Regarding the Moral State of Young Souls

[BenjCano]

I'm approaching this topic as gingerly as I can, aware of the HUGE can of worms it represents, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while now and can't seem to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. I also apologize if this was endlessly debated at the time; my activity on Internet forums tends to follow weather patterns: flurries of intense, heated activity followed by returns to long, calm periods. But given the number of disparate threads about Miko, V's gender, and so on, I think the forum will allow a new thread on any hypothetical previous threads.

That preamble and kid-gloves donning aside, what I want to talk about is Eric, and specifically his place in the Lawful Good afterlife, Mount Celestia.

Roy has to go through an extensive test in order to get past the pearly gates, and by test, I mean it in the old sense of the word, in which his commitment to the ideals of Lawful Goodness were examined by a divine judge, his heart was figuratively weighed to see if the actions he had undertaken lived up to the ideals of his chosen alignment, and whether or not any black marks existed on his record that could demonstrate that he had fallen short of the standards to which Lawful Good characters are held.

Eugene also undergoes this trial, and is found wanting. But Roy gets in, where he is reunited with the soul of his long lost little brother, Eric. Now I have entertained a theory that each person gets their own heaven, and that the Eric in Celestia is not the soul of Roy's little brother. Ultimately I rejected that theory due to it being unfalsifiable, because once we start going down the path that anything that happened to Roy in the afterlife only happened because Roy's eternal paradise was custom engineered for him, there exists no evidence that could show that this wasn't the case.

So I'm asking my question based on the assumption that the Eric Roy met in Celestia is the real, true soul of Eric. And that raises a lot of questions for me.

How did the celestials judge a toddler as being worthy of admission into Celestia? One answer that suggests itself is that the Giant is working in a system that allows for some sort of notion of the age of reason. Essentially, children who do not have the use of reason (prior to the age of about 6 or 7) are"innocent" because of their inability to commit sins: even if their actions are objectively sinful, they lack capacity for subjective guilt. In this system, a person is defaulted for Celestia if they die prior to attaining reason and a full system of morality.

There are two problems I have with this idea. First, why Celestia? If there are afterlives for each of the nine alignments, does that mean that every child of every race and species and culture defaults to Celestia? Does that mean that there are countless drow children running around Celestia, and kobolds and ogres and trolls?

Or do souls default to different alignment planes based on the prevailing alignment of their family or culture? Since Sara and Eugene are both Lawful Good, their son goes to that alignment plane. Well, that's all well and good for Sara and Eugene, but what about situations when the alignment of the parents don't line up? What if Nale and Elan had died prior to reaching the age of reason? Yes, I know Nale seemed to be a bad seed right from the start, punching Elan's underdeveloped skull, but disregard that for a moment. Where would the offspring of a Lawful Evil parent and a Chaotic Good parent end up if they died as a very young child? The Lawful Evil afterlife? The Chaotic Good afterlife? The True Neutral afterlife? Who decides, and on what basis?

But if the soul's destination draws on the larger culture around the child, then we're left with the possibility of drow children being condemned to the Abyss, which I'm pretty sure the forum would agree is a terrible outcome.

Of course, another explanation exists for the presence of Eric in Celestia: the idea that alignment is an inherent property present at birth along with genes for male-pattern baldness or eye color or whatever.

This has the effect of assigning alignment as an inherent but not fixed trait, since I take as a basic premise in this discussion that alignment change is possible. But regardless of that, the idea of an alignment present at birth really, really, really, REALLY bothers me.

But even if we go with this, I still don't understand why Eric was in Celestia. Roy and Eugene had to go through a trial to be admitted into Celestia, where the celestial not only examined the entry on their character sheet, but looked to see how their actions had lived up to that ideal. And what could Eric have done in his brief life that could measure up to Celestia's admittedly high standards? Not to go too far into this, but our current understanding of moral development doesn't hold with the idea of very young children having much of a sense of morality at all. Morality needs to be taught and learned and there is a large period of time when young children have an egocentric mode of behavior and thought that seems utterly incompatible with a place in Celestia.

