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Saw something on another thread that got me thinking. Not sure which forum this belongs in, so I just put it in general.
Well, there was a raging debate in another thread that I think missed the point, and I wanted to put my opinion out there.
There are no ‘perfect’ good gods in Golarion. Each good aligned god has some sort of issue that someone could take umbrage with.
Desna gave spells to Azlanti Worshippers, the Azlanti who were notorious racists and human supremicists
Shelyn still has love for her brother, Zon-Kuthon who is a torturer and murderer.
Caden Calyian is the god of alcohol and drinking, which could be all sorts of problematic.
Saranrae is willing to try and redeem anyone who asks for it, including, presumably, mass-murderers and the like.
There is no perfect god in Golarion , and that’s a good thing. That makes them interesting. A perfect god would be boring. These gods are not the embodiment of good, they are just beings who SKEW good. Paizo is not saying Desna is good BECAUSE she let racist jerks get spells from her, or even that it was okay, they are saying that, on balance, she has done more good than evil despite that sticking point.
In the end, these are fictional characters with foibles and problem areas. Paizo is not saying all of their actions and beliefs are good. If you see Torag murdering Goblins before checking if they are evil, that is NOT Paizo saying it is good or okay to do that. They are saying: “here is a character, here is what he does. On balance he does more good for the world than harm. If you see him committing nongood acts, that’s because he is not pure good, and struggles like us morals do.”
If you want to disagree with me, fine but let’s try to keep the conversation civil. I’ve seen way too many threads derail here on the forums, and turn into shouting matches. Please, please, please keep it civil.
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So then, are there also instances where 'evil' gods still have something good or at least 'good-ish' about them?
Like Forgotten Realm's Malar, god of the hunt, evil lycanthropes, bestial savagery and bloodlust. He still forbids to slay the young or the pregnant, and the Malarites have the Feast of the Stags thing. That is not entirely evil, just, on balance, more evil then good, no?
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I don't think this is even an opinion it's an established part of the setting. Other interesting ones are Desna's curiosity freeing Ghlaunder and Sarenrae's anger leading to her cracking Rovagug's prison.
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The Good gods are actually good (as in "not just self-righteous jerks who cause problems more than they solve them") but they make mistakes sure. Pathfinder does not have deities that exist in that omniscient, omnibenevolent level.
But there's a big difference between "I mean well but I made a mistake, sorry" and "I think I will cause problems on purpose."
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I think there's a world of difference between "Sarenrae screwed up and broke part of Rovagug's prison" and "Sarenrae actively supports murderous extremists." The former is her having a flaw and associated myth, one that informs her current Good behavior around redemption; the latter clashed with her being Good so hard it got retconned out of existence.
I also don't think "I wish my brother would stop being a sadism-obsessed alien horror" from Shelyn is the same as her excusing anything Zon-Kuthon does; she wants him to change, and hates what he is now.
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Yeah, think this all comes naturally because as PC noted, they do not operate on the kind of infinite power/knowledge/purity level that many meat-space gods do. In other words, they're basically just a higher form of being and exist within the larger framework of their universe instead of commanding the fiat that defines what good and evil are or acting as the supposed controller of predestiny.
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So then, are there also instances where 'evil' gods still have something good or at least 'good-ish' about them?
Like Forgotten Realm's Malar, god of the hunt, evil lycanthropes, bestial savagery and bloodlust. He still forbids to slay the young or the pregnant, and the Malarites have the Feast of the Stags thing. That is not entirely evil, just, on balance, more evil then good, no?
Off the top of my head, Ardad Lili is LE but has an edict demanding you aid women who have been unfairly maligned.
Creative Director
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I try not to get involved in threads like these, these days, but I ceratinly can confirm that it's not an opinion that the deities of Golarion aren't perfect... it's a fact. For the deities I created (which is close to half of those in the core, with more in the extended group beyond that), I very much wanted them to have flaws. That makes them more interesting. And gives their worshipers a lot to talk about and learn from.
That said...
Desna gave spells to Azlanti Worshippers, the Azlanti who were notorious racists and human supremicists
...is unfair. Desna certainly had worshipers among the people of Azlant, but those who were truly faithful were not racists or human supremicists. Her worshipers during the time of Azlant were also chaotic good, by and large. Just as there are rasists and human supremicists in modern Golarion, they don't worship Desna, nor would Desna's faith tolerate them.
