Beyond Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil
Nietzsche, Drizzt Do'Urden, and The Morality of Good and Evil Races in Fantasy
Note - this is a little different than my usual fare. This is the Substack version of a speech I’m giving at the 2024 Wicked World’s Fair in Bethlehem, PA, wherein I discuss how to view the Woke vs. Anti-Woke cultural war’s impact on gaming as a Nietzschean distinction between different types of morality. In short, the classical Tolkien approach of good vs. evil -can- be reconceived as a Darwinian, amoral battle between species without any claim to objective morality.
Tickets available here.
INTRODUCTION
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
―Friedrich Nietzsche
Like many artistic arenas, the land of DnD recently had its own brush with the battle between Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness. Specifically, Team Woke wanted to change the parts of the game that they considered racist, such as referring to people as ‘half-breeds’ and races being inherently good or evil.
And fair enough on those two points at least. So it is my aim to explain this controversy before pointing out a way in which Woke criticism can be used to improve DnD by looking at morality from a Nietzschean anti-morality perspective, granting more species free will and individuality, and developing new stories from the perspectives of traditional antagonists.
PART 1 - HISTORY
PART 2 - BIOLOGY: WHAT IS A SPECIES?
PART 3 - PERSPECTIVES ON RACE IN THE REAL WORLD
PART 4 - WoTC CHANGES DnD
PART 5 - ANTI-WOKE BACKSLASH
PART 6 - NIETZSCHE’S ANTI-MORALITY
PART 7 - FANTASY RACES/SPECIES AND MORALITY
PART 8 - DRIZZT DO'URDEN
PART 1 - HISTORY
The world of Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) was largely inspired by the races and characters from The Lord of the Rings (LOTR), although Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) have downplayed its influence for obvious legal reasons. From Geek Native:
(Regarding the Ranger class being modeled on Aragorn):
The result of this obvious lifting in characterisation drew a lawsuit against D&D for plagiarising names and characters, after which they were forcibly changed. Hobbits became Halflings, Nazgûl became Wraiths, Ents became Treants and Balrogs became Balor. In terms of its world and characters — rather than its storyline and methods of play — D&D was therefore very much influenced by the world of the Lord of the Rings.
Understandably, D&D has traditionally downplayed this link to avoid litigations, with its creators remarking that they had only made reference to the Lord of the Rings from a marketing perspective. The truth, however, is probably somewhere in-between.
I promise that I won’t go full Silmarillion here, but in LOTR, there are 14 Ainur, who are kind of like polytheistic gods and goddesses, and they are all good except for one, Melkor/Morgoth, who is basically the Devil. The Ainur make the world a good place, and then Morgoth corrupts their creations and twists good into evil.
For example, inherently good elves (The Avari) were corrupted into inherently evil orcs by Morgoth. In LOTR, all of the elves are good, dwarves are generally good but corruptible, and humans and hobbits have moral agency to choose. With the exception of the corrupted Sauraman, the wizards were inherently good. All of the orcs, trolls, giant spiders, balrogs, and dragons are inherently evil.
Thematically, it’s a Christian/Catholic story about good, evil, and temptation. So to the degree that it influenced DnD, it carries with it that base moral structure.
PART 2 -BIOLOGY: WHAT IS A SPECIES?
One of the reasons WoTC changed DnD was that the idea of ‘half-breeds,’ when speaking of mixed-race humans, is actually pretty racist.
Biologically in the real world, what makes 2 beings members of the same species is the ability to produce fertile offspring, and humans of all races can do this with each other, thus we’re all members of the same species. And while we find differences between races and ethnicities (distributions of properties, medical conditions, etc.), those differences are not so great as to make anyone more or less human than anyone else.
Oddly, this would mean the existence of half-breeds in DnD implies that many races are part of the same species (humans, elves, and orcs can produce viable offspring together, making them the same species).
Of course magic exists in DnD, so technically one could combine any number of different species into whatever the creative homebrewer wants.
There is also species essentialism in the races of DnD, as manifest in the species traits that add to or subtract from players’ base scores.
In the real world, the idea of race essentialism is an inherent part of racist beliefs, actions, and policies.
PART 3 - PERSPECTIVES ON RACE IN THE REAL WORLD
Race generally operates as a stand-in for ethnicity, which can be arguably be a social construction or a biological reality, or both. I.e., some ethnic groups in America, like Italians, were not considered White in America at one point, but generally are now. This is the social construction perspective of Whiteness.
The Biological Realist perspective is that human groups do have some differences between them (IQ, long distance running ability, proneness to certain diseases and cancers, an inability to jump, etc.).
The Liberal and Christian response to this is to say that, to whatever degree differences exist, people are still fundamentally individuals, and as individual moral agents they are responsible for their own choices.
The Critical Race Theory view is that racial identity trumps individualism, and that the different races have an essential nature, at least in so far as their status of privileged or oppressed is concerned.
PART 4 - WoTC CHANGES DnD
‘Wokeness’, arising from various Critical Theories, led to WoTC making a number of changes to DnD in response to the parallels between race in the real world and the different species of DnD having essential natures, prompting quite a bit of backlash.