"Uh oh, Timmy," said the celestial. "It seems here that you broke your cousin's favorite toy because she wouldn't share it with you, and just last week, too."

"Red!" said Timmy, who was two years old when he died.

"Yes, it was a red toy you broke," said the celestial. "I'm afraid that that sort of disregard for the property and feelings of another creature make you ineligible for admittance to Celestia. I'll see if I can put you in the Neutral afterlife, but they may put you in Chaotic Neutral when this is all said and done."

"Wings!" said Timmy.

It reduces to absurdity fairly quickly, doesn't it? But how less absurd is it to imagine this:

"Well," said the celestial. "I see that you've been a paragon of goodness and decency, Eric. We're proud to have you in Celestia."

"Wanna play blocks?" asked Eric.

I can't see any system that accounts for deeds and the principals by which one lived being applicable to the souls of young children. It's clear that the Giant deliberately chose to depict Celestia as being hard to get into, because of the difficulty of adhering to such a moral system, but that same high bar to entry makes the presence of a young child very incongruous. If they can get in without having to have gone the moral high road, that makes all the struggle and sacrifice and temptation of a righteous paladin very hard to justify as a criterion for admission.

That's the gist of what I've been thinking about since the Eric appeared in Roy's afterlife. I don't have any satisfactory answers, and it leads me to believe that the entire framework of an afterlife where you gain admission through adhering to an ideal or because of an inherent but changeable property is an inherently flawed and morally troubling concept.

TL:DR Why do babies get to go to heaven?

[Keltest]

because everyone loves babies.

but seriously, im in favor of the "Good until chosen otherwise" argument. Admittedly, this is the first fantasy setting ive encountered with any sort of non-adult in the afterlife, but I find it objectionable to argue that babies could be born evil. You could make an argument for true neutral, but evil implies an intentional lack of regard for anyone or anything else that I do don't believe babies are capable of possessing.

as for where kobold babies go, probably to Tiamat's plane, wherever that is. Likewise with all other races who have a single patron deity rather than an entire pantheon.

[Ninja]

Why do babies get to go to heaven?

I'm putting this in my sig so thousands of people can misinterpret it due to it being out of context.

On topic, perhaps some kind of limbo exists for children, until one of their parents dies and they can choose to go with them?
Personally, I find the whole "babies remain babies forever in the afterlife" part more disturbing.
Reincarnation all the way.

[NerdyKris]

First off, Eugene was kept out due to the oath, not because of any non lawful good acts. We don't know if he'll be let in after the oath is fulfilled.

I'd say Eric went to the lawful good afterlife because that's where his family is, and that's what four out of five family members we know of's alignment is. I don't think a concrete answer is something we'll ever get. I can think of multiple situations/issues:

• Children are good, and can move freely to be with family members.
• A parent can choose to have a child join them, but what about evil parents?
• Children have an automatic "good" alignment, chosen from their family members
• What happens if a parent doesn't WANT the child?

I think it's an issue of moving freely between planes to visit, with children being allowed to stay. Otherwise we have several instances of people not being able to see loved ones after death. Julia in particular will be on a completely different plane than her entire family.

[ReaderAt2046]

{{scrubbed}}

For example, we know that both Eugene and Sara were Lawful Good, so maybe Eric was automatically counted as Lawful Good due to their influence.

[Kish]

Julia in particular will be on a completely different plane than her entire family.

'Course, that could be what she wants.

In general, I don't think "creating an afterlife system durable enough that anyone would argue it to be perfect justice" was one of Rich's goals in writing the OotS afterlife.

[Jay R]

For the same reason you don't have to take college exams until you get to college.

[Seward]

Part of paladin training:

"Babies and toddlers detect as evil. Don't smite them. They get better".

(self-centered, not much empathy yet, etc).

