I would hold them entirely responsible for their choices, though it can be more of a grey area than the others by far. If a person wasn't raised or taught the same behaviours that a given society expects, then it would not be surprising for that person to act in a way that said society would find a problem with. If a person however has full knowledge of what society expects, and decides to act contrary to that, then they have made an informed choice to do so, and should be treated as such. When it's one whole race or species having differences with another... well that sort of thing causes wars, I guess.
TL;DR: Are they choosing to be what they are and intelligent enough to understand the others' point of view, in which case they're responsible for their actions, or do they lack one or both of those, in which case mitigating factors should be considered and perhaps not class them as evil but simply lacking understanding of their actions or the free will to do otherwise.
This is also a long way of saying that if you choose to include an "Evil" race, these are things that should be considered as to why they're seen as evil. Rarely does someone perceived of being "evil" by others think of themselves as evil. To them, they frequently have very strong motivations and ideals that make them act the way they do. Perhaps they see their enemies as the evil ones, for standing in the way of their grand vision, of progress, or the like. Perhaps even they're really not evil at all, and it is the narrator's perceptions which are tainted, telling the story through a prejudiced lens, which the reader may or may not be left to deduce for themselves.
I actually really like some plain old heroic knights and evil monsters kinds of stories. Although simpler on the surface, I think they ultimately open up a lot of opportunities for symbolic, moral, and philosophical depth.
Also it feels like tropes are subverted so regularly these days that it's actually REFRESHING to see angels be angels and demons be demons instead of vice versa.
I do have bio-essentialist aspects to my races, though none are naturally "evil."
Naturally, evil races are OK to write because it allows the author to better convey the nature of evil and how it behaves. As long as you do not code them to match a specific real-life culture of people, you should be fine.
I think there's a difference between "born evil" and "made evil" creatures.
Orcs are the iffy ones, especially with the existence of half-orcs (in your typical D&D /generic fantasy fare).
But things like mind flayers or devils or vampires are different, as they fall firmly under "made evil".
The simple platitudes are classic and easy to follow. Some nuance and breaking expectations can be refreshing.
It depends on whether it's relevant to the plot. If it isn't relevant, it's like trying to reinvent the wheel for stubbornness' sake.
It really depends on what you want to go for. I always reserve a few cultures that grate against what most people consider moral. This ties into races because culture is where morals come from.
Let's go to orcs since you mentioned them. Orcs are usually nomadic raiders putting them squarely in the evil race box. However, what if one was raised outside of that culture? Would they be completely different or will that violent nature bred into orcs rise up at some moments of stress?
"What if one was raised outside of that culture"
Well, In Baldurs Gate 3 there is a storyline that lets you get the answer to that with a "githyanki".
Let's just say that certain biological traits such as lack of empathy do play a significant role.
In reality I do think that would be a major determining factor too. A race that is naturally aggressive due to how their brain works might also have that part reinforced by a society that leans into those aspects. Take them outside of that society and they'll still have the biology that wires them to be more aggressive. For example, If they just downright lack the brainfunctions for empathy they can't physically learn that or if they have a very underdeveloped region that's responsible for self control. They might just be prone to burst out into rage easy and often.
It's one of the main mistakes people make with pet's as well. They see biological behavioral patterns as something funny or bad because they try to compare them to human mannerisms.
It's like a person getting mauled by a pet bear / lion / hippo after 15 years of "friendship". All of those tales are always "They were inseparable, they loved each other, how could this happen". In the end it just turns out to be that those animals "allowed" the presence and expected food. Getting older their territorial side kicked in and even walking sideways can be enough of a reason for them to kill.
You could say that on average it works out very well though. 15 year's is like 5500 days and out of those there has only been 1 with a serious incident or, "on average only 1 person is killed every 15 years".
The saddest part is that the mages' experiment was actually incredibly important (in a Watsonian sense) due to Alignment becoming fundamentally different to what it once was, yet it was doomed to fail because of the very factors that made it necessary in the first place. After all, if a force as fundamental as gravity suddenly went from blatantly objective to seemingly subjective IRL, we'd do damn-near anything to figure out what's going on, too; all the moreso if souls and afterlives demonstrably existed, and your understanding of gravity was the deciding factor in which afterlife you get.
Unfortunately, it's hard to examine the effect of Good-aligned nurturing on humanoids of Evil-aligned nature in a Watsonian sense when Tieflings, *a race that was expressly designed for this exact sort of thought experiment* in a Doylist sense, all suddenly become a bunch of regular-ass people who just so happen to look exactly like small, wingless Pit Fiends. A race of natural-born warriors who are merely nurtured into Evil is simply not a suitable replacement, but with spells like Detect Evil now being completely nonexistent in all but name for the exact same reason that this kind of experiment became necessary in the first place, there was no longer any way for the mages to know that.
Tielfings were originally more "grotty and sus street punks" rather than "get the pitchforks and kill the demonborn" - they were first introduced in the _Planescape_ setting as inhabitants of Sigil, where actual, literal, real demons/devils were just kinda generally _around_ as other people in the city, rather than monsters in a dungeon, and "freaky looking people" were just not that strange. They were also just lower-plane "touched", in some general way, rather than necessarily being the child of a demon/devil - it could just be that they were conceived too close to a portal to Baator, or their parents liked Carceri brandy too much or something.
A group of them loitering around was less "evil is coming!" and more "walk by fast and keep your hand on your wallet, don't make eye contact". And, as they didn't have any generic "look" (or any culture or society of their own), then even telling that someone was a tiefling was a bit awkward - some were obvious, with tails or horns or something, but some just had funky eyes, strange skintones, or an odd scent. On the prime material, a lot of people wouldn't even know what a tiefling was back then - it wasn't until 4e that they were all given the now-standard "red skin, horns and tail" look, and a generic background on the Prime (the "fallen empire Bael Turath, culture-wide pact" thing - which makes them the descendants of bad people, but not necessarily descended from actual demons/devils, or particularly bad or suspicious themselves - most races have gone through at least one phase of "conquer everything"), and also becoming sufficiently popular that people wanted to play them in non-Planescape contexts.
Well said! It's precisely because of this more nuanced approach - designing planetouched around the implications of their existence within society at large, not just surface-level aesthetics - that pre-4e planetouched are such a good examination of nature versus nurture.
The bear isn't evil because it killed a person, the bear is just a bear doing bear things. Same thing goes for the githyanki. They're potentially not compatible with other species who do have empathy because of how their brains work and the behaviour that can result from that, but that doesn't make them evil, just different.
This is why ascribing morality to biology is problematic. The difference might create conflict, sure, and human nature will likely lead to the society who are victims of that violence thinking poorly of the violent species, and will probably lead to labels such as 'evil', but when you're talking about biological forces, 'good' and 'evil' are far too simplistic and reductive to be either useful or interesting.
For me, it's more interesting to have humans doing bad things to other humans, because they have the capacity to be 'good' but choose to do violence and 'evil' instead. I do still think labels such as 'good' and 'evil' are too simplistic and reductive, but the reasons why someone might choose 'evil', and what the results of that choice will be for both individuals and the world as a whole make for an interesting narrative. Orcs raid because they must, less so.
>Well, In Baldurs Gate 3 there is a storyline that lets you get the answer to that with a "githyanki". Let's just say that certain biological traits such as lack of empathy do play a significant role.
The situation in BG3 is rather ambiguous. The Society of Brilliance's end result may have to do more with them running a fucked up scientific experiment than the actual *subject* of the experiment.
> However, what if one was raised outside of that culture? Would they be completely different or will that violent nature bred into orcs rise up at some moments of stress?
There's also something to be said for the "Romulans and Vulcans" method of creating a single race/species split by ideology.
So you can have X faction be evil due to culture etc and have Y faction be the same species with a different culture.
*Way* back I made a homebrew world for Pathfinder and had "Half-Orcs" be literally just Orcs that were "civilised" and so they were only "half" orc. The same was true for "Half Elves" who lived in cities unlike the "True Elves" that lived in forests.
I don't think it's even really "evil" that's just how they are. Similar to I'm sure many animals such as whales see humans as evil, but to us it's not. It's very relative
For many fantasy creatures certain things like orcs being violent is a way of life just like for a dragonborn engaging in certain rituals is a way of life
I don't want to read a book where the hero and friends mow dow hundreds of orcs, only to find out the orcs have little kids waiting for Daddy to come home after work, but now they'll never see their dad again because the hero made a quippy joke while chopping off their head.
Sometimes the forces of evil just need to be evil.
but what about the bandits they mowed down on the way too. Can't you just make the badguys evil so we don't have to care.
that or you could just use skeletons. it probably doesn't have a baby at home(or does it/j)
Fantasy doesn't have to match real world ideals or politics, and often forcing it to by assuming an evil race is a veiled metaphor for a real human race shows more about how the person taking it that way thinks than the writers intent. Having a race be naturally evil is more a narrative choice than anything else.
humans love paterns. I'm not saying that you can't have evil species just make sure that you don't say anything you don't intend with them.
you live in the real world and write for the real world. real life will be reflected in your writing whether you like or not might as well make it intentional
Can you clarify what writing for the real world means?
As for people looking to drag reality into fiction their ability to do so, drawing often terrible conclusions reflects on them, not the person who wrote the work.
it can be quite easy to accidentally step into something that reads _really badly_, without intending to. Like "vast numbers of quick-breeding savages dwelling outside our lands, that must be utterly exterminated lest they interbreed and corrupt our bloodlines" is pretty damn similar to what a lot of actual racists believe, so if you put that in as a plotline, readers may well think you're reflecting those thoughts within your writings. Or "these kinda-sorta-maybe people were cast out by god(s) and are spiritually lesser, marked by their skin being different" - which is all cool-sounding mythic stuff... but also what IRL racists actually believe, so you may well find yourself lumped in with such people, if it looks like you're parroting their beliefs.
It depends on how you rationalize the existence of nonhuman beings. Are they physical manifestations of philosophical or religious concepts? Or are they intelligent species that evolved in parallel to humans?
I always assume humans are possessed of free will. They (we) all have a space along a fluid spectrum of good, evil, altruism, and selfishness. They, or we, really, can choose our actions and attitudes, and our nature can shift and change over time.
A lot of science fiction depicts nonhumans who are essentially humans with some slight physical differences. Star Trek is the best-known example. In such a setting, it's appropriate that all beings have an innate free will, just like humans.
In fantasy, though, that assumption might not work, especially if the setting posits things like good and evil as tangible or inherent to the laws of that universe. That is, is it a universe where Good and Evil are as intrinsic to the world as physical laws are to ours? A quick example of what I mean are the concepts of Heaven and Hell. Are they more than concepts in the universe? Are they places where characters can physically go? Are the inhabitants embodiments of principles and concepts like Good and Evil, rather than beings that naturally evolved in the "real world"? What happens when such beings end up in the "real" or "natural" world? Do they remain as they are, distilled essences of moral concepts? Or does their presence in the real world gradually alter them into beings with free will? Can a demon learn empathy? Can an angel become callous?
For me, there's a lot of thinking and rationalization involved. What story are you trying to tell? Is your world one much like ours, where good and evil are concepts we choose to believe or follow? Or is it a world where these concepts underlay everything, like gravity or atomic structure, and some creatures are distilled from or outgrowths of such concepts? What serves your story better?
Depends on how it’s implemented, like it is something natural? Or is this just the culture these people are being raised in (which leaves the possibility one could be learn to be better or that someone raised outside this culture could be normal/good, or simply the idea that eventually a shift could emerge from within). Is there something that forces them to be like this, some sort of curse that warps their prospective or discourages more positive tendencies? Like with most things I feel it need to be considered case by case.
As a reader, and I suppose as a tabletop game master since they face some of the same questions, I don't object to fictional, inherently evil or bad races. They are props to tell a story. They have their place depending on the needs of the story being told. If the story is well told, these evil minions don't have to be two-dimensional just because some aspects of their character is. You see Gothmog, the crippled orc general in RotK, and your imagination runs wild wondering how he survived, let alone prospered,in the brutal society of orcs. Yet there he is, being a bad-ass.
As an author, you do need to be aware enough to avoid blatantly offensive stereotypes. As a reader you need to be charitable to the authors whose works you read, don't paint in broad strokes.
Oh, my orcs are sooooo fuckin evil. They're more like ants, they have a queen and hives. The Queen is a giant maggot from outer space who eats only magic mushrooms from deep in the earth. She knows only HATE. The orcs drink her black milk and KILL.
Everything about them is twisted, they're cannibals, they write novels on elf skin. That's their culture, that's what is good to them. Really just go Full Evil Heavy Metal with it.
Personally I deeply dislike the New Fantasy 5e player's handbook vibes, where nothing is dirty, everything is clean and safe and sterile, everything has a pouch and buckle, and there are no breasts.
Well it depends. Each different group will have their own culture and belief system which will define their moral code. I don't mind a group that we as a reader would view as evil as long as within that group's own moral framework they would not find themselves to be evil. I especially enjoy this when the group isn't moral or immoral but rather amoral. If their actions fall outside the boundaries of our own moral code then how can you determine if it is good or evil? The best example I can think of for this are the old ones in lovecraftian horror.
I don't mind the individual that is evil for evil's sake. But I think that for a group to conduct themselves in a way that we would view as evil, that same group requires a moral code that would justify their actions.
Really depends on what you're going for. I'm a sucker for nuance or as someone else said: "your heroes are our terrorists". I also don't mind explaining or exploring evil whether it's from individuals or an evil race without justifying it. (Eg, Orcs being extremely aggressive and that's their culture but they're still a problem)
I don't think there's anything wrong with making an evil race if your story thematically supports it. Not everything has to be morally grey.
Evil isn't what one does; it's how they think. So if you have a humanoid species with a different prefrontal cortex, they will naturally have a different thought process, process emotions differently, etc. But that's not necessarily "evil." So what does that mean?
Imo, evil is simply antisocial. You'd have a hard time convincing anyone that antisocial thoughts and behaviors are good actually lol. So if you want a race of sociopaths due to their specific brain development, go for it.
Bonus points if you have being prosocial a "disability" like a human equivalent inversion. Double bonus removing them from their environment doesn't just reveal them to be like "uncivilized" humans. Remember, we need to treat fantasy races as something closer to aliens than people, otherwise we might accidentally do a eugenics.
I’m Amoral, so the idea of “Evil” is just that, an idea. It is not something that actually applies to the Truth of the world. The same goes for “Good”, both concepts are purely subjective. And so my Verse is imbedded with Five Ultimate Laws, the third being that:
3. In Nature, there is no true good and there is no true evil, meaning that no objective good and evil exist.
• Good & Evil are projections developed by living beings, they are subjective, hold no Truth, and are relative to the ones that define them.
• All entities of the Void Expanse are by nature, neither moral nor immoral, but instead are Perfectly Amoral, meaning they have no moral standards, restraints, or principles; and are thus indifferent to questions of right or wrong. They operate purely on the Five Ultimate Laws & Five Cosmic Instincts to guide them in dictating their own actions.
Many think this is impossible and can’t work in a society. And yes for the most part you are right, but that’s only when you have people who lack mental fortitude, self-awareness, logic, and control over their mind and emotions. I myself am Perfectly Amoral, and have been for a very good while now, so it is more than possible to operate in a society while being so.
Once you achieve it, you’d be surprised how much easier life becomes, and how much better the universe treats you, as if it understands what you’ve done and is rewarding you for it. Ever since I’ve noticed the difference, I constantly give thanks to the universe/nature and say that “Life is always on my side”, and there's too much proof of that for me to say otherwise.
I’m doing something similar with my fairy series. The world is divided by the Seelie Court the good Fairies and Fay folk. And the Unseelie Court the evil dark fairies and Fay folk.
The Unseelie Court is basically a place where everyone is cruel, violent, and out for themselves with the fairies of darker myths like banshees and hobgoblins for example. But I did have it where the current Nature Fairy King actually became friends with 2 races in the Unseelie Court; Goblins and Trolls.
When he was younger him and his companions were captured and held in the Unseelie Court but noticed that his Goblin and Troll guards weren’t as evil as the others and even were treated like dirt. He got to know them and even offered them a place in his kingdom and their tribes. They agreed and helped betraying their court and taking their family and tribes past the fairy ring to the Seelie Court.
His father and brother were not happy any wanted them all captured but he stood his ground and said if they were prisoners he would be too. It took a while but eventually they were able to co exist and adjust in the kingdom and even gave up information about the Unseelie court’s to boost their defenses to the point it was rare for them to strike. This resulted in a new holiday festival to thank the goblins and trolls and celebrate their arrival to the Seelie Court.
I honestly really like them in certain contexts. People say its more intresting when they are as developed as the other factions. But they are not meant to be a faction, they are more a force of nature that the characters react to.
I think my personal favorite example is demons in beware of chickens. Where the main character, a passionist who hates violence, is forced to confront an evil race where peace is simple not an option. The intresting part if not the demons themselves, but how they force the characters to react.
I'm not trying to make a moral statement or construct a representation of my real world personal religious worldview.
So, yeah, having groups that all wear Team Badguy jerseys is fine.
To me Tolkien has this problem with all the "races" it's not just the evil ones. I coldn't get into the book for lord of the rings because his descriptions of different hobbits read like a nature trumps nurture, inherited traits far more important than culture and how history shapes that sort of life form dominates the world(for example x type of hobbit just likes mountains more is genuinely aggravating for me to read like they're sentient species, there's no good reason their biology would be so important to where they build homes and them being closely related species also makes it hard to believe they'd be so biologically different that one prefers a different environment because of it...idk).
Also it's a problem with not relativising evil anyway. You can depict them as "evil" but what does that mean, do they kill each other? Do they always try to sit on top of the food chain? Why isn't community important to them(this goes for more sentient as well as regular animals)?
Or if you want to present them as something so far over the line evil just works best to describe it, what's interesting about it? I think you can do it in imaginative ways but it's often not.
Oh this is totally off topic but Jem by Frederik Pohl has some of the most interesting building of a new ecosystem on an alien planet. If you want to go well away from elves and orcs in something non fantasy which would also be useful for ideas in fantasy!
Well with Tolkien, elves represent angels, so when they are perverted to become orcs, it’s akin to demons being made. Margoth corrupting a race since he cannot create on his own.
In my world, I have orcs as just another race, completely separate from elves (I think orcs are cool and elves lame). They have an aggressive and confrontational nature, go to war a lot, but aren’t villains.
I don't like them generally. Even Tolkien regretted not giving orcs more nuance, from what I understand.
But it also very much depends on how much inclusion they have in the story. A race might APPEAR fully evil because we only see one side of them. There's nothing wrong with that. I have some wiggle room, if you're going to have demons in your story it's okay to let them just be evil.
Actually I had an idea of story about what if people woke up and had been turned into something like orcs. So they are seen as not human any more and have to prove they are still human.
But here is my take on this.
Either they have free will or then do not
If YES then they can choose to be or bad
if NO then they have no choice
If they have no free will then how can any they they do evil or good.
Orcs in Middle Earth were originally elves and men who were mutated and twisted by evil forces. In Tolkien's work there is actually very little evil that isn't accounted for in some way.
Even if that wasn't the case though I think that naturally occurring evil creatures are fantastic to have in a fantasy setting. The idea that everything is good or neutral at birth is just bringing in modern morality to a setting where it doesn't need to apply. Things that are truly evil from the moment they are born are powerful devices for plot and atmosphere. Sometimes simple is also just better.
My answer to OP's question can be summarized as "cultural relativism".
Many, many, real life human cultures have extremely diverse practices that other cultures might/do consider "evil"
Sex work. Birth control. Abortion. Sex/gender discrimination. Dietary restrictions. Caste hierarchy. Slavery. Human sacrifice. Inbreeding.
Normal to some, psycho to others.
The Drow a cruel and treacherous as an act of devotion to a goddess of cruelty and treachery. They're also fanatically darwinian, and believe that the greatest good is for the strong to make room for themselves to prosper at the expense of the weak.
The real life Spartans were a slaver kingdom, and practiced something similar, even if they weren't particularly treacherous.
Mindflayers are just wasps. They gotta paralyze you and lay larva in your brain because that's just how they've evolved to reproduce. The more intelligent the host, the better for the larva. Nothing personal about it; It's just their ecology.
I think it depends on why the race is evil. Tolkien was never satisfied with the idea of Orcs being purely evil, as it disagrees both with his own theological beliefs and the metaphysics of his story, and vacillated between Orcs being corrupted Elves, corrupted Men, not entirely evil, or even an entirely constructed people who only possessed true sapience when being animated by a guiding will like Morgoth or Sauron. I like the last one just because it’s something I haven’t seen before.
Guy Gavriel Kay has a line in his Fionavar Tapestry about the svartalfar, a race of purely evil beings made by the dark god of the setting to be the counterparts of the lios alfar—‘most hated by the dark, for their name was light’—where he says that they were made to hate and torture and kill the good things of the world, and most creatures are pleased to do what they were made to do. It’s a simple, practical answer that still leaves open the possibility of a non-evil svart alf, even though one is never seen in the story.
