Okay so is Baralis evil?

I cant remember is this was in the 1st or 2nd book (too lazy to look it up), but I seem to recall when Baralis "unlocks?" the Endlords, he doubts that he was ever really evil. He remembers that he did bad things and was generally not a good person, but he is not in the same legue as the Endlords.

Since his demise in the Book of Words, Baralis has been captured, broken past the point of torture, used and seen the true face of terror. Is this enough for him to turn?

Lets also not forget the relationship with Crope, who for all intensive purposes is a good individual who loves Baralis. Does Crope see something we don't?

Evil is a point of view. See my signature for details.

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"The Alliance ain't the good guys. They're the opposing faction." ---Sam Shepherd or Stephen Howie

Still, let's not shut down new posts. Might get some interesting conversation out of it.

My opinion, as I said in the post where this was spawned, that in this case it depends on the moral structure set up by the author. I can't see that JVJ has set down hard and fast rules for what is evil.

He most probably is selfish, in that he acts out of his own interests, whereas Raif is often acting in what he thinks are the interests of others.

BUT .. Raif is the Watcher of the Dead. It could be argued that he is evil .. simply because he's always killing people who aren't evil themselves.

It's all about choices. I bet that's a big point for JVJ when writing. Not morality, but choices.

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Quote:

Death smiled as she withdrew. Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance. Any less and I just might call you back.

I havn't read A Cavern of Black Ice since 2000 but I think it sounded like Baralis made a deal with the Endlords. He helped them and they told him his name. I think he is still working with them but i don't know.

He did cause the storm that ended up helping Marafice Ice. I wonder if he did that at the direction of the Endlords. Or maybe he thought Marafice Eye could lead Spire Vanis in battle agains the unmade.

Just seems to me that Baralis is evil and notice how he seems like he is about to cross the person who has provided a place for him to hide. But it would be a good twist for Baralis to be evil for the first series and then oppose the Endlords in the second.

Opposing the Endlords and being good aren't the same thing.

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"The Alliance ain't the good guys. They're the opposing faction." ---Sam Shepherd or Stephen Howie

True. True. Being on the right side does not make you good.

Morally speaking Baralis has consistenly been evil. He may show sympathy and in the case of Crope there was one time that Baralis acted to protect the giant even though he was a stanger, but that was an exeption. Normally Baralis will do almost anything to achieve his aims. But if JVJ had an evil character join the side of the 'good guys' it would not be for the first time. Remember the female pimp from the Four Kingdoms who tried to force Melli to be a prostitute and then later kept Melli's child safe. I don't think she was ever good but she still took the right side.

I suppose Baralis could change but it doesn't seem to me that he is going to become a moral individual during this series.

For the definition of evil I would agree that jvj does not draw the line of good and evil as clearly as other authors. this is in my opinion one of the things which makes reading SWORD such a great thing, namely the fact that there are a wide range of complex characters. yet, I suppose most of us readers would like to see some kind of union of clans, cities, sull, rangers and magic users to defeat the endlords.

the endlords clearly have some kind of a lack of complexity, they don't seem to think about right or wrong, they seem to have one purpose and one motiv: the distruction of the world as it exists in SWORDS.

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now to Baralis: I don't think he is evil in an endlord kind of way. and I don't see a lot of hints alos otherwise why he should be a threat. I rather started to think that he might play a very important role on the side of the alliance. what makes him evil? breaching the blind? I don't think so. he has acted in a state of complete helplessness and it seems without even knowing who he was or what he was doing, he just pushed. good or bad didn't seem to exist in that moment.

Baralis is doubtlessly the most powerfull sorcerer in the story so far, redirecting storms over such distances is something only few can do as another fellow said. his figure has now been built up over three books very slowly so I guess we can expect a lot of him... let's see

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If you say evil is not a point of view you would also have to say that it is easy to divide the world into black and white, wouldn't you? Dividing the world into good and evil has indeed to do with morals but the higher the moral development of a person the more this person will realise that it is actually not that easy or virtually impossible to find pure white or pure black.

So I somewhat disagree with your statement that evil is not a point of view... still I also agree because I don't like when ppl don't dare or don't try to declare some things or at least some parts of some things downright evil.

But its hard to claim such things because moral codes differ very much and though I hope there is some kind of universal underlying moral I have to admit that I do not know where to draw the line and how... and well, such lines are usually easy to draw on a two-ended scale from good to evil... but reality is a system with uncountable factors... who's to draw lines into this complex system?

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I wish there was just one truth, like a hidden but existent sceleton of everything. something which cannot be interpreted or seen in different ways... but such a claim is so hard to defend. what arguments do you have for claiming the existence of one truth? I'm very interested and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way!

you don't even know if the color of this smilie looks the same for both of us... yet you might say that the color-waves it radiates are the same and that is the truth... well what sense does a truth make for wich we don't have a standardised means of perception?

as long as humans are no clones of each other and go through an educational software which makes sure that they experience exactly the same things from their first moment of life until they're dead... as long as that doesn't happen there is no absolute truth, is there? ... and if there is, humans don't seem to have the means to see it.

oh and by the way I would just really love to read more opinions about Baralis!

There are truth to both points here in my opinion. THere are things that if polled 90% to 100% of people would almost certainly agree are evil. Jeffrey Dahmer killing and eating people was evil for instance, some people may argue that point but I think very few would.

But in regards to many things evil is subjected to opinion and perspective, many great "victories" through the countless wars on this planet throughout history are considered "slaughters", "massacres", "enslavements" and bitter defeats to the side that lost. In other words the other side see these same glorious victories as well evil.

Take the movie 300 for instance (which I think ranks as one of the top 3 WORST movies ever made but I digress) they show in that movie the persian emperor and persians as some kind of horrific corrupt monsters, the "Immortals" looked like monsters in fact. Of course much of this farce is perpetuated by the Greek side of the story and Herodotous record of it and much embellishment by Frank Miller and because eventually the Greeks won and little remained of the Persian empire after Alexander was done with them.

But in actuality the Persian's were very accomdating to the people they conquered, they had a sophisticated local government, they had technology that many of those conquered lacked thus improving quality of life for the new subjects. They highly valued art and subsidized quality artists and they were smart enough to know you cant collect taxes from dead people. In other words they were far from the monsters they have been portrayed as, especially in that grossly inaccurate horrible film.

But even without the movie 300 many people thought these things until recent archealogical discoveries contradicted these points. Why was this done? Because the persians LOST, thus they have been villiafied because their side of was story hasnt been told completely, sure they hated the Greek, but the Greeks attacked Damascus prompting the persians to retaliate. Of course many people gloss over this very important fact.

So my point is that history has to a greater extent dictated to us what is evil and what is not, the old testament portrays both Egypt and Rome as evil, but history shows that the world gained much from those 2 emipres.

So in regards to the books, Baralis is evil from a certain perspective, but if you look from a different angle not so much. Compared to his son in the the Book of Words hes a teddy bear.

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sumigo is just an online handle, my real name is Brandon.

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-reach out and torch someone-

www.dragonheadchronicles.co.nr/