By using your logic Jenoz, I can frame Urza as evil despite the fact that he saved the world from an ancient threat like Yawgmoth through his undeniable morally questionable actions; his means to reach the ends.
by using my logic attempted genocide is a crime
Are you going to tell me that Chandra Nalaar, through her ignorance had unwittingly committed mass murder upon an entire plane and that she is evil for her action of releasing the Eldrazi from their prison? Going with the legalse angle, Chandra Nalaar is at the very least an accessory to mass murder.
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Are you going to tell me that Chandra Nalaar, through her ignorance had unwittingly committed mass murder upon an entire plane and that she is evil for her action of releasing the Eldrazi from their prison? Going with the legalse angle, Chandra Nalaar is at the very least an accessory to mass murder.
you answered your own question: ignorance. Nahiri knew exactly what she was doing and did so with intent of destroying all of Innistrad, she was explicitly malicious in her actions. Nahiri is evil.
Are you going to tell me that Chandra Nalaar, through her ignorance had unwittingly committed mass murder upon an entire plane and that she is evil for her action of releasing the Eldrazi from their prison? Going with the legalse angle, Chandra Nalaar is at the very least an accessory to mass murder.
you answered your own question: ignorance. Nahiri knew exactly what she was doing and did so with intent of destroying all of Innistrad, she was explicitly malicious in her actions. Nahiri is evil.
Nahiri is still morally questionable at best as her story isn't over. The best any of us can do is tally her actions and cancel out the good actions with the bad actions. If I must, I would say she is actually still neutral.
+1 Sealed the Eldrazi for the greater good.
-1 Summoning an Eldrazi Titan to meet out personal justice on another.
+0 Destroying Sorin Markov's home and imprisoning his vampire servants which have a tendency for evil actions.
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Are you going to tell me that Chandra Nalaar, through her ignorance had unwittingly committed mass murder upon an entire plane and that she is evil for her action of releasing the Eldrazi from their prison? Going with the legalse angle, Chandra Nalaar is at the very least an accessory to mass murder.
you answered your own question: ignorance. Nahiri knew exactly what she was doing and did so with intent of destroying all of Innistrad, she was explicitly malicious in her actions. Nahiri is evil.
Yep. I wouldn't hold Chandra responsible for the outcome any more than I hold Nahiri responsible for the Gatewatch successfully sealing the Eldrazi. Nahiri was critical to their success, but that was hardly her intent.
Nahiri is still morally questionable at best as her story isn't over. The best any of us can do is tally her actions and cancel out the good actions with the bad actions. If I must, I would say she is actually still neutral.
+1 Sealed the Eldrazi for the greater good.
-1 Summoning an Eldrazi Titan to meet out personal justice on another.
+0 Destroying Sorin Markov's home and imprisoning his vampire servants which have a tendency for evil actions.
provided the artbook reports are correct (if they aren't that's a different discussion) then there is nothing morally questionable about Nahiri. Morality is not a point system, she summoned Emrakul to destroy Innistrad for a grudge. Nahiri is a monster.
provided the artbook reports are correct (if they aren't that's a different discussion) then there is nothing morally questionable about Nahiri. Morality is not a point system, she summoned Emrakul to destroy Innistrad for a grudge. Nahiri is a monster.
All of the planeswalkers are "monsters" but they are also "saints". We could be hear all day discussing how each of them are all morally questionable and have done at least one good action and one bad action.
Example: Tamiyo is a monster by being a neutral pacifistic observer of Innistrad. Through her non-action she has allowed harm to come to others by not intervening. Yet because of her studies of Innistrad she ultimately helped the save the day against Emrakul. She is morally gray.
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All of the planeswalkers are "monsters" but they are also "saints". We could be hear all day discussing how each of them are all morally questionable and have done at least one good action and one bad action.
there's nothing morally questionable about trying to destroy an entire plane. That's just straight evil.
Nahiri at one point being good makes it tragic, not morally neutral. And Tamiyo at best was neutral. There is a difference between not getting involved and trying to destroy a plane. Though I'm fine with Tamiyo as more neutral on the scale, it fits her actions and reasoning behind it. Though her reasoning for not acting is closer to good than bad.
