Is all blood magic evil? Options

[Cynic project]

I have read a few things on blood magic and soemtimes blood magic is not sucha bad thing.

So, is all blood magic evil or just the acts that most people use it for?

[LinaInverse]

IIRC, for Blood magic to work at all, the mage has to kill someone w/i 24 hours, with a personal (ie, hand-held melee) weapon. That's normally pretty evil.

[BitBasher]

In a nutshell, yes.

Assuming of course you actually believe in evil as a concept.

[Garland]

Blood Magic as presented in SR is evil. Blood Magic as presented in ED could be either, it depended upon the usage.

[Tanka]

Blood Magic in ED is more of a holy vow than what most call magic.

[Ancient History]

Well, I go into more detail concerning that here, but in a jiffy:

There are uses of blood magic which are not inherently evil, but they represent what most would consider a dangerous or at least disturbing mental state, similiar to sadomasochism, and fraught with potential for abuse.

To whit, it is not inherently evil for a blood magician to draw blood for blood magic. Sacrificing another living being, even a willing being, either to power blood magic or summon a blood spirit is evil.

Summoning a blood spirit period is pretty much evil. You could, theoretically, have a magician sacrifice themself to summon a blood spirit with the intention of stopping some monstrous evil, but even assuming the summoning goes off without a hitch, the magician is dead and the blood spirit immediately goes free or fades away...and the chances the spirit turns out good are still slim.

[banditf50]

IIRC the original Great Ghost Dance was a form of blood magic as it required the sacrifice of individuals in order to power the magic. Though in that case all the subjects were volunteers.

Am I remembering this correctly?

[Ancient History]

Sort of. Spells on the level of the Great Ghost Dance have their drain measured in lives, not boxes of damage. Sometimes these lives are given williningly, as in the GGD, sometimes not.

[Chibu]

IIRC, What is used mostly in shadowrun as 'Blood magic' is not the same as in ED. In ED, blood magic is just taking a permanent wound (loosing essence basicaly) to enhance the effect of some magic ability. For the most part, no one (except the Light Barers) really has any problem with it. However, in Earthdawn, i do recall a couple of references to what they called "Death Magic" which sounds to me to be basicly the same thing as in SR. And, yes, it was also concidered evil, no questions asked back then.



IIRC that is. ^-^

[Ancient History]

Okay, now would be a good time to pop certain popular myths. (Sorry Chibu, no offense.)

[Edward]

If your after a canon point from SR I give you this.

All blood mages (those with the sacrificing metamagic) have a potency rating

I think that indicates that the sacrificing metamagic is evil.

Edward

[Ancient History]

Or restricted to NPCs. :P

[kevyn668]

To the Dark Side, this path leads...

[Pthgar]

Reformed blood mage with Dark Secret flaw geased to never kill another living being. Kept on a short leash by a group who uses said mage for their own dirty work (maybe the AF or the DF). Could be a mysterious NPC or an intersting PC.

[SpasticTeapot]

As I recall, you can still get a boost to your spell power without killing the target. And the targets can be themselves. Starting to get a picture?

I can imagine mages of the Church sacrificing their own blood to do things like banish Bug spirits and heal wounds. It's sort of a metaphorical example of sacrificing one's self for the benifit of others, not unlike Jesus supposedly did. It might also be used by other religions in conjunction with animal sacrifices (which are not necessarily evil, and were very popular all over the world at one point), or blood-letting ceremonies to aid a religious leader in, say, summoning a powerful spirit to guard the place of worship.
Really, all things considered, there are a lot of people who give blood to save others' lives; why not give the blood for the purpose of magical healing instead? (In shock trauma wards, a bunch of people with too much time and not enough could sit about, get soaked once or twice every so often to save someone who would otherwise die without powerful mojo, and then recuperate at the hostpital's expense. Money and plushy surroundings plus free healthcare is'nt so bad for occasionally having someone cut your wrist, at least if you're a squatter on the streets of Seattle.)

[fistandantilus4....]

I believe the sacrifice metamgic specifies a sentient sacrifice, so no animals.

Which begs the question, why do the druids (well, some of them) do it? Yes, it's part of the ritual. WHY is it part of the ritual?

[Sharaloth]

Food? Auguries? Because that's the way they used to do it?

