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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5008172" data-attributes="member: 4937">No, it doesn't.  Before the person can reach a point in there life where they can arbitarily murder a child, then they must have for some considerable period been becoming more and more depraved.  The chain of events you describe doesn't exist.  A truly good person just doesn't turn around and say, "Oh what the heck, today I'm going to murder a child."  Can't they?  This is treading rather dangerously toward real world theology, but if a person truly 'turned their life' around and did good, wouldn't we think of them as actually good?  The problem here is one of depravity.  If you are depraved enough to arbitarily kill a child, it is highly unlikely that you are going to overcome that depravity in a moment - just as it was highly unlikely that you suddenly became so depraved in a moment.    Why not?  If an evil character turns their life around sufficiently that they begin to consciously do good acts, then how are they in a different situation than the person who turned their life so that they now can do depraved acts?Leaving aside the fact that you also are confused about distinguishing between evil and chaos when you say, "looking out for their own self", in as much as not everyone that is evil is "looking out for their own self", I don't understand your reasoning.  No it wouldn't, but one act of evil doesn't undo all the acts of good, nor does it make one evil (if by that you mean 'more evil than people normally are). I think you confuse the situation greatly by choosing as your example an act of great depravity (and no associated act of great charity and kindness, as we can't tell here what 'saving the life of a child' means or what was involved in it).  Let's put the situation on more even footing.  I hope you would agree that wrath, or pride, or hate, or greed, or jealousy is evil itself, and thing like theft, murder, or whatever are merely how evil manifests itself when we interact with other people. So, suppose you had a person who always refrained from evil and did good, who on some occasion becomes filled with wrath or self-righteous pride or whatever, and says a 'little black lie' to protect his ego or shouts some hatefilled invective at someone.  Do you think that this act proves he is never able to go back to being a good person?  Or is it only murder that you find unpardonable?Conversely, suppose you have a person who always was evil and committed crimes, and who on some occasion suddenly became aware of their own venality and who then unexpected committed some great act of charity.  If there life was then marked by great acts of charity, wouldn't you say, "They have been redeemed?"  That isn't to say that if they had committed a truly great crime (murder) that they shouldn't have to pay the price for it, but if they went to jail (or the gallows) with a remorseful heart and thereafter acted humbly and compassionately and tenderly, wouldn't people say, "He died a good man?"Ok, I'm going to let the cat out of the bag by saying that I honestly - if we are talking of the real world - don't believe 'neutral' exists and that there is no 'middle way' between good and evil.  There is only more or less depraved.  However, in D&D neutral is a real thing itself, and so yes, someone who murders children one day and then out of compassion saves an orphanage the next day is in D&D terms neutral.  It's even not that hard to imagine such a character - he's a soldier and his loyalty and sense of right and wrong is entirely to his country and defined by his loyalty.  He can deliberately and with malice kill children one day (may they are orcs or maybe they just happen to have the misfortune to live 'over there') without flinching, and the next day he rides to the rescue and saves an orphanage out of love and duty and at great risk to himself.</blockquote>

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