What alignment is House?

[Felon]

I wouldn't buy House as evil. He isn't going out of his way to hurt people. But, I also wouldn't peg him as good either. He isn't going out of his way to help anyone, and in fact, as was mentioned, ignores people in pain if they aren't interesting enough.

I'll add to that his self-absorbed apathy occasionally gives way to acts genuine compassion, but just as often he commits acts of petty malevolence. Traits I'd also expect of a CN.

 

[Zimri]

Let me ask you this - would you trust House? I certainly wouldn't. Not that he would go out of his way to screw me, but, he wouldn't cross the street to piddle on me if I were on fire either.

If I were sick with something "interesting" I'ld trust him with my life, and to go one step further since I value my wife above me I would trust him with her life if she were sick with something interesting. I also wouldn't mind social exchanges with him. I think he would make a decent role-player. I don't think he is "nice" at all but the world is chalk full of "nice" both phony and real. I'll take someone not wearing an illusion any day.

 

[Stalker0]

And once again another thread proves the alignment system is way too vague for the majority of people. I think I have seen nearly every alignment mentioned as possible for House.

 

[Felon]

And once again another thread proves the alignment system is way too vague for the majority of people. I think I have seen nearly every alignment mentioned as possible for House.

"Too vague" means that you think the system should be more particulate. But the alignment system is an attempt at quantifying an abstraction. Abstractions are vague, and attempts to quantify them accurately produce vague results. Attempts to make the results look less vague carry the risk of making them less accurate.

The PHB could go over alignments in grave detail, but how much good would that really do? The biggest obstacle to a consensus demonstrated in this thread is that people are giving out alignments for characters based on their own views of what the nine alignments mean, rather than referring what's actually stated in the gosh-darn rules. Someone calling House lawful because he's good at deductive reasoning is just making up their own criterion for lawfulness. By the book, a master detective can be chaotic.

What the PHB does is describe some traits that are associated with the four compass points and the types of actions that are characterized by them. It also covers how neutral folk tend to react when they don't correspond to a compass point. I think that's pretty good coverage.

Now, I can think of one thing that I would add to the PHB that would help alleviate a big obstacle to gauging alignment--at least for those who actually read the section. Specifically, alignment is not absolute. You have to pay attention to a character's general behavior, and you can't obsess over individual instances (like calling Foreman evil for using that infected needle on Cameron). People can fail to behave consistently, so it's important to isolate trends and not think one negative result taints the entire batch. If you.look at a lot of these posts, the latter is the exact approach a lot of folks take when it comes to alignment.

I've seen folks condemn a person's role-playing because a character that was supposedly good acted out of self-preservation, and likewise deemed a character to not be evil because he let a victim live when he didn't have to. A good person can momentarily cave into weaknesses such as fear and pettyness, and an evil character can feel a pang of pity or remorse.

The alignment system works. It just isn't foolproof.

 

[Victim]

Excellent points Felon.

However, I think that "isolated" incidents can be revealing. Sure, moments of weakness can happen even in the best of people. But also, people don't necessarily reveal their inner natures with everyday actions with little at stake. You could argue that Foreman was acting abberantly since he was under duress. Or you might say that with his life at stake, he dropped everyday social niceties and facades, and acted according to his true character.

One of the reasons that we have so much arguement is that figuring out which actions are truly significant isn't really easy.

 

[Felon]

True, Victim, there is something to be said for seeing the choices people make while under stress.

Of course, that makes me think of Cameron. What has she done that really makes folks thinks she's good? She's nice, but nice isn't good.

 

[hbarsquared]

I love alignment debates, while at the same time realizing that nothing will be "resolved." I like to hear what other people think, as well as opinions on alignment and action interpretations, but I don't expect to find an "answer" to a given characters alignment.

Of course, that makes me think of Cameron. What has she done that really makes folks thinks she's good? She's nice, but nice isn't good.

This is a very interesting proposal. One could say that there is no such thing as Good. After all, when a person does a Good act, isn't the reason behind it to make oneself feel better, or to not feel bad? In a way, it's completely selfish: I helped someone because it makes [b[me[/b] feel good. So, is it a Good act? In reality, does anyone ever do a truly Good act, if ultimately it's for a selfish reason?

For the record, my personal response is Yes, it is still a Good act, regardless of (this particular) ultimate motive. But it is a good debate in philosophy.

I think Cameron is Good not necessarily because she is "nice" but because she generally wants to help people. She is willing to lie about it and willing to follow the rules for it (so, not Chaotic or Lawful, but Neutral), but ultimately she does whatever she thinks is going to help the patient and family.

 

[Felon]

This is a very interesting proposal. One could say that there is no such thing as Good. After all, when a person does a Good act, isn't the reason behind it to make oneself feel better, or to not feel bad? In a way, it's completely selfish: I helped someone because it makes [b[me[/b] feel good. So, is it a Good act? In reality, does anyone ever do a truly Good act, if ultimately it's for a selfish reason?

Well, there are certainly genuine acts of self-sacrifice where people do what they think is right to their detriment, knowing that it won't make them feel good and in some instances even to the point of sacrificing their very lives.

I think it is hard to find lawful characters in a modern setting though, because it's very hard to have faith in our system, at least not without some degree of naivete.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Hrm, the "nice /= good and good /= nice" discussion.... In my expereince, a lot of folks enjoy the archetype of the Good (or even exalted) Jerk. Niceness is usually conflated with politelness and meanness with being plain spoken, and niceness is claimed as a fake facade. "I'm too busy saving your life to worry about your feelings!"

I'd like to suggest a different aproach. A long term pattern of Good behavior is inspired, at its core, by compassion. Its about not wanting people to suffer. Good people don't want to hurt other people, and don't want to see other people hurt.

Evil on the other hand is about a lack of compassion. Evil people either don't care about the suffering of others, enjoy the suffering of others, or consider their suffering in some way unreal and irrelevant.

How does this relate to niceness? Emotional suffering exists. In the grand sceme of things it isn't as important (usually) as physical suffering or world wide evil plots, but it is real and a Good person should, in the overall, want to avoid or alieviate it. So while there are many reasons a Evil person could pretend to be nice, a Good person should, imo, generally be nice unless there is a compelling reason not to be. They should not seek out excuses to be mean "for a person's own good", they should not be hurtful when a kind approach would be just as effective, and they should not be proud of their hurtfullness under the guise of "plain speaking".

So my veiw is, Good does not always = nice and nice does not always = Good.... But they go together more often than they don't and meanness is always a taint on good action. Niceness - that is, making an effort to aliviate emotional suffering or reduce it - is usually a good action. Meanness - causing or increasing emotional suffering - is usually an evil action. Just like in any other case, good people can take evil actions when neccassary and evil people can do good things for their own purposes, but that doesn't make mean and nice irrelevant to good and evil - it just makes them not exactly the same.

 

[Zimri]

But look at why House is mean to patients. They lie, or cover things up, need thier memory jarred, or need thier attention got so they'll make a choice. He needs to get to the truth and "nice" won't often get you beyond "polite fiction".