I now return you to the thread. (I just get intrigued when I see Desna talk, since after Yamasoth and Treerazer, she's the oldest of the deities made up for the setting—I invented her first back in 1989 when I needed a deity of outer space for my home brew and was frustrated that there weren't really many good choices for that role in established D&D settings. Celestian came CLOSE, but... nah. Desna > Celestian. Also, Celestian wasn't whimsical and friendly, which was then and is now important to me in a space goddess.)
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I also don't think "I wish my brother would stop being a sadism-obsessed alien horror" from Shelyn is the same as her excusing anything Zon-Kuthon does; she wants him to change, and hates what he is now.
To me, the fact that Shelyn understands what Zon-Kuthon has become but still values the ties and wants him to get better and doesn't just cut him off is inspiring; that sort of patience and compassion is something the world never gets enough of.
And of course it also touches on the very real-world fact that a lot of us have close relatives who aren't perfect, but we still value them as relations. Sort of a "Hate the sin, love the sinner" type thing.
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Off the top of my head, Ardad Lili is LE but has an edict demanding you aid women who have been unfairly maligned.So then, are there also instances where 'evil' gods still have something good or at least 'good-ish' about them?
Like Forgotten Realm's Malar, god of the hunt, evil lycanthropes, bestial savagery and bloodlust. He still forbids to slay the young or the pregnant, and the Malarites have the Feast of the Stags thing. That is not entirely evil, just, on balance, more evil then good, no?
I’m very fond of Arazni, who is NE but allows CG followers, and whose edicts aren’t all that cruel. She’s a patron to survivors of abuse and the unwillingly undead, and while her focus on never forgiving isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, you could do a lot worse than her in the Evil zone.
She’s one of the most interesting deities in the setting, IMO.
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I try not to get involved in threads like these, these days, but I ceratinly can confirm that it's not an opinion that the deities of Golarion aren't perfect... it's a fact. For the deities I created (which is close to half of those in the core, with more in the extended group beyond that), I very much wanted them to have flaws. That makes them more interesting. And gives their worshipers a lot to talk about and learn from.
That said...
Desna gave spells to Azlanti Worshippers, the Azlanti who were notorious racists and human supremicists...is unfair. Desna certainly had worshipers among the people of Azlant, but those who were truly faithful were not racists or human supremicists. Her worshipers during the time of Azlant were also chaotic good, by and large. Just as there are rasists and human supremicists in modern Golarion, they don't worship Desna, nor would Desna's faith tolerate them.
I now return you to the thread. (I just get intrigued when I see Desna talk, since after Yamasoth and Treerazer, she's the oldest of the deities made up for the setting—I invented her first back in 1989 when I needed a deity of outer space for my home brew and was frustrated that there weren't really many good choices for that role in established D&D settings. Celestian came CLOSE, but... nah. Desna > Celestian. Also, Celestian wasn't whimsical and friendly, which was then and is now important to me in a space goddess.)
Thank you sir. Always glad to know that I got something right. And as for Desna, that was just one example off the top of my head. I'm sure there's something someone can get offended about. She freed the Mosquito god of pestilence, someone could probably get angry over that, even if it was an accident.
As for Shelyn, I mean, yes, some might find it uplifting that someone can love someone for what they were or could be, but . . . well lets face it there are a lot of people out there that would take umbrage if you said "I love this torturing serial killer" no matter how many asterisks you add.
Anyway, my point, and the counterpoint to what I saw posted elsewhere, is that "If a good-aligned god does something, it is not necessarily follow that Paizo thinks that thing is good." Just something to keep in mind when looking at the pathfinder gods.
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Desna for SURE made mistakes. Letting out Ghlaunder is one. Her one-deity rampage into the Abyss to slay the demon lord Aolar is another. She's good at making rash decisions, but she's ALSO good at learning from her mistakes.
How people react to other people who are forgiving and seek reconciliation and don't abandon relations when things get awkward and hard says more about those people rather than the person they react to, I think.
I've always seen alignment as reactive, not causal. A mortal creature capable of free will and choice (aka something with an Intelligence of 3 or higher) can make decisions as to whether they want to be good or evil, lawful or chaotic. The choices they make set their alignment, not the other way around.
For things like demons and angels and psychopomps and the like, they ARE manifestations of alignments, and as such, for them, alignment is the cause of their actions rather than the result. But even then, these creatures can choose to do things outside of what their alignment would dictate... it's just a lot harder for them to do so.
Deities themselves are beyond all these rules. They do what we want them to do to tell the story we want to tell. And for me, stories like Desna accidentally letting a monster out of a weird cocoon and then having guilt about it felt like a compelling story to tell. For example.
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So then, are there also instances where 'evil' gods still have something good or at least 'good-ish' about them?
