I got to thinking recently and couldn't really remember any necromancers that are actually good. It seems that necromancy is almost universally painted as evil. I could think of very few exceptions and even then, they aren't completely what I'm talking about
- occasionally you get a character who uses a necromantic magic as an one off or very, very rarely in the service of a good cause, for example, Harry Dresden does that a couple of times. However, those characters aren't full blown necromancers just like a person who happens to fire a gun or throw a grenade isn't an actual soldier. Even then it's shown as an exception to the rule that necromancy is evil
- sometimes characters pick up necromancy with good intentions but it's still shown as an evil tool. They also slip into it as well. Such was the fate of the protagonist of the necromancy campaign in Battle for Wesnoth - a mage who decided to raise some corpses in order to save his village from being wiped out, yet he was shunned and banished for this deed and eventually turned into an evil uncaring lich.
- more often you get necromancers who may be serving a greater good (mostly some sort of "balance") but are still shown as creepy, sinister and disturbing at the very least but usually also willing to commit magical crimes to uphold that greater good.
-- this is the case with the necromancers in the Diablo universe who serve the great cycle. They come of as almost the most sympathetic, however, they are also more cold and pragmatic rather than what one will associate with "good".
-- there are also the necromancers in Heroes 5 (and basically all other games since Ubisoft took over the IP) who worship Asha in her aspect of fate. It's actually somewhat similar deal to what their Diablo brethren do - it's about balance again. While Asha is a fairly benign deity, she is responsible for order. Also, the necromancers in the Heroes 5+ universe are explicitly said to use dark arts to serve Asha, so they aren't the friendliest bunch and can still be quite immoral. Not shining examples of virtue there
-- the Euthanatos from the PnP Mage: the Ascension are a way more fleshed out representation of what the above are. They aren't all explicitly necromancers, but they are very often death mages and they serve the wheel of fate. It's a complicated philosophy but it bolis down to them want to ensure that the world operates as it should and they try to remove "harmful" individuals and/or "repair" what they can. They strive for a world that doesn't need them to maintain, however, they are dealing with nasty magic in order to reach that goal and risk very real corruption of themselves and their goals in the process
-- the Moros from the other PnP game Mage: the Awakening are also death mages. They could actually be good they have no real "affiliation". Given that they exist in the World of Darkness, it's all shades of grey anyway. Still they tend to be more detached from the mortal world and their death magic is sinister and destructive by nature. Not quite "evil" but not something you'd really consider a tool for good
It is quite customary for necromancy practitioners to be painted as evil or at least quite grey but I wonder - has is ever been depicted as explicitly good? I find it a bit strange that I can't think of a single time it was. Especially jarring considering that pretty much every depiction of necromancy gets it wrong yet in the exact same way. It classically wasn't about raising hordes of skeletons, cursing your foes and stuffing their soul in a sock - the "-mancy" suffix means divination, so, at best an actual necromancer would be what you're nowadays call a medium. This is a far cry from the guys who usually control masses of undead armies and try to extinguish all life in fiction by wielding what is very often literally named "dark arts".
- occasionally you get a character who uses a necromantic magic as an one off or very, very rarely in the service of a good cause, for example, Harry Dresden does that a couple of times. However, those characters aren't full blown necromancers just like a person who happens to fire a gun or throw a grenade isn't an actual soldier. Even then it's shown as an exception to the rule that necromancy is evil
- sometimes characters pick up necromancy with good intentions but it's still shown as an evil tool. They also slip into it as well. Such was the fate of the protagonist of the necromancy campaign in Battle for Wesnoth - a mage who decided to raise some corpses in order to save his village from being wiped out, yet he was shunned and banished for this deed and eventually turned into an evil uncaring lich.
- more often you get necromancers who may be serving a greater good (mostly some sort of "balance") but are still shown as creepy, sinister and disturbing at the very least but usually also willing to commit magical crimes to uphold that greater good.
-- this is the case with the necromancers in the Diablo universe who serve the great cycle. They come of as almost the most sympathetic, however, they are also more cold and pragmatic rather than what one will associate with "good".
-- there are also the necromancers in Heroes 5 (and basically all other games since Ubisoft took over the IP) who worship Asha in her aspect of fate. It's actually somewhat similar deal to what their Diablo brethren do - it's about balance again. While Asha is a fairly benign deity, she is responsible for order. Also, the necromancers in the Heroes 5+ universe are explicitly said to use dark arts to serve Asha, so they aren't the friendliest bunch and can still be quite immoral. Not shining examples of virtue there
-- the Euthanatos from the PnP Mage: the Ascension are a way more fleshed out representation of what the above are. They aren't all explicitly necromancers, but they are very often death mages and they serve the wheel of fate. It's a complicated philosophy but it bolis down to them want to ensure that the world operates as it should and they try to remove "harmful" individuals and/or "repair" what they can. They strive for a world that doesn't need them to maintain, however, they are dealing with nasty magic in order to reach that goal and risk very real corruption of themselves and their goals in the process
-- the Moros from the other PnP game Mage: the Awakening are also death mages. They could actually be good they have no real "affiliation". Given that they exist in the World of Darkness, it's all shades of grey anyway. Still they tend to be more detached from the mortal world and their death magic is sinister and destructive by nature. Not quite "evil" but not something you'd really consider a tool for good
It is quite customary for necromancy practitioners to be painted as evil or at least quite grey but I wonder - has is ever been depicted as explicitly good? I find it a bit strange that I can't think of a single time it was. Especially jarring considering that pretty much every depiction of necromancy gets it wrong yet in the exact same way. It classically wasn't about raising hordes of skeletons, cursing your foes and stuffing their soul in a sock - the "-mancy" suffix means divination, so, at best an actual necromancer would be what you're nowadays call a medium. This is a far cry from the guys who usually control masses of undead armies and try to extinguish all life in fiction by wielding what is very often literally named "dark arts".