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Gamer Girl
2010-11-17, 06:57 PM
So reading over the 'how do you explain alignment to a noob' thread. I most often use popular culture, that is movies, TV shows, books and even history to give examples of each alignment. This is quite common, but I wonder what alignment everyone would give to everyone? And the reasons and proof.

Important Note-If you give the alignment of a character, say Batman, who has been around forever you need to be clear what movie, show, or issue you are talking about. Such a character has been many alignments, from time to time over the decades.

For example: Captain America(For the entire Mark Grunewald run) Lawful good-Cap almost never lied, cheated or stole..and the times he did you could count on one hand. He followed the laws of the land, almost to the letter. He would go to great lengths to avoid killing anyone, but was more then willing to kill to save lives


So what alignments does everyone give all the fictional characters out there?

The Tygre
2010-11-17, 06:58 PM
Gentlemen's rule? Rorschach stays out of this thread. Period.

hamishspence
2010-11-17, 07:00 PM
Ozymandias as well?

AslanCross
2010-11-17, 07:05 PM
I'm pretty sure there was a thread like this, as I remember making a post about Code Geass in it. I just can't find it. @_@

Darth Vader is commonly considered the epitome of Lawful Evil, but it's a conundrum within Star Wars that the Sith are actually supposed to embrace their passions (and should thus be Chaotic Evil).

hamishspence
2010-11-17, 07:10 PM
If one has the time to spare, a trawl through the TV Tropes character alignment pages can be pretty informative.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterAlignment



Darth Vader is commonly considered the epitome of Lawful Evil, but it's a conundrum within Star Wars that the Sith are actually supposed to embrace their passions (and should thus be Chaotic Evil).

On Vader and the Sith- they use their passion as a tool, in order to gain power- it is their Means, not their End.

Thus, the average Sith, is probably Black Primary, Red secondary, in Magic the Gathering terms, and maybe Neutral Evil in D&D terms.

Those who see power itself as merely means to an end- the end being Order, Stability, Peace, etc, might be White primary with Black and Red as secondary.

And in D&D terms, might qualify as Lawful Evil.

Darth Vader, Darth Revan, Darth Caedus, and Darth Krayt, might be this kind of Sith.

Despite the fact that the Sith Code begins with "Peace is a lie, there is only passion" and ends with "Through victory my chains are broken- The Force will free me",

in Darth Bane: Path Of Destruction- Revan's holocron states that "All who master the dark side are bound to serve it."

AslanCross
2010-11-17, 07:17 PM
If one has the time to spare, a trawl through the TV Tropes character alignment pages can be pretty informative.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterAlignment



On Vader and the Sith- they use their passion as a tool, in order to gain power- it is their Means, not their End.

Thus, the average Sith, is probably Black Primary, Red secondary, in Magic the Gathering terms, and maybe Neutral Evil in D&D terms.

Those who see power itself as merely means to an end- the end being Order, Stability, Peace, etc, might be White primary with Black and Red as secondary.

And in D&D terms, might qualify as Lawful Evil.

Darth Vader, Darth Revan, Darth Caedus, and Darth Krayt, might be this kind of Sith.

Despite the fact that the Sith Code begins with "Peace is a lie, there is only passion" and ends with "Through victory my chains are broken- The Force will free me",

in Darth Bane: Path Of Destruction- Revan's holocron states that "All who master the dark side are bound to serve it."

Thanks, I guess that puts things into perspective more. Darth Vader did ultimately live up to LE more than anything. He was harsh when he punished, but he didn't travel through the galaxy glassing every planet he saw (which would have definitely been within his power).

hamishspence
2010-11-17, 07:22 PM
Thanks, I guess that puts things into perspective more. Darth Vader did ultimately live up to LE more than anything. He was harsh when he punished, but he didn't travel through the galaxy glassing every planet he saw (which would have definitely been within his power).

Pre-suit Vader (who was lured to the Dark Side through desire to save Padme from what he thought was impending death) might have been closer to Chaotic Evil- much more passion-consumed- but, once Padme was dead, and he'd accepted his fate, I think he moved more toward Lawful.

Pre-Fall Anakin comes across as very Chaotic compared to the rest of the Jedi, in the Revenge of the Sith novelization:

Scene from Revenge of the Sith novel, on Anakin's attachment to friends. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9775417&postcount=175)

There's other scenes in the novel that illustrate it even better.

SurlySeraph
2010-11-17, 07:27 PM
Robin Hood is the canonical example of Chaotic Good. For a more recent pop culture example, Kamina is hard to beat. Han Solo moves from CN-ish to CG over the course of the films.

Jack Sparrow is debatable, but probably Chaotic Neutral.

Jack Bauer is debatable, and hard to debate without getting into politics. I'd say Lawful Neutral. He cares about his job far more than he cares about moral concerns, his family, his own health and survival, etc. He often breaks the letter of the law, but it's almost always to save lives and preserve social order. And when it's not, it's pretty much always for justice/ vengeance.

On less ambiguous ground, Judge Dredd is Lawful Neutral.

kyoryu
2010-11-17, 07:31 PM
Mal Reynolds: CG in Firefly, starts Serentiy as CN and drifts back towards CG.

hamishspence
2010-11-17, 07:35 PM
Han Solo moves from CN-ish to CG over the course of the films.

Jack Sparrow is debatable, but probably Chaotic Neutral.


While Complete Scoundrel puts Jack Sparrow as CN, Han is listed as N "at least in early appearances".


Mal Reynolds: CG in Firefly, starts Serentiy as CN and drifts back towards CG.

It does list "Mal Reynolds from Firefly" as CG.

Which could fit with the interpretation that he began as CG but had slipped to CN by Serenity.

Gamer Girl
2010-11-17, 07:42 PM
I always thought of Darth Vader as being Lawful Evil, he was after all the 2nd in command of a massive empire.


The Doctor(from Doctor Who) has always been my classic Chaotic Good. He cares about people and things, but is just so wild and chaotic that he sure gets a lot of people killed and causes lots of destruction. Some one has it in there Sig the line 'you have no weapons, no help and no plan! You can not stop us! and the Doctor says something like 'ohhh that scares you, does it?'

Jack Bower-Chaotic Evil? I see him as one of the rare 'good' chaotic evil people. He only cares about his job, extreme selfishness. And he will do anything, anything, to get his job done. Now, by chance, the job he is given is 'to do good', but he can care less about that. He only cares about getting the job done. As long as he gets His selfish job done, he does not care what else happens. I see him as just using the law/government as a pure excuse for him to do as he wishes. As a private citizen it would be a crime for him to do things, but as a government agent he gets a pass(or they at least look the other way)...and the end result is he does what he selfishly wants.

Hzurr
2010-11-17, 07:46 PM
A good example of Lawful Evil would be the classic "Godfather" like mobster. Rules with an iron fist, has no qualms about having people executed, but there's a framework, structure, etc., about how things are done.

Best example of Chaotic Evil is typically the Joker.

Batman changes depending on who is writing him, but Superman is a decent example of "Neutral Good." He doesn't exactly operate inside the law, but he doesn't flaunt it. He just tries to always do the right thing.

hamishspence
2010-11-17, 07:46 PM
Jack Bower-Chaotic Evil? I see him as one of the rare 'good' chaotic evil people. He only cares about his job, extreme selfishness. And he will do anything, anything, to get his job done.

He's also willing to put the innocent family of terrorists through very unpleasant experiences in attempts to coerce information out of the terrorist, by threatening the innocent children of the terrorist.

The scene in series 2, where to get info from Syed Ali, he sets up a masquerade that makes Syed believe Jack has had his son shot- and will order another son shot (carefully faked)

was bound to have been traumatic for both children.

RebelRogue
2010-11-17, 07:46 PM
Nah, Chaotic Evil protagonists are people like Alex from A clockwork Orange, Marv from Sin City, The Comedian from Watchmen or our very own Belkar Bitterleaf.

Jumilk
2010-11-17, 07:47 PM
Spider-man is Neutral Good. He actually stays consistent to NG all along, surprisingly.
Lelouch from Code Geass is Lawful Evil. He steps on people's heads to get what he wants, but he has standards ans cares about his word.
Shichika from Katanagatari starts LN, but may be drifting towards LG.

dsmiles
2010-11-17, 07:49 PM
Why no Rorschach or Ozymandias? :smallconfused:

Anyway, I'm thinking (if anyone reads Mercedes Lackey) Vanyel starts off in the NG camp, making his way solidly to the center of LG before the end of the trilogy (Magic's Pawn, Magic's Promise, Magic's Price).

Sonea (Trudi Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy) starts off kind of TN, and ends up pretty LG with NG leanings.

Belgarath seems the epitome of CG to me, where Polgara is LG, and Beldin could be TN leaning towards NG. Sparhawk, Kurik, Vanion, Dolmant, and Bevier are all very LG, while their companions Kalten and Ulath are NG, maybe CG, and Sephrenia is pretty solidly NG. (All David Eddings. As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to read the Elenium and the Tamuli again.)

Just my take on some "popular" culture. Or maybe not so popular, you never know who reads this stuff.

hamishspence
2010-11-17, 07:52 PM
Why no Rorschach or Ozymandias? :smallconfused:


Mostly because they produce huge arguments- especially Rorschach- I've seen both Good and Evil argued for him.

The Punisher is another especially contentious character.

Gamer Girl
2010-11-17, 07:54 PM
He's also willing to put the innocent family of terrorists through very unpleasant experiences in attempts to coerce information out of the terrorist, by threatening the innocent children of the terrorist.

The scene in series 2, where to get info from Syed Ali, he sets up a masquerade that makes Syed believe Jack has had his son shot- and will order another son shot (carefully faked)

was bound to have been traumatic for both children.

This is why I'd say Jack Bower is Chaotic Evil....he will do anything, stop at nothing to get what he wants. He only cares about what he wants.

RebelRogue
2010-11-17, 07:55 PM
Why no Rorschach or Ozymandias? :smallconfused:
Because they're always very hotly debated! Their alignments will never be agreed upon!

FWIW, they're both Lawful Evil IMO.

dsmiles
2010-11-17, 07:56 PM
Mostly because they produce huge arguments- especially Rorschach- I've seen both Good and Evil argued for him.

The Punisher is another especially contentious character.

Ahhh. Yeah, all of them could go either way.

kyoryu
2010-11-17, 07:58 PM
He's also willing to put the innocent family of terrorists through very unpleasant experiences in attempts to coerce information out of the terrorist, by threatening the innocent children of the terrorist.

The scene in series 2, where to get info from Syed Ali, he sets up a masquerade that makes Syed believe Jack has had his son shot- and will order another son shot (carefully faked)

was bound to have been traumatic for both children.

He could well be Chaotic-Evil-Working-For-A-Good-Cause.

Hironomus
2010-11-17, 07:59 PM
How about some Heroes characters? I think Sylar would be NE, initially anyway, when he just cares about gaining more powers.

JaronK
2010-11-17, 08:03 PM
Heh, but I LIKE discussing Ozy's alignment! I'd put him at Chaotic Good. He acts without regard to any specific code of conduct (Chaotic) and his intent is to make the world a better place for everyone (Good). However, he's also a text book case of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." In the end, he's a tragic character who acts as a villain despite being "good." That was part of what the author of the Watchmen was going for... simply wanting to be the good guy and do right doesn't actually mean you help the situation.

It's also possible to be Chaotic Evil and basically do good in the long run... if you're a character whose goal and desire is to be liked and be popular. You'll save the world (you can't destroy the world, that's where I keep all my stuff!) because it benefits you. You'll save babies from a burning orphanage as long as people are watching. The Plutonian before his break was basically Neutral or Chaotic Evil and nobody noticed because what he wanted was to be liked and respected, so his goals coincided with what other people thought of as good. It was only after his goals changed that people noticed he was actually evil as all heck.

Rorschach, meanwhile, is a lot harder to gauge.

JaronK

Callista
2010-11-17, 08:08 PM
Is it possible to put an alignment on an entire story? If so, then the musical Rent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_%28musical%29) is Chaotic Neutral.

A beautiful example:
La Vie Boheme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czJHTEeEJmU)

Some individual characters are not CN. Joanne and Benny are LN, and Mark is probably true neutral, but everybody else is CN. The "live life to the fullest" philosophy is practically the epitome of chaotic neutral.

Also, I am going to feel quite silly if nobody else here enjoys musicals.:smallredface:

dsmiles
2010-11-17, 08:13 PM
Rorschach, meanwhile, is a lot harder to gauge.

I really want to see people's take on him. I don't think he exhibits a solid DnD alignment choice, personally. He's crazy, and jumps all over the place alignment-wise. I think in the end, he's solidly Aberrant (Palladium alignments).

Callista
2010-11-17, 08:14 PM
Might he simply be jumping from alignment to alignment quickly enough that no general trend can be determined?

dsmiles
2010-11-17, 08:15 PM
Might he simply be jumping from alignment to alignment quickly enough that no general trend can be determined?

No, I really think he's just plain insane (in the membrane! :smalltongue:).

JaronK
2010-11-17, 08:22 PM
Yeah, he's a bit nutty. He's Chaotic I'd say (he has no respect for the cops, and while his goal is to destroy the perverse and evil he seems to have no qualms about doing anything necessary to reach his goals). Yet at the same time in the end his code (which a Chaotic character really shouldn't have) causes him to effectively commit suicide. So in that way he has a sudden obvious lawful trait... unless you simply say that he is in fact good, and it's his desire for innocents to live (and need to not be part of anything that causes them to die) that causes him to die, not any particular code.

In many ways he's good (his goal is to make life better for what he sees as innocent people) but in others he's evil (he wants to destroy all those that do not fit in his particular value mold, including many who really don't deserve it). So... good tainted with hate? I guess I'd have to call him Chaotic Neutral but with tenancies towards other alignments. He used to be Chaotic Good.

In the end, he's just too complex for the alignment system. He's also certainly skirting the edge of sanity with a serious case of PTSD (caused by the dogs incident, among other things) which masks whatever his normal alignment is. Perhaps we can call him Chaotic Good then, but with enough mental trauma and PTSD to make him act outside of his alignment in a variety of situations?

It's interesting then that Ozy and Rorsh would have the exact same alignment, but with both of them being pushed by stress and such to end up basically on opposite ends of the conflict... one is a well intentioned extremist who uses long term planning and connections to save the world in a way that harms it, while the other is a dark anti-hero type who fights from a position of poverty and who is a constant outsider. Certainly, one of them dumped Charisma and the other pumped Diplomacy.

JaronK

Gensh
2010-11-17, 08:23 PM
Lelouch from Code Geass is Lawful Evil. He steps on people's heads to get what he wants, but he has standards ans cares about his word.

I always pegged him as Chaotic Evil. Having standards and such doesn't necessarily mean lawful; in fact, one of the most common definitions of Chaos is following one's own code of conduct rather than that of society. Lelouch does that even before becoming Zero and even after what happens at the end of R2 episode 21, he enforces his ideals on people rather than acting according to tradition. Anyway, I always associated Lelouch with Cao Cao, the "hero of chaos," so I might be a bit biased.

In other news, Johnny Bravo is Chaotic Good, Dexter - boy genius! - is Lawful Neutral, and Sheep is Neutral Good.

dsmiles
2010-11-17, 08:26 PM
Certainly, one of them dumped Charisma and the other pumped Diplomacy.Also pumped Profession: Merchandising Mogul. :smalltongue:

In other news, Johnny Bravo is Chaotic Good And is a bard with ranks in Perform: Pec Flex. :smallbiggrin:

Urpriest
2010-11-17, 08:28 PM
Is it possible to put an alignment on an entire story? If so, then the musical Rent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_%28musical%29) is Chaotic Neutral.

A beautiful example:
La Vie Boheme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czJHTEeEJmU)

Some individual characters are not CN. Joanne and Benny are LN, and Mark is probably true neutral, but everybody else is CN. The "live life to the fullest" philosophy is practically the epitome of chaotic neutral.

Also, I am going to feel quite silly if nobody else here enjoys musicals.:smallredface:

Maureen's definitely CN, bordering on CE. Mimi's CN, no dispute there, as is Angel probably (though I could see CG). Similar with philosophy prof. whose name I seem to have forgotten. Mark may be TN, but he feels almost LG at times...sure he doesn't reprehend people, but I think part of his detachment is he feels responsible for them in a parental sort of way. Joanne, similarly, may be full-on LG. Benny is LN, pretending to be LE but not quite keeping it up. Roger may be CG...CN wouldn't keep trying to stop Mimi from doing drugs. He cares too much to be CN.

To toss in another musical: Hair has LG Claude, CN everyone else. Umm...

Wicked has CG Elphaba, TN->conflicted LG Glenda, CG Fiero (probably both of the guys from the book he stands in for as well), LE Nessarose (incidentally, her name keeps making me think of Nessus, and its inhabitant...), and LG farmboy whose name I forget. And NE Wizard, of course, with LE headmistress advisor.

JaronK
2010-11-17, 08:35 PM
From Firefly:

Mal's Chaotic Good, but at times slips to Chaotic Neutral (though he's still looking out for his team).

Zoe used to be Lawful Evil (she's a trained killer and good at her job, but generally prefers to follow a solid leader and play by his rules) but turned to Lawful Neutral, possibly in part because of Wash.

Wash is Neutral Good. He's always the voice of good for the group, but doesn't seem to be too into rules or anything.

Kayli is Neutral Good. She just wants to be happy and such, and is quite caring.

Simon is Lawful Good. He wants things done the right way, and acts out of a code to protect the innocent and those in need.

Jayne is Chaotic Evil. His goal is to be respected and rich. He'd take over the ship if he thought he could get away with it, but he knows Mal is smarter and things are better with Mal in charge... for now.

River is Neutral. She's honestly a little too nuts to be anything on the good/evil axis or the chaotic/lawful axis. She simply has little to no impulse control. That's not chaotic in D&D terms, just kinda nuts. I get the feeling she used to be Chaotic Good and a counterpoint to her brother's Lawful Good.

Inara's Neutral, with good tenancies. She grates against too much authority and wants to be free, but will go back to it given some degree of freedom, and definitely likes the safety of law and order even if she's also attracted to the danger of the wild frontier.

Book is Lawful Good, or at least trying hard to be. He was clearly something else in the past (likely Lawful Evil or Lawful Neutral, though he could have just been a well intentioned extremist version of Lawful Good) but is trying to follow a new code, one that makes him feel better about himself.

The whole group does a good job of showing that people of different alignments don't have to be enemies.

JaronK

SurlySeraph
2010-11-17, 08:37 PM
You could make pretty strong arguments for Rorschach being Lawful or Chaotic. He certainly seems to think of himself as Lawful, but he doesn't care a bit about social values, appears to fight crime more out of hatred than out of any interest in saving anything, and breaks the law incessantly.

Another thought: Roland Deschain. I'd go with Lawful Neutral due to his obsessive focus on his quest, to the point that he lets his only friends die on several occasions and
has apparently has let them die dozens or hundreds of times due to being in a time loop and always making the same decisions
rather than slow down on his pursuit. He seems to move towards Lawful Good as the books move on, though.


Jack Bower-Chaotic Evil? I see him as one of the rare 'good' chaotic evil people. He only cares about his job, extreme selfishness. And he will do anything, anything, to get his job done. Now, by chance, the job he is given is 'to do good', but he can care less about that. He only cares about getting the job done. As long as he gets His selfish job done, he does not care what else happens. I see him as just using the law/government as a pure excuse for him to do as he wishes. As a private citizen it would be a crime for him to do things, but as a government agent he gets a pass(or they at least look the other way)...and the end result is he does what he selfishly wants.

Selfish? He attempts to sacrifice his live to save others numerous times. He does sacrifice his life twice. He takes actions for the greater good that cause him great physical and emotional suffering (cutting Chase's arm off; shooting his best friend [Curtis] to save the life of a terrorist so said terrorist could be interrogated, and then collapses crying and vomiting; abandoning friends and family over and over; ), expresses great remorse whenever he could potentially sacrifice his life for a purpose and someone else does it in his place (what's-his-name flying the plane with the nuke on it instead of him, that guy was played Sam in Lord of the Rings going out into the nerve gas instead of him, etc.) He *does* use his job for revenge, though only against criminals who would otherwise escape justice.
I can definitely see Lawful Evil, and I can see an argument for Chaotic Evil, but selfish seems like a pretty weird description.

kyoryu
2010-11-17, 08:45 PM
Zoe used to be Lawful Evil (she's a trained killer and good at her job, but generally prefers to follow a solid leader and play by his rules) but turned to Lawful Neutral, possibly in part because of Wash.


I don't really get Zoe as Lawful Evil. While yes, she's a trained killer, I haven't really seen any evidence of her being willing to screw others over for her own gain. Soldiers fighting in wars aren't inherently evil. If they were, basically every D&D character ever would peg evil on the alignment chart.

Totally agree with the rest. I think Mal's shift to CN and (arguably) back between the end of the series, the beginning of Serentiy, and the end of the movie are a great example of how and why an alignment shift should be played.

JaronK
2010-11-17, 08:49 PM
I don't really get Zoe as Lawful Evil. While yes, she's a trained killer, I haven't really seen any evidence of her being willing to screw others over for her own gain. Soldiers fighting in wars aren't inherently evil. If they were, basically every D&D character ever would peg evil on the alignment chart.

