In Praise of Evil

There's an interesting article posted on Gamers With Jobs, that I think was more poignant than most I see:

In Praise of Lando
Julian "rabbit" Murdoch - Wed, 08/29/2012 - 6:46pm

Middle age is a crushing thing.

When you hit 45 (which, for the sake of feeling good about my prospects, I’m going to call middle age), you inevitably spend time looking back on your life. Assessing things. And then you feel like a self-absorbed prick for a while, and you move on.

But the tapes that I replay in my head suggest that this should be the time when I’ve figured it all out. As a young male, I learned about the grown-up world from infallible sources: Spider Man and Sgt. Rock, Angus Young and John Hughes. According to them, all I have to do is work really hard, and it will all work out. I’ll be famous and rich and get the girl of my dreams. Things will be swell.

A young man believes these things.

Unfortunately, life has a way of creeping in between the Technicolor rock & roll fantasies and reality. The heroes of youth — Halo’s anonymous testosterone junkie Master Chief, for instance — don’t match with the man I’ve become. Who exactly do I want to be?

“You coming to bed?” asks Jess. It’s not her “come hither” voice. There’s neither the promise of carnal pleasure nor any criticism for a denial.

“Nope. Wide awake.” It’s only a partial lie. I’ve had a martini and a long day, so while I’m not actually wide awake, neither am I ready to head into a dark room, read on my iPad for 20 minutes and restart the cycle 7 hours later. She heads upstairs, and I think about a game to play, scrolling through the endless list of half-finished “big games.”

So many stories.

I love stories. I love being Jack in Rapture, Shepard on the Normandy, or even Link wandering Hyrule. For as long as I’ve been a gamer, there have been two, and really only two reasons I love games. There’s the intellectual part of me that loves the challenge. I love figuring out how to optimize my World of Warcraft build, or my League of Legends loadout, or my strategy for finally getting a diplomatic victory out of Civ V.

And then there are the stories. The best games meld the two, but I can overlook a long list of game-design sins if I can genuinely connect with a character. For decades, it was about the heroes: I grew up wanting to be Luke Skywalker, and then, as I got a bit more cynical, Han Solo.

But I’ve only recently realized that the missing hero in my games is neither the scoundrel with a heart of gold, or that young desert boy on a path to greatness. It’s Lando.

Lando Calrissian. The guy who graduated from his smuggling days to take on the responsibility of an entire city, and was willing to make deals with the devil in order to protect it.

But perhaps even more, it’s Walt “Heisenberg” White, the 50-something, effete, intellectual, meth-making protagonist of Breaking Bad.

There’s no need for spoilers here; it’s clear from nearly the first ten minutes of Breaking Bad that Walter White is, essentially, me. He’s the smart, middle class, middle-aged white guy who did everything right — and still got :daisy:.

Not badly. Neither Walt or I are on the street, unable to support our families. There are, truth be told, vast panoramas of people far, far worse off than we are.

But we were lied to. We grew up in a world which laid out a pattern for us. A “Corwin-in-Amber” level maze traced on the ground that, if we’d just keep walking it, would lead us towards privileged white-guy heaven, a place of peace and prosperity.

But it turns out the world doesn’t work that way. The middle-aged-white-guy life from ‘80s TV sitcoms and movies doesn’t actually exist. Instead, we live in a real world, where the line between prosperity and destitution can be as thin as the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers or a factory closure.

I’m not asking for pity, honestly. I’m blessed. But like the working people of every class, and every generation everywhere, I turn to the Penny Dreadful of my age for solace when the sh*t hits the fan. And for me, that care-worn book has, more often than not, been a game.

So as I look down this pile of games, this cornucopia of slavishly created entertainments from some of the most imaginative people of my generation, I’m saddened to see a decided lack of Walter White in the mix.

In the grey dark loneliness of Middle America, what’s missing isn’t another regurgitation of idealized humans on the hero’s journey. It’s a connection. The heroes of my other-worlds seem to have become more and more polarized in the past few years. Yes, there are still nuances, still plenty of “your choices matter” type ambiguity with room for interpretation.

Mass Effect, for instance. What bothered me most about playing Mass Effect wasn’t the false-choices of the endings, but how removed I felt from Shepard’s own experience. I’ve led virtual teams of caricatures in and out of battle a thousand times by now. But none of those Commanders had ever changed a diaper or sat through a boring meeting on marketing strategy. Shepard was no different.

