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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4230908" data-attributes="member: 4937">Dausuul: That's a very good treatment except for one thing - you don't give Lawful Evil enough credit.  Lawful Evil isn't merely well organized chaotic evil, and neither is self-centeredness the be all end all of evil.Lawful Evil is what you get when you take Lawful Good and then state, "Life has relatively little value.  The life or suffering of an individual is of little concern compared to the success of the state.  Power is everything.  Success is the sole measure of the worth of society."People in a lawful evil society legitimately feel that the state is worth more than they are and are (like any lawful society) perfectly willing to sacrifice themselves for the state.  In fact, they are probably more willing to do so than evil a lawful good society, as lawful evil societies almost invariably end up having significant death cults where death is symbolicly or openly celebrated (for example, the SS in the Nazi's.  I could site more modern examples, but don't want to get political).  LE societies are almost always 'lovers of death'.  The critical aspect of a lawful evil society is correctly knowing your place.  If your place is X in the heirarchy, then you are supposed to stay there.  If your place is really Y in the heirarchy, then you are expect to move yourself (up or down) into the place where you are supposed to be.  Of course, you can be wrong, and the assumption of the lawful evil society is that if you succeed, then you were right.  If you fail, then you were wrong.  And wrongness in knowing your place in the society is the most venial sin in a lawful evil ethic.  So, there in a LE society there is nothing wrong against plotting against your lord and replacing him, per se.   If you successfully do so and succeed in the role, your success justifies your decision and is proof that it was time for you to enter into the role.  On the other hand, anything less than success is proof that you were wrong, that you are guilty of betraying your rightful lord, that you are guilty of hubris, and must be punished punatively and without mercy in order to sustain the social order.  And if the society really is LE, people wanting to change thier place in the society - especially through extra-legal channels and especially more than a single rank - are extremely rare.  Everyone isn't in fact climbing the ranks on everyone elses back.  Most of the time they are doing thier job and if very good at it being promoted to new responcibility.  Only very very rarely would someone be wrongly placed into the wrong caste and need to take extraordinary measures to correct the problem for the good of society.  Normally, the society is expected to function by everyone in it and everyone's greatest ambition is to serve in the role that they were assigned - even if it is as grease for the iron wheels of the tyranny that they serve.</blockquote>

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