A lot of why goblins behave the way they do was revealed to me when I played a Pathfinder module "We Be Goblins" which had a fully mature, respected shaman of the tribe who was all of 10 years old....

As far as afterlife goes, they probably get a pass on judgement and most likely end up somewhere that other loved ones might go. So a goblin baby goes to join his uncle, who's serving in the Dark One's army etc, but isn't actually PART of that army. Unfortunately Dwarf Babies would seem to mostly go to Hel, as they are unlikely to die in an "Honorable" fashion unless they also have a minimum age before She gets them.

[hamishspence]

It could be that The Giant started with D&D books as a basis and extrapolated from them - changing things where it made sense for the setting.

In BoED, each of the Celestial Hebdomad (the rulers of each celestial layer - has a speciality - for some, its paladins, for others, monks, and so forth.

The leader of them all - Zaphkiel "protects and nurtures the innocent spirits of stillborn babies and sacrificed children".

This may mean that children in general default to Celestia in the absence of other factors - life experience, manifesting particular personality traits, etc.

[NerdyKris]

A lot of why goblins behave the way they do was revealed to me when I played a Pathfinder module "We Be Goblins" which had a fully mature, respected shaman of the tribe who was all of 10 years old.....

Why Pathfinder (or that campaign setting) goblins behave the way they do, you mean. As they are a completely fictional creation, you can't use that module as proof of anything in Order of the Stick. They are two separate works.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Perhaps babies and toddlers go to where the rest of their family is, so that way they are with someone familiar. Or perhaps everyone defaults to Celestia. I don't think that the judgement profess for children would be the same as adults, so perhaps there is a different standard for children that sorts them well?

[Ring_of_Gyges]

I have a four year old son, and while I wouldn't say he displayed an alignment at birth, he certainly did much earlier than people without small kids might think.

Small children are staggeringly self absorbed, but not 100%. He does show empathy towards others (sometimes). He asks if I'm ok if I stub my toe, he takes turns with other kids and shares his toys (mostly). By adult standards he's incredibly selfish, but compared to other kids his age he does fine. There's no reason Celestia couldn't hold people to a standard appropriate to their abilities. A very smart person could be expected to know better and be better than an infant. D&D good toddlers seems perfectly appropriate to me even as young as two or three.

Lawful too. He loves routine, and he gets really mad if things don't go the way they are "supposed" to. It's not situations where he isn't getting what he wants (though he hates that too), it's just that in lots of ways he's really inflexible and has very clear ideas about how things ought to be done. I drive my car. Period. If my wife is coming with us and I'm tired? Too bad. This daddy car! It isn't that he prefers me as a driver, the pattern is reversed if we're in my wife's car. She has to drive. Is that enough to make him lawful? Maybe, maybe not. But I can certainly accept the premise that there are Lawful toddlers and even Lawful Good toddlers.

TLDR: Personalities display really amazingly early. Fairness is judging toddlers against other toddlers, and some will be more empathic, some more rule bound.

Babies, real baby babies, like three days old? I can't justify that. When you're still learning skills like "holding up your head" I have a hard time ascribing any sort of morality to your actions. I'd call babies TN.

One last thought. Can souls change alignment after death? Can Roy get into heaven, interact with other LG souls, but eventually become disenchanted with so much order? If Roy can become NG, what happens? Does he get a transfer? If Eric has spent years dead does he continue to develop at all? Is he getting smarter (remember is body can look any age as shown by Roy's mom). Will he have the mentality of a toddler for ever? Could he have started off in a TN afterlife and migrated over once he developed enough to have an alignment?

[Vladier]

It could be that The Giant started with D&D books as a basis and extrapolated from them - changing things where it made sense for the setting.

In BoED, each of the Celestial Hebdomad (the rulers of each celestial layer - has a speciality - for some, its paladins, for others, monks, and so forth.

The leader of them all - Zaphkiel "protects and nurtures the innocent spirits of stillborn babies and sacrificed children".

This may mean that children in general default to Celestia in the absence of other factors - life experience, manifesting particular personality traits, etc.