Even more frustrating than the cardboard heroism of a future soldier is the timeless crutch of amnesia. As a writer, I get the attraction. If you’re going to write from the first person, having your protagonist know nothing at the start of your story is a fantastic way to introduce a strange new world, and flow in characters and past lives at will. But it doesn’t do much to make me actually connect to that poor, amnesiac bastard. At least BioShock had the common decency to make the whole trope of found-agency-in-amnesia the punch line of a cruel joke.

As for the countless games that let me build up from nothing — starting as a child in a Peter Molyneux fable or clicking through “background” screens in an RPG — these leave me hollow too. For while I make these stories mine, they are pure escapism, and thus poor teachers. When I was twelve and playing “Torganar the Brave” in a D&D campaign run by stoned theater hippies down the street, I reveled in the stout axe-wielder’s heroic deeds simply because my own life was already a blank slate.

But I’m not a tabula rasa any more. I’m a grown-ass man. I have baggage. I’ve changed the diapers and sat through the meetings. I’ve made the grown-up choices to not buy the electric guitar, not upset the boss, not take off on a vacation I can’t afford. I’ve made the all-too-adult choices to pay the mortgage, do the job, console the snot-nosed, feverish child and roll the garbage can down the driveway in the darkness of a frozen February morning.

These choices may not be noble, but they’re at least, I hope, the quiet, subtle choices that separate me from the true assholes of the world. And they are, always, my starting point for any character I’m going to explore.

How can they not be?

I’m not suggesting that I long to actually play as Charles Bukowski or Tom Waits or Walter Mitty in a game. I don’t want to play at being bitter and angry, grizzled by the world and its realities. What I want is a path. What I’m asking for is an actual answer. Where are the characters that take who I am today toward something more righteous? For every 12 year old inspired by Luke Skywalker to be better than they think they can be, there’s a 45 year old middle-class father of two wondering where it all goes from here, wondering if there was more than a little nobility in Lando’s loyalty to Cloud City, in Walt’s descent into the dark.

Perhaps I’ll just have to settle for being Ethan Mars from Heavy Rain, wandering through the train station, yelling “Jason!?” after a lost youth?

The article isn't entirely spot on for me. I'm 34, not 45, and I don't feel like I'm quite as crushed by the realities of life as the author seems to be. However, I share his lack of connection with game characters and story lines. There is something so unrelentingly disgusting to me about the classic 'good' characters that are portrayed in so many games; the guy who does the right thing every time and asks for no reward. These people don't exist, and those that come closest, paragons like Gandhi, don't tend to blend very well into a game involving sword fighting or grenade launchers. It's similar to why I think Superman is a boring nitwit, but that's another rant.

Invariably, I play evil in games. Not always, and not often on the first time through, but frequently enough that my wife notices and expresses surprise, be it real or feigned, when she catches me doing something virtuous. The first time I played Bioshock, I killed all the girls. The first time I played Fallout 3, I nuked Megaton. That's me. I play like this because I find the 'good' choices more repellent than the 'bad' choices. The good guys never question the system, never look deeper into the problem, and never spot the inevitable trap. They're idiots. They never acknowledge having any needs or plans at all, and just stumble through life surviving on their heroic skills and their incredible dumb luck.

The evil roles aren't exactly a mirror for my own life and desires either; I don't make a habit of stealing, blackmailing, and otherwise injuring everyone I see. That said, I don't do things for free, at least not for perfect strangers. I have a mortgage and bills to pay. I have things in my life that I want that require money and I also value my time and prefer to avoid spending it doing things that I don't want to do. Why, then, would I ever want to clean some damn rats out of someone's cellar or carry some random plot MacGuffin to some fellow in the next town? I don't even know this person, but I'm expected to happily accept this request out of the goodness of my heart and ask nothing in return? Please...

