A recent link by ixwin to a comment by ewin on a post byursulav's journal got me to thinking about the nature of Good and Evil, and in particular how good and evil relate to fantasy genres and RPGs
( Read more... )
Your 'evil' characters sound like what is classed as 'aberrant' in the Palladium (Rifts / Heroes Unlimited etc. etc.) alignment system, which is less silly than the D&D one but clearly still a very rough and ready substitute for complex development of a character's moral perspective. It is also, of course, a fairly similar outlook to that of the fellow in my icon
( ... )
Just to extrapolate a little on the Call of Cthulhu way of handling things. Killing and maiming other humans tends to cause sanity loss - though you can become 'hardened' to this, which in itself reflects mental damage and affects social functioning. There is extensive literature on the experience and treatment of combat veterans in this regard.
Participating in an actual massacre will tend to result in serious post-traumatic stress - the introduction by the Nazis of gas vans and gas chambers in camps was partly the result of the rate of mental collapse and alcoholism in the SD-Einsatzgruppen who had been carrying out extermination of 'undesirable' civilians through mass shootings (one of their commanders, Bach-Zelewski, was hospitalised for a lengthy period suffering from hallucinations). Empty bottles were also found in large numbers at NKVD execution grounds in the Baltic states after the 1940-41 Soviet occupation, even though the NKVD had its own orphanages where it moulded children from infancy to be remorseless killers
( ... )
First, just a slight correction, the Einsatzgruppen were Waffen SS, rather than SD. By the time Einsatzgruppen were used the SD had been reduced to being a rather rough police force when the SS arrested a lot of the senior members and had them shot
( ... )
You are confusing the SD (security police under Reinhard Heydrich's RSHA) and the SA (brownshirt stormtroopers). The Einsatzgruppen were 'security' units under nominal SD command and were lead by members of SD, Gestapo and Kripo in SD uniform.
Comments 8
Reply
Participating in an actual massacre will tend to result in serious post-traumatic stress - the introduction by the Nazis of gas vans and gas chambers in camps was partly the result of the rate of mental collapse and alcoholism in the SD-Einsatzgruppen who had been carrying out extermination of 'undesirable' civilians through mass shootings (one of their commanders, Bach-Zelewski, was hospitalised for a lengthy period suffering from hallucinations). Empty bottles were also found in large numbers at NKVD execution grounds in the Baltic states after the 1940-41 Soviet occupation, even though the NKVD had its own orphanages where it moulded children from infancy to be remorseless killers ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
That is a minor form of trampling on weakness
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment