Elan & Nale: Nature or Nurture?

[B. Dandelion]

Been wondering about this one for a while. It is a question the strip itself does bring up fairly early on after Nale's true colors are revealed, in 68 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0068.html):


Elan's Shoulder Devil: It's like you said: karma, dude. He brought this on himself.
Elan's Shoulder Angel: But his evil is the direct result of the environment in which he was raised. Had it been you that had been raised by your father, wouldn't you have ended up evil?

Would Nale still have turned out evil if raised by his mother? Would Elan still have turned out good if raised by his father? How much of their alignments came down to inborn nature and how much was influenced by their upbringing? Finally, how would knowing the answer to that question affect the interpretation of Tarquin ultimately killing Nale?

There seems to be some weak evidence arguing Nale and Elan may have had their alignments inborn. Baby Nale was shown smacking his brother around (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0050.html), which might indicate he had some mean-spiritedness inborn, although I consider this very weak indication of anything. Another possible clue is how the twins turned out in the bonus Haleo and Julelan PDF. Both twins were raised by Tarquin but "Nybalt" was still evil and "Julelan" seemingly good. Haleo and Julelan is also a story narrated by Elan, so this may or may not prove anything, but it was also a story narrated before Elan accepted his father was evil and yet the Tarquin in the story isn't good to match up with Elan's prejudice at the time. So that's sorta inconclusive.

On the other hand, we do have word of Giant that if Nale had been raised by an evil mother, he would have turned out more of a corrupt prince type rather than an angry rebel with a damaged ego. So there is some reason to believe upbringing played a major part in shaping Nale's character, at least. Tarquin also says in 725 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0725.html) that he raised Nale to be ruthless and the way he turned out is his fault.

So... at this point in time, it seems we don't know for sure, and that is apparently intentional. But we can speculate. How would things have worked out if the kids had gone to opposite parents? Would Elan and Nale have kept the same alignment regardless, have had alignments that matched which parent raised them, or something in the middle?

My guess would be that it's a little of both, so while Nale and Elan might not have swapped alignments entirely if raised by the other parent, they could have both turned out closer to neutral. I'd be curious to know how exactly that would manifest, though.

Really though... one of the reasons I ask is I'm curious to know if it would affect people's perceptions of Tarquin killing Nale if it's made apparent that Nale is the way he is at least in part because of Tarquin in the first place. Since I tend to think he's at least a little responsible for Nale turning out to be so evil, it rings hollow to me that Tarquin ending Nale's life is anything particularly noble. If Tarquin raised Nale into something that Tarquin would eventually see a need to kill, then Nale never had a chance from the start and I pity him at least a little.

[Smolder]

Tarquin apparently subscribes to nurture. He thought that he could fix his relationship with Nale by further belittling and punishing him. It never crossed his mind that he would fail to make Nale obey him. Everyone else does so without question. Except they do so out of fear, and fear isn't the best motivator to use on family.

[littlebum2002]

This has been brought up before. Someone questioned, if the two brothers were raised by the other parent, would they have a different alignment?

Rich came into the conversation and said something to the effect of "this issue will be answered later in the strip". I'll try to find the relevant quote for you.

EDIT: here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12242039#post12242039). Straight from the Giant's mouth.

[tomandtish]

This has been brought up before. Someone questioned, if the two brothers were raised by the other parent, would they have a different alignment?

Rich came into the conversation and said something to the effect of "this issue will be answered later in the strip". I'll try to find the relevant quote for you.

EDIT: here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12242039#post12242039). Straight from the Giant's mouth.

Actually, I'm not sure the quote you posted is entirely accurate in this context. Rich isn't settling whether they would have had a different aligment if raised by a different parent in that quote. In fact, he seems to be saying that Elan's sparing of him had nothing to do with the argument because Elan didn't know at that time that Tarquin was a different alignment (the "alignment differences" shot was a flashback and not spoken). In short, the quote doesn't answer the question at all. It simply says that Elan spared nale because Elan is good, and that is what Good people do. Whether Elan would have still been good if raised by Tarquin? Rich very carefully and directly avoids answering that so far.

Tests like this are ones psychologists like to dream of, because you can never do them in reality. Separating identical twins at birth for the purpose of experimentation would be (at a minimum) highly unethical, and you'd have to get enough of them to make a valid sample size.

Rememebr, part of the problem with the Nature vs. Nurture debate (How far are human behaviors, ideas, and feelings, INNATE and how far are they all LEARNED?) is that actual environmental factors can play a role as well. Even if tarquin was exactly the same as Elan and Nale's mother, the mere fact of living in a desert could potentially cause personality changes.