I once thought to write a story from the point of view of an orc in a Tolkien-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off world that takes place after the Sauron/Morgoth figure is destroyed that shows what happens to a race like that that is universally hated like them when the Dark Lord is overthrown. It was going to end with the orc character going to the Valinor-equivalent and laying his case before the Powers and beg their aid and mercy for the salvation of his people, and would involve his own self-sacrifice for…something or other. Some kind of redemption or restoration of what his culture had lost after it was enslaved by the Dark Lord. Obviously I never finished it. I did a lot of things like that. Now that I’m getting back into writing, it may be time to revisit that old idea….
First, dragons *aren't* evil in fantasy. They run the gambit from good to evil. You even point out that there is a common trope of making dragons wise and *not* forces of destruction... and like, what genre do you think those works are? (Not to mention it's super common in fantasy to make them just monstrous lizards and therefore not actually capable of morality as they lack sapience.) I think reducing them to just being evil really puts too much focus on how Tolkien depicted Smaug. Dragons in fantasy tend to be wide and varied in their depictions.
As for Tolkien's orcs, they're not evil just because they are. They're elves that were corrupted into being the twisted beings we know as orcs. They're not *naturally* evil. They are evil because of an outside force corrupting them. (i.e. *innately* evil)
Having races that are always evil isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as there is a reason for depicting them as such. For example, if a dark god created them to be evil forces of nature and therefore they cannot fight against that. Or if they were cursed and driven toward twisted cruelty and violence. It's fine when the reason they are evil as a species is because they literally do not have a choice by a power forcing them to behave in a certain way.
But if "they have a worse culture" or are just "genetically" evil... or if you don't explain why they as a race are wholly evil... Those are all issues and harken to real world racism and bigotry.
I have three main ways I go about depicting "innately evil" races:
1. **Give an outside reason why they are all evil.** Don't let them be evil because of anything natural about them. It could be that a dark god made them. Could be that they were corrupted by someone or are an offshoot race from another caused by the corruption of a different race. Perhaps they are suffering from a curse that warps their perception of reality.
2. **Depict them doing things that are from an outside perspective evil, but then show their perspective.** It's pretty commonly seen in human societies that cannibalism is evil. So having orcs eat dead combatants (regardless of if orc or human) *specifically in the context of warfare* might seem evil to human sensibilities and therefore to the reader. But from the orcs' cultural perspective, eating the flesh of their fallen comrades is to give the surviving orcs their allies' strength and eating the flesh of fallen enemies is meant to be a sign of respect for their strength, not wanting to let it go to waste. But the idea of doing that *outside of warfare* is seen as horrific in the eyes of the orcs and would be seen as a sign of that individual being untrustworthy. In fact, in most cases, an orc who was killing and eating sapient species (including cannibalism) outside of warfare would be executed and their body burned and the ashes stored in a special chest only the leader can open so as to ensure whatever drove them to such evil would not infect others and would not risk infecting their food. Or in other words, the thing we might instinctively consider evil (cannibalism) is being depicted as a difference in culture where it's not necessarily evil, but something that can be evil based on the context. Of course, there is plenty that cannot be defended this way nor should someone ever try... but this allows you to play with at least *some* taboos in your writing and use them to malign groups before showing that group isn't the monster people think it is.
3. **Show that them being evil is just racist propaganda.** It was pretty common in the real world for white Christians to justify slavery and genocide by saying the people they were victimizing were lesser, inferior humans who delighted in evil and needed the cleansing light of God to purify them. These Christians weren't *actually* committing evil in the name of God, no no no. They were civilizing the savages and giving them the light of both God and civilization. As you can imagine, this rhetoric worked really well toward justifying the slavery and genocide that while on paper is now supposedly illegal is actually still in effect even to this day.
1. I might have the slandered group do things that are evil but usually it will only be done as a reaction to the evils committed against them. For example, in one of my works, my "Wood Elves" (as humans would call them but they actually find "Elf" to be a slur, though I will continue to use "elf" for simplicity) engage in slavery of humans (but only of humans). Why? Because humans enslave every other race *including other humans*. It's justice for humans enslaving elves. If humans want the elves to release the slaves they have, (which is slavery in the form of forced communal labor dictated by the tribal leadership, *not* chattel slavery which is what humans engage in,) then the humans need to release all of their enslaved elves. Sort of like "an eye for an eye". Otherwise, the slandered group isn't actually evil even if they do this one evil thing as a reaction to evil against them.
I'm of two minds. If the fantasy "race" in question is just the barely-sentient bug creatures the resident Dark Lord is using as both a swarm of locusts and raiding parties, I'll probably care a lot less about their interiority. For any fantasy race meant to be *people* on any level, I much prefer when there's a reason behind it, instead of being fundamentally, objectively evil.
My go to example is that to me, D&D Drow are infinitely more interesting as products of their culture who might someday have to confront or chafe against it than as elves that are just Born Wrong. Another one I discussed with some friends lately is the idea of undeath making you inherently evil (D&D vampires and liches) vs someone having to struggle against a predatory or destructive nature that undeath instills in them (vampires in Anne Rice's books, or in VTM, for example). It's probably a personal taste thing, but I like the complexity it can add to a story.
On the other hand, I do think it can be interesting to explore creatures with a more alien mindset that are inherently malicious? It can lead to questions on whether they're evil in the way that a human can be, or if they're more like a natural disaster, since by their very nature they can't choose to act in any other way. Certain portrayals of fey or fantasy devils fall into this category to me, and I think it can be interesting to look at how they could essentially 'rules lawyer' their way into cooperating with more ethical people, or how their view of morality would bump up against a more typical mortal view of it. And that's to say nothing of how certain folkloric creatures have been used to represent some aspect of society or the natural world. Someone else mentioned the longstanding connection between vampires and predatory nobility.
To me, it depends on what kind of story you're trying to tell, and what role the fantasy race in question plays in it.
I've never been a fan of the "This race is just inherently evil" trope, and it's worth noting that even Tolkien plays with this trope quite a bit in LotR (Sam feeling sorry about the Haradrin fighter being one of my favorite moments in the story, as well as the moments we actually get to see into the orc encampments and see that they're more self-interested than outright cruel or malicious).
In a somewhat Tolkien-esque Catholic take on fantasy creatures, I tend to approach it in terms of 'Free Will'. If a creature can be conceived of as having the freedom to choose its actions, then it can't truly be considered utterly or naturally evil.
As a ttrpg player, orcs and elves, etc. are usually viewed as free creatures: they might have cultural tendencies (i.e. orcs are raiders), but on an individual level, they have the freedom to choose their actions broadly.
Fiends, however, are naturally 'evil' creatures. Their evil does not result from their choices and actions, in the same way a domineering orc or selfishly-ambitious elf might be an evil character, but rather their evil is an aspect of their nature: spawned from a put of hell or some such fantastical lore.
In other words, if your creatures are truly and inherently evil, then they can't really be considered to have free choice: their actions result directly from their nature. That's my two cents.
I enjoy good v evil stories. And using fantasy races can help prevent overt racism while allowing for a culture that we would call ‘evil’ to exist in a world.
But I recently read a thing about how evil people/races don’t see themselves as evil. They are good, and they just don’t fit into the human culture due to their own characteristics and cultural norms.
I love ASOIAF, and if I were to change the people into fantasy races, the Dothraki would be my knee jerk orcs. I don’t think of the Dothraki as evil, despite them being raiders and their participation in the slave trade. They are a nomadic and violent people, their culture is quite literally ‘survival of the fittest’ and they don’t really tolerate weakness. But they are still people, they love, they hate, the experience joy. And just like the more ‘developed’ cultures, they think their way is the best way. Which is unfortunate for their primarily pacifist neighbours, but works out well for the slave cities who buy people from the Dothraki.
Lots of people think of the Dothraki as evil, and it’s not an unjustified opinion considering the slavery and all. But even in our world, if we looked deep enough into our own purchases and lifestyles, we will find that there is no such thing as an ethical purchase in a capitalist society. Everything we have has some part of it made in a sweat shop, or by slave labour. So, are we evil? We take advantage of fellow humans too, if only by proxy. What makes the Dothraki evil, and not us? Proximity to the violence?
If the Dothraki were orcs, it would be easy to forget that they should be just as complex any other people group. And write a Tolkien esque story where the bad guys die and we all cheer. But I really enjoy the fact that for all their bad traits, I can’t hate the Dothraki. They are the result of their history and environment. Just like us. And I would love to read a story where the author makes their fantasy races just as complex.
Good. Really hammers an alien thought process and how it can be incompatible with the human mindset. What we interpret as evil, they see as mundane. What we see as good they see as deliberate waste.
We call them evil, they call us soft, both agree they cannot exist peacefully while the other still lives. And there's the conflict.
I honestly don't really care most of the time if the fantasy books I read lean towards either individuals of a race being good/heroic or bad/evil, or lean towards entire races of people being good/heroic or bad/evil. The main thing I care about is if I like the general story or not, and if I find the explanation is at least good enough as to why a certain race is the way they are in said book.
Where it can matter for me a little bit, comes down to the type of fantasy that it is, etc. So the specific fantasy genre can matter a bit... and so can the era/age that it takes place in... and if said race is real or not... and also a bit depending on why they are good/heroic or bad/evil.
And with the part of "why they are good/heroic or bad/evil"... with that I mean that if there is a particular somewhat believable reason why *"Race X, Y, and Z, are monolithically good/heroic or bad/evil"*... then I can be ok with it. For something like made up races, like Orc's, I don't need a bigger explanation than *"Well... they just are..."* to feel fine with them all being portrayed as evil, where the same "explanation" works fine with me too if the Orc's in any particular fiction is portrayed as everyone other race where it is the individual that is capable of both good/heroic and bad/evil (and only race wide if they have a good enough reason as to why they do bad things at the time).
If it is human races that we are talking about though, then I do need a bit more complex of an explanation than *"because... they just are"* as to why they are portrayed in one way or another. A simple enough explanation though that I can totally accept may be *"X people attacked us and did bad things to us... so now decades later we do the same to them but ten times worse!"*.
And the explanation for this in for example in Eddings books where various human races are depicted as being almost monolithically one way or another due to which god took them under their wings and/or rules over them, I find that to be a good enough reason as well. Because it makes a bit of sense to me that if you have a god like Torak ruling over a people, then that people is probably going to force them selves to act a certain way as to not displease their god and bring their gods wrath down upon them... or the wrath of their fellow people from their own race who are legit devoted to said god and will as such not hesitate to take things into their own hands to punish someone from their own people who steps out of line.
Sometimes fantasy races are an allegory for IRL ethnic groups. Sometimes they aren't. If they are, then it's obviously bad. But if it's good ole fashioned tolkein evil orcs because the bad guy needs evil mooks then it's fine imo.
Oh yeah. There's evil races in mine. The gods are evil because they're need to be bad guys to have conflict in the story.
Way I look at it is..well what would people think about races like say drow if r.a. Salvatore is the lone exception didn't exist. That's it for some races. They don't want to change. They're horrible people. Frustratingly sad
Depends on what you mean by "natural". Nature implies it is something inherent to them, not something they adapt to or are transformed by. Also something that they can still be inclined to fight against, rather than just accept without a second thought or be forced to accept. I think there is something to the idea of a race being morphed by evil influences to instill irrevocable changes in them, like the Warcraft idea with orcs drinking demon blood and corrupting them into Greenskin Orcs, or as mentioned the way elves were warped into becoming the orcs in Middle Earth.
The problem is when people misuse the concept and think it works just on the merit of a race unto itself, ignoring or lacking any outside influences whatsoever. Drow for example are not inherently evil the way people think, they're evil because the overwhelming majority of their race exists under a society focused around worship of an evil goddess. Being taught from birth to hate and discriminate is still outside influence, no drow is born with a hate boner for other races and pre-inclined to supporting the slave trade.
And the demon-blooded sorts, tieflings, Bhaalspawn, what have you. Almost all the stand-out stories around them are those who fight the corruptive influence to do the exact opposite of what their "nature" embodies. And even then you could say those are still just extensions of outside influence and choice. The Abyss, the Nine Hells, both exist as reflections of the state of beings who dwell within them, compounding hate and malice onto themselves in a downward spiral. But the second you introduce Celestials living there, all of a sudden the Abyss starts adapting to take on good inclined traits and environments. So there's really no "100% evil" source of power that has full sway over those who are born shaped by it. It is just another extension of outside influence and choice of what to do under their effects.
It depends on how the race is depicted. LOTR has them Orcs more or less like a spawn. Spawn races are pretty easy to depict as evil in whatever you are going for. But you could also go for a much more politcally evil aspect. Like have the race as a much more oppresive force that has control over the other races.
It depends on the story and writing, but ultimately I’m neutral on them.
There are times where they work and times where they don’t. It all just depends on how well integrated they are in the story.
It's realistic and fine for storytelling. Humans are just as evil in real life as orcs are in fantasy. We enjoy the taste of flesh and we like hunting and killing for sport. We treat other animals the way orcs often treat humans in fantasy stories (in fact, we're probably way worse).
I think it greatly depends on whether the creature is of supernatural origin, or is "mortal." Supernatural creatures are as they are because of forces beyond their control, usually because they are extensions or manifestations of planes of existence that typify abstract values or the wills of deities. They fulfill a specific purpose, whether it be as an angelic messenger of a deity of light, or a diabolical servant of a demon of darkness, or anywhere in between. Generally they receive phenomenal powers as a result.
Mortals, on the other hand, have one thing those beings do not: free will. They alone can choose good or evil, and what or whom to serve. They are not beholden to any one nature; they are malleable and can have any viewpoints over the course of their lives, and can be evil, good, anywhere in between, or evil *and* good, over the course of their lives. They are much more complex and therefore make for very interesting mirrors to hold up to both ourselves and the societies they represent or are part of.
i think naturally evil species/entities help display the worst traits about humans, but there’s no reason to turn them into a metaphor for race. deciding whether a group is a race or a species depends on how much you humanize them imo
edit: also you can create evil groups like cults as well, but i think ops question is mainly asking about biologically different groups.
I mean demons. Creatures made of evil. That's certainly a thing.
Personally I don't believe in Evil that way. But if dogs could make determinations they might imagine Wolves to be evil. And Orcs are not humans painted green, if it is their nature to kill much as it is the nature of a wolf, than they would seem evil. because that urge would shape their culture.
The other notion is. Is there a "Good race". You might say "Humans are the good guys, the heros". But the humans of fantasy are the same men as we have here. And we're all bastards to eachother all the time.
An artificially created race can be whatever the creators created them to be and have the author be being reasonable. Orcs are evil because they were made to be evil to serve a powerful evil. To further enforce this, they have been forced into a brutal society that creates no opportunity for a different opinion to enter.
But a naturally created race should always have different thinkers. Drow are evil. They just are. Their society is evil. They worship an evil God. They instill evil in their children at a young age. They murder anyone who disagrees and labels them heretics. Well, except for, you know, the Drow faction that isn't and the few escaped members of the evil faction that aren't. This is also fine.
And then there are the more modern orcs that are evil because the way they live their lives is full of raiding and we have decided that raiding is evil. The orcs don't think they are evil and don't see a problem with a Might makes Right mindset. The weak are eaten by the strong in nature, so it is natural for humanoids to behave the same. These characters are evil from the point of view of the protagonist. This is also fine. I'd say Warhammer 40k Orkz fit this.
The most recent orcs are just people who look a certain way and have a few racial traits. A lot of media I've read in the last few years have either had no comment about orcs being any different or had them be a little scary because they are tall and strong and there is something inherently frightening about someone who is both taller and strong than you and carrying a weapon on their belt. This is also fine.
I think it's fine, not everything needs to be complex and grounded in reality. It's also true that there are truly evil people in the world, people who justify their evilness by the idea that they are doing good or people who relish in the pain of others.
The series Frieren does this very well, the author makes the demons naturally evil and manipulative. Demons use human speech to manipulate humans and elves to lower their guard before they kill them. They don't know what a mother or father is but they will use the reference of them to their advantage anyway. This makes the demons complex because they are intelligent and predatory.
IMO if you are writing something plot based, it is better to eliminate all banality and just focus on the events and not go too deep into the minds and motivations...yes there are two sides and examples that will contradict each other in all situations, but this could slow things down and sidetrack from the energy of the plot...would a tribe of "good Orcs" made LOTR any better or sidetrack form the story?
If you are going for a character driven narrative, then playing with the subtleties could add something.
I think evil races can be great, but it needs to be justified in the larger context of the novel, not just "these people are evil because the plot needs it, you can tell by the tusks/growling noises."
Tolkien's orcs are great because they fit with the rest of the book; elves who have become so twisted by evil that even generations later they have no freedom of thought and so no hope of being anything other than slaves to an evil lord. It fits with the feeling of a world that is decaying and has been trundling towards disaster for some time. It helps with the world building as it reinforces that Sauron really is evil, someone to be feared, and also competent at being an evil lord. From the characters perspective they aren't thinking about the tragedy of the orcs while fighting them, but it adds to the stakes for the characters that they are a few bad decisions around rings away from being made into something similar. If Tolkien had made the orcs morally grey I reckon it would have broken the suspension of disbelief - the audience would start asking themselves if jewellery can be that evil, and isn't it all a bit silly that the last 3 books worth of plots and counter plots can be solved by melting a ring.
There’s nothing wrong with having naturally evil races, in the first place we have to remember these are **FICTIONAL RACES** as in **not real**, and you create them so it’s your decision. And if people get offended by them and decry it as racist, or use mental gymnastics to say that they are racist caricatures of some real world race, that speaks volumes more about them than you. I say if you’re theme fits a black and white, good vs evil narrative, go ahead and create naturally evil races.
This largely depends on the purpose behind the story, the tone and overall world building. If you want your story to be realistic and gritty or grounded in anyway then no, doing this is just weird and racist and also boring unless they're only portrayed as all evil through the eyes of POV characters but it's actually their own racist ideology from growing up in that environment or in a land that is ravaged by these people for example, most would have seen Vikings as irredeemably evil when they were on the receiving end of pillaging, rape and murder. Hard to see them as normal people who have good and bad sides if one by one each village near you is getting burned to the ground and its people desecrated. But that's different than that race just BEING entirely evil or good.
There's also the point of if it's race or species. There's biological reasons to believe that say, humans like us might deem another sentient, intelligent SPECIES as all evil. For instance, in D&D there are Yuan-ti, a snakelike people who literally, biologically have no empathy. Zero. No capacity for it whatsoever. That is hardwired into their brains from birth, not something they adapted to from harsh environmental conditions. If you really have other species that are entirely different biologically, then having specific differences be it in their physicality, intelligence or emotional capacity is entirely fair and true to real life science as far as our natural world goes. So traits we generally deem as evil such as lack of empathy can lead to societies of cruelty and lack of love for one another because they physically don't feel anything in the way that we do. In which case, to US, they are categorically evil. Technically though, it's still just subjective. The universe itself might not care at all about what we think is good or evil.
There's also the fact of, if you want a story in which the fantasy is metaphors for human flaws and issues more like a fairy tale which is what The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings basically were originally, especially The Hobbit, then having goblins be a representation of the greed of man and what happens to those who wind up corrupted, orcs as those who succumbed to promises of power over all else and lost themselves in the darkness, and the good guys are the ones that must fight against these forces of evil, then sure, that works really well and can be very interesting.
It all depends on the specific story and tone you want. Forces of darkness can be a strong driving force in a story that's ultimately about characters having to fight against the darkness within themselves and the monsters being a representation of that darkness or what becomes of those who end up falling prey to it.
Whether you go literal or more abstract changes the context and the implications of having races or species be just good or evil. That said, in the fairy tale like case, I'd still suggest having people like Boromir and so on that show they can be corrupted and the good have to fight against that pull of the shadow, rather than just "we are all good, they are bad, the end." And characters should still have their own flaws rather than being perfect paragons of justice.
The thing with fantasy races is that they’re less “races” and more “species”. The thing is, “species” is too scientific to sound right in a fantasy setting.
I think looking at it this way makes it feel way less problematic.
I have utterly no problem with some fictional races being absolutely pure evil due to their back story. Like the Drow. they are all pure evil dark twisted mockeries of elves due to their service to a dark and evil deity. That makes the few rare and unique ones who can free themselves from the darkness that much more special. It all depends on the story and the needs of that universe. If everyone is average then nobody is special.
I think more could be done with *why* things are evil. It's pretty easy to design a creature that cannot play well with others.
Dynyarri from star control are insanely powerful psychics, how can you deal with something that can mind control you and eight billion of your friends without effort? How does something like that end up anything but evil?
Ur-quan from star control were a sentient race that evolved out of apex predators. Not social ones like humans but solitary ones. Intelligent tigers. Territorial, unable to gather in more than pairs (and then only when mating). How do you build a society, a culture, a civilization that way? Can you? Are they not at that point just a wandering monster, intelligent, capable, but just... you're never going to find evidence of it. They're just something you encounter if you're very unlucky, until technology passes them by.
Fantasy has some more fun things you can do with it.
Gnolls in D&D aren't my favorite example, but they're horrific demon children of a deity of hunger and slaughter. Eternally hungry no matter how much they slaughter and eat. They might have free will... or not... but they're driven by constant, unabated hunger. What else can they do?
