Debate: Good vs Evil

Dude! I almost lost my keyboard in a horrible coffee spewing accident.

Wee! Debate!

I would categorize Cyrus in this black and white definition of good and evil as evil. Because he is a predator. He feels no qualms about hunting his prey and killing them. Be it to feed or for reasons all his own. BUT just because he is a predator doesnt mean that people are not safe around him. He is also a protector of those under his care and fierce in guarding them.

Livia is new to me. She says she falls under the "good" category. Unfortunately she has not been speaking to me long enough for me to make that designation yet.

There are truely Evil vampires. With no morals or protective instincts. I guess thats my designation evil versus Evil.

Well if we are going to look at it as black and white. Ellis and Ginnie are both evil. Ginnie doesn't like being put in the same mold as Ellis, but that doesn't change the facts.

Now if we look at in shades of gray, then Will is only a little evil (dove gray), because he feeds out of survival, Ginnie is more evil than that (charcoal gray) and Ellis, lovely Ellis is black.

I think the vampires that only hunt to eat without killing their prey should perhaps not be considered evil. We dont consider a cat that catches a mouse evil and they kill their prey. Maybe the mouse does though.

Humans that eat meat are not considered evil and they are eating prey that had to be killed. Some may say they are, but I dont believe that falls under the evil umbrella.

Perhaps it should be considered more for the good to catch and release prey without damaging it?

I think that immediately after her turning, Connie had a great capacity for evil.

Consider the following from her bio (personal history, third paragraph):

She certainly had the capacity for revenge, and as is often portrayed in movies and literature, revenge can be the first step on the path towards the Dark Side.
I think that, had she truly been evil, she would have slaughtered her entire family, and not just those who'd maligned her.
Since that episode, though, I think she slowly shed her 'darkness' and as Will described himself, could now be considered 'dove gray.'

As far as feeding is concerned, she is of the 'catch and release' camp, but of course there is the tiny nibble for snack.

I think Alex isn't plain evil but she isn't good either, she has a very soft side to her, a caring side but she can kill just as fast if you cross her wrongly, I think she's grey leaning more towards black then grey, as far as killing, she kills without any remors, humans are food to her and she treats them that way, she doesn't always kill her prey but most of the time she does.

Overal I think she's a little above dove grey with a soft touch for those she cares for

Ellis isn't evil just for shits and giggles - far from it. I equate that type of thing to monkeys throwing poo - it's funny but not really necessary. I like to think I write Ellis' evil as subtle, an underlying unknown black cancer, if you will. She won't just randomly kill people for the helluva it, it must serve a purpose, specially her purpose. It must benefit her in some way, even if it doesn't seem obvious. Here's a funny story...

So I'm talking to Vex about my sci fi girl, Caitlinn. She is originally the girl from Blade Runner, the Mafia. She is a cyborg looking for the doctor that changed her and is out for revenge or maybe just a reason why. In the sci fi exchange, I'm writing what happened up to that point now and she's about to meet the doctor. Well I thought - wouldn't it be funny if when the doctor locks her up and leaves her in this cryo tube filled with agressive genetically altering nanobots, that when she leaves she introduces herself as Elizabeth Dubine but with a smile she'll add...'But my friends call me Ellis.'

Vex loves my storylines, she's my #1 fan so she flipped out all excited yelling at me to write it. I mean, it's perfect. Why wouldn't Duibne stay in the medical research field and eventually move onto cybornetic testing on humans? They would see the benefit of such morally reprehensible testing against her species. Think of the advantages of having an army of cyborgs, of course under her control.

It was like I planned it.

So there's my point with Ellis - I wouldn't call Ellis evil, she's just ambitious and tends to think outside the box is all. /wink

The dictionary's definition of evil is much broader than mine:

1. morally wrong or bad
2. harmful; injurious
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous

I don't think someone is truly evil unless they completely lack all sense of compassion and remorse. Otherwise I think people can have evil moments, but I don't believe they are intrinsically evil.

In light of that, I don't see Ginnie as evil, but rather capable of performing evil acts. Ellis is another matter

I don't think either of my vampire kids could be considered evil.

Yeah I don't see Ginnie as evil, but just without conscience which is all good to me =D Is that how y'all see Ellis though? =( There is a purpose to her madness.

I think that Ellis is pretty darn Evil but... she has her reassons, to me she's the go get take type of person, sees something she likes or wants and she does anything to get it.

Not sure if that is evil.. as far as Ginnie, she's the DIE HARD business type woman, ruteless (sp?) and taking care of her own needs (and that of the ones she loves), I don't consider her really evil just very detirment to get her own way in everything

I don't think having a purpose negates the ability to be evil hon. I don't think evil needs to be an 'unconcious' state. That Ellis can kill without remorse, and even derives pleasure from it is what leads me to think of her as evil. That, and the fact that I don't see anything in her to indicate she might care for anyone beyond herself.

But that may just be my perception of her, and that is completely subjective

I like the example of the cat and mouse the best so far. The cat's actions are par for the course on a cat's scale of morality. On a mouse's scale of morality, that's murder, brother!

