The people of Gith lost everything under the domination of the mindflayers. By the time they were able to rebel, they had lost their homes, knowledge of what home was like, understanding of what life was like before the Illithid, etc. Once they broke free they split, one side wanting to just be done with wars, etc. and one side so blinded by hate and loss they felt they were OWED everything that was ever taken from them. Both sides will kill an Illithid on sight, but the Githyanki Hunt them. They hunt them and they Take. In their minds, all the other planes were spared what happened to them because of their suffering and thus OWE them. Their leader went to hell to make a bargain and never came back. Dragons now come to aid them. Their Queen is a lich that absorbs their very lives yet they believe she exalts them to a new life. Corrupt leadership and loyalty have made them into what they are today. Something that most likely their long dead ancestors would abhor. The funny/sad thing is, if they ever actually found their homeworld, they would not recognize it. They would capture/slay the people, steal the resources, etc. In fact, they may have already done so.
Illithid are an alien parasitic race who enslave and kill any that cross paths with them. To them you are either food, raw material for reproduction, or slaves. They are (and should be) totally alien to most they encounter, their goals, morality, etc. are totally different.
That was a great summation of the Githyanki, nicely done.
What I think people don't really acknowledge with Mind Flayers (and Beholders, Aboleth, etc.) is that they aren't
people. They aren't a natural species, or even a natural species which has been altered by magic or psionics. They are utterly alien aberrations from the Far Realm. Literally, Lovecraftian horrors. They aren't just alien to this planet, they're alien to this REALITY. They can't be judged or considered in any way comparable to the rest of these evil or potentially evil humanoid races. They aren't like githyanki or orcs or yuan-ti or hobgoblins or lizardfolk or even demons and devils. They are aberrations. They are Things Which Should Not Exist. To even glimpse the place from which they come is to break your mind, to be lost to madness. An evil
person, even a thoroughly evil one like a devil or a lich or a drow matron mother or a red dragon, still has a mind which is based on this reality, and can still, in theory, be reasoned with. You could convince, hypothetically, an evil being which is not an aberration that it was wrong, that it should not do what it is doing. You could never do this with a Mind Flayer, or other aberrations. They are entirely alien to our entire way of thinking as beings co-inhabiting an ordered reality.
In one way of looking at it, this makes them somehow
less evil than githyanki and demons, as there is no real
malice in an aberration. It's not being evil
on purpose, it's not just an asshole that wants to see the world burn because it's sad inside and wants to take it out on others. It is Something Else. It is merely a slave to its own "nature", which is the opposite of Nature itself. It is simply not placed on the spectrum of morality that non-aberrations all fall upon.
But in another way of looking at it, this makes them a much worse, much scarier kind of evil. They have no natural, mortal, sane, or even comprehensible motivations. Our reality is not their reality. They would never have even the tiniest glimmer of doubt or shame or guilt or hesitation in what they do, because we (all of the beings of this universe) are NOTHING to them. Every Mind Flayer, Beholder, Aboleth, and other aberration is just a miniature Cthulhu. They represent a crossover between the traditional fantasy genre and the
cosmic horror genre. If "evil" can be defined as "that which is inimical to the continuance of human(oid) life and liberty", then nothing can be more evil than aberrations, and Mind Flayers are textbook aberrations.
This is why, to me, characters like
should not exist.
Unless he's just pretending, for some deeper plot, in which case that's okay. Because as soon as you make a Mind Flayer who's actually just a cool guy who wants to get along and help people,
you have betrayed the entire reason that these creatures were ever added to D&D, their entire premise as a narrative element, their entire role in the cosmology of D&D.
That's just my opinion, as an old grognard who has been playing D&D since the early 80s. And who knows, maybe in this new era of 5e, they want to step away from hard Lovecraftian elements and make every single monster just something relatable and cute and fun. They change the lore on most creatures with every new edition. But to me, there will always be a huge difference between natural people who are evil because they're wounded, and incomprehensible alien horrors from Beyond Reality.