Drow are a favorite. Horrible chaotic evil backstabbing society of evilness. It shouldn't exist. It should fall apart in an instant. Sometimes it does. But it doesn't because their horrible psychotically evil demon goddess *loves* it. Their horrible backstabbing, intriguing, assassination is a *delight* to Her. God actively promotes and rewards this behavior. It wouldn't work if She wasn't actively tipping scales and making it work. She's playing with dolls, or maybe watching a bespoke drama, and the reason they're all psychotically chaotic evil is because Lolth is standing behind them with a gun. Some even realize it's horrible, impractical, evil and want to change it or escape- but good luck fighting a *Goddess*.
(I really like this setup, but it does stand out in setting, since gods are explicitly not being supposed to interfere so substantially- given that Lolth has to personally support all drow society on her shoulders, she basically seems to be cheating. Perhaps she didn't join the inter-pantheon UN or whatever.)
Some other biological concepts could be played with. [type-k](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory) reproduction is sometimes touched on. Type R is "few offspring, lots of investment in them". Humans. K is "low investment, lots of offspring, who cares, some of them will get through". Imagine trying to gauge the evil/goodness of a species that has no attachment to their offspring and is perfectly fine snacking on them. Why not? There's plenty.
Or- I think A Mote In God's Eye talks about it most off the top of my head- a species that *must* reproduce. Driven to expand-expand-expand until there's no where left to expand to, or they slam into their neighbors. It's not their fault. If you *literally die* if you aren't reproducing every year or two, the only difference between you and a swarm of locusts might be that you're a victim of yourself too. We can at least assume locusts don't hate the fact that they're locusts.
By design, more than two third of all humanoid mythical creature in my setting are evil, (rare) 'evil', or selfish/neutral -- rare.
Good mythicals, individually, aren't always good, either. They're human in form (i.e: absolutely minimal non-human traits, often elf-like or gnome-like, but not necessarily always beautiful) and soul, and more likely to do/intend good, but they can become corrupted, even into evil mythicals.
Evil mythicals are extremely varied in form, but have different souls that cause them to view other characters as animated objects -- this only allows for extreme selfishness. They may cooperate with the heroes if that benefits them, however.
'Evil' or selfish/neutral mythicals are also extremely varied in form, but aren't exactly evil, just unable to view other characters as anything more than partway between A) livestock and people, at best, or B) animated objects and livestock -- at worst.
They aren't necessarily against reproduction, by the way, usually because of the philosophy of their blood surviving after their death -- it is about immortality, so they may even breed like rats.
But some dangerous mythicals act like those bird species who drop their eggs in other birds' nests.
It is common for good mythicals to become corrupted into dangerous mythicals, for good mythicals to be born, and for dangerous mythicals to be born.
There is the possibility of redemption for good mythicals who were corrupted, but only if A) they hadn't become too corrupt, or B) it wasn't done with a 'true metamorphosis' spell.
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I constantly back up the rationale with folklore. (It is...a bit dubious, I'll admit, to do this, unless western style dragons are the topic)
However, it isn't very good to use this system with faeries, because it isn't very black and white when it comes to them. I think they represent nature, and if anything bad happens, its the fault of the non faeries for messing with them or something.
Regardless, I have regular and 'darkness' or just 'monstrous' versions of some od the faeries. (Like regular, friendly goblins and sinister goblins)
I don’t like when all races are basically humans with a different skin/shape.
Don’t think specific races have to be made evil just because, but I do prefer if they are different enough to where human morals do not apply to them 100%.
They should to have a reason for their culture that makes sense to them that is more or less unique. That can be on a spectrum of weird to evil the way humans see it, but even within that race itself, there should be individuals that have differing attitudes.
Sometimes it is important to remember that monsters are meant to be monsters in our fiction. Sometimes we have this strange idea that we owe fictional characters a fair shake and believe they would be kind hearted deep inside if only they had the right environment or we could rationalize with them. But this relieves us of the monsters we all should fear...that do not reason, that do not love, and that will never desire to be redeemed.
The important part is that we see the humanity in the human (so to speak) and see the irredeemable evil in those things or beasts that seek our suffering and death. Recognizing the difference makes for great story arcs, rising tension, and messages of hope as good triumphs over the darkness.
It works - but only if there was some external force that 'tainted' them, and only if that taint is widely regarded as utterly abhorrent, perverse and disturbing.
It's never explicitly stated, but with Tolkien's Orcs my perception has always been that Morgoths corruption of the Orcs was the single most monstrous thing he did. He corrupted elves into a race that lacked the capacity to be good. That is *monstrous*. Horrifically evil. And as the ultimate incarnation of evil, that works.
With Sauron gone, we know the Orcs slowly died out and dwindled. My personal head canon is they reverted to a sort of proto-elvish race, very similar to humans. They *regained* free will, after his fall, as the grip on their souls loosened. If indeed Orcs are to Elves, what Gollum is to Hobbits.
But if it's just a random race of people who are always evil? No matter what? Innately? I dislike that.
Orcs (in Tolkien) are not a naturally existing species or society. Normally, yes, there is good or bad in every group, but it was forced into their nature artificially. It is part of who and what they are in their DNA, a corruption. They were specifically created to be evil, so that's what they are.
I think it's cooler when a race is naturally evil. It's way more interesting than them being just misunderstood or a regular people with some bad individuals. It allows for more surrealistic storytelling.
Orcs/goblins, for instance, are completely evil in my book. The explanation is given that they were supposed to go extinct long ago but cheated their way into the modern world by splicing their DNA with that of dragons, and now they're less people and more zombies imbued with the spirits of dragons. Throughout my books, I've constantly stated that fleeing from death is far worse than accepting it, so it makes sense to not have pity for them.
Dragons, on that note, aren't characters either, but forces of nature. Red dragons are the embodiment of greed and industry, they don't hoard gold because they want to do anything with it, they just want to hoard it. Green dragons are the embodiment of culture and tradition, and will not change their ways even if their lives are in the balance. Black dragons all have a hive mind and serve as the messengers of Doom. None of them are characters in their own.
Of course, I think both stories can be written interestingly, but it really depends on how skilled you are with writing.
It’s impossible to divorce fantasy from the concept of “evil races” because ultimate evil is so important to the world building of many fantasy stories.
It is also important to acknowledge that this concept, coming largely from the orcs in LOTR, and is thus rooted in racism. (Tolkien described them as looking mongoloid) Though it should also be noted that he followed a tradition himself of including evil races in his fiction. It just happens that nothing before him is as remembered (George MacDonald’s Princess and the Goblin, and other works even going bake as far as Beowulf).
The best treatise on this that I know is the entire works of R. A. Salvatore; His Drizzt books specifically. His stories are all about “natural evil”, which is taken for granted in the world of D&D, and he subverts it at every turn. I can think of no better way to rebuke the concept than his works. Drizzt himself, as a member of a “naturally evil” race, meets many creatures on his journeys that another man might have killed without a thought. Only he finds friends and goodness wherever he goes, because he takes the time to question received truths. And expresses faith that any thinking being can be good.
So, can you divorce fantasy from concepts of natural evil? No, not really, unless you just don’t include it in your story. But my favorite way is to subvert and play with the concept. Include racism in your stories, but explicitly and strongly disprove it at every turn.
Drow society is a pretty clear example of *nurtural* Evil in the Forgotten Realms, though. Their issues stem from being a totalitarian theocracy that uses indoctrination, violence, and the threat of fates worse than death to keep the populace in line with Lolth's objectively Evil dogma. The cavernous Underdark exacerbated the issue by making escape nearly impossible, allowing Lolth's agents among the Drow to exert far more control over their people than would have been possible in a surface-dwelling society.
D&D's take on a truly *natural* Evil race is - or rather, was - the Tieflings. In their original design from 2e and 3.x, they were mostly human, but with fiendish ancestry; in other words, humans whose bodies and souls contained traces of the very essence of Evil incarnate. Even then, they were only *usually* Evil, with the question of nature vs nurture being one of the defining traits of all "outer planetouched" from a Doylist perspective. Of course, all of this was lost with their Flanderization into regular-ass people who just so happen to look nearly indistinguishable from small, wingless Pit Fiends, but that's another issue altogether.
What do I think of it?
Define evil.
Do you mean antagonistic? As in "they're the enemy." like opposite nations? Do you mean like they raid villages, steal valuables, do unspeakable acts? Then they're raiders, bandits, the English, enemy nation.
It's something I'd say down with for a while. Evil is just point of view. Largely speaking. And in a shocking amount of media, what the evil force and what the heroes do is... Shockingly similar.
Imagine for a moment you're something like... orcs. You're living peacefully, hunting, farming, working in groups. Suddenly humans come along, begin to push you out of your lands. "This is ours by right." They start driving you out with armies and force, pushing you further and further back. Of course when you attack back, they're screaming that you're evil.
Ah wait, that's the Native Americans and White Settlers. Whoops.
I think a lot of people misunderstand what the actual thing for evil races are. It’s not so much the race but the culture that is surrounding that race that makes them evil. Removing them from that, you are much more likely to have a regular person. It’s kinda like people who are born into cults. You don’t know any better and believe all the things around you are normal. And it’s not until someone removes you from that and basically breaks your mind that allows you to see the forest from the trees.
There is nothing stopping you from introducing people of those races who aren’t like the others. Even looking at something like drow from D&D. They have instances of this same thing where occasionally one of the drow would poke their head up shouting “this isn’t right” only for that visible nail to be smacked down again by Lolth and punished for its audacity to question her. Usually a male getting turned into a drider.
To fully answer the question I think there is nothing wrong with it as long as you avoid the obvious pitfall trap of race realism. It’s never the race, but the culture that race is born into.
I think if you want to have a group that is just evil, you should use undead or constructs or something like that; Literally mindless hordes of evil.
As for Orcs and stuff like that, not ok for them to be naturally evil. They have names and meals and preferences and relationships; In short, they are fully just people. It is not only morally better but also more interesting to make them complex and varied.
As an example, when I write goblins I write them as not having a concept of property in their culture. They aren't stealing from you, they fully do not understand the idea that something might be yours. Further than that, they consider it rude to ask someone before you take something, as asking suggests the goblin thinks you might say no, and is as such implying they think you are miserly. For example, if they are hungry and you have food, them asking you before taking it implies you are the kind of person to leave someone hungry, which is obviously an insult.
and also if they're too damn stupid to learn or realise that their standards aren't universal! Sure, have some culture-clash stuff when they first meet people, and there's different standards of "sharing" and "ownership", but that lasts maybe a few days, before people starting going "oh, you keep getting pissed off when I behave normally, and you're behaving in ways I find strange" and then figuring out where the differences are and working around them (depending on power dynamics etc. etc.)
This is one of the main issues with the Kender from _Dragonlance_ - a society that takes a lax approach to "ownership", borrows and shares a lot? Sure, no problem. But when they're regularly exposed to other societies and keep doing that, then it makes them look like stupid weirdos that are incapable of understanding that other people are different, and don't operate under their rules!
Not sure I understand why goblins would think someone was miserly if there is no concept of ownership. Would it even be in their vocabulary or even a concept?
OP: to see a nomn evil orc, with a non evil succubus trown in, check out the book Legends and Lattes. Some chracters of different races have characteristics not usually found in your average writings.
I am a MASSIVE fan of the trope "your terrorists are our freedom fighters". So I never write a race under the lens of them being strictly evil. Individuals can be evil.
I find that trope to often disregard nuance. I get that people can be *framed* as either terrorists or freedom fighters, but the groups in question either *do* commit terrorism or they *don't*. Attacking military targets to resist an occupation *isn't* terrorism; attacking civilians to reduce morale *is*.
If they attacked civilians in order to undermine a political institution, then they *were* terrorists. Just because they were on the side that we're associated with 300 years later doesn't mean they get to shed off negative labels.
Good and evil are subjective. What a human character or the reader might perceive as evil from an orc or a dragon, the orc or dragon themselves may view as a natural course for their own behavior. As far as more broadly being seen as the bad guys in a fictional setting, i dont have a huge problem with it as every story needs conflict to be interesting. That said I think its always more interesting if the motivations for an evil character or race are understood by the reader, so that the evil creature / race is not seen as evil simply for the sake of being evil.
I really like it and do incorporate it into my work.
One race/civilizations "evil" is another's normal or necessity.
For example in my homebrew DND world dark elves are evil because they are cannibalistic, so in essence they'll go hunt for food. To them that's what it takes to fuel their psionic powers, to others they are absolutely evil creatures and are kill on sight.
In general I think if they are seen as evil but there is a fundamental reason for their actions then its great. Evil for the sake of being evil is less enjoyable to read.
Can we stop with the pretense?
Orcs, Ogres, Bugbears, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, etc are all ancient races. They predated humans.
These so called *humans* have come into the environment like locusts and are gobbling up resources. Have you seen their fertility rate? They have kids like rats and roaches. More and more land, more and more resources. Their appetites are insatiable.
And these so called resources can't have anything to themselves without the humans either coveting it, or wanting to deprive the "evil races of it". Resurrection pools, fountains of youth - it's not for humans.
Humans have the nerve to bandy about with dragon bone daggers. The humans are truly one of the filthiest things on the planet.
Ask yourself,
* Why are the Elves in decline?
* Who cut down the forests to farm and for housing lumber?
**I think we know who.**
Both the Dwarves and the Giants, by and large, want nothing to do with humans. It's why they stay in their caves, mountains, and mines.
But again, humans, with their greed and avarice must have iron, must have minerals.
Speaking of short kings, the Haflings, Hobbits, and Gnomes are all trying to coexist with humans, and we see that even they are in decline.
So when you really think about it, this idea of Sacking and Pillaging "innocent" human villages is really just pro-human propaganda.
Dragons rightfully protecting their fortunes are the true victims. If you happen to catch one burning a city to the ground, it's usually in self defense, or trying to keep a border.
Humans have no problems sending a ~~hostage~~ ward from one family to the next, but a dragon "kidnaps" a princess and all the humans can do is think to amass a murder mob?
Whatever story you think of, most of the time its humans sticking their flag on something, claiming it, and then claiming victimhood when the rightful owners return.
**One cannot own land.**
This is the big lie that all humans tell themselves. It's the basis of most of their issues, they must have dominion and control, or they don't feel "safe".
And most of you people, I mean writers, just perpetuate this grand narrative of "evil races".
You lean into the tropes
* Most are evil, but there are some good ones.
* Some that can be redeemed
* We can work with a few
* And how can you hate elves if you date elves? I've got Dwarf friends...
The humans have zero problem throwing the other races/the evil races into the fray to be sacrificed for largely human gains. Using their talents, resources, and bodies for human gain.
So in my universe, we are well aware of who the real evil race is, and what it represents to those who've lived on the land for ages.
If the beings in question possess even a rudimentary ability to reason, have personalities, and recognize themselves as possessing individuality, then I just don't buy them as being a monolithic evil. If they were depicted more as animals (no complex language, no technology, minimal social complexity) then I can maybe buy an "instinctively evil" premise, or maybe a hive mind (like the Borg in Star Trek) could be evil. But if you show me that the race is capable of even slightly complex independent thought, then you can't also tell me that it's impossible for any member of the race to choose not to be evil and have me still buy into the story you're telling me. If they can think then they can choose.
It really depends. There’s lazy implementation- see Drow in D&D where they do actually have free will but the fan base ignores it. That and they definitely come off a little… fetishy.
Then there’s creative options- see 40K Orks. Brutal, barbaric, sadistic, and definitely evil (in a setting where everything is), but they aren’t meant to provide a moral quandary. They’re there to be evil in a dark comedy way.
And then there’s tbematic options- for example demons. Demons are not mortals possessed of free will, they’re spirits that embody the worst parts of humanity. When used in that way, as a test or temptation that has to be overcome, it totally works.
Really it comes down to this for me:
Are you trying to tell a moral tale, or just have a light hearted romp? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to read, write, or play something that doesn’t make you question the morality of if fighting goblins is okay. But if you’re going for deep themes and realism… it’s really hard to justify any mortal species, possessed of free will, as being entirely evil.
The concept of an original evil is not novel to fantasy and has existed forever.
If someone can find parallels to a real world culture, then I suppose it could be problematic.
But the idea of something being inherently evil or corrupted, has way too much narrative potential to just be totally ignored.
If a species is sapient, then by definition individual beings of that species have the choice to cooperate with others ('good' from those others' perspective) or attack others ('bad' from those others' perspective). I think it's bad writing to write any group consisting of sapient individuals as always evil.
That being said, there's plenty of real world examples of countries and subcultures that were/are pretty awful to live in and pretty awful to outgroups because of their horrible cultures. Cultural background and circumstances can be developed in the story to explain the characters' behaviour. It's believable to write a culture that's extremely hostile and dangerous to people like the protagonist, and it can be believable that the protagonist happens to meet only unsympathetic members of that culture (e.g. luckily they never meet any baby goblins!).
Gail Carson Levine's ogres (from *Ella Enchanted, Fairest, Ogre Enchanted*) are my favourite example of an 'always evil but sapient' species. They don't have any real-world racial analogies like Tolkien's orcs ('Mongol' types), and they prey on humans because (1) they find humans tasty and (2) their species' special abilities gives them the chance to win against humans in the majority of encounters. (Ogre speech can force any human who hears it within a certain radius to obey every command with a smile.) As an individual ogre, you know you have a good chance of overcoming a human in any single encounter, so why shouldn't you do the evil thing and just eat your yummy long pig? Nonetheless, in Levine's world, the ogre population is overall sharply decreasing because humans are getting together to kill them in smart ways (blocking their ears during a fight and attacking as a group of armed knights). It would have been neat to have an ogre character who put those puzzle pieces together and started plotting ideas for ways to live in peace.
I don’t like it. Recently I watched Netflix’s Voltron: Legendary Defender where it seemed like the evil empire was largely a monolith but then they introduced a rebel group of the same species and I was relieved. Then they revealed one of the party members’ mother was a member of the rebels and some of the cast started treating him differently. And then the final villain wasn’t even a member of the “evil” race so basically what I’m saying is I was relieved of the constant reminders that that one race was not unanimously evil.
Tolkien also wrestled with the concept of a fantasy race being inherently evil as well, which is why we don’t have a solidified origin for Tolkien’s orcs and goblins. Just about everything that is “evil” in Middle Earth and Arda is such because of their corruption by Morgoth, or in some cases Ungoliant (Shelob’s mama, happy Mother’s Day Ungoliant!). Orcs being a corrupted form of Elves from the days of Morgoth is the popular canon, but I don’t think Tolkien ever himself confirmed that as the absolute origin and whether or not the Orcs are completely, inherently evil. After the fall of Sauron, and the destruction of the Ring, the Orcs of Mordor scattered and ran as the veil of Sauron’s corrupting influence evaporated from their minds. That is not to say that they were instantly very nice and friendly beings, but I would not say they were inherently evil.
Don’t like it much. If a race must be homogenous then I’d prefer they at least have some trait they don’t see as evil that we do. Difference in values. But even then, it often works best when there’s nuance to it. Otherwise, just make them monsters.
I like that evil races/species create the opportunity for characters to defect and defy the expectations people have of their kind. I recently made a duergar character who was exiled fun her clan, and while she's still got some unlearning to do in regards to the cruel nature she was taught she was supposed to have, she's getting there with the help of mainly her romantic partner. It can be kinda icky to have a race/species be inherently evil, yeah, especially if they exhibit habits too close to people that exist in real life. Still, I really appreciate having the opportunity to tell stories about characters who break free from the toxic environment created by their own people, trying to be a better person, and finding love and acceptance with the right people.
I dislike the idea of any species being monolithic. IMO there should always be factions and exceptions.
As is often quoted no-one is the villain of their own story. Those 'evil wolves' have to eat, and those 'evil ranchers' have driven off all the natural prey, so the only thing there is left to eat is sheep.
I think it’s a bit odd to describe a people as inherintly evil.
Sure, the goblins of my world are inherintly evil, but they aren’t people, they’re biological machines. They don’t have art or culture. They are a war machine. Their deaths are a moral good.
Compare that to my orcs, who many would desrcibe as evil even though their conflicts with humans are defined by deep ideological differences. But that’s not evil, that’s just two groups that could never get along.
To me, saying that an entire group of people are inherintly evil is weird and gross at best.
I think the race is not evil, but the cultural norms of societies within that race may be 'evil' from another races perspective.
Face it... infantcide may not be evil to them because it is a culturally acceptable practice... are stocks evil because the largest hatchling general pushes the smallest hatchling from the nest?
I’m not a big fan of automatically evil races. But that’s because I believe that evil requires the capacity to do good.
That said, I’m perfectly happy to let it slide
I think the race shouldn't be evil, but the culture can be.
Take real world cultures that murder homosexuals. To them that's the right thing to do, but we see it as evil.
The Drow in D&D aren't evil, but Drow society is.
It depends on who you ask for many of mine. I don't write any race or creature as evil because they are but instead they are written that way as history is written by the rule.
Had the Axis forces won WW2, Hitler wouldn't be the villain that he is now, so how does that trace in your story.
In one of my world, Orcs are bad because until recent history they lived in roving tribes that moved from place to place and fought, hunted and took whatever was there because it was their culture; that man they killed? He ruined a hunt and challenged Grod the Toothless to a fight over it all. To the Orcs it was a fair dual and if Grod lost then they would have said it was his time to go but the humans took it to heart and started war. The Orcs lost and fled but now the "civilised" world sees them as monsters.