If I'm out saving the world, that's my job. Apparently I'm always the only person capable of doing it, and it's what I'm engaged in day in, day out, so it's got to be my job. All the rest of the schmucks I'm saving have jobs that apparently pay them to eat and to build their tiny hovels, so why can't I get paid too? Sure, there's money in dungeons, but those places have nothing to do with the chores I'm being asked to complete, and the loot down there is in no way payment for a quest I'm completing elsewhere. We don't expect police officers to live off of confiscated drug money, so why should I have to? I want payment. The more, the better; how often do people turn down a raise in real life? And if they won't pay me, then they can go kill the damn rats themselves, or, more likely, I'll brandish my muscles and they'll pay me through fear, because actual bargaining is rarely an option.

This is why, above all, I love sandbox games. In sandbox games, I can wander and explore, and live out my game-life the way I want to live it. I don't tend to finish main quests, because they involve the same old rote good/evil choices that all other games do. Instead, I just wander the lands gathering money and items and whatever other forms of prosperity and comfort the game allows. I do that because that's my job. I'm building a future for myself, one carton of old cigarettes and one grenade launcher attachment at a time. I relate to that, and I feel like there's more of myself in that kind of game than there is in Paragon Shepherd, solving everyone's petty little problems while the galaxy is about to be obliterated.

It's sad to read words as jaded as those in that article. No offense to the author but i feel as if I may have aged ten years by reading the entirety of it. Goodness. I think I need to listen to some jpop or some other bubbly music, or perhaps take a walk outside to lift my spirits. Anyway. Allow me to write a long winded response. You might want to get some snacks.

I think it speaks to our society how socially :daisy: we are, sometimes. A great example is the movie 'Heat'. In that movie it's obvious that while both Al Pacino and Robert De niro's characters have redeeming qualities, De niro is gunning down cops in the street. He is the clear antagonist to Pacino's protaganist, and yet not a single person i've ever known can watch that movie and refrain from pulling for De niro in the end. If the personal situations of an antagonist or an antihero are compelling, sympathetic, and relatable we cannot stop ourselves from hoping that he will somehow make it through at the end. That's just human nature at work.

How often have we, each of us on a personal level, encountered pure and unadulterated evil? It's such a foreign concept that the idea of the big hero waving the american (insert your nationality here) flag and fighting with a newborn baby in his arms, the guy who never wanted trouble in the first place i might add, can be just as foreign. However, that is still what many stories that are crafted, especially in the genre of gaming, use as their basis when trying to depict the everyday hero. It's something of a storytelling disconnect and very few games have attempted the moral grey area, few still have gotten it right. More often then not a game will contrive a situation where there is obviously no right or wrong answer, simply an answer where everyone involved loses and use the excuse that it's being "moraly ambiguous," which is an even worse sin if you ask me. I've not got as many years as either you or the author of this article (clocking in at only 23, thank you) and yet, I've encountered very few 'no win' situations in my life. I've seen hard times, bad days, terrible choices and worse outlooks, but never so bleak as some fiction would have you believe life might be in their vein attempt to be edgy. Yeah. Still mad about Witcher 2.

I think that ambiguity is more difficult to do in a gaming environment than it is in movies or television because of the many aspects that must be taken into concern. Gameplay, narrative, sound design, fun, visuals, they all have to combine to make the moment seem to have an impact or be relevant to what you're doing at the time. If any one of those fails then what you're doing ceases to be about the game, story, or the moral implications of the act, and becomes a rather arbitrary choice that is based solely on what gives you the best in game reward. I think the nuke in Fallout 3 is a great example of that. There's so little about that game that impacts you on an emotional point that nuking megaton is just a light show. The only pay off comes about 20 hours later when your dad, liam neeson, scolds you. It makes you feel kinda bad, but along the same lines, it was 20 hours ago and the choice really doesn't change anything other than a few lines of dialogue. So how much do you really care? (A little bit, but that's just because he's such a great actor.

That isn't to say that every game fails in this regard, but enough do that moral systems are almost always black and white. Even a series like Mass Effect, which i love to death, is a game that i play predominantly renegade for those very reasons you mention, TC. It's obviously not perfect in its design, and not the way the designers envisioned you playing it. Paragon Shepard is the "best" Shepard, as often, Renegade choices will have you losing out on potential assets later because you made the "wrong" choice, in game terms. It's annoying, and in a way, is a product of the limited creativity of the genre. There's a need there to change the outcome based on a choice you made. How to do that? It's difficult to do without falling into the "Witcher 2 trap" of no right answer i mentioned above.