Of course? Raumya is a NE god of power over others but it is Anathema for his worshipers to abuse loyal subjects, and one of his editcs is seeking self-actualization through art and literature.
Achaekek is an evil assassin god but it is Anathema for his followers to 'get fixated on petty things like Ancestry or Gender' meaning it is basically anathema for them to be racist/misogynist/misandrist.
Baphomet's Anathema is to kill creatures significantly weaker than you or that 'cannot significantly harm you.'
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As for evil gods having something good... there's even examples among the Core deities.
For example, Lamashtu encourages her worshipers to bring power to outcasts and the downtrodden.
The trick is when you take all of these things not in isolation, but as part of the whole, that they work together to build a faith.
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I mean, if the evil gods didn't have something potentially positive or at least attractive in their faiths, it would be hard to justify why realistically people wouldn't seek better options.
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I don't know if this is true but Shelyn has been up to some rather dodgy stuff.
The story as I believe is that Naderi became the deity of doomed lovers(like Romeo and Juliet) and started being influenced by Urgathoa who wanted Naderi in her pantheon. Shelyn blew a gasket and stole Urgathoa's child(I certainly wouldn't consider Urgathoa to be a good example of parent). So there is now a kind of war going on.
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I don't know if this is true but Shelyn has been up to some rather dodgy stuff.
The story as I believe is that Naderi became the deity of doomed lovers(like Romeo and Juliet) and started being influenced by Urgathoa who wanted Naderi in her pantheon. Shelyn blew a gasket and stole Urgathoa's child(I certainly wouldn't consider Urgathoa to be a good example of parent). So there is now a kind of war going on.
It's also worth remembering that not every developer or writer is equally skilled or, indeed, interested in portraying characters they didn't create in a way that was intended by their creator. We've gotten a lot better today at sharing and cooperating between employees and freelancers who work to expand on characters who were introduced by prior employees or freelancers... but for a time many years ago that wasn't the case, back in a time when we didn't have enough staff to properly curate content, and often someone working on one project didn't know that their words were clashing against the goals of another project.
And since we've never had an elegant way to propegate lore errata in the same way we do for rules errata, these lore errors tend to stick and linger and live on no matter how often I try to diplomatically point out that some times writers make mistakes.
Shelyn stealing a baby is in that category of "bad choice, writer, shoulda not done that" as "paladins of Asmodeus" or "Erastil, the god of families, sees the correct place of the woman as being in the home raising kids."
Sharing characters I helped create and seeing them take on lives of their own as talented new writers help to expand them has been one of the best parts of working at Paizo and transposing stuff from my homebrew into a shared setting... but it's been particularly difficult for me over the years to make peace with the fact that once other people add to their stories... sometimes they do so in ways that I think are wrong. I don't have much recourse to change those errors, but I do try to diplomatically let folks know what I intended in those cases so that they can make their own minds up.
It's particularly tough for me to stay silent on these topics since often the person who made the mistake is a co-worker or a friend, and in trying to gently or diplomatically correct what I see as an error... that can backfire and make me look like an overbearing uncooperative diva.
SO much easier to fess up to your own mistakes and offer apologies. It's a lot harder when the mistakes were made by others, and when those "mistakes" might just be a difference of creative opinion.
Anyway, this is the exact reason why I have learned to try to stay out of threads like this, particularly ones that deep dive into the particulars of "why does this god seem to act in a way that clashes with their alignment." There's really no way for me to engage without looking like a word bully. :(
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It's also worth remembering that not every developer or writer is equally skilled or, indeed, interested in portraying characters they didn't create in a way that was intended by their creator. We've gotten a lot better today at sharing and cooperating between employees and freelancers who work to expand on characters who were introduced by prior employees or freelancers... but for a time many years ago that wasn't the case, back in a time when we didn't have enough staff to properly curate content, and often someone working on one project didn't know that their words were clashing against the goals of another project.I don't know if this is true but Shelyn has been up to some rather dodgy stuff.
The story as I believe is that Naderi became the deity of doomed lovers(like Romeo and Juliet) and started being influenced by Urgathoa who wanted Naderi in her pantheon. Shelyn blew a gasket and stole Urgathoa's child(I certainly wouldn't consider Urgathoa to be a good example of parent). So there is now a kind of war going on.
It happens to anyone who's let someone do something with their own characters. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker (the CRPG) there is
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When it comes to alignment it's easy to forget that Good is not good, Evil is not evil, and that alignment is not morality - especially modern morality. Alignment is like magical/metaphysical fundamental particles.
And Perfect is in the eye of the beholder.
