Are they good or evil? Can they be good? Or are they all evil?

I think necromancy in and of itself is not evil. Becoming a lich is also not evil. In personal opinion. Mannimarco is by no means evil (he wants to kill Arkay, and I am with him, all the nine can burn in the deadlands)

Define evil

The mage's guild seems to have a lot of people brainwashed into think necromancy and necromancers are evil

If someone svcked the life out of your body then reanimated your corpse (or your mother's corpse for example) for their own personnal use, would you consider that evil?

For those that say no, they don't mind that, I hope they are at least organ donors.

"Evil" is an arbitrary term that has no definite meaning in the world of the Elder Scrolls. I think those that are rebelling against the idea of classifying the necromancers as "evil" are rebelling against how Oblivion scaled them down to the archetypical bad guy and sacrificed all the depth from them to make them a cartoon villain that has no real explanation for its actions other than "I want to cause lots and lots of problems."

I don't know if I personally feel if the necromancers are evil. However, I do know that the necromancers are most certainly not objectively evil. I do know that the Mages Guild had no right to excommunicate them from the Mages Guild and persecute them to the point of death, necromancy being legal and all. Necromancy is similarly not body-stealing, nor is it reanimating for the purpose of evil. There can be necromancers that people perceive to be evil, to be sure, but necromancy itself does not connote evil. Take the case of state-sponsored necromancers in Cyrodiil who were given bodies of criminals by rulers to both keep the necromancers on their side and offer up a decent crime deterrent.

For those who say that necromancy is evil, I ask: do you use soulgems? You are hindering the soul's passage when using these in any form. And to waive aside the distinction between black soul gems and regular soul gems; it doesn't matter. All souls go through the dreamsleeve to return to the giant clump, and therefore any soulgem is hindering the process of that soul. Portions of the soul of that ogre you just slew, if uninhibited, just might find their way into the souls of sentient human beings. By using soulgems at all, you are damaging the process. Are you then evil?

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1013953 regarding the evils or lack thereof of necromancy.

What about the Dunmer? They do that crap all the time. In fact, it's the cultural norm. It's all based on perception. I don't care what happens to my body after I die because, well, I'm dead. It's just a body. It isn't me.

Right back at you, Savlian. If someone took a weapon and killed you, would you consider that evil? If someone cast a fireball at you, and blew you up, would you consider that evil? If someone cast an illusion spell to make you think you are in Molag Bal's realm, would you consider that evil?

Necromancy is a tool, like all other weapons, tools, and magics. The art is about reanimating dead bodies, and the study of the corpse. Necromancers do not go around kicking puppies, smearing blood everywhere, wear black, and cut themselves. They're not evil for the sake of evil, they're practically medieval doctors. The Empire has declared the practice legal, except in MW. It's only been banned in the Mages Guild, which incidentally holds the monopoly of magical training.

Again, necromancy is not evil, like how learning how to blow things up is not evil.

I agree with this. The OPs examples of Liches are also ambiguous - I'd say Mannimarco is pretty reprehensible, but Arctus/The Underking? He seemed mostly concerned with restoring his soul. AFAIK, he never does anything that could be construed as evil.

NO, they are NOT evil, at least not more evil than anyone else in the world.

Here's something i wrote on them:

A few words on Necromancers:

One thing that really greatly annoyed me in Oblivion was how it portrayed Necromancers. While they where displayed as "evil" in Morrowind it was more from a political and cultural standpoint, necromancy was simply not welcome there.
However in Oblivion the reduced them to "cliche evil" to simply have a strong opponent of the mages guild.

One big point there was that they didn't just appear as doing evil things, even worse, they made them cartoon evil villains who brag about how evil they are.

The thing is, Necromancers could have been done a LOT better simply if they hadn't succumbed to making them "evil guys" the mages guild has to fight. Hell, it could have even been a great path to actually join the necromancers.

HOWEVER, before you say "Cool, I can be all evil n' stuff", this is NOT what I meant. While they could keep some of the dark imagery they should not walk around and go "muahahahaaa" all the time.
In fact, there could be different necromancer clans which are more or less allied. The way they operate and appear could vary a lot, while some do their work secretly others could be relatively open about it, they could even try to integrate their arts into daily life like working as "doctors".
Some of them could even shake their heads about how other clans cling to the dark and evil imagery and how it doesn't help their already scratched image.

About them working as "doctors", this is actually quite close to what you could call necromancy, especially if you consider their knowledge of anatomy and transplanting organs and limbs of dead people.
So instead of saying "those evil people, messing with the dead" it's more along the lines of "If you lost a limb they might be able to help you".
Sure the eerie feeling of them handling the dead would still be there but, it could have actually gotten BETTER over time with a lot of the prejudice and fears slowly vanishing.


Also, while I did mention that generally the evil attitude should have gone down a good deal. There could STILL be extremist groups who perform atrocities or use extreme measures to achieve their goals.
However, this wouldn't necessarily make them evil, I mean just look at what the mages and warriors guild was like in Morrowind, or even further, in Daggerfall and where still not considered "evil".



Plus, here's a theory i posted on http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1051579&view=findpost&p=15280172



In short, DON'T MAKE THEM CLICHE/ALWAYS EVIL!

