FormerlyHemlock
Hero
I thought Neutral Good always did "the right thing" and Lawful Good did good while trying to remain within the law (either of the local political body or of whatever organization has their loyalty).
They both try to do the right thing, but Lawful Good considers structural factors (precedent, escalation, tragedy of the commons, etc.) when determining "the right thing" while Chaotic Good sees only immediate concrete factors, and Neutral Good has no strong bias. Think about the difference between Captain America and Tony Stark in Captain America: Civil War, when it comes to signing the Accords. Steve Rogers is clearly Lawful Good--he sees good in the Accords, but he's also worried about intangibles like "What if they send us somewhere we don't think we should be? What if they refuse to send us somewhere we need to be?" Structural factors and the precedent he's setting weigh heavily on him. It never even crosses his mind to sign the Accords today and then just ditch them if they become inconvenient.
Tony Stark, in contrast, has zero problems signing the Accords today in order to keep the team together, and then unilaterally abrogating them later on when they become inconvenient. In fact he does exactly that, twice, in this exact movie. (One time more blatantly than the other--the second time is at the very end where he refuses to take orders and puts his nominal superior on hold rather than help fix the prison break.) He's either Neutral Good or perhaps Chaotic Good.
Both Steve and Tony are trying to do "the right thing," which is what makes it such an interesting movie. Neutral Good and Lawful Good and Chaotic Good are all types of good, none of them more virtuous than the others--but they have different ways of perceiving what the right thing is.
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