I guess what I'm saying, if I'm saying anything at all, is that games by and large find it difficult to tackle that grey area. Even more so than other entertainment, which i feel is due to a number of factors. Not only those mentioned above, but as a way of railroading you into the predicted emotional response. Good choice, bad choice, those are definable variables from an emotional and story standpoint. Grey? Most people don't know what to do with grey. Something that I always found amazing was when I read Tolkien as a child, I was never rooting for the good guys. I never felt like I knew them at all, even. The only characters I ever found to be compelling were the Uruk'Hai who captured Merry and Pippin. Those guys were so awesome and relatable, cracking heads and taking names. If i wrote something and the only emotional response i garnered from my reader/player was in relation to a bunch of throw away bad guys killed off screen? I'd be embarrassed.

I'm surprised you killed the little girls in Bioshock though, but I think we can put that difference behind us.. for science.

You monster.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

It's similar to why I think Superman is a boring nitwit, but that's another rant.

---

Do you know the difference between justice and punishment?

While I think the idea of the boy scout hero is outdated, I still think he deserves a place in our hearts from a creative standpoint. Superman is the paragon of altruism and justice, he's superman. He isn't selfish. He acts without thought of payment and wishes only to protect. It's important that he is there whether you like him or not, doing his job to prevent Lex Luthor from stealing forty cakes. Forty cakes, which is four times as many as ten, and is also terrible.





edited: clarified second to last paragraph

Just stay away from my stuff on the server and I won't send Superman's boring ass after you.

I play games to get away from the real world. In Fallout 3, I also nuked Megaton. But before I did that, I murdered every single inhabitant and stole everything they had. Playing the good guy is way too boring. I always choose the path of evil. Maybe since there isn't enough of it in the real world. It's a welcome break from the monotony of day to day life. In Total War, I forge alliances, only to stab them in the back when they least expect it. It's the experience. I wouldn't stab a colleague in the back. Nor would I murder an entire town and then nuke it.

As wrong as it sounds (I need to prepare for the backlash I will receive), I was saddened to hear of Osama bin Laden's death. It was as if the little bit of evil in the world had been purged, only to leave a world of peace and security in it's wake (to an extent). I enjoy chaos. So, I felt a bit sad.

Sometimes, I will pick up my Call of Duty 4 and senselessly kill people in Multiplayer. That is a rare occurrence, since I no longer player shooter's like I used to. But the fact that I do, is enough to tell me that my life needs more action. I need that adrenaline rush, albeit, a cheap one. When I come home from a long day of looking at agar plates and microscopes, I game. I don't watch TV, and I don't watch movies. Only because the storyline is unchangeable. Whereas, in a game, I take the role of the protagonist (or antagonist). I make the choices. I decide where to go, what to do. Which is why I love Bethesda games so much. And I don't think I'll stop gaming any time soon.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

They never acknowledge having any needs or plans at all, and just stumble through life surviving on their heroic skills and their incredible dumb luck

---

Play the first DeathSpank. I feel you'll really appreciate the main character and all that the game satirises.

I just can't play an evil character, it's always being evil just for the sake of being evil. It always makes more sense to play a good or neutral character.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Monk

In that movie it's obvious that while both Al Pacino and Robert De niro's characters have redeeming qualities, De niro is gunning down cops in the street. He is the clear antagonist to Pacino's protaganist, and yet not a single person i've ever known can watch that movie and refrain from pulling for De niro in the end. If the personal situations of an antagonist or an antihero are compelling, sympathetic, and relatable we cannot stop ourselves from hoping that he will somehow make it through at the end. That's just human nature at work.

---

I agree, though in Heat it's because De Niro is simply better written. His character has actual hopes and dreams beyond the world he exists in. He commits evil, sure, but it's for a specific end and that end is something we can all relate to (comfortable retirement). He actively wants to leave the life he's got and stop doing evil. Pacino doesn't. In fact, during the move Pacino actively rejects his opportunities to escape the life. For that reason, despite De Niro's despicable actions, he far more relatable. Few of us love our jobs so much we would knowingly destroy our personal lives for it. I'm sure there are some people who do, but it's not many. De Niro is playing the character that is closest to our personal experiences and sentiments.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Monk

More often then not a game will contrive a situation where there is obviously no right or wrong answer, simply an answer where everyone involved loses and use the excuse that it's being "moraly ambiguous," which is an even worse sin if you ask me. I've not got as many years as either you or the author of this article (clocking in at only 23, thank you) and yet, I've encountered very few 'no win' situations in my life. I've seen hard times, bad days, terrible choices and worse outlooks, but never so bleak as some fiction would have you believe life might be in their vein attempt to be edgy.

