Alignment Examples

[North_Ranger]

DISCLAIMER: Restarting a thread that got locked due to a touch of politics; if you want, you can find it here. Feel free to add your own two cents on the matter as well as examples of characters who you think fit the bill, but steer clear from real-world political or religious figures. Even if you do think Teddy Roosevelt deserves a slot simply for being a badass


I'm currently in the process of planning a Pathfinder campaign for some friends who, for the most part, are tabletop newbies and fantasy virgins. One of the tougher nuts to crack in this respect is giving them reasonable examples of various he alignments. The PF core rule book is a good starting point, but I'm sure a little extra examples wouldn't hurt.

So far I've got this:

Lawful Good ("The Crusader"):
- Richard Lionheart (as seen in popular culture)
- Ned Stark
- Buzz Lightyear
- Austin Powers
- Tevye
- Captain Kirk
- Superman
- King Arthur

Neutral Good ("The Good Guy"):
- Samwise Gamgee
- Roger Rabbit
- Mulan
- John Carter
- Beowulf
- Flash Gordon
- Edward Scissorhands

Chaotic Good ("The Freedom Fighter"):
- Robin Hood
- William Tell
- Doc Brown
- Spartacus


Lawful Neutral ("Traditionalist"):
- Jeeves
- Stannis Baratheon

Neutral ("The Middle Way Man"):
- Sherlock Holmes
- Indiana Jones

Chaotic Neutral ("The Individualist"):
- Tyrion Lannister
- Dr Gregory House
- Jack Sparrow


Lawful Evil ("The Dictator"):
- Sauron
- Darth Vader
- Dracula
- Ming the Merciless

Neutral Evil ("The Mercenary"):
- Joffrey Baratheon
- Dr Evil

Chaotic Evil ("The Crazy"):
- The Joker
- serial killers
- the Drow
- Gregor Clegane, "The Mountain That Rides"
- The Goblin King (from The Labyrinth)

...and that's pretty much it at the time. So, any other people who'd make good poster boys (or babes) for the nine alignments? Real life, popular culture, whatever... everything goes except religious figures, politicians or anything else that is against forum rules.

[Riverdance]

I challenge anyone to name a figure more chaotic neutral than Jack Sparrow. He defines it, as Ned Stark does Lawful Good.

[Burner28]

Who is Ned Stark? And really if anything, many people would say that Superman is the epitome of Lawful Good.

Also, it may be for the better that the OP did not mention Batman in this thread!

Concerning Neutral Evil, the most popular examples I think could be used as examples are several of the Disney villains.

[Wardog]

[QUOTE=North_Ranger;13714780]



Neutral Good ("The Good Guy"):
- Samwise Gamgee
- Roger Rabbit
- Flash Gordon

Is Sam NG, or LG? "Obedience to lawful authority" never really became an issue in LotR, so it would have to be judged on things like loyalty, discipline, faithfulness, etc, which Sam had is spades. Ditto for Flash.

Roger Rabbit, or the other hand, was distinctly chaotic, if I remember right. (Although it is many years since I've seen the film).


Neutral ("The Middle Way Man"):
- Indiana Jones

Indy is a hero who puts himself at risk to save help or protect others, and has a tendancy to act impulsively and make things up as he goes along. That sounds like textbook CG to me.

[Water_Bear]

Awesome list, but I would move Austin Powers, Indiana Jones, Captain James T Kirk, and Roger Rabbit to CG. Also Dracula, at least in the original book, seemed like more of a "smart CE" than LE, but that is a tough distinction.

Now that I've gotten the serious bit out of the way; time for Alignment Chart Spamming!

The Only Useful One

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Batman

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Anime Batman

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Glad0s Personality Cores

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[Hiro Protagonest]

Indy is a hero who puts himself at risk to save help or protect others, and has a tendancy to act impulsively and make things up as he goes along. That sounds like textbook CG to me.

You don't have to be good-aligned to want to uncover relics, do what is the pulp action hero's equivalent of a routine job to save a village and stop some crazy dude, and help your side win a war. Neutral is not apathetic.

I just call him blue/red.