[The Zoat]

Well if you think about it, maybe it already has. If you look at Nale's tantrum in #913, you can (not necessarily will) see that Nale's egomania and possibly evil stems from always living in the shadow of his father.

Or maybe Nale will be ressurected.

[B. Dandelion]

This has been brought up before. Someone questioned, if the two brothers were raised by the other parent, would they have a different alignment?

Rich came into the conversation and said something to the effect of "this issue will be answered later in the strip". I'll try to find the relevant quote for you.

EDIT: here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12242039#post12242039). Straight from the Giant's mouth.

I know, I read it... it's the same thread where he says if Nale had been raised by an evil mother, he would have probably turned into a "corrupt prince" type. So I know it's an open question in the strip so far, but I'm just wondering which side of the debate people think it will land on at this point in time. And I was attempting to note that while it doesn't answer directly the question of whether Nale would be evil if not raised by his father, to say that being raised by an evil mother would have meant Nale evolved into a different type of evil does suggest there is at least some effect of nurture going on, which could back up an argument that it influenced Nale's alignment as well.

[tomandtish]

Ahh, if there's another quote from him in the thread, then that might work. The one that was linked didn't seem to quite fit by itself, but in context makes a little more sense.

[B. Dandelion]

I'm referring to this bit, bolding mine:


Then Elan finds out his dad is an evil warlord in #50, but even then, it was intended simply to explain the differences between Nale and Elan. I suppose I could have made Elan's father the happy-go-lucky waiter and his mother the warlord, but that didn't feel right. Not so much because of Elan, but because of Nale. Nale has the sort of damaged ego that would force him to try to surpass his father at all costs, which of course would fail and thus lead to his presence in the dungeon. If Nale had been raise by an evil mother, I think he would have been more of a "corrupt prince" sort of character rather than an angry rebel looking for a magic doodad to go back and seize power.

[The Pilgrim]

Well, if we know something about the Giant, is that he depises the idea of inborn aligment. I think we can rule that out.

That doesn't means Elan and Nale's alignment are entirely their parent's (and their environment's) fault. A free-willed person can make his own choices, and you can always do the right thing even if living under the most evil environment.

So that question could only be answered either by Word of God on the commentaires, direct statements on the main comic, or if the Giant ever cares to write a prequel explaining Nale's and Elan's childhood (a difficult thing to do due to the controversy of the theme).

What we know is that Tarquin is, however, responsible for Nale's most defining personality traits: Someone who takes offense for anything due to his damaged ego, and who has an obsession with surpassing his father.

But to what degree Tarquin is also responsible for Nale having a rotten heart, is an issue still not answered by the author.

[Silverionmox]

Somewhere in Tarquin's exposition about his past is a panel where baby Nale slaps baby Elan and is reprimanded by their mother: "Nale! Stop slapping Elan in his soft undeveloped baby skull!". So it definitely seems to be inborn.

[littlebum2002]

I don't see how you can say the quote I posted wasn't relevant. The question he is answering is basically the same question asked by our OP, which is:

If their positions had been reversed, would Nale be good and Elan evil, would they be their current alignments, or would they both perhaps have ended up True Neutral?

Of course, I missed the part of the OP which said "we already know we can't know, but let's speculate anyway". But we CAN use the Giant's words to help us speculate, can't we?

We know that he can't answer the question "if Nale had been raised by a good parent, what would his alignment be?" , because this will be answered in a future plot development. So what could that development be? Maybe they were switched at some point? Maybe there IS a third twin? Maybe they're not twins at all? I'm really bad at speculation, in case you can't tell.

[PirateMonk]

How is this a question? They're identical twins. It's a controlled experiment, as tomandtish noted. There's no room for nature, unless nature has a non-genetic component in this world.

[Silverionmox]

How is this a question? They're identical twins. It's a controlled experiment, as tomandtish noted. There's no room for nature, unless nature has a non-genetic component in this world.

There was a brutal rape/murder here in the area. The killer had an identical twin, and they grew up in the same village, practically the same life. So there definitely is something else to it. Your DNA does not map out your life.

[The Pilgrim]

Elan's seems firmly on the side of "Nurture".

But, to what extent he is right?

[Rakoa]

There was a brutal rape/murder here in the area. The killer had an identical twin, and they grew up in the same village, practically the same life. So there definitely is something else to it. Your DNA does not map out your life.

That isn't exactly scientific evidence.

