Clan-OOC StarClan Thesis/Good and Evil in StarClan
From Children of StarClan
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- Bans: [ Clan ] [ Clanless ]
- StarClan
- OOC Thesis on StarClan
- Good & Evil in StarClan
- StarClan as God
- State of War
- Feline Genetics
Good and Evil are concepts of White and Black that do not translate well into the real world. The grand majority of people in real life are not strictly good or evil, simply laying at various places on the slider between the two extremes. In many cases what is and isn't good or evil changes based simply on perspective (this is particularaly prevalent in situations of war). CoSC is intended to replicate real life as closely as possible within the Warriors setting. This means that good and evil cannot be depicted in a method that leads to ultimate.
An example is needed to clarify this idea. RiverClan and ThunderClan share a border, and will be used for this example, but infinite possibilities can be postulated based on it. The RiverClan leader decides that it's foolish to yield a piece of the riverbank to ThunderClan and moves the border to the treeline. The CoSC Warriors code says "But paws of a Clan to their own land must stay", so this action undertaken by warriors breaks the code, but at the same time the code states "The Clan shall be led, always in truth". This line implies that the leader's decision for the clan is inherently right (it can be interpreted other ways, but that's part of the intention of the way the CoSC code was written). Have the Warriors or the Leader committed evil acts? It depends. The Leader would believe he's made a choice to do what's best by his clan by expanding their borders and taking a piece of territory rich in small rodents. It's likely that his clan would support him as the additional territory benefits the clan, and the code supports it ("No honor above your Clan should be maintained", If it benefits the clan then it must be good, right?). You'll notice that every choice made as far as if the act is good or evil is based entirely on the perspective being used to make it. If a cat were killed in the border-battles that would come next, who's side would be deemed good or evil? It's all about perspective.
The books have a unique ability that Role Playing games do not have in that they can have StarClan take sides and favor a perspective from which to make choices. CoSC does not have this leverage without unfairly favoring one clan. Instead of having a fully pure StarClan CoSC's StarClan depends on a system built up of layers. The various cats of StarClan (formerly of the various earthly clans) work together and against each other as needed to create a balance as they vie for control of their mixed group. Most cats lie in the loosely "Good" category, and their cumulative good outweighs and controls the cats who are closer to the "Evil" category. This excess of "Good" means that the "Evil" has a limited ability to enact any plans they might have while they are still strong enough to connect to earthly realms.
CoSC believes in the "Gray World" model. That is the idea that absolute good and evil are rare, and that the grant majority of cats lie somewhere within the gray area between true good and true evil. The "Gray World" model also postulates that good and evil changes depending on perspective, as described above. What is and isn't right is a matter of interpretation. Even where the code is concerned there are gray areas that permit interpretation (An example is where cats outside the clans are concerned. Some cats believe the code applies to them, while others do not).