[Knaight]

Lawful Good ("The Crusader"):
- Richard Lionheart (as seen in popular culture)

I'd say he is usually portrayed as Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil in popular culture. Oddly enough, his contemporary and enemy Yusuf Salah ad-Din is usually portrayed as Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, and which portrayal each sees is relatively unrelated to the other in a given work.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'd say he is usually portrayed as Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil in popular culture. Oddly enough, his contemporary and enemy Yusuf Salah ad-Din is usually portrayed as Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, and which portrayal each sees is relatively unrelated to the other in a given work.

Richard is likely not lawful good. He was impatient and warlike. He was sort of a less extreme version of Alexander the Great. I think he's true neutral or something.

[Knaight]

Richard is likely not lawful good. He was impatient and warlike. He was sort of a less extreme version of Alexander the Great. I think he's true neutral or something.

He tends to get white washed in media portrayals.

[Riverdance]

Awesome list, but I would move Austin Powers, Indiana Jones, Captain James T Kirk, and Roger Rabbit to CG. Also Dracula, at least in the original book, seemed like more of a "smart CE" than LE, but that is a tough distinction.

Now that I've gotten the serious bit out of the way; time for Alignment Chart Spamming!

The Only Useful One

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That's a really good one. (Although I don't watch enough star trek to recognize the LN guy)

[Tragic_Comedian]

I've tried to include two different examples where I can think of them just to show how different two characters with the same alignment can be.

Lawful Good: Superman, Batman
Neutral Good: Sora from Kingdom Hearts,
Chaotic Good: Robin Hood, Harry Potter

Lawful Neutral: Death from Discworld (borderline True Neutral, though...),
True Neutral: Hades, Mundungus Fletcher
Chaotic Neutral: Jack Sparrow, V from V for Vendetta (the graphic novel)

Lawful Evil: Dolores Umbridge
Neutral Evil: Jafar, Maleficent
Chaotic Evil: The Joker, Morgoth, maybe some of Lovecraft's beasties.

[Incom]

What about the alignment chart demotivator demotivator? I saw it somewhere on this site and it might be actually useful in showing how alignments view each other.

Also, Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann for CG. If you aren't familiar with the show (it's a gold mine of internet memes and quotes),

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humans live underground and Kamina, being a rebellious teenager, insists on the existence of a surface, and he eventually leads a revolt against the LE (arguably LN) forces that are keeping them underground.

[Tragic_Comedian]

That's a really good one. (Although I don't watch enough star trek to recognize the LN guy)

It's Captain Picard. You could make a case for him being Lawful Good, just not that friendly, but LN suits him just as well.

[Templarkommando]

Let me toss my two cents in...

Lawful Good: Honor Harrington (by David Weber), Kate Beckett, Lieutenant Columbo, King Arthur,

Neutral Good: Michael Weston (Burn Notice), The Kung Fu Panda, The A-Team,

Chaotic Good: Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds

Lawful Neutral: James Bond, Jack Bauer

True Neutral: A Martial Artist who places his combat prowess above everything else... can't think of any specifics just now... Maybe the main character from Master Killer... it's an old Kung Fu movie.

Chaotic Neutral: Jayne Cobb

Lawful Evil: Judge Claude Frollo (Hunchback of Notre Dame... the Disney version at least, I'm not well studied on the original). Jafar from Aladdin.

Neutral Evil: Maleficent

Chaotic Evil: Saffron and The Reavers from Firefly.. though on distinctly different levels.

That's all for now.

[navar100]

Captain Kirk is not Lawful Good. He almost always violates the Prime Directive to bring about what he thinks is the best results and has disobeyed orders when it comes to his friends. He is not Chaotic Good either because other times he will follow protocol and cares about the welfare of society as well as the individual. He is Neutral Good. Spock is Lawful Good. Logic is his code for the betterment of everyone. Dr. McCoy is Chaotic Good. Rules are always getting in the way for him to do what he thinks is right. He cares nothing about regulations when someone's life is in danger.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Captain Kirk is not Lawful Good. He almost always violates the Prime Directive to bring about what he thinks is the best results and has disobeyed orders when it comes to his friends. He is not Chaotic Good either because other times he will follow protocol and cares about the welfare of society as well as the individual. He is Neutral Good. Spock is Lawful Good. Logic is his code for the betterment of everyone. Dr. McCoy is Chaotic Good. Rules are always getting in the way for him to do what he thinks is right. He cares nothing about regulations when someone's life is in danger.