[pendell]

Responding to the OP:


I suspect the one-step rule for clerics and gods tends to work for parents and offspring as well. That is, a lawful evil parent is going to raise a child to be neutral evil or lawful neutral.

So I would expect Nale to come out from living with his father as one of those two alignments.

But that's not the end of his life. Once you leave your father, you choose your own friends and come under other mentors as well, especially if you've rebelled against your family as Nale did. Just because you got out of your father's house as lawful neutral doesn't mean you have to stay that way. You can one-step up to lawful good, based on experience, or one-step back to lawful evil.

So if I were to assign a hierarchy of responsibility for Nale's alignment and actions, I would first and foremost assign the responsibility to Nale. He's a grown man. He's been away from his father for awhile, and he chose to associate with murderers and devils.

I would , however, assign a high degree of supporting responsibility to Tarquin. It's not reasonable to expect that any child coming from that upbringing would be chaotic good , or lawful good. But just because you come out of that environment with your footsteps on the path to lawful evil means you have to follow it. At least, not if you're a grown man who's been out of his father's house for years.

As a counterexample, consider Haley. Haley's father was chaotic neutral. Greysky city was a TERRIBLE place to grow up, but Haley came out of it as good as any reasonable person could. Given her upbringing, there's pretty much no way she'd have come out of Greysky City as a lawful good paladin, there's simply no place in such a city for such a person. But she did have the choice of being a chaotic good-ish person who tried to do right by people, or of being a paranoid like her father, or of being an out-and-out murderer like Crystal.

So nature and nurture both played a part in Haley's personality. Her nurture meant she was going to be a rogue with a big problem trusting other people. But her nature decided whether that meant she would be a "rogue with a heart of gold" or a psychotic like Belkar. She chose the first.

Likewise with Nale. Nale's upbringing meant he was going to be raised with a genius for manipulation and dissimulation. But that didn't mean he had to be a treacherous murderer. Nale went further into the darkness than even Tarquin or his party wanted, and that's on him.

ETA: So my answer is, no. If their positions had been reversed ... well, the honest to goodness truth is that Elan as such wouldn't exist. Someone as chaotic good and free-spirited as he would never have taken well to Tarquin's brand of lawful evil. He'd have either been crushed down into a compliant drone, "just following orders" because he has never been given a choice in his actions, or he'd have run away, or he'd have died.

Likewise, if Nale had been raised by Elan's mom, he would not have come out of it as a free-spirited chaotic good Elan. He'd have come out of it, I suspect, a badly-behaved chaotic neutral, fallen in with the wrong crowd, and from there to chaotic evil.

But there's no way simply swapping their upbringings would have meant they would have turned out exactly as they did only opposite. To say otherwise is to deny humans in OOTSworld the dignity of human agency. The devas would have no business judging humans if their moral/ethical outlook is entirely the product of their environment. If it was, judgement would be pointless -- simply put humans in a lawful good environment and wipe their memories so they come out of it as lawful good people. So if anyone comes to Celestia and wants in but isn't lawful good, that can be put right very quickly. They WILL be lawful good forever once they've been through the brainwashing.

Judgement is only sensible if a human being will NEVER be lawful good regardless of what stimuli you give them. If human beings are , in short, moral actors capable of making their own choices, not simply a kind of organic machine that can be programmed by a suitably skilled manipulator.

E AGAIN to add:

Start of Darkness spoiler

We see Xykon's childhood and adolescence. So far as we can tell, he had a perfectly normal upbringing with parents who loved him. There was absolutely NOTHING in his upbringing that would make him feed his parents to zombies, but he did it anyway.

If the example of Xykon is anything to go by, then Elan is wrong. Nurture is a contributing factor, it is not an excuse. That means that Elan is unable to comprehend human evil and remains, in many ways, hopelessly naive.



Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Psyren]

I'm referring to this bit, bolding mine:

Thanks for linking that thread btw, it brought me back to this old cryptic post:



Well, since the Giant is answering questions on the subject, I have one.

We know Elan spared Nale in their first encounter because he believed he was only the good twin because he'd been raised by his mother and Nale was only evil because he was raised by Tarquin. But is he right? After all, little Nale was born with a goatee, and he was prone to bonking little Elan on the head. If their positions had been reversed, would Nale be good and Elan evil, would they be their current alignments, or would they both perhaps have ended up True Neutral?

I can't answer that one without giving away events that have yet to be revealed. Sorry.

