Quote Originally Posted by Carry2 View Post
How on earth does deliberately toppling governments across a continent not count as a pretty gosh-darned Chaotic sort of action?
Because he's a conqueror. You can't be a conqueror without upsetting the governments that are already in place, but if you remove the archetype of "the conqueror" from Lawful Evil, you've created a very worthless category.

Yes, I know, his ultimate goal is greater political stability, and that is a Lawful objective, but it doesn't change the nature of his methods.
It's not just an objective, it's something he has already achieved somewhat. The Empires of Blood, Sweat, and Tears now control the majority of the arable land on the Western Continent (aside from the elves' territories) and since the three of them are only pretending to be enemies with each other, there is already less war on the continent. He isn't destabilizing in the short run, he's stabilizing in the short run, and then stabilizing more in the long run.

His Chaotic and Lawful actions here are of exactly the same sort and magnitude.
Even if we assume conquering nations is innately Chaotic, toppling nations in a political climate of constant war with the goal of establishing a stable empire is definitely not balanced out in magnitude. His initial attempt was even more of a short-term success at establishing order where there had been Chaos: when he first appeared on the continent, he conquered eleven nations in eight months. If not for the fact that all the remaining countries ganged up on him, he likely would have established a new order and put an end to this destructive conflict ( I'll never join you!) But instead, he had to devise a new strategy to conquer the whole continent, and even though it takes a bit longer, it's already working.
(Besides, some of his Chaotic actions had nothing in particular to do with law & order- sending Gannji and Enor to the arena by going around his own laws did nothing especially to enhance the power of the legal system- he simply wanted petty revenge.)
The fact that he did it that way indicates a Lawful attitude because he used the legal system to get revenge rather than getting it himself without regard for the law. It seems like your definition of Chaotic actions is "anything that isn't exclusively motivated by strengthening the Lawfulness of society as a whole," and that definition leaves no room for actions that just don't fall anywhere on the Law/Chaos axis, like petty revenge.

This is why I think the "torturer philanthropist" analogy is accurate here. At best you're looking at a very muddied and ambivalent kind of Neutral there, and a lot of folks wouldn't hesitate to call this person flat-out Evil. I don't see why the Law/Chaos axis is being handled differently.
It's not being handled differently. Everyone's counterarguments are concerned with premises from which this conclusion follows. The "torturer philanthropist" is indeed the equivalent of where you think Tarquin falls on the Law/Chaos spectrum, but it seems nobody agrees with you about where Tarquin falls on the Law/Chaos spectrum.