---

I completely agree, though I think they're getting better than they used to. The writers at least are trying to give us something other than pure good or pure evil. That's a step in the right direction, even if there are miles left to go.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Monk

I'm surprised you killed the little girls in Bioshock though, but I think we can put that difference behind us.. for science.

You monster.

---

And that's another example of a poor choice system IMO. I can't even remember the dialog anymore, but whatever was said prior to encountering the first girl had me actually thinking 'these are not girls, these are alien sea slugs that have kill girls and taken their bodies.' I literally did not think they were human, and in fact I thought every single one of them had, in a way, murdered a girl. It was not difficult for me to kill them from that frame of mind. Yet the game never took my reality into account, it just acted like they were normal girls and ignored the whole "body taken over by a sea slug" thing that it had given at the beginning of the game. The sea slug was clearly just a way for the writers to explain why the girls were doing what they were doing, and it wasn't intended to have an impact on the story itself. Yet it did for me, and my motivation was never taken into account anywhere in the game. It was just assumed I was a heartless serial killer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Monk

While I think the idea of the boy scout hero is outdated, I still think he deserves a place in our hearts from a creative standpoint. Superman is the paragon of altruism and justice, he's superman. He isn't selfish. He acts without thought of payment and wishes only to protect. It's important that he is there whether you like him or not, doing his job to prevent Lex Luthor from stealing forty cakes. Forty cakes, which is four times as many as ten, and is also terrible.

---

Perhaps for some, but not for me. Superman is the most alien of all the superheroes, and he is unrelatable. He does not have human motivation. While we may watch him and be glad that he's saving society, that's different from walking around in his shoes in a game. When you are playing a character, you're being asked to assume that character's identity. Gordon Freeman became such a popular character, in part, because he had no voice. Which meant he had every voice. Every person who played him inserted their own thoughts into his head and their own words into his mouth. Thus, despite the fact that it was mainly a corridor shooter, we felt an attachment to the character. That's a far greater attachment than we get from a fully-voiced and scripted character who behaves in an alien and unfamiliar way.

Huh, and I thought it was just me who got a bad feeling when a character I had been playing did something irreparably stupid regardless of my imput.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

I just can't play an evil character, it's always being evil just for the sake of being evil. It always makes more sense to play a good or neutral character.

---

I second that. Rarely do I see the games where evil choices are properly implemented. Most of the time playing evil means pointless and unnecessary violence for the sake of violence, i.e. the Chaotic Evil. It's dumb and boring. Good vs Evil is all about Selflessness vs Selfishness, not Normal vs Psychotic as is usually the case in videogames. Evil should be about betrayals for the sake of personal gain, willingness to use any means necessary to accomplish one's goal, sacrificing friends and allies to save your own skin. Instead, we usually get to choose the path of Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy. Evil imho needs to be more intelligent.

I think the end-game of Mass Effect (1) did a good job of good versus evil where evil is a plausible non-psycho choice. You can save the council and allied fleets by (essentially) sacrificing the Human fleet. It's not fully good vs evil, of course, as both get the job done. But as someone working for the Council, your employer is a stabilizing force within the galaxy. It's far from perfect, but it's better than Krogans nuking everyone. While the council didn't believe you about the Reapers (which was largely just written poorly) they'd have to believe you after a reaper just about impregnates their space station, right? So the optimistic boy scout choice is to the save the (hopefully reformable) institution.

I waxed those weird looking xenos. Remember Shanxi, mother:daisy:s! Keeping the human fleet intact seems like a good idea since most of the aliens already hate our upstart guts, and a human council will work to protect our colonies.

It doesn't work out in ME2, but what can you do?

Eve Online. Giant sandbox, plenty of PvP. Go good, go bad.

Save the galaxy or be the pirate.

As for my normal gaming preferences. I like reasonable challenges. I don't like exploiting game mechanics that are obviously flawed.