All of the planeswalkers are "monsters" but they are also "saints". We could be hear all day discussing how each of them are all morally questionable and have done at least one good action and one bad action.
there's nothing morally questionable about trying to destroy an entire plane. That's just straight evil.
Evil action =/= evil character. But its fine as let me quote an earlier post of mine:
Finally: I am just your friendly spider letting you all know in the web that all of you seem to have entangled yourselves in. Even the earliest of philosophers have tried to come up with an answer and failed many times for situations like this on the debate of Good vs Evil. The true answer is that there is no real answer as a specific corner case can be both framed in a "positive way" or in the fashion of a "negative way". Arguing the semantics of it is splitting hairs.
TL;DR: "All players cannot win the morality game and they cannot lose it either."
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she tried to use a cosmic squid to eat an entire planet all so she could watch one dude cry about it
In court of law she could plead insanity. Considering she was unlawfully locked up in a the helavault, effectively a prison cell, for 6000 years and her only company was the demons sealed inside it as well. Plus this cell simultaneously did and didn't have walls, was of pure darkness, and she had no means to communicate to the outside world with her words or actions alone. No one to "pay her bail".
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You seem to be implicitly treating something like Neitzche or Rand's view of ethics as a given "What's good is whatever feels right to the individual." which is certainly a form of ethics but I doubt you're going to find many people who will accept that. I'd also criticize is as being strongly inconsistent. If Nahiri is good simply because she believes she is good then isn't she also evil simply because we believe she is evil? An ethical system that does not give a way to produce moral judgments is the same as no ethical system at all.
My main point was planeswalkers (oldwalkers in particular) are beings that transcended humanity and weren't even considered humans to begin with. Other than the rest of us being "still humans" while being planesalkers as well according to the game (but we technically never affect the storyline, so our planeswalker status is moot creatively), why should they be bound to the ethical systems of humanity on earth? All because they have sapience? We have yet to run into intelligent lifeforms elsewhere in reality, so we don't have similar standards to compare to, whereas planeswalkers are effective a superior sapient alien race, if you think about it.
The "human ethical system" runs on the fact our species is at the top of the food chain, the winner of "The Survival of the Fittest". If tomorrow a stronger and smarter species (likely alien) comes and takes over us and they have a completely different (and warped to us) "ethical system", what happens to our ethical system is that it simply becomes invalid because our species is weaker than theirs.
We're only getting away with it because WotC has planeswalkers more or less align with the real world's ethical system, which is undoubtedly the system at the top of our food chain... but they also have the planeswalkers be of a higher level than those who set up those systems. If Sarkhan completely adopted the Jund/Tarkir "Ethical System" of "Survival of the Fittest" quite literally and killed Ajani during Alara, would we consider him "evil" as well? For all effective purposes, all planes have their own "champions" and "ethical systems" (or in Alara's case, 5 of them), so who is right when they all clash together? The one who aligns most with our earth?
We could say the planeswalker's ethical systems are the same as ours... but then I raise that whether should we treat non-planeswalker humans to be subject to the same system, because power-wise, humans are now undoubtedly another species altogether when put aside planeswalkers. I find the notion of all planeswalkers "lowering themselves" to include humans themselves in their ethics to be quite absurd, frankly (mainly because we're not doing roughly the same to animals, at least not absolutely if you think about it). Some planeswalkers, like Gideon, might do that, but to expect Nicol Bolas to do that... Bolas is evil to us because we keep viewing him through Gideon's lenses, in a sense.
So ultimately, what is the best way to actually describe planeswalkers' morality compasses, one of a species that transcends humanity (when we compare it to ourselves), as well as any other possible sapient race across the multiverse, when there isn't a society of planeswalkers to establish it the same way our species does? I'm afraid the "Nietzsche view" is the closest thing to a compromise we have there - they are the undeniable strongest beings of the multiverse (now that the Eldrazi have been reduced to their playthings), and they generally act as individuals rather than as a society, so there's no true correct way to judge them...
...unless you want to pull the "It's all fantasy and they're all cardboard I can tear, therefore humanity on earth is more powerful than planeswalkers and they are subject to earth's ethical systems" argument, then I'll argue you broke through the fourth wall to simply "win" the "argument" (honestly, I would have no other rebuttal to that).
