Alignment examples of fictional characters.

[S'mon]

In regards to all the above alignment perspectives:

Remember to separate LAWFUL behavior from GOOD behavior, and likewise separate CHAOTIC from EVIL.

In Buffy t.v.s.'s case, for example, it is GOOD that she shows compassion and mercy. It is not so clear cut when she leaves things to the authorities. In fact, many times she does NOT leave things to the authorities, and in fact handles them herself. In the instance where she thought she had killed someone, she wanted to turn herself in because she wrong she had done wrong, not because of notions of crime and punishment. Someone who has broken and entered as much as she has, caused assault and battery as much as she has, and flagrantly violated school authority in the past is NOT the definition of lawful. She exhibits lawful tendencies, but can also do without that law in the interests of good.

Although it's amazing that some characters (e.g. Conan, Wolverine, Judge Dredd, Superman) consistently come up as the same alignment by most posters. Is this because of strong characterization, or because of lousy stereotyping on the pat of some writers?

I agree about Buffy - she seems to have little respect for authority-per-se, I'd put her at Neutral Good. Giles is ambiguous but somewhere LG-to-NG with maybe N tendencies. Xander seems CG.

I agree on Dredd-LN, Wolverine-CN, Superman-LG, they can almost seem like Alignments with a personality tacked on; but I see Conan very much as N not CN, he may be a thief but he's a king too - his alignment is that of the animal, essentially non-aligned, that means N. I can't see Wolverine or other true CNs being happy as a ruler, although some CNs may have rulership as a goal, it being the best way to achieve personal power and thus autonomy.

 

[Henry]

I think Chaotic heroes are more common than Chaotic villains is because it's more fun for the heroes to be fighting against the system than it is for them to be a part of it.

I mean, how often do you get a bunch of rebels against an over powering force compared to a bunch of people trying to quash an illegal rebellion?

One of my favorite pet RPG's of all time is the Continuum Time Travel Game from Aetherco. In it, you play a part of a lawful society who KNOWS they are going to win - but they still have to actually go out and win the fight, because if they don't their very individual existance is threatened.

In the Narcissist game, (also from the same company), you play the other side. Your goal? To beat the Continuum and break out of the timeline that is so "inevitable."

Fascinating little game of Law vs. Chaos.

 

[Henry]

...but I see Conan very much as N not CN, he may be a thief but he's a king too - his alignment is that of the animal, essentially non-aligned, that means N.

However, Conan changed somewhat over the course of his saga. Conan the stripling young barbarian, was CN to a 'tee'. Conan the soldier was still somewhat CN but began exhibiting neutral tendencies. By the time he has become King of Aquilonia, he is IMO somewhere between TN and possibly even LN. So to descibe his alignment you have to "pick your Conan", much like Kevin Pollack has to "pick his Shatner" when imitating Captain Kirk.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Typical shows - Law & Order, NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street. UK shows like 'The Bill'. The cops seek to promote Law/Order, at any rate they don't seek to increase Chaos! As for morality, I wasn't discussing good vs evil, but generally the cop protagonists are good, or neutral-to-good, and the criminal antagonists are evil.

I'll give you Law & Order, and I never watched Homicide, but NYPD Blue is the defining example of what I'm talking about. Paying lip service to Order while at work, and then turning everything you touch in your personal life to Chaos does not a Lawful person make.

And, generally speaking, most cops on TV are more about the personal power their badge and gun give them than actually promoting Order. And why does using unlawful methods to promote law still make them lawful, while using evil methods to promote good still makes people evil? "The ends justify the means" is acceptable on one moral axis, but not the other?

 

[Celebrim]

Bragg: I agree that there is, and always has been, alot of disagreement over what chaos and law mean. In fact, I'd say that the continuing discussion over alignment in D&D always comes down to one of two points: 'What is the meaning of law and chaos?' and 'Does everyone have to be a paragon of thier alignment all the time to have an alignment?'.

