In the Elder Scrolls, is it 'unethical' to trap souls?

[InDarkestNight]

I've seen seemingly all paladin builds use enchanting. However, to me it always across as wrong to do that. The game itself doesn't really elaborate on this, other than that using black souls is taboo, while white souls are fine, even though many obviously intelligent creatures like giants and falmer have white souls. Jarls don't mind their court wizard having an enchanting table in their freaking castle. When npcs criticize magic, they never ever bring up the soul trapping thing. Seemingly every guild also uses enchanted gear.

On top of this, in Skyrim, Bethesda seems to have dropped a few hints that its wrong. The enchanting table in the game has this demonic-looking skull on it. Maiq also blatantly tells you that he was soul trapped once, and that it wasn't very pleasant (of course, if he was soul trapped, it begs the question why he still walks the earth rather than being trapped in the soul cairn, but still).

Then there's also one of the first two games where I've heard that once an enchanted item ran out of charges, the soul of the thing you soul trapped would appear and assault you. This feature wasn't implemented in future games.

Given all of this, is enchanting actually wrong? Maybe its one of those evil things people justify simply because they like the benefits of it? Even the magic-phobic nords of Skyrim clearly don't mind enchanted items, which the local mages guild likes to point out.

On top of this, there is the odd issue where there's no mention on what the gods think of it. Some daedra openly encourage it (all daedric artifacts are enchanted items, and then there's Azura's Star), but the aedra are completely silent on it. Wouldn't trapping souls condemn one? None of the games really say.

[AaronOfMpls]

A good question, and you're hardly the first to wrestle with it.

I know my own "good" characters don't soul trap other people, aside from maybe a few more evil ones -- especially after seeing the Soul Cairn via Dawnguard.  Though most of them still use enchanted items, and some will soul trap creatures to fill their soul gems, if they aren't picking up enough filled ones already in the course of their adventures.

And taking this further, wolfgrimdark's long-running story character Grim avoided soul-trapping creatures altogether, on account of his close connection to nature (and to a nature-spirit demigod).

 

[InDarkestNight]

On another note, why can you soultrap undead? It makes sense for ghosts to have souls, but what about draugr or other zombies? What are you actually harvesting from them? Of particular note is King Olag, whose draugr you can soul-trap I think, but he's confirmed to be in Sovngarde regardless of whether you've met his draugr before or after. On top of this, there are also the dwemer automatons, who I heard were possible to soul trap in some prior game. You can also soul trap daedra (though in Skyrim they can't be bound to their summoner). What are you actually taking? Are you just taking their magicka? Something else? I think there's a book somewhere where the author claims that in reality nobody knows what they're actually taking when they soul trap something. Also, only souls trapped in black soul gems go to the soul cairn, regardless of whether or not their soul was black. I've seen people say this means that only black soul gems actually trap a creature's soul, white soul gems do not.

[AaronOfMpls]

26 minutes ago, InDarkestNight said:

Of particular note is King Olag, whose draugr you can soul-trap I think, but he's confirmed to be in Sovngarde regardless of whether you've met his draugr before or after.

Yah, good point.  What kind of "soul" is in King Olaf's (or anyone else's) dragur, if his "real" soul is in Sovngarde?  Is it some kind of echo of him, or some magical construct that resembles a soul (and maybe can read residual info from the preserved body's brain)?  Maybe white soul gems only trap some kind of "soul energy" from Aetherius (or Oblivion, with daedra?), rather than the soul itself -- and that from black souls somehow won't "fit" in them regardless of size.

32 minutes ago, InDarkestNight said:

I think there's a book somewhere where the author claims that in reality nobody knows what they're actually taking when they soul trap something.

I'll have to look for one sometime.  Loremasters might well have their hands full if they explore this in detail anywhere.

[ScytheBearer]

Nope. 

The phrase is "Attack me and give your soul to God, because your ass is mine".  But in Tamriel; magical ability allows one to trap the attackers soul on it's way to God and cheat the attacker out of any reward they may be expecting in Sovengard. 

So, in Tamriel, the phrase is "Attack me and I'm taking your life and your soul" followed by gleeful and evil sounding laughter and maybe even a bit of hand wringing in anticipation of the things one can do with Black Souls. 

mwahahaha

[InDarkestNight]

Looking into this further, the UESP claims that there are mages in the ES universe who oppose enchanting. They apparently prefer to use ammonite fossils to make enchanted items. Of course, these are fossils from extinct animals, and they lose their charge quickly after being unearthered, and on top of all that even the most powerful of them are only comparable to the weakest of soul gems. I have no idea where that 'lore' came from though. I would assume ESO, but the article on this has no in-game screenshots, even though it claims they're a major trade item.

[HeyYou]

Gotta be an ESO thing, as I have never heard of it.