This is me pretty much rewriting my brother's @LukaDavid's post.
Morbin is a bird. He eats rabbits to live. He found out a way to capture said rabbits to more easily feed himself and other predators.
Winston Churchill once said, "History is written by the victors." It basically means that if you saw a fight from the losers or "bad guys" perspective, the story is much different. And I know TGE isn't history, but it applies.
Good Ol' Master Smith is obviously biased to the bunnies side. If he was writing from Morbin's view, a much different story would unfold.
Morbin's family might have died of starvation because it was getting harder to hunt rabbits, now that they were more civilized. The slave camps that are awful for bunnies, is an answered prayer for the birds.
So Jupiter and ultimately Smalls can be seen as a villain.
All of you made great points here! I've always kinda thought like this. I've always felt kinda sorry for the "disposable henchmen" in lots of these stories... I'm always like, "That guy probably had a wife and kids! He probably told them bedtime stories and was planning on coming home that night. He was probably forced to fight in this blinkin' war!"
I do believe in black-and-white evil, and moral sides, and all that, but think about it. There are wolf women and children, too. There are eggchicks and women preylords, too. We only see the truly ferocious side of the wolves (because we usually only see them in battle). If the story was told from the wolves' perspective, the rabbits would similarly seem like bloodthirsty little beast with explosions and enchanted capes. We'd never see the softer sides of them.
I wonder what Picket (who has a moral compass) would do if he came across a helpless eagle fledgling.
Also, wolves and eagles are obligate carnivores. They can't just "not eat meat." (Tofu, perhaps?)
Wolves and Preylords are also intelligent, thinking beasts. They have feelings. They have loves. Many of the wolves probably had fiances, wives, children, grandchildren, and all of them had mothers.
War is awful. Whenever a book or movie glosses over a huge battle or whatever, I'm like, "Do you have any idea how many footmen are killing and being killed?" Sometimes I imagine a conversation between two infantry.
A: Hi. Do you have any idea why you're fighting me?
B: No. I think it's something that our lord did to your lord. I think they both like the same girl, or something.
A: Oh. *beat* Does the girl like them?
B: Dunno.
*beat*
B: So, I have a farm at home.
A: Yeah, me too.
B: I wonder how it's doing right now. There's these raider people who like to steal my cows. *beat* And my family. The raider people are also slavers.
A: Same. Hope your family comes out alright.
B: You got kids?
A: Yeah, three. Two girls and a boy.
B: Aw, how old?
A: Oldest is eight.
B: Aww.
*beat*
A: Sorry I'm fighting you.
B: Hey, you didn't have a choice.
A: Yeah, I-
(A gets killed by arrow.)
B: *sighs heavily*