There's a lot of reasons why sacrifices are performed, and animal sacrifices are fairly cheap and easy, whereas human sacrifices can get you in trouble. The WHY is probably best left to the particular magi-religious tradition their starting from. Hell, no one really knows why the ancient Druids did whatever they did, maybe the SR ones are working off the Vedas with a few words changed to avoid feeding the wrong Gods.

[Apathy]

In MitS, isn't there something about some of the aboriginies using blood magic with self inflicted injuries to power their magic? (thought I read that somewhere...)

[Penta]

Yeah, damn if I remember the page though.

My thoughts: All blood magic is evil. Period.

A very real thought is of the effect blood magic would have on the view of, well...the humanity of people.

At what point, with blood magic, do people cease being people and become simply batteries? And that is what would happen, without exception, when you use blood magic.

That's inhuman enough that I can't think of any sane culture that would not call it evil.

Now, are there potential exceptions? Sure.

The Great Ghost Dance could be viewed as one; It did not deny or sublimate the humanity of those who died. Their humanity was at the very heart of it; they willingly participated and willingly gave the fullest measure of their devotion to the cause.

Similarly with Dunkelzahn's sacrifice of himself to power the Dragonheart. His humanity (for lack of a better term) was expressed to its fullest in that act; he sacrificed his life, quite willingly, in order to protect the whole of Mankind.

But, otherwise? No. No. No.

[Talia Invierno]

You beat me to the mention of Dunkelzahn, Penta :)

We're getting into a means vs. end argument here. So maybe the "evil" of blood magic is measurable by:

(1) Is it something entered into voluntarily by the one doing the sacrificing, be they mage or mundane?

(2) Does the culture value anything over the rights of the individual, and is the rite undertaken to ensure the safety of that greater value? (I know there'll be screaming about this one ... but what are law-enforcement people and bodyguards and even electrical linesmen asked to do regularly, after all? There is even an existing economic mathematical function that shows that the odds of dying on the job can be directly related to a specific salary increase.)

As to why spilling blood is so often a part of ritual, I'll borrow from Spike in Buffy (again :)):

[Demonseed Elite]

Really, it depends on who you ask. Shadowrun, by and large, describes it as an evil act. But if you were to ask a Sioux if the Sun Dance (which includes voluntary and painful bloodletting in an appeal to the spirits) is evil, you'd either get laughed at or they'd be insulted. And modern-day members of Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic group that uses a band of sharp wire wrapped around the thigh that often can draw blood as a show of their faith, were very insulted when author Dan Brown portrayed their activities as devious in The DaVinci Code. These acts could easily be extended to magic in SR, and it'd be debatable if it were evil.

[Kagetenshi]

[Talia Invierno]

It's all in the perspective :grinbig:

[Dawnshadow]

Alright.. completely ignoring "magic" for the moment..

Is it evil when someone deliberately throws himself in the path of a bullet to protect someone? Is it evil when someone sacrifices their life to accomplish something? (For instance, stay and shut down the reactor to prevent another Chernobyl -- knowing it's going to kill you)

Self-sacrifice is by nature not an evil act. Neither is sacrifice in general: if you have only one person who can accomplish the task and you make sure they do it, then it's the task that determines whether or not it is an evil act. Ordering someone to shut down the reactor -- not an evil act. Ordering someone to detonate the bomb? Very much an evil act.

Now.. applying magic to the question. Is killing someone for magic inherently an evil act? I apply the same standards: the task determines whether or not it's evil. Necessity, situation, cost/benefit, willingness. I would say that an unwilling participant by nature taints the act -- but I wouldn't say that it necessairily makes it evil, just that it can make it evil. If you've got the choice of sacrificing one unwilling person or "sacrificing" a thousand by not performing the ritual... It's definately more evil, but I would say it's the lesser of the two evils. By far.

And getting to the humanity of people.. well.. that's a valid point. But, I don't think that it by nature has that effect. I think that it has the potential to, depending on the personality of the person doing the sacrifice. Someone who treats someone being a willing sacrifice as someone giving a gift of tremendous worth to be used at the greatest need.. will hardly consider people to be batteries. Someone else very well might. Some might after the first rush.. some might after the fiftieth.. some might after the five hundred thousandth.

All of that being said, I do think that blood magic has the potential to be a tremendously evil act, and that it's easier to be an evil act. I just don't think it must be an evil act.

[Kagetenshi]

Actually, according to some religious standards it isn't your life to end. I don't know of anyone who argue that self-sacrifice is thus evil, but it's a possible logical extension.

~J