Complete Scoundrel gives alignments for Batman, James Bond, Riddick, and more...
- Thread starter Felon
- Start date
Loincloth of Armour
First Post
Elf Witch said:
*shrug* I never said she's not an idiot sometimes. Good people can make some serious, bone-headed mistakes.
I actually agree with you here, but what's what makes her such a great character: a good person with flaws. ^_^
But it does show she's trying. An evil person wouldn't care. A neutral person probably would try and avoid the issue so as not to feel bad.
And yet she has good intentions, understands she's not doing the best she can, and tries --and fails-- to do the 'right' thing, and feels terrible about herself when she can't stop her bad behaviour.
As others have mentioned, you're criticizing her wisdom, not her alignment.
If you allow for variation in alignment and consider alignment to be a person's general behvaviour as opposed to individual actions... then actually most fictional characters can be fitted into the 9 alignments... although since everybody has a different opnion on what alignment means results in debates like this.
teitan
Legend
pawsplay said:
Jack isn't CE, he's manipulative and in the end he appears to be serving a greater good. Do people always forget that selfish isn't evil? What did Jack do that was Evil? Be a pirate? That in and of itself isn't evil. He's just selfish with deeply hidden tendencies to do good. The second movie shows that selfishness off in his attempts to save his own neck but gives flashes of his deeply repressed and extremely hidden tendencies towards good.
Oh what the heck, I'll give it a try.
I'd agree that Batman is very much lawful good. The idea that he acts out of vengeance is completely incorrect. He takes no pleasure in hurting criminals (usually) and has no desire to see them suffer. Instead he's driven by a desire to see that no one else has to suffer as he has suffered, that no other little boy has his parents stolen away by the scourge of crime. He doesn't care about punishing criminals so much as protecting innocent people from their depravations. This, by the way, is why he finds Catwoman tolerable. She may be a criminal, but she does not (at least, from a fantasy slightly unrealstic viewpoint) cause others to suffer through her thefts or disrupt the societal order.
Batman is lawful in that he really and honestly believes in the right and ability of society to judge criminals. Despite repeated failures, he always hands matters over to the forces of law the moment he has defused the situation to the level where they can handle it. He is in regular contact with the police and often acts to assist them in their investigations. (They have a special signalling device for the sole purpose of contacting him!) He has a strong and strict code that he follows regarding what he will and won't do, and this code is largely based on what society finds to be permissible rather than something he just came up with himself.
The arguement that he is chaotic mostly boils down to him being a vigilante who likes to handle problems on his own. But again, he's a vigilante with the utmost respect for the law and society, and who is often showing disapproving of other vigilantes if he does not believe they will follow a strict code of behavior. If it's possible for a vigilante to be lawful, Batman is lawful.
No argument with Dick Tracy, and I think we just don't see enough of Indy's character to place him on the lawful/chaotic axis. I guess he could be lawful good.
Some people were asking, what did Fett do that was so horrible? Well, he dragged a man back to a sure slow torture and death at the hands of a crime lord. That's pretty evil. I don't know if he's lawful; in general, I find you need to see a lot more examples of character behavior to determine law/chaos than you do good/evil.
Magneto is probably lawful as he is all about assembling a society of mutants and convincing them to act as a group- at least, in some characterizations.
Starbuck is certainly chaotic. Is she good in the D&D sense? Maybe not quite.
She's certainly not evil, but she doesn't spend a lot of time trying to help people whom she hasn't established a personal connection with. She's not much one for acting on pure principle, and we rarely seeing her wrestling with deep ethical questions in an effort to do the right thing, as some of the other characters on the show do quite often.
One could argue that she's putting her life on the line as a Viper pilot, and that's certainly true and a good act. I think Kara is a Viper pilot because she loves flying, not out of a desire to protect the Fleet, though.
I think I disagree with both parts of Al's alignment here. Obviously he's an evil man who thinks nothing of murder to achieve his desires. But more than that, Swearengen cares deeply about society and the furtherance of an organized social structure. Most of his more beneficient acts can be traced to a desire to see the town of Deadwood prosper.
Consider that it was Al who worked to see Deadwood annexed to a state. It was Al who organized a town council of city leaders, Al who oversaw the selection of men to temporarily fill civic offices, and Al who demanded (and got) elections held. I ask you, are these the actions of a chaotic man?
I'd also agree that Sparrow is evil, though he at least is definitely chaotic. He does have occasional impulse to neutrality, but is obviously skiled in surpressing his conscience.
Riddick is evil too. It's just that he developed some emotional attachments that caused him to act for people other than himself. That doesn't make him not evil. Just makes him human.