Totally agree with the rest. I think Mal's shift to CN and (arguably) back between the end of the series, the beginning of Serentiy, and the end of the movie are a great example of how and why an alignment shift should be played.

When they talk about her during the war, she's mentioned as being scary as hell and a fearless killer who enjoys taking down enemies up close and personal and is willing to sacrifice her own side if they seem weak (like the beans guy). I always assumed before the war Wash had mellowed her out a great deal. After what happens to Wash in the movie, she slips a bit and goes full on berserker (but comes back later). But her lawful trait is a lot stronger than her good-evil axis, so it's harder to tell.

JaronK

Rasman
2010-11-17, 09:21 PM
Gentlemen's rule? Rorschach stays out of this thread. Period.

agreed...since he'd be LCNGE and...explaining that makes my head hurt...


Robin Hood is the canonical example of Chaotic Good. For a more recent pop culture example, Kamina is hard to beat. Han Solo moves from CN-ish to CG over the course of the films.
I approve this reference.
All in all, Rebel types will all probably fall under the Chaotic alignment in one way or another



Jack Sparrow is debatable, but probably Chaotic Neutral.

I'm not really sure what there is to debate. He's Chaotic Whatever Pleases Me, his swaying back and forth from doing things to save people and stealing, imo, places him right on the Neutral line for me.



Jack Bauer is debatable, and hard to debate without getting into politics. I'd say Lawful Neutral. He cares about his job far more than he cares about moral concerns, his family, his own health and survival, etc. He often breaks the letter of the law, but it's almost always to save lives and preserve social order. And when it's not, it's pretty much always for justice/ vengeance.

On less ambiguous ground, Judge Dredd is Lawful Neutral.

Sinfonian
2010-11-17, 09:26 PM
Here's a set from one of my favorite movies:

Jake and Elwood Blues- CN, though they seem themselves as CG. No hesitation to break laws,though they really do have good intentions (most of the time). They don't really care who is hurt or loses out from their schemes, so long as their objective is achieved. They show no remorse when they come very close to killing many police officers and innocent bystanders in pursuit of their "mission from God". Quote from Blues Brothers 2000 that remarks on the consequences of their actions:
Cab Chamberlain: I'm a commander in the Illinois State Police, and I enjoy my job. You *waltz* in here telling me I have a dead, white criminal brother, who was in a band which, the last time they played anywhere, were charged with
[looks to computer screen]
Cab Chamberlain: grand larceny, wreckless endangerment,
[raises his voice getting louder]
Cab Chamberlain: felonious motor vehicle assault, over SEVEN HUNDRED violations of the highway traffic act and DAMAGES, both public and private, IN EXCESS OF $24,000,000 and *YOU* ARE ASKING *ME* IF I WANT TO JOIN THIS BAND?
The only thing that I see keeping them from slipping into Evil territory is that they really are trying to do good, and are trying to do so through ways that aren't actively harmful to others (earning the money through legitimate means rather than robbery).

WinceRind
2010-11-17, 09:47 PM
Robin Hood is the canonical example of Chaotic Good. For a more recent pop culture example, Kamina is hard to beat. Han Solo moves from CN-ish to CG over the course of the films.

Jack Sparrow is debatable, but probably Chaotic Neutral.

Jack Bauer is debatable, and hard to debate without getting into politics. I'd say Lawful Neutral. He cares about his job far more than he cares about moral concerns, his family, his own health and survival, etc. He often breaks the letter of the law, but it's almost always to save lives and preserve social order. And when it's not, it's pretty much always for justice/ vengeance.

On less ambiguous ground, Judge Dredd is Lawful Neutral.

I fail to see how Han Solo moves from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good over the course of the trilogy. A Chaotic Neutral character CAN have friends and alliances, and so can an EVIL character. Just because he chooses to help them because of the vested personal interest doesn't make him "Good".

For my contribution... Rorschach! No, wait, I mean, Bilbo Baggins.
I'd consider him Neutral Good. He cares for well-being of the "good guys' and given the black and white morality aspect of Middle Earth which I hate, that's enough. And it's not like he's ever encountered any "monsters" before his adventure, and the only times he's interacted with them was in self-defense to save himself from an immediate and obvious danger. He cares after his companions, at some points risking his lives for them, and tries to avert a conflict that would surely harm or destroy the good guys. He doesn't seem to do much with the laws, so that part is harder - but overall, he seems to more or less observe the laws without thinking too much about them, and he repays what could be called moral wrongs like stealing food from the wood elves when the dwarves were imprisoned.

I suppose you COULD consider that a lawful trait, making him Lawful Good, because there is no court or unified law mentioned in the Hobbit aside from obvious "moral" ideas. He does lie and deceive the authorities at times, for advantages to his party... Meh, I'd still put him down as Neutral Good, for sure. Neutrality on the Lawful/Chaotic scale is the "norm'. In my opinion, and the description of True Neutral alignment supports it.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-11-17, 09:51 PM
This thread dose not have enough anime villains. Allow me to change that..

Naruto:

Uchiha Madara- Neutral Evil, at least in my eyes. Yes he is power hungry and yes he wants to more or less establish what would be considered to some "perfect order" he is not in it for the sake of order, he simply wants control. Madara has done everything from threaten to kill babies, turn a whole village into a nightmarish hell where a "graduation" exam for academy students involved killing their friends and genocide was an excepted practiced, almost destroyed the leaf village, killed his own younger brother for power...ect, ect, ect. The list of his evil-ness is a mile long. Madara however, cares little about law and chaos. He has operated well outside of the law and headed what was more or less a criminal terrorist organization but at the same time dose not break the rules for the sake of breaking them. Rather he only cares about doing what benefits him and if that means working with the law or working against the law then he will gladly do either.

Danzo- Lawful Evil, and one of the best examples of it in the whole manga. He stated how he wanted to establish a militaristic, tightly controlled and structured, harsh dictatorship in Konoha with him as it's head and his diabolical acts need no explanation.(One word, Sharingarm.)

Kabuto- Neutral Evil for many of the same reasons as Madara. Self interested and only cares about forwarding his own agenda. He cares not about law and chaos. Like Madara his only cause is himself and he will do anything to get what he wants.

Orochimaru- Chaotic Evil, pure and simple. He was a mad scientist who did horrific experiments on people and enjoyed every minute of it, but what really made him stand out as chaotic evil was the fact that he staged a full scale invasion to which his justification was that he likes to see "things in motion" and finds unmoving things "boring." I think invading a village, which causes great pain and suffering, all for more or less entertainment is enough to make anybody chaotic evil let alone a mad scientist type like Orochimaru.

I will get around to the rest of the Naruto villains(like the rest of the akatsuki) when I feel like it.

kyoryu
2010-11-17, 09:59 PM
Dexter:

Dexter Morgan: Lawful Evil. Evil to the core, but lives by a code that is pretty much all-consuming

Debra Morgan: Neutral Good. Wants to do the right thing, but is willing to circumvent procedures to do so. Generally operates within procedure, though.

LaGuerta: Lawful Evil. Wants to advance herself, and cares little about anything else. Will use her power and authority to do so.

Angel Batista: Probably somewhere in the Neutral Good arena, for similar reasons as Debra.

Masuka: Chaotic Neutral. He's out for a good time. Isn't really out to help anyone, but doesn't do much to harm others, either.

Quinn: Chaotic Good. Actively circumvents procedure, works off of intuition, but is, at the end of the day, actually concerned with doing good and seeing justice done.

Anybody that doesn't like Dexter: Idiotic Stupid, for reasons of obvious bad taste :)

Rasman
2010-11-17, 10:00 PM
Full Metal Alchemist*
Edward Elric - NG (Hates the Military, but only obeys them in order to restore him and his brother back to normal, so he often just goes off and does as he pleases when he isn't strictly ordered. As near as he gets to committing evil acts to create an Alchemist's Stone, he refuses and vows to "find another way" that doesn't involve using human lives.)

Alphonse Elric - LG (In a similar boat as Ed, but isn't bound by the military. Raises more Moral questions and is part of the reason Ed doesn't use humans in his first attempt at making the stone.)

Roy Mustang - LG/NG (Ed's commanding officer and a State Alchemist. Is determined to become Fuhrer so he's the one making the rules and he never has to do something he doesn't want because he's ordered to. Orders Ed and Al to go places the Military deems needs attention that he believes can give them clues about the Philosopher's Stone. Has a strong sense of justice and is determined to Avenge his murdered friend and college Hughes.)

Alex Louis Armstrong - LG/NG (Second child of the Armstrong Family, who has had a hand in the government for generations. Also a State Alchemist. Truly good at heart and VERY loyal. Takes the place of Hughes in helping Mustang "rise to the top" after his death.) His personality and actions conflict in regards to his alignment. His destruction of shirts is definitely chaotic...

Fuhrer Bradley - LE (The "King" of this militarily run country. Although he puts up the ruse of being a kind and benevolent man, he's actually a Homunculus that has worked it's way into a position that allows him to pull the strings in order to try and craft a Philosopher's Stone and resurrect "Father."

Sinfonian
2010-11-17, 10:17 PM
I fail to see how Han Solo moves from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good over the course of the trilogy. A Chaotic Neutral character CAN have friends and alliances, and so can an EVIL character. Just because he chooses to help them because of the vested personal interest doesn't make him "Good".
I think the most telling scene to show his change is in Return of the Jedi, before the mission to Endor. Solo volunteers to lead an extraordinarily dangerous mission, without seeking personal recompense or glory (he didn't even tell his closest friend and protector about it ahead of time). Shortly thereafter, he then lends his most prized possession (the Falcon) to someone who had betrayed him so that Lando would have the best chance of survival on his mission, despite the risks. It strikes me that neither of these are really made for the purpose of "vested personal interest".


For my contribution... Rorschach! No, wait, I mean, Bilbo Baggins.
I'd consider him Neutral Good.
I think this is right on the mark. Especially after his gambit with the Arkenstone right before the Battle of the Five Armies.

Hironomus
2010-11-17, 10:35 PM
For my contribution... Rorschach! No, wait, I mean, Bilbo Baggins.
I'd consider him Neutral Good. He cares for well-being of the "good guys' and given the black and white morality aspect of Middle Earth which I hate, that's enough. And it's not like he's ever encountered any "monsters" before his adventure, and the only times he's interacted with them was in self-defense to save himself from an immediate and obvious danger. He cares after his companions, at some points risking his lives for them, and tries to avert a conflict that would surely harm or destroy the good guys. He doesn't seem to do much with the laws, so that part is harder - but overall, he seems to more or less observe the laws without thinking too much about them, and he repays what could be called moral wrongs like stealing food from the wood elves when the dwarves were imprisoned.

I suppose you COULD consider that a lawful trait, making him Lawful Good, because there is no court or unified law mentioned in the Hobbit aside from obvious "moral" ideas. He does lie and deceive the authorities at times, for advantages to his party... Meh, I'd still put him down as Neutral Good, for sure. Neutrality on the Lawful/Chaotic scale is the "norm'. In my opinion, and the description of True Neutral alignment supports it.

I see him as less good and more neutral. I think most people prefer it when people don't die even if they are themselves selfish. He may have prevented war and saved his comrades, but I feel that was out of a sense of loyalty and obligation (and even a little bit of self interest) rather than a true desire to do good. Really he is a reluctant hero, at first anyway, and displays cowardice and selfishness in equal measure to Nobility and courage. by the end of the story he is a good deal wiser and more heroic (he probably gained a couple of levels) but at the outset he really just wants to be left alone.
and all of that is before you factor in the corrupting influence of the ring.

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 03:52 AM
Heh, but I LIKE discussing Ozy's alignment! I'd put him at Chaotic Good. He acts without regard to any specific code of conduct (Chaotic) and his intent is to make the world a better place for everyone (Good). However, he's also a text book case of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." In the end, he's a tragic character who acts as a villain despite being "good." That was part of what the author of the Watchmen was going for... simply wanting to be the good guy and do right doesn't actually mean you help the situation.

Question is, how do you weight Evil acts vs Good intentions?

Champions of Ruin seems to come down firmly on the "acts matter more than intentions" side- you can be someone who genuinely wants to be the good guy, is willing to make sacrifices to help strangers and so on- but if you are repeatedly committing serious evil acts, you're Evil rather than Neutral or Good.

This is why I tend to place both Ozymandias and Rorschach as Evil, rather than Chaotic Good.

Mikeavelli
2010-11-18, 04:54 AM
I fail to see how Han Solo moves from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good over the course of the trilogy. A Chaotic Neutral character CAN have friends and alliances, and so can an EVIL character. Just because he chooses to help them because of the vested personal interest doesn't make him "Good".


Han Solo starts slipping towards "Good" the moment he comes back to save Luke at the end of a New Hope, but he's not quite all the way there. He spends most of Empire Strikes back as "Chaotic Neutral, with Good aligned friends," softening towards them.

By the end of Return of the Jedi, he's swung all the way over to good, largely due to the influence of the people around him, his friends selflessly saving him from Jabba the Hutt, love of Leia, and genuine devotion to the Rebels cause.

He's not helping just because of a vested personal interest anymore, he's helping because he wants to help.

[hr]

I'd never use Code Geass as an example to enlighten noobs to the alignment system since it's too fuzzy, but I love to talk about it.

Suzaku is very strongly Lawful Evil (Notice the narmy speech he gives at the end of the second season about working within the system to change the world) - He wants and tries oh so hard to be a good person, but he's just so bad at it that the only possible alignment for him is evil.

Intentionally contrasted to him is Kallen, who's almost entirely Chaotic Good. There's a reason why the two of them hate each other so much, and fight a lot.

There's also that sociopathic Knight of the round who enjoys killing people for the hell of it, textbook chaotic evil.

Lelouch himself I'd put as Neutral Evil. He flat out admits the things he's doing are horribly evil, even if it's for a good cause, and he's okay with that. He'll use both lawful and chaotic methods to accomplish his aims, especially towards the end of the second season where he abandons all the limits he'd previously placed on himself, geases everyone into being his slave forever, and it is awesome.

Lastly, I bring you Batman:


http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m287/snake0/batman_alignment_chart_fullsize-1.jpg

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 05:22 AM
Han Solo starts slipping towards "Good" the moment he comes back to save Luke at the end of a New Hope, but he's not quite all the way there. He spends most of Empire Strikes back as "Chaotic Neutral, with Good aligned friends," softening towards them.

Why Chaotic Neutral- rather than True Neutral? Sure, he's a criminal- but does that make him Chaotic?

In the Brian Daley Han Solo Adventures, and the A. C. Crispin Han Solo trilogy, both prequels, Han does tend to exhibit a mixture of Neutral and Good traits in general.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Han_Solo_Adventures
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Han_Solo_Trilogy

So, even from the start, he might have been Neutral with Good tendencies, in the EU.

Maryring
2010-11-18, 07:09 AM
Maureen's definitely CN, bordering on CE. Mimi's CN, no dispute there, as is Angel probably (though I could see CG). Similar with philosophy prof. whose name I seem to have forgotten. Mark may be TN, but he feels almost LG at times...sure he doesn't reprehend people, but I think part of his detachment is he feels responsible for them in a parental sort of way. Joanne, similarly, may be full-on LG. Benny is LN, pretending to be LE but not quite keeping it up. Roger may be CG...CN wouldn't keep trying to stop Mimi from doing drugs. He cares too much to be CN.

To toss in another musical: Hair has LG Claude, CN everyone else. Umm...

Wicked has CG Elphaba, TN->conflicted LG Glenda, CG Fiero (probably both of the guys from the book he stands in for as well), LE Nessarose (incidentally, her name keeps making me think of Nessus, and its inhabitant...), and LG farmboy whose name I forget. And NE Wizard, of course, with LE headmistress advisor.
Wicked, the book or Ironic Echo the musical?

I'd say Elphaba starts out as a very LG girl who is desperate for approval, but slips over to CG (with still some lawful leanings) when she realize just what the Wizard is doing. Even after her villian song, she still can't really get herself to be evil. I agree on Glinda, who slowly transitions from being the ditzy party girl into her public figure, with Fiyero wanting to be CN, but end up CG when he understands that he can't run away from things. In the musical the Wizard is pretty TN I think, with some evil and chaotic leanings. He isn't outright malicious, only desperate for approval himself. The big difference between him and Elphaba is that he is willing to lie and trick for his happiness, while Elphaba is willing to sacrifice her own happiness to do what is right. And the Headmistress is an evil, evil bastard of course.

Aotrs Commander
2010-11-18, 07:42 AM
Darth Vader is commonly considered the epitome of Lawful Evil, but it's a conundrum within Star Wars that the Sith are actually supposed to embrace their passions (and should thus be Chaotic Evil).

Now, y'see this is why alignment is so muddy a subject. Different views, different alignments of the same character.

(As I said the other day, this is the gaping chasm with alignment; it attempts to place the entire diversity of anyone who has has ever existed and pidgeon-hole them into one of nine holes. Which it really struggles to do; it's just not even close to granular enough to do a decent job.)

So, I've always felt Vader was more CE or at most NE. I'd even peg the Emperor as somewhere between NE and LE. Grand Admiral Thrawn, I think, is the best example of LE in Star Wars.

And I always thought of Superman as pretty much the embodiment of LG (with the possible exception of He-Man or Optimus Prime.) Batman, famously, can and has been depicted as all nine.


Why no Rorschach or Ozymandias? :smallconfused:

Anyway, I'm thinking (if anyone reads Mercedes Lackey) Vanyel starts off in the NG camp, making his way solidly to the center of LG before the end of the trilogy (Magic's Pawn, Magic's Promise, Magic's Price).

Sonea (Trudi Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy) starts off kind of TN, and ends up pretty LG with NG leanings.

Belgarath seems the epitome of CG to me, where Polgara is LG, and Beldin could be TN leaning towards NG. Sparhawk, Kurik, Vanion, Dolmant, and Bevier are all very LG, while their companions Kalten and Ulath are NG, maybe CG, and Sephrenia is pretty solidly NG. (All David Eddings. As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to read the Elenium and the Tamuli again.)

Just my take on some "popular" culture. Or maybe not so popular, you never know who reads this stuff.

We have apparently similar reading tastes...

But, again, I've always thought of Sparhawk and co as fairly steadily NG or CG (on account of all the random hacking up of evil guard guys).

Though I agree on Belgarath and co; the Belgariad is one of the relatively few (fantasy) things I can personally think of where it seems more CG verses LE as opposed to LG verses CE (a la LotR approximately, considering Elves, Men and Dwarves verses Orcs as opposed to Sauron himself's alignment.) Of course, the former is so much a more common trope in modern and sci-fi, where it's the rebels verses "The Man". (I can't think of a real reverse; there probably are ones, but I can't think of any. )

I suppose Babylon 5 was sort of Neutral (Good) verses Chaotic Neutral/CE verses Lawful Neutral/LE. But there, if anywhere, there is some SERIOUS room for arguement on alignmet of characters! I wouldn't even care to hazard a guess as to say, Londo Mollori's alignment (though again, that probably changed several times over the course of years.)

As another illustrative example, let's take Wolverine. Is he CG? Lawful, because he does have his own code (and did used to be a samurai). Neutral on the moral axis because of his penchant for killing poeple? It's really hard to say (and it doesn't help that Logan's alignment has almost certainly changed several times over the years).

dsmiles
2010-11-18, 08:20 AM
But, again, I've always thought of Sparhawk and co as fairly steadily NG or CG (on account of all the random hacking up of evil guard guys).

I don't really see the random evil-guy hacking as non-lawful. Sparhawk & Co knew they were evil, and generally tried non-violence first (some less so than others), and all the underhanded sneaky stuff going on within the Pandion order (the inn, working with the thieves in the end, etc.) just gave them the feat for multiclassing with rogue as a bonus feat, IMO.

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 08:32 AM
Now, y'see this is why alignment is so muddy a subject. Different views, different alignments of the same character.

(As I said the other day, this is the gaping chasm with alignment; it attempts to place the entire diversity of anyone who has has ever existed and pidgeon-hole them into one of nine holes. Which it really struggles to do; it's just not even close to granular enough to do a decent job.)

So, I've always felt Vader was more CE or at most NE. I'd even peg the Emperor as somewhere between NE and LE. Grand Admiral Thrawn, I think, is the best example of LE in Star Wars.

Might depend on whether Vader truly acts toward an overall Lawful goal or not.

If his goal (since falling into the lava) was always "bring order to the galaxy" rather than "gain enough power to overthrow Palpatine" then he might be at least mildly LE.

Similarly, if Palpatine's goal in the creation of the Empire, was never Order, but solely personal power, then he might be closer to NE than LE. In the Dark Empire comics, we find that Palpatine has been pursuing the goal of immortality for a while.

Kurald Galain
2010-11-18, 08:37 AM
From Firefly:
Whuh?

Zoe was never evil, she was in the army. Lawful, sure, but she does nothing on the evil side of the equation. Nor is Jayne evil: he simply doesn't care about others (or wouldn't admit it) but doesn't go in for cruelty. I don't see Wash as a particularly good person, he doesn't nearly seem to have the sense of "doing what's right" that Mal and Simon or even Inara have. Simon is absolutely not lawful, considering how he breaks out of society.

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 08:41 AM
Nor is Jayne evil: he simply doesn't care about others (or wouldn't admit it) but doesn't go in for cruelty.

PHB: "Some evil characters simply have no compassion and will kill if doing so is convenient".

