Quote Originally Posted by Sir_Leorik View Post
Who says Therkla was willing to kill innocent people? Who says she was even willing to kill any of Daimyo Kubota's enemies other than Lord Hinjo? I seem to remember her trying desperately to convince Daimyo Kubota not to order the murder of the Katos, as well as her assisting Elan, Durkon, Daigo and Lien to escape from Chief Grukgruk's angry tribe of Orcs (twice!).
Well in strip 509 Kubota says that she has been his most trusted assassin for seven years. That strongly suggests that she was willing to kill whoever he told her to kill and in fact has done so in the past. (Now maybe Kubota only had her targetting rival evil aristocrats and crime bosses and the like and never had her target any innocent people, though given what we know of the man that seems unlikely.)

As for Durkon, Daigo, and Lien, Therkla was perfectly fine in strip 557 with letting them all be killed. She had to be talked out of it by Elan and only spared their lives to make Elan happy not because she had any moral objections to letting them be murdered on her command.

Quote Originally Posted by Tock Zipporah
You can commit evil acts and still be Neutral. Some people might argue that the difference between True Neutral and Neutral Evil is that a TN assassin works for the money, it's just a job, and they don't really consider the "right or wrong" aspect of it, just as long as they get paid; whereas a NE might enjoy killing, go out of their way to make a victim suffer, and prefer killing innocents.
I think too many people are conflating evil with psycopathy here. Yes, some evil people do enjoy killing and making others suffer, but you can be just as evil killing only for profit or convenience or for what you believe is "the greater good." What matters is that you are willing to kill innocent people not whether you enjoy it or not.

And if you counter by saying "But killing is wrong!" keep in mind that just about every Good-aligned character we've ever seen has killed people. Paladins kill sentient goblins because their boss tells them to. Miko tried to kill Roy and the rest of the OotS just because Shojo sent her after them. Hinjo tried to kill Redcloak at the docks, even though some people might argue that as an enforcer of law he should be trying to capture the enemy leader to put on trial for war crimes. It's all subjective.
I would agree that there are instances where killing can be justified. That is why I've specified the killing of innocents as being what makes Therkla evil. She's not killing in justified self-defense or while defending her country from an invasion. She's killing solely for profit.

And to further the points I made above, what's the difference between an assassin killing innocent people just because she was being paid, and a paladin killing innocent orcs just because he was being paid (a case brought up in On the Origin of PCs, where a paladin wanted to murder orcs who weren't hurting anyone and said explicitly he didn't even need to worry about alignment penalties for it).
There isn't any difference. In both cases killing innocents is an incredibly evil action.

There is no way to say "anyone who does X must be alignment Y." People of ANY alignment kill other sentient creatures when it suits their purposes. There are, of course, some EXTREME cases where it's blatantly wrong to kill (i.e. striking down your defenseless liege). Barring such extreme cases, however, there is a TON of grey area in between, grey area where paladins and other good-aligned people murder sentient creatures all the time.
And again I don't think Therkla was evil simply because she was willing to kill. Rather I think she was evil because she was willing to kill innocents. (Even without knowing who she murdered in the previous 7 years where she worked for Kubota, we know she was willing to kill Hinjo, Durkon, Daigo, and Lien, none of whom had done anything to Therkla that would justify her using lethal force on them.) Being willing to kill innocent people for profit is just not something that a Good or even a Neutral person would do. It's an incredibly evil action. Which is not to say that Therkla could never redeem herself or change her alignment. I am perfectly willing to consider that by the end she might have shifted to a Neutral alignment. But that shift was marked by her being no longer willing to kill innocents.