Is Mr Glass ( Unbreakable, original film only ) Evil?

[Conradine]

I'm talking only about the original film. I didn't watch the sequels, because I prefer to think at it as something unique and independent.

According to D&D 3.5, would Elijah Price ( aka Mr Glass ) be considered Evil-aligned?

I'm unsure about that. He's a murderous terrorist, despite taking no pleasure in his actions and being motivated by the greater good. That would be your standard Lawful Evil alignment.
But he is wrecked by guilt and in the end he deliberately set up things to be captured and punished.

Is a villain that not only accept his punishment but actively bring it upon himself truly Evil?

[The Glyphstone]

Generally, alignment is determined by your deeds. IIRC his motivations are pretty selfish too...he's a supervillain so he needs to create a superhero to be his nemesis. Many RL serial killers left clues and hints that helped the police catch them as well.

Hes not a one dimensional evil, but he is Evil.

[Keltest]

If he knows that its wrong but does it anyway, that seems pretty evil to me.

[Conradine]

But searching and accepting the punishment isn't redemption?

[Keltest]

But searching and accepting the punishment isn't redemption?

Not in and of itself. Understanding that youre evil doesnt make you not evil, it just makes you self aware.

[AvatarVecna]

Mr Glass is a man who's read Watchmen 10 too many times and thinks he's Ozymandias. He doesn't for sure have special powers in Unbreakable (it's unclear if anybody actually has real powers in Unbreakable or is just exceptional at what they do). He's not a supervillain seeking out a superhero to match wits with, he's a man who's suffered his entire life and is desperate to find proof that his suffering has meaning. He doesn't want the world to be senseless and random so he makes sense of his awful life by projecting purpose into it born from comics - he suffers because the world was trying to push him into being the supervillain he was always meant to be, and if he can cause an event that results in the rise of a Superhero who's his thematic opposite (not super-smart, but very physically capable), he'll be happy because even if he's fated to lose, at least then he can comfort himself with the fact that it's because the universe was out to get him from the start.

He's a man who's taken his pain in absurdly unhealthy directions and has justified it to himself as "for the greater good" even though he's really doing it to validate his own feelings about his place in the world. It's a very realistic look at how circumstances can make somebody into a villain even if they maybe don't want to be, but those circumstances have still definitely made him a villain. There's blood on his hands, and not just a little. What he did is exactly what he meant to do, and his motivations are at least as much selfish as "for the greater good", if not moreso.

EDIT: Additionally, let's assume that he's 100% right, and the universe he lives in operates on tropes and cliches, and the universe is 100% out to get him and make him suffer and make him evil because he's supposed to be a villain. That doesn't change any of what I said - he's just guessing on the hope that he's right cuz it's all he's got left, but he still purposefully murdered a lot of people as part of that. Turning himself in at the end doesn't change that fact anymore than if the Joker gave up his life of crime and mayhem and murder - just because you've made a permanent decision to stop causing harm, doesn't undo what you've done.

[Jan Mattys]

I'm talking only about the original film. I didn't watch the sequels, because I prefer to think at it as something unique and independent.

According to D&D 3.5, would Elijah Price ( aka Mr Glass ) be considered Evil-aligned?


He's a murderous terrorist

That's your answer right there.
Redemption isn't as easy as saying "oh, I was evil, but now I know better and I'm not".

[JadedDM]

But searching and accepting the punishment isn't redemption?

I'd say that is the first step toward redemption, but it is not, by itself, redemption.

[Jan Mattys]

But searching and accepting the punishment isn't redemption?

Nope.

The way I see it, to reach redemption (and that's not guaranteed you will get there anyway) you need some form of atonement and repair.
In a way, making up for what you did must become the driving force of your life. The greater the evil you did, the harder it'll be and the longer it'll take to reach a sort of moral equilibrium.
Just accepting your punishment, as someone already said, is becoming aware of your shortcomings, not redemption. That's the first step, definitely not the last, of the path.