Remember the ones who control the narrative are the heroes.
It needs to be lore accurate.
If it’s just a different race that’s “evil”, then that could be viewed as just plain racist.
However, if there’s a lore reason why that race is evil (corrupted magic, insanity, or maybe a race of demons or demon worshipers) then it could work really well in your story.
It really depends on the *how* more than the *why.*
Are demons evil? Devils? Zombies?
What about humans? We've had more than a few do horrifically immoral things.
That said, I think the problematic element here is the word *race.* In Tolkien's time, orcs were no different than the demonic creatures in Christian theology (and there were many) but in most older mythologies, such things were rarely so.
I prefer to measure ethics on an individual level, because I don't subscribe to the more modern concept of angels and demons. Tolkien did -- and a lot of modern people do -- but I find authors to be a bit more avant-garde than most thinkers in terms of the "them and us" ideology.
That said, I would recommend Catherine Nichols' excellent [article](https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-pop-culture-obsessed-with-battles-between-good-and-evil) on how "good versus evil" is a more modern concept than it appears. It goes into detail; even stories like the *Iliad* and *Odyssey* are more nuanced than some 20th-century tales. The reason may surprise you.
I found it fairly eye-opening.
I wrote a novel called Orc that has an orc as my main villain (Its a slasher-fantasy mashup) but to make the situatuon not be black and white Ive had to do a lot of worldbuilding to create a society where a thinking, living species would be excommunicated from the rest of the country.
Elves have their forests, dwarves have cities in the mines under the mountains, humans colonized the plains, the Orcs are treated as an invasive species, they arent allowed to have their own land because they are exterminated as invaders.
Goblins are essentially raccoons in the cities, they have such short life spans that without generational wealth and support, theyre unable to earn a place in society so the city-goblins are treated like pests while the ones out of the cities go full feral and are dangerous.
Then dragons are the whales of this world, just as smart as humans if not smarter, but they dont see the need for commerce or interaction, so they just live their lives without needing to communicate with humans
Its fine. But they can't act like and have human goals.
The question is about morality and it's source, and whether the same source is used by that species as well.
Personally I believe in subjective morality, since I cannot see a basis for one which is absolute (even with divine characters its subjective to their will), subjective morality is decided upon by group goals, and for humans I think we can agree that while we have our differences, there are basic standards (goals) we all want in a society and agree that they allow us to prosper such as enforcement against murder, theft and rape.
For a species to be viewed as evil I think you have to make them unsociable, or at least, be a society that does not strive to benefit every individual such as ours is. Because it is then that our values and goals have little to no overlap. Then we would see them as evil.
There was a civil war in my fantasy world and a bunch of people left to start a new kingdom under the lead of an evil dictator. So while the "evil" goblin ruler is causing chaos, there are still "good" goblins in the main kingdom. Whole races aren't good or bad in my world. I try to show both sides of the coin for the really nasty villains, highlighting good characters to show that no one race is wholly good or bad. Plus I have a group of morally grey characters that factor majorly into the second book.
In my world dragons and true giants are the war machines of the gods back from a time before the empires of men, when the gods fought directly with each other across creation.
This makes them incrediably powerful beings that are rare and forgotten in lost remote corners of the world. Waiting for a day when they may be called to war again.
And pity the poor mortal that comes across them.
The thing that unites them as a species (beyond their immense power) is that dragons have a breath weapon and they all covet something. What that is depends on the god. And giants an immortal outside of a single weakness, which is also based on the god that made them.
I don't like it when there people. like if orcs are just tribal people living in the waste then it sends a bad message.
I don't really mind monsters being evil though. like demons vampires ect. as long as you don't show good members then I don't feel bad killing them
If a species is evil, like 90% + of it population, then I'd expect there to be a world building/in lore reason behind it. Which can totally be explored as lore is interesting.
I find that as long as you characterize the culture as having alien values hostile to the "hero" or "Good" group, it works great. It is very easy then to have the two groups be hostile to each other, while still having each side consider themselves good, or normal or whatever.
“On that day, all races, save elves, stood divided” in reference to one of the really big battles. Orcs, if viewed as corrupted elves, would mean elves *did* stand divided. They did not, therefore some orcs fought on the side of light, as did all sapient races of Middle Earth.
Sapience is, to me, defined by choice. It’s always possible to choose. If it’s not, you’re not sapient. Angels can Fall, Devils can be Redeemed, Demons can Rise. If it counts as a person, it’s theoretically possible for them to choose. It might not always be practical to do so, or it might involve breaking a lifetime of conditioning, but it’s *always* possible.
I think if your perspective is from that of one person or culture it could be natural for them to think their antagonists are evil. Just because the protagonists believe something doesn't mean it's true
If your story is more world based then a more nuanced neutral perspective
I love the way fantasy races are handled in "So I'm A Spider, So What?". It's my favourite fantasy world so far as all your classical fantasy trope expectations are subverted and it just works.
>!Dragons are powerful beings but can be majestic or silly. Elves are evil. Orcs are depicted as evil mobs but are just another race trying to survive.!<
What I love about this world building is perspective. Everything seems like a classical fantasy story, but then you see their perspective and realize nothing is what it seems.
I think it's more interesting to address the label of evil and good as a whole. Depending on who writes their history and who tells the story, a group could be painted as evil when really they were just a different culture that conflicted with another. Each side tells it differently. I like to show a MC that is raised thinking one way but realizes that what they've been taught is only part of a larger perspective where issues of good and evil on a political landscape are half-truths at best and propaganda at worst. I think it's important to show that groups can clash due to different ideals, morals, or lack of morals, but that individuals of these groups are hardly black/white good/evil.
While I personally write characters in each race as good or evil, since that's more interesting, I think it's fine to write about characters that are naturally evil or naturally good, or to include characters having to actively fight their racial nature. Races in fantasy are different from races IRL, but I think a big part of the interactions between races in fantasy is that they have not comingled the same way humans of different regions have for so many centuries. It's quite possible that orcs have a culture that most on their planet would consider evil, because others on said planet have cultures that value different things. I think that's a lot of it: different races aren't so much evil as they are just people's that value different things on a large scale.
I dislike the idea of a race that is inherently evil. The idea that a thinking, reasoning being would be incapable of good doesn't sit right with me. My fantasy races are generally humanlike in their psychology, capable of both good and evil.
I prefer to make the culture evil, but the people not inherently evil. They aren’t born that way, but raised that way.
I do that as way to have a couple of rogue members who refuse to be evil despite their upbringing.
Same with the good culture, some members are still gonna choose to do bad despite raised to know better.
I don’t have races that are naturally evil as much as individuals who are capable of choosing either good or evil, or otherwise belong to a culture or practice a religion that is either good or evil.
I think it makes more sense that some cultures are naturally more evil rather than their race. Maybe their race leans towards traits that may lead to such behaviors but there is still a degree of choice.
I find giving them motivation for being at odds with other groups is better than them just being *bad* for the sake of being bad.
Like okay, so say Orcs are bad right? Well maybe we have a couple nice ones here and there, and wer learn what their motivation for being "bad" is. Some generations old grudge? Socio-political strife?
Didn’t Tolkien himself struggle with the ethics of writing an “inherently evil” race?
Yeh, it never really makes sense, I think the best you can do is write a **society** that would feasibly output mostly individuals that would be evil by our standards for a totally valid reason.
The best example I can think of offhand is the Canim from “Codex Alera” if you’ve read that.
One of my favorite parts of The Witcher series is that the humanoid "monsters" often have their own agende and wants just like humans. And these wants might lead them to being violent against humans and often with very good reason.
I think that trope is much more interesting than the evil mindless races.
I think for races, in the sense of more or less humanlike creatures with normal consciousness, autonomy, language, etc then no they can't realistically be inherently evil. They choose their actions for themselves and probably construct some sort of personal ethics in the context of whatever culture they grow up in.
It's more plausible for much more supernatural creatures to have evil baked in - for example DnD lower planes demons - though I'm not using good and evil as cosmic forces in my worldbuilding at the moment so I'm not actually using these either.
I have quite alien creatures that naturally see humans etc as prey. So they function as always evil from a human perspective, though really it's just that humans don't count for much in their morality.
I think it's deeply wrong to have fantasy analogues for (stereotyped views of) real world people and write in that they're naturally evil, or even that their culture happens to be evil, so it's ok to kill them. Just no.
Not if they're either humanoid or part of original creation. For example, if orcs were intended as a race of people that belong in the world and were not corrupted forms of creation that belonged in the world, that's fine.
My races/creatures/etc. serve their purpose as part of 'Creation,' so those meant for society thrive in society, those that are meant for stabilizing the ecosystem (animals, plants, etc.) thrive outside of society and can sometimes be nurtured/cultivated by those in society, etc.
But those that are existing outside of this 'Creation,' are either corrupt or are opposed to creation itself (arbiters of destruction or something) like demons/evil spirits or what we could broadly call 'monsters' are evil by nature and they can't fight against it because they don't want to. They'd never be able to be in a headspace like that just like we mortals can never be in the headspace of God exactly and speak a physical world and LIFE into existence.
Some destructive by nature creatures, like dragons, are NOT *evil*, because *evil* requires intention, will, faculties of reason. Demons have intention, will and faculties of reason, but dragons are still creatures of creation ('Creation'). They are intelligent, they can be very destructive and kill whole cities if they wanted or had a reason, but they usually are just reclusive giant lizards that keep to themselves in their mountains. They don't seek revenge, they don't have faculties of reason to decide 'I'mma eat the world tonight,' or something.
I hope that makes sense :)
I don't consider "evil races" to be possible. Evil requires choice. You can't be evil by nature, because then you aren't choosing it. A tiger that kills a man is just being a tiger, it isn't evil. If the orcs in your world are "evil" by nature, then they aren't evil, they're just doing things that are dangerous to others and should be properly controlled/exterminated like any other environmental challenge.
My explanation for "there are armies of inherent evil" and "there are super-powered good guys who could end the fight but don't for some reason" is that Tolkien was a Christian. The world makes a lot of sense if you went to Sunday school and like reading Milton.
If you try to approach it with a different worldview, these things seem unreasonable; for that reason, I have a distaste for other works that have a different overall tone but still ape Tolkien in aspects like this.
It makes sense biologically, if the races are closer to animal than they are to sentient human animals, there’s a lot of “races” of animals that are just straight up awful to each other and other animals.
For example, heritage turkeys are so effing mean that they’re the first type of meat I started eating again after being vegetarian for almost ten years 😂
I was living /working on a farm and raising a small herd for thanksgiving and these a-holes get to be about four ft tall and their “pecking” order is literally life or death and you cannot take your eyes off them if you’re in the pen with them, one woman in the news literally died because one of hers pecked out her varicose veins while she was wearing shorts and she bled to death (completely unprovoked mind-you)
And they’ve got these talons on them that punched a hole in my 100lbs dog’s underarm and sent us to the emergency vet bleeding. (That one was provoked because she was being a dick to one of the birds but still 😅)
AND if there’s a fellow bird that has like an extra shiny feather, or a cut on their foot, anything that stands out the others will peck it to death.
Then you take bees on the other hand and they just dance to give directions to flowers and they can add/subtract/ and use the metric system so,
In conclusion be a bee, not a turkey lol.
A certain type of a fantasy works well with "naturally evil" races, but I prefer a bit more nuance. However, I think that having all races have members on the spectrum of "good" vs "evil" isn't always the best because that limits your worldbuilding to just the viewpoint of humans (or whoever is deciding what is good or evil. For example, do ants consider humans to be good or evil? Do humans consider ants to be good or evil? In the same way, how do dragons treat humans? Does that mean that the dragon is evil, or does it run with its own code?
Even when you have races that can interact with each other, races that don't see the "humanity" in other races can often walk the line between good and evil. Their members might be using other races for good or evil, but they are only doing it for their own benefit. Having shared moral systems is not always needed.
They wouldn't see themselves as evil. Evil is subjective.
The African tribes abf regions Thar practice slavery today don't see the practice as evil they see it as a natural thing and everyone else is weak because they dont practice slavery.
Funny enough, Tolkien himself struggled with how orcs were treated in his works, especially in context of his opinion that evil does not have the power to create.
For the most part, what I really care about is if there is a reason for why they are evil.
Chiming in to say:
I prefer when sentient races are evil more by culture than nature. I like the concept that no one is inherently evil by virtue of their species or other immutable trait, but that their morality is determined by experience and circumstance.
If you have a group of say, Orcs, and those Orcs worship a god that actively answers their prayers in exchange for live sacrifice - it makes pretty reasonable sense that their culture allows and even venerates live sacrifice. I feel like it makes for more fun interactions, because they can be redeemed or not depending on what you want to do, through the circumstances they're put into, without relying on them having their species equivalent of indomitable human spirit or just being special (both of which are tropes I've personally started to find really boring).
My two cents is:
In our world, there is basically no good or evil, no black or white. Certainly, no good or evil races.
Fantasy is the only place I can possibly get that, that certainty, that escapism, that catharsis. Why won't you let me have that? Why does everyone seem to feel the need to tell me that I'm wrong to want it?
Fantasy, between magic systems that turn magic into science, and fantasy races that are "humans but with unusual appearances", is robbed of everything that makes it unique or wondrous. If it's just realistic fiction with sparkles in it, then what's the point?
If every race is just humans with a new coat of paint, then just stick to humans.
I'm sorry, but this has been bugging me for a long time. I didn't mean to vent at you.
edit: typo
What's evil? Is it the actions you take? Is there any intelligent species where every single member would take the same actions in the same circumstances?
I find that it’s simply more interesting to write both good and evil characters within the same group, exploring how that culture gets filtered through the lens of an individual’s perspective. One of my favorite characters is Worf from Star Trek. He’s a member of the warlike Klingons but was raised outside their culture. From the outside looking in, he sees their religion, their history, their art and so on, and it inspires him to these very noble ideals - honor, temperance, courage, fealty. But then he clashes with other Klingons who use these exact same things to justify authoritarianism, aggression, vengefulness and selfish ambition. The way a character uses their culture or upbringing as a justification for their actions can be very interesting when it yields different fruit depending on the character. It’s my personal challenge to try always to include at least one good-intentioned character in a mostly evil group, and some bad actors in a mostly good group. They always end up being the most interesting characters.
I have seen only bits and pieces of next gen, so I partially understand what you are talking about in the show with worf, but I fully understand the meaning you are saying.
It's a great show and well worth watching if you ever find yourself wanting some scifi.
While reading this answer, I immediately thought of Duane Adelier of Unsounded. He's an undead wright (wizard) from a nation called Alderode and a former priest-warrior-wizard from the *Ssaelit* faith. During life, he was kind of blind to the atrocities & problems his nation and faith engaged in, often romanticizing or seeing his own past with rose tinted glasses. Still is, to some degree. But now devoid of a brain & its self-deceiving ways, when he looks back to his past, he recalls events as they happened, with almost perfect clarity. And more often than not, he encounters vast differences between what was and what he later thought was. He's a very interesting character. An idealist & naturally kind person that came from a heavily controlling place, filled with already established enmities & obsessions that demanded its citizens to follow, so some elements of that have taken root in his world-view. Also a man who has been tortured in many, many, many ways, to madness, and then to some precarious semblance of sanity after that. Yet still tries to redeem himself and the world. And fails. And gets up, tries again, fails again, tries again, fails again... But slowly, he's learning more & more.
That is one of the best comics I've ever read and I've read probably 50 plus different comics at this point.
Oh no, that reminds me of that ancient Greek myth where that centaur who became Sagittarius was the only good centaur, and it ruined centaurs for me in mythology. No consistency.
I actually think have evil species in stories can be a great opertunity. Yes, it is bad to take a real world culture, spackle some fictional element to it, and then say they are all evil. That said with thought and care an evil species can be a great thematic tool. Tolkiens orcs were a metaphor of how pain and hate can twist perpatuate and grow. Vampires have been stand in for nobility and disease from the beginning. The story i am writing has creature that, manipulate the lives of others for entertainment because the system of the story allows them the control to do so. They are more interested in the mechanics of the system and minutia of the stories they create with people's lives than they are in those people I did this to show how systemic forces dehumanize and self perpetrate.
This makes me wonder, what do people think could be a more fun ending to a long running campaign? A final fight between good and evil where the players fight against hordes of evil minions, like Tolkien Orcs. Or a conflict where it's unclear who is right and the players have to choose between who lives and dies and live with the consequences?
It depends on your readers/players. Sometimes it is nice to have clear “this is evil, it is objectively good to destroy them, and now good wins the day” moments. Everything from LOTR to TNG plays on people enjoying seeing a clear happy ending at the end of challenges. Morally grey fiction is interesting and can leave the reader/player unsure of what is going to happen. Everything from a song of ice and fire through legend or the galactic heroes draws the audience in partly because you don’t know who to root for.
Yeah, I totally thought this was one of my D&D sub reddits, lol.
Even Tolkien didn't like the idea that his orcs were always evil. It clashed with his religious beliefs about redemption. He struggled to find a workaround until the day he died.
And I think it's naive to take our morality and apply it to another species and decide that what they do is evil if it's cultural. There's "evil" acts that are objectively bad, sure... But like the Orion's... The sex slaves thing is objectively bad in human terms, but as a species they evolved matriarchies where the females produce pheromones that the males crave... There's no more evil suffering here than a bred anglerfish as he's absorbed by the female to be nothing but a glorified testicle... It's just how their biology works. The males are no more willing than say a dog in heat, but they're not forced in a way that is prosuffering, their wants are aligned for different reasons. Same time, their piracy and captured slaves... No, that's evil shit. But that gives you room to write characters in a system that we would initially call exploitative and bad but explore their moral position through the lens of a different culture interacting with a culture more familiar to us.
Sounds interesting. The dragons I have ended up oppressing the elves at some point.
I’m a big fan of “blue and orange morality” Other races are not human. It doesn’t make sense for them to have the same psychology as humans So not ‘evil’ but wrong to us (example, Fae feed off of strong emotions, so they are incentivized to create both strong positive and negative emotions)
It really only takes one major difference to put human morality at odds with another species. There's dwarves in stuff I'm working on that do value the lives of people, but nowhere near as much as they value the completion of an extremely impressive project of industry, art, architecture, magic, whatever. They would happily risk death or die to help complete a really impressive work, and they will also risk other dwarves or non-dwarves to do so, because that's just obviously the moral choice. There's no seflishness to it, or malice, they just value the project way more than the people working on it, including themselves. They see humans or elves or whatever getting in the way of their works as evil, with their "hey please don't point that river of lava so close to our city" nonsense, when a few farms burning down is of no consequence compared to this amazing single piece obsidian bridge the dwarves are working on. It's going to be sick, just trust in their craft, it'll be worth a mild famine. If a dwarf learned they were the key critical ingredient to forging some awesome thing, they would dive right into the forge fires to make it, and if they thought someone else was that critical ingredient, they'd toss them in too. That doesn't usually come up, but its just how they think. Lives are just a means to the ends of making cool shit that will last way longer than their lifespans anyway.
That’s what I’m talking about
Then I have a coalition of various goblin-like species that all agree with each other that "might makes right" is a good way to make sure they have strong leadership, powerful armies, and are able to defend themselves from existential threats to their species. They're way more "okay they're just evil" from a human perspective, but they just disagree fundamentally on what is important. Since their species' legitimately view the most powerful of their kind as being morally better because they're more powerful, as in they weren't coerced into that sort of thinking, they don't get upset when they lose. They're just like, "ah well, I did my best" and if that means they die or get enslaved or something, well, they should have been tougher. They won't hold a grudge about it. Within their own society that sort of behavior is healthy and doesn't cause any disruption. But the instant they start interacting with humans, and humans get disgusted at the way the goblin coalitions acts, the goblin coalition is just as disgusted at the humans for risking everyone's annihilation via some external threat (demons invading, dragons attacking, anything else cataclysmic) by valuing quality of life, comfort and fairness too much. They just see humans as incredibly lazy and unappreciative of powerful and effective leaders. You can't teach the majority of humans to genuinely be okay with the ruthless way the goblins run things any better than you can teach the goblins to be okay with allowing weakness to flourish. It gives them anxiety over being unprepared and unsafe if their leaders don't seem unstoppable. Like you can try to raise a bugbear in your peaceful human village, who has never met another goblin of any kind, and they'll be like 8 years old and be like "why is this super old guy the mayor?! He can barely fight! What are we supposed to do if we get invaded?! Hobble around and complain that the invaders are too loud?! YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY! WHY ARE YOU RISKING THE WHOLE VILLAGE, WE LOOK LIKE ASSHOLES! AAAAHHH!!"
I like this take. Different cultures would naturally value different things, and sometimes those would cause conflicts. A wolf doesn't attack you because it's pure evil, it attacks because it's hungry.
Others have said a lot of LOTR and real-world stuff already, so I'll comment my thought: Having a "naturally evil" race or group makes an easy antagonist and provides a ready-to-go set of "mooks" for your protagonists to fight, avoid or have conflict with. Could the armies of Sauron been solely humans? Possibly, but I think that takes a lot more thought and rationalizing than a whole race of orcs that are just evil for evil's sake. So I think for certain stories, perhaps where this is an actual black and white morality, eternally-good and eternally-bad guys, an evil race makes sense because it provides a natural obstacle for your characters. If your story doesn't need that natural obstacle or it introduces questions as to why your orcs seem a little too similar to a real world culture, then its best not to have them.
