Complete Scoundrel gives alignments for Batman, James Bond, Riddick, and more...

[pawsplay]

Conan... Hrmpf. He lives by his own codex and would never act against it. It's just the world that suffers from not being compatible with his sense of how it should be

Jack Sparrow? I still don't understand why you call him murderous. How many people does he kill in the movies? How many get mentioned that have been killed by him? None, right, except Barbossa at the end?

He does hold the damsel in distress hostage. He also pulls a gun several times. The fact that he really has to follow through on his threats is a credit to his judiciousness and charisma, not his moral charity. Also, he was the captain of that gang of pirates... how did he achieve that position? The mutiny was a question of policy versus greed, not neutral vs. evil.

He also tries to pawn the soul of essentially his only friend in the world. Pawning souls is evil. If you put this alongside his deliberate decision to become an undead creature, he has already fulfilled the defining alignment characteristics of liches and devils by halfway through the second movie.

EDIT: How many people does Riddick kill in the first movie? How many does Darth Vader kill in Return of the Jedi?

 

[Felon]

I'm putting Conan as a solid CN.

Yet Conan inflicts suffering far more casually than Jack does. In one story, Conan's in a tavern and someone makes a snide comment to him. Conan knifes the guy and flees (kind of a cheap punk in that scenario). In another story, Conan's lover sets him up. When he goes to settle the score with her, he sees her new boytoy leaving her residence, so he leaps out of the shadows and murders the guy (who he doesn't know from Adam). In yet another story, Conan hires himself out as an assassin to murder a priest. Evidence abounds that Conan was a murderous thug--a real barbarian, you might say.

]Evil” implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

Your "viciousness" criterion does not exist. Jack Sparrow is evil, as is Jango Fett, or the protagonist of A Boy and His Dog.

What you are quoting is the general descriptor of evil that covers all three types of evil. You should've kept reading. The specific description of Chaotic Evil provides the criterion.

"Chaotic Evil, “Destroyer”: A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal."

So, yes indeed, viciousness is a major component of CE. And more to the point, you have described Jack as murderous and when asked to cite his murderous behavior on his part you have not actually done so. OTOH, it has been pointed out that Jack has gone out of his way to avoid taking lives when he sacks a city.

 

[Felon]

He does hold the damsel in distress hostage. He also pulls a gun several times. The fact that he really has to follow through on his threats is a credit to his judiciousness and charisma, not his moral charity.

If he doesn't have to follow through, then it's inconclusive evidence. He mighta done this, he mighta done that.

He also tries to pawn the soul of essentially his only friend in the world. Pawning souls is evil. If you put this alongside his deliberate decision to become an undead creature, he has already fulfilled the defining alignment characteristics of liches and devils by halfway through the second movie.

Liches aren't evil because they become undead, but rather because of certain "unspeakably evil" acts that are involved in the process of achieving lichdom.

Giving credit where it's due, pawning off the soul of William is certainly evidence for yoru case, although it can be counter-argued that this was a matter of survival, and CN characters certainly are the types to put their own safety first. The way to show Jack is evil is by demonstrating that he tries to profit by sacrificing others (as opposed to being forced into a corner).

EDIT: How many people does Riddick kill in the first movie? How many does Darth Vader kill in Return of the Jedi?

Can't speak to Riddick's supposed evil, since it isn't well-demonstrated in Pitch Black (particularly in contrast to the acts of the "good guys"). But Darth Vader? He murders the younglings, blows up Alderan with a Death Star...not in Return of the Jedi, but well before.

 

[teitan]

He does hold the damsel in distress hostage. He also pulls a gun several times. The fact that he really has to follow through on his threats is a credit to his judiciousness and charisma, not his moral charity. Also, he was the captain of that gang of pirates... how did he achieve that position? The mutiny was a question of policy versus greed, not neutral vs. evil.

He also tries to pawn the soul of essentially his only friend in the world. Pawning souls is evil. If you put this alongside his deliberate decision to become an undead creature, he has already fulfilled the defining alignment characteristics of liches and devils by halfway through the second movie.

Damsels in distress? I got the feeling from the character that he wouldn't have hurt her and it was just a ploy.

He became Captain because he owned the ship and hired the crew. Greed isn't evil and I think they pointed out his sacking without taking a life as a way to show Jack wasn't your typical, evil pirate but actually something of a more "antiheroic" cut. The pawning of Will Turner's soul also seemed to me to be a ploy as well to buy time until Jack can come up with a plan that could get him and Will out of the situations they were in, admittedly Jack put him there but that is more of a Chaotic Neutral thing when you look at the whole picture. As far as choosing to become undead... he did it in order to be able to fight Barbosa without dying, knowing FULL WELL that the process could be reversed. By the end of the first movie Jack Sparrow is shown as an obvious hero and the second movie shows he is in an extremely DESPERATE situation and he reacts in a very human manner and while Elizabeth Swan did shackle Jack to the Black Pearl he chose to go down with it...

Which beggars the question: Does that mean Elizabeth Swan is also Chaotic Evil? She willingly sacrificed Jack for her own benefit.

 

[Severion]

Well, I can't remember exactly what he did to get arrested by the bounty hunter, but I remember it was pretty darn nasty. And he didn't exactly do anything "good" in Pitch Black. He pretty much needed to work with everyone else to get off the planet. Only the most idiotic of villians wouldn't have been a team player when his life ABSOLUTELY depended on it.

But I do say "leaning" to CE. I'm not sure he's actually that nasty. He's definitely selfish first and foremost, though.

He was accused of causing the "Slaughter at Butcher Bay". In the novelization he was a patzy on that one as he was one of the lower ranked guards at butcher bay. In the book he is painted as always having been given short shrift. I prefer a nastier Riddick than the book gives us, i still see him as more CN.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Conan, at the beginning of his "career," is clearly CN, as has been pointed out, though later in life he becomes CG, with NG tendencies.

 

[Psion]

I think it's not hard to get people to agree that Conan is CN, and Riddick is CE... But really, what's the difference between the two (movie) characters?

At the end of Chronicles, nothing. Almost literally.

Repeating myself, but so long as the contrast has come up again: I think that Riddick at the beginning of Pitch Black is CE, but has a bit of an alignment shift by the end.