Spock is blue (like his shirt!).

[Arranis Thelmos]

Awesome list, but I would move Austin Powers, Indiana Jones, Captain James T Kirk, and Roger Rabbit to CG. Also Dracula, at least in the original book, seemed like more of a "smart CE" than LE, but that is a tough distinction.

Now that I've gotten the serious bit out of the way; time for Alignment Chart Spamming!

The Only Useful One

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Batman

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Anime Batman

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Glad0s Personality Cores

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What's the anime you called 'anime batman'?

[Knaight]

What's the anime you called 'anime batman'?

That would be Code Geass, though I'd contest the characterization. Specifically, that is the character Lelouche Lamparouge, who is a complex character that thus defies the alignment system.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

How is Tevye Lawful Good? Certainly he's this at the start of the play/movie, but

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he comes to be the sort of person that breaks the usual rules in the case of his daughters, wanting their happiness over tradition. The third daughter may have been a relapse into his old alignment, but he reconciles by the end. Tevye is most certainly Neutral Good.

[Silus]

I'd like to add Sam Vimes from the Discworld series to the list of Lawful Neutral.

Seriously, aside from maybe Judge Dredd, Vimes is the poster boy for LN.

[Hallavast]

I object to Stannis Baratheon being an exemplar of LN. Sure he's lawful to a fault, but he does some pretty evil **** to advance his claim to the throne. Like have his little brother murdered with blood magic, sacrifices people to some foreign god, is unfaithful to his wife, sent thousands of soldiers to their deaths, threatened to kill a baby, and probably kicked a few puppies off screen. All to increase his own power and win a crown he's obsessed with. That screams evil to me.

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I don't know if Mal Reynolds is Good or Neutral, but he certainly isn't neutral on the law/chaos axis. He's either extremely lawful or extremely chaotic. Nowhere near the center.

Lawful Mal:
He strives to keep his word to keep his reputation good as a smuggler/trader. He has his own personal code that makes him judge people on principle rather than looking at their individual circumstances. He also runs his ship with an iron fist. He tends to micromanage his crew beyond the role of employer. He's created a surrogate family aboard Serenity, and he constantly reminds everyone that he's "Daddy".

Chaotic Mal:
He's a smuggler and a thief with no regard for the law. He's a stark individualist who "just wants to go his own way". He once fought a losing war against imperial power. He neither trusts nor respects any authority other than his own, seeing governments as illegitimate. He points guns at and punches people who've paid him for safe passage. He has a violent temper. He makes remarks about being polite to passengers until they leave civilized space.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Eh, I see Vimes as being more Lawful Good than Lawful Neutral. Also from the series, the Auditors are Lawful Evil while Teatime is Chaotic Evil.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I'd argue that the A-Team sure as heck aren't Neutral Good, try Chaotic Good. To many explosions for Neutral anything.

Lawful Good:
Twilight Sparkle (My little Pony)
AppleJack (My little Pony)
The Good Conscience (Black and white 1+2)

Neutral Good:
Garrus Vakarian (Mass Effect)
Flutter Shy (My little pony)

Chaotic Good:
MacGyver
Rainbow Dash (My little pony)

Lawful Neutral:
EDI (Mass Effect 2+3)

True Neutral:
Skully (X-files)
Morrigan (Dragon Age: Origins)
Rarity (My little Pony)

Chaotic Neutral:
Mulder (X-files)
The Doctor (Doctor Who... and no, I wouldn't put him as Good.. he's done some pretty bad stuff just because he lost his temper, so neutral, leaning towards good.)
Pinkie Pie (My little Pony)

Lawful Evil:
Cybermen (Doctor Who)

Neutral Evil:
Raistlin Majere (Dragonlance)
Daleks (Doctor Who)

