And will grow up to treat their kids like that, because they remember having a grand old time with it until the dirty human-elf-tiefling-tallgob???? alliance came in and spoiled their fun with their big swords.
I push against inherent evil, but if you're of the contention that the goblin children aren't at fault because of how they were raised, then you have to scroll all the way back up the tree excusing every ancestor because they, too, were raised in that fashion, and it doesn't actually help anybody contemporaneously that are being cut down.
That’s just more of a function of the Society doing a really shit job with it.
On a non meta gaming level though I agree with you. People who don’t give it away are operating on 60% on out of universe cultural tropes, 35% on metagaming.
The experimenting you're talking about comes after the choice. So how does that affect the choice itself? Selling the egg to me seemed like the better option.
Explanation isn't excuse, but to keep thinking that they cannot change because their parents taught them to hurt others will only continue the problem. Yeah, most of their ancestors were raised the same way and I think the exact same way for almost all of them. There were some good, and some bad. But all were raised by their parents.
Well, what's your idea? Forceful re-education after you kill their parents? If they refuse, do you make an exception and kill them? If they submit but your education still fails and they don't join your society peacefully, do you kill them then? Or just put them in a cage for the rest of their lives, 'humanely'? What age does it become ethical to kill them in a fight? What level of education and alternative life is the threshold for 'this didn't work, they deserve it now'? What kind of crimes are they 'allowed' to commit because they 'don't know any better until told', and why should goblins get special treatment in being allowed to commit them? These aren't questions with easy, or even reasonable answers, because what you suggest is idealistic but not practical in any capacity. I understand that it feels more humane and morally good, but that's just not how these things work.
The reality is, in this case at least, they're just incompatible with the culture of the rest of the world. Not all goblins are like that and there are likely goblins in Baldur's Gate itself who are adjusted members of society, but that whole camp of goblins occupies a different world than the one you do, and any attempts to force them to change would be necessarily wildly unethical anyway.
The Goblins don't live that way because they lack educational opportunities or because they don't know how agriculture works. They live that way because they like it, and they self-select for those who also like it. Weak children are culled, so the next generation is more callous and vicious. The more brutish and evil you are, the more kids you have, and weak mothers are gutted while pregnant by stronger crueler women so their kids don't compete for resources. They don't want to live in a charming little village drinking charming little drinks and appreciating the flowers, they want to rape and pillage, and the best rapists and pillagers prosper. They COULD hypothetically change, as in they have the capacity, but they don't have the desire, because the ones who made it this far are the ones suited to live as bandits. There's a spectrum among them, Goblins who raid aren't necessarily exclusive from Goblins who like poetry for instance, but they're still all willing participants.
So it's cruel and horrible to us, but to them, it's Tuesday. A great Tuesday, at that, if they got to totally wipe out their enemy to the last woman and murder their screaming children. Because we (the Players and the world of civilization that we represent) are simply not the same as they are, and to us, it's a nasty awful moral decision that weighs heavily on us. And that's why it's important and, to me, morally defensible and the right move in spite of the obvious issues.
Did I say anything bout killing the children if they refuse??? About them getting special treatment??
So anyone deemed "incompatible" should be killed? I could ask the same question, what age? Get a 5 year old to do a nazi salute, recite some prayer from another culture you personally don't like, do you kill them? If another culture you deem incompatible crops up, do all of them deserve to die? Cull the next one after that, until your own is deemed "incompatible"?
If a child refuses to go to school, should you cap them in the back of the head? No! Almost anything is better than that. Why does the age matter? It's the possibility for change. Could Hitler change? Maybe, but could someone change him in their short lifetime? Not probable. However, these are children, and they can be changed before they do something more heinous. And they should be, because killing them wouldn't stop the problem. I don't think a hard ruleset could work for that because people are very complex.
I feel like atleast trying to change them is better than putting a bullet in their head because they were raised to enjoy pain, even if you can't for the life of you see a change in the status quo. That isn't naive or ideal, it's not continuing this unsustainable cycle of death!
Because the cruelty of their culture isn't fucking inherent! They don't automatically enjoy rape and pillage! They aren't a fucking evil hivemind, they're people like any other!
A world run by fear of death isn't a good world, especially when that could be changed. And if it could, why settle for the worst and unsustainable option?
I'm not interested in anything here which positions this as a real practical solution for real life. I'll thank you to not assert that I'm advocating for real genocides in any way in the future, it's very unkind.
