Red Caps and Evil ...
By
AkuTenshiiZero,
Posted on: 2009-08-24 15:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Yes, compare WoW and WAR.
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Originally Posted by _____
there's a difference between "evil" and "dangerous" or "harmful"
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Evil or not they drop good salvage so they must all die 
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Originally Posted by EU_Damz
Evil or not they drop good salvage so they must all die
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Be well, people of CoH.
Hate the little buggers.
Overall, I think it's a survival question. We didn't intend to hurt the Red Caps, but they roll in, screwing up the dimensional barriers, threatening to fold a whole damn town into $deity knows what, so they can get their giggles.
I'd prefer to negotiate. However, they don't seem to be interested in a mutually beneficial settlement with minimal harm to all. So they get their skulls caved in.
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Originally Posted by BlueBattler
I've been slugging through Croatoa lately, and something I read there during the Kelly Nemmers' arc made me think about something I've thought about before:
Are the Red Caps evil? What I mean is, you find out during Kelly's arc that the Red Caps are sustained by the conflict they have created: quite literally, the suffering of others is their "food." That being the case, is what they do "evil"? There's a comment in a George RRR Martin book, Fevre Dream, which roughly paraphrased is: "Without choice, there can be no evil." If the Red Caps' lives depend on the suffering they create, do they have a choice in what they do? Or are they just like a predator doing what it has to do in order to survive? (The reason that this is on my mind is that a while back I created an ice/ice blaster whose origin is basically that he's a human/elf hybrid ... and his particular breed of elf depend on happiness and joy to survive ... they're a kind of anti-Red Cap.) So what do you think? Are the Red Caps evil if they do what they do in order to survive? |
However, I think that Red Caps are beyond concepts of good and evil. They were 'created' to be evil. More like an elemental of wickedness thing. They probably would not understand the concept of good and bad when you explained it to them, they just are.
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The Red Caps aren't machines or automatic processes. They can choose to fade, or go back into the stasis of the fey mists. |
Originally Posted by BlueBattler
If the Red Caps' lives depend on the suffering they create, do they have a choice in what they do? Or are they just like a predator doing what it has to do in order to survive?
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It might not be a rational choice to make, but morality and rationality don't have to play nice-nice. Even if you "have to" do evil to survive, it's still evil.
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And it's kinda obvious that they enjoy being evil too |
Originally Posted by GlaziusF
The Red Caps aren't machines or automatic processes. They can choose to fade, or go back into the stasis of the fey mists.
It might not be a rational choice to make, but morality and rationality don't have to play nice-nice. Even if you "have to" do evil to survive, it's still evil. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
If they know of no other way of life it doesn't make them evil. SImply misinformed and uneducated. If we are the heroes we all claim to be perhaps we should put aside out desire for the salvage they carry and assist in their.....
Nah, forget all that. They are carrying my Deific Weapon.
Enjoy your day please.
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
For another example of "does living on evil make something evil itself?," locate a description of a monster called a "vaath" in the '90's AD&D Planescape product "Planes of Conflict." To spoil the ending, the backstory on that particular creature suggested that while it lived on being evil, it'd still do nasty things even if it didn't. The survival was just a side benefit.
This seems to be how the Red Caps are portrayed in CoH. Honestly, I never got the sense of "the Red Caps MUST do this or die" that you drew from Kelly Nemmers's arc. I got the impression that they were just out being vicious one day and noticed that they could live off it. Contrast the portrayal of, say, the Circle of Thorns, who are often cast as pawns of their own scheme to wipe out the Mu.
Frankly, the Red Caps are creatures with a strong basis in folklore, and folklore generally isn't about this kind of philosophy. In fact, I think it would cheapen the portrayal of the Red Caps to suggest that they'd be less evil if they could, but they're forced into it by their "diet."
That isn't to say that you can't have pathos with a folkloric creature. For an attempt at this, take a look at AE arc #30242, "The Love Talker," which deals with the Red Caps and their victims, as well as other supernatural threats. (Yeah, I'm sorry . . . the whole post was, in fact, a shameless arc plug. :P )
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No, because real vampires don't sparkle. You must be thinking of pixies. Or elves.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Will they sparkle?
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I have no strong opinion about whether they are evil or not, but man do they hit hard. Are they one of the strongest NPC groups in the game, or what?
there's a difference between "evil" and "dangerous" or "harmful"