The law and chaos confusion is really EGG's fault, I'm afraid. Or rather, it was the fault of latter players for trying to thrust Good and Evil into a moral system that already (supposedly) had an absolute axis. But, that's really an excuse, because I'm not sure that it is possible to define an absolute moral axis for Law and Chaos because (even if we were to believe that Good and Evil were subjective) we are forced to admit when examining that they are highly subjective. For example, one problem readily arrises when we note that 'law' refers to a broad body of equally 'lawful' behaviors that are in direct conflict with each other. One man's lawfulness is another man's (in a different society) law breaking.

OF COURSE, to be fair, some people see the same problem with the good evil axis. For instance, Weis & Hickman in the DL stories seem to indicate (rather strangely to my mind) that absolute good is the same as absolute evil, because the Cataclysm occured not because someone was evil, but because someone was 'too good'. For my part, I tend to see absolute good and evil as being poles apart, whereas absolute law and chaos are very nearly the same thing.

You bring up a very good example of the latter when you say, "I have seen both Darth Vader and Palpatine listed as CE alot here... how? They both maintain a huge Empire, which is by its nature lawful." I disagree. Heading a lawful organization is not proof in and of itself of lawfulness. To a chaotic evil person, there is nothing better in the universe than having an entire organization of lawful loyal types doing your every whim. Note that I put Hitler for example as Chaotic Evil, whereas I put some of his more important cronies as Lawful Evil. I also elsewhere in the thread suggested that Hoover was CE despite heading the law enforcing agency the FBI. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this is a common synergy between any 'lawful' and 'chaotic' group. Lawful groups easily fall into the trap of being lead by ambitious men whose principal interest is in themselves not the organizations ideology or the organization, and don't notice because loyalty to the superior is an unquestioned and defining trait. Simmerally, chaotic societies typically are 'lead' (to the extent they are lead) by a lawful subelement that believes the interest of the whole would be much better served if everyone would be just a little more lawful. Because in any unorganized state, the lawful group is going to be the enherently the most influential, it is easy for them to have disproportionate influence. But of course, at the top of these lawful subelements you are likely to find chaotic heads. This exercise leads one to a greater understanding of American politics if it serves no other purpose.

To be fair though, I agree that neither Darth Vader or Palpatine where CE. Vader is clearly motivated both in the original trilogy and in the prequels by a desire to 'make the system work' and 'restore order to the galaxy' and it is clear that at some point he comes to believe that the only way to do this is be ruthless and Machiavellian. Palpatine is I think motivated by no other desire than to see the most damage done to the most people for the longest period of time using either chaos or law to suit his purposes, and as a 'satanic figure' I place him as NE.

 

[jasper]

Garfield CN only cares for himself and his stomach
Odie CG cares for himself will occasionally pick Garfield and Jon but cares for both of them
Nermal CE only cares for herself and thinks she the cutes
Jon NG loves both his pets but will occasionally play pranks
Vet LG she cares so much about pets she puts up with Jon asking for date all the time
Any body else remembers Jon’s roommate/ friend Odie’s original owner

H.R. Puff in Stuff LG being the mayor of hatville and always tries to make sure every one behaves
The boy NG cares about the hats of Hatville but wants to escape the hat
Flute TN cares about the boy (Timmy) but was once a companion of Witchey Poo
Witchey Poo CE Cares only for herself and wants to destroy most of citizens of Hatville
Wizard CE same as witchey poo


Heckle and Jeckel
Both CN as summed up in the quote “you can do anything you want in an animated cartoon”

Warner brothers
Taz TN all he cares about is lunch which can be you.
Sylvester NE just wants to eat
Tweedy Bird CE goes out her way to trick Sylvester and actively tries to harm Sylvester favorite quote “No more pigges!”

 

[Rhialto]

Hmmm...

Personally I think a lot of the problem in the entire Law/Chaos is that people tend to start as defining law (incorrectly) as "the Law of the Land", and from that faulty premise, they go on to assume that Chaos, because it is opposed to Law means that Chaos is being, essentially, a criminal or an anarchist. Others take a more general view--Law means thinking about the group, and Chaos means being self-centered... The problem of course is that both of these definitons lead to so many difficulties, and are so immensely unsatisfying that few people want to use them...

