Is Varsuuvius Lawful, Chaotic or True Neutral?

[Iuris]

By my reckoning, V used to be an arrogant True neutral, however, his recent experiences have made V quite a bit more humble and I think taught V a bit about needing, and needing to care about, other people.

So, I expect V to be leaning a bit toward good these days, but with a heavy burden.

[Techhead]

My viewpoint on the Law-Chaos axis is that Law is deontological while Chaos is consequentialist (aka Teleological). The following is a gross simplification of the two moral systems.

Deontology is an approach to ethics that judges the morality of an action based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules. A good act (eg. Thou shall not kill) is good in and of itself. A moral person's response to a situation is based on their moral ruleset, and negative consequences are a result of the circumstances and not their actions themselves. See: Kantian Ethics

Consequentialism contrasts to this in saying that the consequences of the action are what matters, and that rules can (and should) be bent if the result is a positive outcome. Consequentialism can focus solely on the actor (Ethical Egoism), on society on a whole (Utilitarianism), or only on others while ignoring the actor (Ethical Altruism).

[rbetieh]

Zevox, if my way of thinking is Slaadlike, why do slaads form society? You can say CE rule by strength all you want, but 2 blue slaads could kill the death slaad and then duke it out amoungst each other for the leadership position. And that would go down the pecking order until 1 Slaad is left. Belkar should prove this to you, his leader who should be good enough to give him a sound spanking (Belkar is the lowest level chr in the group) tells him to do something, and Belkar still says no, chaotic at its best i'd say. Lets face it, that definition of the Law-Chaos axis leads to internal inconsistency in the world in that all Chaotics should have already become extinct because chaotics simply cannot get along. The other definition allows for the DnD worlds to exist as written. It makes chaotics the glue that holds the world together when people dont agree and still allows for pure Lawful societies to exist since they all do agree.

As for Batman, I choose a very simple explanation for why he is Lawful. He puts all criminals in jail regardless of circumstance. The troubled youth in drug gang, the 7-11 robber stealing to feed his family, and any other such tragic criminal ends up at the precinct right along with the Joker. That Bruce Wayne then helps out the criminals that could be reformed shows that he is Good. And the opposite is true, Batman doesnt just catch the hood on the street because he was "at the wrong place at the wrong time and happens to match the description", no evidence, no criminal. Thats the crux of it, all criminals go to jail, no case-by-case analysis, thats Lawfulness. But understand, Batman does these things so that the people will be FREE from the OPRESSION of the crime bosses, that should make him less Lawful under the srd view, but seems rather consistent under other views.

Back to V, under no circumstances could he be called chaotic.

[FujinAkari]

(Belkar is the lowest level chr in the group)

Wha? No he isn't... that's Roy you're thinking of...

[rbetieh]

You sure? Belkar has been taking XP penalty even before the group met Miko....I mean unless he is some unusual form of halfling. He has Ranger 9 and only 2 or 3 Barbarian levels right?

[Holy_Knight]

I'll tackle the Batman problem! ooh, ooh, I love this one.

Batman is LG because he cares about the ideas of Law and Good more than anything else in the world.

But that does not mean one must uphold a broken law.

The reason Batman is often considered the Law in Gotham isn't because he's made his own law - it's because the other law officers do not uphold the law. It's a broken system, so he is attempting to fix it in the best way possible.

Even Kant, potentially the most Lawful man to have ever lived, believed that it is everyone's DUTY to fix a broken law by acting outside it.

Basically, Batman is LG because he's as LG as he can possibly be in the system that he is in. He uses Fear as a weapon not because he's Evil, but because... There are no other weapons that are nearly as effective, considering the sizes of the armies.

Oh, and him shooting and killing people was retconned away. Not at all a part of the Batman we all know and love.

This post gets two Phantasm thumbs up! Great analysis.

It get two Holy Knight thumbs up, too. Very well stated, SadisticFishing.

[Zevox]

Zevox, if my way of thinking is Slaadlike, why do slaads form society?

