Taking the souls from people, beasts, creatures, and using the 'power' of their soul to make you more powerful, or to make you money. Then there's also the enchanting table itself to consider, with its demonic skull and markings.

So my question is: if you're a 'good' character - can you (the player, as the character) enchant without feeling guilty? I know if you're not RPing it's nothing to worry about, and I've enchanted with many characters good and bad in my games. However, since thinking about it a while ago, I can't really bring myself to do it now. It's just so evil. Does anyone have a way of thinking or looking at it that makes it acceptable for a good character?

Are you roleplaying a vegan? Because otherwise I see it as not much unlike using parts of an animal for any other crafting.

I've thought about this a lot. Really, why have I spent so much time thinking about it? I should be doing better things with my life.

It depends on my characters' point of view, which comes from their life experience. Some characters see enchanting as strange wizard crap. They have no idea how it works, only that it does. For example, I had an Imperial rogue-type guy who would glady use enchanted weapons, but if they ran out of juice he'd throw them away. He didn't know how to fill them back up. It was all mystical hooey to him; he only saw the effects.

One "good" mage character rationalized it as temporarily using the soul. Once used,it was released to continue on its journey to wherever it was going. He thought the soul couldn't be destroyed permanently.

Most of my characters do see it as evil, wrong, unnatural, dishonorable, or even disrespectful. They have varying degrees of understanding of it, but know there's something nasty about the whole business. So most of my characters are weaker than the game intended, because they refuse to use enchanted items.

Then there are the dragon souls. What happens to them? The "good" (have to put good in quotes because something, something, whole other post) dragonborn characters have really just found the thought of absorbing dragon souls too disturbing to think about for long.

Me, as the player, I just think enchanting's a bit overpowered. And I can't be bothered to do it most of the time.

To answer your question, my good characters that use it rationalize it like people in real life rationalize doing slimy things. "Eh, it's not reeeaaally hurting anyone." or "It might be sorta bad, but I'm doing it for a good cause." Or they're ignorant of how things work or ignorant of the consequences. Also like real life.

Let me start by saying that I do not embrace TES lore in many areas and this is one of them. It is my game so, when it suits my purposes, I use my lore. And what follows is my lore, not ES lore.

In my character’s world, ‘soul trap’ is a misnomer. The effect simply collects the residual magicka from a dying creature. The exception is black soul gems – which do indeed collect ‘souls’. The ‘evil’ nature of black (only) soul gems helps put some dark character into the nature of necromancy and helps explain what is going on in the Soul Cairn (Dawnguard DLC).

So my (~chaotic good) Bosmer views filling white soul gems the same way she views using the pelts or meat of the animals she kills. Or taking gold coins from the dead husk of a human foe. I began looking at things this way in Oblivion. In Skyrim it has become rather academic because her weapon (bound/mystic bow) does not require charging and her apparel is chosen for fashion only (not enchantments).

Your mileage may vary of course, but I find this view useful in my game.

Not necessarily evil. Soul trap like an above poster said might be a misnomer for taking residual majicka and the supposed soul actually does act as magical. Soul trapping with black soul gems would take the soul imo. The enchanting table looks that way because they probably did not want to make two versions of it and the one we see is the type generally used by evil mages perhaps?

I agree with Acadian on this, and the game plays that way. You can soul trap a draugr, because it's just magicka you're capturing. In Oblivion, you could even Soul Trap a summoned creature.

My good characters try to limit their soul trapping to acts of mercy, like slaying vampires who's souls are otherwise destined for something far worse than being snuffed out in a soul gem. I general, I don't think about it a lot, though. My characters seldom attack anything first, and certainly doesn't lose any sleep when some bandit abrogates his right to exist by trying to kill my character for his coin and ends up paying for it.

It would be nice if there was a way to enchant items for those who consider soul gems to be an evil practice. But since there isn't we just have to make do. Maybe in the next game!

That's a nice option for this predicament.

i'm currently running a paladin and NO, enchanting isn't inherently evil.

not only are certain creatures nonredeemable, but, a true holy being would never allow evil to continue to exist once given a last chance at redemption.

thus, their banished soul IS their last act of redemption that i grant them.

Ever since I read this in Buffy's journal a while ago this has been what I follow as well! And when you consider the sun radiating everyone constantly with magic and all of Nirn being magic then it's not a mental stretch at all.

Remember that they will be sent to Soul Cairn to suffer for eternity with no chance of escape, even animals.

the nature of "black souls" is also not inherently "evil."