EDIT: However, I will say that you're misinterpreting events if you think Elan spared Nale only because "he believed he was only the good twin because he'd been raised by his mother and Nale was only evil because he was raised by Tarquin." Elan didn't believe that; he had no reason to think his father was Evil at all until he met him, and thus no reason to think that Nale's alignment was not his own doing. Elan spared Nale because Elan is Good, and to Elan, Good spares people rather than killing them when they have the option. Note that he also spared Kubota in the same way, though he was a bit angrier about it.

We're starting to get an inkling as to the answer here - Elan growing up under Tarquin might not have turned out as bad, but Tarquin is looking more and more to blame for Nale's outlook on life. The fact that he had to call his father's clearly evil and exploitative henchmen terms like "aunt and uncle" while growing up speaks volumes.

[Newwby]

I'm not sure what side of this I come down on, perhaps somewhere in the middle - bit of column A, bit of column B.

I will add however that one comic ("If Elan inherited his outlook from his mother and love of the dramatic from his father and Nale his outlook from his father, what did Nale inherit from his mother?") it was established (or at least suggested) that Nale inherited his love of overly complicated plans from his mother. That falls in the nature column I guess.

[Joe the Rat]

Nature or Nurture?

Yes.

Mathematicians aside, trying to ascribe something to only one or the other is ignoring a lot of the subtleties and interplay of biology and experience. Heck, you can find a range of prenatal differences - the subtle differences in chemical gradients - can produce notable differences in identical twins by birth. We see some inclinations that Nale had a mean streak and a predisposition towards villainous facial hair as a infant. Does that mean that had Elan's Mom kept both, Nale still have been a Machiavelli Wanna-Be? Not necessarily. He wouldn't have the daddy issues - at least not those daddy issues.

Your biological heritage is about potentials. Some things will come easily, some things will require more work. Sorcery is supposedly hereditary (in a sort of triple-recessive, generation-skipping way), but it needs to be practiced. Almost anyone could learn wizardry with enough time, provided they have - or develop - their Intelligence (the D&D stat version. Let's not go down that Gardener path today). Some will find this easier than others, even with the same background and lead-up experiences.

So yes, Nale and Elan would have turned out differently had they been raised by the other parent, or both together with either parent. But that does not mean they would have been exactly alike. Good-raised Nale might still have that mean and pragmatic streak, but still be... well, not on the side of the devils. Evil-raised Elan could easily come out as a psychopathic man-child with unconditional love for his father (frustrating TT's elder members to no end with his tendency to wreck plans yet still achieve the goals), or he could have been oblivious to the worst of the goings-on, and come out a confused (okay, more confused) person than what we see. Raised together, Nale would still be the smarter of the two, Elan the more lovable.

[BrometheusJones]

I think in most cases, where there is not some genetic/mental/whatever defect present, such as psychopathy, that people in general are shaped by both nature and nurture in mostly equal amounts. Like a 50/50.

But nature will be the default aspect of an individual, and nurture will be the modifying aspect. To truly change ones own nature requires a very powerful force of will, which most do not possess.

[martianmister]

As a counterexample, consider Haley. Haley's father was chaotic neutral. Greysky city was a TERRIBLE place to grow up, but Haley came out of it as good as any reasonable person could. Given her upbringing, there's pretty much no way she'd have come out of Greysky City as a lawful good paladin, there's simply no place in such a city for such a person.

It's not a good example, considering Haley's personality is come from her upbringing by a "Robin Hood-esque" father and "too-good-for-greysky" mother...


Start of Darkness spoiler

We see Xykon's childhood and adolescence. So far as we can tell, he had a perfectly normal upbringing with parents who loved him. There was absolutely NOTHING in his upbringing that would make him feed his parents to zombies, but he did it anyway.

If the example of Xykon is anything to go by, then Elan is wrong. Nurture is a contributing factor, it is not an excuse. That means that Elan is unable to comprehend human evil and remains, in many ways, hopelessly naive.



We see little to nothing about his upbringing and parents.

[rgrekejin]

There was a brutal rape/murder here in the area. The killer had an identical twin, and they grew up in the same village, practically the same life. So there definitely is something else to it. Your DNA does not map out your life.

I think that's his point, isn't it? They both had the same DNA, so clearly whatever caused the difference between them was nurture-related, not nature-related. Elan and Nale are identical twins, and share the same DNA, and so the argument goes that the difference between them must be due to nurture and not nature.

That said, I'm not entirely certain I agree with that perspective. After all, even if identical twins technically have the same DNA, they don't always express the same genes at identical levels. And, seeing as Nale has facial hair as a baby, I'm willing to bet that there were some pretty heavy epigenetic effects in play during his development that were not during Elan's.

