Guild Wars 2

This issue has probably been raised before, and if it has… whatever, because I think it’s interesting.

Towards the end of the story, many characters seem to be killed and turned into undead willy nilly at an alarming rate. And whenever this happens, all of the character bemoan the evils of Zhaitan and say how he has corrupted them and they should relieve that poor undead friend of theirs from Zhaitans desecration of their corpse.

Buuuuuuuut…. what about necromancers? They’re good guys, yet they do the exact same thing. In GW2 they got rid of this mechanic for the sake of playability I think, but if anyone remembers in GW1 you made your undead minions from the corpses of your enemies and allies. So when you spawned a Flesh Golem, Bone Horror, etc, it was fabricated from the deceased tissue of friend and foe. Yet somehow this is okay necromancy, but whenever Zhaitan does everybody throws a fit. Granted, he’s killing people left and right and nobody likes that, but people are saying that his act of using necromancy is in itself an evil thing to do. So if we define necromancy as evil, then isn’t a player necromancer evil as well? You might say that they are not trying to take over the world and that they only use their dark powers for good, but then what you’re saying is that the end justifies the means, which is what the Inquest believe and is what makes them evil.

So basically the game says that if Zhaitan corrupts something, that is evil. But it is okay in the name of justice to use skills such as Putrid Cyst, Dark Path, Gathering Plague, Feast of Corruption, Well of Suffering, Mark of Horror, Cruel Strike and Wicked Strike? Heck, wicked strike even has a name that implies that it is an evil thing to do.

(PS. Every time I make a post like this, everyone hates on me for bringing up GW2 inconsistencies. This is just for discussion; please, don’t hate on me.)

Well, necromancers might sometimes be viewed as sinister or a bit creepy, but unless they act evil, they aren’t viewed as evil. Necromancers usually don’t create beings with minds, and don’t directly raise the corpse. Also, Zhaitan isn’t really using necromancy as we understand it, he corrupts corpses with dragon magic, which is very different from what mortal necromancers do.

There is no inconsistencie here. Gun’s don’t people, the people using the gun do. The same goes for undead minion’s. They are the tool, and the technique to raise the dead to be undead can be used for good or bad. The game is saying that Zhaitan is evil.

Excelliate.7914:

Well, necromancers might sometimes be viewed as sinister or a bit creepy, but unless they act evil, they aren’t viewed as evil. Necromancers usually don’t create beings with minds, and don’t directly raise the corpse. Also, Zhaitan isn’t really using necromancy as we understand it, he corrupts corpses with dragon magic, which is very different from what mortal necromancers do.

I’m assuming you didn’t play much GW1. In GW1 you DID “directly raise the corpse” to create a minion. Granted, the minions didn’t look like what you raised it from because it would have been nuts from a gameplay/design perspective, but you basically took their flesh and bone and fashioned a monster out of it.

And the Risen seem fairly mindless: “Death good!” “Kill Everything!” “Ungh!”

And just because Dragon Magic is different does not automatically make it evil. Just because it’s different does not automatically make it evil. That kind of implies that just because it’s different and the five races don’t understand it it must be evil.

Necromancer skills clearly corrupt, poison, distort, torture, disfigure, twist, and defile. It’s in their skill names and descriptions. How is this better than what Zhaitan does, regardless of what kind of magic they both use?

mercury ranique.2170:

There is no inconsistencie here. Gun’s don’t people, the people using the gun do. The same goes for undead minion’s. They are the tool, and the technique to raise the dead to be undead can be used for good or bad. The game is saying that Zhaitan is evil.

It’s like nobody bothered to read my post… I already provided a counter arguments for this.

Let me clarify again: the game calls Zhaitan a villain for both the end AND the means. So the plot defines him as evil for both his goal of global domination and corruption, but also for the act (the means) of corrupting corpses for his minions. Whenever someone of importance is corrupted, the characters give a commentary on how evil his undead magic is. In one plot point you discover that the large abominations are created by sewing together parts from many corpses, and the characters comment how deranged, evil, and grotesque this practice is. But this is exactly the way in which Flesh Golems are made.

mercury ranique.2170:

There is no inconsistencie here. Gun’s don’t people, the people using the gun do. The same goes for undead minion’s. They are the tool, and the technique to raise the dead to be undead can be used for good or bad. The game is saying that Zhaitan is evil.

Except that building and firing a gun is not inherently evil. Putting together an undead abomination and send it shambling off to fight for you is inherently evil, or at the very least immoral.

This has been covered before, but here we go:

Mortals get their magic through gods or more powerful beings. Player necromancers are drawing on the power of Grenth, the god of death. Like Necromancers, Grenth is fundamentally creepy, but he’s a good guy overall. When you get killed and respawn, that’s Grenth doing you a favor right there.

Grenth’s necromancers create minions using corpses as materials, but they do not steal the will of the corpse’s owner. The minion is a new, separate creature who is coincidentally made out of previously dead flesh and bone. This is no different than an elementalist summoning a rock golem, except using corpses instead of rocks.

Zhaitan is a different story. First off, he’s strong enough to have his own magic, without any help from the gods. That means he doesn’t need to follow Grenth’s rules. Like the other dragons, he doesn’t just take the body. He takes the mind/soul as well. When a corpse becomes a Risen, the previous owner is trapped within and bound to the dragon’s will. Zhaitan isn’t just a big dragon necro. He’s also a soul-stealing slavedriver.

Yes, I know you sometimes find ghosts around who say their body became a Risen. I suspect that just depends on how long you were dead before Zhaitan raised you. This could also explain why some Risen seem ‘mindless’, whereas others seem just as smart as any other speaking race.

Good answer, Munky. That actually makes sense.

The best answer is the fact that many times the soul is trapped within the corpse that Zhaitan raises and is thus forced to do his bidding. This is what Tyrians see as evil, because it ruins the balance of life and death, and thus putting down the risen minion puts the soul back to rest. The Necromancers of GW and GW2 are generally seen as creepy and mainly pushed out of constant contact with people, but in the end they deal in balance, many of them being seen as shepherds for the dead.

I do want to point out though, that the power of necromancers doesn’t come from the gods. It comes from the bloodstones.

This question was answered here already: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Zhaitan-and-Necromancy/first#post1288013

As everyone has already said. The mind and soul aren’t left untouched with Zhaitans corruption. That’s why you hear them occasionally yell things like “Save me”.
Necromancers simply raise the flesh and bone, they’re about as evil as taxidermists (but equally as creepy).

Narcemus.1348:

I do want to point out though, that the power of necromancers doesn’t come from the gods. It comes from the bloodstones.

Ah, yes. I think you’re right, upon re-reading the wiki’s page on Magic again more closely. This would be why magic is a finite resource that can be consumed, as covered in the Asura personal story. It’s worth noting however, that some magic is made from scratch, and does not need to draw on the bloodstones.

Well, others have already answered. Zhaitan’s minions still have the mind and soul enslaved within (except in some circumstances, as mentioned above). In Guild Wars 1, a human villian named Shiro Tigachi used a similar form of “necromancy” or “dark magic”—he imprisoned human souls in constructs that he used as slaves.
Normal necromancers don’t do this, they just use the bodies after the soul has departed to the afterlife.
That said, there is a stigma against normal necromancers in human society. Humans are very touchy about the bodies of their dead, and about death in general—so in some cases necromancers are looked down upon. In charr society, a necromancer might also be looked down upon, but for a different reason completely—being a magic user in general.
Asura, Norn, and Sylvari seem much more comfortable with the death process and with magic, so they have no problem with necromancers.