I did not say your way of thinking was Slaad-like, but that the way of thinking you ascribe to the notion of valuing individualism was so hyperbolic as to be Slaad-like. Which was used because Slaadi are outsiders literally composed of chaos - a means of showing you exactly how hyperbolic and unrealistic what you describe is.

Also, to my knowledge, Slaadi do not form societies. Certainly there is no mention of such in the Monster Manual entries about them.

You can say CE rule by strength all you want,

The "might makes right" discussion was not about CE in general, but your specific example of Orcs. A society which you described as run by the "might makes right" principle, then preposterously claimed that under the alignment definitions I gave would be lawful.

Lets face it, that definition of the Law-Chaos axis leads to internal inconsistency in the world in that all Chaotics should have already become extinct because chaotics simply cannot get along.

And I have no idea how you come to that conclusion, as nothing whatsoever about the existing definition of the chaotic alignment (which again, I took largely from the PHB/SRD description of it) precludes chaotics from getting along.

The other definition allows for the DnD worlds to exist as written.

No it doesn't - it contradicts the definitions of the alignments as written, and is quite frankly completely nonsensical in its entirety.

It makes chaotics the glue that holds the world together when people dont agree and still allows for pure Lawful societies to exist since they all do agree.

That entire statement makes no sense whatsoever. "Pure Lawful societies" do not exist (outside of Outsiders), nor do societies or those within them all agree, nor does your definition of chaotic in any way make sense as "the glue that holds the world together when people don't agree" (I honestly have no idea what that is even supposed to mean).

Zevox

[Callista]

I think I might have an idea what they are talking about... part of why a two-axis system makes sense.

Okay, Law is tradition/order/honor/predictability. Basically. A government run by Lawful people would be all about doing things in an orderly, predictable way, the way they've always done it, and it would be pretty resistant to change.

If your Lawful government is Good-aligned, then they use that honor, predictability, etc., to support the well-being of their citizens.

But, assuming that we're not dealing with Outsiders here, and that this is a society where people aren't always Lawful or always Good, the society can "drift" toward Evil as people try to seize power for themselves. The most successful Evil in a LG society will be the LE people--those who care about honor, predictability, and order, and will follow the laws of the land to the letter, but do not care about the well-being of the citizens.

The LG members of the government will be trying to hinder the new LE leaders, and usually that works just fine--until a LE person comes along who is too skilled for the LG government. In that situation, the LG government can fall easily to LN and then LE as it is corrupted from within; and the Lawful nature of the government means they do not like radical change and do not want to unseat legitimate authority.

That's where Chaos comes in. Unlike the LG individual and his preference for order and stability, CG people don't mind shaking things up, taking chances, being unconventional. These CG individuals will start a revolution to get rid of the newly LE government all at once and create a new government--hopefully one that cares about the citizens.

However, CG people don't really make good bureaucrats. They don't like to be tied down and they don't like to organize all the minutiae of government. So, eventually, the government becomes more and more Lawful as those who are more suited to a bureaucracy take power, and the cycle starts again.

Where does CE come in? That's what happens when the CG revolution goes too far, the altruistic leaders lose control of it, and everything goes to Hell in a handbasket. Which, in D&D, may be literal.

[VanBuren]

FWIW, a lawful mindset will likely tend towards "this worked before, it might work again" whereas a chaotic mindset would probably say "this situation is different, so let's just figure it out"

[The Glyphstone]

She made a Faustian Pact, so therefore she is lawful evil, but no-one else seems to have relised that.
(I always refer to V as she, mostly because otherwise Haleys the only girl in the group.

Strictly speaking, he didn't make a Faustian bargain, because that requires selling your soul. She only rented/leased his soul for a set time period.

[hamishspence]

As shown by the previously extensively discussed strip #11, Vaarsuvius was good at the beginning. I'm inclined to think Vaarsuvius might be neutral now, but not because of the familicide especially.

Actually, at the time, The Giant stated that everyone except Belkar was Good- but then, somewhat later, stated that this was not binding.

It's also notable that Neutral characters can suffer from Unholy Blight too- they just aren't sickened by it.