That would actually make at least some sense - the Higher Planes taking care of the souls of those who didn't live long enough to form their own alignment or consciously do anything wrong. The Lower Planes probably can't make undeveloped mortal souls to join their ranks and the Neutral Planes don't really care.

[Cavenskull]

For the same reason you don't have to take college exams until you get to college.

Colleges generally don't give you a degree if you drop out of elementary school and never pursue any further education.

[King of Nowhere]

I don't think rich put much thought into that. he put eric in celestia because it seemed appropriate.

[veti]

Roy has to go through an extensive test in order to get past the pearly gates, and by test, I mean it in the old sense of the word, in which his commitment to the ideals of Lawful Goodness were examined by a divine judge, his heart was figuratively weighed to see if the actions he had undertaken lived up to the ideals of his chosen alignment, and whether or not any black marks existed on his record that could demonstrate that he had fallen short of the standards to which Lawful Good characters are held.

Eugene also undergoes this trial, and is found wanting. But Roy gets in, where he is reunited with the soul of his long lost little brother, Eric. Now I have entertained a theory that each person gets their own heaven, and that the Eric in Celestia is not the soul of Roy's little brother. Ultimately I rejected that theory due to it being unfalsifiable, because once we start going down the path that anything that happened to Roy in the afterlife only happened because Roy's eternal paradise was custom engineered for him, there exists no evidence that could show that this wasn't the case.

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes: "Once you have eliminated every falsifiable hypothesis, whatever is left, no matter how unfalsifiable, can no longer be rejected." Ponder on this: Who are the other participants in the Debate Hall Where You're Always Right?

Personally I don't think Roy's "test" had anything to do with getting into Celestia. The deva talks about "tossing his soul over to True Neutral or Neutral Good", but she has no authority to grant access to those afterlives, so that raises the image of a soul being forever "tossed" between planes and no guarantee that it will ever be admitted anywhere. Which - doesn't seem very plausible to me.

So I think Roy's afterlife was already determined by the time he arrived on the cloud, and the "interview" process was a bit like Purgatory - designed to cleanse the soul, make Roy face up to his imperfections and generally spruce him up a bit before admittance.

[BenjCano]

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes: "Once you have eliminated every falsifiable hypothesis, whatever is left, no matter how unfalsifiable, can no longer be rejected." Ponder on this: Who are the other participants in the Debate Hall Where You're Always Right?

I actually thought about that. At first I was supremely amused, because I thought the answer could possibly be Lawful Good characters who failed to measure up, and were working in the Debate Hall Where You're Always Right as straw men in sort of a "work-release" program.

Then I applied the same logic to the Tavern of Infinite One Night Stands and thought to myself..."Wait a minute! That would mean that the celestials are pimping!" And it troubled me.

So I think Roy's afterlife was already determined by the time he arrived on the cloud, and the "interview" process was a bit like Purgatory - designed to cleanse the soul, make Roy face up to his imperfections and generally spruce him up a bit before admittance.

I dunno, I didn't get the impression that the celestial that Roy dealt with was any form of all knowing being. She seemed like a really, really competent human resources manager giving Roy an evaluation to determine his suitability for promotion. If he had bungled the interview, I really think he would have been chucked over to the HR people of a different company...a different alignment plane, in this analogy.

Do you really think if Roy had tried to play off what he had done with regards to abandoning Elan in order to save face or whatever that they would have let him in? "Oh, sure, I abandoned my bard and special-needs friend Elan to his death, but whatsabigdeal? Nothing really bad happened, did it? So fuggedaboutit."

For some reason, a Neutral Roy sounds like he's from Joisey when I voice him.

[veti]

Do you really think if Roy had tried to play off what he had done with regards to abandoning Elan in order to save face or whatever that they would have let him in? "Oh, sure, I abandoned my bard and special-needs friend Elan to his death, but whatsabigdeal? Nothing really bad happened, did it? So fuggedaboutit."

