Alignment Riddle, Or "Is This Evil?" (Kind Of Long)

[Privateer]

Re: Pseudo Intellectual babble....

In the beginning he appears to be chaotic because he is going against the law of the land. He even bucks the system in his own small way. However, role playing literature reminds us again and again that lawful does not mean following the laws of the land. However, as the story progresses we see that Simon does follow a law. He follows the law of the arcane. Since the law of the land stands in direct opposition to this law, it would only make sense that Simon bucks the law of the land, but still he is not chaotic. He is not a free spirit who simply does as he wishes. I would say that Simon is either Lawful or Neutral on this axis.

I'm afraid I don't agree with you, although other then this I think you're dead on.

I think he'd be chaotic -- although he does not follow the law of the land, there is no reason to believe he follows a "law of the arcane." Also, according to the PHB, even disregarding "obedience to authority" Simon does not exhibit what I consider "honor, trustworthiness" and "reliabliltiy." He does exhibit some of the chaotic traits of "freedom" and "recklessness."

I would also say he's evil -- although he does topple a corrupt regime, he does it for purely selfish reasons.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I haven't seen the movie and don't care much to discuss the character of Simon (he sounds like CN pushed to CE by desire for power and vengeance to me). However, it's worth pointing out that whatever the alignment or opinions of the gods in the film could be described as their opinion is probably not relevant to the discussion of Simon's morality.

It's very easy to create a perverse thought experiment, write a story, or make a movie or play in which God, the gods, or the universe approve of evil actions [he/she/it might think the Nazis were the good guys, approve of rape, or insert other example of obvious and agreed upon evil here]. However, all that does is demonstrate that when we ask "was XYZ evil?" we're asking a very different question than "did god/the gods/the universe approve of XYZ in that story or thought experiment?" The very question assumes that some external standard of morality is being applied to the XYZ in question. That external standard may be the D&D alignment system, the laws of Islam, the natural law of Catholic theology, or the remnants of Protestant morality embedded within North American culture. Whatever standard is being applied however, it's not the standard presented by the author of the work, director of the movie, or creator of the thought experiment. If that's what we wanted to know, we would ask "What vision of good/evil/whatever is author ABC portraying in this novel/movie/thought experiment?"

I'm not sure where that is coming from. As I pointed out earlier, the gods in the film are not evil. They are portrayed in the movie in what I'd consider to be a true neutral fashion.

If they don't consider humanity worthy of their notice, why would they consider a human death evil? It'd be like your cat bringing you a dead mouse. You don't look at the cat as evil and call it a murderer.

Heck, if you mispronounce their names, even slightly, they can't (or don't) hear you.

EDIT: I was referring to the gods there at the end, not cats. Everyone knows that cats darn well hear you, they just ignore you when they fell like it.

 

[Sejs]

I would also say he's evil -- although he does topple a corrupt regime, he does it for purely selfish reasons.

What selfish reasons would those be?

He wasn't getting revenge for just himself; that would only require a little effort (Cop, DA). His goal was to make it so that everyone was free from that kind of influence: the powerful doing as they will, destroying 'lesser' peoples lives on some twisted whim.

To quote Fight Club: We're not killing anybody, man - we're settin 'em free!