Plus, why is it everyone always assume the guy who can make a dead body rise is instantly evil, while the mage who can blow up an entire castle with 1 flick of his/her wrist is good until proven otherwise? If you ask me, destruction mages should be banned, because they only know how to cause harm. And since that's the only thing they know how to do, inflict pain, they should instantly be evil.

To add another thing about this; not all liches are evil.

Remove all preconceptions about them, other than they're undead. First off, not all necromancers want to be liches. In fact, the choice to become one is always different. Some do it for more power, continue research, or guard X artifact/demons from getting into the hands of mortals/escaping so that the things they are guarding don't do any harm. Mannimarco became a lich just so he can continue his efforts to show that Arkay is a lie from a previous age. Lich king Barilzar become one to prevent mortals and the Tribunal from getting their hands on Barilzar's Mazed Band. As he says "You have no place here, child of living flesh. The Mazed Band must not be allowed to leave this tomb. The Band should never have existed at all. That was my folly, and this is my curse. For all eternity, I am damned to walk in this half life, to keep my creation from destroying the hearts and minds of mortals. Those who would challenge my fate will pay with their lives." Seems pretty reasonable. Then there's Aesliip who even though was kicked out of the Skaal for practicing necromancy, he tried to warn them about a bunch of daedra planning to destroy everyone in the island. He fell on deaf ears, but he still protected them by creating a barrier. But, he started to grow old, so he made himself a draugr (undead version of a nord) to make sure the barrier stays up.

Another thing, to many old mages and necromancers doing intense studies, death is extremely inconvenient. Best way to make sure you don't wind up dead and your research half complete would be to be a lich. The Telvanni also practice that, which is why many of them are well pass the age of expected living, even among altmer mages (who would be the most general long-lived race and class of people).

Also, liches are only vulnerable during the process of lichification where they need to place their soul somewhere else for the time being.

So ban weapons, too, eh? They should eloborate on what destruction mages are good for, are they used in war maybe? It's kind of funny how some people in TES dedicate their life to practice blowing things up, just to study it for no use all day. The other magic schools have other uses, but destruction is like carrying a weapon, and it's it's only use...

A little something, most Liches you meet in tombs being "agressive" actually has a simple reason.
Most of them are "stupid" Necromancers who thought becoming imortal is a sweet deal but didn't think of the consequences, loosing their body, mind AND being unable to die, they slowly go insane.

They were never evil to begin with, all reason been mention already.

? Where is the source for this? I thought it was never revealed what he actually was.

Double post. The server is robust tonight.

Says in http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/mannimarco.shtml he was "Mannimarco, Worm King, world's first of the undying liches." Also, he has lived for an unusually long time. Assuming he and Galerion entered the Psijic Order ~2E200, he's been alive for ~1100ish years, which is still pretty old, even for altmer.

I thought it was all just conjecture; I mean, that being an Oblivion book, the Oblivion version of Mannimarco is decidedly un-lich like. In any case, Divyath Fyr is reportedly thousands of years old, and he's no lich. Just a very talented sorceror.

Personally, I think you're probably right about him. But I don't think there's ever been proof.

Well Mannimacro did become a god at some point so all bets about his appearance and natural state are off. It is however not a requirement for him to have been a Lich, Mer, especially the magically inclined seem to find their lives breath to be long lasting.

meh, some are ok, but then are those with evil intentions

Personally, I find it BATW if he wasn't a lich. He was pretty consumed with giving Arkay the finger, so being a lich would be a good step forward in that line of thinking. What better way to mock Arkay than to be unnaturally immortal as a walking, talking, awesomely powerful corpse, with nvde dancers, ancient vampires, and other liches hanging around partying?

He may have been undead, but he was a playa.

Awww. I miss partying with the KoW. Damn you, Oblivion. Nothing was better than me stumbling through those caves in Daggerfall and having a major WTF moment at the sight of this hooded dude with glowing eyes that radiated badassery, surrounded and revered by near cloth-less female acolytes, while the liches and vampires ego joust and crack jokes at the others' expense, and the corpses serve drinks. As opposed to "whiny Altmer #471, distinguished only by a differently-textured robe, a slightly unusual accent, and inexplicably possessing a rather large "teh_evilz" complex." He didn't even offer to entertain me before trying to kill me. What kind of gracious murdering host doesn't at least pass around tea while he's amicably delivering his monologue?

It isn't its only use. You can summon fire to ignite the pyres in Bruma. You can freeze meats for transportation. You can put people to sleep if they are sick or unable to. You can summon electricity to animate Dwemer technology. You can make people susceptible to medicine (i.e. weakness to poison combined with a poison of damage fatigue a.k.a. sleeping potion). There's a great number of uses for destruction magic if you're clever enough - and I'm sure that's more or less a pre-requisite to being a good mage. It's just that in gameplay only the overtly destructive aspects are used.

Besides, how do you think you light your torches in Oblivion? You don't start with a match, a flint or anything else of the sort, but you do start with a flame spell.

^ Destruction is not a prerequisite for using torches

You make sarcasm monkey sad.