And, in Jayne's own words:

"Sure, I'll kill a man in a fair fight. Or if I think he's going to start a fair fight. Or if there's a woman. Or if I'm getting paid. Mostly only if I'm getting paid."


Simon is absolutely not lawful, considering how he breaks out of society.

Even a Lawful person can find themselves at odds with a sufficiently corrupt society.

Kurald Galain
2010-11-18, 08:41 AM
Full Metal Alchemist
That's an interesting one, and a setting where most of the characters are clearly good or evil.

That said, I don't think there's much good in Roy most of the time. He's lawful, sure, but not particularly caring.

Interestingly, Scar is as much lawful good as Miko is. Well, he has had his lawful neutral moments in the middle of the manga, but ends up back at LG.

Most of the homunculi seem to be chaotic evil, except for Wrath (LE) and Greed (CN), and a case could be made for Gluttony and especially Sloth being more dumb than actually evil. Father is probably also LE.

grimbold
2010-11-18, 08:44 AM
Dr Manhattan is true neutral

frodo is NG

aragorn is LG

that is all

oh wait!

calvin (from calvin and hobbs) is chaotic neutral

Kurald Galain
2010-11-18, 08:45 AM
And, in Jayne's own words:

"Sure, I'll kill a man in a fair fight. Or if I think he's going to start a fair fight. Or if there's a woman. Or if I'm getting paid. Mostly only if I'm getting paid."
Jayne is a braggart. Look at how much killing he actually does. A sexy shoeless god of war, he ain't.


Even a Lawful person can find themselves at odds with a sufficiently corrupt society.Sure. But, unlike Book or Inara, he's not much of a "voice of ethics" for the crew either.

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 08:51 AM
Sure. But, unlike Book or Inara, he's not much of a "voice of ethics" for the crew either.

There was the scene where, disguised as a doctor, he saves a man's life from other incompetent doctors- despite the fact that he knows it has a risk of jeopardizing their cover.

A moment of Honor Before Reason?


Jayne is a braggart. Look at how much killing he actually does. A sexy shoeless god of war, he ain't.

A Token Evil Teammate does not have to be as evil as Belkar, to be Evil.

Burner28
2010-11-18, 08:56 AM
Question is, how do you weight Evil acts vs Good intentions?

Champions of Ruin seems to come down firmly on the "acts matter more than intentions" side- you can be someone who genuinely wants to be the good guy, is willing to make sacrifices to help strangers and so on- but if you are repeatedly committing serious evil acts, you're Evil rather than Neutral or Good.

This is why I tend to place both Ozymandias and Rorschach as Evil, rather than Chaotic Good.

And stuff like this is the primary reason why judging characters that operates outside of a DnD context usually doesn't work especially if the work in question is meant to operate on moral ambiguity.

Remember that you can in practice have antiheroes that despite their willingness to be: mean(but not nasty);fairly judgmental towards Evil killers; resistant to any attempt to socialise, and unsympathetic, but not merciless, towards killers of the innocent, regardless of whether or not they are sadists or merely became a serial killer due to a childhood trauma and be tough(but not a dictator) who can still qualify as Lawful Good if they use Good means towards a Good end for Good reasons and is Lawful as well of course :smallwink:

In the same breath, you can also have AntiVillain that would still qualify for Chaotic Evil, eg a freedom fighter who has no problem with killing innocents if it suits her goal.

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 09:05 AM
Remember that you can in practice have antiheroes that despite their willingness to be: mean(but not nasty);fairly judgmental towards Evil killers; resistant to any attempt to socialise, and unsympathetic, but not merciless, towards killers of the innocent, regardless of whether or not they are sadists or merely became a serial killer due to a childhood trauma and be tough(but not a dictator) who can still qualify as Lawful Good if they use Good means towards a Good end for Good reasons and is Lawful as well of course :smallwink:

In the same breath, you can also have AntiVillain that would still qualify for Chaotic Evil, eg a freedom fighter who has no problem with killing innocents if it suits her goal.

True. The tricky part is in the gray area between Antihero and Antivillain.

A sufficiently sociopathic Antihero can qualify as evil.
And a Antivillain whose evil acts are low on the Evil scale, can qualify as Neutral.

The Order of Illumination, in Complete Adventurer, are paladins that straddle the line between Antihero and Antivillain- while they have plenty of problems with killing innocents- their goal is to destroy Evil, and they are willing to destroy innocents in the process, given a sufficiently Evil adversary that just "has" to be eliminated regardless of the cost.

So even D&D, allows for a great deal of flexibility.

Burner28
2010-11-18, 09:09 AM
True. The tricky part is in the gray area between Antihero and Antivillain.

A sufficiently sociopathic Antihero can qualify as evil.
And a Antivillain whose evil acts are low on the Evil scale, can qualify as Neutral.

The Order of Illumination, in Complete Adventurer, are paladins that straddle the line between Antihero and Antivillain- while they have plenty of problems with killing innocents- their goal is to destroy Evil, and they are willing to destroy innocents in the process, given a sufficiently Evil adversary that just "has" to be eliminated regardless of the cost.

So even D&D, allows for a great deal of flexibility.

And if they are generally willing to do Good acts as well though(for Good reason in a non-evil way of course)

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 09:14 AM
Yup.

For "flexible Neutral" antiheroes/antivillains, who do minor evil acts toward Good ends, and regularly do Good acts, Heroes of Horror is the main source that supports the concept.

Given the sort of acts that officially count as Evil in various sources, including the PHB (rebuking undead, associating with fiends, casting [Evil] spells, worshipping Evil deities),

quite a lot of characters with classes or PRCs that specify "Any nongood" may be of this type- Hexblades, Dread Necromancers, Neutral clerics of evil gods, Neutral clerics of Wee Jas, and so on.

Burner28
2010-11-18, 09:17 AM
Heh, but I LIKE discussing Ozy's alignment! I'd put him at Chaotic Good. He acts without regard to any specific code of conduct (Chaotic) and his intent is to make the world a better place for everyone (Good). However, he's also a text book case of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." In the end, he's a tragic character who acts as a villain despite being "good." That was part of what the author of the Watchmen was going for... simply wanting to be the good guy and do right doesn't actually mean you help the situation.

It's also possible to be Chaotic Evil and basically do good in the long run... if you're a character whose goal and desire is to be liked and be popular. You'll save the world (you can't destroy the world, that's where I keep all my stuff!) because it benefits you. You'll save babies from a burning orphanage as long as people are watching. The Plutonian before his break was basically Neutral or Chaotic Evil and nobody noticed because what he wanted was to be liked and respected, so his goals coincided with what other people thought of as good. It was only after his goals changed that people noticed he was actually evil as all heck.

Rorschach, meanwhile, is a lot harder to gauge.

JaronK

what Ozymandias did was as far away from Good or Neutral as you can get. He killed millions of innocent people.

GoatBoy
2010-11-18, 09:29 AM
Hunter S. Thompson personifies chaotic neutral.

Gravitron5000
2010-11-18, 09:30 AM
Nor is Jayne evil: he simply doesn't care about others (or wouldn't admit it) but doesn't go in for cruelty.

"Pain is scary"

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 09:30 AM
what Ozymandias did was as far away from Good or Neutral as you can get. He killed millions of innocent people.

That's where we end up with the argument that personality overrides acts- a compassionate, self-sacrificing person could be Good regardless of the Evil acts that they do.

Which I disagree with. I prefer the reverse- a person who commits seriously evil acts, can be Evil regardless of how compassionate and self-sacrificing they are.

Champions of Ruin supports this.

The Core alignment system tends to creak at the seams when presented with a character who is compassionate, self-sacrificing, etc, yet at the same time ruthlessly pragmatic, cruel, and willing to sacrifice the innocent.

The compassion doesn't fit Evil, the self-sacrifice doesn't fit Neutral, and the cruelty and willingness to sacrifice the innocent doesn't really fit Good.

This is when I turn to the splatbooks.
When one reads Savage Species and Champions of Ruin- one finds out that you can have a compassionate, self-sacrificing Evil character.

And when one reads Heroes of Horror, one finds out that you can have a self-sacrificing, compassionate Neutral character.

dsmiles
2010-11-18, 09:33 AM
The Core alignment system tends to creak at the seams when presented with a character who is compassionate, self-sacrificing, etc, yet at the same time ruthlessly pragmatic, cruel, and willing to sacrifice the innocent.

The compassion doesn't fit Evil, the self-sacrifice doesn't fit Neutral, and the cruelty and willingness to sacrifice the innocent doesn't really fit Good.

This is when I turn to the splatbooks.
When one reads Savage Species and Champions of Ruin- one finds out that you can have a compassionate, self-sacrificing Evil character.

IIRC, BoED also talks about evil creatures are capable of being compassionate and self-sacrificing. Good doesn't hold the copyright on those traits.

EDIT: Specifically I'm referring to the page where the half-orc, paladin-y looking chick is faced with the two succubi (who are described as being in love in the caption for that picture). I beleive there's a blurb somewhere on that page, or one close by that supports the compassionate/loving evil creatures concept.

GoatBoy
2010-11-18, 09:36 AM
IIRC, BoED also talks about evil creatures are capable of being compassionate and self-sacrificing. Good doesn't hold the copyright on those traits.

One could see an evil sorcerer sacrificing his life, as well as the lives of countless innocents, to bring a lover back from the dead. It's self-sacrifice, but also evil.

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 09:49 AM
IIRC, BoED also talks about evil creatures are capable of being compassionate and self-sacrificing. Good doesn't hold the copyright on those traits.

That's another good example, yes.

Good doesn't even hold a copyright on "compassion for strangers" or "self-sacrifice for strangers"-

though an Evil character with these traits would be a very, very unusual one.


That's one of the reasons I like the splatbooks more- because they don't stick entirely to the general assumptions of the PHB.

Reverent-One
2010-11-18, 09:56 AM
Interestingly, Scar is as much lawful good as Miko is. Well, he has had his lawful neutral moments in the middle of the manga, but ends up back at LG.

What? No. He's full on Lawful Evil at the beginning of both the first anime and the manga, turning people's brains into hamburger out of vengence and for being abominations against his god. In the end of both he's possibly LG, more likely in the first anime than the manga, IMO.

Callista
2010-11-18, 09:56 AM
Maureen's definitely CN, bordering on CE. Mimi's CN, no dispute there, as is Angel probably (though I could see CG). Similar with philosophy prof. whose name I seem to have forgotten. Mark may be TN, but he feels almost LG at times...sure he doesn't reprehend people, but I think part of his detachment is he feels responsible for them in a parental sort of way. Joanne, similarly, may be full-on LG. Benny is LN, pretending to be LE but not quite keeping it up. Roger may be CG...CN wouldn't keep trying to stop Mimi from doing drugs. He cares too much to be CN.

To toss in another musical: Hair has LG Claude, CN everyone else. Umm...

Wicked has CG Elphaba, TN->conflicted LG Glenda, CG Fiero (probably both of the guys from the book he stands in for as well), LE Nessarose (incidentally, her name keeps making me think of Nessus, and its inhabitant...), and LG farmboy whose name I forget. And NE Wizard, of course, with LE headmistress advisor.Ya know, I was going to say CG for Angel, but then there was that dog incident... and yeah, it's just a dog, and yeah, I've wanted to do that myself, but it's still kind of a mean thing to do. So CN.

Wicked... you've got to say bookverse or musicalverse. In the book, Elphaba is almost CG->CN, whereas in the musical it's CG and so solidly Good that it's yet another contrast to her being a "Wicked Witch".

Fiyero starts out CN, then CG. Apparently love really does change people.
The "farmboy" is Boq, yes? I think he's NG or just neutral. I don't see any strong lawful tendencies except for his staying with Nessa despite liking Galinda instead, and it seems a lot of that comes from him feeling like he can't say no because she's disabled.
Nessarose is a LOT more evil in the book than in the musical... but I agree with LE in both cases. I always thought she was kind of a cool character; it plays with so many stereotypes to have a beautiful girl in a wheelchair (or without arms, depending on the version) who is pitied by others, spoiled in childhood, is ridiculously religious... and turns out plain evil. Usually they'd try to make her "inspirational" or something and choke us all on sugar.

OK... so let's take on surrealistic quasi-Furry CATS!
LG: Jennyanydots, Old Deuteronomy
NG: Victoria, Jemima, Demeter (weak G)
CG: Bombalurina (weak G)
LN: Skimbleshanks, Bustopher Jones, Jellylorum, Munkustrap
True neutral: Grizzabella, Gus, Griddlebone
CN: Mungojerrie, Rumpleteazer, Mr. Mistoffelees, the Rum Tum Tugger
CE: Macavity and Growltiger

I'll have to admit I had to look them up on Wikipedia to have a prayer of spelling their names right.

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 11:10 AM
I've been wondering about the characters from Red Dwarf:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/RedDwarf

My guesses (at the moment)

Dave Lister- Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Good
Arnold Rimmer- Lawful Evil (possibly Lawful Neutral in later seasons)
Kryten- Lawful Good
Cat- Chaotic Neutral
Kochanski- Lawful Neutral

Ace Rimmer- Neutral Good
Captain Hollister- Lawful Evil/Neutral Evil (blackmailed his way to the top)

grimbold
2010-11-18, 12:15 PM
oo!
Ozzy Osborne Is Chaotic Neutral
seeing Ozymaindas reffered to as Ozy got me thinking...
also he did what he did for the greater good (in his eye) so from his perspective he was Lawful Good, willing to sacrifice anything for the greater good, others might see him as Chaotic Evil by killing millions

Maryring
2010-11-18, 12:18 PM
Ya know, I was going to say CG for Angel, but then there was that dog incident... and yeah, it's just a dog, and yeah, I've wanted to do that myself, but it's still kind of a mean thing to do. So CN.

Wicked... you've got to say bookverse or musicalverse. In the book, Elphaba is almost CG->CN, whereas in the musical it's CG and so solidly Good that it's yet another contrast to her being a "Wicked Witch".

Fiyero starts out CN, then CG. Apparently love really does change people.
The "farmboy" is Boq, yes? I think he's NG or just neutral. I don't see any strong lawful tendencies except for his staying with Nessa despite liking Galinda instead, and it seems a lot of that comes from him feeling like he can't say no because she's disabled.
Nessarose is a LOT more evil in the book than in the musical... but I agree with LE in both cases. I always thought she was kind of a cool character; it plays with so many stereotypes to have a beautiful girl in a wheelchair (or without arms, depending on the version) who is pitied by others, spoiled in childhood, is ridiculously religious... and turns out plain evil. Usually they'd try to make her "inspirational" or something and choke us all on sugar.

OK... so let's take on surrealistic quasi-Furry CATS!
LG: Jennyanydots, Old Deuteronomy
NG: Victoria, Jemima, Demeter (weak G)
CG: Bombalurina (weak G)
LN: Skimbleshanks, Bustopher Jones, Jellylorum, Munkustrap
True neutral: Grizzabella, Gus, Griddlebone
CN: Mungojerrie, Rumpleteazer, Mr. Mistoffelees, the Rum Tum Tugger
CE: Macavity and Growltiger

I'll have to admit I had to look them up on Wikipedia to have a prayer of spelling their names right.

Nessa is a very interesting character. Just like Elphaba and the Wizard, she wants approval, something she isn't getting because of the trouble with her legs. It becomes especially interesting if you take into consideration her (unfortunately cut) villian song where she shows regret at how she ended up becoming the Wicked Witch of the East. A very good tragic villian.

Yes, I love Wicked the musical. Is it that obvious? :smalltongue:

Ormur
2010-11-18, 04:00 PM
I've been reading the Discworld City Watch stories and they include two very different but interesting LG characters.

Carrot is probably one of the most perfect LG characters I've encountered in fiction. He not only genuinely wants to be nice to everyone he also thinks almost everyone is at heart a nice person too. He's also very lawful and was initially inclined to enforce the letter of the law even though no one else heeded it. He has since adapted a bit to Ankh-Morpork but is still comparatively very lawful.

Vimes is a lot more cynical and generally assumes everyone else is a bastard but he's still good. He cares about the underdog even though at first he couldn't act on it except by donating most of his pay. He also never intends to kill, unless it's absolutely unavoidable. He's lawful in the way that he believes there is a sort of justice that applies everywhere, even in the absence of laws. Most cases of him defying authority are actually in defence of some rule of law. I know the usual debate about laws of society versus a personal code but the Disc is generally so chaotic there are no laws to speak of. The man that tried to arrest the leaders of countries at war for disturbing the peace must be lawful.

Lord Vetinari might be a TN trying to pass of as LE.

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 04:43 PM
Lord Vetinari might be a TN trying to pass of as LE.

Or a character whose alignment, over time, shifted. The guy in Color of Magic (Word Of God is- that is Vetinari) is very different from the present one.

And even the young Vetinari in Night Watch, is somewhat colder, than the present one.

Sinfonian
2010-11-18, 05:19 PM
Vimes...good...lawful

Lord Vetinari might be a TN trying to pass of as LE.
Agreed with Vimes. He's probably my favorite depiction of lawful good in any fiction.

Vetinari, in his depictions since the first few books, strikes me as mostly Lawful Neutral (his understandable policy toward mimes notwithstanding).

hamishspence
2010-11-18, 05:23 PM
Agreed with Vimes. He's probably my favorite depiction of lawful good in any fiction.

Though without the traditional respect for authority. Still, overall I'd say more Lawful than Neutral.

As Vetinari put it:
"I have noted before that you have a definite anti-authoritarian streak, Commander."
"Sir?"
"You seem to have retained this even though you are Authority."
"Sir?"
"That's practically Zen."

Burner28
2010-11-19, 01:47 PM
Okay I'll contribute just for fun, using characters that I know of, namely from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. This is just my assumptions of course and i am not any more correct than you are.

Lawful Good: Knuckles the Echidna- he seemed to be bound by duty to protect the Master Emerald and seems, IMO to be a good guy.
Neutral Good: Miles "Tails" Prower. He doesn't particularly seem Chaotic nor Lawful and seems to be Good.
Chaotic Good: Sonic the Hedgehog- a free spirited hero that does whatever he feels like doing and goes as he please.
True Neutral: Big the Cat- the only thing that seems to care about in Sonic Adventure was about rescuing his "Froggy"
Chaotic Neutral: Shadow the Hedgehog- probably can be argued to be this after Sonic Adventure 2 as he seemed to be a character that does as he feels, only joining up with Rouge and Omega as teammates rather than someone taking orders, what with his whole amnesia issue. Though in Sonic Adventure 2 , he seemed to be more of a Neutral Evil villain rather than a antihero (played along with Eggman's rules but wasn't loyal to him IIRC) but stopped being a villain when he redeemed himself and saved the planet.
Lawful Evil : Dr. Eggman- a villain who wants to take over the world, presumably to bring his order to it.
Neutral Evil: Fang the Sniper- an very old villain that few would know about. Only cares about money, isn't particularly ordely nor whimsical, and isn't loyal to anyone.
Chaotic Evil: Gerald Robotnik - he lost faith in evrything to do with humanity, and wanted to cause the ultimate destruction to them.

JaronK
2010-11-19, 04:35 PM
Whuh?

Zoe was never evil, she was in the army. Lawful, sure, but she does nothing on the evil side of the equation.

Remember the episode about the guy who was eating beans in combat? He talks about how Zoe was during the war. Even the other soldiers were scared of her... sure, she was loyal as heck and followed orders, but she liked getting up close and killing people with a knife, given the chance. Killing for fun puts you towards the evil side, army or no.


Nor is Jayne evil: he simply doesn't care about others (or wouldn't admit it) but doesn't go in for cruelty.

He'll kill for money, or for a woman, or whatever. It's not about cruelty, it's about profit... he'll gladly kill people on his own team for profit given the chance (he betrayed the team before Mal, and tried to betray both Simon and River for cash). He's not a sadist, but that just makes it less obvious. Evil doesn't mean you have to yell "muhahaha" all the time... being willing to sacrifice anyone, even those close to you, for a quick buck is classic evil.


I don't see Wash as a particularly good person, he doesn't nearly seem to have the sense of "doing what's right" that Mal and Simon or even Inara have.

In every debate about whether the team should do something that could be called wrong (such as kicking out Simon and River, killing anyone, etc), Wash was ALWAYS the voice of reason. He's always the one saying that they should hold up and consider NOT doing the evil thing. He's actually the most consistent voice for good in the entire show.


Simon is absolutely not lawful, considering how he breaks out of society.

Actually, he mostly doesn't break society's laws. River was taken outside of those laws by a corrupt government, so he broke her out. His entire motivation is to protect his sister... except when someone needs medical help in the hospital, where he saves them at risk to himself because he still follows the code of a doctor. When he saves Jayne, he makes it clear that his code will protect Jayne no matter how much that man comes after him... at least in the medical room.

Remember, lawful means you follow some sort of code... not that you follow the laws of the current society you're in.


what Ozymandias did was as far away from Good or Neutral as you can get. He killed millions of innocent people.

Yes, but his intent was to save billions. Would you say that Roosevelt was as far away from Good or Neutral as you can get when he sent American soldiers to war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? He too killed a huge amount of people doing it... but he thought (probably correctly) that without sending us to war we'd just get attacked later anyway. Ozy thought that without his actions, nuclear war would be inevitable (and in that world, he might have been right). Ozy did what he did because he cared about others and wanted more innocent's to be safe. He felt terrible remorse for pain he had caused, but still believed in the long run that his actions were good. That's sort of the point of the Watchmen... the good guy is the bad guy, and championing the side of good are some either bad (The Comedian) or completely crazy (Rorschach) guys.