Y'all do realize the OP asked for your specific opinion on the matter? And not to argue out whether relativism or absolutism is the only moral code to live by? It was just trying to see what other people thought about it and that was it, ya know?
Give your opinion and move on. I do personally appreciate some of your arguments, but writing books to try and persuade someone else's opinion on a fictional matter is not helping anyone. Tolerate other people's opinions and move on.
Honestly I feel like we need some surrealist arguments to lighten up the mood.
Nahiri is the real hero because she is furthering the Beeble overlords' plan for Multiverse domination by sending Emrakul to take out the Sorin, the one coordinating the Ouphe terrorists to hamper them on Dominaria.
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Haven't played anything but EDH and casual for over a year
Nahiri is the real hero because summoning Emrakul to Innistrad was the only thing that could stop Wizards from reprinting Storm Crow.
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Vorthos Cartography - Check out my completed maps of Zendikar and Innistrad!
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
she tried to use a cosmic squid to eat an entire planet all so she could watch one dude cry about it
In court of law she could plead insanity. Considering she was unlawfully locked up in a the helavault, effectively a prison cell, for 6000 years and her only company was the demons sealed inside it as well. Plus this cell simultaneously did and didn't have walls, was of pure darkness, and she had no means to communicate to the outside world with her words or actions alone. No one to "pay her bail".
Court of law isn't really what amounts to a moral system. It's also not really necessarily true either, even if she pleads it. So far it's still questionable how much in control of her mental faculties she is.
Y'all do realize the OP asked for your specific opinion on the matter? And not to argue out whether relativism or absolutism is the only moral code to live by? It was just trying to see what other people thought about it and that was it, ya know?
Give your opinion and move on. I do personally appreciate some of your arguments, but writing books to try and persuade someone else's opinion on a fictional matter is not helping anyone. Tolerate other people's opinions and move on.
Honestly I feel like we need some surrealist arguments to lighten up the mood.
Nahiri is the real hero because she is furthering the Beeble overlords' plan for Multiverse domination by sending Emrakul to take out the Sorin, the one coordinating the Ouphe terrorists to hamper them on Dominaria.
I posed some specific questions just to get the ball rolling; my reason for starting the thread was that this was something that a lot of people clearly wanted to discuss/argue about (from a variety of different angles), and I thought a thread dedicated to the whole Nahiri topic seemed like a good idea.
Yeah. This conversation is about as heated as what you would find in the debate forum.
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Vorthos Cartography - Check out my completed maps of Zendikar and Innistrad!
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
she tried to use a cosmic squid to eat an entire planet all so she could watch one dude cry about it
In court of law she could plead insanity. Considering she was unlawfully locked up in a the helavault, effectively a prison cell, for 6000 years and her only company was the demons sealed inside it as well. Plus this cell simultaneously did and didn't have walls, was of pure darkness, and she had no means to communicate to the outside world with her words or actions alone. No one to "pay her bail".
She attacked a tired old guy who had just finished an exhaustive work just because he wouldn't come right away to look at how she fixed something and wanted to rest first. Then when the police (Avacyn) showed up she tried to kill them. She was given opportunities to stop and leave at any time and instead doubled down on her attack. There was no unlawful imprisonment. The mental gymnastics, twisting of truths, and just completely ignoring truths that people are going through to try and paint her in a good light is simply amazing.
she tried to use a cosmic squid to eat an entire planet all so she could watch one dude cry about it
In court of law she could plead insanity. Considering she was unlawfully locked up in a the helavault, effectively a prison cell, for 6000 years and her only company was the demons sealed inside it as well. Plus this cell simultaneously did and didn't have walls, was of pure darkness, and she had no means to communicate to the outside world with her words or actions alone. No one to "pay her bail".
Did you even read the last stories she's been featured in? She's depicted as NOT being insane.
She's fully aware of what she's doing, but is too angry to care. Ergo, she is very, very evil.
Did you even read the last stories she's been featured in? She's depicted as NOT being insane.
He made that post an hour ago, before there were any significant stories from Nahiri's point of view after being in the Helvault.
This most recent one certainly confirms that Nahiri has no, entirely, lost her mind.