Not to mention that V's alignment in the tabletop game is Arrogant Neutral.

These may hint that V was Neutral rather than Good in the Dungeon of Durokan.

[Onyavar]

If this were a poll, you could count another vote. My judgment is based on the current strip 798 and all previous - and it's subjective, of course.

Good vs evil axis: borderline neutral/evil, tending back to neutral (obviously)
Law vs chaos axis: borderline lawful/neutral, tending towards neutral (I refuse to give a breakdown, neither of us has so much time to write/read)

[James Lu]

He is not good or is good until he wiped out a whole family.

That was under the effects of the Soul Splice and he was doing it to protect his family. But then again, those dragons kinda were tormenting the parts of the world in which they resided as the numerous panels do depict.

[hamishspence]

The three fiends point out that the soul splices have no effect on V's morality- though encouraging V to thing they do, does increase V's chance of behaving immorally- because now V has an excuse.

While some of the dragons might have been "tormenting parts of the world" some were half-dragons, some were still in the egg, and some didn't appear to be interacting with anything.

[Burner28]

Hamishspence is right, what V did there was still Evil.

[MoonCat]

That was under the effects of the Soul Splice and he was doing it to protect his family. But then again, those dragons kinda were tormenting the parts of the world in which they resided as the numerous panels do depict.

What.

I'm pretty sure the baby dragons in their eggs were not tormenting anyone, and actually, looking back at it, the only characters being torment were the bunny and the fish and the dragons themselves, seeing as they were just genocided for a crime that their sisters cousins brothers uncles mothers aunt just did.

[Gift Jeraff]

As several others have said, True Neutral -> Neutral Evil, but I wouldn't say V is necessarily trying to be Good. I'd say s/he is trying to be an effective, non-Evil party member more than anything else. Though I'd say Blackwing is trying to make him/her Good.

[lio45]

So if a paladin of the Sapphire Guard happens to find an egg in the woods which they know with absolute certainty is from an Always Evil species, and destroys it, even though that egg clearly wasn't tormenting anyone, they're not Lawful Good any more?

[Burner28]

What do you think? Seriously, do you think killing a defenless being that hasn't done any evil deeds yet is a Good thing? No really?

[lio45]

In a context in which we know the (currently) defenseless being is Evil (and that it will not remain defenseless growing up), I would say it could pass off as Good, yes.

We know Miko's done that many times (use Detect Evil on a creature, and then kill the creature if it's Evil, for no other reason) and she's kept her paladinhood, which means she remained Good. QED.

[Craft (Cheese)]

In a context in which we know the (currently) defenseless being is Evil (and that it will not remain defenseless growing up), I would say it could pass off as Good, yes.

We know Miko's done that many times (use Detect Evil on a creature, and then kill the creature if it's Evil, for no other reason) and she's kept her paladinhood, which means she remained Good. QED.

The Book of Exalted Deeds' definition of Good alignment has this to say on that:

In fact, even launching a war upon a nearby tribe of evil orcs is not necessarily a good act if the attack is without provocation - the mere existence of evil orcs is not a just cause for war against them, if the orcs have been causing no harm.

[Holy_Knight]

In a context in which we know the (currently) defenseless being is Evil (and that it will not remain defenseless growing up), I would say it could pass off as Good, yes.

No. It's still defenseless at the time of killing, which is what matters. Additionally, even if we do know that it won't remain defenseless growing up, we don't know that it will remain evil, because even "always evil" allows for exceptional cases. Finally, one of the things that distinguishes good from evil is treatment of other creatures--i.e. evil creatures murder defenseless opponents who haven't actually done anything wrong, while good creatures do not.

We know Miko's done that many times (use Detect Evil on a creature, and then kill the creature if it's Evil, for no other reason) and she's kept her paladinhood, which means she remained Good. QED.

Um... DO we know that? When did this actually happen?

[zimmerwald1915]

Um... DO we know that? When did this actually happen?

