#Mikhael probably WOULD be a cop or a soldier if translated to a modern setting

[drchiropterajones]

Man, I don't want to start arguing on somebody else's post and start drama, but there was something that felt so weird and off about this take that I feel the need to ramble about it, so bear with me.

(Standard caveats, you are of course allowed to play DnD or write fantasy in whatever way makes you happy and you're not beholden to make fiction that one opinionated paladin-appreciator on the internet thinks is Correct, etc, but I'm gonna use the rhetorical approach of 'all of my subjective preferences are objective fact!' that tumblr is so fond of, so whatever)

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but like... yeah... a real-world equivalent of a paladin or a knight IS in fact a cop. Or a soldier, or a security guard, or what have you? That's kind of what they... inherently are? They are a person who uses violence on behalf of an abstract or concrete moral authority. If that isn't what they are, then they aren't really a paladin anymore! If what you want to write is a healer or a general do-gooder, that's fine but the violence is kind of inherent to a paladin or knight?

This feels like the kind of attitude you have when you say "ACAB!" because it's the trendy leftist thing to say and cops are The Bad Guys, but you don't actually have any... deeper understanding of WHY police brutality is bad? Or any conception of, like, authority and violence and power and etc being twined together? And how 'violence to protect/defend' is so hard to neatly separate out from regular violence? You just know that violence is bad when The Enemy does it, but good when Our Side does it? And cops are Bad, and my character is not Bad, ergo can't be a cop!

There is just such a disconnect here between "Fantasy world violence is good and fun and slicing people in half with zweihanders is cool to imagine yourself doing!" and "Real world violence is obviously usually horrible". And like, fair I guess, you're allowed to want to turn parts of your brain off when you're in a story. And if you try and consume or create only media that never uses cathartic righteous violence as fun, you're going to have a bad time in fantasy.

But like... What is it that makes a paladin hacking apart 'bad guys' with a sword in a fantasy world good and morally uncomplicated, but real-world violence not? What exists in the fantasy world that handwaves away the moral concerns?

Is it that the authority your paladin is acting on behalf of is Inherently Good and therefore so long as your paladin obeys their orders it's fine? If so, Hoo Boy, that is a can of worms.

Is it that a fantasy setting contains Evil Guys who are just inherently evil and you don't need to feel bad about killing them? Even worse!

What are you saying when you write these stories? What is the meaning? What are we saying about authority and violence?

If your paladin isn't allowed to engage with this stuff - if a character archetype usually defined in equal parts by their Lawfulness/duty and their Goodness isn't ever allowed to grapple with the contradictions inherent between those two things - man is there even any POINT to writing them as a paladin? You are stripping away the most interesting bits!

Why is it more 'progressive' to posit a world in there IS such a thing as absolute authority that is allowed to use all of the violence it wants free of judgement because they're The Good Guys? And as long as your character aligns themselves with that side then they're peachy? Is that really progressive just because the thought process stems from 'ACAB'?