Skyrim - Is Necromancy Evil? - Elder Scrolls Lore

necromancy the dark arts it's the manipulation of souls and corpses and throughout the ages it has been illegal or at the very least considered highly to booth by the majority of cultures you can really understand why this is simply based on events which have occurred throughout the errors necromancer's such as camera and the usurper mana marker the king of worms and patella the wolf queen have all used necromancy to bring pain and suffering to Tamriel on a mass scale however just because something is used for evil acts does not mean it is necessarily evil in itself for example orcs have raided and pillaged innocent villages using armor and axes for their own gain this fact though does not mean that the axes are inherently evil it just shows that they can be used in an offensive manner to some axes would be seen as something that delivers justice in the case of the town executioner or is something which provides protection in the case of annoyed living out in the forest with his family but is it the same with necromancy is necromancy just a useful tool that malicious people abuse or is it evil in itself welcome ladies and gentlemen my name is Mikael and in this fudge Muppet video I'm going to be discussing of that exact question is necromancy evil well firstly I guess it depends what evil really means so for this discussion to make sense we'll need to define evil in some sort of way keeping it nice and simple evil is going to mean something which inherently causes suffering or any type of harm to others especially to innocent people but does necromancy just by its very nature fit the description to find out we'll need to explore some foundational law surrounding the practice of necromancy itself and see if there's anything about these dark arts which make them innately evil regardless of the users intentions firstly however I think it would be a good idea to go through the mainstream cultures of each specific race and see what the consensus is after all if we want to get to the bottom of this we want to make sure we're finding as many perspectives on the subject as possible necromancy may be viewed as evil by one provinces culture but perhaps it's seen as good in another province for varying reasons or maybe throughout history opinions have changed let's explore it all let me know if you learn something new in the comments below and if you do enjoy this video we'd really appreciate if you could sell trap that life button now let's get right into it and kick things off with the Wood Elves what do they think of necromancy well there's some contradicting sources on this there's one story of a necromancer who was operating in the forests and a group of Bosma came through inquiring about his activity he says that they didn't seem to be offended at the sight of the skeletal minions he had reanimated and went as far as saying that they enjoyed seeing a lazy ancestor being raised through useful but menial tasks he put it down to the baz mary sense of humor however there's another text out there which explains how necromancy is viewed in each province and it says that the Bosma have an intolerance of necromancy which goes beyond all reason it says that many necromancer's who practice in Velen would end up being killed another interesting thing to note about Valen wood is because the more primitive Bosma practiced cannibalism on the dead there aren't as many fleshy corpses around for necromancer's to use anyway obviously they could still make skeletons though interestingly the green pact says that bodies should never be wasted and therefore should be eaten but imagine if we made a wood elf necromancer build who interpreted the pact differently saying that by raising dead bodies they wouldn't go to waste but anyways let's get back on track which source should we trust well I'm more inclined to believe the second source over the first one just because it has accurate information on all the other provinces regarding necromancy and the other account is a just one mages experience in one specific situation and B comes from a book in Elder Scrolls online now Elder Scrolls online has contributed some cool law which we love but we know they sometimes mess up and contradict other pre established law a way to explain both could be to say that yes Valen woods mainstream culture is against necromancy but not all individuals follow the mainstream so the elves who founded this necromancy just didn't happen to care but perhaps the more zealous Bosma types would have reported him or attacked on site not merely inquired another reason why I'm more inclined to believe most wood elves view necromancy in more of a evil light is because wood elf society has been harmed greatly on multiple occasions by powerful necromancy the main one to note is camera in the usurper he used undead as part of his army which he took over Valen would with and then proceeded to march further north into Tamriel causing widespread mayhem there was also another necromancer though they say his name has been lost to history who raised the horde of undead in an alien city of Balaam would long ago the undead were so powerful that the ayleid City had to be sealed off to contain them how about the High Elves can they shed some light on whether necromancy is evil or not well the High Elves are strong worshipers of the aedra who are quite the holy ones as you'd know and therefor they really don't like necromancy they've had problems with this load of thrash who fought against them in the past using heaps of necromancy in the process the Summerset Isles is also home land of mana Marco