So, in summary, we really can't say for sure, but assuming that there's nothing supernatural at play (say, characters are born predisposed to one alignment or another), it's pretty likely that the majority of the difference between them is due to nurture rather than nature.

[Knight.Anon]

Its Elan's fault that Nale is evil, and he knows it. Its probably just the grief talking.

The second Elan put Chaotic Good on his character sheet, there was no way that his twin could be anything other than evil. Worse Nale would have never met Sabine if Haley and Elan weren't destined to hook up. They destroyed him - (this is before he actually was destroyed).

[B. Dandelion]

ETA: So my answer is, no. If their positions had been reversed ... well, the honest to goodness truth is that Elan as such wouldn't exist. Someone as chaotic good and free-spirited as he would never have taken well to Tarquin's brand of lawful evil. He'd have either been crushed down into a compliant drone, "just following orders" because he has never been given a choice in his actions, or he'd have run away, or he'd have died.

Likewise, if Nale had been raised by Elan's mom, he would not have come out of it as a free-spirited chaotic good Elan. He'd have come out of it, I suspect, a badly-behaved chaotic neutral, fallen in with the wrong crowd, and from there to chaotic evil.

I did expect that most people would think it's a bit of both, but surely there is some tendency to give the greater weight to one. Your answer to me suggests you are further on the nature side, as Nale is a bad egg no matter what parent gets him and Elan is either beaten down into submission or meets an untimely end.


But there's no way simply swapping their upbringings would have meant they would have turned out exactly as they did only opposite. To say otherwise is to deny humans in OOTSworld the dignity of human agency. The devas would have no business judging humans if their moral/ethical outlook is entirely the product of their environment. If it was, judgement would be pointless -- simply put humans in a lawful good environment and wipe their memories so they come out of it as lawful good people. So if anyone comes to Celestia and wants in but isn't lawful good, that can be put right very quickly. They WILL be lawful good forever once they've been through the brainwashing.

That's pretty good reasoning from the moral standpoint, although from the logistics standpoint I wonder if the suggested alternative would even be feasible for the forces of Law and Good unless they were intrinsically more powerful than the forces of Neutrality, Evil and Chaos.


Judgement is only sensible if a human being will NEVER be lawful good regardless of what stimuli you give them. If human beings are , in short, moral actors capable of making their own choices, not simply a kind of organic machine that can be programmed by a suitably skilled manipulator.

I'm not sure. That sounds like it's going for perfect justice. But people can have some degree of agency with there still being an element of "programming" going on regardless. Like, say, Redcloak. He has totally had free will and the ability to make choices. He's also had for a lot of his life a really crappy set of choices to choose between. If that set of choices had been different, if he could have picked between options that included prosperity without bloodshed, it seems quite likely he would have gone down that path instead. But his options were proscribed, and his life wound up going down what was essentially a predictable path, without it being a forced one.

I think also that the role of parenting might be (rather cynically) put into terms of "master manipulator" as well. Sure, good parents want their kids to be able to make their own choices, but they too proscribe certain choices, like (to take an extreme example) going out drinking when they're 16. To sell that short sort of diminishes the importance and the ultimate impact of that job.

[pendell]

I'm not sure. That sounds like it's going for perfect justice. But people can have some degree of agency with there still being an element of "programming" going on regardless. Like, say, Redcloak. He has totally had free will and the ability to make choices. He's also had for a lot of his life a really crappy set of choices to choose between. If that set of choices had been different, if he could have picked between options that included prosperity without bloodshed, it seems quite likely he would have gone down that path instead. But his options were proscribed, and his life wound up going down what was essentially a predictable path, without it being a forced one.


Do I have to keep putting in the spoiler tags? Crud, I guess I do.


Right-eye came out of almost the same environment, yet made radically different choices. I grant he never wore the cloak, but Redcloak made the consistent choice, over and over again, to believe his god's words and refused to look for outside confirmation. He's not a mindless drone under dominate person. The fact that He and Right-eye can come out of almost the same situation demonstrate that nurture is not enough to account for the differences between them.


There is a similar phenomenon in the real world (http://io9.com/how-do-identical-twins-develop-different-personalities-497857032). Identical twins raised by the same parents in the same household with near identical experiences nonetheless have very different personalities. Why? Scientifically speaking, we don't know yet. The human body is a complex machine and we don't yet fully understand everything about it.