Even before that the other stories she was shown to actively avoid going insane. Being conscious of the fact that it could happen and finding ways to make it so it didn't happen.
It will be interesting to see how her supporters twist or maybe just ignore this latest story though.
Are you going to tell me that Chandra Nalaar, through her ignorance had unwittingly committed mass murder upon an entire plane and that she is evil for her action of releasing the Eldrazi from their prison? Going with the legalse angle, Chandra Nalaar is at the very least an accessory to mass murder.
Commander: Hazezon Tamar (GRW), Arjun, the Shifting Flame (UR), [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Tiny Leader: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Peasant Dragon: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Modern: Orzhova Spirits (WB)
Legacy: Burn (R)
Vintage: Bazaar Dredge (B)
you answered your own question: ignorance. Nahiri knew exactly what she was doing and did so with intent of destroying all of Innistrad, she was explicitly malicious in her actions. Nahiri is evil.
Nahiri is still morally questionable at best as her story isn't over. The best any of us can do is tally her actions and cancel out the good actions with the bad actions. If I must, I would say she is actually still neutral.
+1 Sealed the Eldrazi for the greater good.
-1 Summoning an Eldrazi Titan to meet out personal justice on another.
+0 Destroying Sorin Markov's home and imprisoning his vampire servants which have a tendency for evil actions.
Commander: Hazezon Tamar (GRW), Arjun, the Shifting Flame (UR), [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Tiny Leader: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Peasant Dragon: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Modern: Orzhova Spirits (WB)
Legacy: Burn (R)
Vintage: Bazaar Dredge (B)
Yep. I wouldn't hold Chandra responsible for the outcome any more than I hold Nahiri responsible for the Gatewatch successfully sealing the Eldrazi. Nahiri was critical to their success, but that was hardly her intent.
provided the artbook reports are correct (if they aren't that's a different discussion) then there is nothing morally questionable about Nahiri. Morality is not a point system, she summoned Emrakul to destroy Innistrad for a grudge. Nahiri is a monster.
All of the planeswalkers are "monsters" but they are also "saints". We could be hear all day discussing how each of them are all morally questionable and have done at least one good action and one bad action.
Example: Tamiyo is a monster by being a neutral pacifistic observer of Innistrad. Through her non-action she has allowed harm to come to others by not intervening. Yet because of her studies of Innistrad she ultimately helped the save the day against Emrakul. She is morally gray.
Commander: Hazezon Tamar (GRW), Arjun, the Shifting Flame (UR), [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Tiny Leader: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Peasant Dragon: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Modern: Orzhova Spirits (WB)
Legacy: Burn (R)
Vintage: Bazaar Dredge (B)
there's nothing morally questionable about trying to destroy an entire plane. That's just straight evil.
Evil action =/= evil character. But its fine as let me quote an earlier post of mine:
Commander: Hazezon Tamar (GRW), Arjun, the Shifting Flame (UR), [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Tiny Leader: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Peasant Dragon: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Modern: Orzhova Spirits (WB)
Legacy: Burn (R)
Vintage: Bazaar Dredge (B)
she tried to use a cosmic squid to eat an entire planet all so she could watch one dude cry about it
In court of law she could plead insanity. Considering she was unlawfully locked up in a the helavault, effectively a prison cell, for 6000 years and her only company was the demons sealed inside it as well. Plus this cell simultaneously did and didn't have walls, was of pure darkness, and she had no means to communicate to the outside world with her words or actions alone. No one to "pay her bail".
Commander: Hazezon Tamar (GRW), Arjun, the Shifting Flame (UR), [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Tiny Leader: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Peasant Dragon: [Waiting on Amonkhet]
Modern: Orzhova Spirits (WB)
Legacy: Burn (R)
Vintage: Bazaar Dredge (B)
My main point was planeswalkers (oldwalkers in particular) are beings that transcended humanity and weren't even considered humans to begin with. Other than the rest of us being "still humans" while being planesalkers as well according to the game (but we technically never affect the storyline, so our planeswalker status is moot creatively), why should they be bound to the ethical systems of humanity on earth? All because they have sapience? We have yet to run into intelligent lifeforms elsewhere in reality, so we don't have similar standards to compare to, whereas planeswalkers are effective a superior sapient alien race, if you think about it.