Further to agree on these things we would have to accept a definition of good and evil. We don't. Even the modern morality that you talk about is a collection that real people sample from and disgree about.
But I like James Jacobs concept of deites as flawed beings. Its more interesting story wise. Good and Evil is just a loose frame that we hang some rules on. Well built characters are more complex than that.
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When it comes to alignment it's easy to forget that Good is not good, Evil is not evil, and that alignment is not morality - especially modern morality. Alignment is like magical/metaphysical fundamental particles.
And Perfect is in the eye of the beholder.
Further to agree on these things we would have to accept a definition of good and evil. We don't. Even the modern morality that you talk about is a collection that real people sample from and disgree about.
But I like James Jacobs concept of deites as flawed beings. Its more interesting story wise. Good and Evil is just a loose frame that we hang some rules on. Well built characters are more complex than that.
I like to differentiate gods like the pathfinder gods as "little g" gods as opposed to the "capital G" gods people tend to think of. Little g gods can also be characters, which suits the setting much better. Perfect, capital G gods are rather dull and don't tend to germinate the scale we need for adventures below the mythic level.
The third kind of god I can think of is a little too finicky for most games - where everything a god does is good/just/etc. because a god did it and the heaven dictates what is good/just/etc.
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I’m very fond of Arazni, who is NE but allows CG followers, and whose edicts aren’t all that cruel. She’s a patron to survivors of abuse and the unwillingly undead, and while her focus on never forgiving isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, you could do a lot worse than her in the Evil zone.She’s one of the most interesting deities in the setting, IMO.
I feel the same way. I suspect the "allowing CG followers" bit is hinting at her eventually turning neutral or even good, as she was originally a paladin, so her going back to her old ways makes sense to me.
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I feel the same way. I suspect the "allowing CG followers" bit is hinting at her eventually turning neutral or even good, as she was originally a paladin, so her going back to her old ways makes sense to me.
I’m very fond of Arazni, who is NE but allows CG followers, and whose edicts aren’t all that cruel. She’s a patron to survivors of abuse and the unwillingly undead, and while her focus on never forgiving isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, you could do a lot worse than her in the Evil zone.She’s one of the most interesting deities in the setting, IMO.
We definitely haven’t seen the last of her. I’m hoping to get some hints in both Book of the Dead and the Knights of Lastwall release - I expect she’s decently entangled with the latter. 2e definitely has more to say about Arazni, Geb, Xopatl, and Tar-Baphon, so we have lots to look forward to.
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I feel the same way. I suspect the "allowing CG followers" bit is hinting at her eventually turning neutral or even good, as she was originally a paladin, so her going back to her old ways makes sense to me.
I’m very fond of Arazni, who is NE but allows CG followers, and whose edicts aren’t all that cruel. She’s a patron to survivors of abuse and the unwillingly undead, and while her focus on never forgiving isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, you could do a lot worse than her in the Evil zone.She’s one of the most interesting deities in the setting, IMO.
Point of correction--I don't recall mention that Arazni had ever been a paladin? She had been a famous paladin's patron goddess (Iomedae) for a while, but in her mortal life I believe she was a NG Wizard from Arcadia.
In any case, I don't think her story is going to be anything so straightforward as 'going back to her old ways'. For one, it is said that the actively resents having worshippers, so in her current state she is unlikely to return to her status as a herald of humanity.
Certainly the likelihood of her finding redemption is on the table, but more than that I definitely believe that her story is not finished and hope that there is a satisfying resolution somewhere on the horizon. She and Iomedae need to hang out. it'll be awkward at first, but then they'll remember how much they have in common--like shared trauma caused by that self-important twit with the prophecy.
(I talk mean, but I actually love Aroden for being a god with a golden legacy but a hugely ambiguous personal character; makes him very fascinating)
On the subject of a possible Arazni redemption, the best thing any divine being could do would be to let Nocticula take point, even if only in terms of "do exactly what she tells me, and only exactly what she tells me." In some respects, she knows the process far better than anybody.
On the subject of the good deities not being infallible: something struck me when I read Legends. IMO, Sarenrae would readily admit to a lot of the charges Kassi Aziril laid at her feet. Dr. Aziril definitely takes the least charitable reading of events, and sometimes that leads her to getting things flat-out wrong, yet I don't see Sarenrae having a problem with being held to account by someone when they're right. In fact (and now we're straying into pure headcanon), I think that's the reason why the Red Mantis cancelled the hit on her; Sarenrae got wind of it, had a talk with Achaekek, who had a talk with Blood Mistress Jakalyn. The idea of the strident maltheist owing her life to one of the gods she hates is kind of amusing, especially when said atheist may well have been a devout follower of that god had she been born anywhere else. A skilled healer who is (at least as she sees it) relentlessly honest; who does that sound like?
