Moral relativism in Lord of the Rings Online

by Eliot Lefebvre Oct 23rd 2009 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Culture, Opinion, Politics

It's one thing to accept that in the average fantasy MMO, you're going to be killing a truly astonishing number of creatures. That's not the most commendable concept ever, but it at least falls under the header of expected. But every so often, you find yourself stopping to think about the real-world ramifications of what you're doing. The Angry Bear took a closer look at the activities that Lord of the Rings Online is currently moving through in the Mines of Moria, and come to some rather interesting conclusions about the game's stance of invading the homes of other sentient creatures, killing them, and claiming everything they'd owned for several thousand years as rightfully yours.

Of course, Lord of the Rings Online is hardly the first time you've been tasked with invading someone's home for little reason other than it being convenient, but the argument outlined here is rather compelling and interesting. It also comes to an interesting conclusion after all the moral sides of the argument are fully explored, one that puts you largely back in the same place you started -- but it's still an interesting argument to consider. Take a look at the full piece, and perhaps tread a bit more lightly the next time you venture into Khazad-dum.

Tags: culture, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, mines-of-moria, morality, opinion, turbine

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

LaughingTarget said on 3:14PM 10-23-2009

This is an RPG problem in general. It's almost a staple of single player RPGs to run into a person's home, unannounced, dig through their dressers and take whatever they own and leave.

ubergrendle said on 1:49AM 10-24-2009

The blog writter starts on a false premise -- applying a post-modern view upon LOTRO. Tolkien is perhaps the 20th century's greatest *anti* post-modern author, he deliberately took a romantic perspective upon his characters and writing style. It is a throw back to the heroic myth, inspired by tales originating in oral tradition and classical archetypes. Ontop of this backdrop, Tolkien imposes a christian (particularly catholic) ethic -- almost dogmatically so.

In Tolkien's universe, evil is a corruption of good. Evil acts lessen your connection with god (the greatest good). Morgoth's crime is one of vanity and closely parallells that of Lucifer, demons exist because they conciously deny God's supremacy (in LOTRO case this would be Illuvatar).

The creatures of Moria are irredemably evil. They are the direct descendants and spawn of those that sought to usurp Illuvatar's will, and afterwhich the Valar. their opposition to the peoples of middle earth are not one of mutual conflict over shared living accomodation, they despise the citizens of middle earth since they are Ainu's creation and represent his will.

Criticising LOTRO for a lack of moral relativism is like criticising a Ford Mustang for not being a boat.

Wisdomandlore said on 3:37PM 10-23-2009

In Tolkien's world there is little moral relativism, at least when it comes to the "evil" races. Orcs and goblins, and by extension Turbine-created monsters such as Merrevail, are corruptions of good beings such as elves. They are innately evil and irredeemable. Trying to paint a Israel-Palestine metaphor on the situation is pointless. And the author (probably unintentionally) seems to equate Palestinians, and by extension Muslims, with goblins and Merrevail.

Despite that, I do think that MMOs teach us some questionable lessons. Resources are infinite. There's no reason to conserve. Few actions have any lasting consequence. Those Merrevail you just uprooted from their home will be back in a few minutes. I don't think MMOs should be used to hammer social messages into players, but hopefully future MMOs will create truer living worlds where player behavior actually alters the game world, for good or bad.

LaughingTarget said on 3:51PM 10-23-2009

The Palestine comparison doesn't work. Palestinians didn't show up to an abandoned plot of land and lay down stakes and are now being shoved out by a people who decided to come back and reclaim everything, Jews have lived on that land continually for 6,000 years. It would only work if the Dwarves lived in Khazad-Dum the entire time and the goblins just up and decided one day that the goblin god has decreed that all dwarves be killed or removed from the mines. Then it would be a valid comparison.

Jess said on 3:38PM 10-23-2009

Bollocks.

An interesting point in many other MMORPG's. But Khazad-dum is the LAST place where moral relativism can be invoked.

Khazad-dum belonged to the Dwarves and will so again . End of story.

nemies.morti said on 4:15PM 10-23-2009

Guess I am not understanding... long day and all... But how are we invading the Orcs/Goblin's homes? Wasn't it he Dwarves to begin with? I am incredibly rusty with my Lord of the Rings lore...

LaughingTarget said on 4:23PM 10-23-2009

1. Balrog chases pussy dwarves out of Khazad-Dum.
2. Goblins move in because no one is occupying the space anymore.
3. 7,000 years pass.
4. Dwarves, none of whom can even remember someone who actually lived there at any point (one would be hard pressed to find an elf that could remember that either), decide they want it back.
5. Goblins are now being killed when it's really now their own land.