Maybe not, but the point is - Roy isn't the sort of person who'd have done that. It would have been out of character. He'd already rejected that line of thought in the strip where he decided to go back and help after all.

So yeah, the Joisey Roy would probably be in True Neutral, but that Roy wouldn't have been at this interview in the first place.

[Tanuki Tales]

The better question is what use would the Lower Planes have for infant souls? They're not really sapient enough to manipulate to the ends that most infernal beings follow or desire.

[Reathin]

The better question is what use would the Lower Planes have for infant souls? They're not really sapient enough to manipulate to the ends that most infernal beings follow or desire.

Sure, but hurting infants is incredibly evil. No small number of demons would break that taboo just for laughs. Sure, it's not terribly useful to the cosmic advance of Evil against Good, but it's still something many would do on impulse.

I'm guessing (and hoping) that the upper planes has first dibs on infants

[Tanuki Tales]

Sure, but hurting infants is incredibly evil. No small number of demons would break that taboo just for laughs. Sure, it's not terribly useful to the cosmic advance of Evil against Good, but it's still something many would do on impulse.

I'm guessing (and hoping) that the upper planes has first dibs on infants

See, that's true for living infants, but baby souls? That's literally just kicking the dog and adult souls are more amusing to torture.

[Reathin]

See, that's true for living infants, but baby souls? That's literally just kicking the dog and adult souls are more amusing to torture.

"Just kicking the dog" is kinda how many infernal beings operate. The higher level ones might have grander goals and dreams of corrupting nations and crushing the gates of paradise beneath their fiery steps, but many of the lower ones wont even manage to get onto the material plane, much less do anything serious to a living person. They make do with the worst they can, and, as I said, there's little so viscerally, gut-wrenching horrible as hurting an infant/baby. Demons (and maybe daemons) have little incentive not to do something like that. Devils, admittedly, might view it as a waste of time, since there's no ego to break down and thus extremely little divine energy to extract.

[veti]

"Just kicking the dog" is kinda how many infernal beings operate. The higher level ones might have grander goals and dreams of corrupting nations and crushing the gates of paradise beneath their fiery steps, but many of the lower ones wont even manage to get onto the material plane, much less do anything serious to a living person. They make do with the worst they can, and, as I said, there's little so viscerally, gut-wrenching horrible as hurting an infant/baby.

There's something that doesn't add up here.

If fiends consider torturing infants is as much fun as you seem to think, then why would the bigwigs allow their juniors to have all that fun to themselves? Wouldn't they want to keep it for themselves? After all, in our world, you don't commonly see billionnaires buying hookers and yachts for homeless people, do you?

As for demons wanting to "break the taboo" - again, according to your cosmology, in their society this is about as taboo as ordering a nice curry.

This conversation is taking a turn for the tasteless now. I don't think D&D cosmology makes a lot of sense at the best of times, and introducing children just highlights some of the things that were particularly absurd to begin with.

[MagicalMeat]

I'm pretty sure the Lower Planes (or at least the Abyss) would eat the babies and do nasty things with them, except maybe the Devils, who would probably see that as pointless and distasteful. I would say maybe raise them Evil, but from what we've seen of dead children, they don't seem to grow up in the afterlife, so that's thrown out.When it comes down to it, Eric was in the Lawful Good afterlife because otherwise Roy wouldn't have been able to see him.

People like thinking that everyone in Hell deserves it, and almost no one likes thinking of babies being flayed alive. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with having people be have to work to be Good and not getting a free pass just because they died young, even if it means babies don't go to heaven, but maybe that's just because I'm cynical.

[The Giant]

D&D cosmology is utterly incoherent, being a pastiche on several real world religions that's then strained through a fundamentally incompatible alignment system where Good and Evil are both valid life choices with equally powerful patrons. D&D writers have been trying to make it make sense for 40 years; it still doesn't. My version doesn't either. It's good enough for the story to get where it's going.

