Alignment "Contradictions"

[Marriclay]

I edited out the word "ethical" because I figured it was more a part of the good-evil axis than lawful-chaotic. The important part is whether or not the character is following a "code," an external thing that would force him to decide in a way that may not be what he really wants.

Let me try to explain my reasoning this way:

A. You are faced with a choice of doing X or doing Y. By definition, Chaotic means there's a chance you would do X and a chance you would do Y.

Lawful, on the other hand, means there is no probability and you will always do X or always do Y, depending on the particular law or code you followed.

B. The choice you're faced with making is either to act purely Lawful (X) or to act purely Chaotic (Y)

C. You can be purely Lawful by making choice X in a Lawful manner, where no matter what, you would not have made choice Y.

You can be purely Chaotic by making choice Y with the chance that you could, instead, have made choice X.

D. However, you can be purely Lawful AND purely Chaotic by making choice X although you could, instead, have made choice Y.

The same happens if you make choice Y by the fact that you would always have made choice Y.

You're logic has a single hole in it though. You say that making choice X when you could have made choice Y is both Lawful and Chaotic. While this is not contradictory to the previous statement, you have to consider intentions. They are what make the day. killing a man can be construed in an insane amount of ways, all based on your intentions and thoughts. There are many occasions where people have described a single action from all nine alignment viewpoints. I'm too tired to make one, but suffice it to say, this causes a lot of problems

this could mean that X is Y, dependent on the person performing the action. or that both Y and X are Y. or that both X and Y are A (Good). or Maybe they're B (Evil). Or maybe they're AY. or BX. or maybe they're something else entirely, or all of them. killing a man is normally considered an evil act, but acting as an appointed executioner is a lawful, if distasteful, one. chaotic might have been impulse. stopping him from harming others is good.

In the end, it's the character intention that holds true, not some silly mathematical formula attempting to break fluff the same way we've broken everything else in this game. Yes, a chaotic action can be a lawful action, but it can also be said that every square is a rectangle without every rectangle being a square. it's a logic hole, that, while no less true for being such, is sadly irrelevant

Disclaimer: I apologize if a bit of that is incoherent or otherwise doesn't make sense. inform me and I shall do my best to correct it, though it may take a few tries, as a tired mind is a confused mind. Accursed insomnia.