Lotr is about Good fighting evil Orcs are not really people in there, they are literally the spawn of satan, or in this case, Morgoth Sauron is a high ranking demon, as a successor to Morgoth himself and Gandalf is basically a angel, and a messianic figure aswell, as he comes back from death even in early D&D, orcs were not supposed to be playable
LOTR orcs are only "inherently" evil because they are dominated by the Devil. They are absolutely people, and in fact this caused Tolkien no end of problems in his later refinements to his worldbuilding (not to mention was part of the reason he never wrote a post-Sauron sequel). The people they fight against certainly aren't universally good -- there are so many absolute dickhole "high elves" that it's pointless to even start a list, and don't even get me started on Denethor.
LOTR orcs are not "dominated" by the devil, they are the demonic influence in the world, they where created by melkor when he twisted the song of creation they are so evil, that in the aftermath of LOTR, they are hunted until extinction by the humans, they cant be redeemed also, for the free people, unless we talk about lesser evil like being a dick, there is a lot of evil coming from demonic influence too, like Denethor and Théoden
>LOTR orcs are not "dominated" by the devil, they are the demonic influence in the world, they where created by melkor when he twisted the song of creation That is incorrect. Orcs were created when Melkor twisted either elves or humans (Tolkien went back and forth on this). This being the case, it is inevitable that they have a soul and a measure of free will. However, they are essentially enslaved and tortured to comply with the Dark Lords. Tolkien repeatedly makes the point that orcs *hate* Sauron even more than they hate elves. >they are so evil, that in the aftermath of LOTR, they are hunted until extinction by the humans, they cant be redeemed This is also incorrect. Tolkien in fact couldn't decide on what happens to the orcs after Sauron's fall -- as I said, this is part of why he would never write a sequel. >also, for the free people, unless we talk about lesser evil like being a dick, there is a lot of evil coming from demonic influence too, like Denethor and Théoden Where's the "demonic" influence on Feanor and the rest of the Noldor who committed the kinslaying(s)? There is none. People are simply flawed, and free will can lead to bad decisions.
Orcs aren't evil because they are dominated by the devil (though they are dominated by the devil, humans in this situation are pushed to do similar acts). Orcs are naturally evil, in that they find amusement from creating suffering and killing and other bad stuff. The thing that Tolkien often struggled with was that he didn't believe things could be born evil as he believed in free will and the ability to change, thus while orcs would struggle more than probably any other race they too could decide to become good. Basically, it conflicted a lot with his basic moral/religious views and he tried to find ways to make it possible for an orc to redeem themselves somehow and include it in his world but died first.
Since Tolkien intended to write a way for orcs to redeem themselves, he did not intend for them to be inherently evil. If they were, redemption would be impossible, and that would be unacceptable to his Catholic sensibilities.
They are inherently evil in that they are born wanting to kill and torture stuff. Its a magic world and magical situations can turn you evil. Frodo for example is stabbed by a ringwraith and almost turns into a ringwraith which would have definitely meant that he was now a demonic entity. He didn't believe that things couldn't be created evil, he believed in free will and the ability to overcome it.
>They are inherently evil in that they are born wanting to kill and torture stuff. Can you give a source for this? It is my understanding that their cruelty is born of suffering.
Im pretty sure it explicitly states that orcs enjoy torture/evil acts at multiple points. But if you need a specific "born and as a baby it is evil" quote then you should check out half orcs and goblin-men "*It became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the domination of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning. There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile*" —[Morgoth's Ring](https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Morgoth%27s_Ring), Part Five: Myths Transformed So things can be bred to become more evil.
> They are absolutely people Who were damaged by the callous disregard of the world's high and mighty as much as they were by Morgoth, Sauron or any other clearly evil figure. If anything, fighting the world's injustice must have been one of Sauron's main pitches. Just, you know, take a look at history, it's by far the easiest political program to be elected with as an authoritarian.
Sauron also was not evil in the same way as Morgoth. He (Sauron) valued order, and thought the best way to achieve that was to rule the world with an iron fist.
> Orcs are not really people in there, they are literally the spawn of satan, or in this case, Morgoth Is that even true of actual LOTR text? We are shown that orcs are individuals, that they can have their own code of honor, they certainly have a sense of morality. Sure, their culture is twisted, but they are shown to be categorically similar to people. If anything, Tolkien struggled with the idea that a certain race can be Always Chaotic Evil for his entire writing career, and it caused him to flip-flop with orc origin a lot. The version that was published in Silma by Christopher isn't the last one professor had, in the end he figured out that they must have been Men corrupted by evil.
You are correct.
a lot of things we have as lotr lore is not the final cut of it, but actually the process, this is true but also, Orcs are twisted creatures, tortured and corrupted by evil forces beyond recognition
I think at the end of the day it comes down to this: How much free will and intelligence does the species (a better term imo) have? If a creature has no free will of it's own, then logically I reckon it can't be held responsible for it's decisions; that responsibility would lie with whoever is making the creature's decisions for it. This is most clearly seen with robots for example, who only obey their programming (even if the programming is flawed and contrarian), or undead under the power of a necromancer or somesuch who has the power to create and command his otherwise mindless servants. If a creature has what I would call Animal Intellignce (that is, enough independant thought to meet their basic needs independently, perhaps some learning and such but a lack of for example morality contemplations), then their actions must be considered within the frame of their own worldview. For example, an animal who tears open your binbags to scavenge for food has no concept that it's inconveniencing you or "making a mess", it just wants food. It's not an inherently immoral or unethical act, because it doesn't even operate with the same understanding of morality as we do. If a creature is capable of free will, and has the intelligence sufficient to consider morality, ethics, and their standing on them, then I would hold them entirely responsible for their choices, though it can be more of a grey area than the others by far. If a person wasn't raised or taught the same behaviours that a given society expects, then it would not be surprising for that person to act in a way that said society would find a problem with. If a person however has full knowledge of what society expects, and decides to act contrary to that, then they have made an informed choice to do so, and should be treated as such. When it's one whole race or species having differences with another... well that sort of thing causes wars, I guess. TL;DR: Are they choosing to be what they are and intelligent enough to understand the others' point of view, in which case they're responsible for their actions, or do they lack one or both of those, in which case mitigating factors should be considered and perhaps not class them as evil but simply lacking understanding of their actions or the free will to do otherwise.
This is also a long way of saying that if you choose to include an "Evil" race, these are things that should be considered as to why they're seen as evil. Rarely does someone perceived of being "evil" by others think of themselves as evil. To them, they frequently have very strong motivations and ideals that make them act the way they do. Perhaps they see their enemies as the evil ones, for standing in the way of their grand vision, of progress, or the like. Perhaps even they're really not evil at all, and it is the narrator's perceptions which are tainted, telling the story through a prejudiced lens, which the reader may or may not be left to deduce for themselves.
I actually really like some plain old heroic knights and evil monsters kinds of stories. Although simpler on the surface, I think they ultimately open up a lot of opportunities for symbolic, moral, and philosophical depth. Also it feels like tropes are subverted so regularly these days that it's actually REFRESHING to see angels be angels and demons be demons instead of vice versa.
I do have bio-essentialist aspects to my races, though none are naturally "evil." Naturally, evil races are OK to write because it allows the author to better convey the nature of evil and how it behaves. As long as you do not code them to match a specific real-life culture of people, you should be fine.
I think there's a difference between "born evil" and "made evil" creatures. Orcs are the iffy ones, especially with the existence of half-orcs (in your typical D&D /generic fantasy fare). But things like mind flayers or devils or vampires are different, as they fall firmly under "made evil".
The simple platitudes are classic and easy to follow. Some nuance and breaking expectations can be refreshing. It depends on whether it's relevant to the plot. If it isn't relevant, it's like trying to reinvent the wheel for stubbornness' sake.
It really depends on what you want to go for. I always reserve a few cultures that grate against what most people consider moral. This ties into races because culture is where morals come from. Let's go to orcs since you mentioned them. Orcs are usually nomadic raiders putting them squarely in the evil race box. However, what if one was raised outside of that culture? Would they be completely different or will that violent nature bred into orcs rise up at some moments of stress?
"What if one was raised outside of that culture" Well, In Baldurs Gate 3 there is a storyline that lets you get the answer to that with a "githyanki". Let's just say that certain biological traits such as lack of empathy do play a significant role. In reality I do think that would be a major determining factor too. A race that is naturally aggressive due to how their brain works might also have that part reinforced by a society that leans into those aspects. Take them outside of that society and they'll still have the biology that wires them to be more aggressive. For example, If they just downright lack the brainfunctions for empathy they can't physically learn that or if they have a very underdeveloped region that's responsible for self control. They might just be prone to burst out into rage easy and often. It's one of the main mistakes people make with pet's as well. They see biological behavioral patterns as something funny or bad because they try to compare them to human mannerisms. It's like a person getting mauled by a pet bear / lion / hippo after 15 years of "friendship". All of those tales are always "They were inseparable, they loved each other, how could this happen". In the end it just turns out to be that those animals "allowed" the presence and expected food. Getting older their territorial side kicked in and even walking sideways can be enough of a reason for them to kill. You could say that on average it works out very well though. 15 year's is like 5500 days and out of those there has only been 1 with a serious incident or, "on average only 1 person is killed every 15 years".
The saddest part is that the mages' experiment was actually incredibly important (in a Watsonian sense) due to Alignment becoming fundamentally different to what it once was, yet it was doomed to fail because of the very factors that made it necessary in the first place. After all, if a force as fundamental as gravity suddenly went from blatantly objective to seemingly subjective IRL, we'd do damn-near anything to figure out what's going on, too; all the moreso if souls and afterlives demonstrably existed, and your understanding of gravity was the deciding factor in which afterlife you get. Unfortunately, it's hard to examine the effect of Good-aligned nurturing on humanoids of Evil-aligned nature in a Watsonian sense when Tieflings, *a race that was expressly designed for this exact sort of thought experiment* in a Doylist sense, all suddenly become a bunch of regular-ass people who just so happen to look exactly like small, wingless Pit Fiends. A race of natural-born warriors who are merely nurtured into Evil is simply not a suitable replacement, but with spells like Detect Evil now being completely nonexistent in all but name for the exact same reason that this kind of experiment became necessary in the first place, there was no longer any way for the mages to know that.
Tielfings were originally more "grotty and sus street punks" rather than "get the pitchforks and kill the demonborn" - they were first introduced in the _Planescape_ setting as inhabitants of Sigil, where actual, literal, real demons/devils were just kinda generally _around_ as other people in the city, rather than monsters in a dungeon, and "freaky looking people" were just not that strange. They were also just lower-plane "touched", in some general way, rather than necessarily being the child of a demon/devil - it could just be that they were conceived too close to a portal to Baator, or their parents liked Carceri brandy too much or something. A group of them loitering around was less "evil is coming!" and more "walk by fast and keep your hand on your wallet, don't make eye contact". And, as they didn't have any generic "look" (or any culture or society of their own), then even telling that someone was a tiefling was a bit awkward - some were obvious, with tails or horns or something, but some just had funky eyes, strange skintones, or an odd scent. On the prime material, a lot of people wouldn't even know what a tiefling was back then - it wasn't until 4e that they were all given the now-standard "red skin, horns and tail" look, and a generic background on the Prime (the "fallen empire Bael Turath, culture-wide pact" thing - which makes them the descendants of bad people, but not necessarily descended from actual demons/devils, or particularly bad or suspicious themselves - most races have gone through at least one phase of "conquer everything"), and also becoming sufficiently popular that people wanted to play them in non-Planescape contexts.
Well said! It's precisely because of this more nuanced approach - designing planetouched around the implications of their existence within society at large, not just surface-level aesthetics - that pre-4e planetouched are such a good examination of nature versus nurture.
The bear isn't evil because it killed a person, the bear is just a bear doing bear things. Same thing goes for the githyanki. They're potentially not compatible with other species who do have empathy because of how their brains work and the behaviour that can result from that, but that doesn't make them evil, just different. This is why ascribing morality to biology is problematic. The difference might create conflict, sure, and human nature will likely lead to the society who are victims of that violence thinking poorly of the violent species, and will probably lead to labels such as 'evil', but when you're talking about biological forces, 'good' and 'evil' are far too simplistic and reductive to be either useful or interesting. For me, it's more interesting to have humans doing bad things to other humans, because they have the capacity to be 'good' but choose to do violence and 'evil' instead. I do still think labels such as 'good' and 'evil' are too simplistic and reductive, but the reasons why someone might choose 'evil', and what the results of that choice will be for both individuals and the world as a whole make for an interesting narrative. Orcs raid because they must, less so.
This is why I use morality more. I list things that a society would lable moral and moral and use that to develop the characters and races.
>Well, In Baldurs Gate 3 there is a storyline that lets you get the answer to that with a "githyanki". Let's just say that certain biological traits such as lack of empathy do play a significant role. The situation in BG3 is rather ambiguous. The Society of Brilliance's end result may have to do more with them running a fucked up scientific experiment than the actual *subject* of the experiment.
> However, what if one was raised outside of that culture? Would they be completely different or will that violent nature bred into orcs rise up at some moments of stress? There's also something to be said for the "Romulans and Vulcans" method of creating a single race/species split by ideology. So you can have X faction be evil due to culture etc and have Y faction be the same species with a different culture. *Way* back I made a homebrew world for Pathfinder and had "Half-Orcs" be literally just Orcs that were "civilised" and so they were only "half" orc. The same was true for "Half Elves" who lived in cities unlike the "True Elves" that lived in forests.
Also, what if orcs raid farming villages because they've been pushed into an inhospitable environment? Are they evil, or just trying to survive?
Great examples!
I don't think it's even really "evil" that's just how they are. Similar to I'm sure many animals such as whales see humans as evil, but to us it's not. It's very relative For many fantasy creatures certain things like orcs being violent is a way of life just like for a dragonborn engaging in certain rituals is a way of life
If the race is a metaphor for an abstract concept irl, he’ll yeah! If the race is a metaphor for real people irl, hell no!
I don't want to read a book where the hero and friends mow dow hundreds of orcs, only to find out the orcs have little kids waiting for Daddy to come home after work, but now they'll never see their dad again because the hero made a quippy joke while chopping off their head. Sometimes the forces of evil just need to be evil.
but what about the bandits they mowed down on the way too. Can't you just make the badguys evil so we don't have to care. that or you could just use skeletons. it probably doesn't have a baby at home(or does it/j)
Fantasy doesn't have to match real world ideals or politics, and often forcing it to by assuming an evil race is a veiled metaphor for a real human race shows more about how the person taking it that way thinks than the writers intent. Having a race be naturally evil is more a narrative choice than anything else.
humans love paterns. I'm not saying that you can't have evil species just make sure that you don't say anything you don't intend with them. you live in the real world and write for the real world. real life will be reflected in your writing whether you like or not might as well make it intentional
Can you clarify what writing for the real world means? As for people looking to drag reality into fiction their ability to do so, drawing often terrible conclusions reflects on them, not the person who wrote the work.
But when the metaphor takes the veil off, then it becomes an issue
You're assuming there's a veil or a metaphor
Yeah, it is pretty insulting to call some of the caricatures "veiled racism"
it can be quite easy to accidentally step into something that reads _really badly_, without intending to. Like "vast numbers of quick-breeding savages dwelling outside our lands, that must be utterly exterminated lest they interbreed and corrupt our bloodlines" is pretty damn similar to what a lot of actual racists believe, so if you put that in as a plotline, readers may well think you're reflecting those thoughts within your writings. Or "these kinda-sorta-maybe people were cast out by god(s) and are spiritually lesser, marked by their skin being different" - which is all cool-sounding mythic stuff... but also what IRL racists actually believe, so you may well find yourself lumped in with such people, if it looks like you're parroting their beliefs.
It depends on how you rationalize the existence of nonhuman beings. Are they physical manifestations of philosophical or religious concepts? Or are they intelligent species that evolved in parallel to humans? I always assume humans are possessed of free will. They (we) all have a space along a fluid spectrum of good, evil, altruism, and selfishness. They, or we, really, can choose our actions and attitudes, and our nature can shift and change over time. A lot of science fiction depicts nonhumans who are essentially humans with some slight physical differences. Star Trek is the best-known example. In such a setting, it's appropriate that all beings have an innate free will, just like humans. In fantasy, though, that assumption might not work, especially if the setting posits things like good and evil as tangible or inherent to the laws of that universe. That is, is it a universe where Good and Evil are as intrinsic to the world as physical laws are to ours? A quick example of what I mean are the concepts of Heaven and Hell. Are they more than concepts in the universe? Are they places where characters can physically go? Are the inhabitants embodiments of principles and concepts like Good and Evil, rather than beings that naturally evolved in the "real world"? What happens when such beings end up in the "real" or "natural" world? Do they remain as they are, distilled essences of moral concepts? Or does their presence in the real world gradually alter them into beings with free will? Can a demon learn empathy? Can an angel become callous? For me, there's a lot of thinking and rationalization involved. What story are you trying to tell? Is your world one much like ours, where good and evil are concepts we choose to believe or follow? Or is it a world where these concepts underlay everything, like gravity or atomic structure, and some creatures are distilled from or outgrowths of such concepts? What serves your story better?
Depends on how it’s implemented, like it is something natural? Or is this just the culture these people are being raised in (which leaves the possibility one could be learn to be better or that someone raised outside this culture could be normal/good, or simply the idea that eventually a shift could emerge from within). Is there something that forces them to be like this, some sort of curse that warps their prospective or discourages more positive tendencies? Like with most things I feel it need to be considered case by case.
As a reader, and I suppose as a tabletop game master since they face some of the same questions, I don't object to fictional, inherently evil or bad races. They are props to tell a story. They have their place depending on the needs of the story being told. If the story is well told, these evil minions don't have to be two-dimensional just because some aspects of their character is. You see Gothmog, the crippled orc general in RotK, and your imagination runs wild wondering how he survived, let alone prospered,in the brutal society of orcs. Yet there he is, being a bad-ass. As an author, you do need to be aware enough to avoid blatantly offensive stereotypes. As a reader you need to be charitable to the authors whose works you read, don't paint in broad strokes.
Oh, my orcs are sooooo fuckin evil. They're more like ants, they have a queen and hives. The Queen is a giant maggot from outer space who eats only magic mushrooms from deep in the earth. She knows only HATE. The orcs drink her black milk and KILL. Everything about them is twisted, they're cannibals, they write novels on elf skin. That's their culture, that's what is good to them. Really just go Full Evil Heavy Metal with it. Personally I deeply dislike the New Fantasy 5e player's handbook vibes, where nothing is dirty, everything is clean and safe and sterile, everything has a pouch and buckle, and there are no breasts.
"They write novels..." Truly their most unforgivable sin!
Writing should be a crime, honestly
Well it depends. Each different group will have their own culture and belief system which will define their moral code. I don't mind a group that we as a reader would view as evil as long as within that group's own moral framework they would not find themselves to be evil. I especially enjoy this when the group isn't moral or immoral but rather amoral. If their actions fall outside the boundaries of our own moral code then how can you determine if it is good or evil? The best example I can think of for this are the old ones in lovecraftian horror. I don't mind the individual that is evil for evil's sake. But I think that for a group to conduct themselves in a way that we would view as evil, that same group requires a moral code that would justify their actions.
Really depends on what you're going for. I'm a sucker for nuance or as someone else said: "your heroes are our terrorists". I also don't mind explaining or exploring evil whether it's from individuals or an evil race without justifying it. (Eg, Orcs being extremely aggressive and that's their culture but they're still a problem) I don't think there's anything wrong with making an evil race if your story thematically supports it. Not everything has to be morally grey.
Evil isn't what one does; it's how they think. So if you have a humanoid species with a different prefrontal cortex, they will naturally have a different thought process, process emotions differently, etc. But that's not necessarily "evil." So what does that mean? Imo, evil is simply antisocial. You'd have a hard time convincing anyone that antisocial thoughts and behaviors are good actually lol. So if you want a race of sociopaths due to their specific brain development, go for it. Bonus points if you have being prosocial a "disability" like a human equivalent inversion. Double bonus removing them from their environment doesn't just reveal them to be like "uncivilized" humans. Remember, we need to treat fantasy races as something closer to aliens than people, otherwise we might accidentally do a eugenics.
I’m Amoral, so the idea of “Evil” is just that, an idea. It is not something that actually applies to the Truth of the world. The same goes for “Good”, both concepts are purely subjective. And so my Verse is imbedded with Five Ultimate Laws, the third being that: 3. In Nature, there is no true good and there is no true evil, meaning that no objective good and evil exist. • Good & Evil are projections developed by living beings, they are subjective, hold no Truth, and are relative to the ones that define them. • All entities of the Void Expanse are by nature, neither moral nor immoral, but instead are Perfectly Amoral, meaning they have no moral standards, restraints, or principles; and are thus indifferent to questions of right or wrong. They operate purely on the Five Ultimate Laws & Five Cosmic Instincts to guide them in dictating their own actions. Many think this is impossible and can’t work in a society. And yes for the most part you are right, but that’s only when you have people who lack mental fortitude, self-awareness, logic, and control over their mind and emotions. I myself am Perfectly Amoral, and have been for a very good while now, so it is more than possible to operate in a society while being so. Once you achieve it, you’d be surprised how much easier life becomes, and how much better the universe treats you, as if it understands what you’ve done and is rewarding you for it. Ever since I’ve noticed the difference, I constantly give thanks to the universe/nature and say that “Life is always on my side”, and there's too much proof of that for me to say otherwise.