Personally, my own take on the matter is that Law can be understood as the preference for structure, order, and discipline. Chaos is the preference for individuality, innovation, and freedom. Of course, both have a dark side, and both are capable of selfish action. That is why Lawful Evil, and Chaotic Evil exist, after all.

And Celebrim--I'm noticing a tendency on your part to make all villains who possess "good" intentions LE, and any villain who acts for personal gain CE. Care to elaborate...?

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim--I'm noticing a tendency on your part to make all villains who possess "good" intentions LE, and any villain who acts for personal gain CE. Care to elaborate...?"

LOL. Yes. What makes you think that estalishing order is a 'good' intention? I think you may be confusing law and good, which is frequently done because Gygax himself (never intending for 'good' to be introduced as a concept) frequently confused the two. (Note for example that in the Basic D&D game, Law=Good and Chaos=Evil.) Not to mention the many real life social institutions of 'good' that insist on good being the adherence to thier rituals.

"Personally, my own take on the matter is that Law can be understood as the preference for structure, order, and discipline. Chaos is the preference for individuality, innovation, and freedom."

That is fine, and if the DM defined it as such, I'd have no quibble. Certainly in many ways it resembles my own thinking. However, I think it likely that an extreme preference for freedom and individuality is much the same as selfishness, which means that extreme chaos is much the same as evil if you by evil mean selfishness...

"Of course, both have a dark side, and both are capable of selfish action. That is why Lawful Evil, and Chaotic Evil exist, after all."

...which you apparantly do.

 

[Rhialto]

And here's where we differ. I'd say an extreme preference for order and ritual can be selfish, and an extreme preference for freedom and individuality can be idealistic. The range exists for both alignments.

Hey, look at my choices for Yu Yu Hakusho. I have Mr. Akashi and Mr. Iwamoto down as LN, and those guys are willing to use all sorts of dirty tricks to expel Kuwabara and Yusuke. This is because they view them as punks who disrupt and ruin the reputation of their school, mind you...

And I wouldn't say that being selfish equals being evil, but extreme selfishness is a component of evil...

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

So, are we building up to:

Absolute Law => Stagnation & Oppression, and therefore => Evil

and

Absolute Chaos => Destruction => Evil

There's a strong case to be made there, but what does that say about our iconic CN and LN characters? If the closer you get to epitomizing one of these concepts, the closer you come to evil, than shouldn't we expect our LN and CN characters to be decreasingly distinguishable from evil characters?

LN - Judge Dredd: Don't know the character very well, but that's because he always struck me as being very nearly evil and unbothered by it. I just can't get into those kind of characters. At least the LN versions of Batman have some angst about how close they are to falling from grace, as it were. LN Batman generally knows he's about a half step away from Joker-ville himself, and it may be the only thing that scares him.

CN - Q has definite evil potential, but then he also has some capacity for good. This was distinctly noticeable in "All Good Things..." Of course, that could just be 7 years of Picard's influence shining through, which might make him a bad example. So...

CN - Wolverine: It's been a few years since I read comics regularly, but it always seemed to me that without Chuck Xavier, Jean Grey, and (to a lesser extent) Jubilee, Logan would have long since turned into a Chaotic Evil engine of destruction. He was always walking the tightrope between Good and Evil. When he started falling on the good side of that tightrope, they gave him a little extra push in that direction. When he started falling on the evil side, one of them was usually there to steady him, or at least catch him and toss him back up to the tightrope. Of course, with those three (and a number of others, intermittently) working to pull him into the light, he'd have become an angel if there wasn't something pulling him at least as hard in the opposite direction: his overly chaotic nature.

Off-topic Wolverine question: I noticed in a comic book store recently that Logan has his adamantium back. I have to wonder: Did they handle that well, or was it just thrown in to appease all the fan-boys who were crying, "You made Wolvie into a wuss! How dare you try to make an interesting character change to someone so popular!"? And how long did it take Marvel to cave to fan pressure on that one?