king of worms who used his necromancy powers for countless problems throughout the errors even helping mole add bow to invade Tamriel with his forces the Durrani clan of Atma who also come from the Isles were among the first to figure out the secrets of summoning souls nowadays however the Atma understandably despise necromancy to them it is truly Abel and they believe it should not be practiced because it involves playing with individual souls that said cultures who do not understand any necromancy at all are most at risk to suffer from it so a few special Atma are allowed to study necromancy although even these elite are not supposed to investigate so manipulation or trapping they are however able to look into using the dark arts to extend mortal lifespans perhaps this research shows a way to use necromancy in a not so evil way but as a rule of thumb while the Wood Elves generally aren't very big fans of necromancy the out ma hate it even more but let's take a look away from the elves for a moment and look towards the Red Guards they are a prime example of what I recently mentioned that those who do not understand necromancy are most at risk from problems arising from it you see Red Guards absolutely despise necromancy as in their culture they are deeply devoted to their ancestors therefore when you play with the souls of their ancestors via necromancy they're going to be very very mad being repulsed by such magic they tend to avoid it altogether even for small research purposes there's even a tribe of Red Guards called the Asha bar who solely lived to purify Hammerfell from the undead slaying them wherever they go that said in mainstream Redguard culture they want nothing to do the undead and they even go as far as to show distaste towards the Asha bar just for interacting with the undead even though they only do so to wipe them out so the red guards obviously believe necromancy is evil in a way this has been of disadvantage because you can't fight what you don't know one example of this would be the fact that the slowed have also been a problem for the Red Guards when Red Guards came to Tamriel they kept their tradition of burying criminals on islands off their Shores the slowed took advantage of these graveyards turning them into laboratories for their necromancy Red Guards fought back but allegedly the sled was still living near settled places like Strasse Makai and Abbey bomb gora well into the third era so I'm not sure they did too well living with slowed nearby who after all are a race which focuses heavily on necromancy would not be so pleasant for the Red Guards it's also well known that in the first era three anti warriors sacrificed their souls to create the anti wards and these magical relics prevented even powerful necromancer's from raising their dead so Red Guards High Elves and wood elves would definitely be likely to tell you that necromancy is evil and even though we don't know much of the orcs regarding this it's pretty safe to assume that a society based on strength with individuals who even seek an honorable death in battle wouldn't be too happy to have their souls or bodies manipulated for other purposes afterwards what we do know is that orc corpses are highly sought after by necromancer's for their strong skin and bones a group of necromancer's even tried to establish a way to purchase corpses from or sinem near the end of the third era although nobody knows what the orcs said or did another more mysterious case as usual is that of the argonians here necromancy isn't too widespread simply because Black Marsh is such a harsh place corpses actually decay really fast in the marshy environment so it's not very easy to find bodies furthermore most necromancer's wouldn't be able to live in Black Marsh so you wouldn't really find them thriving there and many would find the roaming Argonian tribals and all of the black marsh disease enough of a problem already there are however reports of slowed necromancer's who operated in Black Marsh at some point although they only did so along the coast where the environment is much more hospitable but that's pretty much it for argonians they were be providing much insight here although I wonder what happens to their link with the hist if their soul is played with by necromancy but what of the Khajiit another beast race of Tamriel well unlike the majority of the races we've covered so far the Khajiit seem to be far less opposed to necromancer's and their practices according to a guide on corpse preparation which explains how necromancy is frowned upon in most provinces it says that the Khajiit show quite little care to graves being robbed they're indifferent and it's said that in the port of central you can even purchase fresh corpses for all of your dark arts needs like black marsh the denser forest parts of elsewhere aren't too good for preserving corpses but the desert regions are great many Khajiit from desert tribes are buried with a small can of stones which a necromancer can locate easily and simply uncover the corpse now while this may be the case in the desert I'm gonna throw in some of my own intuition here and say that the Khajiit probably wouldn't be too happy if a necromancer started causing trouble for their society I think their indifference towards the grave robbing is because it happens out in the desert and the undead aren't affecting the cities they're living in obviously if hordes of undead started walking into their homes they'd be understandably upset but regardless it seems the khajiit of elsweyr a quite chill in regards to necromancy in comparison to the other races of Tamriel but how about a more