That depends on the nature of souls and enchanting processesin TES. According to the common RL western concept of the soul, it could be much worse than killing and eating an animal if it screws up that animal's state of existence for eternity. I think there's a lot of wishful thinking there on the part of players as with the diets of Wood Elves. Not much has been explained about it. When I saw how black soul gems worked in Dawnguard I thought "What? If these people's souls were used to enchant objects then how have they ended up here and what are they?" because I assumed that enchanting meant binding souls. So a "soul" whatever it may be, is used, only part of it must be consumed or bound. Which isn't exactly to say that a partial soul will be left. In real life there have been concepts of souls made of several distinct components. Check out the ancient Egyptian concept of the soul.

Now, when making almost any moral choice in an RPG, what counts isn't objective morality, but what the character thinks is right. Soul trapping sounds cruel to us, but most of society in Tamriel doesn't seem to mind it. Even in Skyrim where mages are generally mistrusted, the enchanting services provided by the College are valued.

As for black souls, I would assume that my character wouldn't know about their connection to the Soul Cairn until hearing about it in game or maybe reaching a certain enchant or conjuration level. If a puppy died every time you caught a bus, you'd keep doing it until you knew better. That said, black soul gems have a dark reputation, so a lot people would refuse to use them out of prejudice. Correct prejudice, but that's besides the point.

Thanks! It's encouraging to see that you and I often see things similarly.

Who uses black soul gems for Animals?....Normal soul gems don't do that

I don't think of it like you are literally trapping their soul. But more like trapping a Magick essence.

The only animal I saw in the Soul Cairn was Arvak, so I took it that it was a freak occurrence that happened when his master was sent there. Black Soul Gems are the only ones I know of to be evil, and even then it really depends who you're using them on. Me? I RP it like using the Dark Side of the Force or using The One Ring. Even if you start using them for punishment of evil people, they will eventually become a drug that will corrupt you to evil.

I think this is a very balanced way to deal with the issue. Of course my characters are rarely purely "good"... usually being more of the thief variety, though not usually bad enough to go full dark brotherhood. I have to add though, that if I have a black soul gem, my characters often look forward with a great deal of anticipation to filling it with a particularly despicable soul. They never use such black soul gems for things like weapons, oh no. They are used to enchant rings and amulets and such where the soul will never be depleted.

being pansy is balanced.

being lawful good isn't.

Of course, using the black souls for enchanting might be better than the fate such souls would otherwise be facing. You could rationalize you're saving those souls from torment from an evil deity.

I think the practice is evil as well, but I don't see another option to enchant items.

Since Oblivion I've always assumed that trapping souls in gems was litteral and that using said gem to enchant an item litterally imbued the item with said soul for the purpose of energizing the desired effect. I never really considered it beyond that as anything more than a game mechanic.

With Skyrim I really began to delve into lore and the rp aspect. In addition to the above I now also have to assume that most enchanted items have a form of conciousness, awareness, and the most dangerous/powerful even posses a form of intelligence. I personally like the notion that the items my vamp creates retains a portion of the souls identity. It makes creating/using said items much more interesting.

I also find it interesting that all enchanted items (save perhaps a few) are vampiric in nature, since they require more souls (or soul-energy) to maintain their effect. But thats probably just my head-cannon.

[edit] Enchanted weapons* since they're effect depletes with use, unlike armor and other worn items.

Do I consider it evil? In as much as it is a game, no.
Do my characters consider it evil? Yes & no. That would take a much longer post to answer.

Have you read Feyfolken?Btw. that's how it was in Daggerfall :A magic item could degrade the more you use it and free the creature used to make it.

Why do dwemer constructs usually contain soul gems? Are they a power source? Do they serve as the machines 'brain'? Were they actually built to be soul gem dispensers?

Yeah, this is my stance on this, and the majority of my enchanting characters. It's no different than using their body once they're dead, save for the fact that they're probably still conscious. Maybe. It's hard to say how much of a creature's soul you actually trap, though. If what we see in the Soul Cairn is anything to go by, I'm willing to bet that you only take as much soul energy as a gem can fit (some larger souls overcharge smaller gems which is why they can't hold souls bigger than what it was meant to or else it would break) and the rest is sent to the Dreamsleeve/the Soul Cairn, depending on the gem you used. That's my headcanon, anyways, which is somewhat supported by the Enchanting tree. a perk lets you trap a part of a white soul to recharge your weapon as you kill it.

That's just for the ones trapped in Black Soul gems.

There's also some cattle. Dunno why anyone would want to waste Black Soul gems on animals, though.