I think also that the role of parenting might be (rather cynically) put into terms of "master manipulator" as well. Sure, good parents want their kids to be able to make their own choices, but they too proscribe certain choices, like (to take an extreme example) going out drinking when they're 16. To sell that short sort of diminishes the importance and the ultimate impact of that job.


While parents have a definite impact on their children's outlook and upbringing, it's quite rare that children turn out exactly the way their parents want. I think this is the same sort of thing as with the identical twins -- a human being is a VERY complex machine, even from a strictly rationalist viewpoint , so although we can try, none of us can fully control what kind of person our children turn out to be.

If this wasn't the case, there would rarely be conflict between parents and children. In which case there would be a whole class of books, movies and plays that simply wouldn't exist.

That's why we don't throw parents in jail when children commit crimes, and why if a parent commits a crime we don't immediately throw the kids in the slammer with them. Because a criminal parent does not guarantee a criminal child, nor does a vile child mean a vile parent. The legal system treats human beings above a certain age as if they were independent actors capable of their own decisions, not simply organic machines responding to internal programming.

After all, that's a big part behind the rehabilitative theory of prison. The assumption was that criminals were criminal because of environment, so being put in a quiet reflective environment surrounded by good influences and made to do useful work would turn them into productive citizens. In point of fact, recidivism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism) approaches 50%. For the most part, our prisons are NOT rehabilitation centers, but holding bins, places of punishment. We can argue chicken-and-egg, but the point remains that there is at present no guaranteed foolproof way to make a bad man into a good one, or a good man into a bad one. Maybe we simply don't know enough about humans to do it -- or it could be that being part of an intelligent species ipso facto makes a person to an extent uncontrollable and unprogrammable by outside forces.

That definitely seems to be the case in OOTS world. After all, if the gods themselves can't make an evil man into a good one, how can mortals hope to do so?

At any rate, I think we're both agreed that nature and nurture are both factors and our disagreement is on the degree to which this is so. I lean towards nature being primary with nurture being a significant supporting influence rather than vice versa because if this were so , then you could infallibly shape human beings by changing their external environment and stimuli. And it doesn't work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing#Army_report_debunks_brainwashing_of_A merican_prisoners_of_war). Lots of experiments were made by lots of countries in this line back in the 1950s using drugs, beatings, and pretty much every other form of stimuli you can think of, but at present you cannot FORCE a man with strong convictions to hold new ones in opposition. this only works in movies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qLzQ4uOvio) .

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Amphiox]

There is a similar phenomenon in the real world [/url]. Identical twins raised by the same parents in the same household with near identical experiences nonetheless have very different personalities. Why? Scientifically speaking, we don't know yet. The human body is a complex machine and we don't yet fully understand everything about it.

The simplest explanation is that the twins do it on purpose. They want to be seen as individuals, and to distinguish themselves from each other. They deliberately choose to become different from one another, to adopt different views, different preferences, develop different interests.

Because they are self-willed beings.

And once they start differentiating themselves, it becomes a self-reinforcing process. Because when it comes to their experiences there is one fundamental and crucial difference:

Twin A experiences a world where s/he has a twin sibling B.

Twin B experiences a world where s/he has a twin sibling A.

So the moment Twins A and B become even the slightest bit different from one another (which is of course the moment of birth or even earlier, since twins are never COMPLETELY identical), their experience of the world becomes different as well.

[Amphiox]

What we currently know of heredity suggests that our genes bequeath to us a set of tendencies.

But these tendencies are very basic things. They are only the simplest building blocks of even the simplest things that we would call aspects of human personality or behavior.

No one is born with a genetic predisposition to being evil, or committing crimes, or being an alcoholic, or being a saint. We are born with tendencies towards simpler things, like a tendency towards aggression, or thrill seeking, or compassion, and so forth. Environment can turn any combination of these tendencies either good or evil, depending on circumstance and the interplay with the individual's own free choices.

There is, for example, in real life, the so-called "warrior gene" (still controversial, actually) which is supposedly found at a higher frequency among individuals in jail for violent crimes. The gene, if it exists at all, appears to produce a tendency towards aggression and a greater need for intense stimulus, which can be satisfied by engaging in high risk behaviors. However, this gene is ALSO found in a higher frequency among police officers, firemen, soldiers and other emergency first responders. It is, if it exists at all, as much a "hero" gene as it is a "villain" gene.

[Snails]

Somewhere in Tarquin's exposition about his past is a panel where baby Nale slaps baby Elan and is reprimanded by their mother: "Nale! Stop slapping Elan in his soft undeveloped baby skull!". So it definitely seems to be inborn.