interesting perspective that of the Dark Elves well the Dark Elves absolutely abhor necromancy they think it is disgusting and evil although originally they had no problem practicing it on races outside of their own which they considered lesser it is said that even the tail Vani who have mastered necromancy will not use a fellow dunmer corpse now however mainstream Dark Elf society isn't too fond of necromancy performed on any race interestingly the Dark Elves will give us a good insight into necromancy being evil due to their specific type of ancestor worship so Dark Elves are huge on ancestor worship and have lots of rituals revolving around it for example in a traditional dunmer home you will find a family shrine this shrine is referred to as the waiting door and family members pay their respects to their ancestors here they do so through prayer swearing dutiful oaths reporting on family affairs and even through sacrifice this isn't done in vain how as the living done ma who carry this out have a legitimate bond with their ancestors and can receive real blessings training and information from the departed spirits this communication with the dead is quite important for the dunmer culture and it has slowly become accepted as the dunmer religion these ancestor spirits can even come to the mortal world in order to offer their family protection although spirits do not like to visit the mortal world and do so only out of obligation the Otherworld is supposedly much more pleasant for spirits now the insight that Dark Elves bring us is this if the Dark Elves are playing with the spirits of the Dead isn't this spirit magic really just another form of necromancy well it's hard to say but this was exactly how it was viewed by the cultures outside of morrowind which contributed to the dun MERS darker reputation as you may know they even use ancestral remains to power ghosts fences which help ward off unwanted spirits as it expected the High Elves and wood elves aren't fond of this they believe it is cruel and unnatural to encourage spirits of the dead to linger in our world in the same way they see toying with souls in general as immoral they consider using remains to make ghosts fences to be repulsive but either way the dunmer were allowed to continue their practices even under the third Empire in private most Imperial officials considered it necromantic but it was allowed as a religion nevertheless not that necromancy was strictly outlawed by the Empire however it's generally frowned upon by most citizens like I mentioned though it is these ancestral practices that actually make the dark elves hate necromancy or at least the mainstream version of necromancy necromancy being outlawed in morrowind shouldn't surprise you although it is obviously a hard law to enforce the done marry practice of slavery provides a convenient loophole as you can just buy as many slaves as you can afford and then secretly use them for necromantic experiments however by the 430 third year of the third era slavery had been outlawed in morrowind knowing the Dark Elves though I would personally guess that it continued in secrecy as its practice has been so entrenched in their culture anyway so dark elves think necromancy is evil but in a way they kind of take in a form of spirit magic which others consider a form of necromancy is the spirit magic evil well they voluntarily take part in it but others view it as cruel it's a weird situation but the main thing to consider in your head as we talk about it is whether or not this constitutes the dunmer providing an example of necromancy it's used in a way that isn't actually evil now let's move to the classic Nords of Skyrim necromancy isn't exactly outlawed in Skyrim and if you've played through the College of Winterhold storyline you will know it's even practiced there that said as you would know most magic is generally frowned upon in Skyrim and mages aren't trusted by most locals knowing this imagine how necromancer's would be treated most folks would hate him and it wouldn't be uncommon for a local to get violent if he saw you raising bodies near his property this has led many necromancer's in Skyrim to do their work in private and most of them are ill-intentioned outlaws is not rare to come across a group of these necromancer's while adventuring in Skyrim as the climate is perfect for them to operate in think about it you've got snow everywhere which preserves corpses really well and the harsh terrain provides lots of isolated locations for you to conduct your magical work so do the Nords of Skyrim think necromancy is evil well nowadays most would although back in the days of the Dragon cult many people had a different view so in ancient Skyrim dragon priests would be buried with their followers and these followers became Restless draaga who continued to serve the priests in death via necromantic rituals each night they would go to their master transfer their life force to him and then go back to their slumber to recharge their own undead energy they're literally batteries this practice didn't increase for long though supposedly ending with the defeat of the dragon cult now there is even evidence though which shows that some nerds did not like necromancy and they really did not want to be reanimated this evidence is the use of star rim to protect corpses from necromancer's after death this practice too however stopped being performed as you'd know most Nords were just buried in crypts and burrows which is like a candy shop for necromancer's many nerds are now just buried in the Hall of the Dead in their cities but at least this provides some sort of protection