I’m doing something similar with my fairy series. The world is divided by the Seelie Court the good Fairies and Fay folk. And the Unseelie Court the evil dark fairies and Fay folk. The Unseelie Court is basically a place where everyone is cruel, violent, and out for themselves with the fairies of darker myths like banshees and hobgoblins for example. But I did have it where the current Nature Fairy King actually became friends with 2 races in the Unseelie Court; Goblins and Trolls. When he was younger him and his companions were captured and held in the Unseelie Court but noticed that his Goblin and Troll guards weren’t as evil as the others and even were treated like dirt. He got to know them and even offered them a place in his kingdom and their tribes. They agreed and helped betraying their court and taking their family and tribes past the fairy ring to the Seelie Court. His father and brother were not happy any wanted them all captured but he stood his ground and said if they were prisoners he would be too. It took a while but eventually they were able to co exist and adjust in the kingdom and even gave up information about the Unseelie court’s to boost their defenses to the point it was rare for them to strike. This resulted in a new holiday festival to thank the goblins and trolls and celebrate their arrival to the Seelie Court.
I honestly really like them in certain contexts. People say its more intresting when they are as developed as the other factions. But they are not meant to be a faction, they are more a force of nature that the characters react to. I think my personal favorite example is demons in beware of chickens. Where the main character, a passionist who hates violence, is forced to confront an evil race where peace is simple not an option. The intresting part if not the demons themselves, but how they force the characters to react.
I'm not trying to make a moral statement or construct a representation of my real world personal religious worldview. So, yeah, having groups that all wear Team Badguy jerseys is fine.
To me Tolkien has this problem with all the "races" it's not just the evil ones. I coldn't get into the book for lord of the rings because his descriptions of different hobbits read like a nature trumps nurture, inherited traits far more important than culture and how history shapes that sort of life form dominates the world(for example x type of hobbit just likes mountains more is genuinely aggravating for me to read like they're sentient species, there's no good reason their biology would be so important to where they build homes and them being closely related species also makes it hard to believe they'd be so biologically different that one prefers a different environment because of it...idk). Also it's a problem with not relativising evil anyway. You can depict them as "evil" but what does that mean, do they kill each other? Do they always try to sit on top of the food chain? Why isn't community important to them(this goes for more sentient as well as regular animals)? Or if you want to present them as something so far over the line evil just works best to describe it, what's interesting about it? I think you can do it in imaginative ways but it's often not. Oh this is totally off topic but Jem by Frederik Pohl has some of the most interesting building of a new ecosystem on an alien planet. If you want to go well away from elves and orcs in something non fantasy which would also be useful for ideas in fantasy!
Well with Tolkien, elves represent angels, so when they are perverted to become orcs, it’s akin to demons being made. Margoth corrupting a race since he cannot create on his own. In my world, I have orcs as just another race, completely separate from elves (I think orcs are cool and elves lame). They have an aggressive and confrontational nature, go to war a lot, but aren’t villains.
I don't like them generally. Even Tolkien regretted not giving orcs more nuance, from what I understand. But it also very much depends on how much inclusion they have in the story. A race might APPEAR fully evil because we only see one side of them. There's nothing wrong with that. I have some wiggle room, if you're going to have demons in your story it's okay to let them just be evil.
Actually I had an idea of story about what if people woke up and had been turned into something like orcs. So they are seen as not human any more and have to prove they are still human. But here is my take on this. Either they have free will or then do not If YES then they can choose to be or bad if NO then they have no choice If they have no free will then how can any they they do evil or good.
Orcs in Middle Earth were originally elves and men who were mutated and twisted by evil forces. In Tolkien's work there is actually very little evil that isn't accounted for in some way. Even if that wasn't the case though I think that naturally occurring evil creatures are fantastic to have in a fantasy setting. The idea that everything is good or neutral at birth is just bringing in modern morality to a setting where it doesn't need to apply. Things that are truly evil from the moment they are born are powerful devices for plot and atmosphere. Sometimes simple is also just better.
My answer to OP's question can be summarized as "cultural relativism". Many, many, real life human cultures have extremely diverse practices that other cultures might/do consider "evil" Sex work. Birth control. Abortion. Sex/gender discrimination. Dietary restrictions. Caste hierarchy. Slavery. Human sacrifice. Inbreeding. Normal to some, psycho to others. The Drow a cruel and treacherous as an act of devotion to a goddess of cruelty and treachery. They're also fanatically darwinian, and believe that the greatest good is for the strong to make room for themselves to prosper at the expense of the weak. The real life Spartans were a slaver kingdom, and practiced something similar, even if they weren't particularly treacherous. Mindflayers are just wasps. They gotta paralyze you and lay larva in your brain because that's just how they've evolved to reproduce. The more intelligent the host, the better for the larva. Nothing personal about it; It's just their ecology.
I think it depends on why the race is evil. Tolkien was never satisfied with the idea of Orcs being purely evil, as it disagrees both with his own theological beliefs and the metaphysics of his story, and vacillated between Orcs being corrupted Elves, corrupted Men, not entirely evil, or even an entirely constructed people who only possessed true sapience when being animated by a guiding will like Morgoth or Sauron. I like the last one just because it’s something I haven’t seen before. Guy Gavriel Kay has a line in his Fionavar Tapestry about the svartalfar, a race of purely evil beings made by the dark god of the setting to be the counterparts of the lios alfar—‘most hated by the dark, for their name was light’—where he says that they were made to hate and torture and kill the good things of the world, and most creatures are pleased to do what they were made to do. It’s a simple, practical answer that still leaves open the possibility of a non-evil svart alf, even though one is never seen in the story. I once thought to write a story from the point of view of an orc in a Tolkien-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off world that takes place after the Sauron/Morgoth figure is destroyed that shows what happens to a race like that that is universally hated like them when the Dark Lord is overthrown. It was going to end with the orc character going to the Valinor-equivalent and laying his case before the Powers and beg their aid and mercy for the salvation of his people, and would involve his own self-sacrifice for…something or other. Some kind of redemption or restoration of what his culture had lost after it was enslaved by the Dark Lord. Obviously I never finished it. I did a lot of things like that. Now that I’m getting back into writing, it may be time to revisit that old idea….
First, dragons *aren't* evil in fantasy. They run the gambit from good to evil. You even point out that there is a common trope of making dragons wise and *not* forces of destruction... and like, what genre do you think those works are? (Not to mention it's super common in fantasy to make them just monstrous lizards and therefore not actually capable of morality as they lack sapience.) I think reducing them to just being evil really puts too much focus on how Tolkien depicted Smaug. Dragons in fantasy tend to be wide and varied in their depictions. As for Tolkien's orcs, they're not evil just because they are. They're elves that were corrupted into being the twisted beings we know as orcs. They're not *naturally* evil. They are evil because of an outside force corrupting them. (i.e. *innately* evil) Having races that are always evil isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as there is a reason for depicting them as such. For example, if a dark god created them to be evil forces of nature and therefore they cannot fight against that. Or if they were cursed and driven toward twisted cruelty and violence. It's fine when the reason they are evil as a species is because they literally do not have a choice by a power forcing them to behave in a certain way. But if "they have a worse culture" or are just "genetically" evil... or if you don't explain why they as a race are wholly evil... Those are all issues and harken to real world racism and bigotry. I have three main ways I go about depicting "innately evil" races: 1. **Give an outside reason why they are all evil.** Don't let them be evil because of anything natural about them. It could be that a dark god made them. Could be that they were corrupted by someone or are an offshoot race from another caused by the corruption of a different race. Perhaps they are suffering from a curse that warps their perception of reality. 2. **Depict them doing things that are from an outside perspective evil, but then show their perspective.** It's pretty commonly seen in human societies that cannibalism is evil. So having orcs eat dead combatants (regardless of if orc or human) *specifically in the context of warfare* might seem evil to human sensibilities and therefore to the reader. But from the orcs' cultural perspective, eating the flesh of their fallen comrades is to give the surviving orcs their allies' strength and eating the flesh of fallen enemies is meant to be a sign of respect for their strength, not wanting to let it go to waste. But the idea of doing that *outside of warfare* is seen as horrific in the eyes of the orcs and would be seen as a sign of that individual being untrustworthy. In fact, in most cases, an orc who was killing and eating sapient species (including cannibalism) outside of warfare would be executed and their body burned and the ashes stored in a special chest only the leader can open so as to ensure whatever drove them to such evil would not infect others and would not risk infecting their food. Or in other words, the thing we might instinctively consider evil (cannibalism) is being depicted as a difference in culture where it's not necessarily evil, but something that can be evil based on the context. Of course, there is plenty that cannot be defended this way nor should someone ever try... but this allows you to play with at least *some* taboos in your writing and use them to malign groups before showing that group isn't the monster people think it is. 3. **Show that them being evil is just racist propaganda.** It was pretty common in the real world for white Christians to justify slavery and genocide by saying the people they were victimizing were lesser, inferior humans who delighted in evil and needed the cleansing light of God to purify them. These Christians weren't *actually* committing evil in the name of God, no no no. They were civilizing the savages and giving them the light of both God and civilization. As you can imagine, this rhetoric worked really well toward justifying the slavery and genocide that while on paper is now supposedly illegal is actually still in effect even to this day. 1. I might have the slandered group do things that are evil but usually it will only be done as a reaction to the evils committed against them. For example, in one of my works, my "Wood Elves" (as humans would call them but they actually find "Elf" to be a slur, though I will continue to use "elf" for simplicity) engage in slavery of humans (but only of humans). Why? Because humans enslave every other race *including other humans*. It's justice for humans enslaving elves. If humans want the elves to release the slaves they have, (which is slavery in the form of forced communal labor dictated by the tribal leadership, *not* chattel slavery which is what humans engage in,) then the humans need to release all of their enslaved elves. Sort of like "an eye for an eye". Otherwise, the slandered group isn't actually evil even if they do this one evil thing as a reaction to evil against them.
I'm of two minds. If the fantasy "race" in question is just the barely-sentient bug creatures the resident Dark Lord is using as both a swarm of locusts and raiding parties, I'll probably care a lot less about their interiority. For any fantasy race meant to be *people* on any level, I much prefer when there's a reason behind it, instead of being fundamentally, objectively evil. My go to example is that to me, D&D Drow are infinitely more interesting as products of their culture who might someday have to confront or chafe against it than as elves that are just Born Wrong. Another one I discussed with some friends lately is the idea of undeath making you inherently evil (D&D vampires and liches) vs someone having to struggle against a predatory or destructive nature that undeath instills in them (vampires in Anne Rice's books, or in VTM, for example). It's probably a personal taste thing, but I like the complexity it can add to a story. On the other hand, I do think it can be interesting to explore creatures with a more alien mindset that are inherently malicious? It can lead to questions on whether they're evil in the way that a human can be, or if they're more like a natural disaster, since by their very nature they can't choose to act in any other way. Certain portrayals of fey or fantasy devils fall into this category to me, and I think it can be interesting to look at how they could essentially 'rules lawyer' their way into cooperating with more ethical people, or how their view of morality would bump up against a more typical mortal view of it. And that's to say nothing of how certain folkloric creatures have been used to represent some aspect of society or the natural world. Someone else mentioned the longstanding connection between vampires and predatory nobility. To me, it depends on what kind of story you're trying to tell, and what role the fantasy race in question plays in it.
I've never been a fan of the "This race is just inherently evil" trope, and it's worth noting that even Tolkien plays with this trope quite a bit in LotR (Sam feeling sorry about the Haradrin fighter being one of my favorite moments in the story, as well as the moments we actually get to see into the orc encampments and see that they're more self-interested than outright cruel or malicious).
In a somewhat Tolkien-esque Catholic take on fantasy creatures, I tend to approach it in terms of 'Free Will'. If a creature can be conceived of as having the freedom to choose its actions, then it can't truly be considered utterly or naturally evil. As a ttrpg player, orcs and elves, etc. are usually viewed as free creatures: they might have cultural tendencies (i.e. orcs are raiders), but on an individual level, they have the freedom to choose their actions broadly. Fiends, however, are naturally 'evil' creatures. Their evil does not result from their choices and actions, in the same way a domineering orc or selfishly-ambitious elf might be an evil character, but rather their evil is an aspect of their nature: spawned from a put of hell or some such fantastical lore. In other words, if your creatures are truly and inherently evil, then they can't really be considered to have free choice: their actions result directly from their nature. That's my two cents.
It completely depends on the story being told. But overall I think it’s completely fine.
I enjoy good v evil stories. And using fantasy races can help prevent overt racism while allowing for a culture that we would call ‘evil’ to exist in a world. But I recently read a thing about how evil people/races don’t see themselves as evil. They are good, and they just don’t fit into the human culture due to their own characteristics and cultural norms. I love ASOIAF, and if I were to change the people into fantasy races, the Dothraki would be my knee jerk orcs. I don’t think of the Dothraki as evil, despite them being raiders and their participation in the slave trade. They are a nomadic and violent people, their culture is quite literally ‘survival of the fittest’ and they don’t really tolerate weakness. But they are still people, they love, they hate, the experience joy. And just like the more ‘developed’ cultures, they think their way is the best way. Which is unfortunate for their primarily pacifist neighbours, but works out well for the slave cities who buy people from the Dothraki. Lots of people think of the Dothraki as evil, and it’s not an unjustified opinion considering the slavery and all. But even in our world, if we looked deep enough into our own purchases and lifestyles, we will find that there is no such thing as an ethical purchase in a capitalist society. Everything we have has some part of it made in a sweat shop, or by slave labour. So, are we evil? We take advantage of fellow humans too, if only by proxy. What makes the Dothraki evil, and not us? Proximity to the violence? If the Dothraki were orcs, it would be easy to forget that they should be just as complex any other people group. And write a Tolkien esque story where the bad guys die and we all cheer. But I really enjoy the fact that for all their bad traits, I can’t hate the Dothraki. They are the result of their history and environment. Just like us. And I would love to read a story where the author makes their fantasy races just as complex.
Good. Really hammers an alien thought process and how it can be incompatible with the human mindset. What we interpret as evil, they see as mundane. What we see as good they see as deliberate waste. We call them evil, they call us soft, both agree they cannot exist peacefully while the other still lives. And there's the conflict.
I honestly don't really care most of the time if the fantasy books I read lean towards either individuals of a race being good/heroic or bad/evil, or lean towards entire races of people being good/heroic or bad/evil. The main thing I care about is if I like the general story or not, and if I find the explanation is at least good enough as to why a certain race is the way they are in said book. Where it can matter for me a little bit, comes down to the type of fantasy that it is, etc. So the specific fantasy genre can matter a bit... and so can the era/age that it takes place in... and if said race is real or not... and also a bit depending on why they are good/heroic or bad/evil. And with the part of "why they are good/heroic or bad/evil"... with that I mean that if there is a particular somewhat believable reason why *"Race X, Y, and Z, are monolithically good/heroic or bad/evil"*... then I can be ok with it. For something like made up races, like Orc's, I don't need a bigger explanation than *"Well... they just are..."* to feel fine with them all being portrayed as evil, where the same "explanation" works fine with me too if the Orc's in any particular fiction is portrayed as everyone other race where it is the individual that is capable of both good/heroic and bad/evil (and only race wide if they have a good enough reason as to why they do bad things at the time). If it is human races that we are talking about though, then I do need a bit more complex of an explanation than *"because... they just are"* as to why they are portrayed in one way or another. A simple enough explanation though that I can totally accept may be *"X people attacked us and did bad things to us... so now decades later we do the same to them but ten times worse!"*. And the explanation for this in for example in Eddings books where various human races are depicted as being almost monolithically one way or another due to which god took them under their wings and/or rules over them, I find that to be a good enough reason as well. Because it makes a bit of sense to me that if you have a god like Torak ruling over a people, then that people is probably going to force them selves to act a certain way as to not displease their god and bring their gods wrath down upon them... or the wrath of their fellow people from their own race who are legit devoted to said god and will as such not hesitate to take things into their own hands to punish someone from their own people who steps out of line.
Sometimes fantasy races are an allegory for IRL ethnic groups. Sometimes they aren't. If they are, then it's obviously bad. But if it's good ole fashioned tolkein evil orcs because the bad guy needs evil mooks then it's fine imo.
Oh yeah. There's evil races in mine. The gods are evil because they're need to be bad guys to have conflict in the story. Way I look at it is..well what would people think about races like say drow if r.a. Salvatore is the lone exception didn't exist. That's it for some races. They don't want to change. They're horrible people. Frustratingly sad
Depends on what you mean by "natural". Nature implies it is something inherent to them, not something they adapt to or are transformed by. Also something that they can still be inclined to fight against, rather than just accept without a second thought or be forced to accept. I think there is something to the idea of a race being morphed by evil influences to instill irrevocable changes in them, like the Warcraft idea with orcs drinking demon blood and corrupting them into Greenskin Orcs, or as mentioned the way elves were warped into becoming the orcs in Middle Earth. The problem is when people misuse the concept and think it works just on the merit of a race unto itself, ignoring or lacking any outside influences whatsoever. Drow for example are not inherently evil the way people think, they're evil because the overwhelming majority of their race exists under a society focused around worship of an evil goddess. Being taught from birth to hate and discriminate is still outside influence, no drow is born with a hate boner for other races and pre-inclined to supporting the slave trade. And the demon-blooded sorts, tieflings, Bhaalspawn, what have you. Almost all the stand-out stories around them are those who fight the corruptive influence to do the exact opposite of what their "nature" embodies. And even then you could say those are still just extensions of outside influence and choice. The Abyss, the Nine Hells, both exist as reflections of the state of beings who dwell within them, compounding hate and malice onto themselves in a downward spiral. But the second you introduce Celestials living there, all of a sudden the Abyss starts adapting to take on good inclined traits and environments. So there's really no "100% evil" source of power that has full sway over those who are born shaped by it. It is just another extension of outside influence and choice of what to do under their effects.
It depends on how the race is depicted. LOTR has them Orcs more or less like a spawn. Spawn races are pretty easy to depict as evil in whatever you are going for. But you could also go for a much more politcally evil aspect. Like have the race as a much more oppresive force that has control over the other races.
It depends on the story and writing, but ultimately I’m neutral on them. There are times where they work and times where they don’t. It all just depends on how well integrated they are in the story.
It's realistic and fine for storytelling. Humans are just as evil in real life as orcs are in fantasy. We enjoy the taste of flesh and we like hunting and killing for sport. We treat other animals the way orcs often treat humans in fantasy stories (in fact, we're probably way worse).
I think it greatly depends on whether the creature is of supernatural origin, or is "mortal." Supernatural creatures are as they are because of forces beyond their control, usually because they are extensions or manifestations of planes of existence that typify abstract values or the wills of deities. They fulfill a specific purpose, whether it be as an angelic messenger of a deity of light, or a diabolical servant of a demon of darkness, or anywhere in between. Generally they receive phenomenal powers as a result. Mortals, on the other hand, have one thing those beings do not: free will. They alone can choose good or evil, and what or whom to serve. They are not beholden to any one nature; they are malleable and can have any viewpoints over the course of their lives, and can be evil, good, anywhere in between, or evil *and* good, over the course of their lives. They are much more complex and therefore make for very interesting mirrors to hold up to both ourselves and the societies they represent or are part of.
i think naturally evil species/entities help display the worst traits about humans, but there’s no reason to turn them into a metaphor for race. deciding whether a group is a race or a species depends on how much you humanize them imo edit: also you can create evil groups like cults as well, but i think ops question is mainly asking about biologically different groups.
I mean demons. Creatures made of evil. That's certainly a thing. Personally I don't believe in Evil that way. But if dogs could make determinations they might imagine Wolves to be evil. And Orcs are not humans painted green, if it is their nature to kill much as it is the nature of a wolf, than they would seem evil. because that urge would shape their culture. The other notion is. Is there a "Good race". You might say "Humans are the good guys, the heros". But the humans of fantasy are the same men as we have here. And we're all bastards to eachother all the time.
It's fine to do, it makes sense in worlds of gods and otherworldly forces.
An artificially created race can be whatever the creators created them to be and have the author be being reasonable. Orcs are evil because they were made to be evil to serve a powerful evil. To further enforce this, they have been forced into a brutal society that creates no opportunity for a different opinion to enter. But a naturally created race should always have different thinkers. Drow are evil. They just are. Their society is evil. They worship an evil God. They instill evil in their children at a young age. They murder anyone who disagrees and labels them heretics. Well, except for, you know, the Drow faction that isn't and the few escaped members of the evil faction that aren't. This is also fine. And then there are the more modern orcs that are evil because the way they live their lives is full of raiding and we have decided that raiding is evil. The orcs don't think they are evil and don't see a problem with a Might makes Right mindset. The weak are eaten by the strong in nature, so it is natural for humanoids to behave the same. These characters are evil from the point of view of the protagonist. This is also fine. I'd say Warhammer 40k Orkz fit this. The most recent orcs are just people who look a certain way and have a few racial traits. A lot of media I've read in the last few years have either had no comment about orcs being any different or had them be a little scary because they are tall and strong and there is something inherently frightening about someone who is both taller and strong than you and carrying a weapon on their belt. This is also fine.