Felon said:
I'd agree that Batman is very much lawful good. The idea that he acts out of vengeance is completely incorrect. He takes no pleasure in hurting criminals (usually) and has no desire to see them suffer. Instead he's driven by a desire to see that no one else has to suffer as he has suffered, that no other little boy has his parents stolen away by the scourge of crime. He doesn't care about punishing criminals so much as protecting innocent people from their depravations. This, by the way, is why he finds Catwoman tolerable. She may be a criminal, but she does not (at least, from a fantasy slightly unrealstic viewpoint) cause others to suffer through her thefts or disrupt the societal order.
Batman is lawful in that he really and honestly believes in the right and ability of society to judge criminals. Despite repeated failures, he always hands matters over to the forces of law the moment he has defused the situation to the level where they can handle it. He is in regular contact with the police and often acts to assist them in their investigations. (They have a special signalling device for the sole purpose of contacting him!) He has a strong and strict code that he follows regarding what he will and won't do, and this code is largely based on what society finds to be permissible rather than something he just came up with himself.
The arguement that he is chaotic mostly boils down to him being a vigilante who likes to handle problems on his own. But again, he's a vigilante with the utmost respect for the law and society, and who is often showing disapproving of other vigilantes if he does not believe they will follow a strict code of behavior. If it's possible for a vigilante to be lawful, Batman is lawful.
No argument with Dick Tracy, and I think we just don't see enough of Indy's character to place him on the lawful/chaotic axis. I guess he could be lawful good.
Some people were asking, what did Fett do that was so horrible? Well, he dragged a man back to a sure slow torture and death at the hands of a crime lord. That's pretty evil. I don't know if he's lawful; in general, I find you need to see a lot more examples of character behavior to determine law/chaos than you do good/evil.
Magneto is probably lawful as he is all about assembling a society of mutants and convincing them to act as a group- at least, in some characterizations.
Starbuck is certainly chaotic. Is she good in the D&D sense? Maybe not quite.
She's certainly not evil, but she doesn't spend a lot of time trying to help people whom she hasn't established a personal connection with. She's not much one for acting on pure principle, and we rarely seeing her wrestling with deep ethical questions in an effort to do the right thing, as some of the other characters on the show do quite often.
One could argue that she's putting her life on the line as a Viper pilot, and that's certainly true and a good act. I think Kara is a Viper pilot because she loves flying, not out of a desire to protect the Fleet, though.
I think I disagree with both parts of Al's alignment here. Obviously he's an evil man who thinks nothing of murder to achieve his desires. But more than that, Swearengen cares deeply about society and the furtherance of an organized social structure. Most of his more beneficient acts can be traced to a desire to see the town of Deadwood prosper.
Consider that it was Al who worked to see Deadwood annexed to a state. It was Al who organized a town council of city leaders, Al who oversaw the selection of men to temporarily fill civic offices, and Al who demanded (and got) elections held. I ask you, are these the actions of a chaotic man?
I'd also agree that Sparrow is evil, though he at least is definitely chaotic. He does have occasional impulse to neutrality, but is obviously skiled in surpressing his conscience.
Riddick is evil too. It's just that he developed some emotional attachments that caused him to act for people other than himself. That doesn't make him not evil. Just makes him human.
teitan
Legend
"Magneto is not lawful. He cares nothing of laws of mankind. He's all for mutants over men."
Magneto is as Lawful as it gets. Being prejudice is not a sign that someone isn't Lawful. Magneto is, in the comics, Lawful Neutral with good tendencies and outside of Morrison's run on New X-Men the last several Magneto stories since Claremont had him redeemed have dealt with him being more misunderstood than having done anything evil or his disciples doing something wrong and him having to intervene and his intentions being misunderstood. Magneto has a strict code that he lives by and he expects his people to live by them as well. Magneto is in fact a Fascist politically and a strong believer in Aristocracy and order. That is part of his tragedy is that he has become very close to that which he hates most, a Nazi except Magneto isn't a genocidal maniac.
Magneto is as Lawful as it gets. Being prejudice is not a sign that someone isn't Lawful. Magneto is, in the comics, Lawful Neutral with good tendencies and outside of Morrison's run on New X-Men the last several Magneto stories since Claremont had him redeemed have dealt with him being more misunderstood than having done anything evil or his disciples doing something wrong and him having to intervene and his intentions being misunderstood. Magneto has a strict code that he lives by and he expects his people to live by them as well. Magneto is in fact a Fascist politically and a strong believer in Aristocracy and order. That is part of his tragedy is that he has become very close to that which he hates most, a Nazi except Magneto isn't a genocidal maniac.
