My Country, Right Or Wrong: A Lawful Neutral Alignment Handbook

[Saintheart]

Illustrations and Resources

Lawful Neutral tends to be a transitional alignment in fiction. That is - protagonists in this alignment generally don't stay there for the entirety of a fictional work's run, mainly because the point of fiction is character change, and that change is invariably stereotyped as moral challenge to the Lawful Neutral's worldview, which he then falls prey to. As with the way we must glimpse a distant star by looking out of the corner of our eye, Lawful Neutral types are often found among the supporting cast of works of fiction.

That said, there are some examples. The ones quoted in the handbook work well for them, which are--
Judge Dredd, out of 2000 AD comics
Robocop
Sherlock Holmes
Game of Thrones
The Bodyguard (film)
James Bond
A Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi
To Kill A Mockingbird
Don Quixote
Ghost Rider
Star Wars
The Avatar Trilogy (the 2nd edition D&D series of books)
Predator
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
Saving Private Ryan
The Gunslinger, and indeed the entirety of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.

In terms of some specific texts and examples:

The Indiana Jones series (film) "It belongs in a museum!" We've already talked about the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, but there is a much more potent example of Lawful Neutral in these films: the protagonist, Indiana Jones. Indy doesn't pursue recovery of antiquities for selfish or moral reasons as such: he's devoted to the recovery of knowledge and the recovery of history largely for their own sake. When given the opportunity to destroy the Ark of the Covenant, Belloq talks him out of it by simply pointing out that the Ark is history, that it's a priceless historical treasure. A Chaotic, Good, or Evil character perhaps would ignore such compunctions and "blow it back to God", but Indy, the Lawful Neutral? No. He is in pursuit of an ideal beyond good or evil. Indy's saving women does not put him into good territory; romantic entangements of themselves do not define a character. Indiana Jones might appear to be a Good character by reason of the opposition he generally runs into -- Nazis, Thuggees, Nazis, and Russians -- but invariably the motivation he follows is knowledge for its own sake. By contrast, his father Henry would appear to be Lawful Good: "May he who illuminated this, illuminate me." Henry's lifelong quest for the Holy Grail has transformed him. He explicitly explains the quest for the grail as "not about archaeology", but as "a race against evil."

The Fifth Profession by David Morrell. A 1990 novel by the guy who wrote First Blood, this book is about the Guardian on steroids -- the field of executive protection, known as the fifth profession, the four preceding it being hunting, farming, prostitution and politics. The story also devles into other brain-altering subjects, but it is a very solid picture of a Lawful Neutral occupation and the mentality of the man who practices it.

Double Jeopardy (film). Tommy Lee Jones plays Travis Lehman, a parole officer, in this Ashley Judd movie, directed by Bruce Beresford. Why do I recommend this one over The Fugitive, where Jones plays a similar character? Because Double Jeopardy gives us considerably more by way of character development for Lehman and gives us a much better picture of his internal motives - which are crucial to understanding why a Lawful Neutral does what he does.

Pyramids (book), Terry Pratchett. Bet you thought I was going to suggest Lord Vetinari. Sadly, no: Vetinari leans towards Lawful Neutral but remains firmly in Evil territory. No, in this book we have the High Priest Dios, practically immortal, whose only role -- explicitly -- has been to serve the kingdom of Djelibeybi and to preserve the status quo, a priest who knows and believes in every single religious superstition, creed, or faith that exists or once existed. Of course, THERE IS A CERTAIN OTHER CHARACTER IN THAT UNIVERSE WHO IS LAWFUL NEUTRAL. ONE MIGHT SAY LETHAL NEUTRAL.

The Silmarillion (book), J.R.R. Tolkien. Mandos, in short. Perhaps not the most terribly useful example since he is a literal god, but of all the Vala he is the closest analogue to a neutral god. He illustrates how even clerics focusing on Divination or similar schools can behave as Lawful Neutral, unconcerned with good or evil -- because they can see the future. Which brings us to...