from roaming necromancer's Nords have even faced troubles with necromancer's in the third era with the war the red diamond this sort Emma the wolf queen of solitude raise armies of undead to assault the Empire even in the fourth era necromancer's tried to summon and bind her spirit but their efforts were stopped by the Dragonborn if you did that quest it seems necromancer's are always out doing the wrong thing but again we can't let that simply determine that the art itself is inherently evil so let's move to high rock and then to cyrodiil something to remember though for high rock skyrim sir Adele and other provinces for that matter is that if people worship the Divine's they're probably not going to be fond of people interfering with the holy processes of life and death souls and the afterlife so in high rock it is of no surprise that necromancer's are hated by the local populace therefore they have to operate underground and it is said that the sewers beneath way rest actually possess illegal necromancy trading depending on where you are in high rock bodies can be hard to possess you see in the northern regions of high rock bodies tend to be cremated which makes them quite useless to necromancer's in the southern regions however bodies are buried in cemeteries just like the Imperial custom and it is here that necromancer's will look for new subjects for reanimation purposes another thing that helps necromancy Xinhai rock is the fact that these Breton lands are prone to war so there's not really a shortage of dead bodies true to this you won't find a necromancer in public but if you go wandering astray into the wilderness you might end up in quite the pickle high rock has also suffered from the Cameron usurper like the wood elves did although barren off rock finally defeated him and his undead army in the third era back in the second era though high rock also faced problems from necromancer's as a man named Ann Gough the grave singer defiled a great Breton noble cemetery aiming to corrupt the land of Clan Umbra he was defeated by the lion guard of the Daggerfall covenant though around the same time another group of necromancer's trafficking bodies on the island of bet Nick were also dismantled so High Rock has definitely had problems with necromancer's and they're considered evil by most there and finally we have Sarah dill Sarah Doyle has seen its fair share of necromancy over the years I mean when a leads were there they used full-on undead armies people think they had super necromantic powers and knowledge although others put it all down to them making pacts with Daedric princes such as more like bow either way there was plenty of necromancy related tivity going on in Cyrodiil long ago some city-states openly practiced necromancy for prolonged periods of time in the Maratha era in modern times however with Imperials as the common citizen and the Empire running the show things are more similar to how they are in Skyrim most citizens aren't too keen on necromancy but necromancy itself is not illegal at all though it was apparently abolished in the late 1st era during the reign of Rieman ii now do keep in mind while I say it's more similar to Skyrim it's not exactly the same the citizens of Cyrodiil are a lot more open to necromancy and magic is more publicly tolerated in general when compared to the Nords the Empire has even been known to hire necromancer's who are given the dead bodies of criminals to use in the study of their craft the mages guild however has gone through many many phases regarding necromancy some majors think it should remain practiced in the institution whereas others thought it should be banned many of you will know that Hannibal Traven did bear necromancy in the mages guild and in Oblivion we saw this guild faced a lot of problems from the order of the black worm like many places in Tamriel mana marco has caused problems in cyrodiil on multiple occasions so to summarize Serie del necromancy is still frowned on by a lot of common folk but it's not as hated as somewhere like the summerset isles or even skyrim so now that we have a pretty extensive understanding of how necromancy is viewed all around Tamriel and throughout the ages and why let's get into some solid exploration of the act of necromancy itself and whether or not it truly is evil by nature like many cultures believe it to be so necromancy inherently involves the manipulation of souls of the dead though as you know the scores of magic are artificial constructs and there is overlap everywhere so in a way using a soul trap spell from the conjuration tree is dipping your toes into some sort of necromancy that said this soul trapping is usually performed on animals and not humans and this is generally considered less evil while animals do have souls in the Elder Scrolls universe they're not really considered as sacred as mortal Souls hence the division into white souls being animal ones and black souls being mortal ones black souls can't be captured with a normal soldier so for most of the time soul trapping isn't as sinister as it can be said going out and killing a mammoth just use its soul to enchant a pair of pants isn't exactly nice is it now if one were to use a black soul gem human souls could be ripped from the body and used to charge or create enchanted items that sounds pretty evil to me just by its nature because it involves taking one soul which in the Elder Scrolls universe is something very sacred and special generally being involved in the journey to the afterlife it is said that black soul gems can be created by offering them to man imarco in a ritual known as the shade of the