Originally by: Stitcher

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Edited by: Stitcher on 28/06/2008 16:14:11

Originally by: Daziel Iaar

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I was disapointed with the portrayal of the Amarr, its as if they are totally black, no shade of grey or white, they are all evil. There was two sides to the Amarrians one which was terribly evil (the chamberlain) and the supposed "gooder" side who was also just as evil.

Other than the lack of interest in developing the amarrians where as the majority of the other three factions had alot of background detail put into how their culture works. It was good.

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Bear in mind, we basically saw the Empire from two perspectives: that of Karsoth, who is a peerless monsters, and that of the Minmatar, who are obviously going to be prejudiced. I found some of the other Amarr characters to be noble, well-adjusted people who just weren't in a position to understand our point of view

Of all the EVE cultures, the Amarr are probably the most alien to us. Here on contemporary Earth, slavery is effectively extinct, and is the focus of near-universal revulsion, whereas to the Amarr it's an unquestioned fact of life. The point is, the Amarr are noble and good in their own way, but they have very, very different foundations for their moral precepts than we do, and that makes them look monstrous in our eyes. Most of the people who roleplay them in this game, however, are unable or unwilling to quite let go of our 21st-century Earth values, and sugar-coat the race.

Hell, I do the same with the Caldari, who are a far more ruthless and arrogant mob than I'd ever be prepared to play. It's natural to try and prettify our choice of character racial background.

Mankind is perfectly capable of embracing various monstrosities with one hand and being perfectly noble in another way with the other. Take American slave owners, for instance. It's not that they worked their slaves hard out of any particular sense of cruelty - I'm sure the majority were perfectly intelligent and charming people in other regards - its just that the culture they were born and raised in considered slavery to be acceptable, and continued to do so for quite a long time even after the rest of the world had started to turn against the practice. They'd have a hard time understanding why modern culture is so dead set against the idea, just as we have a hard time understanding how anybody could find it to be acceptable.

There's a big difference between "alien" and "evil". Tibus Heth, Karsoth and the Broker are evil by most standards. The majority of the Amarr Dramatis Personae are just too different for us to accept the positive aspects of their personality, which do exist, even if they're sometimes hard to detect.

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