Firefly Alignments Debate

[BiggusGeekus]

EDIT: SPOIL SPACE

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Malcolm: Hmmm. Definately Chaotic Good with an honor code. Maybe Neutral Good. Note that the people he steals from are from a government he views as oppressive.

Inara: I'd consider making a case for Lawful Good here. She was willing to sell the laser pistol for Mal, however her feelings for Mal must have been a factor.

Zoe: Again, stealing from a government you don't respect is a tricky problem. In the train hiest she and Mal lifted medical supplies but she didn't like the thought of people dying from her actions. Her loyalties are incredibly strong. Hmmm.

Wash: True Neutral sounds good to me here.

Simon: Neutral Good I could go with.

River: Difficult. She's not clearly chaotically alinged. She is, however, insane. Or at least able to pick up and process so many sensory inputs that she had difficulty dealing with all of them emotionally. Hey, she might be Lawful Good in her own mind. Hard to say. Her actions though are Chaotic Neutral.

Jayne: I'm backing away from evil with Jayne. His character saw the most change in the series. Jayne is self-centered, but after confronting the evil action of selling the crew out he started to have a change of heart. He did sort of betray a former empolyer to work for Mal, but that might have just been some kind of wacky contract negotation in his mind. I'll go with Chaotic Neutral with a very, very werid honor code.

Book: No way Book is Lawful Good. It isn't even clear that he's a nice guy. It's possible he just puts on a good show. He is apparently very handy with a gun, is comfortable around Jayne, has Alliance ties, and in the last episode River picks up a REAL nasty streak from him. He appears lawful good, I'll give him that. But he could just have a Bluff skill that's out of this world.

Kaylee: Neutral Good? Hmmm. Another tricky one. I'm not always sure that Kaylee thinks through the morality of her actions. She's just a real nice person. But Neutral Good works.

 

[Pielorinho]

Great discussion! I think it also shows the limitations of the alignment system, especially in Mal. Here you have a guy who's an outlaw, who runs a ship of outlaws, who will sell out strangers to the bad guys in order to protect his crew. Not good, not lawful.

But when he's being tortured, he devotes all his energy to keeping a crewmate alive (and not even a crewmate he especially likes). He is fanatically loyal to his crew. He puts himself at great risk in order to deliver medicine to poor people (never mind that he stole it in the first place ). And nothing makes him madder than being questioned by his crew: he expects immediate, unquestioning loyalty, and will kick your butt if you don't give it to him. Lawful? Sure. Good? Quite possibly.

Complex characters, like those on this show, have elements of all the alignments in them. I'd be tempted to describe Mal as lawful good (as a captain and a protector) with chaotic neutral (as an outlaw and a scavenger) tendencies.

Daniel

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

A agree with Harp's assessment the most; a personal code to me does not have to imply lawful; after all, he has no problem with that code when the good or evil of a situation plays into it (when Malcolm first meets Simon and River, he's ready to give them to the Alliance in a heartbeat).

What does "the good or evil of a situation" have to do with being lawful? He thought Simon was some kind of slaver at first, and was trying not to commit obvious crimes against the Alliance.

I agree that, in D&D terms, Malcolm is not "Good". Malcolm is ethical. Consistently ethical is a trait I associate with Law more than Chaos. Remember Train Job, where the sheriff suggested that when Malcolm learned more about the nature of what he stole that he had a choice to make, and Malcolm stated that he didn't have a choice? That sort of behavior is why I consider him Lawful Neutral.

Now Book, who offers mercy to villans even when it's clearly not in his own best interest, is obviously Lawful Good.

The weird thing is how well he and Book get along in casual conversation. Book won't trust him any farther than his field of vision, but he gets along with him pretty well in shipboard life (lifting weights together, casual conversations at the dinner table, etc.)

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Great discussion! I think it also shows the limitations of the alignment system, especially in Mal. Here you have a guy who's an outlaw, who runs a ship of outlaws, who will sell out strangers to the bad guys in order to protect his crew. Not good, not lawful.

Why isn't that lawful? A villan could consistently sell out strangers to benefit himself and be considered Lawful Evil. And merely being criminal isn't necessarily Chaotic. Unlawfulness isn't necessarily unLawful.

And nothing makes him madder than being questioned by his crew: he expects immediate, unquestioning loyalty, and will kick your butt if you don't give it to him.

I don't see it that way. When he gives an order for the good of the ship, he expects it to be carried out. What's more important is that, when the survival of the group is not at stake, he tends not to give orders. He commands only when it is necessary for him to do so.

 

[Pielorinho]

Why isn't that lawful? A villan could consistently sell out strangers to benefit himself and be considered Lawful Evil. And merely being criminal isn't necessarily Chaotic. Unlawfulness isn't necessarily unLawful.

I don't see it that way. When he gives an order for the good of the ship, he expects it to be carried out. What's more important is that, when the survival of the group is not at stake, he tends not to give orders. He commands only when it is necessary for him to do so.

Fair point on his not giving orders when not necessary; indeed, he puts up with a fair amount of playful disrespect from the crew. Kind of chaotic, eh? But when things are grim, he's not into cooperation, not into consensus-building: you do what he says, or he throws you up against the wall.

I think this highlights the fact that complex characters don't fit easily into the framework of alignment.

Daniel

 

[Klaus]

Let's see:

Mal -> Neutral Good. He defies an oppressive government and hates being told what to do (a Chaotic trait), but demands obedience from his crew and tends to keep his word (a Lawful trait). He refrains from harming innocents, and more than once has gone out on a limb to help someone (a Good trait).

