DoPo said:
Sure, if you make the magic work like that then it's evil. Yet since it's a work of fiction you can impose whatever rules you wish - you can have necromancers only being able to work with willing souls and their magic actually easing their suffering.
Sure, when you are making the rules, you can have it be as pleasant and happy as you want. But it just never really
is portrayed that way that I can recall.
DoPo said:
There is plenty of fiction where a character can commune with ghosts and help them, yet it's rarely labelled necromancy.
Because by the definition determined by popular language and usage, that
isn't necromancy. It would definitely fall into the category of Death Magic for sure, and that's a much broader, and less Definitely Portrayed Evil kind of thing. But by the most common usage of Necromancy, it's specifically referring to the manipulation, and control of the dead, most commonly in the form of reanimated bodies to serve your bidding. This is usually accomplished, by enslaving the souls of the living (or dead), to animate the corpse.
DoPo said:
In Geist: the Sin-Eaters the main characters are all given some power over the dead and although they don't really have any grand scheme or purpose or goal, the closest you can get to one (as in, something a lot of them would do - it's not really organised or anything) is them helping out ghosts who are stuck in this world and need to move on.
There is also a lot of cultures both real world and fictional that have ancestor veneration - having necromancers literally use the power, benevolence and willingness to help of your predecessors is hardly going to be evil. That's actually something the Dunmer do in the Elder Scrolls series - they inherently have the power to summon the willing spirits of their forefathers for help and in their homeland of Morrowind, they practically worship them. It's not something considered necromancy, though, especially since that school of magic is outright banned in Tamriel.
Sadly these examples are dependent on what is quite simply a semantic debate. Is this example "necromancy"? Is this one? Since they weren't bad things, does that make necromancy good? *shrugs* This isn't an easy thing to really nail down, given the most common uses of the term.
sanquin said:
On top of that other types of magic that are at times considered necromancy all deal with plagues, diseases, draining life away, etc.
Again, that's because most fiction decides to portray it like that. There is no actual reason for that, though, aside from just bandwagining. [/quote]
Right but you didn't initially ask us to defend the stance that necromancy is always evil, you asked for examples in fiction. Which is hard to do, due to the previously stated common understanding that the term Necromancy is almost exclusively reserved for uses of magic
that are evil in nature. Think of it perhaps, as the distinction between self-defense, and murder. Sure, both acts might involve the same physical actions (same method of death I mean), but one is a crime, the other isn't. Sure, there's theoretically nothing stopping a fictional character in a fictional universe from using those powers in a positive way, except then it's generally not called Necromancy. You've already listed the only example I can think of, the Necromancers from D3, except for possibly 2 more.
DoPo said:
Claiming that necromancy is "inherently evil" is nonsensical as it can be what you want it to be. I'm looking for fiction that realised it doesn't need to just mimic everybody else but was able to form and execute independent ideas.
Again, not that easy, since the generally agreed upon definition of that word implies it's
inherently evil. You can try and redefine it, and push for the public understanding and usage of the word to change, to not imply evil, but I think you've got as much luck with that, as I do of convincing people to stop using Decimate to mean something utterly destroyed, when it means nothing of the sort. I wish you luck in your crusade to rewrite the dictionary of Necromancy, you will need it.
Now, to some examples I can think of that might qualify.
Escapist's very own Yahtzee Croshaw wrote the book Mogworld, and in that book, there was an example of a Necromancer that wasn't an ass. Of course, that entire book is satire, and a send up of the genre, which is why this example was contrary to norm.
The necromancer that raises up the protagonist as an undead at the start of the story, is very much your stereotypical necromancer. He's cackling and gibbering, and doing monologues of things like "Yes my minions! Rise and obey your master that I might rule the world!" etc etc. The problem is, this is Monty Python-esque people, so they were all like "Um, can we like, not do that? That sounds really lame." Necromancer: "What? What do you mean? Obey me!?" "Sod off! You're a tosser! Why should I follow you? I was quite comfortable in my grave thank you very much!" And then he basically caves, like your typical Python ruler, to the general apathy and lacadasical nature of his subjects. They eventually convince him to do things like provide them with entertainment, and a wage, so he hires goblin musical groups, and theater troupes to come through every so often and amuse the zombie horde. And they basically just become his employees. So, I guess that's an example of a non-asshole necromancer? But again, satire so, not really a good one I think.
The other one I can think of might be the followers of Kelemvor from the Forgotten Realms. It's been decades, so I could be remembering bits wrong, but I recall, when he became the God of Death, he absolutely HATED the undead, as it was his job to make sure the dead found their deserved rest from life. So he tasked his followers with fighting the undead whenever the found them, and killing all necromancers. Now, in D&D mechanics, you could theoretically say that some of them used the Dark Priest version of the cleric powers, that allow them to command and control undead, to yoink said undead away from a necromancer bent on domination? I can't think of any actual examples of that, but I guess it's possible. usually his followers just used the typical Light Cleric style of spells, that destroy undead straight up.
So...yeah, I really can't think of any, because, again, the common definition of that word, is very specific, and that definition has an implied evil nature to it. And examples of death magic related stuff, that weren't evil, are generally not considered necromancy.
**EDIT**
Actually, I just thought of one. There is a LitRPG series of books called The Land. In book...4 I think? There is an example of a necromancer who isn't an asshole. His family has just always had strong affinity with the school of Death magic. But he rarely uses it, and is generally a decent person in the community. When he was actively using the power a lot in his past, he was basically hired by family members to pull a "Crossing Over with John What's His name" He'd call up the dead, and have them tell them things like "Where did you hide our money you stingy bastard?" or "Which child did you actually leave the property to?" etc. It was just basically a job to him. The only time he ever summoned an undead servant for himself, was in combat. He raised one of the fallen badguys, and used him to protect himself and his allies.