JaronK

Reverent-One
2010-11-19, 04:54 PM
Yes, but his intent was to save billions. Would you say that Roosevelt was as far away from Good or Neutral as you can get when he sent American soldiers to war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? He too killed a huge amount of people doing it... but he thought (probably correctly) that without sending us to war we'd just get attacked later anyway. Ozy thought that without his actions, nuclear war would be inevitable (and in that world, he might have been right). Ozy did what he did because he cared about others and wanted more innocent's to be safe. He felt terrible remorse for pain he had caused, but still believed in the long run that his actions were good. That's sort of the point of the Watchmen... the good guy is the bad guy, and championing the side of good are some either bad (The Comedian) or completely crazy (Rorschach) guys.

JaronK

Thinking he was doing good just makes him a well-intentioned extremist, doesn't mean that he actually was good.

JaronK
2010-11-19, 04:58 PM
Sure, but I could well intentioned extremists as good. Especially if you consider the fact that in that world, he might have been right. Remember, the time line had been heavily altered already. Nixon had four terms as president. We won Vietnam. And Ozy was the smartest man alive. He was also wracked by guilt about the entire thing. Russia was a lot more frightened due to the US having Dr. Manhattan, and might have thought they were doomed anyway (and in the real world, they actually did have doomsday plans for if they were going to die anyway... they involved the destruction of most of mankind). For all we know, his actions really did bring about detant, something that wouldn't have otherwise happened after we won in Vietnam. Remember, everyone except Rorschach eventually agreed he was right in his plan, and agreed not to tell anyone about it.

Good people can do things that look evil. They can even make mistakes while trying to do good. Really powerful good people can make really big mistakes... or just really big plays that look evil on the outside.

JaronK

mangosta71
2010-11-19, 05:16 PM
Would you say that Roosevelt was as far away from Good or Neutral as you can get when he sent American soldiers to war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? He too killed a huge amount of people doing it... but he thought (probably correctly) that without sending us to war we'd just get attacked later anyway.
I would point out that Roosevelt did not commit troops to war until after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We had been attacked when he sent American soldiers to fight the Japanese and Germans.

Shademan
2010-11-19, 05:32 PM
following a personal moral code while killing evildoers, Dexter is lawful good.

let the argument flare!

Tankadin
2010-11-19, 05:37 PM
Hunter S. Thompson personifies chaotic neutral.

Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, perhaps, but Thompson himself was philosophically in Chaotic Good territory. The dude had a pretty fierce moral compass and absolutely detested fascism. Why do you think he was spitting hot lava about Nixon all the time?



following a personal moral code while killing evildoers, Dexter is lawful good.

Evil means that produce good ends are still evil acts.

Whether a character sees that or not, we do not know. Lots of Knights Templar think they are Lawful Good but are actually Lawful Evil--how you view your alignment is not necessarily what it actually is.

Shademan
2010-11-19, 05:44 PM
Evil means that produce good ends are still evil acts.

Whether a character sees that or not, we do not know. Lots of Knights Templar think they are Lawful Good but are actually Lawful Evil--how you view your alignment is not necessarily what it actually is.

so all adventurers and paladins are evil?

JaronK
2010-11-19, 05:50 PM
I would point out that Roosevelt did not commit troops to war until after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We had been attacked when he sent American soldiers to fight the Japanese and Germans.

I don't want to get too much into a world politics debate here, but suffice to say most historians would argue we provoked Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor by cutting off their oil supplies, ensuring that they either had to attack or give up their war. Roosevelt was quite clear that it was a calculated move to get us into the war before the Axis powers were ready to take us on full scale.

As for Dexter, I'd say that he's Lawful Neutral... just criminally insane. He works very hard to only kill evil people... because the Code of Harry says that's what he should do. When it would be beneficial for him to kill a good person, he doesn't even being willing to turn himself in... because the code said he can't do otherwise He's a twisted lil' guy, but he's decidedly Lawful, and not evil (though he could easily fall to evil). He has no moral compass other than codes though.

JaronK

Tankadin
2010-11-19, 05:51 PM
so all adventurers and paladins are evil?

Depends. Murder is an evil act. Self-defense isn't.

Sometimes people are empowered by lawful governments to have discretion over lethal force. This doesn't make each and every use of lethal force lawful or just. Some yes, but not all.

Shademan
2010-11-19, 05:57 PM
Depends. Murder is an evil act. Self-defense isn't.

Sometimes people are empowered by lawful governments to have discretion over lethal force. This doesn't make each and every use of lethal force lawful or just. Some yes, but not all.

but they often seek out evildoers and destroy them. that lich minding his own business in his black fortress? he must die(again) because he tortures people for fun or profit
so the heroes seek him out and kill him

JaronK
2010-11-19, 07:34 PM
It's true... D&D has a very strong subtext of "it's okay to go into someone else's territory and kill them, as long as they're sufficiently different from you." And that's good, as long as you're looking out for other people like you. If you do it just for yourself, it's evil.

JaronK

John_D
2010-11-19, 07:40 PM
Dexter's an interesting one because he actually has a lot of parallels to Lancelot in Le Morte d'Arthur. I mention this because the Knights of the Round table are one of the primary literary inspirations for the paladin class, but do a lot of stuff that most DMs would make them fall for.

Lancelot has serious evil urges. He wants nothing more than to chop off heads and drink wine from the skulls of his enemies, but forces himself to live by a strict code. He specifically goes out and fights really evil dudes for two reasons: because they remind him of what he's really like; and to have an outlet for all his murderous rage. He executes Lord Mellygaunce when he's unarmed and begging him for mercy because he thought he deserved to die. Lancelot is more or less exactly a medieval Dexter except he doesn't cover his tracks.

Lancelot is also an adulterer: he's obsessed with Queen Guinevere and has a relationship with her, as well as this woman Elaine who he thinks is Guinevere (it's complicated). Despite all this murder and treason he's the only knight in the world virtuous enough to perform the miracle that heals Sir Urry, and Lancelot weeps like a "chylde that had bene beatyn" when he realises this.

So I guess you could argue that Dexter's lawful good? Either that or that alignment is a pretty flawed mechanic that really isn't equipped to deal with moral dilemmas and flawed characters (hint: it's this one).

The Big Dice
2010-11-19, 07:49 PM
So I guess you could argue that Dexter's lawful good? Either that or that alignment is a pretty flawed mechanic that really isn't equipped to deal with moral dilemmas and flawed characters (hint: it's this one).
That's why I say alignment is a cartoony mechanic that shouldn't really be a mechanic. It works for a heavily black and white, us vs them level of morality. But if you want to get into more sophisticated motivations than "I'm bad becase I'm bad" then alignment starts to fall apart.

Certainly in older editions of D&D it was more of a guideline and didn't impact too heavily on the actual rules of the game. Detect and Protection from Evil were more about finding and protecting yourself from people who were likely to hurt you than who had an Evil descriptor.

John_D
2010-11-19, 08:01 PM
My big beef with alignment is it's not just a roleplaying concept in 3.5 - for some classes their abilities depend on maintaining a certain alignment, and those alignments don't always make sense.

Let's look at Kord. Kord is a chaotic good god, so to be a cleric of him you can either be CN, CG or NG. To me though, embodying the things Kord approves of (showing strength, courage, love of sportsmanship, doing kegstands etc) should determine whether he gives you powers way more than whether your character fits into the alignment archetypes. A lawful good character can be a strong courageous guy who loves sports, teamwork and partying with his bros, but by RAW Kord is less likely to grant him powers than a cowardly, selfish chaotic neutral guy.

I've been fortunate enough to always roll with cool DMs who wouldn't strip away someone's powers due to an alignment shift, but the simple fact that those rules exist really niggle at me, and stories of "my DM made my paladin fall for x" are ten a penny on D&D boards.

Death to alignment ITT.

Shammy Jammy
2010-11-19, 09:41 PM
On Rorschach/Ozymandias

People should stop trying to classify people as "good or evil" when they come from universes in which everything's just shades of gray. Watchmen was a graphic novel that was never meant to have "good guys" or "bad guys". Most things don't fit into the DnD's messed up karma system.

Anyway, one time a friend of mine asked me what the alignment system was. I used comic book characters to explain, using only examples that made sense. Turned out it was exactly the same thing he thought it was. It pretty much describes itself, once you think about it.

Callista
2010-11-19, 09:50 PM
My big beef with alignment is it's not just a roleplaying concept in 3.5 - for some classes their abilities depend on maintaining a certain alignment, and those alignments don't always make sense.

Let's look at Kord. Kord is a chaotic good god, so to be a cleric of him you can either be CN, CG or NG. To me though, embodying the things Kord approves of (showing strength, courage, love of sportsmanship, doing kegstands etc) should determine whether he gives you powers way more than whether your character fits into the alignment archetypes. A lawful good character can be a strong courageous guy who loves sports, teamwork and partying with his bros, but by RAW Kord is less likely to grant him powers than a cowardly, selfish chaotic neutral guy.From the PHB:
"The cleric's deity influences... his values."

Your cowardly CN guy shouldn't become a cleric of Kord in the first place.

Zonugal
2010-11-19, 10:19 PM
Would you say that Roosevelt was as far away from Good or Neutral as you can get when he sent American soldiers to war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? He too killed a huge amount of people doing it... but he thought (probably correctly) that without sending us to war we'd just get attacked later anyway. Ozy thought that without his actions, nuclear war would be inevitable (and in that world, he might have been right). Ozy did what he did because he cared about others and wanted more innocent's to be safe. He felt terrible remorse for pain he had caused, but still believed in the long run that his actions were good. That's sort of the point of the Watchmen... the good guy is the bad guy, and championing the side of good are some either bad (The Comedian) or completely crazy (Rorschach) guys.

JaronK

I'm going to bring in a deontological perspective here and say that while Ozy cared for individuals it does not make his decision a good one. He used innocents merely as a means in his decision which, from a utilitarian perspective, looks appealing but ends up truly being a tragedy.

Ozymandias isn't a good guy. Be it the hints in the story of him reflecting on while sitting on the graves off his parents to him killing anyone who got in his way. Not to forget that he gave completely innocent people cancer just to enact his plan. And let us not forget that it is suggested that his plan is only a temporary one and that nothing ever ends.

Ormur
2010-11-20, 12:15 AM
Or a character whose alignment, over time, shifted. The guy in Color of Magic (Word Of God is- that is Vetinari) is very different from the present one.

And even the young Vetinari in Night Watch, is somewhat colder, than the present one.

Vetinari, in his depictions since the first few books, strikes me as mostly Lawful Neutral (his understandable policy toward mimes notwithstanding).

Hehe, I forgot about his policy on mimes but that's about his only possibly evil policy in the watch series I remember.

I haven't read the early Pratchett books but the actions of the thin Machiavellian Vetinari of the latter books seems pretty morally neutral to me.

It's true that he might be more lawful than neutral though, he thinks of the city as a machine that he must keep running smoothly. It's just that he doesn't do this by following any sort of laws or even a code, he's very practical. Things like legalizing theft don't seem very lawful, then again maybe it's the ultimate lawful approach to the problem.


Though without the traditional respect for authority. Still, overall I'd say more Lawful than Neutral.

As Vetinari put it:
"I have noted before that you have a definite anti-authoritarian streak, Commander."
"Sir?"
"You seem to have retained this even though you are Authority."
"Sir?"
"That's practically Zen."

Yes, I really like this about Vimes, he's a lawful anti-authoritarian and a cynical good person.

Innis Cabal
2010-11-20, 01:04 AM
I'm pretty sure there was a thread like this, as I remember making a post about Code Geass in it. I just can't find it. @_@

Darth Vader is commonly considered the epitome of Lawful Evil, but it's a conundrum within Star Wars that the Sith are actually supposed to embrace their passions (and should thus be Chaotic Evil).

You can be passionate while still being lawful.

Adrayll
2010-11-20, 02:00 AM
Wheel of Time (Spoilered, Contains details from the recently released Towers of Midnight)


(I'm going to give their most important title, just to give an extra sense of who they are)

Rand al'Thor, The Dragon Reborn: Starts out very NG, being a good person, but not having any strong convictions in any other direction. Near the middle of the series, he becomes incredible CG, flitting around doing what in his opinion is right, but with no regard to anyone else. He then becomes CN around volumes 11-12, when the taint of the power and madness and everything just completely shortwires his reasoning. Then, after his epiphany on the Dragonmount, he's back to NG, but in a far more assured and wise sense.

Matrim Cauthon, The Prince of Ravens: Starts off TN, being a trickster who loves fun, but also holds strong bonds to family and friends, and stays that way the whole series. He goes through different phases (general, consort, prince, etc) but the whole time he's just doing what he thinks is best.

Perrin n'Bashere t'Aybara, Dragon's Steward of the Two Rivers: LG, Perrin is of very strong personal convictions that stay very conservative and close to the law. He does things like accept Galad's trial instead of a fight, and only ever strays to chaotic when his wife's safety is involved (in which case he gets very crazy-obsessive).

Moiraine Damodred Aes Sedai: CG, because she is devoted to finding and training the Dragon Reborn no matter what, regardless of what the Amyrlin, or anyone else has to say about it.

al'Lan Mandragoran, Last King of Malkier: LN He follows his set of personal rules with absolutely no exceptions. Those rules just happen to be Moiraine's word. Once she "dies", he is cast adrift, before returning to lead the Malkieri people in a suicide fight he believes he is destined to fight.

Thomdril Merrilin, Gleeman: TN, Thom is a wandering gleeman who regularly flouted the law (in regards to fleeing Caemlyn and Tar Valon). He is noble in his own way, but delights in manipulation, and is a consummate player of The Game of Houses.

Egwene al'Vere, The Amyrlin Seat: Unquestioningly LG. She manages to hold to her very specific view of what the proper order for the Aes Sedai is, and even in the face of incredible opposition from her own camp, Eladia's camp, the Black Ajah, and other obstacles along the road, she manages to cure the White Tower through force of her belief in that order.

John_D
2010-11-20, 02:46 AM
From the PHB:
"The cleric's deity influences... his values."

Your cowardly CN guy shouldn't become a cleric of Kord in the first place.

True! I was using an extreme example, but my point stands - it's very possible for a character to utterly embody a god's values but not fit the alignment, which means they don't get cleric spells. Someone who isn't quite as adherent to the values but fits the alignment would.

JaronK
2010-11-20, 03:56 AM
I'm going to bring in a deontological perspective here and say that while Ozy cared for individuals it does not make his decision a good one. He used innocents merely as a means in his decision which, from a utilitarian perspective, looks appealing but ends up truly being a tragedy.

Ozymandias isn't a good guy. Be it the hints in the story of him reflecting on while sitting on the graves off his parents to him killing anyone who got in his way. Not to forget that he gave completely innocent people cancer just to enact his plan. And let us not forget that it is suggested that his plan is only a temporary one and that nothing ever ends.

The obvious question then: what if he was right? What if it really was the only way to create detant? What if without his actions a nuclear war would have started in a few years, killing most of the population of the earth? What if he indeed saved billions?

If so, does he suddenly become good again?

This is the problem with saying your alignment is determined by the consequences of your actions. Your alignment ends up shifting based solely on events outside your control. You being incorrect in an assumption could suddenly swap your alignment. And saying that someone can be evil because they were willing to break a few eggs when making an omelet doesn't work either... a man who sacrifices his only son in a war to save his village ends up looking evil, while the man who saves his son and runs away, thus dooming the village, looks good.

This is why intent and motivation has to be the determining factor for your alignment... even if you do wrong, even if you make mistakes, your alignment must depend on what you wanted to do and why you did what you did... not the results. Of course, this means it's quite possible to have a Lawful Good character be the enemy in a campaign... but that's a lot more interesting too.

JaronK

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 05:21 AM
It's true... D&D has a very strong subtext of "it's okay to go into someone else's territory and kill them, as long as they're sufficiently different from you." And that's good, as long as you're looking out for other people like you. If you do it just for yourself, it's evil.


BoED, and Savage Species (in one of its campaign models) tended to move away from this a bit.

BoED tended to stress that violence needs a better reason than simply "it's a monster" or "it's evil-aligned". So it tended to be a case of the heroes responding to the evil acts done by villains.

Vigilante justice, but still reactive rather than preventative. Not killing an evil being because "He may harm people in the future" but going after an evil being because "He has been harming people- and this must be stopped"- and using what force is necessary to stop it- which might not be killing, but capturing, and attempting to redeem.

The "With Malice Toward None" archetype from Savage Species said:


In this campaign model, the prevailing opinion holds that monsters, however foul and evil they may look, are free sentient beings with all the inalienable rights that humans, elves, and every other humanoid species are heir to.
The denizens of this campaign are not foolish- they know that many monsters are evil and nefarious. Just the same, they are loath to reject monsters simply because of their origins.
The philosophical leaders of this land realise that no medusa or troll really had a choice in how it came into this world, and indeed as oppressed as its upbringing may have been, it is deserving of more sympathy and consideration, not less.

The second part of this was sigged by Lev:

In this world, evil among monsters is largely perceived to be a psychological condition rather than an absolute or genetic one. Most monsters are thought to become creatures of evil or destruction not because of any infernal or diabolic tie, but because of rejection, loneliness, or some other understandable psychological condition. Even the foulest tanar'ri may in truth be the victim of its own psychoses, and the enlightened people of this world hold out hope that with openness, respect, and even love, the darkest of souls can be redeemed. And who knows? Perhaps they are right.

And the general model for Exalted Good alignment in BoED, seems to be approximately based on this.

Xiander
2010-11-20, 05:23 AM
Robin Hood is the canonical example of Chaotic Good.

I know i am late, but i have to contest this.
Robin Hood is not chaotic. He is a nobleman loyal to his king, who returns from war to find his father murdered on the orders of the kings brother. And to find that the same brother of the king has unrightfully taken the kings throne. He swears to fight the unrightful rule of the man on the throne, not because he dislikes law, but because in his view law is not being followed under this king. He breaks the current laws of the kingdom because they are unjust and because the person who made them had no right to do so.

Robin Hood is lawful. Probably good.

That he happens to ally with a big bunch of chaotic and neutral good people (his merry men), should not affect this.

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 05:26 AM
That's only one archetype of Robin- there are many others.

In some, he became an outlaw after a fight with a forester- in which he killed the forester, arguably in self-defense, and became an outlaw because of this.

Xiander
2010-11-20, 05:33 AM
That's only one archetype of Robin- there are many others.

In some, he became an outlaw after a fight with a forester- in which he killed the forester, arguably in self-defense, and became an outlaw because of this.

It is however the archetype portrayed in most of the movies i have seen on the subject, and sinse this thread is about popculture :smallwink:

But i admit that there may be many diferent versions.

dsmiles
2010-11-20, 08:24 AM
Wheel of Time (Spoilered, Contains details from the recently released Towers of Midnight)

DARN YOU!!!
I wanted to see your take on WoT, but I haven't read Towers yet, so I can't!!!

The Big Dice
2010-11-20, 10:44 AM
It is however the archetype portrayed in most of the movies i have seen on the subject, and sinse this thread is about popculture :smallwink:

But i admit that there may be many diferent versions.

There's at least two. Robin of Loxley was a commoner who either hunted deer or killed a man, becoming an outlaw because of it. Robin of Huntington was a loyal nobleman who rebelled against the unjust rule of King John.

Both are equally valid Robin Hood legends.

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 10:54 AM
There's at least two. Robin of Loxley was a commoner who either hunted deer or killed a man, becoming an outlaw because of it. Robin of Huntington was a loyal nobleman who rebelled against the unjust rule of King John.

From Wikipedia:


The early ballads give a number of possible historical clues, notably the Gest names the reigning king as "Edward," but the ballads cannot be assumed to be reliable in such details.

One thing I found somewhat ironic- there was a Robert, in the reign of King Edward I, who held a claim to the Earldom of Huntingdon- and was outlawed by the King, and went into hiding.

But not in England- in Scotland.

Robert The Bruce.

I thought it was rather interesting, anyway.

EDIT: that said, it's possible the Bruce family lost the actual title- Wikipedia says the title became extinct after the death of David I, King of Scotland and Earl of Huntingdon:

and that:


After the separation of the earldom from the crown of Scotland during the Bruce and Balliol disputes, it was conferred in 1336 on William Clinton.

Shademan
2010-11-20, 11:00 AM
and to be fair, King John was not all that bad

dsmiles
2010-11-20, 11:04 AM
and to be fair, King John was not all that bad

...but the spoon! He wanted to use a spoon! :smalltongue:

The Big Dice
2010-11-20, 11:19 AM
One thing I found somewhat ironic- there was a Robert, in the reign of King Edward I, who held a claim to the Earldom of Huntingdon- and was outlawed by the King, and went into hiding.
King Richard the Lionheart is traditionally held to be the king during the time of Robin Hood. And John was Richard's regent, who usurped the throne and then was forced to sign the Magna Carta. He's seen as the unjust ruler of the country at that time.

Oddly, there is no record of who the Sheriff of Nottingham might have been then.

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 11:24 AM
True. This tradition tended to be after the Gest though- one of the earliest ballads, that named the King as Edward.

(Also- Richard was dead and John the crowned King of England by the time Magna Carta was signed- the attempted usurpation of Richard's throne was during Richard's imprisonment abroad.