As for good vs evil.
It depends on the game. Strategy games I err on the pragmatic. Games without rails the good. Games with Karma or the Darkside. Or Chaos I normally go Good first and replay as a Bad guy the second time off I can stomach it. Much prefer a complex antihero character to a simple one dimensional hero... I prefer iron man over CPT spangles

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rvg

I second that. Rarely do I see the games where evil choices are properly implemented. Most of the time playing evil means pointless and unnecessary violence for the sake of violence, i.e. the Chaotic Evil. It's dumb and boring. Good vs Evil is all about Selflessness vs Selfishness, not Normal vs Psychotic as is usually the case in videogames. Evil should be about betrayals for the sake of personal gain, willingness to use any means necessary to accomplish one's goal, sacrificing friends and allies to save your own skin. Instead, we usually get to choose the path of Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy. Evil imho needs to be more intelligent.

---

While not perfect KOTOR two was more morally ambigious than most games, the old women didn't care about good or evil, same thing to her. You would still be feeding on them by doing good deeds as it makes you stronger but weakens the people you help, so the good choice was still a selfish one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Papewaio

Eve Online. Giant sandbox, plenty of PvP. Go good, go bad.

Save the galaxy or be the pirate.

---

EVE actually brought out the worst in me at a certain point. But I still love the game, now mostly doing missions, mining and trading.

I recall that some people got on my bad side of the moon, and I was calling a RL friend with a lot of muscle in EVE (where as I had a lot of muscle in the "real world"). I basically told him to harass this particular group of players until I've had enough of fun from their blood, sweat and tears.

Picture this scene, I am out for a drink, a rather big guy, clean shaven head, black leather jacket, looking like a mean mobster, and I am talking on the phone with my friend. The convo went like this, and I spoke in a low, calm voice to him.

"I don't care how much it costs, how long it takes, I want you to find them and mess them up. Mess them up hard, no matter where they try to hide. Oh, and one more thing. The bodies. Bring me the bodies, all of them, I got a nice fridge waiting for them. I don't care how, just do it."

I hand up and face the waiter standing next to my table, waiting to take my order. Only his face is like :on_scare: and I order my drinks and think "what's with this guy?". Seconds later I got it. :on_surprise:

Oh, I still got the bodies in a fridge. I open it up from time to time and chuckle. In praise of Evil indeed. :on_whip:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Voigtkampf

Picture this scene, I am out for a drink, a rather big guy, clean shaven head, black leather jacket, looking like a mean mobster, and I am talking on the phone with my friend. The convo went like this, and I spoke in a low, calm voice to him.

"I don't care how much it costs, how long it takes, I want you to find them and mess them up. Mess them up hard, no matter where they try to hide. Oh, and one more thing. The bodies. Bring me the bodies, all of them, I got a nice fridge waiting for them. I don't care how, just do it."

I hand up and face the waiter standing next to my table, waiting to take my order. Only his face is like :on_scare: and I order my drinks and think "what's with this guy?". Seconds later I got it. :on_surprise:

Oh, I still got the bodies in a fridge. I open it up from time to time and chuckle. In praise of Evil indeed. :on_whip:

---

That was beautiful. Thank you.

People who play evil in video gamez r going to hell.

All those pixels, dead. How do you people sleep?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump

All those pixels, dead. How do you people sleep?

---

On a solid gold bed, surrounded by supermodels.

I care so much for PC Game people than in the fallouts I reverse pickpocket heavier armor, better weapons and stimpacks to NPCs I worry about/

I care

Unlike you lot

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump

I care so much for PC Game people than in the fallouts I reverse pickpocket heavier armor, better weapons and stimpacks to NPCs I worry about/

I care

Unlike you lot

---

In Skyrim, I'd give my house carls and hirelings weapons, armour and potions to make them better too. As it turned out, giving them "better" stuff was like giving someone in Star Fleet a red shirt. :shame:

In another instance, I had to either kill someone to loot a key or pickpocket it. I opted to pickpocket the key and then returned it to him after I was done with it.

I'm evil in video games. That doesn't mean I can't be nice. I gave Lydia some of my best weapons and armour. I stayed loyal to Ulfric, even though he is a Nord supremacist, and I was a Dark Elf. He treated me right, though.