On ‘half-breeds, ’from Robby Soavea at Reason:
"Frankly, we are not comfortable, and haven't been for years, with any of the options that start with 'half,'" said Jeremy Crawford, a D&D rules designer, at a virtual event last weekend.
Robby argued against their proposed solution of making players pick the racial/species traits from a single parent when creating a mixed-race character. Drow and elves should have offspring with almost identical traits (long life, ability to see in low or no light, etc.), but would a half-hobbit, half-frost giant really have only the strength of one of their parents and not somewhere in-between?
Also, as I mentioned in the Biology section above, why are humans, elves, and orcs genetically compatible enough with each other to be a single species again? This is probably just best homebrewed and let players decide which races are members of the same species and which aren’t.
On the topic of changing races/species to ‘not inherently evil’, from The Federalist:
The popular role-playing game “Dungeons and Dragons” announced this week it is transitioning orcs and other classical villains into good guys to fight racism.
“Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game- orcs and drow being prime examples- have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated,” the announcement read.
From WIRED’s ‘D&D Must Grapple With the Racism in Fantasy’:
What is an orc? To their creator, J. R. R. Tolkien, they are “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.” More than half a century after Tolkien wrote that description in a letter, here is how Dungeons & Dragons describes the orc in the latest Monster Manual, where all such demi-humans are relegated: “Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces.” Half-orcs, which are half-human and therefore playable according to Player’s Handbook rules, are “not evil by nature, but evil does work within them.” Some venture into the human-dominated world to “prove their worth” among “other more civilized races.”
The above quote about Tolkien leaves out that orcs were a corrupted form of humans/elves (it’s in the book which the above quote links to), but the point remains that if we choose to see orcs (or drow or mindflayers) as stand-ins for a racial group, it would be pretty offensive. The article goes on to note that Tolkien, a White Englishman, made the good characters White as he was arguably trying to write a distinctly English mythological story (Note, the other possibility is that Tolkien was socially influenced by his Englishness and owned up to it as a force that shaped his ideas)
‘Evil’ species as corrupted forms of good ‘species’ IS NOT the same as ‘evil species’ are stand-ins for ‘disliked human ethnic groups’. Even Woke entertainment like Marvel still has armies of mindless, non-human humanoids for the heroes to fight, and no one is saying that those creatures are racist stand-ins.
Returning to the Drow, Screenrant gives us the following backstory on how they came to be seen as an ‘evil’ race:
The dark elves (drow) have been part of D&D since the days of first edition, where they appeared in the Against the Giants campaign. The drow are dark-skinned elves that reside in cities in the Underdark, where they worship the evil goddess Lolth. The lore of the drow might have been created in the early days of D&D, but it was author R.A. Salvatore who fleshed out drow society in his The Legend of Drizzt novels. Drizzt Do'Urden is a drow ranger who left the Underdark and traveled to the surface world in order to escape his evil kin. It was difficult for Drizzt to live on the surface, as drow elves were hated by many, which is why he ended up in Icewind Dale. Drizzt would later become one of the greatest heroes of the Forgotten Realms, and he might be the most iconic character in D&D.
Over time the Drow, and many other races, were given more complex histories and societies and more fleshed out worlds. Originally just a background species that served a narrative purpose, there’s no reason their world shouldn’t be fleshed out and expanded.
PART 5 - ANTI-WOKE BACKLASH
Because the Woke successfully changed so much of traditional nerd culture, much to the nerd’s chagrin, this prompted a wave of backlash and calls for ignoring the proposed changes.
This Russia Today article mocked letting ‘sensitivity readers’ force changes on the classical world of DnD as a simple battle between good and evil, fearing that the same type of people who would make these changes to DnD are the same type of people who made Toxic Masculinity the true villain in the latest Star Wars films and seem intent on changing or erasing all of traditional nerd culture.
Doctor Disaster isn’t alone in hating woke changes to his favorite fantasy worlds. This article and this other article lays out the unpopular changes made to Star Wars, He-Man, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Lord of the Rings, Terminator, Ghostbusters, Wonder Woman, Charlies Angels, James Bond, Men In Black, and Mortal Kombat (among many others)
PART 6 - NIETZSCHE’S ANTI-MORALITY
The Anti-Woke aren’t alone in hating what they perceive as preachiness. Nearly 150 years ago the philosophy Friedrich Nietzsche set out to destroy the priests of his day and their Christian morality, arguing that we have come to consider morality is, in reality, merely a manifestation of priestly ressentiment of the strength of warriors. From Oxford:
Nietzsche sees ressentiment as the core of Christian and Judaic thought and, consequently, the central facet of western thought more generally. In this context, ressentiment is more fully defined as the desire to live a pious existence and thereby position oneself to judge others, apportion blame, and determine responsibility.
In short, there are two moralities for Nietzsche, that of the Master (or Roman) and that of the slave (Christian).