He is accused of usurping the throne from Arthur, his nephew, though Arthur wasn't crowned in England).

In one of the Robin Hood books I had, the King was Henry II, his queen was Eleanor of Aquitaine, and she is the one who helps Robin evade the wrath of the King- he went to the archery tournament in disguise, but the Sheriff recognizes him and tips off the King afterward.

After King Richard came to the throne in that version, one of the first things he did was visit Sherwood, meet Robin (in disguise) and decide to pardon Robin.

This was a rather atypical Robin novel though.


Oddly, there is no record of who the Sheriff of Nottingham might have been then.

No records- but a few guesses:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheriff_of_Nottingham

Though the office was a bit bigger than just Sheriff of Nottingham:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Sheriff_of_Nottinghamshire,_Derbyshire_and_th e_Royal_Forests

Shademan
2010-11-20, 12:39 PM
allthouh king Richard is always portrayed as loved by his subjects, the english didnt really care much about him, since he pretty much saw england as a tax gathering pit and barely ever even visited the place

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 12:40 PM
Historical Hero Upgrade (and Historical Villain Upgrade) may be at work here.

Shademan
2010-11-20, 12:50 PM
Historical Hero Upgrade (and Historical Villain Upgrade) may be at work here.

massively so, I should think

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 12:55 PM
All that said, when discussing John's virtues, and careful examination will show he did have some:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John,_King_of_England

one must be careful not to enter Draco In Leather Pants territory.

The same for entering Ron The Death Eater territory, when discussing the vices of some historical "hero" :smallamused:

(Yes, I know, I read TV Tropes too much :smallwink:)

The Big Dice
2010-11-20, 01:03 PM
All that said, when discussing John's virtues, and careful examination will show he did have some
And yet his actions are considered so heinous that no British royalty has had the name John since he did...

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 01:08 PM
And yet his actions are considered so heinous that no British royalty has had the name John since he did...

Maybe they considered it an unlucky name rather than a heinous one?

In Scotland, after John Balliol, at least one king with the birth name of John was crowned under a different name- Robert III, born John Stewart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_III

The Big Dice
2010-11-20, 01:34 PM
Maybe they considered it an unlucky name rather than a heinous one?

In Scotland, after John Balliol, at least one king with the birth name of John was crowned under a different name- Robert III, born John Stewart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_III

Bear in mind that Scotland was a separate kingdom until relatively recently. Only in 1707 did Scotland and England come under the same monarch.

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 01:38 PM
True- just pointing out that Scotland had a similar policy on "John" as a royal name, but possibly for a different reason.

Who knows, it might be the same reason, but different Johns that inspired it?

Zevox
2010-11-20, 02:18 PM
Avatar: The Last Airbender characters:

Aang is Chaotic Good. Free-spirited and good-natured, even pseudo-pacifistic.

Katara is Neutral Good. She displays both some lawful and some chaotic tendencies, but is in any event fundamentally good, always trying to help others when she can.

Sokka... I'm having a bit of a hard time with. He's clearly neither lawful nor evil, but I could see any one of the other four alignments for him. Probably drifting more towards good by the end of the series in any event.

Toph is chaotic neutral. "Woohoo - lets break some rules!" - Need I say more?

Zuko is weird, as you could probably assign him a different alignment per season. Season 1 he'd be lawful evil or neutral. Season 2 I could see true neutral or even chaotic neutral. Season 3 he moves into something good, probably neutral good.

Iroh is lawful good, and probably the most awesome example of that alignment ever.

Azula is lawful evil - thoroughly disciplined, manipulative, controlling others through fear, highly efficient and cruel. That may change after her mental breakdown, but we see too little of the results of that to say what it may change to.

Ozai is lawful evil, surprise surprise. Like father, like daughter with those two.

Zevox

kyoryu
2010-11-20, 02:42 PM
The obvious question then: what if he was right? What if it really was the only way to create detant? What if without his actions a nuclear war would have started in a few years, killing most of the population of the earth? What if he indeed saved billions?

If so, does he suddenly become good again?


I prefer more of a rights-based approach to alignment. Actions that violate the rights of another (except in defense) are Evil. Acts are self-serving without violating rights are Neutral. Acts which are done at a personal cost, but which assist another, are good.

By that token, Ozy's acts (at least) are Evil. Killing millions is clearly a violation of their rights, and doubtless a good percentage of those people were truly innocent, so self-defense really can't be claimed.

The Ozy question really boils down to, though, whether you consider the Well-Intentioned Extremist to be Good or Evil. I personally believe that it's an extremely powerful Evil archetype.

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 02:59 PM
The Ozy question really boils down to, though, whether you consider the Well-Intentioned Extremist to be Good or Evil. I personally believe that it's an extremely powerful Evil archetype.

I'd allow a certain amount of variation- a Well Intentioned Extremist at the start of his career down the Dark Path, who is committing their first "Evil acts for the Greater Good" can be Good-

as they progress, they slip to Neutral, and eventually, even if they never lose sight of their goal (the wellbeing of other people) they finally become Evil.

Zonugal
2010-11-20, 03:56 PM
The obvious question then: what if he was right? What if it really was the only way to create detant? What if without his actions a nuclear war would have started in a few years, killing most of the population of the earth? What if he indeed saved billions?

If so, does he suddenly become good again?

Even if his action saved humanity. Even if it was the only choice to be made it was still a vile act. The problem here, actually the ethical problem set within Watchmen is one of duty-based ethics versus utilitarian ethics.

Perhaps we have to move from this forced illusion that there can only be a good result or bad result. There can be, and pretty often are, tragedies as a result of actions. Watchmen is a tragic story.

Calmar
2010-11-20, 04:04 PM
Star Trek - The Next Generation. Season I:

Jean-Luc Picard: LG
William T. Riker: LG
Geordie LaForge: LG
Worf: LG
Beverly Crusher: LG
Natasha Yar: LG
Data: LG
The annoying super smart kid: LG

:smalltongue:

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 04:06 PM
Given the number of times Beverley moans about the Prime Directive stopping them from doing "the right thing" she might be closer to NG.

Callista
2010-11-20, 04:12 PM
Star Trek - The Next Generation. Season I:

Jean-Luc Picard: LG
William T. Riker: LG
Geordie LaForge: LG
Worf: LG
Beverly Crusher: LG
Natasha Yar: LG
Data: LG
The annoying super smart kid: LG

:smalltongue:Oh, come on, don't be silly.
Riker is CG, Geordi is NG, Worf is NG, Beverly is NG, Tasha is CG, and Data is... yeah, LG. Picard is LG, as you said. They're all professionals, and they all do play by the rules; but you have to remember that in their world the rules are generally useful things. They're living in a LG, strong Good Federation, and they're strong Good themselves. Of course they wouldn't be going against the rules all that much!

Wesley doesn't have an alignment; he's too much of a Mary Sue to have one, and Mary Sues aren't sentient. They're like... twisted plot aberrations, or something. Too unrealistic to actually be people.

The original series has a nice little trio of CG Kirk, NG McCoy, and LG Spock.

Calmar
2010-11-20, 04:35 PM
Oh, come on, don't be silly.
Riker is CG, Geordi is NG, Worf is NG, Beverly is NG, Tasha is CG, and Data is... yeah, LG. Picard is LG, as you said. They're all professionals, and they all do play by the rules; but you have to remember that in their world the rules are generally useful things. They're living in a LG, strong Good Federation, and they're strong Good themselves. Of course they wouldn't be going against the rules all that much!
Towards the end of the series, when they have developed into deep and interesting characters, you're definitely right. But in the beginning they're rather stiff and to me act by the book whether in service or off-duty.


The original series has a nice little trio of CG Kirk, NG McCoy, and LG Spock.
I agree!

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 04:37 PM
The original series has a nice little trio of CG Kirk, NG McCoy, and LG Spock.

Which is kind of ironic, considering Kirk is often the one trying to find a Third Way between McCoy and Spock's suggestions:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheKirk

Callista
2010-11-20, 04:42 PM
I know, isn't it? It just goes to show you that there's more to personality than just alignment.

Kirk's flexibility and tendency toward lateral thinking is classic Chaotic, though.

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 04:44 PM
Yup. Being Chaotic doesn't mean you have to be opposed to your most Lawful fellow officer- you can listen to them- and even take their advice on occasion.

dsmiles
2010-11-20, 04:45 PM
The original series has a nice little trio of CG Kirk, NG McCoy, and LG Spock.I happen to disagree. Kirk was not Chaotic Good...he was Chaotic AWESOME!!! :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 04:55 PM
While Chaotic Awesome wasn't on the list of alignments Mr Welsh was told "Do Not Exist", these were:

122. The paladin's alignment is not Lawful Anal.
651. My alignment is not Sarcastic Good.
742. Apparently Chaotic Angry and Neutral Hungry aren't real alignments either.

dsmiles
2010-11-20, 06:15 PM
In the spirit of what I am currently watching:

Ferris: Solidly Chaotic Good.
Cameron: Neutral
Sloane: Neutral Good
Ferris' Parents: Neutral Good
Ferris' Sister: Lawful Neutral
Rooney: Lawful Neutral
Rooney's Secretary: Neutral Ditzy

JaronK
2010-11-20, 06:48 PM
Even if his action saved humanity. Even if it was the only choice to be made it was still a vile act. The problem here, actually the ethical problem set within Watchmen is one of duty-based ethics versus utilitarian ethics.

Wow. See, I'd call a man evil if he had the chance to kill off 100,000 of his own people to save humanity and chose not to, and there was no other way to do it, and then humanity died. His unwillingness to get his hands dirty doomed billions.

Consider the case of a military soldier ordering his men to rescue 1000 refuges. In the ensuing fight, 20 refuges die as well as 30 soldiers. The remaining 980 refuges live because of this action (they would have died in perhaps a week). This in your mind is an evil act, because he sacrificed a few to save many? You must think every commander in the world is evil.

JaronK

hamishspence
2010-11-20, 06:59 PM
Consider the case of a military soldier ordering his men to rescue 1000 refuges. In the ensuing fight, 20 refuges die as well as 30 soldiers. The remaining 980 refuges live because of this action (they would have died in perhaps a week). This in your mind is an evil act, because he sacrificed a few to save many?

This is a different thing- since the man is not trying to kill the refugees, or the soldiers- the fact that they die as a result of his order, is a very different thing from "he murdered them".

Even if he knew that the probabilities were such that some soldiers and refugees would be expected to die in the process.

It still doesn't mean he is "killing off" soldiers and refugees.

There can be a difference between "sacrifice" and "murder".

Zonugal
2010-11-20, 07:28 PM
Wow. See, I'd call a man evil if he had the chance to kill off 100,000 of his own people to save humanity and chose not to, and there was no other way to do it, and then humanity died. His unwillingness to get his hands dirty doomed billions.

You seem to be trying to create absolutes that are dependent on the result rather than the action itself. This leads to a dangerous mentality of the end justifying the means. The individual in your example has several options but all of them lead to tragedy. Let us say Mr. A kills the 100,000 to save humanity and has thus used possible innocents as a means they did not willing consent. This is not morally praise-worthy and imparts a vileness onto such an individual for their actions. They may look towards the saving of humanity as a source of relief or attempt to throw off the shackles of moral responsibility but they have still performed a vile act.

On the other hand you have Mr. B who would not kill 100,000 individuals and thus forsake humanity to possible destruction. That one individual is morally praise-worthy for they have in fact not corrupted themselves with the situation. But they have to live with as much guilt and sadness in their decision as the Mr. A (although with a different means to attempt to relieve guilt).

So to summarize you present a situation which leads to two decisions:

You murder 100,000 innocents to save humanity and in the process become a monster for your vile act.
You murder no one thus forsaking humanity to destruction and in the process reconstitute your moral responsibility.


You have presented a situation with no possible positive after-affects, you have presented a tragic situation which will only end in a tragic manner.


Consider the case of a military soldier ordering his men to rescue 1000 refuges. In the ensuing fight, 20 refuges die as well as 30 soldiers. The remaining 980 refuges live because of this action (they would have died in perhaps a week). This in your mind is an evil act, because he sacrificed a few to save many? You must think every commander in the world is evil.

JaronK

You are perhaps attempting to muddy the water by using distinctly different situations. The act of attempting a rescue is morally praise-worthy as it is one that favors life. In your vague example of a military we do not know if these soldiers were drafted or agreed to serve so issues of consent are hard to initially say but there is a light. If the soldiers did not agree with plan they could have not done it (and faced the consequences of said action).

Move farther into your example you attempt to place the deaths of refuges in the hands of the commanding solider. Did he murder them? If not than he is still morally praise-worthy because he was attempting to preserve life within his actions. The deaths of the refuges are a tragedy but are not the direct affect of his actions.

Kyuu Himura
2010-11-20, 07:36 PM
I like Rurouni Kenshin:

http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/20-163259L/6315/jpg/11/2010/img6/glowfoto


Also, some Marvel:

LG: Daredevil (pre-Shadowland), has a code of conduct, seeks to dispense justice, has gone against big bads and some heroes for his vision of justice (most notably Frank Castle)

NG: Spidey, just doing the right thing, went as far as doctoring pics to help JJ Jameson. Once, just once.

CG: Luke Cage, in words of Nick Fury "Does he use questionable methods?? Yes. Does he get results? Yes". Luke can get in many troubles and was one of the fiercest opposers of the Superhuman Registration Act. That being said, Luke is a good guy like few.

LN: Wolverine, he follows a code of honor and puts great value on loyalty, but he can cross lines, go places, there's nothing this guy wouldn't do if he thinks he has to do it. Too ruthless for good. Too compassionate for evil.

NN: Spider Woman. REALLY NOW, WHO'S SIDE ARE YOU IN??!!!

CN: Fat Cobra (from the pages of Immortal Iron Fist). Loves doing girls, loves fighting, loves eating, hates villains, but really, he's not what you call a hero, this guy has been too much time avoiding ANY responsability.

LE: Norman Osborn (See Dark Reign and Siege), and for those who know their Ghost Rider, Zadkiel and Mephisto.

NE: Dr Octopus, bad, really bad, but he doesn't seem to manifest any urges of domination and doesn't take pleasure on mindless destruction.

CE: Daken, Bullseye, someone else who is just completely jack**** insane and evil.

Callista
2010-11-20, 11:18 PM
This is a different thing- since the man is not trying to kill the refugees, or the soldiers- the fact that they die as a result of his order, is a very different thing from "he murdered them".

Even if he knew that the probabilities were such that some soldiers and refugees would be expected to die in the process.

It still doesn't mean he is "killing off" soldiers and refugees.

There can be a difference between "sacrifice" and "murder".I think that the distinction you are getting stuck on is the idea of active versus passive decisions. If you passively let someone die, then that is, to you, a different thing than if you kill that person yourself.

What a lot of us are saying is that it isn't different--that actively killing people is the same thing as passively letting them die, or indirectly letting them die.

JaronK
2010-11-21, 12:23 AM
I think the refugee thing is a perfect analogy... they'll die (eventually) if they stay where they are, but to rescue them requires an action that will almost certainly result in the deaths of some (but the rest will live as a result). I'd call that rescue both good and brave... even if the bombs you dropped in the rescue would necessarily cause some refugee deaths.

What Ozy did is the same thing, at least in his mind. He had to sacrifice some of his people to do it, but had he not the whole group would have died. That's very good intentions. He even showed great remorse that he caused such casualties.

JaronK

Zonugal
2010-11-21, 01:49 AM
What Ozy did is the same thing, at least in his mind. He had to sacrifice some of his people to do it, but had he not the whole group would have died. That's very good intentions. He even showed great remorse that he caused such casualties.

JaronK

Good intentions don't outweigh actions by the mere virtue that actions hold greater consequences and responsibilities. When using intent in this fashion you are simply trying to cover up the moral responsibility with the desired hope.

Let us just go over Ozy's intention as well as his actions.

Intention: To save humanity, as working under the assumption that the world was going to destroy itself.
Actions: Working completely on his own within a God-like superiority he infected innocents with cancer, killed his trusted scientific assistants, assassinated anyone who had any chance of revealing his plot and murdered millions.

The point of all of this is to illustrate that while Ozy may have saved humanity (if only temporary) he had to commit several insidious and vile acts. He is not a good man as his actions condemn him into villainy.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-11-21, 01:50 AM
The obvious question then: what if he was right? What if it really was the only way to create detant? What if without his actions a nuclear war would have started in a few years, killing most of the population of the earth? What if he indeed saved billions?

If so, does he suddenly become good again?

This is the problem with saying your alignment is determined by the consequences of your actions. Your alignment ends up shifting based solely on events outside your control. You being incorrect in an assumption could suddenly swap your alignment. And saying that someone can be evil because they were willing to break a few eggs when making an omelet doesn't work either... a man who sacrifices his only son in a war to save his village ends up looking evil, while the man who saves his son and runs away, thus dooming the village, looks good.

This is why intent and motivation has to be the determining factor for your alignment... even if you do wrong, even if you make mistakes, your alignment must depend on what you wanted to do and why you did what you did... not the results. Of course, this means it's quite possible to have a Lawful Good character be the enemy in a campaign... but that's a lot more interesting too.

JaronKNo one believes people should be judged by unintended consequences, but a utilitarian would blame a well intentioned extremist for missing an obvious hole in his plan. For instance, we can all dislike the Operative in Serenity, not because he's an "ends justify the means" kind of guy, but because his ends are terrible and he's too zealous to see it until the end. That said, someone like Ozy can't be blamed within the utilitarian moral framework, because he made the proper calculation.

Edit: And life's important decisions are a series of trade-offs. Does that mean they're all tragic? Proper deontologists either sacrifice their morality, doom everyone, or get themselves killed like Rorschach.

An aside... The ends justifying the means is constantly used as a negative trope. So when people say "actually let's talk about a rights-based/deontological approach," they're "shifting" the discussion to where it almost always is anyway. Why people might think this way is a discussion for a different forum, let alone thread.

Sinfonian
2010-11-21, 02:03 AM
In the spirit of what I am currently watching:

Ferris: Solidly Chaotic Good.
Dr. Insano would like a word with you. (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/04/01/ferris-buellers-day-off-review/) I understand that it was a joke review, but I'll be damned if he doesn't make a pretty convincing case for Ferris being non-good. I'd say he's much more Chaotic Neutral (or if you really don't want to ascribe innocuous motivations, Chaotic Evil).

busterswd
2010-11-21, 02:41 AM
For funzies:
Harry Potter

Hermione (LG): Champions causes for the weak, fights evil, model rule follower.

Harry (NG): TRIES to follow rules, but ignores them when he has to, and clearly on the side of good.

Dumbledore (CG): Follows the beat of his own drummer for the greater good. Has his own agenda but means well.

Percy Weasley (LN): The rules must be followed at all costs.

Centaurs (TN): The world of the wizards must be left to their own devices, whether for good or for evil.

Grawp (CN): GRAWP HUNGRY. GRAWP BORED. WHERE HAGGER?

Umbridge (LE): Classic totalitarian regime example whose concern for keeping order and enforcing rules as a means to her own ends is far more important than any other sentient beings' welfare.

Lucius Malfoy (NE): 100% aware he's not working for the good guys, but doesn't care. Will follow the letter of the law to inflict evil, or undermine it in secret if he has to, whichever way serves his purposes better.

Voldemort (CE): Does what he wants, when he wants, and doesn't care who he hurts. Makes his own rules (and breaks them when he pleases).

Note there are exceptions to their alignments (Harry can be a selfish little bastard sometimes, Hermione breaks the rules occasionally, Percy has a change of heart near the end) but overall their personalities reflect one primary alignment.

Sinfonian
2010-11-21, 03:54 AM
Bellatrix Lestrange (LE): Insane, yes, but also incredibly loyal. Would not dream of lying or being untrue to Voldemort.
I agreed with all of them but this one. Nothing about her character really said that she acted in any way that was unrelated with her obsession (for the lack of a better word) for Voldemort. I think that it is a kind of devotion that is itself a part of her psychosis, rather than the way she treats all people. In short, no need to be lawful just because she is loyal to one person (and really only that one person).

busterswd
2010-11-21, 04:56 AM
I agreed with all of them but this one. Nothing about her character really said that she acted in any way that was unrelated with her obsession (for the lack of a better word) for Voldemort. I think that it is a kind of devotion that is itself a part of her psychosis, rather than the way she treats all people. In short, no need to be lawful just because she is loyal to one person (and really only that one person).

Honestly, I included her because I was having trouble coming up with a Lawful Evil example. I would include Bellatrix there on the grounds that even a Lawful Person would not obey a set of laws they did not recognize as legitimate, and to her, Voldemort's word was the law of the world. Stretching it a bit, I suppose, since she is a little loopy.

Possibly Umbridge would be a better example; obsessed with rules and her orders to the point where she starts doing some really nasty things, though I'd say she was evil more in terms of actions committed than actual nature, and that's territory I tried to avoid (Snape, for example, would be an interesting can of worms). Then again, she did display a complete disregard for the well being and dignity of other people, so that goes a decent length on the "evil" scale.

