Must be. Every enchanted item (including those nifty mage robes) requires a soul gem to power the enchantment. If it's not good to soul trap, is it any better to use the results of it? Too bad the critters can't come back to haunt you when you use up the enchantment as they did in Daggerfall.

Soul trap isn't evil, it just another form of magic that can benefit the user or destroy him if the person isn't careful.

Well, if you think about it, those guys you killed were presumably evil as well (provided you ONLY killed bad guys). So, in a way, by giving you their souls, they're earning themselves a chance at redemption by serving a greater purpose for good.

Honestly, they need to develop the lore on Soul Gems more. I mean, how can a mere bandit's soul be used to create a flame enchantment for instance? Does the power for the enchantment come from the mage or the soul? If from the mage, why do we need souls? If from souls, why is it that any soul can create any enchantment? If both, shouldn't the power of the mage be like to the power of the soul used, such that the mage would need the proper spell to unlock the inherent power of the soul?

Perhaps souls should have different categories which correspond to the different schools of magic and skills. For instance, if the person is really good at one handed weaponry, than their soul would be useful for one-handed skill enchantments. If the soul is that of a mage skilled in destruction magic, than their soul could be used for flame enchants and such. To top that off, any prospective mage would need a corresponding spell to unlock a souls power. The system could be fleshed out even more by having certain enchantments correspond to certain gear. Like, one-handed weaponry enchants get a bonus when attached to one-handed weapons. That would add a lot of depth to capturing souls and enchanting.

Oh, and it would be great if they'd bring back souls escaping and attacking.

I believe that when hit with soul-trap, your soul is imprisoned in the gem, and when that gem is used to enchant something, your soul is destroyed.

This makes the spell VERY dark; being killed is one thing, as you go to the afterlife, but having your soul destroyed until the end of time/rebirth of the cosmos is another.

The quest where you go into the soul gem is different, as the caster used a special spell to still keep your soul bound to your body, yet they tell you to be careful, as dying in the gem means that they will lose the link from your soul to your body and you will disapear into oblivion.

Only my evil character uses these gems; my good ones store them (empty of course) at the mages college for safe keeping.

I consider it "evil", and I consider it a "dark" form of magic that my characters use.

But then again, that's an important part of my roleplay also.

I get it would only be considered evil to trap black souls, in other words, souls that require black soul gems.

Black soul gems used for trapping human and elven souls are evil.

Regular soul gems used for animals are not.

Its a bit like eating animals is ok, eating people is not.

The power of the enchantment comes from the lifeforce that the soul is composed of.

Well, in some cases, yes. I love to eat beef, but I would never consider killing a cow myself, the very thought sickens me. The same goes for another example I learned at school. My Earth Systems Science teacher is pretty heavily pro-environment, but he uses pretty much the most paper out of any teacher on campus. His reasoning is that, since the paper is already here, it would be disrespectful to nature and the trees not to utilize what it has provided for us.

In previous games, it's been clear that all decent people considered it evil to trap humanoid beings.

It seems that the closing of the gates of Oblivion and subsequent scarcity of daedra has led many people to compromise their morals, so it's more acceptable now than it used to be. The morality is the same, but the moral level of the world is lower. Just as it was acceptable to enslave people in the 19th century, but isn't today. Slavery hasn't changed and is what it is. Society has changed.

My character has never trapped a soul, he's freed thousands from their human prisons though.

There are many things in TES that use English words for things that aren't strictly equivalent, but are sort of the same. The use of "soul" here is definately one. Remember, this is a different physics/metaphysics than we're dealing with on Earth. These "souls" and our "souls" don't have the same function or meaning... they're only similar in that they're released at death.

I agree 'our souls' are something completely different.

Even though it seems to have become widely accepted, it still seems pretty evil to me.

I suppose soul trapping humans is quite evil. Soul trapping monsters on the other hand...perhaps less so. Still, like a similar thread on this board, it seems gruesome to enslave any creature in a gem.

I′ve got my doubts even about the evil nature of black souls. The target is dead, and they shouldn′t have a problem with his soul being captured.

No Black soul gems for me in my current game...that's where I drew my line and I'm sure it's a carryover from playing Oblivion and how things were perceived then by the Mages Guild. I do conjure and raise the dead and I use my summoned Daedra and or raised zombies only for good. I'm content to use whatever I can as long as it's for good. It's an ends justifies the means philosophy.

I dont at all see whats evil about jamming someones soul into the mace you then use to murder their friends. At all.

Just a pity the mace doesnt talk...

Good ol' M'aiq the Liar, the only voice of reason in a mad world.

Anyway, soul trapping is evil regardless of whether it's a humanoid, creature, or critter. Then again, so is murder. You can attempt to justify it all you want, but it all comes down to what actions (and their consequences) you're willing to live with.

I don't see as being anymore evil as you killing in the first place. If you are a good guy killing a bad guy, then how much worse is it to loot his soul with his gear. That's just being thrifty and exploiting all of your resources. If you are a bad guy killing good guys, then it still falls into your role play.

Get'em while their hot....

I guess it depends on how you and your character feel about it. If you're simply collecting the life energy of something/someone who is being killed anyway, then I guess you could justify it as acceptable.

For me, I kill humans, monsters, and animals and trap their life energy in soul gems for the sole (soul) purpose of powering my weapons. I deal in death, I am an assassin, & my intentions are, for all practical purposes, evil.

I don't see soul trapping evil men or mer as evil. Being stuck in a physical object is not punishment enough for evil beings. A bandit who [censored] and murdered people deserves for worse. Perhaps a trip to Coldharbor to be [censored] until the next Kalpa would suffice.

Flessshy prisssonsss... thisss one will free you, yessss...

I've given it some thought and come to the conclusion that my mage will not use soul trap. It seems to evil to imprison a soul. Except for when I became a vampire and needed to cure myself. Thanks to the bandit that gave his soul to me