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It's also worth remembering that not every developer or writer is equally skilled or, indeed, interested in portraying characters they didn't create in a way that was intended by their creator. We've gotten a lot better today at sharing and cooperating between employees and freelancers who work to expand on characters who were introduced by prior employees or freelancers... but for a time many years ago that wasn't the case, back in a time when we didn't have enough staff to properly curate content, and often someone working on one project didn't know that their words were clashing against the goals of another project.I don't know if this is true but Shelyn has been up to some rather dodgy stuff.
The story as I believe is that Naderi became the deity of doomed lovers(like Romeo and Juliet) and started being influenced by Urgathoa who wanted Naderi in her pantheon. Shelyn blew a gasket and stole Urgathoa's child(I certainly wouldn't consider Urgathoa to be a good example of parent). So there is now a kind of war going on.
It happens to anyone who's let someone do something with their own characters. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker (the CRPG) there is
** spoiler omitted **...
I mean, its paladin order whose all members are fighters :'D
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But yeah what the heck is story about Shelyn stealing Urgathoa's baby since 1) i've never heard about it 2) I thought Urgathoa didn't have direct children?
I don't know the specifics but from what I've heard around the forums it's the origin story of the Bastardhall megadungeon in Ustalav.
I don't know the whole story because it was only ever played through in a few games that F. Wesley Schneider GM'ed at cons or something (at least I THINK it was Wes, it was either him or some other dev who was heavily invested in Ustalav lore), with nothing official being published that would qualify for the wiki.
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I realize that this isn't helpful, but I read the title of the thread:
"The good gods of Golarion are not perfect" and my thought was...
"Duh. Who didn't realize that?"
I don't mean that offensively, though I know it comes off that way. I just don't understand where someone would get that idea from in the first place.
Outside of the Judeo Christian traditions, I don't think most representations of deities have been omniscient omnipotent beings.
Certainly the Greek and Roman gods weren't.
Golarion's deities certainly fall into the not perfect category from even a casual reading of their mythos.
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It's also worth remembering that not every developer or writer is equally skilled or, indeed, interested in portraying characters they didn't create in a way that was intended by their creator. We've gotten a lot better today at sharing and cooperating between employees and freelancers who work to expand on characters who were introduced by prior employees or freelancers... but for a time many years ago that wasn't the case, back in a time when we didn't have enough staff to properly curate content, and often someone working on one project didn't know that their words were clashing against the goals of another project.I don't know if this is true but Shelyn has been up to some rather dodgy stuff.
The story as I believe is that Naderi became the deity of doomed lovers(like Romeo and Juliet) and started being influenced by Urgathoa who wanted Naderi in her pantheon. Shelyn blew a gasket and stole Urgathoa's child(I certainly wouldn't consider Urgathoa to be a good example of parent). So there is now a kind of war going on.
It happens to anyone who's let someone do something with their own characters. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker (the CRPG) there is
** spoiler omitted **...
Owlcat in general seems to have a pretty loose grasp on Golarion as a setting. Some of their interpretations of things in Wrath made me annoyed enough to quit playing (on top of the gameplay). Changing Hulrun to have intentionally started the pogroms and basically have led mass slaughters while remaining cartoonishly evil and then saying "no it's fine, he's LN, Iomedae is cool with it" when the character in the AP's whole thing is that it was one incident that spun out of control and he felt immense guilt over... Why would Iomedae continue handing spells to a dude who murdered countless of her own followers and is outright willing to murder any worshipper of a Chaotic god? (Made funnier with the fact Iomedae doesn't even allow LN in 2e, lmao.)
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But yeah what the heck is story about Shelyn stealing Urgathoa's baby since 1) i've never heard about it 2) I thought Urgathoa didn't have direct children?I don't know the specifics but from what I've heard around the forums it's the origin story of the Bastardhall megadungeon in Ustalav.
I don't know the whole story because it was only ever played through in a few games that F. Wesley Schneider GM'ed at cons or something (at least I THINK it was Wes, it was either him or some other dev who was heavily invested in Ustalav lore), with nothing official being published that would qualify for the wiki.
Which makes me think its probably not official then because this is about second time I've heard from it and both have been on internet?
Like wasn't one of Urgathoa's deal that she moved her hedonism into another forms due to nature of her undeath? Or did she like have children as mortal?