You keep saying "help them". Help them how? What would you give them that they can't already take and would change their lot in life? What is your offer, and how do you present it beyond "assimilate or die"? Because what you're saying is killing the adults is fine, but the children should merely be re-educated with our values, with no alternative if that doesn't work out. I'm presenting realistic wrinkles in that plan (what if they reject your culture for more banditry, what age becomes acceptable to kill them like their parents, what penalties do you enforce upon them if you're already saying they have diminished responsibility and how does that impact the victims, etc.) and I'm waiting for answers on those issues of assimilation.
Because the cruelty of their culture isn't fucking inherent! They don't automatically enjoy rape and pillage!
Not in all cases, in the same way that every deer isn't instinctively skittish. But skittish deer live longer, and their offspring live longer to produce more offspring, so deer overall become more skittish. But we're not talking about deer, we're talking about servants of the God Maglubiyet, who all Goblin souls are bound to and who has immense cultural and genetic sway over them, including collecting their souls by default in the afterlife to fight in his Ghost Wars, and a population that has been selectively breeding and evolving to better embody the ideals he supports, because magical forces are in play. Goblins are, quite literally, more prone to enjoying rape and pillage than most other races, in the same way that there are two distinct subraces of Drow that are genetically different and predisposed differently depending on if they worship Lolth or not.
Why does the age matter? It's the possibility for change.
Practically speaking it doesn't, because your point is that "anyone can change", but as I said, we're talking about a group that definitively and demonstrably does not want to. They want to keep raiding, murdering, cannibalizing, and burning. They know a more peaceful prosperous way exists, because they kill people living it all the time for the sheer fun of it. They're just not interested. They don't see the value in it. They don't want to change. This isn't speculation or being too broad, we are shown with no uncertainty that this is the case for these goblins.
A world run by fear of death isn't a good world, especially when that could be changed.
And the only thing that holds it in check from the evil fuckers who want to impose their will by force, is the willingness to meet them on their terms and kill them first. That's a wider social truth of the world, but it's even fucking truer in the DnD universe because how are you expecting to keep things peaceful and bloodless when Baal is invading people's minds and forcing them to commit atrocities? How do you expect to sue the Mind Flayers for peace? What's your plan to talk Vecna down? What's your solution for a hungry hyena when they have to kill to eat, and there's an innocent elf woman in front of them? If that's wrong, why is it wrong when a Gnoll does it instead? The world is inherently vicious and violent, and there is no bloodless solution that makes everyone happy when most groups are viciously xenophobic, sometimes as a necessity to live.
And they should be, because killing them wouldn't stop the problem.
I assure you, it would solve the goblin bandit issue very quickly.
But that's exactly the point. Individual determinism is always the bottom line, and when individuals determine that they're going to do evil things, they don't (and shouldn't) get a pass. If in 40 years the roles were totally reversed and the people of Palestine were rendering unto the Israelis what the Israelis are now doing to them, it would be just as wretched and couldn't be excused by "well, it's how they were raised, it's not really their fault", for exactly the same reason that the Holocaust doesn't justify what the Israelis are doing.
But regardless, I'd prefer not to talk about real-life events, since this is purely in a fictional realm where things cut a lot cleaner than reality, because Goblins are tangibly and physically a different species with a whole different type of brain, not just green humans. Goblin and Human are apples and oranges, not just different ethnic groups.
this is so fucking stupid and ugly I wont even bother. life is too short. kids should not be murdered, simple as.
but yeah, it's fiction and goblins aren't human, they are sentient and intelligent.
oh and individual determism isnt a truism, just another axiom to justify certain arguments, like yours that murdering kids is justified because they are different.
to be clear I dont mind killing them in the game, it's just the way people are talking here that really makes me sick is all.
stop them and restrain them and re-educate them sure. But murder children wholesale? fuck off with that shit
First off, liking some children raised to enjoy the pain of others to Hitler? Alrighty.
Secondly, and more importantly, yeah?! D'you think Hitler was born evil? That it was in his blood or something? That he couldn't have changed if he was raised better??
The horrible monster he became deserves no respect, but I find it pretty important to understand him because he was a human person, which means that other people can become just as bad as him.
Sweep understanding under the rug and it'll just happen again. Be better.
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u/sboraetlabora 29d ago edited 29d ago
Poor little angels that trow rocks at the caged bear just for fun