Vigilantism and the Lawful Alignment in OotS

[pendell]

So. Been thinking overnight.

I had interpreted the noble's attempted assassination of Lord Hinjo as sort of being a Count Stauffenberg-type action: The leader is incompetent and leading us to destruction, so we must get rid of him before it's too late.

Rich corrected me: The reason the nobles attempted to murder Hinjo was not because they feared his competence, but because they feared that he would actually rule and put a stop to their intrigues and games.

So I've been wondering : Why didn't I come to that interpretation independently?

And the answer comes: Because in me experience, that's not how law-abiding people in a lawful system fight against a reformer.

My experience was in the late 80s and early 90s with the DOD and the ADA programming language . A directive came down from on high that the DOD was centralizing on one computer language, and one only. Henceforth all computer programs will be written in Ada. Which essentially meant we would be inoperable with anything written in the commercial world.

No one disobeyed those orders. They saluted and said "yes, sir". But they dragged their feet on implementation. They found exceptions to the rule. They played procedural games. Eventually the people whose brilliant idea it was transferred or got promoted, and things went on as they always had.

That wasn't the last time. I was part of an effort to build a brand new campaign-level simulation which was to replace all the existing simulations in use by all the services. A "one size fits all" sim. When everyone was using the same simulation, it was hoped that the different cases put by different advocates could be usefully compared, since in many cases the simulations and methodologies used by the different advocates were so different as to be impossible to compare. At least, by political laymen.

Problem: People didn't WANT an objective standard of comparison for their powerpoint presentations and case studies. Can't imagine why.

Did they stand up and outright say "No, I'm not going to do this?" Of course not. Instead they simply slow-rolled the changes. They criticized and made objections, some fair and some not. They continued their own development efforts. And again, eventually turnover occurred and the new guy didn't care about any initiatives the previous guy had built. If anything , he was anxious to shut down programs becuase as a bureaucrat he had to show that he was "cutting waste". Naturally that program was one its enemies offered up on the chopping block , and equally naturally the person in charge had a vested interested in making himself look good by getting rid of his predecessor's "wasteful" legacy. The project was terminated.

So to me the concept of lawful people murdering a new reformer simply because he wants to change the system is simply implausible. I lived and worked for more than a decade in such an environment, and IME it's very hard for one man to make any meaningful reforms, long term. It is VERY hard to avoid being captured by the system, because your reforms are only as meaningful as the information you're getting on what's going on in the system. And if you're trusting the people who've been running the system for years or decades to tell you what's going on, well, I can guarantee you that you won't hear anything that will upset their applecart. You've got to get out of the office and into the trenches yourself. You can't even rely on appointed observers, because they can be captured the same way. No, if you want to know what's really going on, there's no substitute for your own eyes and ears.

And when you do, you can be sure that the reforms you make will last exactly as long as you're there to keep an eye on things. The minute you turn your back, things go back to the way they were. Of course you'll fire a few people you catch out as an example to the rest, but the people you put in their place will be veterans of the same system with second-degree black belts in bureaucracy-fu. Eventually, the system wears down reformers through sheer inertia. Reformers come and go, but the Machine rolls on forever.

And that's why, if I were an Azurite noble, I would not feel unduly threatened by a heroic reforming soldier-king such as Lord Hinjo. I would dutifully applaud his coronation, but wait to take action until I'd actually seen what he intended to do. And he may want to rule more lawfully, but in fact I don't think he will.

Why not? Well, first because when his city is being invaded inter-noble squabbles are going to be so far down his to-do list he'll never bother with it unless we make such a mess of things that it comes to his attention as a problem in the war. That I would make all efforts to avoid doing.

And even if the city was at peace, well, Hinjo's a Paladin. That means I expect him to be constantly at the head of the sapphire guard going on constant crusades to save the world outside the city. Sort of like Richard the Lionheart . Which means that so long as we provide funds and men for his crusades and don't raise any actual challenge to his rule we'll have a free hand to do what we like in the city, because he's going to be too busy slaying goblins and liches to worry about the details of ruling a city. Ruling is boring and dull and involves a lot of smiling at people you really can't stand -- hypocrisy and deceit and compromises which a lawful good person can't stand, and so can be expected to avoid as much as he can.

So, were I an Azure noble, I would not fear a reformer-king who promised to govern lawful good, not when said king is also a heroic paladin whose primary mission in life is to go off and get killed fighting monsters elsewhere far from home. So I wouldn't send ninjas after him. I'd simply let him try to tackle the system, get bored, and then find an excuse to go off and kill monsters, which he's actually good at.

That's the way I see things. I'm not demanding that Rich change his story and I'm not saying Rich is writing a bad one. I think this is a GREAT story and I'm enjoying every minute of it. This is his story and not mine, and since I can't write a better story I'll enjoy his without carping. I'm simply posting my reaction based on my experiences. Maybe someone will find it useful or enriching or something. If so, there it is. :)


ETA: Thinking on this some more ... it may be that the phenomenon I describe, of bureaucratic sclerosis, is what happens when the lawful alignment is a victim of his own success. Rich explained earlier that the point of law is stability -- that changing a king or a ruler makes little difference to the running of the city.

But that's precisely my point -- the fact that a king or ruler has little impact on society is precisely why the nobles shouldn't fear Hinjo. Because the fact that the system is so stable that death of the king has no impact also means that the LIFE of a king has scarcely more. It's just as difficult to make reforms or meaningful change in an overly-stable system as it is to break it. Good kings, bad kings, the system rolls on. After awhile, it's not lawful good or lawful evil. It's simply lawful.

Thinking on this further -- it may be that the Chaotic Lord Shojo running Azure City is not an accident. It may be just what the city needed. Because only a chaotic person would "shake things up", play the system and make it *work*, rather than simply let it roll on unhindered, regardless of whether changing circumstances mean the rules still made sense or not.

Because Lord Shojo was such an out of the box thinker, he was able to thrive in this lawful environment and be a great ruler because he rose above the system, found ways to do good in spite of the system when it got in the way.

Perhaps an overly lawful society sometimes needs a chaotic ruler.

Just as an overly-chaotic society, perhaps, needs a lawful ruler.

Tarquin is the mirror-image opposite of Lord Shojo. Lord Shojo was the chaotic good ruler of a lawful good city. Tarquin is the lawful evil ruler who dominates the chaotic evil western continent. Which is the opposite of Azure City in almost every way. Where the Azurites were Blue, the bloodies wear red. Where Azurite society is a lawful society at peace, the Empire is a lawful society just barely carved out of a chaotic wilderness of war and anarchy.

It may be that what the western continent needs more than anything is law. Which is why a lawful ruler is able to become master of chaos. Just as Azure City needed a chaotic ruler to unstick the gears and literally get the plot moving.

I realize Rich wasn't thinking of any of this when he wrote the story. He was simply trying to tell a good story and all the background is just that -- background to give more depth, the way a landscape in a painting makes a portrait more real than a flat white background. But maybe the story needed this because that's the way humans *work*.

And hey, just because Rich wasn't worried about this doesn't mean I can't speculate on what the story tells us about the human condition, wittingly or no. Tolkien's lecture on applicability versus allegory comes to mind.


Respectfully,

Brian P.