inverarity | Alexandra Quick is a 6th-level Magic-User/Thief

Entry tags:

Alexandra Quick is a 6th-level Magic-User/Thief

Springing off of a comment on an earlier post, I had this extremely nerdy idea a while ago, so why not?

D&D Basic Rules

Way back in the day, I played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, yes, it's true. I even had the original blue box basic D&D set.

By high school I had left AD&D behind and have never really looked back (for many years I was more of a Champions and GURPS grognard), but let's face it, everyone who has ever played a roleplaying game, even if they sniff disdainfully at AD&D, is familiar with the tropes pioneered by that game.

So, for anyone nerdy enough to be familiar with them, here's an AD&D alignment poll for my AQ characters. (Here is a summary of alignments if you need a refresher/guide.)

We're going by the original AD&D alignment chart.

Blink Dogs. Seriously.

Or if you prefer one of a bajillion images online mapping various fictional characters to alignments:

It took me a while to find one I agreed with. Also, The Wire is fucking awesome.

So, without entering into an extensive debate on the validity/utility of AD&D alignments (I had those debates so many times in high school...), consider this "just for fun."

I will let the poll run for a while, and then eventually post my own Absolutely Correct and Inarguable Word of God interpretations. :P

I'm not including all the minor characters because it's a pain — LJ requires I manually enter the fields for every single character. But feel free to speculate in the comments if you like.

[Poll #1942893]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't think of Law and Chaos as being about what the character thinks of the current status quo so much as the person's opinion on whether order or freedom is preferable in principle. A lawful good and chaotic good person would both oppose an evil government but would differ on what to replace it with. Lilith Grimm is Lawful good because she is good (self-sacrificing, actively works to protect others) but also a strict disciplinarian who believes that that the best way to protect others is through a strictly enforced code of rules. Alexandra is Chaotic Good because she has the same self-sacrifice and moral compass but believes in following her own principles and neither submits to others authority nor tries to impose her own rules upon others. Abraham Thorn is Lawful Neutral (Or Lawful Evil). Abraham is trying to to bring down the status quo (though he preferred to work within the system to change it and only took the sword when he was forced to), and his ruthless methods disqualify him for a Good alignment, but by his own admission he is doing this in order to replace it with a better system. He would prefer to rule in this system but it's the system that matters and he would be willing to let someone else rule. Diana Grimm is also Lawful Neutral (Or maybe Lawful Evil), though from the perspective of someone who either believes in the system or thinks that it's bad but preferable to chaos. Chaotic Evil is John Manuelito. He does whatever he pleases, and in his view this is the only course that makes sense because he sees both ethics and morals as pointless.

This might account for voting discrepancies with some chars lol. Must say, I totally disagree with your interpretation of lawful... To me actions are more significant than abstractly held principles. The inclination of a lawful person is to work within the confines of existing laws, customs, systems etc when possible in pursuing goals, whereas the chaotic person sees all of these things by and large as insignificant. Abraham thorn is willing to cross all established laws, traditions, to take extremely extra legal measures in pursuit of his vision and that to me is the opposite of lawful. There are a lot of steps one could take between being a member of the executive or legislative branch of a government you disagree with and leading a rebellion seeking to overthrow the regime which does not hesitate to use guerilla and terrorist tactics. He gravitated to the latter, imo in no small part due to ego, and yeah, so not lawful in my books. Whereas Diana, I'd agree, does seem to do her thing while staying within the bounds of the system, using the power she can get out of it, etc. In cannon, Lucius Malfoy would be lawful to me, if evil. He manipulates the system, uses systemic corruption to his advantage, breaks laws when it suits him but quietly, so as to maintain pretence of deniability etc.

What laws should the person follow though? By your definition Law and Chaos is completely subjective to what society a person happens to be in and a Lawful person instantly becomes Chaotic if he strongly disagrees with a new law that is passed, and Lenin and Castro instantly switched from chaotic to lawful the second they won, for it to have meaning as alignment the person's own philosophy has to come into it somewhere. Abraham didn't break the law first, the Confederation did when it declared a lawfully elected congressman an enemy of the state without due process. The fact that Thorn no longer follows the confederation law is because a) he's not stupid and doesn't want to die in prison and b) He no longer has any reason to view the government as legitimate. There may be a lot of steps he could take between being a congressman and being a revolutionary leader, but when the Jackbooted thugs are coming after you the options tend to narrow down to fight, run or surrender.

I don't think I expressed my view very well before. By laws and customs I don't only mean laws in the sense of the legal strictures of a given state, but also societal laws, cultural laws, moral laws.