It takes 20 years for a squatter in the US to establish homestead rights. Goblins held Moria for 7,000. It's their land at this point. Dwarves are an invading force, goblins are the rightful defenders.

Skypp said on 8:45PM 10-23-2009

The owner of the land is whoever can hold it using force. There is no land claimed by anyone that doesn't either have the army to fend off all neighbors, or a big brother behind them waiting to back them up.

Time is irrelevant. Claiming to be the first in an area is irrelevant. If you can fend off say... 8 or more countries with enough force to render their army null and void in 5 maybe 6 days, then that land is yours until its taken by someone with more force than you.

Nothing is rightfully anyone's property unless you can defend it.

CTrees said on 4:35PM 10-23-2009

China Mieville's novel Perdido Street Station handled this well. The protagonists were a motley bunch, but an one point they hired a typical adventuring party to assist in their quest. Said party were viewed as borderline sociopaths, and essentially evil, if necessary. I think it tends to fit player characters in RPGs in general quite well.

maika said on 4:55PM 10-23-2009

The post-modern filter is a little ridiculous, in my mind. Which side doesn't matter. They're fighting. They have conflicting interests. They both have valid arguments. So, they fight. Good and evil have very little to do with right and wrong, and more to do with treatment of others, and method of validation. You could argue that evil has the more logical approach, and that good is a naive and immature way to see things - see the business world, for example. Good, of course, could also be seen as morally 'better' by virtue of being altruistic and empathic, and evil as morally 'worse' because it is selfish, and violent.

Good societies can be more oppressive than evil ones, they're simply better, morally, intellectually. They are also more likely to justify their actions, whereas Evil societies just do what they want. Evil societies say 'live as you will' in the truest sense, which leads to the darkest, strongest, elements taking over. Good societies say 'we do what is right' even if that means preventing you from doing what you want.

So the questions is, what is this persons definition of a 'good' society? Does he think, for some reason, that good societies simply do not kill without extremely justified causes? That seems silly. Or does he think that Evil societies should be animal and voiceless, like the Balrog? Seems equally ridiculous.

Wjowski said on 7:27PM 10-23-2009

Trying to apply moral relativism to Middle Earth is kind of like attaching a boat anchor to your car.

It pointless and really rather stupid.

Dblade said on 9:42AM 10-24-2009

I'm not so sure about the "moral elevation" of the dwarves. In the Hobbit, Thorin Oakenshield almost brought the three nations of dwarves, men, and wood-elves to open war over his greed in hoarding the treasure of his fathers, even when the only way he could was by Bard dispatching Smaug based on Bilbo's discovery of his weakness. Dwarves and avarice do tend to be linked in myth, and you could easily imagine that part of the reason they were driven from Moria so easily was because of them isolating themselves from the other races of Middle-Earth.

Considering too how the elves generally have no love for dwarves, and Gimli and Legolas's friendship grew despite that, and his eyes were slowly opened over the course of the trilogy, I don't think it's unreasonable.

Plus, Tolkien always has had a distrust of industrialization, and I think it bled down even to the dwarves. His heart is very much with the elves, rangers, and hobbits. He loved plants and green spaces.

As for the point, well, like other commentors, I think LOTR is really not the best thing to analyze in modern terms. Tolkien very much was a creature of a different century from us, with his love of myth and his upbringing, and we have seen plenty of spurious analysis from that-the ring as atomic bomb comes to mind.

mszv said on 12:09PM 10-24-2009

No one loves Lord of the Rings (the book) more than I do, but Tolkien's moral stance can be, in my opinion, scary. Thes evil characters such as orcs seem to be genetically evil, evil just because they are orcs. Tolkien's also got that beauty thing going on - if a race is beautiful, then it's generally good. In the movies, which are very well done - they downplay the genetic evil thing. Anyway, the books are all about loss, about a world and a time never coming back, about nostalgia -- something that does not translate well to either an action movie or a game. So the movies and the games are different from the books.

How the moral stance translates to the game -- I don't know. I haven't played LOTRO in a long time. I do get tired of all the killing in MMORPGs. On the good ones it's explained as sort of a heroic quest thing, which I like better than just plain killing -- but still. It's not my preferred playing style, but it's what you do in the games, so I do it. I'm talking PvE here, not PvP. I'm still waiting for an RPG where you can really advance, and have fabulous adventures and see wonderful things and a great story without all that combat.

drjones said on 3:16PM 10-26-2009

Personally, I find the butchery of thousands upon thousands of bears, wolves, boars etc. more problematic than killing Orcs or Dwarves. What wild animal attacks whoever walks within 100ft and fights to the death for no good reason? Do they all have rabies? And what ecosystem can produce hundreds of Large Bears a day?