It happens to anyone who's let someone do something with their own characters. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker (the CRPG) there is
** spoiler omitted **...
Actually the CRPG example you mention is a better example of the imperfections of the followers of the deities, indeed the "good" ending to that quest-line can easily be taken as a long-term plan by the deity to show their faithful the error of their ways; but depending on your choices in game it can still showcase an imperfection on the god's part (because, yes, all of Golarion's gods absolutely have their foibles and short-comings). Not saying Owlcat hasn't made some real head-scratching interpretations, but that quest-line actually made sense on reflection.
Not to say I didn't go "WTH" at the time... lol.
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I realize that this isn't helpful, but I read the title of the thread:
"The good gods of Golarion are not perfect" and my thought was...
"Duh. Who didn't realize that?"I don't mean that offensively, though I know it comes off that way. I just don't understand where someone would get that idea from in the first place.
Outside of the Judeo Christian traditions, I don't think most representations of deities have been omniscient omnipotent beings.
Certainly the Greek and Roman gods weren't.
Golarion's deities certainly fall into the not perfect category from even a casual reading of their mythos.
Definitely most deities have been imperfect, including those in Jewish & Christian versions of monotheism. I say "those" because early biblical books portray a flawed god. Concepts of it evolved (tee hee) through different iterations over time. The transformations are likely due to the stuttering shift from henotheism to monotheism; if there's only one god, it's gotta be the best at everything, right? No more wars with Baal, etc. That singular nature be bad for an RPG, frankly.
Some Christian scholars stop at best, shy of OMNI! due to the conundrums that presents, i.e. pitting omni-just vs. omni-merciful. And early Christian sects had a lot of different interpretations too, i.e. Gnostics. IMO, the Abrahamic god (lets not forget Islam and other offshoots) likely got its omni-nature from Greek philosophers (not Greece's pagan religious leaders). Plato & Platonism had a major influence on Christian thought (much through Augustine & Aquinas), yet I believe less so on Judaism. So maybe Christo-Islamic might be more appropriate (?), though a large portion of the "spiritual, but not religious" crowd as well as deists (et al) have a singular omnigod too.
Okay, that's a circuitous way to come back to Golarion where we have the opposite of monotheism; an ever expanding list of deities. So of course they're flawed; an omnigod would ruin the balance and/or demote the others, and multiple omnis would be overkill (if not paradoxical). And who wants to deal with the Problem of Evil or Divine Command Theory in their RPGs?! The Good gods really are trying to thwart evil (w/o making things worse) and can be held accountable for their actions, giving them and authors much more freedom narratively and making for a more dynamic palette with which to paint Golarion's myths and ongoing struggles.
I'm quite happy at Paizo's/Golarion's balance of godly involvement, having them active (unlike many settings), yet not eclipsing the heroes/PCs efforts (like in others). And the deities are tangible characters who chose their divine roles rather than were defined by them (even if originally they had been in real life, developing over time).
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I realize that this isn't helpful, but I read the title of the thread:
"The good gods of Golarion are not perfect" and my thought was...
"Duh. Who didn't realize that?"I don't mean that offensively, though I know it comes off that way. I just don't understand where someone would get that idea from in the first place.
Outside of the Judeo Christian traditions, I don't think most representations of deities have been omniscient omnipotent beings.
Certainly the Greek and Roman gods weren't.
Golarion's deities certainly fall into the not perfect category from even a casual reading of their mythos.
Like I said, the original thread that inspired this one had someone basically saying "This good aligned god can't act in this (nongood) way because, as a representative of pure good, if they did that Paizo would say/imply/believe that (nongood) action was good." And I was like "uh, hold up, that's not how this works."
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Like I said, the original thread that inspired this one had someone basically saying "This good aligned god can't act in this (nongood) way because, as a representative of pure good, if they did that Paizo would say/imply/believe that (nongood) action was good." And I was like "uh, hold up, that's not how this works."I realize that this isn't helpful, but I read the title of the thread:
"The good gods of Golarion are not perfect" and my thought was...
"Duh. Who didn't realize that?"I don't mean that offensively, though I know it comes off that way. I just don't understand where someone would get that idea from in the first place.
Outside of the Judeo Christian traditions, I don't think most representations of deities have been omniscient omnipotent beings.
Certainly the Greek and Roman gods weren't.
Golarion's deities certainly fall into the not perfect category from even a casual reading of their mythos.