[Vahnavoi]

He's Evil under 1st Edition AD&D rules. To paraphrase the rules, Good cares about well-being and happiness of individuals, where as for Evil, purpose is determinant. And for Mr. Glass, all his heinous acts are about finding that purpose. Sacrificing the well-being of countless people is acceptable if it helps him verify his vision of how the world works.

If you accept his "for the greater good" justification, then a case can be made that he's Lawful Evil, specifically. In terms of AD&D alignment, Law and Chaos, when applied to individual persons, mean being for or against organized groups. The question, of course, is: which group? It certainly wasn't all those innocent people that died in his search for special people. Oh, but that answers the question, doesn't it? It's the special people he's Lawful towards.

This is, however, really weak given his actions. He is a solitary person who acts only out of his own beliefs to prove his own vision. His idea of special people seems to revolve around exceptional individuals, so I'd peg him as Neutral or even Chaotic.

[Narkis]

He is just as Evil as Tarquin is. Both their actions are undeniably Villainous. Both commit those actions while aware that they are villainous, and accepting that a Hero will ultimately arise and kill them for those very actions. Neither is willing to consider that they may have been wrong in taking those actions, or the possibility of doing things differently in the future. And so both are complete and unrepentant Villains, if self-aware ones, and are not even in the same vicinity as taking the first step towards redemption.

[Razade]

I'm talking only about the original film. I didn't watch the sequels, because I prefer to think at it as something unique and independent.

According to D&D 3.5, would Elijah Price ( aka Mr Glass ) be considered Evil-aligned?

I'm unsure about that. He's a murderous terrorist, despite taking no pleasure in his actions and being motivated by the greater good. That would be your standard Lawful Evil alignment.
But he is wrecked by guilt and in the end he deliberately set up things to be captured and punished.

Is a villain that not only accept his punishment but actively bring it upon himself truly Evil?

The answer is, without a doubt, yes. He is evil. Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil but Evil. He killed a fairly large number of innocent people. Just because his test resulted in what he expected to have resulted doesn't make him not evil. If he'd failed, you'd probably call him evil yes? He killed everyone in a misguided attempt of what he believed. Just because it worked doesn't make him or his actions less wrong. Is he somewhat tragic? Yes. That doesn't excuse the actions he took in slaughtering innocent people for his desires. It also doesn't matter that he felt remorse for his actions. He still took them, he still did them. Regretting doing evil doesn't make you not evil. It just means you're working towards not being evil any longer.

[Giggling Ghast]

Mr Glass is a man who's read Watchmen 10 too many times and thinks he's Ozymandias. He doesn't for sure have special powers in Unbreakable (it's unclear if anybody actually has real powers in Unbreakable or is just exceptional at what they do). He's not a supervillain seeking out a superhero to match wits with, he's a man who's suffered his entire life and is desperate to find proof that his suffering has meaning. He doesn't want the world to be senseless and random so he makes sense of his awful life by projecting purpose into it born from comics - he suffers because the world was trying to push him into being the supervillain he was always meant to be, and if he can cause an event that results in the rise of a Superhero who's his thematic opposite (not super-smart, but very physically capable), he'll be happy because even if he's fated to lose, at least then he can comfort himself with the fact that it's because the universe was out to get him from the start.

He's a man who's taken his pain in absurdly unhealthy directions and has justified it to himself as "for the greater good" even though he's really doing it to validate his own feelings about his place in the world. It's a very realistic look at how circumstances can make somebody into a villain even if they maybe don't want to be, but those circumstances have still definitely made him a villain. There's blood on his hands, and not just a little. What he did is exactly what he meant to do, and his motivations are at least as much selfish as "for the greater good", if not moreso.

