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

[inverarity]

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



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]

Comments

[uneko.livejournal.com]

My alignment discussions with my husband often end with him reminding me that lawful means (in his 3.5ish head) that they adhere to the laws as written by the in-control power. Lawful Good will obey the law to the benefit of all, chotic good will do whatever NEEDS to be done, n their eyes, to benefit everyone. and themselves. Lawful Evil will exploit the rules, find loopholes, and make new laws, while Chaotic evil just does whatever they feel like, without regard for the rules.

I specify that because the alignment cheat sheet you linked to id's lawful as being honorably and truthful, and so forth. and that makes a BIG difference in how I voted the Ozarkers.

I also havn't read the stories in probably about a year.... so, my memories may be fuzzy.

Alex - CG because she does The Right Thing, according to HER rules.

Anna - LG, but Alex has passed on a lot of "chaotic points" so she's edging a bit towards NG. :) she likes the rules and doesn't like breaking them, but can and will if needed.

David - NG, of course. Because hey, there are rules, sure, but doing the good thing is more reasonable.

Constance, Forbearance, and Innocence - Lawful Neutral. They do follow the rules of their society, but I think if Ozarker rules came in conflict with the "american" rules, the Ozarker rules would come first.. Innocence, of course, is rebelling a bit, but there's a difference between wearing your hair under a cap and committing murder. They of course want to do the right thing... but the right thing isn't always the good thing. And then there's the question: If Ozarker rules and American rules DO come into conflict... if they DO follow Ozarker rules.. are they really still "Good"? I mean.. if they had a rule that said they could kill or injure someone who had slighted them most terribly (say, murdered a loved one, a sibling or something), where the american rules would say "imprisoned and put on trial, sentenced, etc" ... Does obeying make them evil? Neutral? Good? The Ozarkers are very hard to place, to me... but I stand by LN... but they follow THEIR rules, even though their rules are a minority. AS for good and evil.... I think they, of everyone, stand for balance. Maybe this is because in my head, they're sitting there holding on to troublesome's arm and pulling on her, will all their might, to keep her standing upright. I could honestly justify any alignment on the good or neutral side of the spectrum for them :) Innocence is more chaotic then her sisters, but only in small ways.

Julia is True neutral. She strikes me as the sort who'd do whatever seemed most right at the time.. regardless of if she had to fib or break rules, though those same rules would give her hesitation as she broke them. she has an inclination to good.

Max was CN He had too much of his father's influence to realy be "good" I think. He has a Good inclination, definetly, though. He only cares about the rules though, in as far as they can serve him to get him out of trouble, or to make him look better. I think he'd eventually have shifted to be CG or NG, but not yet.

Darla is CN... as.. I believe, for the most part, she was being manipulated. that doesn't make someone evil, just gullible. and generally, she was trying to look out for her own interests. In time she MIGHT have become evil, but...

Larry True Nuetral because Neutral :)

Lilith and Diana - NG for both of them.. they flex the rules to do good.. and I believe they both intend to do good... even if the rules don't always agree with them. I gotta laugh at the people who are saying that they're LAWFUL EVIL and stuff XD

Yay char limits. replying to myself with the last few...

[uneko.livejournal.com]

Ms Shirtliffe (how do you say that anyway? Shirt-life?) is LN. Because she has the rules, good and bad, and she obeys them. I believe she's pro-government, generally, and will support it as long as it is generally good or neutral, as long as it's not evil. She has a distinct GOOD leaning, and it's on the border between LN and LG. Wait, damn, I just looked back and saw I voted for LG instead. well, what I wrote still applies :)

Abraham Thorn - CN because fuck the rules. He's trying to do something good, I think, by doing bad things. I could also argue true neutral for him. I don't THINK he's devoted to any particular extremes. he's not Voldemort with a "I want to rules the world" attitude. He just, I think, doesn't want to see the government continue governing as it currently does. Maybe he DOES want to rule the wizarding world, but if he does, I think it's because he feels he can do a better job and provide a more stable, more fair world for the people who live in it.. and how is that any different then, say, the Rebel Alliance battling against the Evil Galactic Empire? it's not. It's all point of view...

Law vs. Chaos

[graeme sutton (from livejournal.com)]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[shinygobonkers.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[graeme sutton (from livejournal.com)]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[shinygobonkers.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[graeme sutton (from livejournal.com)]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[shinygobonkers.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[uneko.livejournal.com]

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

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[graeme sutton (from livejournal.com)]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[uneko.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[graeme sutton (from livejournal.com)]

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.

Re: Law vs. Chaos

[uneko.livejournal.com]

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