I'm not sure of the original context you're referring to, but surely this depends on the framing? If it's something that's framed as a mistake, like Desna awakening Ghlaunder or Sarenrae smiting Gormuz, then obviously it wouldn't be implying that the action was good. No-one is walking away from the story of the creation of the Pit of Gormuz with unclear takeaways on the morality of the action. But if it's not framed as a mistake, or called out by the text by contrast with other Good deities or the like, then I think there's a point there. There's a reason why mistakes in the lore, such as Erastil's blatant misogyny or to some extent the Cult of the Dawnflower, were removed from ever having been canonical (and why James Jacobs wants an errata process for lore instead of the canonical nature of these things being conflicted to many readers). Erastil's misogyny wasn't framed as a particularly large flaw or an impediment to his being Good - which is a rather uncomfortable implication about the acceptability of misogyny, and for this reason it was entirely removed. Framing matters.
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That was precisely what it was Arcaian, people got mad that a god of GOOD was not allowed to be misogynist and they got called it.
Erastil isn’t perfect, no, but he is a paragon of GOOD. Bigotry is not good. Ergo, Erastil originally being written as a misogynist and that being fine for him and his followers, was a rather glaring issue.
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I'm not sure of the original context you're referring to, but surely this depends on the framing? If it's something that's framed as a mistake, like Desna awakening Ghlaunder or Sarenrae smiting Gormuz, then obviously it wouldn't be implying that the action was good. No-one is walking away from the story of the creation of the Pit of Gormuz with unclear takeaways on the morality of the action. But if it's not framed as a mistake, or called out by the text by contrast with other Good deities or the like, then I think there's a point there. There's a reason why mistakes in the lore, such as Erastil's blatant misogyny or to some extent the Cult of the Dawnflower, were removed from ever having been canonical (and why James Jacobs wants an errata process for lore instead of the canonical nature of these things being conflicted to many readers). Erastil's misogyny wasn't framed as a particularly large flaw or an impediment to his being Good - which is a rather uncomfortable implication about the acceptability of misogyny, and for this...Like I said, the original thread that inspired this one had someone basically saying "This good aligned god can't act in this (nongood) way because, as a representative of pure good, if they did that Paizo would say/imply/believe that (nongood) action was good." And I was like "uh, hold up, that's not how this works."I realize that this isn't helpful, but I read the title of the thread:
"The good gods of Golarion are not perfect" and my thought was...
"Duh. Who didn't realize that?"I don't mean that offensively, though I know it comes off that way. I just don't understand where someone would get that idea from in the first place.
Outside of the Judeo Christian traditions, I don't think most representations of deities have been omniscient omnipotent beings.
Certainly the Greek and Roman gods weren't.
Golarion's deities certainly fall into the not perfect category from even a casual reading of their mythos.
I don’t think this particular poster was thinking that deeply about it. Even if we took Erastil’s misogyny as canonical (even though I know it is not), my point still stands. One character flaw amongst all the OTHER good he does (protecting and providing for families, helping people take care of themselves, making sure kids grow up in a loving environment) does that not account for anything? Listen, I am certainly not ‘pro misogyny,’ (very much against it). I make no excuses for it nor do I wish to downplay it. But I am also of the opinion that one bad act/habit/lifestyle choice does not undue a lifetime of good. It makes the character flawed, and, well, not perfect, like the title of the article goes.
And by the way, why do we concentrate so much on that non-cannonical misongonyst Erastil bit? There are a lot of other problematic ‘good’ gods out there. Ragathiel is a essentially rage-filled murder machine just barely containing himself to killing ‘evildoers.’ Angradd is much the same, No one thinks those are problematic lifestyles?
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And by the way, why do we concentrate so much on that non-cannonical misongonyst Erastil bit? There are a lot of other problematic ‘good’ gods out there. Ragathiel is a essentially rage-filled murder machine just barely containing himself to killing ‘evildoers.’ Angradd is much the same, No one thinks those are problematic lifestyles?
I suspect it's because this is a specific issue that's very personal with me. I created Erastil back in 1990 for my homebrew, and very much worked on his lore for the next 15 years or so as a lawful good god of small towns and rural lifestyle, inspired in large part by my own experiences growing up in a rural area of California. I put into Erastil a lot of my own hopes and dreams for what a benevolent and friendly god of families, homes, hunting, and agriculture would be like. He was one of many deities I "sold" to Paizo in those frenzied early days where we essentially had a month to create an entire world when we transitioned from the last issue of Dungeon to the first volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path, and one of the ways I made that even possible was to sell large parts of my homebrew setting to Paizo and copy-paste the writing and ideas and like to save time in creating Varisia and the setting.
