White and White Morality

[Ravana]

Goodness, Reaver.

Well, close.…

I'd love to see a couple of fantasy chefs have a cook-off. Tossing around Cthulhu tentacles and dragon's tongues and using magic to keep their soufflé from collapsing.

"Hoo-eee! Dat some Big Daddy Crawfish, ah do declah! Put some o' dat in de ol' gumbo pot, 'long wit a little chop onyõ, a couple teaspoons mince' gahlic, squeeze in a lemõ, add a couple bottles white wine, some Woostashuh sauce, half a cup o' Loosiana hot sauce, an' jes' a pinch o' salt to give it flavah. Den you lets it simmah fo' 'bout two o' tree day, 'til it all stop squirmin' mostly. Yoah guests din't nevah have anytin' lahk it, ah garontee!"

[I can't even begin to tell you how long I've been waiting for an opportunity to use that. Thankies.]

Best I can do with what history gives me.

Mercenary, check. Pope, check. Werewolves, che–uh, wait.…

Oh, well: when history gives you werewolves, make lupinaid.

[No, that one I haven't been waiting to use. Just now came to me. ]

 

[Ophiucha]

Aha, sorry, I can't read anymore. I'll blame the shingles. (Awful disease that is apparently a side effect of having chicken pox, and can kick in twenty years after the fact. Straight down the middle, half of my body was swollen, including my eye, which is still a bit groggy. Amazing disease; I could work wonders on the premise. Also, I got to wear an eyepatch for a week, so I can't complain about the loss of vision too much.)

I like the thought that they have Worcestershire sauce in a fantasy world. It'd be sort of tragic if they didn't.

And the werewolf thing is because I have no willpower and must write fantasy. There's a myth that people who are excommunicated will turn into werewolves, and if that's not just calling for a "quick, to Google! find somebody cool who was excommunicated!", then I just don't know what is. John Hawkwood seemed like the best choice, because he was friends with a ton of historical figures.

Thought of another potential SFF good v. good example that would be hard as hell to pull off well, but still possible. Impossible communication. Miscommunication is an easy to solve one that features in a few White v. White moral stories, usually saved in the nick of time or tragically discovered afterwards, depending on the author's mood. But of course, you get weird aliens and cthonic beings involved and you could have creatures which could potentially be incapable of truly communicating. While the odds that an alien race so inhuman would have the same moral standards as us are slim, it is nonetheless plausible that both humans and the alien race are good, but have no way of communicating the concept of goodness to each other.

I would argue, though, that they do need to be sapient for it to count. Otherwise we could argue the xenomorphs, by nature of simply needing to eat and to breed, are "good".

 

[Reaver]

Goodness, Reaver. O_O Way to weigh in on the conversation.

Goodness me?? Where did I weigh in on this? Besides, Ravana knows A LOT more about this than I do...

 

[Ophiucha]

Maybe if Reaver and Ravana didn't have three of the same letters, we wouldn't have this problem.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

I agree it is a tricky thing to pull off because in most cases the author won't portray both sides as good. Maybe they both initially start off being good but typically one side begins to rotten and sway into a negative perspective even if their intentions were pure

 

[deilaitha]

Two sides with morally good views at conflict with one another. An easy example would be somebody doing something objectively good, but unlawful, versus an uncorrupted police force.

Like Michael Westen in the USA show Burn Notice. Love that show. New season starts in 6 day...squeal.

Oh, right. Fantasy forum.

It's a cool idea, the good vs. good notion. I can see how it would be hard to write, though. It would be easy to make one side or the other the villain, though. Like a civil war movie; in Glory the south is clearly the villain. In Gettysburg, the north and south are both portrayed as people who held strong principles, fighting for what they thought was right. (Watching tht movie, I still can't ever pick a side that I want to win, even though the North was on the right side of history.

I've never read a fantasy novel like that. I'd like to see that, however.

 

[Ravana]

And the werewolf thing is because I have no willpower and must write fantasy. There's a myth that people who are excommunicated will turn into werewolves

Hah! Why be boring and write plain old historical fiction, anyway? (Besides, if it isn't historical fiction, it's biography… and then you don't get to invent any of it. Well, not if you're being honest about it, at least.) And, yeah, I knew the thing about the excommunication and werewolves; figured that's where you got it. Though it might be well to keep in mind that if the pope excommunicated people for being mercs, there would be a lot of werewolves running around.…

and if that's not just calling for a "quick, to Google! find somebody cool who was excommunicated!", then I just don't know what is. John Hawkwood seemed like the best choice, because he was friends with a ton of historical figures.

Hey, you know those times when rival papal claimants excommunicated each other…? (Though I suppose that would probably settle the claim pretty quickly, since only one ought to work–assuming him what provides the divine power behind it has an opinion on the matter. And if not, you end up with some really interesting situations.)

Thought of another potential SFF good v. good example that would be hard as hell to pull off well, but still possible. Impossible communication. … While the odds that an alien race so inhuman would have the same moral standards as us are slim, it is nonetheless plausible that both humans and the alien race are good, but have no way of communicating the concept of goodness to each other.

Ahh, I could give you a great science fiction example here, too–the problem is, not only would it contain a spoiler (which, of course, I could hide behind that nifty new button), but a huge part of the story is the reader not realizing what's going on… so I'm not even certain how to make the recommendation. Maybe I'll wait a few weeks, then mention off-handedly and in regard to nothing in particular that I think you might like such-and-so book, in the hope that you'll have forgotten this conversation? (Naah: probably wouldn't work, and in the meantime it wouldn't be doing you any good anyway. So if you want it, let me know and I'll PM ya.)

Though I will say that if a lack of communication is involved, the moralities could be radically different: as long as they don't actually contradict each other, they could each recognize the other as having "goodness" once some form of basic communication became feasible (or once the correct form was attempted–and that might take several tries before hitting on something the other species even recognized as communication).

Just pulling a (rather lame) example out of the air: picture one culture that believes all property belongs to the state, and another that believes all property belongs to the populace. Both could conceivably accomplish exactly the same "good" thing–an equal distribution of property to all the members of the culture–and both would recognize that as a "good" thing, but each might initially view the other's approach very negatively. And each would certainly take the view, initially, that attempts by the other to "share" some mutually desired bit of property was a threat to its own way of life–the first seeking to manage equitable distribution, the second just picking things up and handing them around. The first strikes the second as "coercion"; the second strikes the first as "chaotic" (or, for that matter, "theft")… in spite of identical end results.

I'm sure there are much better examples to be had.

 

[Robert Donnell]

Ravana, Justin Wilson is my Uncle's Uncle but the accent was fake.

As for the Good vs Good, try Lawful Good vs Chaotic Good. Imagine a cop who writes tickets at a speed trap knowing full well that the vast majority are not intentionally speeding, compared to a Roman Priest who harbors illegal aliens.

 

[Feo Takahari]

There's also the matter of what happens when one type of lawful hits another. For instance, some authors treat brainwashing as completely moral, provided it's done to make an evil person good, while other authors treat it as far less moral than killing said evil person. Every once in a while, an author who realizes this has two good characters conflict over whether to brainwash or kill bad guys.

 

[Robert Donnell]

I can use that in my next book!