Or it was taught by someone. Like his father. And only one twin so happened to get the gist of the lesson that day.

[pendell]

What we currently know of heredity suggests that our genes bequeath to us a set of tendencies.


I agree. When I argue against human beings being organic machines who can be programmed by a suitably skilled manipulator, I did not mean to imply that a human being is an organic machine who is totally programmed by their genetic inheritance. A human being is ... well, I don't know exactly what a human being is, but a human being is the opposite of an automaton. A human being has a certain degree of choice. Genetics and upbringing can be factors in these decisions, but they are not, in themselves , decisive.

So I don't believe Nale is evil because his genes made him that way or because his father raised him that way. I believe Nale was a moral agent responsible for his own decisions, and neither nature nor nurture are an excuse.



There is, for example, in real life, the so-called "warrior gene" (still controversial, actually) which is supposedly found at a higher frequency among individuals in jail for violent crimes. The gene, if it exists at all, appears to produce a tendency towards aggression and a greater need for intense stimulus, which can be satisfied by engaging in high risk behaviors. However, this gene is ALSO found in a higher frequency among police officers, firemen, soldiers and other emergency first responders. It is, if it exists at all, as much a "hero" gene as it is a "villain" gene.


Exactly my point. If the gene expresses itself in the manner you suggest, then the person on question is going to be a hero or a villain. They don't have the power to choose to be a passive sheep -- it's not in them -- but they DO have the power to choose whether they're going to be a paladin or a blackguard.

And again, being raised by a family of paladins doesn't guarantee the child will be a paladin -- Shojo comes to mind -- nor does being raised to be a cog in a villainous army mean the child will be a villain as well.

When I came down on the "nature" side of "nature vs. nurture", I wasn't coming down on the side of genetic predetermination. I was coming down on the side of their being something inside a human that is both responsible and accountable for actions which can be influenced by outside factors but is ultimately outside their control. That's debatable in real-world, but in OOTSworld it's called the "soul", and is the thing judged for entry into the afterlife. Again, if the soul's decisions are made for it by genes or by environmental programming, "judgement" as such is meaningless.

ETA: Why? Well, Rich writes stories in which human actions have consequences. A world in which humans are at the mercy of outside forces is some existentialist piece where human actions and choices are ultimately devoid of meaning. And that is absolutely NOT the kind of story OOTS is. Whether it's true or not in the real world, it definitely makes for a more interesting story if the characters' choices have meaning.
Respectfully,

Brian P.

[MtlGuy]

In real life twin studies are perfomed to explicity study this issue.

Twins separated at birth often have interesting similarities. For instance one set mentioned in my psych textbook at the time were reunited and discovered that they were both firefighters and both had wives with the same name. That suggests a 'nature' over nurture argument (though no information was given on their formative years in their respective homes).

The evidence in this book would support a nurture rather than nature argument because Elan and Nale have indentical genetics, but vastly different personalities and attitudes.

[Smolder]

Identical twins raised by the same parents in the same household with near identical experiences nonetheless have very different personalities. Why? Scientifically speaking, we don't know yet. The human body is a complex machine and we don't yet fully understand everything about it.


It's called epigenetics. Genes can be activated or repressed based on chemical markers. Over time, two genetically identical babies will diverge in behavior because they are not guaranteed to express exactly the same genes for their entire lives. Some twins diverge faster than others. Factors like environment, diet and experience contribute to this effect.

[Baelzar]

In OotS, it's 100% nurture. This world doesn't believe in alignment as a stat; more as a reflection of whatever actions you have taken lately.

In d20, it feeds both ways - Alignment <-> Actions. In OotSiverse, it's Actions -> Alignment.

Elan and Nale are the perfect example.

[Warren Dew]

How is this a question? They're identical twins. It's a controlled experiment, as tomandtish noted. There's no room for nature, unless nature has a non-genetic component in this world.
Is there any definitive proof that they are identical twins, and not fraternal twins? I know their heads and hair look identical, but given the limited differentiation possible with stick illustration, I'm not sure that's proof.

[Bulldog Psion]

Is there any definitive proof that they are identical twins, and not fraternal twins? I know their heads and hair look identical, but given the limited differentiation possible with stick illustration, I'm not sure that's proof.

The Order couldn't tell the difference between Elan and Nale after the substitution. And that includes Haley, who was strongly attracted to him, and got within kissing distance. I'm not sure if that stunt would have worked if they weren't identical twins.

[konradknox]

I imagine if the brothers were switched, Nale going with Mom and Elan going with Dad, they would group up exactly like their parent.

