The rapid change in Tarquin

[Math_Mage]

I'm not sure, I kind of see that point.

Tarquin's not evil AND Lawful, he's SUCH an evil man BECAUSE he's so Lawful. He's got about the same amount of evil in him as Xykon or Nale, but unlike Redcloak, who's just Lawful Evil because he's evil with something approaching impulse control compared to 90% of the villains in the series, Tarquin is so much worse than he might be if he was Chaotic because he takes Law way, way, WAY too far.

Tarquin HATES Chaos, and everything about chaos. Freedom. Spontaneity, Creativity, uncertainty, disagreements. Tarquin cannot and doesn't want to live in a world where these things are rampant. EVERYONE needs his kind of security more than they need to be free. Or alive, for that matter. Stories happen HIS way or they don't happen, period. Arguments are resolved quickly and reasonably by Tarquin's metrics or they end with death.

Tarquin would be quite evil if he was Chaotic or Neutral, but Lawful grabs Evil and does ten consecutive touchdowns with his characterization where normally you'd expect Lawful Evil to be the pick of a bad lot because it at least has some code compared to Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil. Tarquin's a good example of why Lawful Evil can be so much worse when Law really gets its teeth into this whole Evil thing instead of struggling with it.

I disagree with several things about this post.

Starting from the bottom: No, I don't normally expect Lawful Evil to be the pick of a bad lot. Any such perception is due to either a difference in degree of Evil in your perceived norm, or your preference for Law. Law acting as a check on Evil, something for Evil to struggle with, is not the default where alignment is concerned. As for the last sentence...worse than what? Than other Evil alignments? No, because the others can be similarly amplified. Than other Lawful Evil characters? By what baseline?

Second, of course Lawful works well with Evil with respect to Tarquin's characterization. You're praising the glass for fitting the water; Tarquin's character was designed for Lawful Evil, so naturally his brand of Evil is very Lawful. That doesn't make his Evilness derive from his Lawfulness. Nor does it mean one couldn't construct a character very similar to Tarquin, alignment CE, that was just as bad as Tarquin, and devoted himself to destroying Good civilizations instead of establishing Evil ones.

Third, you're uncritically repeating the same pattern I criticized in rbetieh's post: describing Tarquin's devotion to Law in loving detail while casually reducing his Evil to the phrase "his kind of". Are we really just going to pass over the fact that Tarquin's envisioned order is a horrible place, and not just because it lacks freedom? Is it really so inconceivable that a LG character might hate chaos just as much as Tarquin, but express it differently because he actually has concern for the dignity of sentient life and has a different vision from Tarquin? Tarquin isn't Evil because he is extremely Lawful; he's just extremely Lawful Evil.

Finally, Redcloak's brand of LE is more complex than you portray it as. But that's a tale for another time.