Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6688481" data-attributes="member: 4937">No, what I'm doing is getting away from the illogical notion that if you mix evil with chaos, the amalgamation is somehow 'most evil' or 'more evil' than pure evil that has beset D&D ever since 1e.  (The other counterpart to this is that Paladins have to be LG because LG is actually purer, more righteous, and more holy than pure good.)  Essentially, this comes from a bias that goodness is defined primarily or largely through adherence to authority.  I'm rejecting that here.No, that's not what I'm saying at all.  LE accepts that the appraisal of evil that the world is fundamentally evil and that good is not to be found in it.  But it moves in a different direction by saying that, while that is true, perfect forms can be imagined (or perhaps exist outside the world or before the world was corrupted by chaos), and that (like all law) the goal of all sentient beings ought to be to bring about these perfect external forms.  But it rejects that it will be possible to do so in this world except by accepting that this world is in fact evil, and that ultimately in order to sustain those perfect forms everything that isn't perfect will have to be destroyed and everything in its final state will have to be subjugated and abased.  Lawful Evil is something like the Borg.  It sees the solution to ending all this conflict to assimilate everything into its culture, and destroy everything that won't or can't be assimilated.  (Consider how this parallels the goals of the Nazi's, or consider the end state that Oceania is working toward in 1984, or think about Kamikazi pilots sacrificing themselves for the Emporer and the furtherance of Japanese culture.)   Under this model, none of the inhabitants of the LE culture are truly self-centered, self-seeking, or selfish.  They believe that they are doing what is best for everyone.  They are in fact self-sacrificing.  They are in fact self-destroying.  The end state would be perfect conformity and a complete lack of individuality.  It doesn't help that AD&D has traditionally presented the Nine Hells as a chaotic evil culture in every respect.Each alignment views the other alignments as deluded and irrational to one degree or the other.  Good and evil see law and chaos as delusions, and each sees the other as being a non-thing.   Likewise, chaos and law see good and evil as delusions, and each sees the other as a non-thing.  Each alignment believes it is fundamentally reality, and fundamentally what it is in conflict with is unreality.Yes, all evil, whether 'neutral evil', lawful evil, or chaotic would accept that as true.  However, that doesn't mean that that is what evil actually is, merely that that is a result of evil and an expression of evil.Sure.  But ultimately all these views rest in the belief that good doesn't really exist.</blockquote>

Verification