Originally Posted by
-Sentinel-
In virtually all works of fantasy, necromancers (of the D&D "raise an army of corpses" kind, not in the older "converse with the spirit of the dead" sense) are portrayed as unambiguously evil. And yeah, I get it, leading an army of zombies does not look very good, PR-wise! The living dead are scary! Plus, there is often an underlying theme along the lines of "death is the natural order of things".
But can there be a situation where raising the dead is morally justified?
Picture this. You are the lord of the land. Not a vast kingdom or anything... I'm talking about a land small enough that you know the village innkeeper by name and can go out for a drink without a bunch of guards at your side. Your land is frequently targeted by the depredations of barbarians, goblins, or a rival lord with whom you have a border dispute. You care deeply for your people and you want to protect them, but you don't have much of a standing army. Waging war requires you to draft your farmers' sons. It's always a difficult thing to do, because you know that some will not return alive. Even the deaths of just 10 or 20 young men would be a terrible blow to your land and make your people resent you.
So what do you do? You have a necromancer raise the dead to do the fighting for you. Sure, the families will not like it either. The idea that their beloved grandma will rise from her grave and shuffle around with a spear is terrible to bear. But is it not better than the alternative? In desperate times, should we not have the dead defend the living?
Granted, it all depends on whether raising zombies involves disturbing the soul of the deceased. If it does, then necromancy becomes a lot less defensible than if it merely consisted of making a mindless sack of rotting meat walk again.