I would not call Lenin chaotic at any point, really. Yes, he was a revolutionary that worked towards the overthrow of the czarist regime. But how did he do that? He published political tracts, organized an elite and highly trained underground political party, did consciousness raising/education in benefits of socialism type activities, attended international socialist conventions etc etc. While those activities certainly violated the law of the czarist regime, and he was arrested as a result, they don't in my view of things violate higher "laws" of acceptable political/societal activism. It was not Lenin's prerogative to adopt widespread campaign of public assassinations, as some groups at the time did. There was no campaign of shooting or bombing of military barracks, police stations, other symbols of imperial power. It was not Lenin's Bolsheviks even who initiated the first revolution/overthrow of the czar. He kept within certain limits, even as a revolutionary.

Likewise, its not Thorn's 'revolutionary' activities that make me see him as chaotic. It's the specific tactics he deliberately chose to employ. He could have striven, as the leader of a revolutionary organization, if we want to call it that, to publicize the details of the Deathly regimen, under the assumption that the wizarding public in general would have revolted against Hucksteen if they knew the full extent of what he was doing. He could have attempted to organize some large-scale form of nonviolent civil disobedience. If he really wanted to take the violent route, he could have stuck more closely to the kinds of guerrilla tactics that still pay respect to some degree to established 'rules of war': targeting military and police personnel (in this case, aurors and the like) and facilities, high level politicians directly collaborating with Hucksteen, and very clearly political symbols, ONLY. He could have deliberately aimed for targets with symbolic value in ways which were much less likely to hurt civilians. Yes, it would have been more difficult and possibly less efficient to do so, but a Lawful person, to me, is someone who would have prioritized staying within certain boundaries, even at a cost; Thorn seems to have had no such inclination.

Even looking just at revolutionary figures, I see a big difference there - if your first instinct is 'screw all conventional norms of legality, morality, proportionality, etc' that is not indicative of a Lawful mindset.

Edited 2013-11-12 03:08 (UTC)

I never said Lenin was chaotic, I agree that he was Lawful Evil the whole way, though I think you greatly underestimate the amount of violence the bolsheviks engaged in.

Thorn and everyone else who know about the Deathly Regiment are under unbreakable vows never to reveal it so it is not possible to spread the word about it, which would make it difficult to organize civil disobedience around it. Either way it's a moot point because Law and Chaos have nothing to do with whether or not someone believes in non-violence. Alexandra is clearly Chaotic and much more averse to violence than the clearly-lawful Diana Grimm.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on our definitions of lawful/chaotic. alignment is, in any case, apparently a highly subjective thing on the whole, so.

interesting to read the variety of takes on it in any case.

it's not so much status quo so much as... do you work within the rules or do you ignore them... case in point.. someone who gets into a position of power, then abuses their power, and the word of the rules. For example, a headmaster who uses the school rules to promote their own agenda-- they want, say, students to graduate with less knowledge about X. SO they hire a poor teacher, they skimp on their budget, and don't allow them new equipment, etc. Kids learn less, testing standards are lowered, and soon, people don't know about that topic as much any more. All legal.

Or, say there was someone that the headmaster specifically wanted to hinder... make sure his schooling was particulaarly disjointed, bad teachers, poor timing, lots of barely justified detention, etc Versus the chaotic evil one who might just arrange for his hindered student to be killed.

Working within the laws, versus complete disregard.

As you say, Lilith could be lawful because she obeys the laws and follows them. She makes rules, and works within them. Alex doesn't CARE about hte rules, so, Chaotic. I don't think we know wnough about Abraham's methods to make a full analysis of his opinion... but with the train incident, we can probably pretty safely say chaotic because he disregarded laws and stand morality to get his point across. He WAS lawful, but it wasn't working.

ANd I don't really see how Diana's evil. Lawful good, to nuetral if anything :) I dont remember her doing many EVIL things. AS I recall, she mostly seems to want to help people.. even if she doens't always know what hte best way to do so is.

BUT we can, absolutly, agree about JOhn Manuelito. XD

As I mentioned before, the reason I think it's likely that Diana is Lawful Evil is because I think it's likely she arranged Bonnie's accident so that Alexandra would find out the truth about her mother. If so that's pretty evil. If it's not then I agree that Lawful Neutral would fit her best.

That' s a fair point. IF she did, then, evil. If not, then Nuetral.

I admit it's been too long for me to remember my opinion on that one.. yikes.

I only picked up on it after my second read-through, and it's entirely possible I'm wrong, my reasons for suspecting it was her are described in another comment further down.

Mm.. I think those reasosn are a bit of a stretch, but not TOO far, if you know what I mean. Interesting...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alexandra Quick is a 6th-level Magic-User/Thief

Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos

Re: Law vs. Chaos