The difficulty with vampires is that they, with the exception of rare members of Tacharan with amnesia (whee), have human morals that must be adapted to their new vampiric condition. For a vampire, killing your food isn't evil, just a bit wasteful...like throwing out half of a meal, or not recycling your bottles and cans. Killing another vampire, well, that's evil...but still is socially acceptable in cases of self-defense. I'd wager that it is also more relaxed between clans - I don't particularly see any of the Anantya elders getting too bent out of shape about a dead clanless or a dead Tacharan.

So there we introduce the social mores of each clan as a separate society. As a whole, Evenhet would probably be the least "evil" by human standards, and certainly by vampiric. Their set of social rules and their urge to cooperate with humanity sets them apart. Anantya in general would be the vampiric equivalent of grey...since Evenhet ruined the curve. Before that, they were par for the course. With the introduction of Tacharan, Anantya returns to the morally gray ground as a whole.

Tacharan is primarily killers, kidnappers and thieves of both humans, clanless vampires and those with loose affiliations. In general, they will tend toward evil, or would have gravitated toward other clans.

Speaking to my own characters, Alec is evil on the human scale, and perhaps slightly good on the vampiric scale. He is primarily a thief, which in human terms acts to disrupt the productive modes of society. He kills occasionally, but only enemies, with the exception of a mercy killing. That would make him, like Scott, a "diet coke of evil". On the vampiric scale, he's still a thief, which loses him points as no one likes their shit stolen, but since he doesn't kill his food, he's viewed in a much more positive light...maybe the "diet coke of good". On the other hand, he rarely feels any remorse for his actions, so he has a strong capacity for evil...just not the desire to dabble in it.

Dawn is a bit more cut and dry. She's not evil, just annoying. :P As a human, she was mostly a victim of circumstance, and did the best she could with what was in front of her. She would be firmly neutral overall. On the vampiric scale, she's good. She doesn't kill her prey, she doesn't steal...she may be disruptive and violent, but she doesn't kill. For her kind, she is good.

All a matter of perspective.

I think that Ellis did care for Simon at one point and she probably still does, same for Carol, a person doesn't get this kind of revenge without feelings or anything like that, so to me that has everything to do with her caring for people, she just has a very nasty and twisted way of showing it.

But i think you're right, the #1 person to Ellis is probably Ellis, but does that make her bad?

I am pure as the driven snow.

Really evil that is just violent is boring. If Sorin were that kind of evil then little Dawn would not be safe in the pool where she is talking to him. There is no point in killing Dawn so he has little reason to do it. He has however killed one of his own clan, his superiour, blamed the whole thing on a rival clan, taken her child as a protege, made another child only to kill him when he became inconvenient, sent his other child away because she reminded him too much of the woman he had killed, hired Ellis to kill his accomplice, etc...

And these are just the things he's done in the one plot. He was a very lovely human as well.

Neither of them are just violent but I would say they are both evil. The best sorts of evil have reasons for being the way they are, in my opinion.

LOL - I'll give you that Ellis may have cared for both Simon and Carol at one time. even if in her fashion, but NOW? No...I think she'd be happy to see them both being tortured through eternity. I certainly don't think Ellis was BORN evil...but I find it difficult to see her as anything but now.

To speak to the Ellis aspect of the conversation (I love these discussions, btw).

I agree with Shay. Ellis performs destructive acts and can take great joy from them. She very, very rarely indicates any remorse from an action. Those are evil, and qualify as evil in both human and vampiric society. Creating a clan to harvest weaklings of your kind to distill into a drug is evil no matter how you cut it.

At the same time, she is not *as* responsible for her evil as some other characters, in some ways. To me, Ellis feels very much like a victim of circumstance - there wasn't anyplace that she could really call home, so she carved herself out a niche in vampiric society and then was forced to defend the claim tooth and nail. If Tacharan were less cutthroat back in the day, or Anantya had taken her on, things might have been very different for her. She became evil because it was the only way for the other clans to let up on the young Tacharan...and it just kind of stuck.

Of course, I could be misinterpreting a lot of these things, as it isn't my creation...but it seems likely.

The end result, though, is that Ellis has a pretty high capacity for evil, and exercises that capacity frequently.

Oh, Sorin is evil. That's all. I don't think there's any need for discussion on THAT one. :P

Aw, y'all are going to make Ginnie blush.

In my personal moral code, Ginnie is an evil woman. She does kill with out remorse, is ruthless, enjoys her prey either the kind she lets live or her latest mark. She does kill for killing sake, if she'd pissed off enough. She enjoys torture as well. She has no problem using new vampires as guinea pigs in her ballistics experiments. She has cared for only three people in her life, herself, her maker,and now Alec. She didn't even care that much for her parents.

Now granted she does show remorse when she screws up, and she won't kill clan unless they screw up and deserve it. I don't know, the only reason I see Ellis as worse than Ginnie is that Ellis betrayed her family, not just betrayed but planned to use and dispose of them all as well. Ginnie wouldn't do that.

I think Ellis is a look into the psyche of a person that is just this side of a sociopath

*sigh* I feel like such a chump now...

Rofl awww poor Nic