Is Jack Bauer LG?

[howandwhy99]

Chaotic Good.

He fights to protect the innocent people of the world and those he loves. If he happens to break a few laws to do so, he doesn't hesitate. If he has to put his own life on the line to help uphold the greater good, so be it. He's far from evil, and far from lawful.

I agree with you. He's a vigilante who just happens to work in law enforcement. I don't know what his morals or justifications are (it sounds like he's unemotional so good/evil is hard to determine), but his actions break the law repeatedly.

He'd be a hell of a paladin, but the number of atonements would be a pain.

 

[Voadam]

I'd have to see his character sheet to tell you.

 

[Derren]

I agree with you. He's a vigilante who just happens to work in law enforcement. I don't know what his morals or justifications are (it sounds like he's unemotional so good/evil is hard to determine), but his actions break the law repeatedly.

He'd be a hell of a paladin, but the number of atonements would be a pain.

Paladin? Never. This guy tortures, cheats and breakes the law regulary. He is TN at best and certainly not LG. An I don't buy the "outside the show he is certainly a nice guy" explanation. How someone acts under stress shows his true character and Jacks true character is TN.

And even if he feels remorse, then why does he torture again in the next season (and mostly even worse then in the season before?). No, this guy does so many evil acts in the name of the greater good that he can't be good himself.

 

[Count_Zero]

I would classify Jack Bauer, in the D&D alignment system, as either Chaotic Good, or Neutral Evil. Definitly not Chaotic Evil and definitly not Lawful.

 

[Asmo]

Now that is disgusting- pizza and milk, that is gross.

Hear, hear!!

Asmo

 

[Banshee16]

Paladin? Never. This guy tortures, cheats and breakes the law regulary. He is TN at best and certainly not LG. An I don't buy the "outside the show he is certainly a nice guy" explanation. How someone acts under stress shows his true character and Jacks true character is TN.

And even if he feels remorse, then why does he torture again in the next season (and mostly even worse then in the season before?). No, this guy does so many evil acts in the name of the greater good that he can't be good himself.

Exactly. That's what I'm getting at. He's "tainted" by what he's done. He's not a hero in the classic sense of the word. I'd actually venture to say that Jack displays sociopathic tendencies. He's got a disturbing ability to justify away the results of his actions on others, and appears, in the heat of the moment, to not harbour guilt over what he's done. Most people aren't like that. I'd also be thinking that those factors in how he acts may be "bad", from a "normal social adjustment" perspective, but serve his government very well when channeled towards a certain purpose (ie. hunting down and apprehending terrorists).

It's pretty evident, even from the first season that everything wasn't perfect in the Bauer household at the beginning. It seems that his job and his personalilty were causing difficulties with respect to being in "normal" life before all these crises started occurring. At least that's what I remember. It seems like every season he goes further and further across the line, displaying more and more vicious behaviour....even the way he talks. I'm not sure if this is because the writers are needing to find more effective ways of shocking us, or whether this is an evolution of the character.

I wonder sometimes, now that the show has been extended, whether Jack will gradually devolve from who he was in the first season, to a rather nasty individual by the end, and the series ends when he finally has to be "retired", or something like that.

In any case, in the first season, I think he might have been classified as NG or CG even....but by now, he's more like true neutral. If he doesn't find ways to reign it in, he's in danger of drifting to evil. The most horrible actions of history were in many cases committed by people who were telling themselves they had a specific reason, and were doing good, as they defined it. That's another discussion, though..

Banshee

 

[CF]

Jack Bauer can't be LG because Chuck Norris said so.

 

[NexH]

For what I have seen (I only watched one complete season) he seems to be a "Baatorian" kind of LE, perhaps appropiate to Avernus.

 

[Hellcow]

Jack Bauer is an evil guy whose personal code happens to follow most of the precepts of "good."

I agree, and this is essentially the approach we tried to take with Eberron - highlighting that alignment is a spectrum, that evil people can serve good causes, and for that matter, good people can serve a greater evil. Hannibal Lecter and Jack Bauer can both be evil, even though one's a serial killer and the other is, at the end of the day, a hero. I'd have no problem dropping Jack into Eberron as an evil-aligned Dark Lantern. This, in turn, means that detect evil is no longer the automatic "find the villain" tool. It tells you a person's nature - what methods he is willing to employ to accomplish his goals, what sort of actions he just won't take. But it doesn't tell you what his goals are. CTU may serve the greater good, but Jack is certainly willing to use methods which are, in D&D terms, evil in order to achieve his noble ends.

(As a side note, I found it amusing when someone recently said to him "I know you won't break your word..." when, a few episodes earlier, we saw him do just that.)

I agree that the D20M allegiance system is a better choice for him, and conveniently enough, he's set in more of a D20 Modern world than a traditional fantasy world. But at least in Eberron, our goal was to divorce alignment from allegiance - to say that an evil person can be truly loyal to a noble cause, and can promote a greater good with evil actions - and that's where I'd put Jack.

The most horrible actions of history were in many cases committed by people who were telling themselves they had a specific reason, and were doing good, as they defined it.

Exactly.

the series ends when he finally has to be "retired", or something like that.

Personally, I think the final season will open with Jack waking up on a mysterious island, in a village populated entirely by previously "missing" CTU agents. Beware the giant beachball!

 

[Agent Oracle]

Chloe O'Brien performs feats of magic every episode, though.

Yes, only Chole could defrost every refridgerator in America by remote control.