ThunderCat
2010-11-21, 08:00 AM
Possibly Umbridge would be a better example; obsessed with rules and her orders to the point where she starts doing some really nasty things, though I'd say she was evil more in terms of actions committed than actual nature, and that's territory I tried to avoid (Snape, for example, would be an interesting can of worms). Then again, she did display a complete disregard for the well being and dignity of other people, so that goes a decent length on the "evil" scale.I think Umbridge is an excellent example. Evil doesn't have to come in the 'takeover/destroy the world' variety, and even with the off chance that she was honestly trying to do good while jeopardising the school and the whole wizarding world, she was abusing children to do it.

dsmiles
2010-11-21, 08:39 AM
Dr. Insano would like a word with you. (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/04/01/ferris-buellers-day-off-review/) I understand that it was a joke review, but I'll be damned if he doesn't make a pretty convincing case for Ferris being non-good. I'd say he's much more Chaotic Neutral (or if you really don't want to ascribe innocuous motivations, Chaotic Evil).

I dunno. He had really good intentions (cheer up Cameron) that he admits to later in the movie. His actions are definitely chaotic, but he didn't cause any harm, and his intent was definitely on the good site of the line.

megabyter5
2010-11-21, 01:07 PM
As a rule, when people start arguing over a characters alignment, unless one argument is completely without merit, I mark them as True Neutral until they act more consistently. The DMG explicitly mentions that Indecisiveness Indicates Neutrality.

Also, IMHO, I would say that the philosophy of the Sith is to corrupt a potential apprentice to Chaotic Evil, then mold their broken psyche into Neutral Evil and supreme devotion to the Dark Side.

opticalshadow
2010-11-21, 03:10 PM
So reading over the 'how do you explain alignment to a noob' thread. I most often use popular culture, that is movies, TV shows, books and even history to give examples of each alignment. This is quite common, but I wonder what alignment everyone would give to everyone? And the reasons and proof.

Important Note-If you give the alignment of a character, say Batman, who has been around forever you need to be clear what movie, show, or issue you are talking about. Such a character has been many alignments, from time to time over the decades.

For example: Captain America(For the entire Mark Grunewald run) Lawful good-Cap almost never lied, cheated or stole..and the times he did you could count on one hand. He followed the laws of the land, almost to the letter. He would go to great lengths to avoid killing anyone, but was more then willing to kill to save lives


So what alignments does everyone give all the fictional characters out there?

captian america was chaotic good, he followed what was right more then the law, and did anything he could to uphold what was right, the easiest example of this is the cival war series, he broke the law totally, but it was for what was right.

hamishspence
2010-11-21, 03:14 PM
What Ozy did is the same thing, at least in his mind. He had to sacrifice some of his people to do it, but had he not the whole group would have died.

What he was doing, was killing millions of people, but the "to save the rest" is not direct, but indirect.

The whole of his scheme, rests on the hope, that as a result, the two governments will be rational, recognize the "common threat" and change their focus from each other, to that threat (Aliens in the comic, Manhattan in the movie).

Sounds good- except, the reason the got into this position in the first place, was irrationality. Who's to say his judgement is realistic? And how long become one side assumes the other is in fact in league with the "common threat"?

His action is one that might stave off disaster- but it doesn't actually directly do so. And it doesn't affect the basic issues driving both sides.

Now a much more direct case where "if a few hadn't died, the whole group would have" was in the Simon R. Green short story Mistworld, in the compilation Deathstalker Prelude.

Captain Starlight has rescued some refugees from the scorching of the planet Tannim by the Imperial Fleet, & brought them to the rebel planet Mistworld:

"How many refugees have you brought us, Captain?"
"There were fifteen thousand. Most are dead now."
"What happened?" asked Topaz.
"I killed them." said Captain Starlight.
.....
"Tannim was already under attack when I raised ship," said Starlight, moving slowly along the narrow walkway, which now showed itself to be set high up on the cargo bay wall. Steel and Topaz followed close behind him. Within the nearest cylinders, they could just make out a few of the refugees, floating like shadows in ice.

"The Imperial Fleet was dropping out of hyperspace in its hundreds. Refugee ships were being blasted out of the sky all around me. The Balefire was under attack, and my shields were giving out. I needed more power, so I took it from the sleep cylinder support systems. I had no choice."

Steel frowned thoughtfully. Even with the extra power, the Balefire shouldn't have survived long enough to drop into hyperspace. He shrugged; maybe she just got lucky. It happened. Then the significance of what Starlight had said came home to him, and he looked at the Captain of the Balefire with a slow horror.

"How much power did you take from the cylinders, Captain? How much?"

Starlight leaned out over the walkway's reinforced barrier, and tried for a life support readout on the nearest sleep cylinder. None of the lights came on. Starlight dropped his hand, and turned back to face Steel and Topaz.

"The ship needed the power. I couldn't return it until the Balefire was safely into hyper. By then it was too late."
"How many?" asked Topaz. "How many of your refugees survived the power loss?"

"Two hundred and ten," said Captain Starlight softly, bitterly. "Out of fifteen thousand, two hundred and ten."

This is a much more direct case, with a much more certain answer- if he hadn't taken that action, which led to their deaths, the whole lot would have died.

Ozymandias's, is much less certain, and there is much more hubris on his part.

JaronK
2010-11-21, 03:22 PM
No one believes people should be judged by unintended consequences, but a utilitarian would blame a well intentioned extremist for missing an obvious hole in his plan.

Does having a hole in your plan make you evil, or just incorrect? Furthermore, remember that we don't know whether Ozy was correct. This world had been drastically changed by the "good guys" for years. Nixon was still president, we had won in Vietnam, etc. Was Dr Manhattan evil because he killed all those Vietnamese, terrifying their people into submission? Either way, as far as we know the whole thing meant the world was afraid of the United States, and the US thought it couldn't lose. With Dr Manhattan liable to leave at any moment, that was a recipe for nuclear war at any moment. So again, we don't know Ozy was wrong.

So what if there was no hole in his plan? What if the detant created by his plan saved the world? Is he evil then? Hamish's example is rather perfect, as long as we also remember that Ozy was the smartest man in the world, who knew his world better than we, the readers, did. Perhaps that was the only option.


For instance, we can all dislike the Operative in Serenity, not because he's an "ends justify the means" kind of guy, but because his ends are terrible and he's too zealous to see it until the end. That said, someone like Ozy can't be blamed within the utilitarian moral framework, because he made the proper calculation.

I'd call the operative Lawful Neutral. He cared only about the law, above all other things... even above his own morality. This is why the ending happened the way it did... he actually thought of himself as a good guy for following the law, even if he knew his actions were monstrous. The moment he realized his actions were not doing something good, he flipped. He just wanted to serve something greater than himself, and when he found out it wasn't greater, he dropped it like a rock.

As for "the ends justify the means" I've never thought of that as evil... it's just that you have to look at all the ends. Murder 1,000 people to get something done, and you've got a population that's afraid 1,000 people could get murdered at any moment. So, you have to be careful. But if I steal your car, use it to go save your friend's life, then return it with an apology note and a full tank of gas... I think the ends probably justified the means there.

JaronK

hamishspence
2010-11-21, 03:26 PM
I'd call the operative Lawful Neutral. He cared only about the law, above all other things... even above his own morality. This is why the ending happened the way it did... he actually thought of himself as a good guy for following the law, even if he knew his actions were monstrous.

"I'm a monster. There's no place for me in that world." is thinking of himself as a "good guy"?

I don't think so. I think The Operative fits very neatly into various Evil Archetypes in Champions of Ruin- he knows not just that what he does is evil, but that he is a monster- but he still figures it will all be For The Greater Good.

What makes Ozymandias different from The Operative, is that he doesn't have that realization that doing monstrous things eventually turns you into a monster.


Hamish's example is rather perfect, as long as we also remember that Ozy was the smartest man in the world, who knew his world better than we, the readers, did. Perhaps that was the only option.


It's worth remembering, that sometimes smart people, can be very, very foolish. And, as Dumbledore points out:

"Being (forgive me) rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."

JaronK
2010-11-21, 03:50 PM
"I'm a monster. There's no place for me in that world." is thinking of himself as a "good guy"?

Yes. But self sacrificing. He was very clear... what he was doing was for good.


I don't think so. I think The Operative fits very neatly into various Evil Archetypes in Champions of Ruin- he knows not just that what he does is evil, but that he is a monster- but he still figures it will all be For The Greater Good.

If all your actions are for the greater good, doesn't that make you good aligned? Even if you damn yourself in the process, heck, it's almost extra good if you're doing all this for a greater good you know you won't share. In his heart, he believed he was doing good, even though he knew he would have no place in what he was making.


It's worth remembering, that sometimes smart people, can be very, very foolish. And, as Dumbledore points out:

"Being (forgive me) rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."

Sure, and Dumbledore would know. But again, we're assuming Ozy made a mistake. Is he still evil if he didn't?

JaronK

true_shinken
2010-11-21, 03:54 PM
If all your actions are for the greater good, doesn't that make you good aligned?
Hell no! :smalleek:

Zonugal
2010-11-21, 03:57 PM
So again, we don't know Ozy was wrong.

So what if there was no hole in his plan? What if the detant created by his plan saved the world? Is he evil then?

JaronK

JaronK, the point we are trying to constitute is that it does not matter if Ozy was right. It does not matter if his plan saved the world. He performed monstrous acts and thus became a monster. This isn't to say that horrible people can't do good things but that doesn't change them into good people if they still rely on horrible means.

hamishspence
2010-11-21, 03:58 PM
Yes. But self sacrificing. He was very clear... what he was doing was for good.

Which are not incompatible with an Evil Alignment. A person can do evil- and be evil- and know they are evil- and still believe that all they do is necessary for the good of the group.

In Races of The Dragon, Kobolds are exceptionally self-sacrificing- when the good of a kobold community is at stake. They're still Usually Lawful Evil.


If all your actions are for the greater good, doesn't that make you good aligned? Even if you damn yourself in the process, heck, it's almost extra good if you're doing all this for a greater good you know you won't share.

If you go by Champions of Ruin, that's not how it works. Deeds tend to override intentions- so enough Evil deeds (murders) can make for an Evil alignment, however Good the reason for doing so might be.

In a non-D&D setting, maybe The Operative, or Ozymandias, might have alignments (or nearest equivalent) that the setting calls by complimentary names similar to "Good".

But not in D&D terms.

MightyTim
2010-11-21, 04:02 PM
If all your actions are for the greater good, doesn't that make you good aligned? Even if you damn yourself in the process, heck, it's almost extra good if you're doing all this for a greater good you know you won't share. In his heart, he believed he was doing good, even though he knew he would have no place in what he was making.

JaronK

I'm not a philosophy major, but I think this is still an open question. Utilitarianism vs Kant's Categorical Imperative. Is the correct course of action the one that causes the best possible situation for the most people, or are there actions which aren't forgivable under any circumstances?

Zonugal
2010-11-21, 04:09 PM
I'm not a philosophy major, but I think this is still an open question. Utilitarianism vs Kant's Categorical Imperative. Is the correct course of action the one that causes the best possible situation for the most people, or are there actions which aren't forgivable under any circumstances?

As a philosophy major I can say that is pretty much the divide between Utilitarianism and Deontology. The actions which aren't forgivalbe under any circumstances really falls into Kant's concept of universalizing maxims and such.

But in regards to utility I have a deep feeling that Mills and Bentham, the fathers of utilitarianism, would still not approve of Ozy's actions as there were probably more diplomatic or peaceful measures that could have been performed.

hamishspence
2010-11-21, 04:15 PM
As a philosophy major I can say that is pretty much the divide between Utilitarianism and Deontology. The actions which aren't forgivable under any circumstances really falls into Kant's concept of universalizing maxims and such.

It's worth remembering that in D&D "Always Evil" acts can be pretty mild- and doing them can be compatible with a Neutral alignment.

Heroes of Horror calls this "flexible Neutral" where the mild evil acts done in order to help others, don't shift the character into Evil alignment.

It's the more strongly Evil acts, that you want to watch out for.

Those are the acts which Champions of Ruin implies indicate an Evil alignment when done a lot, regardless of intentions.

Use Rebuke Undead a thousand times, cast an [Evil] spell many times- these are minor evil acts, not enough to move an otherwise heroic character, from Neutral to Evil.

Murder three million people though....

Avilan the Grey
2010-11-21, 04:28 PM
Yes. But self sacrificing. He was very clear... what he was doing was for good.

The Operative is a Complete Monster, and self-professed Evil. He is Neutral Evil. Or rather Neutral EVIL.

Urpriest
2010-11-21, 04:35 PM
The Operative is a Complete Monster, and self-professed Evil. He is Neutral Evil. Or rather Neutral EVIL.

Not Neutral. The man's pretty much the archetype of Law. Whatever he is he's Lawful.

The bounty hunter on the other hand is a Chaotic Affable Evil. That guy was fun.

hamishspence
2010-11-21, 04:36 PM
The Operative is a Complete Monster,

It's not currently on his character sheet on the Firefly characters page:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Firefly

Currently, his more notable tropes are:

Affably Evil, Knight Templar, Necessarily Evil, The Unfettered, and Utopia Justifies the Means.

There are better candidates for Complete Monster in the Firefly setting. Adelai Niska and Jubal Early spring to mind.

EDIT: Swordsaged in the case of Jubal Early:

The bounty hunter on the other hand is a Chaotic Affable Evil. That guy was fun.

Zonugal
2010-11-21, 04:45 PM
I think a really superb version of an evil character that is shown in a rather good light is that of V from V for Vendetta.

hamishspence
2010-11-21, 04:53 PM
V is indeed shown in a good light.

To the extent that some people say the comic version of V is CN with CE tendencies, and the movie version of V is CG with CN tendencies.

Even on TV Tropes, his pic has appeared on both CG and CN motivational posters.

Callista
2010-11-21, 04:54 PM
It's worth remembering that in D&D "Always Evil" acts can be pretty mild- and doing them can be compatible with a Neutral alignment.

Heroes of Horror calls this "flexible Neutral" where the mild evil acts done in order to help others, don't shift the character into Evil alignment.Yeah, I wish people would remember that neutral people do commit mildly evil and mildly good acts all the time. For example, a neutral-aligned person in the real world might show favoritism among his children, abuse a waitress, or blame an error at work on a vulnerable employee. Those are all evil, but they're so mildly evil that they're not going to shift his alignment much--especially since he's probably also doing things like giving $5 to the guy collecting for the cancer charity, helping his neighbor move a couch, or doing first aid and getting an ambulance when a stranger falls down the stairs and breaks an arm. Your basic neutral fellow probably wouldn't donate a kidney to a stranger or make a living breaking kneecaps for the Mafia, but the milder stuff is common. Alignment's not a straitjacket.

Zonugal
2010-11-21, 05:01 PM
Yeah, I wish people would remember that neutral people do commit mildly evil and mildly good acts all the time. For example, a neutral-aligned person in the real world might show favoritism among his children, abuse a waitress, or blame an error at work on a vulnerable employee. Those are all evil, but they're so mildly evil that they're not going to shift his alignment much--especially since he's probably also doing things like giving $5 to the guy collecting for the cancer charity, helping his neighbor move a couch, or doing first aid and getting an ambulance when a stranger falls down the stairs and breaks an arm. Your basic neutral fellow probably wouldn't donate a kidney to a stranger or make a living breaking kneecaps for the Mafia, but the milder stuff is common. Alignment's not a straitjacket.

Wait, how is showing favoritism to your children evil?

hamishspence
2010-11-21, 05:02 PM
Yeah, I wish people would remember that neutral people do commit mildly evil and mildly good acts all the time.

That said, in FC2 it's:

Most mortals are only weakly aligned. They go about their daily business without thinking too much about the big issues, and they rarely take actions dramatic enough to register as good, evil, lawful, or chaotic.

That said, "rarely" is a very subjective word- it may only be rarely with respect to the number of nonaligned acts they commit.

The neutral character may still commit Evil (but only just) acts every day- and yet those acts still qualify as "rare" relative to the rest of their acts.


Wait, how is showing favoritism to your children evil?

Favouritism among your children can be an example of injustice- when the favoured child is always believed, and the "non-favored" child punished for the misdeeds of the favoured child, this can be unjust and even oppressive.

Zonugal
2010-11-21, 05:15 PM
Favouritism among your children can be an example of injustice- when the favoured child is always believed, and the "non-favored" child punished for the misdeeds of the favoured child, this can be unjust and even oppressive.

Oh okay, I misread the previous quote and thought it was suggesting favoritism for your children among other children was evil.

hamishspence
2010-11-21, 05:19 PM
Now, robbing other children to feed yours, might qualify as enough of an "infringement of the rights of others" to cross the line into Evil Deed, even in a crisis situation.

But favoritism short of that, might not cross the line.

Still, cheating is on the list of typically evil acts in BoVD, and a teacher who teaches their child along with many others, and shows favoritism so much they will cheat on their child's behalf, might be doing (mildly) Evil acts.

JaronK
2010-11-21, 05:26 PM
JaronK, the point we are trying to constitute is that it does not matter if Ozy was right. It does not matter if his plan saved the world. He performed monstrous acts and thus became a monster. This isn't to say that horrible people can't do good things but that doesn't change them into good people if they still rely on horrible means.

Right, and I find that position rather nuts.

If one man chooses to let himself feel better by not committing monstrous acts, and thus knowingly dooms billions, I would say that man is a monster.

If one man chooses to perform monstrous acts, and feels horrible guilt for it, but as a result knowingly saves billions of lives, I would say that man is a tragic hero.

In the end, the two men had to chose between directly killing thousands and indirectly killing billions. Which choice makes you a monster?

JaronK

true_shinken
2010-11-21, 05:31 PM
Right, and I find that position rather nuts.
While I believe most would agree with you, I believe we are discussing D&D alignment here, right? And that's not how it works in D&D.

JaronK
2010-11-21, 05:47 PM
Eh, D&D alignments themselves are completely random and seem to vary by author. I find it far more useful to pick one definition and say "okay, this is what it is in this game" than try to work together all the myriad definitions in the various books.

JaronK

true_shinken
2010-11-21, 05:59 PM
Eh, D&D alignments themselves are completely random and seem to vary by author. I find it far more useful to pick one definition and say "okay, this is what it is in this game" than try to work together all the myriad definitions in the various books.

JaronK

Granted, but without a common ground we can't discuss it here in the forums.

Urpriest
2010-11-21, 06:44 PM
One point to the whole utilitarianism/deontology kerfuffle:

Both sides are missing the point. Deontology and Utilitarianism both categorize acts as right or wrong. And D&D does indeed sometimes categorize acts as good or evil...but only as a tool for classifying people. In D&D, Good and Evil are primarily attributes of sentient beings. As such, D&D operates on some sort of Virtue ethics, and not Utilitarianism or Deontology. I'm surprised the philosophy major who commented on this thread didn't pick up on that.

Zonugal
2010-11-21, 06:59 PM
One point to the whole utilitarianism/deontology kerfuffle:

Both sides are missing the point. Deontology and Utilitarianism both categorize acts as right or wrong. And D&D does indeed sometimes categorize acts as good or evil...but only as a tool for classifying people. In D&D, Good and Evil are primarily attributes of sentient beings. As such, D&D operates on some sort of Virtue ethics, and not Utilitarianism or Deontology. I'm surprised the philosophy major who commented on this thread didn't pick up on that.

To concede my own point my knowledge concerning Nicomachean ethics is very rusty. I focused on taking a deontological stance because it happens to be my favorite and I feel it ends up being a lot more suited to adventurers (and their duties) than that of utilitarianism.

But you bring up a good point of virtue ethics which would probably look towards Ozy in not the best of light either.

DontEatRawHagis
2010-11-21, 07:17 PM
The Doctor from Doctor Who is always in between Chaotic/Neutral and Good/Neutral. Except for the Tenth Doctor, who has the philosophy of no second chances, in my book thats Lawful Neutral.

Ormur
2010-11-22, 01:46 AM
I haven't followed the debate on Ozy much but the biggest flaw in my view with calling his actions good is that it hinges on something we can't know (and I think the graphic novel is intentionally ambiguous on this point). Is he evil if things could have been fixed by other means but good if they couldn't? If that particular interpretation of utilitarianism is used then how do we know if any actions are good. Does intent also factor into this, what if Ozy had actually been a deranged terrorist and that his actions just happened to cause world peace.

I don't think people can have omniscient morality license, I think ultimately we're forced to judge actions based on immediate consequences and intent. Even in retrospect things can be endlessly debated.

JaronK
2010-11-22, 02:18 AM
That was my point though: if good/evil is judged by the consequences of your actions alone, factors outside of morality will effect the judgment. For example, if Ozy was right he seems to be good, but if he was wrong he's evil. This is why the motivation behind the action makes more sense... only the mind of the person effects their moral compass. That's why the definition I like to use for good is "prioritizes trying to make the world a better place for others" and for evil it's "prioritizes trying to make the world a better place for themselves." If you're kinda in the middle, sometimes acting for yourself over others and sometimes for others over yourself, you're more neutral.

This allows you to be, for example, good but misguided (well intentioned extremist) or evil but socially capable (a character who is really just in it for themselves, but publicly does good acts so as to win favor and influence). These make for very interesting enemies in D&D games... it's fun to have a good group go up against a Paladin, or have the evil character actually be an important force for good (but still totally evil).

Think Starship Troopers 3... poor special effects, but my god the fascist woman is an amazing character and someone like her would make an amazing campaign villain.