Elan inherits love of the dramatic from Tarquin, and he would be brought up with an evil outlook and efficient, becoming just the perfect worthy son Tarquin wanted to continue family business.

Nale inherits making overly complicated and logically looped plans, like his mother. If she straightened up his outlook, made him welcoming and nice, he would fit in perfectly in her restaraunt.

Tarquin simply bet on the wrong son. Neither of the two babies were particularly intelligent. They differed only in their demeanor and their affinity to drama in Elan's case, and overcomplication in Nale's case.

Tarquin picked the mean one to take with him and tried to teach him dramatic convention. He should have taken the dramatically savvy one and taught him to be mean later. Teaching someone to be mean is easier than teaching someone to be protocol adherent.

[Silverionmox]

In OotS, it's 100% nurture. This world doesn't believe in alignment as a stat; more as a reflection of whatever actions you have taken lately.

Then why is Durkon Evil now?

Why did baby Nale hit baby Elan? That scene clearly suggests inborn evilness.

[Psyren]

I think Xykon's childhood is enough to show that it can't be 100% Nurture. (Not to mention Right-Eye.)

For that matter, Roy pretty strongly resisted his upbringing too, for all that he learned a great deal from having a wizard for a father.

[The Pilgrim]

Tarquin picked the mean one to take with him and tried to teach him dramatic convention. He should have taken the dramatically savvy one and taught him to be mean later. Teaching someone to be mean is easier than teaching someone to be protocol adherent.

Maybe Tarquin did not get to chose which kid he would take with him.

[Amphiox]

How is this a question? They're identical twins. It's a controlled experiment, as tomandtish noted. There's no room for nature, unless nature has a non-genetic component in this world.

Identical twins are not necessarily completely genetically identical. Every human being is born with 100-150 spontaneous mutations that exist in neither parent. (Most are neutral and have no effect, but not necessarily always) Some of these occur in the germ line prior to fertilization, and identical twins will share them. But some occur later, in early embryogenesis, and identical twins may not share them. So there will be some differences.

Also, certain epigenetic and gene expression patterns differ in identical twins as a result of their development in different positions within their mother's uterus. That's a pretty blurry line there between nature and nurture.

[Amphiox]

Maybe Tarquin did not get to chose which kid he would take with him.

At that age, it may have simply been too early to tell which twin had which trait.

[mhsmith]

Its Elan's fault that Nale is evil, and he knows it. Its probably just the grief talking.

The second Elan put Chaotic Good on his character sheet, there was no way that his twin could be anything other than evil. Worse Nale would have never met Sabine if Haley and Elan weren't destined to hook up. They destroyed him - (this is before he actually was destroyed).

I never knew OOTS had turned into Tactics Ogre :smallwink:

[Fishman]

Judgement is only sensible if a human being will NEVER be lawful good regardless of what stimuli you give them. If human beings are , in short, moral actors capable of making their own choices, not simply a kind of organic machine that can be programmed by a suitably skilled manipulator. But response to stimuli IS a choice. If someone cannot become so no matter what they're presented with, they're every bit as much a machine...one that can never do the job demanded of it. A hammer will always be a hammer, and never a drill. It thus would make no sense to punish the hammer for not being a hammer: It cannot be otherwise, and no amount of torture or screaming is going to change that.

[maxi]

It is a long long way from mechanics of the body, defined by genetics, to metaphysics of the mind, defined by good/evil alignments.

I find it very hard to believe that predisposition to good and evil can be in-born. I find it very easy to believe that Elan could easily grow up evil, if he was nurtured by Tarquin. I even think Elan would be way more competent evil than Nale, too.

[Warren Dew]

The Order couldn't tell the difference between Elan and Nale after the substitution. And that includes Haley, who was strongly attracted to him, and got within kissing distance. I'm not sure if that stunt would have worked if they weren't identical twins.
Good point. So given they are identical twins, I have to agree with Piratemonk that there's not really any room for nature, in the sense of genetics. On the other hand, there's still plenty of room for environmental influences other than the effects of being raised by their particular parents.

I think the "Nale hitting Elan on the head" panel strongly indicates that the two had already differentiated in their good and evil tendencies before that point. Perhaps mom caught Elan and yelled at him the first time he hit Nale, which affected Elan enough that he quit doing it, while she didn't catch Nale's hitting Elan until it had already become a habit. This implies that if there's a cause and effect between the twins' alignments and their respective custodial parents', the cause is that the parents took the twins that were already closer to their own alignments, rather than that the alignments developed to match the parents' only later.