Nietzsche got the ball rolling on the idea that morality is socially constructed in ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ / ‘The Genealogy of Morals’:
Master morality, which he also referred to as Roman morality and the morality of ‘good vs. BAD’, identifies good with excellence and bad with lack of quality.
Slave morality, which he also referred to as Christian morality and the morality of ‘good vs. EVIL’, identifies good with obedience and evil with rule breaking.
PART 7 - FANTASY RACES/SPECIES AND MORALITY
The first question is, ‘Do individuals within that species have free will?’ Mindless pawns and automatons don’t make choices, so their morality is a mere reflection of the being that controls them.
In the Tolkien world, all ‘corrupted races’ were ultimately controlled by Morgoth/Sauron and ultimately were without free will. They were predatory, expansionist beings dedicated to spreading darkness and conquering the parts of the world that were still good and uncorrupted. They were evil in the Christian/slave sense because they violated various human moral rules as found in the real world, but good to the degree in the Roman/Master sense to the degree that they produced worthy challenges for the adventuring Fellowship.
Ultimately they existed as cannon fodder for the good guys to overcome, and for simple stories, maybe that’s good enough. Maybe it’s not important if the random kobold troop bandits your PCs encounter on the road to Waterdeep have deep, meaningful inner lives where they wrestle with existential questions and self-reflect on their place in the wider world.
But then again, maybe it’s more fun if they do. It could be interesting to do a kobold campaign where there’s dissent in their ranks and different leaders are fighting for control. From The Forgotten Realms wiki:
Personality
Kobolds were resentful of their short stature and hated members of other races who poked fun at them for this. Most felt as though they ought to compensate for their small size in other ways, such as humor or aggression.
They would naturally tend to hate larger creatures, and although they would show respect and obedience if required, they always looked for ways to display their resentment.
The ultimate goal of the kobold race was to conquer as much land as possible…
…Where other races considered heroes to be those who enact great feats of strength or military prowess, kobold heroes were those who showed great prowess in trap setting, torture and ambush.
Relations
Kobolds held a hatred for nearly all other humanoid races and enjoyed killing and torturing them, in particular brownies, gnomes, pixies and sprites.
Kobolds were known to use dire weasels as mounts.
These creatures don’t have to be corrupted forms of a ‘good’ species; they could just be a smart, humanoid-reptilian species surviving out in the wild as a group to the best of their ability. Nature IRL is full of species that fight one another for territory, so they could be seen as evil only by outsiders because of their aggressive tendencies.
In some ways, it -is- a social construction to view kobolds who use traps to kill elves as evil, while elves who hunt kobolds are good, rooted in which group is more or less likely to be allies or antagonists for a standard ‘good’ party. But ultimately, it’s possible to view the conflict as one species fighting another given their respective evolutionary advantages. To the degree that nature is amoral, inter-species conflict is amoral.
Ultimately, within DnD, what seems to separate good species from bad species is aggressive territorial expansion with no concern for the impact on innocents caught in their way. But that’s something lots of IRL species do, including humans, and we always consider our own in- group good and our rival out-group evil.
Consider the classical alignment chart. Societies have rules, and it’s good to follow those rules if they’re morally good, but evil to follow them if they’re morally evil. But those notions are rooted in the Christian/slave meaning of good vs. evil.
The historical, complicated version of this is Natural Law Theory, which states that man’s laws are good if they’re in accordance with God’s laws. In Tolkien’s Christianity/Catholicism-based world, this moral scheme makes complete sense.
But in a Nietzschean, or Darwinian sense, there is no good Divine being and hence no objective moral code. Just post-hoc rationalizations about why my in-group is good and yours is evil. So cultures would have characteristics, but their moral status as good, evil, or bad would be subjective and open to change.
PART 8 - DRIZZT DO'URDEN
So the Drizzt story, from a Nietzschean perspective, can be utilized across any non-hive species. Orcs and goblins and mindflayers and dragons, and anyone else with free will, can embrace or reject their species’ culture. Tales can be told from more complex perspectives and these creatures can have complex motivations and inner lives.
This can also introduce fun story possibilities. Imagine a stereotypical ‘good’ group of adventures fighting through a dark forest only to come across an elven village that, while appearing like a typical elven village, is actually home to a group of malevolent elves using their kin’s reputation for kindness as a trap.
Or maybe a drow or a beholder or any long-lived beings have grown weary of their aggression and want to seek out peace and cooperation with others, or want to study and learn about their wider world.
Maybe you prefer things the way they were and you want a simpler, black and white, good vs. evil campaign. Then do that. The classic good vs. evil morality play is ancient story that plays out across cultures because
The dialectic of the homily always presupposes a ground of evil.
- Cormac McCarthy
Fantasy comes from a tradition of storytelling that offers little life lessons about making good and bad decisions. Heroes are heroes because they have traits people in other times considered worth emulating, and villains are warnings about the price of making bad choices. It’s not a small thing.
Ultimately all that actually matters is that you and your friends have a good time.
As always, thanks for reading, and if you think I should change anything I always edit these post-release in response to constructive criticism.