JaronK

Burner28
2010-11-22, 03:07 AM
That was my point though: if good/evil is judged by the consequences of your actions alone, factors outside of morality will effect the judgment. For example, if Ozy was right he seems to be good, but if he was wrong he's evil. This is why the motivation behind the action makes more sense... only the mind of the person effects their moral compass. That's why the definition I like to use for good is "prioritizes trying to make the world a better place for others" and for evil it's "prioritizes trying to make the world a better place for themselves." If you're kinda in the middle, sometimes acting for yourself over others and sometimes for others over yourself, you're more neutral.

This allows you to be, for example, good but misguided (well intentioned extremist) or evil but socially capable (a character who is really just in it for themselves, but publicly does good acts so as to win favor and influence). These make for very interesting enemies in D&D games... it's fun to have a good group go up against a Paladin, or have the evil character actually be an important force for good (but still totally evil).

Think Starship Troopers 3... poor special effects, but my god the fascist woman is an amazing character and someone like her would make an amazing campaign villain.

JaronK

You might want to note the first important thing. Firstly, Ozymandias isn't a DnD character so obviously he won't be truly compatible with the alignment system. You have to remember that although Ozymandias might be an antivillain, by DnD definition he is still Evil, though maybe not Lawful. killing millions of innocent people will make you Evil by DnD rules, regardless of your reasons.

Zonugal
2010-11-22, 03:28 AM
That was my point though: if good/evil is judged by the consequences of your actions alone, factors outside of morality will effect the judgment. For example, if Ozy was right he seems to be good, but if he was wrong he's evil. This is why the motivation behind the action makes more sense... only the mind of the person effects their moral compass. That's why the definition I like to use for good is "prioritizes trying to make the world a better place for others" and for evil it's "prioritizes trying to make the world a better place for themselves." If you're kinda in the middle, sometimes acting for yourself over others and sometimes for others over yourself, you're more neutral.

JaronK

The only problem with that associating that type of mentality is that there is no judge of what constitutes a better world for others. Maybe a better world is one without any orcs, even the good ones. Maybe a better world is one without any magic, even the magic that heals.

Your system doesn't take into account lunacy and masks idiocy with good intentions.

Under your system characters like Ra's Al Ghul from Batman would be considered good.

hamishspence
2010-11-22, 05:48 AM
It also fails to take into account the fact that Ozymandius came up with The Plan years ahead of the crisis-

and yet his decision is being portrayed as "Act now and the human species will be saved- fail to act, and the human species will go extinct"-

with "failure to act in the face of certain human extinction" being described as the monstrous act.

That's not how it works. His plan is entirely dependant on external factors that he cannot control- Dr Manhattan's reaction, the reaction of the superpowers to a perceived "external threat" and so on.

To say that "choosing not to enact the plan is choosing humanity's extinction, which is monstrous" is to oversimplify things considerably.

Had Ozymandias had a Heel Realization once he'd come up with the whole thing shortly after Vietnam, and realized that murdering people (with cancer, and with "space squid" (comic), or with exploding reactors (film) was monstrous,

rejected it, and decided to take every possible step to prevent global thermonuclear war short of mass murder- I wouldn't call that the monstrous decision. Rejecting a "rational but monstrous" plan is not immoral- especially when you have no certainty that many years in advance, that it will work.


That was my point though: if good/evil is judged by the consequences of your actions alone, factors outside of morality will effect the judgment. For example, if Ozy was right he seems to be good, but if he was wrong he's evil.

Even if Ozymandias had been shown to have succeeded, that still doesn't automatically mean that his alignment is Good, or that trying to save humanity another way wouldn't have worked.

And It Worked (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndItWorked) is the trope for this sort of thing.

That said- given that The Watchmen have been discussed in some depth- should we move on to others?

Kaww
2010-11-22, 06:03 AM
Gentlemen's rule? Rorschach stays out of this thread. Period.


Ozymandias as well?

Aghm, sirs you are no gentlemen! :smallmad:

hamishspence
2010-11-22, 06:12 AM
Aghm, sirs you are no gentlemen! :smallmad:

I wasn't the one who started discussing either of them though- only responded to:


I really want to see people's take on him (Rorschach). I don't think he exhibits a solid DnD alignment choice, personally. He's crazy, and jumps all over the place alignment-wise. I think in the end, he's solidly Aberrant (Palladium alignments).
and

Heh, but I LIKE discussing Ozy's alignment! I'd put him at Chaotic Good. He acts without regard to any specific code of conduct (Chaotic) and his intent is to make the world a better place for everyone (Good). However, he's also a text book case of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." In the end, he's a tragic character who acts as a villain despite being "good."

So- any other notable characters of a story that you think could be discussed?

Kaww
2010-11-22, 06:29 AM
Personally most superheroes/heroes have alignment drifts or at least they are rarely consistent with it.

I haven't noticed anyone talking about Dream and his family. From Sandman. With Delirium being what you may call poster-girl for CN... Destruction might be CG if not for all the killing in his nature. Destiny is LN? Death NG? Desire might lean towards chaotic evil, Despair might be neutral, and Sandman himself, hm, he has drifts main protagonists are so prone to...

Again, note that this is just my personal opinion, might be (and probably is) wrong.

turkishproverb
2010-11-22, 06:31 AM
Dream is incredibly Lawful. It's kind of what gets him killed.

Amiel
2010-11-22, 06:35 AM
The Punisher is an extreme example of Lawful Neutral; he could also have the following Alignment: The Punisher.

Kaww
2010-11-22, 06:38 AM
But good, evil and neutral tend to mix and twist with you not really aware which he really is. He also broke the rule when the glass city was destroyed. He knew he was breaking the rules. There are other examples, as I said main protagonists have drifts. He started as LN, but went around as author's moods/visionsofthecharacter changed.

true_shinken
2010-11-22, 07:07 AM
Personally most superheroes/heroes have alignment drifts or at least they are rarely consistent with it.
Some are really consistent. I find Spiderman to be the best example of Neutral Good, for example.

Kaww
2010-11-22, 07:12 AM
Personally most superheroes/heroes have alignment drifts or at least they are rarely consistent with it.



Some are really consistent. I find Spiderman to be the best example of Neutral Good, for example.

Just read the BOLD text ^. I won't argue about Spiderman since I haven't read it.

Amiel
2010-11-22, 07:14 AM
But good, evil and neutral tend to mix and twist with you not really aware which he really is. He also broke the rule when the glass city was destroyed. He knew he was breaking the rules. There are other examples, as I said main protagonists have drifts. He started as LN, but went around as author's moods/visionsofthecharacter changed.

Hence the Alignment: The Punisher :smalltongue:

Burner28
2010-11-22, 08:03 AM
So- any other notable characters of a story that you think could be discussed?

what about Sonic the Hedgehog, who although isn't the poster boy is , in my opinion a good example of chaotiic good

true_shinken
2010-11-22, 08:12 AM
Just read the BOLD text ^. I won't argue about Spiderman since I haven't read it.

How come you never read Spiderman?!?!?!

Kaww
2010-11-22, 08:17 AM
I was a bookwyrm, not a comic bookworm. :smallwink: Never cached up on them...

hamishspence
2010-11-22, 08:29 AM
Hence the Alignment: The Punisher :smalltongue:

Evil + Would Not Hurt An Innocent seems closer to me, from the descriptions.

dsmiles
2010-11-22, 08:32 AM
Evil + Would Not Hurt An Innocent seems closer to me, from the descriptions.Making Frank LE, perhaps? That's where I've always put him.

hamishspence
2010-11-22, 08:37 AM
Lawful doesn't require that you always follow the law, after all.

The obsession with "justice" and "punishing the guilty" might put him on the Lawful side of the spectrum, even if some Chaotic traits are present.

true_shinken
2010-11-22, 09:52 AM
Lawful doesn't require that you always follow the law, after all.

The obsession with "justice" and "punishing the guilty" might put him on the Lawful side of the spectrum, even if some Chaotic traits are present.

I think Frank is LE.
Now, Captain America. Most people say he is Lawful, but he though he usually follows the rules and actually likes the rules he is more than willing to be the one to break them when it's needed. I think he is NG.

The Big Dice
2010-11-22, 10:18 AM
The Doctor from Doctor Who is always in between Chaotic/Neutral and Good/Neutral. Except for the Tenth Doctor, who has the philosophy of no second chances, in my book thats Lawful Neutral.

He's Chaotic Good without a doubt. He'll sacrifice his own life if that's what it takes to save someone else, but he has a total disrespect for authority and the establishment.

Lord Raziere
2010-11-22, 10:24 AM
He's Chaotic Good without a doubt. He'll sacrifice his own life if that's what it takes to save someone else, but he has a total disrespect for authority and the establishment.

case in point: what he did to Harriet Jones.

dsmiles
2010-11-22, 10:35 AM
I think Frank is LE.
Now, Captain America. Most people say he is Lawful, but he though he usually follows the rules and actually likes the rules he is more than willing to be the one to break them when it's needed. I think he is NG. You're absolutely correct with the more recent incarnations of Cap, but the original 50's style Cap leaned heavily in the Lawful direction.

true_shinken
2010-11-22, 11:50 AM
You're absolutely correct with the more recent incarnations of Cap, but the original 50's style Cap leaned heavily in the Lawful direction.
I think you mean 40s. Cap was published in the 50s but very sparsely... and he was retconned to be not be Steve Rogers in that period anyway.

Heksefatter
2010-11-22, 01:45 PM
Doctor Doom: Lawful evil under John Byrne. Neutral evil under most other authors, while pretending to be lawful evil.

The Joker: Chaotic evil cranked up to eleven.

Superman: Lawful good, I think, since he is generally supportive of authority unless it is corrupt. Very concerned with honor.

Robin Hood: In most incarnations chaotic good. The good-hearted trickster rebel.

Spider-Man: Neutral good. Here is really a guy who is above all concerned with helping others and who neither has a particular antipathy against rules or is especially concerned with following them.

Dr. Octopus: Neutral evil. Cares only about himself, but usually not madly brutal. In some versions he is extremely brutal and erratic and is probably chaotic evil.

The Adversary (from Fables): Lawful evil. Not because he is honorable or anything, as some lawful evil people are in their own way, but his approach to things is generally very systematic and orderly.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: True neutral. You could well argue that Sir Humphrey is lawful neutral, but there is too much of a cynic and a trickster in him that I would label him lawful. However, he lacks true malevolence and is not evil either. He is described as a moral vacuum at one point.

Usagi (Yojimbo): Lawful good. So very, very much lawful good. Kind, polite, friendly, heroic, concerned with honor.

As a side note, I love discussions like this.

grimbold
2010-11-22, 01:47 PM
sometimes it makes me sad to see that we are all mature individuals on a forum discussing comic books and the epitome of geekdom.
then i realize
this is where i belong :)

dsmiles
2010-11-22, 01:48 PM
I think you mean 40s. Cap was published in the 50s but very sparsely... and he was retconned to be not be Steve Rogers in that period anyway.*facepalm*

Yeah, that actually is what I meant. I forgot all about that storyline.

hamishspence
2010-11-22, 01:50 PM
As a side note, I love discussions like this.

So do I, generally, which is why I tend to ignore comments like

"the alignment system is completely useless for describing characters in anything other than a D&D context"-

or words to that effect.

I'm not too fond of "the only good source for alignment is the PHB- all other sources are wrong" argument either.

apocalypsePast2
2010-11-22, 02:40 PM
Yeah, personally I think that in describing characters we need more axis(plural). I don't think all characters can be defined by nine broad categories, especially when their action and and goals follow different alignment (i.e. a character like Jack Bauer who kills people and breaks laws and does generally bad stuff, but with lawful good intentions, or at least some good intentions)

Zonugal
2010-11-22, 04:16 PM
Now, Captain America. Most people say he is Lawful, but he though he usually follows the rules and actually likes the rules he is more than willing to be the one to break them when it's needed. I think he is NG.

Steve is pretty hard to describe because he is dedicated to the essence of America and legitimate forms of government. I mean look at some of his quotes:

"I'm loyal to nothing...except the Dream."

"As long as freedom may be threatened -- Captain America must follow his destiny -- wherever it may lead!"

"My duty to my country comes first. No matter what the cost!"

"I believe that guns are for killing, and killing is the ultimate violation of individual rights---the ultimate denial of freedom."

"You can't justify murder by masking it with a cause."

"All my life, I fought to become a symbol. A symbol of all the things that were right about this country. All the things I loved. And now, they're trying to turn that symbol into whatever's most convenient, whatever will best serve the political agenda of one side or another. I can hear them talking nonstop...the media. The press -- They don't understand. It was never about politics. It was never about me. It was about the country. But they can't hear that truth above their own voices."

"I fought your kind every day of that war, Zemo! You mocked democracy and said that free men were weak! Well feel this grip, Zemo - it's the grip of a man who loves liberty! Look into the eyes of your foe, and know that he will die for his freedoms! The world must never again mistake compassion for weakness! And while I live - it had better not!"

And of course his magnum opus:

"Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — No, you move."

Ormur
2010-11-22, 05:14 PM
The Adversary (from Fables): Lawful evil. Not because he is honorable or anything, as some lawful evil people are in their own way, but his approach to things is generally very systematic and orderly.

His original intention with replacing rulers was also to maintain good governance. LE seems appropriate.

I have a bit of a bone to pick with the morality of some the protagonist fables, they're very old fashioned in a sense but then again that might in some ways fit quite well into D&D morality.

Flycatcher is still a very good example of a good aligment, NG probably.

[QUOTE=Heksefatter;9815435]Sir Humphrey Appleby: True neutral. You could well argue that Sir Humphrey is lawful neutral, but there is too much of a cynic and a trickster in him that I would label him lawful. However, he lacks true malevolence and is not evil either. He is described as a moral vacuum at one point.

He uses his mastery of the bureaucracy to subvert the political process for his own morally neutral ends, the stability and expansion of the bureaucracy and proper procedure. He might not be lawful in that he doesn't care for the actual intent of laws or the legislative if they conflict with his interest, only how they can be twisted and delayed. But he cares for the stability of the system which might be lawful. Either LN or TN can be argued.

Interestingly enough the same can be argued for Jim Hacker. He's a hypocritical weathercock despite his ideological veneer. He sometimes tries to assert the right of elected representatives to govern in the public interest (Lawful, Good, Lawful Good?) but in the end he cares mostly for his own skin.

Callista
2010-11-22, 05:25 PM
I think maybe Captain America is difficult because he's supposed to be the personification of a country, absolutely loyal, etc... except that the country he's loyal to is very much Chaotic Neutral. America's all about individualism, freedom, the people's vote, the people's rights, etc. I don't know if nations can have alignments, but if America does, it's CN.

hamishspence
2010-11-22, 05:29 PM
In Cityscape, communities can have alignments separate from power centers.

So, you could have a LN city, with an LG power center (the mayor).

I suppose that could be applied to non-urban communities as well- whole countries rather than cities.

kyoryu
2010-11-22, 06:21 PM
The only problem with that associating that type of mentality is that there is no judge of what constitutes a better world for others. Maybe a better world is one without any orcs, even the good ones. Maybe a better world is one without any magic, even the magic that heals.

Your system doesn't take into account lunacy and masks idiocy with good intentions.

Under your system characters like Ra's Al Ghul from Batman would be considered good.

Right. Which is why I prefer the rights-based approach, rather than the Utilitarian approach. With the rights-based approach, the worst that you can really do is let other people do evil, or let people destroy themselves.

With the utilitarian approach, torturing and murdering 49% of the population can be considered a good (not just acceptable, but downright *good*) act if it saves (or if you believe it will save) the remaining 51%. It doesn't really force people to try to find a way besides murdering the 49%. Worse yet, it allows people to use that approach with a clean conscience.

It also puts one individual (or a council, or whatever) in charge of deciding whose good is worthwhile, and whose isn't, as well as what the "overall good" really is. That's a very, very scary thought, as different people will have different ideas of what is their overall good is best served by. It's a viewpoint that almost inherently leads to an authoritarian society.

Is that an extreme? Well, yes, but so is the "would you murder one person to save the species" dilemna that's very popular.

Heksefatter
2010-11-22, 06:21 PM
His original intention with replacing rulers was also to maintain good governance. LE seems appropriate.

I have a bit of a bone to pick with the morality of some the protagonist fables, they're very old fashioned in a sense but then again that might in some ways fit quite well into D&D morality.

Flycatcher is still a very good example of a good aligment, NG probably.


I think you're right about Flycatcher being NG. An LG character would have governed more hands-on as king as they believe in the rules more. Flycatcher seems not to care.

Snow White is LG. She cares a lot about propriety and doing things by the book. Especially in the earlier stories, where she borders on the naive. (Consider her lack of understanding during the farm revolt). She can be a hard person, so she might have neutral tendencies on the good-evil scale.

Jack is CN. Oh so very much CN. If we take his Jack Candle story at face value, he's CE, but outside flashbacks I do not recall seeing him do anything truly horrific.

Bigby...during the time frame of the main comic, he can be brutal, but I do not recall him doing anything worse than what "people do" in war. He cares about law and order, but is less rigid than Snow White. I would say NG, bordering on LG.

Boy Blue. LG or NG. He's a nice guy, he's heroic and he's never cruel. He's comparatively willing to use deception, as in the infiltration of the Empire, so I am leaning towards NG. LGs can do it...they are just more queasy about it.

Hansel. LE or NE. It depends on how much his piety is a front or for real. I am unsure. Most of it seems to be disguised sadism and misogynism. I'd say NE. He is a complete monster.

The Snow Queen seems to possess genuine loyalty to the Adversary and the Empire. She also appears to be a fairly methodical person. LE for her.






He uses his mastery of the bureaucracy to subvert the political process for his own morally neutral ends, the stability and expansion of the bureaucracy and proper procedure. He might not be lawful in that he doesn't care for the actual intent of laws or the legislative if they conflict with his interest, only how they can be twisted and delayed. But he cares for the stability of the system which might be lawful. Either LN or TN can be argued.

Interestingly enough the same can be argued for Jim Hacker. He's a hypocritical weathercock despite his ideological veneer. He sometimes tries to assert the right of elected representatives to govern in the public interest (Lawful, Good, Lawful Good?) but in the end he cares mostly for his own skin.

I think that all the characters are true neutral, with Bernard being the closest to good. Jim Hacker means well, as long as it does not cost him anything. Most true neutral people would mean well under the same circumstances. Jim Hacker is also a drunken driver and prone to corruption, even of the strictly illegal kind. He's not LN. On the other hand, he's rarely malicious. TN for Hacker!

I can see the argument for LN for Sir Humphrey, but disagree, simply because the man is a trickster figure.

Bernard is more well-meaning than any of the others, but he does not take it far and rarely stands up for it. I would put him at TN, with a tad more good in him.

Annie Hacker is probably the only recurrent person who might be good. LG or NG.

Sir Arnold appears to me as a considerably more malicious person than Sir Humphrey. In 'Party Games' we learn of some rather...hardline proposals that he has given. You could argue evil - I still say TN.

hamishspence
2010-11-22, 06:36 PM
With the utilitarian approach, torturing and murdering 49% of the population can be considered a good (not just acceptable, but downright *good*) act if it saves (or if you believe it will save) the remaining 51%. It doesn't really force people to try to find a way besides murdering the 49%. Worse yet, it allows people to use that approach with a clean conscience.

At the most extreme, if the human species is about to go extinct (or even, all life on the planet is about to go extinct (maybe Galactus is approaching?),

some might say that any amount of expenditure of lives is justified, as long as some humans are left alive at the end, to carry on the species. Even without the consent of the individual humans involved.

This would be the "racial survival justifies any amount of sacrifice" morality.

Which can be a little iffy. "Rights-based" tends to be more usual.

In Star Trek TNG, Picard frequently says things along the lines of "Nobody is so important, that they may usurp the rights of others"- this was to someone who'd transferred their personality into Data's body without Data's consent- and it was taking over. Had they remained long enough, Data's personality would have been destroyed.

JaronK
2010-11-22, 06:53 PM
Some are really consistent. I find Spiderman to be the best example of Neutral Good, for example.

...who made a deal with the devil to destroy his marriage and give his aunt a few more years of life, thus removing his unborn daughter from the timeline, so that he can now date a Mary Sue insertion of the EiC's daughter. Instant evil.

Character derailment?

JaronK

kyoryu
2010-11-22, 07:01 PM
At the most extreme, if the human species is about to go extinct (or even, all life on the planet is about to go extinct (maybe Galactus is approaching?),

some might say that any amount of expenditure of lives is justified, as long as some humans are left alive at the end, to carry on the species. Even without the consent of the individual humans involved.

This would be the "racial survival justifies any amount of sacrifice" morality.

Which can be a little iffy. "Rights-based" tends to be more usual.

In Star Trek TNG, Picard frequently says things along the lines of "Nobody is so important, that they may usurp the rights of others"- this was to someone who'd transferred their personality into Data's body without Data's consent- and it was taking over. Had they remained long enough, Data's personality would have been destroyed.

And I agree with all of that wholeheartedly. I tend to model the "Galactus is approaching" scenario with the idea that Good people *can* do Evil acts given sufficient motivation, but it will significantly bother them, and they'll be appropriately wracked by guilt, etc.

This allows for scenarios like "Galactus approacheth" (as much of the illogical extreme as they are) to be resolved, but without giving anyone a get-out-of-guilt-free card for actions that shouldn't allow for one. Good characters that perform Evil acts, even if those acts are justified, should be wracked by guilt. Characters that kill innocents without remorse, even if such killing is "necessary" or "justified", really should be Evil-aligned.

hamishspence
2010-11-22, 07:09 PM
And I agree with all of that wholeheartedly. I tend to model the "Galactus is approaching" scenario with the idea that Good people *can* do Evil acts given sufficient motivation, but it will significantly bother them, and they'll be appropriately wracked by guilt, etc.

