I noticed something the other day while playing Dungeons and Dragons Online. I think I’ve noticed it before and just repressed the memory. Because it is a jarring thing, not something fun like the ampersand, or mysterious and be-symboled like this ceiling, but still, something that made me stop and think.

Am I actually the good guy in this story?

I like to think of myself that way. And when faced with actions that are flat-out evil, I recoil. My inner dude wears a white hat, or so I tell myself.

Yet, I wonder. Look at that cloud giant in the picture above. Notice anything? Say … on his left hand? More specifically, on the ring finger of his left hand? The dude is married! Somewhere, there is a Mrs. Cloud Giant and maybe a litter of baby cloud giants too.

From a biological point of view, there would have to be, right? Some monsters are made by wizards or clerics, some are made by artificers, some are spawned in hell. But many, including all of the giants, appear to be naturally-occurring. Meaning, they are born. Taking that thought further, they had a mommy and daddy. And maybe brothers and sisters that they loved and cared for.

This cloud giant certainly seems to have a family. One that he loves; the ring is a symbol of love and commitment, right?

[insert the jarring sound of a needle scratching a record]

I have to pull myself out of this thought path, because this is the path of madness. They are the monsters. We are the good guys.

It is okay to storm into their homes, kill everyone we find, and take everything they own because they are the monsters. We are the good guys.

It is okay to slay so many of them that we have to have special counters to keep track of the slaughter, earning rewards for killing them in ever-greater numbers. This is okay too, because they are the monsters. We are the good guys.

There is a scene in the movie True Lies where Jamie Lee Curtis, having learned that her husband (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is secretly an agent of a super-violent government spy agency, asks him about what he has done. Lip quivering, “Have … have you killed anyone?” “Yes”, he replies, “but they were all bad”.

Are they all bad? What about the ones that love their families? Are they truly as monstrous as we need to believe? Are they the monsters at all?

Or are we?

Oh wait, I just noticed, the cloud giant has a matching ring on the ring finger of his right hand too. So it wasn’t a wedding ring at all, just decorative. Of course. Not a wedding ring in retrospect, what was I even thinking?

Clearly it is okay to earn Slayer bonuses for killing 3000 of them after all.

Phew. That was close.