revenant they can also be formed using lightning attractors in the soul can and it is believed that souls trapped using black soul gems are held in the soul can a realm of oblivion which is a gloomy dark area filled with undead abominations necromancy is also associated with Molag Bal who commits quite a lot of evil acts so you can understand the stigma behind it all really easily souls cannot die while held in a black soul gem until the gem is finally used black soul gems are also hungry in a way standard soul gems are not and can even absorb parts of the handless soul if they do not contain a soul of precisely the right size to fill them this is just one example that shows how necromancy can be dangerous and corrupting to the user and respected majors throughout the errors have said that necromancy is too corrupting to the user and therefore one cannot simply dabble in it the siddik order even banned the practice and they're a seriously wise group furthermore people argue that by Nature necromancy involves the spilling of blood not literally the use of your own blood although that is needed for some rituals in the Elder Scrolls universe but rather the simple fact that something needs to die to be reanimated in the first place therefore many practitioners of necromancy do end up killing things just to practice their art all these examples point to necromancy being a sinister art now as I was saying soul trapping at least in the sense of necromancy is definitely evil because you interfere with someone's soul and their journey of life and death usually against their will so there's that plus necromancy requiring things to die as a prerequisite but I think we need more evidence than this to properly convict necromancy well one thing to consider is that not just soul trapping but reanimation itself the keister of necromancy involves the manipulation of souls again this is usually against the will of the person who possessed the salt you can however raise a corpse without the soul that belonged to the body but you still need to use a soul or spirit from somewhere and if you decide to use a soul trap spell and then raise a corpse you still ripped that person's soul from their body didn't you it is said that you can use an animal soul to reanimate a corpse of a human but it isn't overly effective I mean you can even stitch together multiple pieces of corpses from various creatures and create an abomination but again it requires some sort of soul energy to run I suppose if you voluntarily allowed someone to use your soul then you could argue it wouldn't be as malicious but remember how we're defining evil as something that inherently involves harm and suffering so does necromancy require this well manipulating souls of the dead and binding souls to physical forms generally does involve them harm and here's why the spirit of a dead body wants to pass on and depart the mortal world peacefully when you reanimate the undead which in the large majority of cases is the body of the recently deceased the spirit often hasn't left the body the original owner can remain spiritually tethered to the body for days months or in some cases years after death this connection is referred to as the spiritual umbilicus and it weakens over time this was talked about by a contemporary of vanna's Clarion and mana Marko named vaster II she is what you would call a more compassionate necromancer and actively sought to avoid tormenting or permanently binding Souls she wanted to benefit society rather than just hoard power anyways what she explains is that the newer a corpse is the stronger its spiritual umbilicus is and the more of a fight it will muster against the necromancer now this matters for Ethics but for most necromancer's it's irrelevant because the fight is still super easy to win the spirit will just struggle more this is why most necromancer's prefer fresher corpses they're actually easier to raise the newer they are it takes less effort for the necromancer but it's still more of a struggle for the spirit who will try and fight against it so what vas 3 was explaining is that the spirit still puts up a bigger fight which torments it greatly causing suffering what this goes to show is that necromancy as you probably know it or the necromancy you thought of in your head when you clicked on this video does innately cause suffering to an unwilling victim therefore I would decide it is evil however by following västerås advice and only reanimating bodies that have been dead for a very long time the suffering can be avoided to a large degree this is especially the case when the subject is only reanimated temporarily and the soul is not bound permanently that said while this practice of necromancy is much more considerate to the souls being affected it still generally requires some sort of soul to be bound to a corpse or simply just to be interfered with and even though it's temporary it is still done against the will of the soul when you kill a reanimation in Skyrim who might only be up and running for 30 seconds they will often say thank you or free at last so we know they don't enjoy the experience another interesting example where pain and suffering is inherent to necromancy is the process of becoming a lich this is the ultimate goal of many necromancy zazz it grants them great necromantic powers and immortality they can practice their necromancy forever growing stronger and stronger as the years go by as you'd expect becoming the lich is very difficult and not many necromancer's ever pull it off the way of becoming a litter is very mysterious but we do know of one path so firstly you'll need to be