Talk:Human/@comment-27008999-20151215154839/@comment-27557332-20160106221042

Very familiar. And you are correct, the games do treat them separately, but not necessarily as a race. I'm very meticulous, I don't like to stereotype, even though I'm aware of the stereotypes.

I'm not sure I'd classify them as a race exactly. Many games do, which is logical as a stereotype or just a shortcut. (Why argue philosophy when that's not the point of the game?) Rarely is intra-'race' nuances really considered a important part of most Fantasy settings.

Personally, I think of them more along the lines of a possessive entity or animating energy. D&D treated them as animating / corruptive energy from a singular source, said source was malevolent, but not necessarily intelligent in and of itself... except in certain cases like the Ravenloft setting. Lovecraft treated it essentially the same but the source wasn't the same in all cases. WoW mentions it as a kind of animating force, but the undead themselves usually retained the memories and such from thier living days. In WoW they are treated as a completely separate race... but the individuals were still created from 'materials' that at one time was counted as another race entirely.

The questions arise with how whichever game in question defines the controlling intelligence of said undead. Is it the same intelligence as when the body was living? (Ainz does count as this. 'Satoru' is undoubtedly human.) Is the controlling intelligence completely different? (This is debatable. Satoru appears to be the only controlling factor... but there is *something* that affects his feelings. Is it just a passive effect, or are there other effects that aren't as easy to see? This could explain his growing detachment to seeing NW residents dying en masse in front of him. If it's a separate existence, is it intelligent on it's own?) There's a whole mess of arguments on this... some of which encompases whole games in thier entirety.

My previous post was made with the above in mind, my apologies if it was taken the wrong way.