Home Inprovement Alignment

[Bartmanhomer]

I love watching the 90s sitcom Home Improvement and I figured which alignment that each character has on the show.

Tim Taylor (Chaotic Neutral)
Jill Taylor (Neutral Good)
Brad Taylor (Neutral Good)
Randy Taylor (Neutral Good)
Mark Taylor (Neutral Good)
Wilson (Lawful Good)
Al Boreland (Neutral Good)
Heidi (Chaotic Good)

I think the alignment is very reasonable. What do you think?

[2D8HP]

I love watching the 90s sitcom Home Improvement and I figured which alignment that each character has on the show.

Tim Taylor (Chaotic Neutral)
Jill Taylor (Neutral Good)
Brad Taylor (Neutral Good)
Randy Taylor (Neutral Good)
Mark Taylor (Neutral Good)
Wilson (Lawful Good)
Al Boreland (Neutral Good)
Heidi (Chaotic Good)

I think the alignment is very reasonable. What do you think?

Let's ask the guy who made up the "nine-point D&D alignment system":



"As a final note, most of humanity falls into the lawful category, and most of lawful humanity lies near the line between good and evil. With proper leadership the majority will be prone towards lawful/good. Few humans are chaotic, and very few are chaotic and evil"

- E. Gary Gygax

Most of those you list are humans, so as most of humanity is Lawful-neutral (though tending towards Lawful-good when a societies leaders are good), most of the list should be Lawful-neutral, or Lawful-good.

- Your welcome

[Peelee]

Most of those you list are humans, so as most of humanity is Lawful-neutral (though tending towards Lawful-good when a societies leaders are good), most of the list should be Lawful-neutral, or Lawful-good.

Aye. The only one I'd peg as Good would be Al, maaaaaaybe Wilson (but I'm on the fence about him), everyone else is pretty solidly Neutral on that axis.

[Bohandas]

Yeah, most of then True Neutral.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

Tim Taylor: CN. His defining motivation is "Stick a rocket on it and see what happens". That's CN.
Jill Taylor: TN. No major goals or motivations beyond the basic minimize conflict, get Tim to dial it back.
Brad Taylor: TN. Slightly self-interested and living in the moment, no real morality, but not a bad person.
Randy Taylor: NG or CG. This kid wants to fix the world. He writes an article taking on his dad's employer boss over pollution, he spends a year doing charity work overseas, he's good and def not lawful.
Mark Taylor: CN or TN. No real morality, does spend a lot of time and effort rebelling, but does so in a very specific, preset way.
Wilson: LG. Cares a lot about what's right, but draws his morality exclusively from various prewritten moral codes.
Al Boreland: LN. "I don't think so Tim."
Heidi: Not enough info, default to TN.

[Peelee]

Tim Taylor: CN. His defining motivation is "Stick a rocket on it and see what happens". That's CN.

Tim is also downright axiomatic about all things cars, for example, and is literally a spokesman for Binford, and thus only ever uses or says good things about Binford tools, and avoids and decries non-Binford tools. He is also incredibly rigid and set in his ways, especially on the "manly" way to do things. I'd say that mix makes him Neutral on the Law/Chaos axis.

Al Boreland: LN. "I don't think so Tim."

Didn't they have Al constantly do "lame" or "boring" things in his free time like volunteer in soup kitchens and work for charities? I want to say I remember virtually all aspects of Al outside Tool Time as his being a genuinely Good character.

[Kid Jake]

Aye. The only one I'd peg as Good would be Al, maaaaaaybe Wilson (but I'm on the fence about him), everyone else is pretty solidly Neutral on that axis.

Except of course for Bob Vila who we all know was Chaotic Evil.

[Bartmanhomer]

Except of course for Bob Vila who we all know was Chaotic Evil.

I always picture Bob Vila is Chaotic Good.

[Peelee]

Except of course for Bob Vila who we all know was Chaotic Evil.

I'm not sure, I think Lawful Evil. Dude was always sticking to the same thing, the crafty bugger.

[Kitten Champion]

The problem with attaching alignment to Home Improvement - or any conventional sitcom - is that while their characters may perform absurd and hyperbolic actions for the sake of comedy, they're not really morally ambiguous or subversive in any way.

No one does anything you could reasonably characterize as Evil on Home Improvement. There's no cries for active rebellion against the State or anything like that, in fact they're exceedingly apolitical. The vast majority of the conflicts are between the main cast of characters and they usually resolve themselves back to normal within those given 22 minutes -- which renders the concept of "Good" in D&D terms irrelevant since there's no greater existential moral conflict to be had as everything at stake is purely personal. There are no grand cosmic stakes to Tim being a selfish jerk to Jill, realizing it, consulting Wilson on why he was being a selfish jerk, and then growing as a person as he admits his fault and makes amends.

I just... dislike the idea of taking surface personality traits and using them to define Alignment because it potentially leads to the pretty shallow characters. Only certain fundamental aspects of a character need relate to Alignment insofar as D&D is concerned, and for the most part they're not meaningful to a sitcom.