So, Malack...

[Math_Mage]

With regards to your first point, we're really debating one state versus another. Both these states have existences, any other hypothetical situation is merely a hypothetical situation and there are no detected actors who could make that a reality.

For example, the Elves, for all their Good alignments, have never seen fit to impose order into the southern parts of the Western continent. The only two choices we've really been presented with is the yearly-coup thing where the average Western Continent empire builds up and is destroyed in 12 months and Tarquin's plan, where, while any beneficial side effects are unintended, you have some form of peace and stability through state consolidation.

Okay, let's play a game of hypotheticals for a minute here.

What if...let me stretch waaaaaaaaaaaaay out into speculation here...Tarquin came up with a different plan? Would that not be a third alternative to "Tarquin executes his present plan" and "The status quo persists"?

Just because only two choices have been presented does not mean only those two choices should be considered.

As far as your second point goes, ignoring your moral indignation, why yes, Tarquin has reduced violence on the continent simply by stomping out rival states and removing the ability of independent actors to make their own decisions.

[citation needed]

I am aware that you are capable of making unsupported speculation. You don't need to remind me.

And as far as "plugging in the gaps" to Malack's portrayal goes; I think that after Malack was revealed to be a vampire, and his children were vampire spawn, I think it's difficult to work with the text and still portray Malack in any positive light. Before then, though, Malack was certainly congenial and polite and caring about his friends. I think in real life, most people are involved, even indirectly, in some kind of political indiscretion or another, and I think if Malack is able to extend courtesy or more importantly extend benevolence on a personal level, in my book, not the DnD alignment book, that would place Malack as a decent lizard cleric.

What puzzles me is why you find that characterization necessarily better, such that subsequent strips have ruined 'poor Malack'. In particular, I question your later assertion that Malack is now 'more deluded' than he would have been as a purported-LN character playing patsy to Tarquin's scheme. Current Malack may be unrepentantly and obviously Evil, but he's also very straightforward about what he wants. But because you don't like the change, you say he's deluded. That's not rational.