Morals of Palworld
I've been fascinated by the actual story of the game now that it has a proper story. While it's easy to say it's a very immortal game with how you treat pals and other creatures. It actually speaks to important facts and a real world morals you can take away. The way you play is a moral choice but unlike other games with moral choices it refuses to hold them over your head. It's just how you interact with the world, it's not going to grandstand. You can be an abusive tyrant to Pals or you can work alongside them peacefully to make a better life. Now you may think to yourself "But you get those pals through fighting and catching them" and you're right. To counter this instinctual moral platitude we all have theirs the Pal Alliance led by Lily Everhart. They want to live peacefully with Pals and live the Vegan Utopia. However the game points it out in every way possible that this mentality is not only Naive but downright Arrogant.
As Human beings total coexistence with Pals is impossible. They have different needs, standards of living and different ways of being. For as much as you may love Pals they aren't people. Pals eat humans and other pals, some are outright hazardous either by nature or instinct. HOWEVER this doesn't mean we should ravage nature. You can't coexist but you can live in balance. Eat Pals if you want, plenty of pals do it already, treat them like people if you want. It's weird but nothing is stopping you, treat them like animals if you want, it's honestly getting closer to the truth if you do, or abuse them no one is stopping you. That's between you and your conscience.
The entire game reflect this because everyone has a unique relationship with Pals. The older generations treated them worse, younger generations treat them like friends more often, theirs some like Lily that envision a world like Pokemon even though a world like that is pretty much impossible in this setting. The Tower bosses have even more in depth relationships and even though I won't go over all of them I can give you a taste of what this game is going for. The first boss lived life with a broken family when she was little when her dad disappeared. A Castaway who washed up from a land far beyond gave her Wander Lust and she wanted to see the world. Her Pal protected her from bullies and anyone threatening to hurt her and in a very lonely point in her life he gave her confidence.
Lily was a bullied kid growing up and one day while walking through the berry fields she saw a Pal being attacked and without thought ran to protect her. From that point forward the two were inseparable and helped protect others both Human and Pal.
Then theirs the boss of the local Government keeping the law. He runs a drug ring, pushing drugs into communities and then turns around and busts the dealers with the help of his Pal. That way they can get the product back and get all the money while looking good. He talks about his Pal in a disparaging way but notices that for some reason his Pal never turns on him ever though he suspects that it one day will. He waves off the possible idea of genuine affection while still embracing an affectionate dynamic saying "We'll play house until it gets boring"
In just these three examples it's different relationships with Pals and none of them are framed as wrong. Some people have Pals to support them and protect them, some have Pals that they want to have a mutual partnership with and some simply want to be toxic together. This is how people are with animals in the real world too. Some have them as emotional support, some simply want someone to live with them, and others use them for labor. The Laborer may feel no affection towards the animal but they also might care just as much for it as anyone else but they try to stay professional.
The game presents to you an open ended questions and people who share every possible answer you might have to it. It's only request when interacting with Pals is "Remember, they're not people"