Zoe -> Lawful Neutral (Good). Utterly loyal to Mal, even when it unnerves her husband. Doesn't like when her actions harm innocents either (so she might even be LG).

Wash -> True Neutral sounds about right.

Inara -> Lawful Good. Controlled, poised, focused, disciplined, plus she's the ultimate "companion" with a golden heart.

Simon -> Lawful Good. He's on the run from a (supposedly) Lawful Evil government, but yet he upholds his oath to heal others (as in the hospital episode), plus he's utterly proper when it comes to Kaylee.

Kaylee -> Neutral Good. A bit flighty and carefree, but has a natural sense of "what's right".

Jayne -> Neutral. He doesn't harm people for the fun of it. Maybe he used to be Neutral Evil, and has fallen back on old habits when he almost turned Simon and River over to the government, but his regret shows he isn't comfortable in those shoes anymore.

River -> Neutral. Her constant changes (caused by insanity) precludes her from being an anarchist. As the PHB says, someone who's constantly changing their minds are TN.

Book -> He puts up a good show of being LG, with a slight tendency towards NG.

 

[Harp]

I'm in firm agreement with the observation that this discussion highlights the limitations of the alignment system. Great stuff, though, and some great arguments. I think I'm generally sticking with my initial assessment, but here are some concessions:

I can see Jayne easing from NE to neutral over the course of the series. Maybe not completely, but perhaps looking that direction.

Book could very well be something far darker than his LG "cover" would indicate. His story, I think, was the greatest missed opportunity of the series, up their with River's.

I can take Neutral for Wash. I just don't seem as overly bound by any alignment constraints.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Mal -> Neutral Good. He defies an oppressive government and hates being told what to do (a Chaotic trait), but demands obedience from his crew and tends to keep his word (a Lawful trait). He refrains from harming innocents, and more than once has gone out on a limb to help someone (a Good trait).

He's also killed defenseless but potentially dangerous people, which is generally not a trait associated with D&D Good. (Would a Good person have kicked that man into the engine intake? Probably not, although an ethical person might have under the circumstances.)

Zoe -> Lawful Neutral (Good). Utterly loyal to Mal, even when it unnerves her husband. Doesn't like when her actions harm innocents either (so she might even be LG).

Hmmm... Neutral with Lawful and Good tendencies, perhaps? She also has ethical issues, but she doesn't quite seem Good in the D&D sense. She's also only mildy Lawful, I think, but you make a good point.

Wash -> True Neutral sounds about right.

Maybe with mild chaotic tendencies? He does seem rather creatively disorganized and adaptive - which fits the skills needed for a pilot.

Inara -> Lawful Good. Controlled, poised, focused, disciplined, plus she's the ultimate "companion" with a golden heart.

That's why I thought she was more Neutral Good than anything else. Helping people is what's most important for her. She is quite disciplined, true. Definite Lawful tendencies.

Simon -> Lawful Good. He's on the run from a (supposedly) Lawful Evil government, but yet he upholds his oath to heal others (as in the hospital episode), plus he's utterly proper when it comes to Kaylee.

I can see this. Emphasis on the Good more than Lawful, I think. He is willing to threaten to violate his principles, particularly when he claimed he would let Kaylee die if the ship didn't continue, but I think that's a highly unusual set of circumstances.

Kaylee -> Neutral Good. A bit flighty and carefree, but has a natural sense of "what's right".

Agreed.

Jayne -> Neutral. He doesn't harm people for the fun of it. Maybe he used to be Neutral Evil, and has fallen back on old habits when he almost turned Simon and River over to the government, but his regret shows he isn't comfortable in those shoes anymore.

I see Jayne as having always lived with backstabbing, evil people. He's learned how to survive among them, but now that he's among people who won't betray him or their ethics for profit he's beginning to change. Clearly he's very self-interested, but he won't betray his personal loyalty to Mal for mere money. Possibly if his life was at stake...

No one on Serenity really fits the label of Evil well. The Alliance would seem to be somewhat Lawful Evil to Lawful Neutral (Stupid Neutral), and the Reavers are Chaotic Evil.

River -> Neutral. Her constant changes (caused by insanity) precludes her from being an anarchist. As the PHB says, someone who's constantly changing their minds are TN.

Eh. I don't like that way of looking at Law or Chaos at all. Her insanity seems to be a forced form of Chaos to me...

Book -> He puts up a good show of being LG, with a slight tendency towards NG.

Agreed. He certainly has secrets, but I don't think they're as dark as some have suggested. Good people have nasty thoughts, after all.

 

[Dismas]

I'm in firm agreement with the observation that this discussion highlights the limitations of the alignment system. Great stuff, though, and some great arguments.

I think d20 Modern Alliengence system (Pick upto 3 things that mean the most) is much better suited to something like Firefly, it allows much more flexibilty than DnD, for example for Mal Crew and Ship are definately his 1 and 2, for Simon it is River, For Jayne it is the Payoff, Mal, Vera.

By the way thanks to everyone talking it up. I had never seen anything about the show, it never made it to UK terestrial TV. I brought the DVD box set sight unseen based on your comments. I've just got the last DVD to watch now, it just reminds me so much of my old Traveller games, and it is something that I could easily run in d20 Modern. Even my wife has started to get into 'that wierd western'.