EDIT: Additionally, let's assume that he's 100% right, and the universe he lives in operates on tropes and cliches, and the universe is 100% out to get him and make him suffer and make him evil because he's supposed to be a villain. That doesn't change any of what I said - he's just guessing on the hope that he's right cuz it's all he's got left, but he still purposefully murdered a lot of people as part of that. Turning himself in at the end doesn't change that fact anymore than if the Joker gave up his life of crime and mayhem and murder - just because you've made a permanent decision to stop causing harm, doesn't undo what you've done.

Well said.

[Mordar]

In answer to the OP's question...I have to say Glass is either of alien morality which we would view as depraved and diabolical (so evil), or he is subject to our morality and thus evil. In short, evil.

Even in the later movies (which are still unique and independent, and I think show some nice worldbuilding and story telling), when he does something to oppose another group of bad people it doesn't make him less bad, necessarily. But it could have been the start of an anti-hero development.


He doesn't for sure have special powers in Unbreakable (it's unclear if anybody actually has real powers in Unbreakable or is just exceptional at what they do).

I don't think I can agree with this...Beast certainly seems capable of superhuman feats, and David Dunn certainly seems to collect information in a way that goes at least as far as Sherlock Holmes in the recent movies (which I think it still arguably super-human), and his feats of strength seem well beyond elite athlete capabilities. I'd have them as street-level hero powers, but powers none the less.

- M

[AvatarVecna]

I don't think I can agree with this...Beast certainly seems capable of superhuman feats, and David Dunn certainly seems to collect information in a way that goes at least as far as Sherlock Holmes in the recent movies (which I think it still arguably super-human), and his feats of strength seem well beyond elite athlete capabilities. I'd have them as street-level hero powers, but powers none the less.

- M

OP specified original film only. Yes, they definitely have powers in future installments, but in the context of the question that was actually asked, it's still ambiguous. Admittedly, I'm not sure why OP specified original film only, but they did, and what's there isn't superhuman - it's even remarked upon in the text that what David did is impressive, but not unique, not special.

[Xyril]

OP specified original film only. Yes, they definitely have powers in future installments, but in the context of the question that was actually asked, it's still ambiguous. Admittedly, I'm not sure why OP specified original film only, but they did, and what's there isn't superhuman - it's even remarked upon in the text that what David did is impressive, but not unique, not special.

I was thinking that perhaps OP was worried that the sequels might be interpreted as validating Glass's "greater good" argument. In Unbreakable, all he really proved was that evil draws out good people to fight them--the fact that a particularly exceptional individual did so was less about the universe acting to provide balance and more the result of Glass's deliberate manipulations. Personally, I don't feel that "he was factually correct all along" is ever the deciding factor on whether someone's actions were good or evil, but there are more than a few folks here who do.

[Sapphire Guard]

He didn't turn over a new leaf or anything. He just accomplished his goal. There's no shift in alignment or redemption.

[Cikomyr2]

Evil for the greater good is still evil.

And I am not even convinced he did evil for the greater good.

[Saintheart]

Neutral Evil, that being the embodiment of selfishness. And specifically, the embodiment of narcissism.

I hovered over Lawful Evil for a second, but when you get down to it, the reason Glass does all the horrible things he does is to justify his own existence. To give himself an identity. He derails the train, does all his terrible deeds, in order to force the universe to produce a superhero. Glass might rationalise it to himself as proving that he's not a mistake, that he has a purpose, but this is flat-out narcissism, where you see yourself as the centre of existence, where you force the world to accept the label that you put on yourself. This view of the world centred on your self does not require that you are the protagonist of the story, only that others validate the label you give yourself: which David unwittingly does, because he buys into Glass's belief that he's a superhero and therefore validates Glass's view of himself as a villain.

As for the suggestion that Glass did it for the 'greater good', in order to bring David's powers about, that misses the fact that David Dunn was superhuman. He had never gotten ill in his life, he had a vulnerability to water. These all pre-existed Mr Glass blowing up trains or doing things like that, they had nothing to do with Glass. Glass's whole hieroglyphics thing about how he's on a mission to reveal the existence of superhumans to the world is just Glass's way of finding someone to validate the label he'd created for himself.