How is any alignment more X than another?

[DMH]

In the MM IV, under briarvex, there is an implication that CE is more evil than NE. I have seen this theme since the 1st ed and it still boggles me a bit. If anything CE is the weakest evil since it tends to destroy itself much quicker than the others.

And I have seen the idea that LG is the best good. I wonder if this is a little bit of a hold over from when there was no good or evil components to alignments and chaotic was considered evil(ish).

Isn't each of the 9 alignments equal to the others, exp since they have their own themed plane in the wheel?

 

[Delta]

Chaotic evil is the most unrestrained, and hence more likely to directly hit you with the evil. It's evil-on-all-the-time. Other types of evil are more likely to have some outside rationale to restrain themselves.

Lawful evil, at least they make the wagons run on time.

 

[Merkuri]

I think this may come from the fact that in our modern society "chaos" and "evil" are often interchangable, as are "lawful" and "good." When you think of a "good" person, you think of someone who's reliable, tells the truth, meets deadlines, etc. In fact, though, those are all "lawful" traits.

I had a similar discussion to this on another board. I used the example of a warlord who vows to kill one of his own soldiers for every enemy left alive on the battlefield (to encourage his army to fight harder). Even though he goes up against terrible odds and takes staggering losses, he continues to kill his own men. He kept his word, thus he's lawful. However, killing people as punishment (for failing to kill other people, no less) is a pretty evil thing to do. (Disclaimer: a single action or series of action doth not an alignment make, IMO, but it's easier to explain things this way for the sake of discussion.)

We tend to think of chaotic evil as "more evil" because chaos, unpredictability, and randomness are as much the bane of our society as evil (perhaps moreso). So "chaotic evil" can read as "evil squared".

Personally, I think any reference to chaotic evil being "more evil" is just silly. Chaotic evil characters may act evil more often, or they may not.

 

[Trickstergod]

Eh. I don't necessarily think all the alignments are "equal" when it comes to acting a certain way. Generally speaking, I find any alignment with one aspect of neutrality to be the best representative of that alignment; that is, a neutral good individual is more good than lawful good, lawful neutral is more lawful than lawful good, and so on.

Any time there are two alignment extremes, one is going to have to get sacrificed for the other.

 

[Shemeska]

In the MM IV, under briarvex, there is an implication that CE is more evil than NE. I have seen this theme since the 1st ed and it still boggles me a bit. If anything CE is the weakest evil since it tends to destroy itself much quicker than the others.

And I have seen the idea that LG is the best good. I wonder if this is a little bit of a hold over from when there was no good or evil components to alignments and chaotic was considered evil(ish).

I'm guessing its an ancient holdover from when there was no good or evil alignment and Lawful and Chaotic were the only ones, described as being loosely 'good' and 'evil' respectively. It carries over unfortunately to the idea that LG and CE are the best of the best and the worst of the worst.

Isn't each of the 9 alignments equal to the others, exp since they have their own themed plane in the wheel?

Depends on how you look at it.

Technically NG/Elysium/Guardinals are 'pure good' in the sense that they're not beholden to Law or Chaos, and can use or ignore them entirely in their perpetuation of universal good. Archons and Eladrin on the other hand might be unable to fathom a difference between Good and Law, and Good and Chaos respectively. To an archon 'good' is inseperable with 'law', and anything less than LG either LN or NG is equally flawed, and something similar with an Eladrin. Archons and Eladrin aren't lG and cG, they're equally beholden their two alignment fractions while an NG guardinal doesn't have the same divided loyalties.

Similarly while Baatezu are equally beholden to Law and Evil, and Tanar'ri to Chaos and Evil, their NE counterparts and antecedants the Yugoloths aren't beholden to either Law or Chaos and can use or abuse both at whimsy in their application of Evil. In a sense the're 'pure evil'.

But now don't necessarily conflate 'pure' evil or 'pure' good with 'more' evil or 'more' good. They just won't have to potentially mince one aspect of their alignment to promote another, they won't have divided loyalties.

But of course, such alignment differences are really just academic if we're talking about mortals. The exemplar outsiders are in a different light than Joe McBad who might be CE versus Bob O'Meanie who is LE, the difference in total evil between them has less to do with alignment than personality, resources, and other circumstances divorced from the alignment stat.