Depends ...
In general? I wouldnt say so, no.
But in-game? I have not even shadow of doubt on my soul.
It would be interesting to have an in-world debate about this.
You mean ingame? With NPCs?
I dont think it would interest many people.
More likely it would cause flames on social media.
Where one group (DnD purists) would be complaining about Larian not following lore principles close enough, if they would introduce someone who is even a tiny bit more open minded than them (those purists) ... and other group (i have no name for them) would be pissed that Larian is not open minded enough, bcs all (or just many) NPCs in their world seems to be on a scale between stubborn old timer to complete bigots. :-/
I think that a belief that all X are evil is inconsistent. By definition, you can only be evil if you also have the capacity to be good.
This is something that would apply on our world ...
Not so much on DnD tho, since there are being that are physicaly unable to do Good, Evil, or even Neutral as the matter of fact ... so even definitions of those Alignments are different.
Wich (obviously) is something our philosophy never explored, since such beings dont exist (at least to our knowledge) ...
I think we should be able to find some inspiration in religious texts tho ... every religion have some sort of Celestial beings, and Hellish beings ... no matter how they call them.If you have no freedom, if you don't have a choice about being, say, a murderous monster, then it may be necessary to kill you in order to protect everyone else, but you're not evil and you don't deserve hate.
I cant really say i agree with this statement.
I would say "it doesnt matter if you are evil" rather than "you are not evil".
As for deserving ... that is also kinda deeper topic than just being evil or not.
If you see a hungry wolf as he rip appart your kid and eats it, you
will hate him ... no matter if he deserves it or not.
having the freedom to be evil or not
make evil choices
Theese are same things said in different words ... you are not defining it, you are just describing same thing twice.
It may be unusual to apply it to undead, but these undead do have the capacity to reason.
Not sure if all Undead ...
But we know for certain tha Astarion do have option to ... do good ...
Not really sure what is happening in his head tho! Is he fighting some deep urge? Is there some struggle with his nature?
Bcs if not ... i think that by DnD definition ... his Alignment is neutral. O_o
So Astarion. He has the capacity to reason and by the events of the game if you do not kill him, he proves he has the capacity to refrain from drinking his companions' blood, and he's willing to do so. Refrain, that is. He slipped when he attacked me, and sure I'll keep a closer eye on him after that, but I think he deserves a second chance.
And i think this is perfectly valid opinion ...
Also i think that everyone from Faerun would see you as really strange person tho.
And in any case, had he succeeded it wouldn't have killed me
Here i see small problem: You dont know this.
Unless your character just happens to be somehow educated about Vampires, and happens to know that it is actually possible for Vampire to drink, while dont kill their target ... also, if it even was established in the Lore (read as: If this isnt Larian interpretation.).
Since, from what we know about playing as Astarion ... and we know very little, since it was long time ago, when Swen played as him in presentation ... it is certainly possible to kill your target, as you drink.