Another issue might be- do they gain corruption points? if so, how much? (depending on if necessity counts as a "partial defense" mitigating down from murder to voluntary manslaughter)
And what process of atonement would they need? Maybe an extraplanar trip to apologize to the souls of every being killed by the spell?

Reverent-One
2010-11-22, 07:32 PM
...who made a deal with the devil to destroy his marriage and give his aunt a few more years of life, thus removing his unborn daughter from the timeline, so that he can now date a Mary Sue insertion of the EiC's daughter. Instant evil.

Character derailment?

JaronK

Leaving aside that those last two points were unintentional, as the sole reason for his decision was to save his Aunt who was dying/dead because of his actions, I'm not seeing why his deal with Mephisto is instant evil. If he had traded his soul, that makes sense, as he then becomes a soulless abomination or the devil simply owns him, either way it's very bad. But trading away his marriage after talking it over with his wife? If he gave Mephisto 5 bucks for a cup of sugar would it also be evil simply because it's the devil?

JaronK
2010-11-22, 07:55 PM
If we're going for D&D alignments... pretty much yes (and you'd have to assume those 5 bucks would have been critical to something else later, thus unraveling a huge chain of events and ending the world).

JaronK

Reverent-One
2010-11-22, 08:22 PM
If we're going for D&D alignments... pretty much yes (and you'd have to assume those 5 bucks would have been critical to something else later, thus unraveling a huge chain of events and ending the world).

JaronK

But isn't the malconvoker's shtick dealing with lower planes beings and at the same time is required to be non-evil?

kyoryu
2010-11-22, 09:06 PM
If we're going for D&D alignments... pretty much yes (and you'd have to assume those 5 bucks would have been critical to something else later, thus unraveling a huge chain of events and ending the world).

JaronK

I'd disagree. It wouldn't necessarily be Evil.

Incredibly stupid, sure.

true_shinken
2010-11-22, 10:28 PM
...who made a deal with the devil to destroy his marriage and give his aunt a few more years of life, thus removing his unborn daughter from the timeline, so that he can now date a Mary Sue insertion of the EiC's daughter. Instant evil.

Character derailment?

JaronK
Though this arc sucks, it was Mary Jane who accepted the deal, not Spiderman.
Anyway, doing a pact with a devil is not evil, not even on D&D terms. Fiendish Codex II has rules on that.

Platinum_Mongoose
2010-11-23, 02:13 AM
I think that Puck, from Glee, is the best example of Lawful Evil on network television. Textbook, really.

Quinn, meanwhile, has shown a rather well-written transition from Lawful Evil to Neutral Good.

Rachel is the only instance I can think of where one of a show's main protagonists is Neutral Evil. Kurt also started off Neutral Evil, and has slowly moved closer to True Neutral, possibly even Neutral Good.

Yay Glee!

JaronK
2010-11-23, 02:22 AM
http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p388/proteus_lives/lawfulneutral.jpg

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p388/proteus_lives/leas6mu2.jpg

JaronK

Zonugal
2010-11-23, 02:54 AM
http://mightygodking.com/images/lawfulevil.jpg

Sinfonian
2010-11-23, 08:20 AM
I think that Puck, from Glee, is the best example of Lawful Evil on network television. Textbook, really.
Hold on, how so? Puck is certainly not lawful. I fail to see how he would ever qualify for that.

This is the guy who is constantly breaking the law. He just spent several episodes in jail for attempting to steal an ATM. Before that he rigged a fundraiser with drugs (which he got via playing to the dealer's sympathies with a fake injury), slashed tires, and regularly insults and bullies people who he has close ties with.

Not to mention (1st season spoiler) He slept with Quinn, his best friend's girlfriend, got her pregnant, and let Finn believe he was the father for months.

I'm gonna say Puck as CE. Or, if you want to look at the scale of his actions as being mostly very small, CN.

Also, I can sorta see Kurt's self-centered nature as going against him, but I'm not sure it counts as Evil. I do agree with you on Rachel, though (the difference being the extremes to which she has gone to advance herself at the cost of others).

Edit: Honestly, looking back, it's rare for teenage characters in general to have an alignment other than Moody Hormonal, so it's hard to pin most down to one of the traditional 9.

MightyTim
2010-11-23, 12:41 PM
Tyler Durden: CN or CE?

Neo: NG

The Architect: LE

Agent Smith: CE

kyoryu
2010-11-23, 01:38 PM
Tyler Durden: CN or CE?


CE. Well-intentioned extremist.

Platinum_Mongoose
2010-11-24, 04:49 PM
Hold on, how so? Puck is certainly not lawful. I fail to see how he would ever qualify for that.


Since Glee only really exists within the context of the school--for the students, at least--Puck is definitely Lawful. He's obsessed with the social order of high school, lives by it, and abuses it horribly. He's the tyrant, the bully in charge.

JaronK
2010-11-25, 01:25 AM
Tyler Durden: CN or CE?

CN, I'd say. It's not about evil, it's just about chaos. Some people might get hurt along the way, some might get helped, but in the end it's all about the chaos and lashing out in general. It's not guided enough to have a moral component... he's too nuts.


The Architect: LE

I'd go LN for this guy. All he does is maintain order. Morality doesn't factor in. He just does his job. Just because he's against the protagonists doesn't make him evil... he does exactly what D&D doesn't think is evil (defend his own people at the expense of another people).

Oh, and to add in another type: Vorlons are LN, Shadows are CN, but throughout Babylon 5 they throw you off by making it seems like Vorlons are LG to the Shadows' CE. Though the first Vorlon ambassador was indeed LG, and theoretically the Vorlons' mission was to be LG. Vir is NG, while his boss goes from LE to LN to NG over the course of the series.

JaronK

TheMeMan
2010-11-25, 03:17 AM
CE. Well-intentioned extremist.

I disagree. CN. As stated above, he's not guided by any moral compass. However, to delve a bit deeper, he has absolutely no morality to begin. Ammoral is a good word for it. Any good or evil side affect of what he does is merely that. He's against the established order, not because it necessarily oppresses people, but because it works to counter the free will of people. There is a very large difference here. He is for the concept, not the people themselves(Although not going out of his way to harm people, and infact attempts to minimize the collateral damage). Nor is he a wolf in sheeps clothing type(doing good things for some "greater good", whilst not caring who gets harmed in the end). In truth, to me he is the definition of chaotic neutral. Not in the sense that he is insane, but in the sense that what he is doing is neither for the greater good nor for evil. It simply is what it is.

TheMeMan
2010-11-25, 03:20 AM
CN, I'd say. It's not about evil, it's just about chaos. Some people might get hurt along the way, some might get helped, but in the end it's all about the chaos and lashing out in general. It's not guided enough to have a moral component... he's too nuts.



I'd go LN for this guy. All he does is maintain order. Morality doesn't factor in. He just does his job. Just because he's against the protagonists doesn't make him evil... he does exactly what D&D doesn't think is evil (defend his own people at the expense of another people).


I agree with this. He does what he does not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is the "correct" thing to do(Two very different things). Frankly, if there were a way to come to the same ends without those means, he would do it. However, it is beyond him, quite literally, to find another means.

Morithias
2010-11-25, 03:36 AM
I would like to point out that in terms of Dnd Alignments, making a deal with a devil = automatically Lawful Evil.

So yeah, in the Dnd mechanics, Spiderman would be a Lawful Evil person who is still under the illusion he's not going to hell in the end.

Then again he did trade his marriage, not his soul, but I'm pretty sure that's still pretty high on the corrupt scale, the whole "shattering of a holy pact" thing.

John_D
2010-11-25, 04:34 AM
...and people wonder why I keep saying alignment's a dumb mechanic.

hamishspence
2010-11-25, 04:43 AM
I would like to point out that in terms of Dnd Alignments, making a deal with a devil = automatically Lawful Evil.

Only one subset of "making a deal with a devil" causes an automatic alignment change to LE- making a Pact Certain.

In other cases, it may depend on the circumstances. It may be an evil act, but not necessarily enough to cause an alignment change.

Eldan
2010-11-25, 06:24 AM
...and people wonder why I keep saying alignment's a dumb mechanic.

I'd rather just say that, if the Fiendish codex says that, it's a stupid section of that book. One LE deed =/= LE alignment.

hamishspence
2010-11-25, 06:49 AM
That particular deed is "irrevocably signing your soul over to the powers of Baator in a Pact Certain".

It's the only deed mentioned that gets this, though

Callista
2010-11-25, 11:05 AM
I don't think it's stupid at all. It's entirely possible that a devil might be able to write an alignment change into that contract. It'd be a magical effect, like a helm of opposite alignment, or an extraordinary ability like an Exalted character's ability to redeem (change the alignment of) evil NPCs. I don't think it's that only LE people would ever make a deal with a devil; it's that after you make that deal, the devil's got his hooks in your alignment and won't be letting go very easily.

Also: Glee? Come on. Puck is CN. He's textbook CN. Unless there was something after "Wheels" that makes him different, because that was the point at which I realised that if I were going to be yelling at the screen in outrage, I shouldn't be subjecting myself to that show to begin with...

hamishspence
2010-11-25, 11:16 AM
I don't think it's stupid at all. It's entirely possible that a devil might be able to write an alignment change into that contract. It'd be a magical effect, like a helm of opposite alignment, or an extraordinary ability like an Exalted character's ability to redeem (change the alignment of) evil NPCs. I don't think it's that only LE people would ever make a deal with a devil; it's that after you make that deal, the devil's got his hooks in your alignment and won't be letting go very easily...

This pretty much sums it up.

How about Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series?
A few of the main characters:

Protagonists
Owen Deathstalker- TN, moving toward NG through the series
Hazel D'Ark- CN
Jack Random- CN
Ruby Journey- NE/CE
Giles Deathstalker- LE
Tobias Moon- LN/LE
Diana Vertue/Jenny Psycho- Varies. Possibly from TN to NE.

Antagonists
Empress Lionstone- NE
Valentine Wolfe- CE
Dram the Widowmaker- LE
The AIs of Shub- LE
The Recreated- CE
The Blood Runners- NE

There's many more, but these are the first to spring to mind.

grimbold
2010-11-25, 12:37 PM
the issue is that we have 9 alignments to choose from and it is hard to classify every huuman being

Ruinix
2010-11-25, 01:12 PM
Anakin => Vader is one of my favorite characters with alignment shift.

Ep. I: NG. he try to do the best for help, naive and cute.
Ep.II: CG. drived by his pasions and mostly try to look for a good end of his deeds.
Ep.III: NE. totally egocentric, he do anything for get what he want, even hurt/kill innocents.
Ep.IV: LE. the line "your lack of faith is disturbing" followed by a force choke is the classic portrait of LE.
Ep.V: LE. still going with evil deeds to crack his son into evil.
Ep.VI: mostly LE through the all movie but in the end he suddlenly shift to CG for save his very own son. flawless.

kyoryu
2010-11-25, 02:41 PM
I disagree. CN. As stated above, he's not guided by any moral compass.

No, he's not. But, he doesn't really *care* who he hurts, either. He's willing to use intimidation and violence to get what he wants.

That sounds pretty much Evil to me.

JaronK
2010-11-25, 03:14 PM
That's like saying a wolf is evil when it attacks a human because it doesn't care about the human, and is willing to use violence and intimidation (the latter against pack mates) to get what it wants. Something that has no moral compass at all, that's either too unintelligent (the wolf) or too crazy (Tyler) can't be good or evil. It simply is. All Tyler wants is to break out of the mold and have chaos. Nothing else matters at all.

JaronK

Zonugal
2010-11-25, 05:31 PM
Please don't try to compare the moral qualities of an animal to that of a human being. They are too distinctly different subjects that any comparison is void.

Moridin
2010-11-26, 03:41 PM
The villain Karla, of the anime/manga/books Record of Lodoss War is the perfect example of a True neutral character.

She believes that if any force becomes too strong in Lodoss there's the risk of a great cataclysm, like the one that destroyed her ancient kingdom Kastuul. So she allies herself with a faction that's weak only long enough for it to overcome the stronger faction. Then she'd normally leave or even work against the faction that she was previously a part of.

She has put her essence into a circlet and takes possession of anyone who puts it on. She has achieved immortality that way.

Examples:

- (good) During the time when Lodoss was under attack by the Demon King, she allied herserlf with a party of five heroes to defeat him. Demons are way more powerful than humans/dwarves/elves and could easily overcome them. After he was defeated she vanished.

- (evil) She reappeared years later, allying herself with Marmo and one of the previous heroes that defeated the Demon King. Beld had become corrupted by the Demon King's blood (which had affected his sword) and had become king of Marmo, an island that was evil, since it contained the spirit of the goddess of darkness, Kardis. She helped Beld cause a great war and avoid the peace that had come upon Lodoss. The good kingdoms (Kannon, Flaim and Valis) suffered a lot from this war and Marmo gained much, conquering Kannon. At the end of the war, after Marmo had gained much and after Beld had been killed by Kashew, king of Flaim, she disappeared and left things as they were.

- (arguable) She took possession of the body of Lelylia, daughter of Old Neese, a cleric and one of the heroes who had killed the Demon King. During their adventures, Old Neese had killed Naneel, great priestess of Kardis. Naneel had cursed Old Nesee's bloodline then, residing in the subconscious of her female descedants and opening a way to ressurrect herself in the future. Karla was afraid someone might try to do just that and that Naneel would try to ressurect her goddess Kardis, destroying the world in the process. So she takes possession of Leylia when she's young so she can protect the world and avoid the ressurection of Kardis. Eventually a band of heroes defeats Karla and rescues Leylia from her possession.

- (true neutral to the core!) Leylia gave birth to Little Neese, who was captured by the evil wizard Wagnard, who intended to ressurect Naneel and Kardis. A group of approximately 20 heroes, accompanied by an army of all good nations of the world, tried to defeat Marmo once and for all and rescue Little Neese. Karla thought that if any group won they'd become too powerful, breaking the balance of the world. So she made an offer to the 20 good heroes: she'd kill Wagnard and stop the ressurection of Kardis, but they'd all have to commit suicide. Unfortunately they refused and true good won (with the power of love!), because that ending she offered would kick so much ass.

Tam_OConnor
2010-11-26, 06:02 PM
From Steven Brust's novels:
Vlad Taltos: We first see him as a Jhereg crime boss and assassin, making him more or less textbook Lawful Evil. Yeah, he's technically breaking the law, but you cut out all the crime lords from Lawful Evil, there wouldn't be many people left with that alignment. After his break from Jhereg in Teckla, he wanders around the scale for a while, but can vaguely be described as Neutral. Once we get the events in Issola/Dzur/Iorich, he's best described as Lawful Neutral. I'd hesitate to call anything he does as 'good,' because he's mainly just helping his friends, but at least he's not murdering people for money anymore.
Sethra Lavode: For lack of any evidence to the contrary, Neutral. She'll help preserve the universe, by any means necessary. She comes off as having good intentions, but her methods are undetailed and frighten me.
Khaavren: So Lawful Good it hurts. One could make a case for Lawful Neutral (after Adron's Disaster) as he grows more cynical.
Aerich: Lawful Neutral, softening to Lawful Good under the influence of his friends.
Tazendra: Chaotic Good. Much less concerned than her friends with the law; she's just here to fight ridiculous odds, like any true Dzur.
Pel: Probably starts off as a chaotic-leaning Neutral, and slowly becomes more and more lawful as he becomes part of the government.
Morrolan: Lawful to a fault. Greatly concerned with increasing his own power, but he tends not to do that at the expense of those weaker than him. I'd say Lawful Neutral, with evil tendancies (soul-eating sword, the aforementioned destruction of villages in Verra's name...)
Aliera: Neutral at best, but Chaotic Neutral is almost as likely. That doesn't mean that she isn't unfailingly loyal, but she does seem to have Tazendra's blatant disregard for the why of law. Her father's influence probably doesn't help.
Kiera the Thief: Chaotic Neutral. She's doing all of this for the challenge, not to profit from the Jhereg LE-scheming.
From Jim Butcher's Dresden Files:
Harry Dresden: Chaotic Good, but he's teetering on the edge of Chaotic Neutral, if only because of all of his rather questionable methods.
Karrin Murphy: Neutral Good. She wants to be Lawful Good, to do everything by the book, but the number of times that the law is hindering her (and that she breaks it to help Harry), means she's hovering between Law and Chaos.
Michael Carpenter: Lawful Good. The man's a modern-day Paladin.
Molly Carpenter: Neutral Good. A compromise between her father's alignment and her mentor's alignment. I think she's trying to hew closer to the law for stability, and because it'll keep her from falling into Neutral Evil 'I did it for their own good' territory.
Thomas: At the moment, Chaotic Neutral, with the man he wants to be at Chaotic Good and the Beast at Chaotic Evil. Some books he's closer to the man, others to the Beast.
Gen13 (the reboot):
Fairchild: Neutral Good, though I suspect were she in different circumstances, she'd be Lawful Good (like in the original series). Right now, Lawful behavior would be dangerous for the group.
Freefall: Chaotic Neutral. I'm not really sold on this one; she acts a lot like Grunge, but I don't know how much of that is because of Grunge. More good-leaning than Grunge.
Grunge: Chaotic Neutral. 'Artistic vandalism.' I think that says it all.
Burnout: Chaotic Good. Rebelling for all the right reasons. Good old Marley.
Rainmaker: Neutral. Though I think that may be more of a problem with the writing than anything. I still don't have a good idea of what she wants.
Knights of the Old Republic 1:
Carth Onasi: Lawful Good. He want's what's best for the Republic, because the Republic is better than any of the alternatives.
Mission Vao: Chaotic Neutral: She is a teenager.
Zaalbar: Neutral. Between wookie oaths and Mission leading him into chaotic situations, it averages out.
Bastila Shan: Lawful Neutral. She's preserving the Jedi Order for the sake of the Jedi Order. I don't think she's really thought about the people involved.
T3-M4: Neutral. No personality = no alignment.
Canderous Ordo: Lawful Evil. Right now, he's just looking for some structure, someone to tell him what to do. If he needs to break heads to make ends meet, he'll break heads.
Juhani: Neutral Good. Unlike Bastila, she had a reason for joining the Jedi Order, and her chaotic leanings (compared to the rest of the Order) makes sense when seen in context of her slavery.
HK-47: Neutral Evil. He's an assassin droid that enjoys what he does, but doesn't seem to have an agenda besides killing everything.
Jolee Bindo: Chaotic Good. 'Screw the Jedi Order, I want to help people.' Though he does pose as Chaotic Neutral most of the time, and he does have flashes of lawful behavior.
Darth Malak: Chaotic Evil. He's lost sight of the 'control the galaxy' plan that Darth Revan had, and has moved on to 'burn the galaxy.'

JaronK
2010-11-26, 07:16 PM
Please don't try to compare the moral qualities of an animal to that of a human being. They are too distinctly different subjects that any comparison is void.

We're comparing the moral qualities of an animal to a schizophrenic alternate personality. Frankly, that makes more sense than comparing the personality to a full human. Tyler is nothing more than impulses.

JaronK

Zonugal
2010-11-26, 08:16 PM
We're comparing the moral qualities of an animal to a schizophrenic alternate personality. Frankly, that makes more sense than comparing the personality to a full human. Tyler is nothing more than impulses.

JaronK

Really? You feel a human being suffering from a mental disease has more in common with an animal than an actual human being?

Besides that horrible assumption, you can't apply moral qualities to animals. They do not have any where near the sufficient cognitive abilities to understand or perform moral actions. They operate out of pure beastial instinct (which is different than that of a mentally ill human being).

The Tygre
2010-11-26, 08:44 PM
Really? You feel a human being suffering from a mental disease has more in common with an animal than an actual human being?

Son, now you're just twisting words around. We're not talkin' about a person, we're talkin' about a subset of that person composed of internal reactions and mental stimuli. A hallucination, a phantasm, an illusion, what have you. It has no reflection on the hallucinator. Think before you leap next time.

JaronK
2010-11-27, 01:29 AM
Indeed. I'd argue that the unnamed protagonist of fight club has his own morality, but his delusion is by no means a complete person. Tyler is an impulse extended without control over a long time, not a person. He's much closer to an embodied instinct than a morally cognizant person. In that way, he's very much like a wolf... incapable of being moral or immoral.

JaronK

Zonugal
2010-11-27, 01:55 AM
In this case we have to extend our definition of morality and how it applies to such concepts like manifested personalities (if it even applies at all). Now you are arguing that Tyler is merely a manifestation, in which few may debate you on such an analysis, but to relate such a being to that of an animal may be too much of a stretch in this case. Tyler is still a cognitive entity, he is still able to process and understand actions, so it seems all to easy to throw him with animals.

Now the issue here is what we project Tyler to be a manifestation of within the story. You state he is one of instinct while I would argue he is one of ideology. He displays actions of distinct control and with foresight, so instinct seems rather rude to such a character.

Morithias
2010-11-27, 03:48 AM
I thought the Heroes of Horrors book said that a person who was actually completely insane and not really in control of their actions could be argued as chaotic neutral?

Keep in mind this is 100% insanity here, not "somewhat angered off their rocker because they caught their girlfriend sleeping with the barkeeper".