Chaotic Evil:
Bishop (Neverwinter Nights 2)
The Master (Doctor Who)
The Evil Conscience (Black and white 1+2)

[Gettles]

Here is who I think for the Alignments I try to use characters who are fairly well known unless I REALLY feel like they are a great example of the alignment

LG: Superman, Captain America, Roy Mustang, Phoenix Wright,

NG: Vivi, Vash the Stampede, Aang,

CG: Batman, Wolverine, Yuri Lowell, Garrus Vakarian, John Maclane

LN: Any non-villainous version Death usually falls here, Nick Fury, Nicholas Angel

TN: The Truth from Full Metal Alchemist, the President of the Neutral Planet(Its hard to find a lot of good examples of this in my mind)

CN: Jack Sparrow, Faye Valentine

LE: Lex Luthor, Darth Vader, Dr. Doom,

NE: Pyramid Head, Revolver Ocelot, Mr. Burns

CG: The Joker, Nightmare from Soul Calibur, Hazama

[Ashtagon]

Indy is a hero who puts himself at risk to save help or protect others, and has a tendancy to act impulsively and make things up as he goes along. That sounds like textbook CG to me.

Sounds right to me.

Awesome list, but I would move Austin Powers, Indiana Jones, Captain James T Kirk, and Roger Rabbit to CG. Also Dracula, at least in the original book, seemed like more of a "smart CE" than LE, but that is a tough distinction.

Austin Powers? He's not chaotic. He works for a government as an elite spy. You don't get any kind of responsibility at that level by being chaotic. He's in a large organisation in an elite position of responsibility, while working for the good of the wider nation-state rather than himself. Sounds lawful to me. His sex appeal stuff just means he's funky, not chaotic.

Ditto for Kirk. He's a starship captain in a quasi-military organisation. He obeys orders when sent on dangerous missions for the benefit of the greater good, he pays attention to the prime directive. Those times where he has disobeyed direct orders have been more due to the fact that he has had superior information on the tactical situation rather than because he was a wilful s.o.b doing his own thing.

(btw, I think we should drop both Richard the Lionheart and Saladin from discussion)

How is Tevye Lawful Good? Certainly he's this at the start of the play/movie, but...

Well, I meant Tevye at the start of the film. By the end, I'd agree he has become neutral good.

[Sith_Happens]

Anime Batman

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+1

Personally, though, I'd peg Lelouch as Lawful Evil overall.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Off the top of my head, the two greatest examples for Chaotic Evil are the Joker and Kefka (who is basically the video game equivalent of the Joker).

[Kitten Champion]

When I think of alignment paradigms, I think:

LG: Kuchiki Byakuya (Bleach), Captain Carrot (Discworld), Galad Damodred (Wheel of Time)

NG: Kurosaki Ichigo (Bleach), , Harry Potter, Batman (Depending on the author)

CG: Harry Dresden (Dresden Files), Han Solo (Star Wars), Mat Cauthon (Wheel of Time)

LN: "L" (Death Note), Suzaku Kururugi (Code Geass), Lord Vetinari (Discworld),

TN: Kino (Kino's Journey), Nagato Yuki (Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi), Death (Discworld)

CN: Kenpachi Zaraki (Bleach), The Incredible Hulk (Marvel), Bugs Bunny

LE: Light Yagami (Death Note), Haman Kahn (Gundam), Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes)

NE: Aizen Sosuke (Bleach), Voldemort (Harry Potter), Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)

CE: Angelus (Buffy, Angel) , Ali Al-Saachez (Gundam 00), Alex (Clockwork Orange)

[Burner28]

I knew Batman was going to be used as examples of Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic Good.

Off the top of my head, the two greatest examples for Chaotic Evil are the Joker and Kefka (who is basically the video game equivalent of the Joker).

I like your examples.

Lawful Neutral: James Bond, Jack Bauer

Doesn't he torture people?

[hamishspence]

He does- however different people have different standards for how much Evil acts are needed to push a person to Evil alignment.

A "professional torturer" might be considered more Evil than someone who only does so occasionally, "for the greater good".