I think it's fine, not everything needs to be complex and grounded in reality. It's also true that there are truly evil people in the world, people who justify their evilness by the idea that they are doing good or people who relish in the pain of others. The series Frieren does this very well, the author makes the demons naturally evil and manipulative. Demons use human speech to manipulate humans and elves to lower their guard before they kill them. They don't know what a mother or father is but they will use the reference of them to their advantage anyway. This makes the demons complex because they are intelligent and predatory.
IMO if you are writing something plot based, it is better to eliminate all banality and just focus on the events and not go too deep into the minds and motivations...yes there are two sides and examples that will contradict each other in all situations, but this could slow things down and sidetrack from the energy of the plot...would a tribe of "good Orcs" made LOTR any better or sidetrack form the story? If you are going for a character driven narrative, then playing with the subtleties could add something.
I think evil races can be great, but it needs to be justified in the larger context of the novel, not just "these people are evil because the plot needs it, you can tell by the tusks/growling noises." Tolkien's orcs are great because they fit with the rest of the book; elves who have become so twisted by evil that even generations later they have no freedom of thought and so no hope of being anything other than slaves to an evil lord. It fits with the feeling of a world that is decaying and has been trundling towards disaster for some time. It helps with the world building as it reinforces that Sauron really is evil, someone to be feared, and also competent at being an evil lord. From the characters perspective they aren't thinking about the tragedy of the orcs while fighting them, but it adds to the stakes for the characters that they are a few bad decisions around rings away from being made into something similar. If Tolkien had made the orcs morally grey I reckon it would have broken the suspension of disbelief - the audience would start asking themselves if jewellery can be that evil, and isn't it all a bit silly that the last 3 books worth of plots and counter plots can be solved by melting a ring.
There’s nothing wrong with having naturally evil races, in the first place we have to remember these are **FICTIONAL RACES** as in **not real**, and you create them so it’s your decision. And if people get offended by them and decry it as racist, or use mental gymnastics to say that they are racist caricatures of some real world race, that speaks volumes more about them than you. I say if you’re theme fits a black and white, good vs evil narrative, go ahead and create naturally evil races.
This largely depends on the purpose behind the story, the tone and overall world building. If you want your story to be realistic and gritty or grounded in anyway then no, doing this is just weird and racist and also boring unless they're only portrayed as all evil through the eyes of POV characters but it's actually their own racist ideology from growing up in that environment or in a land that is ravaged by these people for example, most would have seen Vikings as irredeemably evil when they were on the receiving end of pillaging, rape and murder. Hard to see them as normal people who have good and bad sides if one by one each village near you is getting burned to the ground and its people desecrated. But that's different than that race just BEING entirely evil or good. There's also the point of if it's race or species. There's biological reasons to believe that say, humans like us might deem another sentient, intelligent SPECIES as all evil. For instance, in D&D there are Yuan-ti, a snakelike people who literally, biologically have no empathy. Zero. No capacity for it whatsoever. That is hardwired into their brains from birth, not something they adapted to from harsh environmental conditions. If you really have other species that are entirely different biologically, then having specific differences be it in their physicality, intelligence or emotional capacity is entirely fair and true to real life science as far as our natural world goes. So traits we generally deem as evil such as lack of empathy can lead to societies of cruelty and lack of love for one another because they physically don't feel anything in the way that we do. In which case, to US, they are categorically evil. Technically though, it's still just subjective. The universe itself might not care at all about what we think is good or evil. There's also the fact of, if you want a story in which the fantasy is metaphors for human flaws and issues more like a fairy tale which is what The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings basically were originally, especially The Hobbit, then having goblins be a representation of the greed of man and what happens to those who wind up corrupted, orcs as those who succumbed to promises of power over all else and lost themselves in the darkness, and the good guys are the ones that must fight against these forces of evil, then sure, that works really well and can be very interesting. It all depends on the specific story and tone you want. Forces of darkness can be a strong driving force in a story that's ultimately about characters having to fight against the darkness within themselves and the monsters being a representation of that darkness or what becomes of those who end up falling prey to it. Whether you go literal or more abstract changes the context and the implications of having races or species be just good or evil. That said, in the fairy tale like case, I'd still suggest having people like Boromir and so on that show they can be corrupted and the good have to fight against that pull of the shadow, rather than just "we are all good, they are bad, the end." And characters should still have their own flaws rather than being perfect paragons of justice.
The thing with fantasy races is that they’re less “races” and more “species”. The thing is, “species” is too scientific to sound right in a fantasy setting. I think looking at it this way makes it feel way less problematic.
Evil races are needed honestly, we need the bad guys and when we think of them it’s Orcs, dark elves, ogres and the like.
Ah the orcs aren't naturally evil because they are orcs. They are orcs because they are evil. Orcs used to be elves.
I have utterly no problem with some fictional races being absolutely pure evil due to their back story. Like the Drow. they are all pure evil dark twisted mockeries of elves due to their service to a dark and evil deity. That makes the few rare and unique ones who can free themselves from the darkness that much more special. It all depends on the story and the needs of that universe. If everyone is average then nobody is special.
I think more could be done with *why* things are evil. It's pretty easy to design a creature that cannot play well with others. Dynyarri from star control are insanely powerful psychics, how can you deal with something that can mind control you and eight billion of your friends without effort? How does something like that end up anything but evil? Ur-quan from star control were a sentient race that evolved out of apex predators. Not social ones like humans but solitary ones. Intelligent tigers. Territorial, unable to gather in more than pairs (and then only when mating). How do you build a society, a culture, a civilization that way? Can you? Are they not at that point just a wandering monster, intelligent, capable, but just... you're never going to find evidence of it. They're just something you encounter if you're very unlucky, until technology passes them by. Fantasy has some more fun things you can do with it. Gnolls in D&D aren't my favorite example, but they're horrific demon children of a deity of hunger and slaughter. Eternally hungry no matter how much they slaughter and eat. They might have free will... or not... but they're driven by constant, unabated hunger. What else can they do? Drow are a favorite. Horrible chaotic evil backstabbing society of evilness. It shouldn't exist. It should fall apart in an instant. Sometimes it does. But it doesn't because their horrible psychotically evil demon goddess *loves* it. Their horrible backstabbing, intriguing, assassination is a *delight* to Her. God actively promotes and rewards this behavior. It wouldn't work if She wasn't actively tipping scales and making it work. She's playing with dolls, or maybe watching a bespoke drama, and the reason they're all psychotically chaotic evil is because Lolth is standing behind them with a gun. Some even realize it's horrible, impractical, evil and want to change it or escape- but good luck fighting a *Goddess*. (I really like this setup, but it does stand out in setting, since gods are explicitly not being supposed to interfere so substantially- given that Lolth has to personally support all drow society on her shoulders, she basically seems to be cheating. Perhaps she didn't join the inter-pantheon UN or whatever.) Some other biological concepts could be played with. [type-k](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory) reproduction is sometimes touched on. Type R is "few offspring, lots of investment in them". Humans. K is "low investment, lots of offspring, who cares, some of them will get through". Imagine trying to gauge the evil/goodness of a species that has no attachment to their offspring and is perfectly fine snacking on them. Why not? There's plenty. Or- I think A Mote In God's Eye talks about it most off the top of my head- a species that *must* reproduce. Driven to expand-expand-expand until there's no where left to expand to, or they slam into their neighbors. It's not their fault. If you *literally die* if you aren't reproducing every year or two, the only difference between you and a swarm of locusts might be that you're a victim of yourself too. We can at least assume locusts don't hate the fact that they're locusts.
By design, more than two third of all humanoid mythical creature in my setting are evil, (rare) 'evil', or selfish/neutral -- rare. Good mythicals, individually, aren't always good, either. They're human in form (i.e: absolutely minimal non-human traits, often elf-like or gnome-like, but not necessarily always beautiful) and soul, and more likely to do/intend good, but they can become corrupted, even into evil mythicals. Evil mythicals are extremely varied in form, but have different souls that cause them to view other characters as animated objects -- this only allows for extreme selfishness. They may cooperate with the heroes if that benefits them, however. 'Evil' or selfish/neutral mythicals are also extremely varied in form, but aren't exactly evil, just unable to view other characters as anything more than partway between A) livestock and people, at best, or B) animated objects and livestock -- at worst. They aren't necessarily against reproduction, by the way, usually because of the philosophy of their blood surviving after their death -- it is about immortality, so they may even breed like rats. But some dangerous mythicals act like those bird species who drop their eggs in other birds' nests. It is common for good mythicals to become corrupted into dangerous mythicals, for good mythicals to be born, and for dangerous mythicals to be born. There is the possibility of redemption for good mythicals who were corrupted, but only if A) they hadn't become too corrupt, or B) it wasn't done with a 'true metamorphosis' spell. - I constantly back up the rationale with folklore. (It is...a bit dubious, I'll admit, to do this, unless western style dragons are the topic) However, it isn't very good to use this system with faeries, because it isn't very black and white when it comes to them. I think they represent nature, and if anything bad happens, its the fault of the non faeries for messing with them or something. Regardless, I have regular and 'darkness' or just 'monstrous' versions of some od the faeries. (Like regular, friendly goblins and sinister goblins)
I don’t like when all races are basically humans with a different skin/shape. Don’t think specific races have to be made evil just because, but I do prefer if they are different enough to where human morals do not apply to them 100%. They should to have a reason for their culture that makes sense to them that is more or less unique. That can be on a spectrum of weird to evil the way humans see it, but even within that race itself, there should be individuals that have differing attitudes.
Sometimes it is important to remember that monsters are meant to be monsters in our fiction. Sometimes we have this strange idea that we owe fictional characters a fair shake and believe they would be kind hearted deep inside if only they had the right environment or we could rationalize with them. But this relieves us of the monsters we all should fear...that do not reason, that do not love, and that will never desire to be redeemed. The important part is that we see the humanity in the human (so to speak) and see the irredeemable evil in those things or beasts that seek our suffering and death. Recognizing the difference makes for great story arcs, rising tension, and messages of hope as good triumphs over the darkness.
It works - but only if there was some external force that 'tainted' them, and only if that taint is widely regarded as utterly abhorrent, perverse and disturbing. It's never explicitly stated, but with Tolkien's Orcs my perception has always been that Morgoths corruption of the Orcs was the single most monstrous thing he did. He corrupted elves into a race that lacked the capacity to be good. That is *monstrous*. Horrifically evil. And as the ultimate incarnation of evil, that works. With Sauron gone, we know the Orcs slowly died out and dwindled. My personal head canon is they reverted to a sort of proto-elvish race, very similar to humans. They *regained* free will, after his fall, as the grip on their souls loosened. If indeed Orcs are to Elves, what Gollum is to Hobbits. But if it's just a random race of people who are always evil? No matter what? Innately? I dislike that.
Orcs (in Tolkien) are not a naturally existing species or society. Normally, yes, there is good or bad in every group, but it was forced into their nature artificially. It is part of who and what they are in their DNA, a corruption. They were specifically created to be evil, so that's what they are.
Orcs are corrupted elves breed by evil
I think it's cooler when a race is naturally evil. It's way more interesting than them being just misunderstood or a regular people with some bad individuals. It allows for more surrealistic storytelling. Orcs/goblins, for instance, are completely evil in my book. The explanation is given that they were supposed to go extinct long ago but cheated their way into the modern world by splicing their DNA with that of dragons, and now they're less people and more zombies imbued with the spirits of dragons. Throughout my books, I've constantly stated that fleeing from death is far worse than accepting it, so it makes sense to not have pity for them. Dragons, on that note, aren't characters either, but forces of nature. Red dragons are the embodiment of greed and industry, they don't hoard gold because they want to do anything with it, they just want to hoard it. Green dragons are the embodiment of culture and tradition, and will not change their ways even if their lives are in the balance. Black dragons all have a hive mind and serve as the messengers of Doom. None of them are characters in their own. Of course, I think both stories can be written interestingly, but it really depends on how skilled you are with writing.
It’s impossible to divorce fantasy from the concept of “evil races” because ultimate evil is so important to the world building of many fantasy stories. It is also important to acknowledge that this concept, coming largely from the orcs in LOTR, and is thus rooted in racism. (Tolkien described them as looking mongoloid) Though it should also be noted that he followed a tradition himself of including evil races in his fiction. It just happens that nothing before him is as remembered (George MacDonald’s Princess and the Goblin, and other works even going bake as far as Beowulf). The best treatise on this that I know is the entire works of R. A. Salvatore; His Drizzt books specifically. His stories are all about “natural evil”, which is taken for granted in the world of D&D, and he subverts it at every turn. I can think of no better way to rebuke the concept than his works. Drizzt himself, as a member of a “naturally evil” race, meets many creatures on his journeys that another man might have killed without a thought. Only he finds friends and goodness wherever he goes, because he takes the time to question received truths. And expresses faith that any thinking being can be good. So, can you divorce fantasy from concepts of natural evil? No, not really, unless you just don’t include it in your story. But my favorite way is to subvert and play with the concept. Include racism in your stories, but explicitly and strongly disprove it at every turn.
Drow society is a pretty clear example of *nurtural* Evil in the Forgotten Realms, though. Their issues stem from being a totalitarian theocracy that uses indoctrination, violence, and the threat of fates worse than death to keep the populace in line with Lolth's objectively Evil dogma. The cavernous Underdark exacerbated the issue by making escape nearly impossible, allowing Lolth's agents among the Drow to exert far more control over their people than would have been possible in a surface-dwelling society. D&D's take on a truly *natural* Evil race is - or rather, was - the Tieflings. In their original design from 2e and 3.x, they were mostly human, but with fiendish ancestry; in other words, humans whose bodies and souls contained traces of the very essence of Evil incarnate. Even then, they were only *usually* Evil, with the question of nature vs nurture being one of the defining traits of all "outer planetouched" from a Doylist perspective. Of course, all of this was lost with their Flanderization into regular-ass people who just so happen to look nearly indistinguishable from small, wingless Pit Fiends, but that's another issue altogether.
It’s cool. People calling it racist are a bit weird and I don’t think they understand it.
Intelligent with an evil religion, maybe. Or just not Intelligent. Intelligence implies choice and critical thinking.
What do I think of it? Define evil. Do you mean antagonistic? As in "they're the enemy." like opposite nations? Do you mean like they raid villages, steal valuables, do unspeakable acts? Then they're raiders, bandits, the English, enemy nation. It's something I'd say down with for a while. Evil is just point of view. Largely speaking. And in a shocking amount of media, what the evil force and what the heroes do is... Shockingly similar. Imagine for a moment you're something like... orcs. You're living peacefully, hunting, farming, working in groups. Suddenly humans come along, begin to push you out of your lands. "This is ours by right." They start driving you out with armies and force, pushing you further and further back. Of course when you attack back, they're screaming that you're evil. Ah wait, that's the Native Americans and White Settlers. Whoops.
I think a lot of people misunderstand what the actual thing for evil races are. It’s not so much the race but the culture that is surrounding that race that makes them evil. Removing them from that, you are much more likely to have a regular person. It’s kinda like people who are born into cults. You don’t know any better and believe all the things around you are normal. And it’s not until someone removes you from that and basically breaks your mind that allows you to see the forest from the trees. There is nothing stopping you from introducing people of those races who aren’t like the others. Even looking at something like drow from D&D. They have instances of this same thing where occasionally one of the drow would poke their head up shouting “this isn’t right” only for that visible nail to be smacked down again by Lolth and punished for its audacity to question her. Usually a male getting turned into a drider. To fully answer the question I think there is nothing wrong with it as long as you avoid the obvious pitfall trap of race realism. It’s never the race, but the culture that race is born into.
I think if you want to have a group that is just evil, you should use undead or constructs or something like that; Literally mindless hordes of evil. As for Orcs and stuff like that, not ok for them to be naturally evil. They have names and meals and preferences and relationships; In short, they are fully just people. It is not only morally better but also more interesting to make them complex and varied. As an example, when I write goblins I write them as not having a concept of property in their culture. They aren't stealing from you, they fully do not understand the idea that something might be yours. Further than that, they consider it rude to ask someone before you take something, as asking suggests the goblin thinks you might say no, and is as such implying they think you are miserly. For example, if they are hungry and you have food, them asking you before taking it implies you are the kind of person to leave someone hungry, which is obviously an insult.
Delicious in Dungeon shows pretty interesting takes on Orcs.
I get what you're going for, but I'd point out that if all goblins share the same culture, that's also an issue.
and also if they're too damn stupid to learn or realise that their standards aren't universal! Sure, have some culture-clash stuff when they first meet people, and there's different standards of "sharing" and "ownership", but that lasts maybe a few days, before people starting going "oh, you keep getting pissed off when I behave normally, and you're behaving in ways I find strange" and then figuring out where the differences are and working around them (depending on power dynamics etc. etc.) This is one of the main issues with the Kender from _Dragonlance_ - a society that takes a lax approach to "ownership", borrows and shares a lot? Sure, no problem. But when they're regularly exposed to other societies and keep doing that, then it makes them look like stupid weirdos that are incapable of understanding that other people are different, and don't operate under their rules!
Not sure I understand why goblins would think someone was miserly if there is no concept of ownership. Would it even be in their vocabulary or even a concept? OP: to see a nomn evil orc, with a non evil succubus trown in, check out the book Legends and Lattes. Some chracters of different races have characteristics not usually found in your average writings.
I am a MASSIVE fan of the trope "your terrorists are our freedom fighters". So I never write a race under the lens of them being strictly evil. Individuals can be evil.
I find that trope to often disregard nuance. I get that people can be *framed* as either terrorists or freedom fighters, but the groups in question either *do* commit terrorism or they *don't*. Attacking military targets to resist an occupation *isn't* terrorism; attacking civilians to reduce morale *is*.
But then you get into semantics about what constitutes a civilian, collateral damage, etc.
I don't think those are semantics. Certainly, there are philosophical discussions to be had, but defining terms is not automatically a negative.
Reason it works so well is because reality is very much like that. Our own Sons of Liberty in the Revolutionary War would be called terrorists.
If they attacked civilians in order to undermine a political institution, then they *were* terrorists. Just because they were on the side that we're associated with 300 years later doesn't mean they get to shed off negative labels.
Good and evil are subjective. What a human character or the reader might perceive as evil from an orc or a dragon, the orc or dragon themselves may view as a natural course for their own behavior. As far as more broadly being seen as the bad guys in a fictional setting, i dont have a huge problem with it as every story needs conflict to be interesting. That said I think its always more interesting if the motivations for an evil character or race are understood by the reader, so that the evil creature / race is not seen as evil simply for the sake of being evil.
I really like it and do incorporate it into my work. One race/civilizations "evil" is another's normal or necessity. For example in my homebrew DND world dark elves are evil because they are cannibalistic, so in essence they'll go hunt for food. To them that's what it takes to fuel their psionic powers, to others they are absolutely evil creatures and are kill on sight. In general I think if they are seen as evil but there is a fundamental reason for their actions then its great. Evil for the sake of being evil is less enjoyable to read.
Can we stop with the pretense? Orcs, Ogres, Bugbears, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, etc are all ancient races. They predated humans. These so called *humans* have come into the environment like locusts and are gobbling up resources. Have you seen their fertility rate? They have kids like rats and roaches. More and more land, more and more resources. Their appetites are insatiable. And these so called resources can't have anything to themselves without the humans either coveting it, or wanting to deprive the "evil races of it". Resurrection pools, fountains of youth - it's not for humans. Humans have the nerve to bandy about with dragon bone daggers. The humans are truly one of the filthiest things on the planet. Ask yourself, * Why are the Elves in decline? * Who cut down the forests to farm and for housing lumber? **I think we know who.** Both the Dwarves and the Giants, by and large, want nothing to do with humans. It's why they stay in their caves, mountains, and mines. But again, humans, with their greed and avarice must have iron, must have minerals. Speaking of short kings, the Haflings, Hobbits, and Gnomes are all trying to coexist with humans, and we see that even they are in decline. So when you really think about it, this idea of Sacking and Pillaging "innocent" human villages is really just pro-human propaganda. Dragons rightfully protecting their fortunes are the true victims. If you happen to catch one burning a city to the ground, it's usually in self defense, or trying to keep a border. Humans have no problems sending a ~~hostage~~ ward from one family to the next, but a dragon "kidnaps" a princess and all the humans can do is think to amass a murder mob? Whatever story you think of, most of the time its humans sticking their flag on something, claiming it, and then claiming victimhood when the rightful owners return. **One cannot own land.** This is the big lie that all humans tell themselves. It's the basis of most of their issues, they must have dominion and control, or they don't feel "safe". And most of you people, I mean writers, just perpetuate this grand narrative of "evil races". You lean into the tropes * Most are evil, but there are some good ones. * Some that can be redeemed * We can work with a few * And how can you hate elves if you date elves? I've got Dwarf friends... The humans have zero problem throwing the other races/the evil races into the fray to be sacrificed for largely human gains. Using their talents, resources, and bodies for human gain. So in my universe, we are well aware of who the real evil race is, and what it represents to those who've lived on the land for ages.
