The Tyranny of Good (aka The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intensions)

[Felix]

I can't think of any character known to the mainstream audience who appeared in at least half a dozen films that fits that description.

... Vader?

Paladine is Darth Vader?

 

[ruleslawyer]

Not quite.

Paladine is only pretending to be lawful good. Look at his name for a moment. Does it remind you of a different name?

I will note that it's FIVE films, not six.

 

[Slife]

Not quite.

I will note that it's FIVE films, not six.

I was including that animated clone wars thingy.

 

[Felix]

I was including that animated clone wars thingy.

But you left out the Robot Chicken episodes?

 

[Jolly Giant]

Wow. I started a Dragnolance/Star Wars thread! I never would have guessed.

Jokes aside, thanks to everyone for their helpful input. I'm still open for more ideas though. Particularly if anyone has thoughts about how good intentions can lead to oppression and more-or-less evil results.

The plan is that it should start small, but escalate. It could easily lead to situations like the witch-burnings the "good" people of our world performed in their eagerness to combat evil. Eventually, it might start to look more like the Spanish inquisition. Or not. I'm still thinking out loud here, as a brainstorming excersice.

Finally, yet another attempt to clarify what I meant by "the tyranny of good": After a long-running series of new, ever-stricter laws, regulation, et cetera; the land ends up with a set of laws that can be summarized like this: "Be good. Be lawful." The penalty for breaking these laws can be anything from fines or prison to hanging. In other words; while the goal was to create a society with no evil or anarchy, a society with no personal freedom is the result.

 

[Kesh]

Now for the annoying problems of a totally 'good' society.

My favorite is the Nanny laws or laws where they try to govern people's actions when they can only affect the self. A modern example would be consensual crimes and thought police. Good examples would be found here Plenty of those concepts would hit gamers hard....no loose women, no gambling, etc...
heck are the adventurers using government approved armor/weapons (seat belt/helmet laws?)

My next favorite is the extra step laws. Where they pass a law that sounds great, but it doesn't solve the problem because of all the hurdles placed in its way...extra forms, delays...basically anything that denies money. Good example of this is HMOs. I can see the government saying they will funding a 'healer' god to ensure everyone has the basic health coverage and then requiring extra paperwork for the cleric to get reimbursed for their healing. If the government does it right, the church providing the healing will get the blame for the lack of healing.

You were doing fine until this bit. Injecting a bit too much of real-world politics into this thread, I think.