The "human ethical system" runs on the fact our species is at the top of the food chain, the winner of "The Survival of the Fittest". If tomorrow a stronger and smarter species (likely alien) comes and takes over us and they have a completely different (and warped to us) "ethical system", what happens to our ethical system is that it simply becomes invalid because our species is weaker than theirs.
We're only getting away with it because WotC has planeswalkers more or less align with the real world's ethical system, which is undoubtedly the system at the top of our food chain... but they also have the planeswalkers be of a higher level than those who set up those systems. If Sarkhan completely adopted the Jund/Tarkir "Ethical System" of "Survival of the Fittest" quite literally and killed Ajani during Alara, would we consider him "evil" as well? For all effective purposes, all planes have their own "champions" and "ethical systems" (or in Alara's case, 5 of them), so who is right when they all clash together? The one who aligns most with our earth?
We could say the planeswalker's ethical systems are the same as ours... but then I raise that whether should we treat non-planeswalker humans to be subject to the same system, because power-wise, humans are now undoubtedly another species altogether when put aside planeswalkers. I find the notion of all planeswalkers "lowering themselves" to include humans themselves in their ethics to be quite absurd, frankly (mainly because we're not doing roughly the same to animals, at least not absolutely if you think about it). Some planeswalkers, like Gideon, might do that, but to expect Nicol Bolas to do that... Bolas is evil to us because we keep viewing him through Gideon's lenses, in a sense.
So ultimately, what is the best way to actually describe planeswalkers' morality compasses, one of a species that transcends humanity (when we compare it to ourselves), as well as any other possible sapient race across the multiverse, when there isn't a society of planeswalkers to establish it the same way our species does? I'm afraid the "Nietzsche view" is the closest thing to a compromise we have there - they are the undeniable strongest beings of the multiverse (now that the Eldrazi have been reduced to their playthings), and they generally act as individuals rather than as a society, so there's no true correct way to judge them...
...unless you want to pull the "It's all fantasy and they're all cardboard I can tear, therefore humanity on earth is more powerful than planeswalkers and they are subject to earth's ethical systems" argument, then I'll argue you broke through the fourth wall to simply "win" the "argument" (honestly, I would have no other rebuttal to that).
EDIT: Fixed phrasing.
Give your opinion and move on. I do personally appreciate some of your arguments, but writing books to try and persuade someone else's opinion on a fictional matter is not helping anyone. Tolerate other people's opinions and move on.
Honestly I feel like we need some surrealist arguments to lighten up the mood.
Nahiri is the real hero because she is furthering the Beeble overlords' plan for Multiverse domination by sending Emrakul to take out the Sorin, the one coordinating the Ouphe terrorists to hamper them on Dominaria.
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Court of law isn't really what amounts to a moral system. It's also not really necessarily true either, even if she pleads it. So far it's still questionable how much in control of her mental faculties she is.
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
She attacked a tired old guy who had just finished an exhaustive work just because he wouldn't come right away to look at how she fixed something and wanted to rest first. Then when the police (Avacyn) showed up she tried to kill them. She was given opportunities to stop and leave at any time and instead doubled down on her attack. There was no unlawful imprisonment. The mental gymnastics, twisting of truths, and just completely ignoring truths that people are going through to try and paint her in a good light is simply amazing.
Did you even read the last stories she's been featured in? She's depicted as NOT being insane.
She's fully aware of what she's doing, but is too angry to care. Ergo, she is very, very evil.
He made that post an hour ago, before there were any significant stories from Nahiri's point of view after being in the Helvault.
This most recent one certainly confirms that Nahiri has no, entirely, lost her mind.
Even before that the other stories she was shown to actively avoid going insane. Being conscious of the fact that it could happen and finding ways to make it so it didn't happen.
It will be interesting to see how her supporters twist or maybe just ignore this latest story though.
- She doesn't have any plans to seal Emrakul
- She openly disdains the cultists that helped her
- She trapped once humans and animals in the attic
- She hates Innistrad
On the plus side, it sort of confirms my theory, that she is White because she thinks Innistrad is horrible and wants it purged for good.