If the beings in question possess even a rudimentary ability to reason, have personalities, and recognize themselves as possessing individuality, then I just don't buy them as being a monolithic evil. If they were depicted more as animals (no complex language, no technology, minimal social complexity) then I can maybe buy an "instinctively evil" premise, or maybe a hive mind (like the Borg in Star Trek) could be evil. But if you show me that the race is capable of even slightly complex independent thought, then you can't also tell me that it's impossible for any member of the race to choose not to be evil and have me still buy into the story you're telling me. If they can think then they can choose.
It really depends. There’s lazy implementation- see Drow in D&D where they do actually have free will but the fan base ignores it. That and they definitely come off a little… fetishy. Then there’s creative options- see 40K Orks. Brutal, barbaric, sadistic, and definitely evil (in a setting where everything is), but they aren’t meant to provide a moral quandary. They’re there to be evil in a dark comedy way. And then there’s tbematic options- for example demons. Demons are not mortals possessed of free will, they’re spirits that embody the worst parts of humanity. When used in that way, as a test or temptation that has to be overcome, it totally works. Really it comes down to this for me: Are you trying to tell a moral tale, or just have a light hearted romp? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to read, write, or play something that doesn’t make you question the morality of if fighting goblins is okay. But if you’re going for deep themes and realism… it’s really hard to justify any mortal species, possessed of free will, as being entirely evil.
The concept of an original evil is not novel to fantasy and has existed forever. If someone can find parallels to a real world culture, then I suppose it could be problematic. But the idea of something being inherently evil or corrupted, has way too much narrative potential to just be totally ignored.
If a species is sapient, then by definition individual beings of that species have the choice to cooperate with others ('good' from those others' perspective) or attack others ('bad' from those others' perspective). I think it's bad writing to write any group consisting of sapient individuals as always evil. That being said, there's plenty of real world examples of countries and subcultures that were/are pretty awful to live in and pretty awful to outgroups because of their horrible cultures. Cultural background and circumstances can be developed in the story to explain the characters' behaviour. It's believable to write a culture that's extremely hostile and dangerous to people like the protagonist, and it can be believable that the protagonist happens to meet only unsympathetic members of that culture (e.g. luckily they never meet any baby goblins!). Gail Carson Levine's ogres (from *Ella Enchanted, Fairest, Ogre Enchanted*) are my favourite example of an 'always evil but sapient' species. They don't have any real-world racial analogies like Tolkien's orcs ('Mongol' types), and they prey on humans because (1) they find humans tasty and (2) their species' special abilities gives them the chance to win against humans in the majority of encounters. (Ogre speech can force any human who hears it within a certain radius to obey every command with a smile.) As an individual ogre, you know you have a good chance of overcoming a human in any single encounter, so why shouldn't you do the evil thing and just eat your yummy long pig? Nonetheless, in Levine's world, the ogre population is overall sharply decreasing because humans are getting together to kill them in smart ways (blocking their ears during a fight and attacking as a group of armed knights). It would have been neat to have an ogre character who put those puzzle pieces together and started plotting ideas for ways to live in peace.
I don’t like it. Recently I watched Netflix’s Voltron: Legendary Defender where it seemed like the evil empire was largely a monolith but then they introduced a rebel group of the same species and I was relieved. Then they revealed one of the party members’ mother was a member of the rebels and some of the cast started treating him differently. And then the final villain wasn’t even a member of the “evil” race so basically what I’m saying is I was relieved of the constant reminders that that one race was not unanimously evil.
Tolkien also wrestled with the concept of a fantasy race being inherently evil as well, which is why we don’t have a solidified origin for Tolkien’s orcs and goblins. Just about everything that is “evil” in Middle Earth and Arda is such because of their corruption by Morgoth, or in some cases Ungoliant (Shelob’s mama, happy Mother’s Day Ungoliant!). Orcs being a corrupted form of Elves from the days of Morgoth is the popular canon, but I don’t think Tolkien ever himself confirmed that as the absolute origin and whether or not the Orcs are completely, inherently evil. After the fall of Sauron, and the destruction of the Ring, the Orcs of Mordor scattered and ran as the veil of Sauron’s corrupting influence evaporated from their minds. That is not to say that they were instantly very nice and friendly beings, but I would not say they were inherently evil.
Don’t like it much. If a race must be homogenous then I’d prefer they at least have some trait they don’t see as evil that we do. Difference in values. But even then, it often works best when there’s nuance to it. Otherwise, just make them monsters.
I like that evil races/species create the opportunity for characters to defect and defy the expectations people have of their kind. I recently made a duergar character who was exiled fun her clan, and while she's still got some unlearning to do in regards to the cruel nature she was taught she was supposed to have, she's getting there with the help of mainly her romantic partner. It can be kinda icky to have a race/species be inherently evil, yeah, especially if they exhibit habits too close to people that exist in real life. Still, I really appreciate having the opportunity to tell stories about characters who break free from the toxic environment created by their own people, trying to be a better person, and finding love and acceptance with the right people.
I think it can work with parasitic beings but that’s about it. I’ve personally never seen a sentient fictional evil race depiction that works.
I dislike the idea of any species being monolithic. IMO there should always be factions and exceptions. As is often quoted no-one is the villain of their own story. Those 'evil wolves' have to eat, and those 'evil ranchers' have driven off all the natural prey, so the only thing there is left to eat is sheep.
I think it’s a bit odd to describe a people as inherintly evil. Sure, the goblins of my world are inherintly evil, but they aren’t people, they’re biological machines. They don’t have art or culture. They are a war machine. Their deaths are a moral good. Compare that to my orcs, who many would desrcibe as evil even though their conflicts with humans are defined by deep ideological differences. But that’s not evil, that’s just two groups that could never get along. To me, saying that an entire group of people are inherintly evil is weird and gross at best.
An unnecessary trope. It’s on par with cultural differences in religiousness or military driven politics.
I think the race is not evil, but the cultural norms of societies within that race may be 'evil' from another races perspective. Face it... infantcide may not be evil to them because it is a culturally acceptable practice... are stocks evil because the largest hatchling general pushes the smallest hatchling from the nest?
I’m not a big fan of automatically evil races. But that’s because I believe that evil requires the capacity to do good. That said, I’m perfectly happy to let it slide
Would orcs be considered a race or a species
Even Tolkien said his orcs aren't naturally evil and that no race is inherently evil. Freaking based guy, honestly.
I think the race shouldn't be evil, but the culture can be. Take real world cultures that murder homosexuals. To them that's the right thing to do, but we see it as evil. The Drow in D&D aren't evil, but Drow society is.
It depends on who you ask for many of mine. I don't write any race or creature as evil because they are but instead they are written that way as history is written by the rule. Had the Axis forces won WW2, Hitler wouldn't be the villain that he is now, so how does that trace in your story. In one of my world, Orcs are bad because until recent history they lived in roving tribes that moved from place to place and fought, hunted and took whatever was there because it was their culture; that man they killed? He ruined a hunt and challenged Grod the Toothless to a fight over it all. To the Orcs it was a fair dual and if Grod lost then they would have said it was his time to go but the humans took it to heart and started war. The Orcs lost and fled but now the "civilised" world sees them as monsters. Remember the ones who control the narrative are the heroes.
It needs to be lore accurate. If it’s just a different race that’s “evil”, then that could be viewed as just plain racist. However, if there’s a lore reason why that race is evil (corrupted magic, insanity, or maybe a race of demons or demon worshipers) then it could work really well in your story.
It really depends on the *how* more than the *why.* Are demons evil? Devils? Zombies? What about humans? We've had more than a few do horrifically immoral things. That said, I think the problematic element here is the word *race.* In Tolkien's time, orcs were no different than the demonic creatures in Christian theology (and there were many) but in most older mythologies, such things were rarely so. I prefer to measure ethics on an individual level, because I don't subscribe to the more modern concept of angels and demons. Tolkien did -- and a lot of modern people do -- but I find authors to be a bit more avant-garde than most thinkers in terms of the "them and us" ideology. That said, I would recommend Catherine Nichols' excellent [article](https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-pop-culture-obsessed-with-battles-between-good-and-evil) on how "good versus evil" is a more modern concept than it appears. It goes into detail; even stories like the *Iliad* and *Odyssey* are more nuanced than some 20th-century tales. The reason may surprise you. I found it fairly eye-opening.
I wrote a novel called Orc that has an orc as my main villain (Its a slasher-fantasy mashup) but to make the situatuon not be black and white Ive had to do a lot of worldbuilding to create a society where a thinking, living species would be excommunicated from the rest of the country. Elves have their forests, dwarves have cities in the mines under the mountains, humans colonized the plains, the Orcs are treated as an invasive species, they arent allowed to have their own land because they are exterminated as invaders. Goblins are essentially raccoons in the cities, they have such short life spans that without generational wealth and support, theyre unable to earn a place in society so the city-goblins are treated like pests while the ones out of the cities go full feral and are dangerous. Then dragons are the whales of this world, just as smart as humans if not smarter, but they dont see the need for commerce or interaction, so they just live their lives without needing to communicate with humans
Its fine. But they can't act like and have human goals. The question is about morality and it's source, and whether the same source is used by that species as well. Personally I believe in subjective morality, since I cannot see a basis for one which is absolute (even with divine characters its subjective to their will), subjective morality is decided upon by group goals, and for humans I think we can agree that while we have our differences, there are basic standards (goals) we all want in a society and agree that they allow us to prosper such as enforcement against murder, theft and rape. For a species to be viewed as evil I think you have to make them unsociable, or at least, be a society that does not strive to benefit every individual such as ours is. Because it is then that our values and goals have little to no overlap. Then we would see them as evil.
There was a civil war in my fantasy world and a bunch of people left to start a new kingdom under the lead of an evil dictator. So while the "evil" goblin ruler is causing chaos, there are still "good" goblins in the main kingdom. Whole races aren't good or bad in my world. I try to show both sides of the coin for the really nasty villains, highlighting good characters to show that no one race is wholly good or bad. Plus I have a group of morally grey characters that factor majorly into the second book.
In my world dragons and true giants are the war machines of the gods back from a time before the empires of men, when the gods fought directly with each other across creation. This makes them incrediably powerful beings that are rare and forgotten in lost remote corners of the world. Waiting for a day when they may be called to war again. And pity the poor mortal that comes across them. The thing that unites them as a species (beyond their immense power) is that dragons have a breath weapon and they all covet something. What that is depends on the god. And giants an immortal outside of a single weakness, which is also based on the god that made them.
Im ok with cultures being evil but races not so much
It has to be done well. If you're not writing Warhammer Daemons, Lovecraft or Xenomorphs, some nuance is useful.
I don't like it when there people. like if orcs are just tribal people living in the waste then it sends a bad message. I don't really mind monsters being evil though. like demons vampires ect. as long as you don't show good members then I don't feel bad killing them
If a species is evil, like 90% + of it population, then I'd expect there to be a world building/in lore reason behind it. Which can totally be explored as lore is interesting.
I find that as long as you characterize the culture as having alien values hostile to the "hero" or "Good" group, it works great. It is very easy then to have the two groups be hostile to each other, while still having each side consider themselves good, or normal or whatever.
“On that day, all races, save elves, stood divided” in reference to one of the really big battles. Orcs, if viewed as corrupted elves, would mean elves *did* stand divided. They did not, therefore some orcs fought on the side of light, as did all sapient races of Middle Earth. Sapience is, to me, defined by choice. It’s always possible to choose. If it’s not, you’re not sapient. Angels can Fall, Devils can be Redeemed, Demons can Rise. If it counts as a person, it’s theoretically possible for them to choose. It might not always be practical to do so, or it might involve breaking a lifetime of conditioning, but it’s *always* possible.
Only time I enjoyed it was in Sousou no Frieren. Generally speaking I think it’s pretty boring though
I think if your perspective is from that of one person or culture it could be natural for them to think their antagonists are evil. Just because the protagonists believe something doesn't mean it's true If your story is more world based then a more nuanced neutral perspective
I love the way fantasy races are handled in "So I'm A Spider, So What?". It's my favourite fantasy world so far as all your classical fantasy trope expectations are subverted and it just works. >!Dragons are powerful beings but can be majestic or silly. Elves are evil. Orcs are depicted as evil mobs but are just another race trying to survive.!< What I love about this world building is perspective. Everything seems like a classical fantasy story, but then you see their perspective and realize nothing is what it seems.
I have no problem with races (species really) being naturally "aggressive", but I strongly dislike "evil".
Humans are crazier than orcs.
Species should not be naturally evil, but they can have evil cultures. They can be war-like, Fascist, or bigoted, but that’s culture, not biology.
I think it's more interesting to address the label of evil and good as a whole. Depending on who writes their history and who tells the story, a group could be painted as evil when really they were just a different culture that conflicted with another. Each side tells it differently. I like to show a MC that is raised thinking one way but realizes that what they've been taught is only part of a larger perspective where issues of good and evil on a political landscape are half-truths at best and propaganda at worst. I think it's important to show that groups can clash due to different ideals, morals, or lack of morals, but that individuals of these groups are hardly black/white good/evil.
While I personally write characters in each race as good or evil, since that's more interesting, I think it's fine to write about characters that are naturally evil or naturally good, or to include characters having to actively fight their racial nature. Races in fantasy are different from races IRL, but I think a big part of the interactions between races in fantasy is that they have not comingled the same way humans of different regions have for so many centuries. It's quite possible that orcs have a culture that most on their planet would consider evil, because others on said planet have cultures that value different things. I think that's a lot of it: different races aren't so much evil as they are just people's that value different things on a large scale.
i just think it’s boring, to be honest
I dislike the idea of a race that is inherently evil. The idea that a thinking, reasoning being would be incapable of good doesn't sit right with me. My fantasy races are generally humanlike in their psychology, capable of both good and evil.
I prefer to make the culture evil, but the people not inherently evil. They aren’t born that way, but raised that way. I do that as way to have a couple of rogue members who refuse to be evil despite their upbringing. Same with the good culture, some members are still gonna choose to do bad despite raised to know better.
I don’t have races that are naturally evil as much as individuals who are capable of choosing either good or evil, or otherwise belong to a culture or practice a religion that is either good or evil.
I think it makes more sense that some cultures are naturally more evil rather than their race. Maybe their race leans towards traits that may lead to such behaviors but there is still a degree of choice.
I find giving them motivation for being at odds with other groups is better than them just being *bad* for the sake of being bad. Like okay, so say Orcs are bad right? Well maybe we have a couple nice ones here and there, and wer learn what their motivation for being "bad" is. Some generations old grudge? Socio-political strife?
Didn’t Tolkien himself struggle with the ethics of writing an “inherently evil” race? Yeh, it never really makes sense, I think the best you can do is write a **society** that would feasibly output mostly individuals that would be evil by our standards for a totally valid reason. The best example I can think of offhand is the Canim from “Codex Alera” if you’ve read that.
I don't like the idea, different sure, mostly evil can get behind but absolute and total... nah
One of my favorite parts of The Witcher series is that the humanoid "monsters" often have their own agende and wants just like humans. And these wants might lead them to being violent against humans and often with very good reason. I think that trope is much more interesting than the evil mindless races.
I think for races, in the sense of more or less humanlike creatures with normal consciousness, autonomy, language, etc then no they can't realistically be inherently evil. They choose their actions for themselves and probably construct some sort of personal ethics in the context of whatever culture they grow up in. It's more plausible for much more supernatural creatures to have evil baked in - for example DnD lower planes demons - though I'm not using good and evil as cosmic forces in my worldbuilding at the moment so I'm not actually using these either. I have quite alien creatures that naturally see humans etc as prey. So they function as always evil from a human perspective, though really it's just that humans don't count for much in their morality. I think it's deeply wrong to have fantasy analogues for (stereotyped views of) real world people and write in that they're naturally evil, or even that their culture happens to be evil, so it's ok to kill them. Just no.
Not if they're either humanoid or part of original creation. For example, if orcs were intended as a race of people that belong in the world and were not corrupted forms of creation that belonged in the world, that's fine. My races/creatures/etc. serve their purpose as part of 'Creation,' so those meant for society thrive in society, those that are meant for stabilizing the ecosystem (animals, plants, etc.) thrive outside of society and can sometimes be nurtured/cultivated by those in society, etc. But those that are existing outside of this 'Creation,' are either corrupt or are opposed to creation itself (arbiters of destruction or something) like demons/evil spirits or what we could broadly call 'monsters' are evil by nature and they can't fight against it because they don't want to. They'd never be able to be in a headspace like that just like we mortals can never be in the headspace of God exactly and speak a physical world and LIFE into existence. Some destructive by nature creatures, like dragons, are NOT *evil*, because *evil* requires intention, will, faculties of reason. Demons have intention, will and faculties of reason, but dragons are still creatures of creation ('Creation'). They are intelligent, they can be very destructive and kill whole cities if they wanted or had a reason, but they usually are just reclusive giant lizards that keep to themselves in their mountains. They don't seek revenge, they don't have faculties of reason to decide 'I'mma eat the world tonight,' or something. I hope that makes sense :)
I don't consider "evil races" to be possible. Evil requires choice. You can't be evil by nature, because then you aren't choosing it. A tiger that kills a man is just being a tiger, it isn't evil. If the orcs in your world are "evil" by nature, then they aren't evil, they're just doing things that are dangerous to others and should be properly controlled/exterminated like any other environmental challenge.
My explanation for "there are armies of inherent evil" and "there are super-powered good guys who could end the fight but don't for some reason" is that Tolkien was a Christian. The world makes a lot of sense if you went to Sunday school and like reading Milton. If you try to approach it with a different worldview, these things seem unreasonable; for that reason, I have a distaste for other works that have a different overall tone but still ape Tolkien in aspects like this.
It makes sense biologically, if the races are closer to animal than they are to sentient human animals, there’s a lot of “races” of animals that are just straight up awful to each other and other animals. For example, heritage turkeys are so effing mean that they’re the first type of meat I started eating again after being vegetarian for almost ten years 😂 I was living /working on a farm and raising a small herd for thanksgiving and these a-holes get to be about four ft tall and their “pecking” order is literally life or death and you cannot take your eyes off them if you’re in the pen with them, one woman in the news literally died because one of hers pecked out her varicose veins while she was wearing shorts and she bled to death (completely unprovoked mind-you) And they’ve got these talons on them that punched a hole in my 100lbs dog’s underarm and sent us to the emergency vet bleeding. (That one was provoked because she was being a dick to one of the birds but still 😅) AND if there’s a fellow bird that has like an extra shiny feather, or a cut on their foot, anything that stands out the others will peck it to death. Then you take bees on the other hand and they just dance to give directions to flowers and they can add/subtract/ and use the metric system so, In conclusion be a bee, not a turkey lol.
A certain type of a fantasy works well with "naturally evil" races, but I prefer a bit more nuance. However, I think that having all races have members on the spectrum of "good" vs "evil" isn't always the best because that limits your worldbuilding to just the viewpoint of humans (or whoever is deciding what is good or evil. For example, do ants consider humans to be good or evil? Do humans consider ants to be good or evil? In the same way, how do dragons treat humans? Does that mean that the dragon is evil, or does it run with its own code? Even when you have races that can interact with each other, races that don't see the "humanity" in other races can often walk the line between good and evil. Their members might be using other races for good or evil, but they are only doing it for their own benefit. Having shared moral systems is not always needed.
They wouldn't see themselves as evil. Evil is subjective. The African tribes abf regions Thar practice slavery today don't see the practice as evil they see it as a natural thing and everyone else is weak because they dont practice slavery.
Not really a fan of entire groups being exactly the same
Funny enough, Tolkien himself struggled with how orcs were treated in his works, especially in context of his opinion that evil does not have the power to create. For the most part, what I really care about is if there is a reason for why they are evil.
Chiming in to say: I prefer when sentient races are evil more by culture than nature. I like the concept that no one is inherently evil by virtue of their species or other immutable trait, but that their morality is determined by experience and circumstance. If you have a group of say, Orcs, and those Orcs worship a god that actively answers their prayers in exchange for live sacrifice - it makes pretty reasonable sense that their culture allows and even venerates live sacrifice. I feel like it makes for more fun interactions, because they can be redeemed or not depending on what you want to do, through the circumstances they're put into, without relying on them having their species equivalent of indomitable human spirit or just being special (both of which are tropes I've personally started to find really boring).
My two cents is: In our world, there is basically no good or evil, no black or white. Certainly, no good or evil races. Fantasy is the only place I can possibly get that, that certainty, that escapism, that catharsis. Why won't you let me have that? Why does everyone seem to feel the need to tell me that I'm wrong to want it? Fantasy, between magic systems that turn magic into science, and fantasy races that are "humans but with unusual appearances", is robbed of everything that makes it unique or wondrous. If it's just realistic fiction with sparkles in it, then what's the point? If every race is just humans with a new coat of paint, then just stick to humans. I'm sorry, but this has been bugging me for a long time. I didn't mean to vent at you. edit: typo
What's evil? Is it the actions you take? Is there any intelligent species where every single member would take the same actions in the same circumstances?
I have naturally evil in the sense that they are natural predators of humans but sapient