a very powerful necromancer with huge amounts of willpower you'll also need a magical relic of great power and a whole bunch of living Souls the necromancer must use the magical relic as a casting focus and then unleash potent necromancy spells on his living subjects wrenching their souls from their bodies in a ridiculously painful manner now this does not just happen to be painful it is actually intentionally excruciating to become a lich the souls you collect must be torn from the bodies in the most violent and torturous ways otherwise you can't ascend to lich them the necromancer also has to transfer their own soul into a physical object and if you destroy this object during the transfer or process then the necromancer will die before becoming a lich that said once the necromancer has become a lich and the ritual can take about a week then destroying the object will not destroy the Lich this is a perfect example of necromancy being necessarily evil one thing I'd love to point out in this video though is that you can consider a lot of magic to be evil would an illusion magic be evil because you use it to mind-control people without permission just some food for thought but anyways what I have discovered seems to be this necromancy as we tend to know it is evil because it requires the manipulation of bodies and souls against their owners will and in most cases it torments the spirit that is yet to leave the body it is said to corrupt almost all those who practice it leading them to do evil acts in the future as seen over and over again throughout history many acts involving necromancy such as becoming a Ledge or trapping souls into soul gems also involve varying levels of suffering even when practiced with more compassion there is never a guarantee that necromancy will not cause torment and suffering to the undead although it would obviously occur to a lesser degree so in summary that which involves playing with the soul which is most of necromancy is pretty evil however one can argue that there appear to be rare examples of necromancy being used in a way that does not cause suffering for example remember those few elite outlet of the Summerset Isles who I said were allowed to study necromancy to learn how to extend mortal lifespans any investigation into soul manipulation though is strictly forbidden therefore whatever they're doing which doesn't involve the soul would seemingly avoid the suffering that occurs during traditional necromancy whatever they do though isn't clear but to me it comes down to that whole fact of magic schools being artificial constructs and therefore it's hard to define what necromancy really is same goes for the ancestral rituals of the Dark Elves which is undertaken voluntarily while it may cause a spirit pain to come to the mortal world it would be considered worth it in order to protect their family shrine consider this if your own family was attacked by a murderer you would probably get involved to protect them even though you would probably experience some sort of pain in the fight you would consider it worth it while the act caused you suffering and you knew it would it was not an evil thing the person who attacked your family was doing the evil thing and you had to suffer in order to protect them in the same way a dark elf who voluntarily allowed his spirit to be called back to defend his family does so knowing that it will not be pleasant but it will be worth it to them this provides a gray area on the topic but ultimately gives us the following final conclusion necromancy as it is categorized by the over majority of people in Tamriel is definitely an evil practice unless someone consents to being reanimated with just their own body and soul the act of necromancy requires that innocent entities suffer and it most certainly requires something to be dead in the first place however there are rare examples of magical processes like the Dark Elf spirit magic which kind of overlap with the practice of necromancy which I would not consider evil there's also things like the creation of flesh at Ranaut's which involves trapping a Daedra soul inside a reanimated fleshy body but then we'd have to argue if using a Daedra soul against their will is evil because then most of conjuration would be able but to be honest i personally don't think i would feel too guilty abusing a Daedra perhaps you might though so tell me what you think in the comments below is necromancy evil using the categorization that most mages in the Elder Scrolls universe agree on I would say that it is but I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below thank you guys so much for watching the video all the way through as well and if you'd loved more discussions like this definitely let me know and subscribe to get more I really hope you learnt something new and that you enjoyed this lore video as much as I enjoyed making it it was a big one but I love writing pieces like this perhaps we should try to make some sort of compassionate necromancer building it might end up something super sensational social media links are in the description if you happen to be interested as well as a link to our patreon if you want to help support content like this my name is Michael thanks for watching fudge Muppet and I look forward to nerding out with you again very soon

Channel: FudgeMuppet

Views: 700,757

Keywords: skyrim, elder scrolls, necromancy, skyrim necromancer, is necromancy evil, elder scrolls theory, elder scrolls necromancy, skyrim necromancy, elder scrolls lich, fudgemuppet

Id: 1plg9kxl1Og

Length: 30min 4sec (1804 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2018