In The Stars (spoilers for a certain Daedric quest)

[dragon wench]

Alright, there is plenty of discussion out there on The Black Star vs Azura's Star, but these debates tend to focus on the material advantages of one over the other.

So here's the thing that makes me scratch my head... While I would not, by any means, describe myself as a hardcore roleplayer, I do try to create a certain type of character and I attempt to make decisions that seem fitting to their personalities or overall leanings.
However, deciding on which Star to acquire is actually quite ambiguous when it comes to any kind of a "Good" vs "Evil" dichotomy... Azura has an obvious dark aspect (especially when it comes to Malyn's story as explained by Nelacar). Therefore, picking Azura's Star isn't necessarily the "better" choice. On the other hand.... The Black Star is capable of trapping human/elven souls. Putting aside real world arguments about species supremacy , that isn't exactly "virtuous" either.

Thoughts? I'm currently at that decision point with a relatively "good" character, and I'm not certain which direction to go in terms of ethical ground. In this case I don't actually care about the benefits of easily trapping grand souls, nor am I concerned about the potential follower if you go the Azura route (I already have 2 modded companions, that is plenty). I'm looking at this more from a philosophical perspective. Or as much as that is possible in a game, a Bethsoft title no less.

[galraen]

I find it difficult to approach the topic in isolation, especially as any character that would care would, in my head, be connected with former characters in games. That means to me they have family history connected with Azura, so it's a no brainer, Azura=Good.

Even without taking history into account, it really does seem fairly straightforward to me. The people that currently have the star are evil. The only reason to want to blacken the star is evil; certainly one could debate the pros and cons of trapping any souls, but trapping the souls of sentients is pretty much going to be considered evil in any society I would have thought.

As it happens, when I've run a Paladin type through any of the games, trapping any soul is a big no-no. In fact going through Oblivion I used the empty soul gem spell (mod) to free every soul I could.

[ireallyneedanewsn]

Lorewise, there really isn't such a thing called a "good" or "bad" daedra. People may think Meridia's a "good" daedra but they haven't played Knights of the Nine in Oblivion, where the baddies are actually Meridia's minions if you read the lore. Daedra simply aren't bound by morality like mortals are. That said, I went for the black start until I went to the soul cairn in Dawnguard. Figured nobody deserved that, so went with white instead. It's usually good enough anyways.