But my ability to both create new content and run the Adventure Path line meant something wasn't going to be sustainable, and so the assignments for writing the deity articles for the backmatter got handed off to Sean K Reynolds, who had already done a LOT of similar articles over the past several years for Dragon magazine covering the Greyhawk deities. And for the first several installments, they were great... but then at about the time that we switched to the 1st edition Pathfinder rules, I had to go even more hands-off on these articles and trust to the process that they'd turn out right... and that's the era where Sean got too experimental and fast and loose with alignments and deities and in the span of a few volumes we got paladins of Asmodeus and misogynists of Erastil. The former bothered me a bit, since the idea of a lawful good person worshiping THE DEVIL, to me, is fundamentally wrong at best and dangerously subversive at worst.
But the element of Erastil not being supportive of all genders and encouraging harmony in a family and having misogynistic themes was, in effect, taking something I'd written and created and had been very vocal and proud about and turning it into something I fundamentally feel is awful and gross. And folks began to assume that it was my intent all along, never mind the fact that it was written by someone else entirely (at least, that was my interpretation of when people began questioning me why a deity I invented was acting that way).
And so you hear a lot about it because it's one of the core deities, because its one that I keep harping about and trying to explain and correct but without a reliable way to propagate lore errata I have to do it over and over on threads like these that pop up every few years, and because there seems to be some folks on the internet who enjoy being disruptive and twisting this particular knife in my side. Not saying that's the intent of the recent posts, but over the past 15 years or so, it has been.
Personally, I'm not a fan of how murderous Ragathiel is (and in my head canon, he's the number one candidate in our game for "next deity to shift alingment" and "first good deity to turn evil in our setting"), nor am I fan of Angradd... but I didn't invent them, and I haven't put decades of my life into building their lore, so when I see these deities go against the flavor of the setting I would prefer, it feels less like someone I trusted to be a responsible steward of my creation and addition to the lore betrayed me.
All of which is an issue I've increasingly been trying to deal with, and my latest tactic is to increasingly step away from the position of someone with creative oversight over the whole setting. I've not played that role for a few years now, and judging by the way folks are embracing what Eleanor and Luis and Ron and Patrick and the design team are creating, I 100% think this is for the best. It's bittersweet to me to not be doing much more actual creation for the game, yes, but I had my time in the spotlight. By ceeding that to new writers to work on their own passions and additions, the voices in the game grow more diverse, after all.
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“I make no excuses for it nor do I wish to downplay it.”
Then why are you?
Why are you going through all this to defend this non-canon interpretation, if gods having flaws is important focus on any other one, why is it so important that this one be kept? Misogyny isn’t context dependent, it’s evil no matter what. Killing is context dependent.
You bring up Ragathiel to prove your point but here’s the thing, Ragathiel knows that’s a flaw of his and IS containing it, barely or not.
Having a paragon of Good, something literally made of Good, be a bigot okays bigotry, you claiming otherwise doesn’t make it not be true, and gives a bigots a foot in the door to justify themselves. Trying to spin it as absolutes misses the point. It doesn’t “undo” all the other good he did, but the good he did doesn’t undo him being a misogynist, and we’re left with a god of Good, the biggest Good you can get, be a misogynist. That sends a message.
A horrible one that was excised so you’re beating a long dead and rotting horse.
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I really think how "messy" Ragathiel is is supposed to highlight how he was literally born in Hell (his father is Dispater) and to make it ambiguous whether he has actually gotten over his nature.
That being said, if he ends up Neutral as sort of a photo negative of Gorum, that works.
Erastil being a misogynist is bad not only because "misogyny is not good", or "this is contrary to James Jacobs's conception of Erastil" but also because there's nothing fun about it. The good gods maybe taking it too far is one thing, but a good god actively pushing for things that make the *players* uncomfortable is 100% to be avoided.
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As for Shelyn, I mean, yes, some might find it uplifting that someone can love someone for what they were or could be, but . . . well lets face it there are a lot of people out there that would take umbrage if you said "I love this torturing serial killer" no matter how many asterisks you add.
I don't think Good is the same as Things People Will Not Take Umbrage With. Shelyn feels love and empathy towards Zon-Kuthon, her brother who was horrifically mutilated by alien horrors. She also is greatly disturbed by the evil he pushes into the world and takes measures to limit that, like fighting against him, literally disarming him, attempting to cleanse his weapon of immeasurable evil and turn it into a force for good, and guiding her clergy to intervene with his when they worship in LE ways. Will people "take umbrage" with it? Maybe. I don't actually understand why someone feeling an emotion itself is worthy of judgement from others without considering the impact it has on people's actions, but I do understand that some people do. But considering the impact that emotion has on Shelyn's actions and the world at large, it seems very in-character for someone who is Good and supernaturally charged with the domain of Love.