Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
There are that do? There are traits that by themselves are enough to make you call a particular person good, even if absolutely everything else about them is unrepentantly terrible? What an odd notion.

I mean ignoring the fact that trying to put people in good/neutral/evil case as if that was somehow measurable is an exercise in futility, it seems to me that the only way to describe a character as "good" is to say that their positive traits outweight their negative ones in number or intensity. It's a ridiculously subjective call to make of course so people are going to disagree as they'll draw lines at different places.
Tht makes much more sense to me than looking for particular traits that are necessary/sufficient to qualify for one case. Especially since everyone exhibits every trait at some degree. A perfectly selfish person is just as nonexistant as a perfectly selfless person, everyone is both but some are more one than the other while for others it's the opposite.
Classifying people is a pretty dumb idea, yeah, but the OP was referring to that because Oona possessed several traits ( that are usually seen as good, such as caring for others or the community) she somehow was neutral.

I guess I'd like to revise my stance, then; I am unsure (and I don't think) there are inherently good traits, but love and compassion are not necessarily inherently good ones. The same goes for typically-viewed-as-evil traits; malice or hatred are not necessarily inherently evil ones either.

I'm not sure what you are saying, there. Is that an example of an inherently good trait? Because, that's a bit needlessly complicated, I would have gone with love, humility or compassion, for example. OR are you saying that for a trait to be inherently good it must be an expression of that? I would disagree.
I named a broad one that I think can encompass a lot of other traits. Someone who has compassion and respect for all sentient lives embodies a lot of 'good' traits as well (empathy, understanding, selflessness, etc). I did mention a change of thought, in that yes, there's not really a concrete example of an inherently good trait.