She Detected Evil on Roy before attacking, and she says she does so habitually when confronted by Jones Esq. at the Weary Travellers' Inn. Not that it's anything other than tangential to the thread topic.

[SowZ]

I don't believe in always evil races. There are races who are always evil in the eyes of X god or pantheon and there are races who tap into universal energies many races deem 'evil' energies but to be evil philophically there has to be choice. If someone was thralled and made to stab a baby it wouldn't make the stabber evil. They could have done nothing else.

No, an always evil race cannot act differently and so obviously the actions it takes that are interpreted as evil are just part of how that race evolved/was created. It may still have ethics, but is is silly to assume that all beings will judge right on wrong based on the same principles humans use.

[lio45]

She Detected Evil on Roy before attacking, and she says she does so habitually when confronted by Jones Esq. at the Weary Travellers' Inn. Not that it's anything other than tangential to the thread topic.

Also consider the two last panels of this strip:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0228.html

[hamishspence]

The MM definition of "Always X alignment" mentions that "the creature is born with the listed alignment. Exceptions are either unique or very rare."

That said, there's plenty of room for alignment change. Being raised by beings with a different alignment helps (crystal dragons sometimes seize and raise white dragon eggs themselves).

And sometimes a being will seek to change its own alignment and worldview.

[Kojiro]

"Always <whatever>", in my opinion, represents some sort of inherent, possibly magic or genetic, set of behavior. Inevitables, they are programmed to be absolute Law, Angels rise from the very nature of the Good planes, Slaad are fueled by the Chaos of Limbo, and so on. They almost seem to have less free will, unlike "Usually <whatever>" races, which are the way they are due to culture and perhaps some inborn tendencies.

Also, topic of V: True Neutral, committed a major evil action in a fit of rage and passion (that semi-rhyme was not intentional), and is now actively working towards something like Good, at least. So, still True Neutral on the whole, although depending on how you value the individual actions and things like intention and effort, possibly something above or below that. Really, this debate is becoming one of general morality rather than V's, and I don't think that's the best place to go.

[hamishspence]

While this is true- they still have some free will, since there are Fallen Angels and Risen Demons.

"General D&D morality" is a part of how we assess the morality of OoTS characters- so it helps if we have an idea of what it is.

What's required to be Evil, Good, Neutral, and so on.

Sometimes it's personality (which is why a newborn Always Evil monster has an Evil alignment despite not having had time to do something evil).

Sometimes it's actions (which is why a compassionate, altruistic person who has embarked on evil actions "for the greater good" may end up crossing the line into Evil alignment).

[Kish]

By Rich Burlew, in Don't Split the Party:

Vaarsuvius finds him/herself at the dragon's mercy because he/she never thinks to take precautions against her, despite knowing that the dragon he/she killed shared a home with another. Vaarsuvius then repeats and amplifies this misconception when he/she casts the custom-made familicide spell, essentially speaking for all players who say, "All monsters are evil and exist only for us to kill." But hopefully when the reader sees the scale on which Vaarsuvius carries out the devastation, the error of this thinking is more obvious. If it is wrong to kill a thousand dragons simply because they are dragons, then it is wrong to kill a single dragon for the same reasons.
Also, I'm not sure what it says about fantasy roleplaying that I felt the need to make the argument against genocide. Probably best that I not think about it too much.

[lio45]

Really, this debate is becoming one of general morality rather than V's, and I don't think that's the best place to go.

It's the same thing. You have to define the alignments if you want to talk about V's alignment.

In other words, "how Evil, exactly, is Familicide when used on an Evil species to kill a large group of individuals, of which any member might eventually want to threaten your family in the future?" is a pretty relevant question in any V alignment thread.

If it is wrong to kill a thousand dragons simply because they are dragons, then it is wrong to kill a single dragon for the same reasons.

That (obvious) argument is exactly the one that was being used, but in the opposite way: if Miko can remain Lawful Good after killing a creature simply because it registered as Evil when scanned, then Miko can remain Lawful Good after killing a thousand creatures simply because they registered as Evil when scanned.

The exact same argument could also be made with the paladins and the goblin village...