Watchmen (comic), Alan Moore. Specifically, Doctor Manhattan. Having been made inhuman by the same process as that which made him a superhero, and being able to see timelines perfectly and himself in that timeline, Manhattan's detachment from human feeling, his omniscience if not omnipotence, is a prime example of Lawful Neutral played in a fatalistic manner: you don't have to demand that people follow order and organisation because you can see, in terrible detail, the order and relentless inevitability that surrounds all of their actions, and understand that there is no escaping the order that governs all living (and unliving) things. Manhattan, like Cassandra, falls under the archetype of The Accursed - he points out he is no less a puppet than anyone else, he is only blessed/cursed with the ability to see the strings.

Yes, Minister (TV show). A Lawful Evil-leaning case, Sir Humphrey Appleby is an agent for the status quo, in seeing that the civil service remains unaffected by the silliness of Parliamentary changes. It's evil-leaning because Appleby often feathers his own nest at the expense of others, but again the series provides a (hilarious) example of a Lawful Neutral hard at work within the bowels of the system working towards a set of personal principles.

Star Trek (TV show). In particular, Spock, if not Vulcans generally. Leonard Nimoy credited his portrayal of Spock to one directorial comment made early in Star Trek's run -- "When you see the thing on the screen, don't get emotional. Be cool and curious, like a scientist." With that moment, Nimoy said he 'got' the character at a fundamental level. Similar comments apply for Lawful Neutrals. Note in particular that Vulcans' adherence to logicality is not genetic: it is a positive code of conduct they adopt in order to hold back what they see (rightly or wrongly) as their species' violent tendencies. This is a potent example of Lawful Neutral in action: following a code for specific reasons.

Dragonlance (D&D series of novels). As an exemplar of neutrality in this series we have Astinus of Palathus, who may be a god of neutrality in human form, but who fits into the Guardian archetype -- the thing he protects is knowledge of the years, his chronicle of events on Krynn. The series is also worth a review because it demonstrates how neutrality as an active force in the world works, as opposed to a passive, amoral force. Most of this guide assumes your character is not striving to hold a particular balance between good and evil in place, but is simply divorced from their struggle entirely, focusing on law. The neutrality of the Dragonlance novels is a distinct moral position: it strives to keep good and evil from excess, that keeps tolerance alive in the world, that accepts both good and evil have their place and wax and wane in their influence over time.

Casablanca (film). Specifically, the protagonist, Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart at his best. Bearing in mind that fiction, and this brilliant film in particular, are about change, Rick is a solid example of Lawful Neutral leaning on and eventually crashing into Lawful Good. Rick starts off as a cynic -- "I stick my neck out for nobody" -- but he has an underlying code to him that, while not white-knight good, is not overwhelmingly evil either. Another character to watch around this is Blaine's friend and main foil in the movie, Inspector Louis ("I am shocked, shocked to find there is gambling going on in this establishment!" "Here's your winnings, inspector.") who seems to be Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil and transitions (perhaps unwillingly) through to Lawful Neutral or even good.

Back to the Future (film). Principal Strickland, avatar of all cheerless school heads the multiverse over, seems to have a personal code along the lines of "Slackers must be punished" as a racial feature, given he retains this resolute determination to keep order in alternative timestreams. Note also his grandfather, Sheriff Strickland, who implores his son to keep discipline. On the other hand, neither is Strickland in the evil end of the alignment pool given how he seems to tell Marty to stay away from Doc Brown out of a concern for his welfare and a belief the Doc is a real nutcase.

The Matrix Reloaded (film). Specifically: the Architect. Once you get past his expositionary speech in which no word of less than four syllables seems to be used, it becomes apparent that the Architect is probably the most significant avatar of Lawful Neutral in the entire series (concordantly, the Oracle is a fascinating avatar of Chaotic Neutral with the paradox of a being able to predict the future who believes in change above all). While the mood and premise of the film is essentially that the Matrix is evil, the Architect is not motivated by evil or good - he is motivated by order. He has imprisoned all humanity -- but his first, and therefore preference for humanity, was to create a perfect world so they could all be completely happy. It is disorder that he is determined to keep under control, thus the creation of the cycle - whilst he could not remove disorder from the Matrix, he could keep it within acceptable bounds.