After I saw her pop out of the tomb and acting reasonable, I started to put two and two together since in other Elder scrolls and in Skyrim if a Vampire even goes a couple months without blood they go insane.

I have to admit..I cured Harkon's gift just to accept Serana's gift.

Try this on for size: raise cattle up to human intelligence, or close to it. Now. Do they accept the wholesale slaughter of their own kind to feed the appetites of other sentient beings? To be killed, butchered, cooked, and generally used as a -thing-, a set of resources to be utilized? Do they accept seeing those killers wearing the skins of their aunts and uncles, parents, siblings, their children?

Or do they find a way to strike back, to fight for their loved ones.....or avenge them.

Keep in mind that the 'PC vampire' is a very recent convention, and nothing the original lore supported or even hinted at. Tamrielic lore also doesn't support the 'Twilighty' form of vampirism. They are not a race, and never have been. They are predators, pure and simple.

Vampires are fully capable when fed to think and reason that makes them more than predators, they are still people and as such are a race, like with any race there are good and evil people..the evil vampires who get corrupted by their power are the ones that kill when feeding and the good ones (most of them or well the clan affiliated Vampires) feed and move on without killing.

Though you could as I said before blame the Vampire Hunters for causing some vampires to kill when feeding, when they are chased off at every chance they go insane from starvation and can't be held accountable for what they do which may be considered desperation induced evil.

BAH, none of this innocent vampire crap. YOU choose to live off a human, therefore you are an evil abonimation. Who cares if you only feed off bandits. To feed on a person is evil. There are degrees of evil.

In the TES universive you can me be a powerhouse without vampirism. I could understand it if you needed to be a monster to fight monsters. But in TES, I can be a pure humsn Paladin and be just as strong. Time to die vamps!

So in essence if a wolf kills another wolf its an evil abomination?

What makes killing humans any different than that?

It makes me wonder...

Is there really any "good" factions in Skyrim?

The closest thing is the Imperials, they have the purest intentions though they do have some bad ones but not as many as the other factions and have the future of Skyrim on their backs even if it makes some of the Nords angry (Stormcloaks) and they (Stormcloaks) believe they don't need help to fend off the dominion which is making it hard for the Imperials to keep Skyrim safe.

Sounds like typical humanity to me, and people still kill wolves just because they need to eat too.

Hell, people shoot cougars for sport even though they're an endangered species.

Seems there's no black and white in Skyrim. Just shades of grey. Witch I think is a good thing as long as you have a choice of how good or evil you wanna be.

Spin it all you want to. Isran is an extreme radical. That is evil in my book no matter how just the cause may seem.

If he said just kill Harkon the only notably evil Vampire that would be different but he wants to slaughter all of them.

Serana included.

The Volkihar clan actually have been stopping city attacks if you do some of the radiant quests..they kill random covens of starved thin-blood vampires before they can attack cities..so technically if you do the Dawnguard quests..you are causing more problems.

D=

It all depends on your point of view. I can see why some consider the Dawnguard to be evil. Nevertheless, I only hope they see why I think the Volkihar are evil as well.

The court are not killing other vampires for peace or to make things safe, they doing it to get rid of potential rivals and to stop them killing their food and riling the prey....though it ironically makes things safer for humans....until the court decides to feed. >

Dawnguard have the right intentions but like nearly all hunters in TES they are a little over the top when it comes to methods and beliefs.

If we return to my argument, Sithis knows how far back, we will see that the morality of the actions comes from the intention of the beings and is related to the intelligence of the beings. Both Vampires and mortal races are sentient beings capable of thought and reason. Each of them also have their own motives behind their actions. Isran wants to kill all the vampires because he believes in his heart that they are a threat to all the living, and acting in self defense is moral. Harkon seeks dominion, kinda leaning towards evil there. Serana seeks to stop her father's plans because A) he's evil and his plan is foolish and would doom all vampires and mortals alike.

Not to mention she will be sacrificed.

Self preservation is not an evil act (at least not in most Western Cultures and religions, there are some that might consider any act of killing to be evil even if it is to preserve life). Morality is based on culture and intention.

well i see it as they are trying to destroy Harkon. A vampire lord who wants to take over Tamriel, so in my eyes I see nothing wrong with it.

correction. This^^ plus allowing Molag Bal to have his way with himself, his wife AND his daughter.

He may be the king of [censored], but molag bal probably does not need to [censored] or have six to make someone a vampire, his shrine had blood coming out of it maybe drinking that could do the trick. Valerica and Serana did do the deed though since they were offered to Molag Bal.

Can you imagine how horrifying that would be? I mean, Molag Bal is a big dude, and probably one of the arguably darker Daedric Lords... Lets put it this way, I would think twice before making a character that worships him.

Not ALL vampires want to block out the sun.. a few think it goes against the natural order, and will draw too much attention to them.. something about drawing in whole armies against them.

They are Good !
I am going to join them and clean Skyrim of any Vampires !
And of course Werewolves and the others..

So much this. We had an argument that lasted for months and months and months back in the Old Republic forums whether or not the Sith in Star Wars were considered evil. In the end, the developer himself had to come in and break it down. From the perspective of western society, many things can be deemed evil. But it is always based on culture.

But they DON'T have to... as others have said, they can be cured.

Even if they only want vampirism for immortality or a power trip, they can't be trusted with that power. As I've said, if a vampire could prove that they were not a threat to innocent people, let 'em be (but they CAN'T prove something like that). Otherwise, that power that you've chosen or been bestowed is too great. Cure or die.

EDIT: If you're looking at this from a completely relativistic stance, then you can say pretty much anything about anything. That renders discussions boring. If you want to cut that fat, and be a bit more utilitarian, we can evaluate this from the perspective of the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Being killed/preyed upon is bad. There are more non vamps than vamps. Not all vamps chose to become, but that's irrelevant since they can be cured. They can't prove they aren't a threat to innocent folk. That power puts them at a great advantage over most mortals. They must prove they aren't a threat (again, don't know how), be cured, or die. These are the only three routes to removing that threat. Pick one.