If you really need an answer, let's say that babies go wherever their mother is/will go, because of the psychic umbilical cord that stretches through the Uterine Plane. When you get older and determine your own alignment, marauding githyanki doctors with special silver clamps cut the cord. Because why not?

And since people have mentioned how creeped out they are about the fact that Eric doesn't ever get to grow up, let's say that when everyone who knew him in life gets over their baggage about his death and ascends higher up the mountain, he either reincarnates or grows up or something. I don't know what. Something. Whatever doesn't creep you out. Again, not important to the story.

Personally I don't think Roy's "test" had anything to do with getting into Celestia. The deva talks about "tossing his soul over to True Neutral or Neutral Good", but she has no authority to grant access to those afterlives, so that raises the image of a soul being forever "tossed" between planes and no guarantee that it will ever be admitted anywhere. Which - doesn't seem very plausible to me.

There are only 17 Outer Planes; Roy's alignment would have to match one of them, because you can't not have an alignment. The deva only got "first look" because Lawful Good was the alignment Roy declared himself to be. It was his goal, and the review was to see if he had really met that goal. If he didn't, that would mean he actually had some other alignment, in which case the powers-that-be on that plane would have been happy to have him. Generally speaking, a character who really is alignment X on the inside will be admitted to plane X with no problems, except in certain special circumstances (Eugene, for example).

[Jay R]

D&D cosmology is utterly incoherent, being a pastiche on several real world religions that's then strained through a fundamentally incompatible alignment system where Good and Evil are both valid life choices with equally powerful patrons. D&D writers have been trying to make it make sense for 40 years; it still doesn't.

Concise, complete, and clear. You have a gift for turning the complicated into the simple, clear, and funny.

You ought to write a comic strip or something.

[oppyu]

Does that mean that the Evil afterlife would be as satisfying for Evil people as the Good afterlife would be for Good? It'd explain why anyone on the mortal plane would do Evil despite having definitive proof that doing bad things leads to eternal damnationa nd hellfire.

[Gopher]

I agree with Ring_of_Gyges that children do show personality at a pretty young age. Maybe not right out of the womb, but long before the age of majority.

Many people support the "children get a free pass" out of a very understandable discomfort at the thought of children suffering. Without intending any disrespect to anyone posting here, I have to wonder why they don't extend the same compassion to adults.

I just don't think that theory's philosophically consistent. It's not that I want to think that children suffer in the lower planes, but I don't want to think adults do either.

If the idea is that people who suffer from a diminished capacity to determine right and wrong get a free pass, then doesn't that mean that sociopaths go to Heaven? It was only recently that Belkar learned to empathize, does that mean he was "innocent" (and Heaven-bound) before that? In fact in OTooPCs he says

Spoiler

Show

he feels no guilt about killing

. What about Xykon? He clearly doesn't empathize very well either.

You can argue that the Devas have some way of controlling for nature and nurture factors, and distilling a petitioner's actions down to free will. Well, the problem with that is that we don't. It would mean that there's no human way to determine is someone's good or evil based on their actions, because we have no way of determining which of those actions are free-willed and which of them are due to external factors.

{SCRUBBED}

Does that mean that the Evil afterlife would be as satisfying for Evil people as the Good afterlife would be for Good? It'd explain why anyone on the mortal plane would do Evil despite having definitive proof that doing bad things leads to eternal damnationa nd hellfire.

As I understand it, in the Evil afterlives the strong terrorize the weak. They're satisfying in the sense get to do anything you want to anyone weaker, but anyone stronger gets to do anything they want to you. Mortal petitioners start at the bottom, but may have a chance to fight their way up.

[factotum]

{SCRUBBED}

[Genth]

Because his Grandpa is there. And because the people who run the place are, y'know, good? And nice, to a degree? And it would be incredibly cruel and horrible to say that the Greenhilts could never see Eric again.

Put it this way - It wouldn't be Celestia for Roy's mother, or Grandpa Greenhilt, or even Roy, if Eric wasn't there.