The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Denarian Short Story
Mira:
--- Quote from: Bad Alias on August 01, 2019, 04:17:41 PM ---@Kindler: Just because something makes sense doesn't ameliorate its being evil. For example, slavery usually makes sense from the perspective of the slave owner. That's true for most acts of evil.
@Mira: But not moral (Spartan treatment of the Helots, haven't looked into how other Greeks viewed Spartan sexual practices, many of which we would find abhorrent) by the standards of most Greeks at the time.
--- End quote ---
I meant within the Spartan State, it was accepted.
Kindler:
My point was that Mab is cruel for a reason, not evil for evil's sake. Taking fae creatures' children to fight against the Outsiders isn't nice, but it is necessary. Within their context, what both Mab does and the Spartans did served purposes; Mab is preserving Reality itself. Sparta was preserving itself. Both employed brutal efficiency.
The context of the point wasn't to say that Spartans were nice or excuse what they did, merely to point out that the horrible stuff they did throughout their (brief) history made sense in the Iron Age, and comparison to modern morality is like comparing developing nations run by dictators to Norway.
And the rest of the Grecian city-states sure were glad to have Sparta around when the Persians came a-knockin'. Just like Reality is glad that Mab's there.
Bad Alias:
@Mira: I was just clarifying that "their" had to be limited to the Spartans as the other Greeks of the time condemned their behavior, as political rivals so often do.
@Kindler: My point is just that the ends don't justify the means and (in my reply to Mira) that I was judging not only from my own anachronistic perspective, but also from the perspective of contemporaries.
Kindler:
I think in Mab's case the ends do justify the means.
Bad Alias:
Probably most of the time.
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