Redcloak's failed characterization, and what it means for the comic as a whole.

[Fish]

I'm wondering if part of the reason we have "monsters" in western stories is because we consider it inappropriate to have real humans killed in stories for children.

It wasn't always so — Grimm's Fairy Tales were pretty ... well, grim. Take Hansel and Gretel: abandoned by their starving family, who cannot afford to feed them, they happen upon a blind witch in the woods who resolves to fatten them up and eat them. Instead, they push her into the oven and kill her. But it's okay to kill the witch because she's evil. Never mind that her essential reason for being evil is exactly the same as that of the father and his second wife: the witch is hungry. (And a cannibal, too: that's apparently a popular thing to accuse villains of, cf Polyphemus.) That the stepmother was deliberately going to expose the children to die of starvation was okay, apparently, because Hansel and Gretel didn't kill her, right? Right: the stepmother dies peacefully of natural causes, and the children are welcomed back home without a second thought for their father's attempted murder through neglect because he didn't mean it. He is presumed to be a good person.

[Soylent Dave]

I'm wondering if part of the reason we have "monsters" in western stories is because we consider it inappropriate to have real humans killed in stories for children.

I think we are probably more uncomfortable with real humans killing in stories for children. But in either case, they become monsters more through caricature than censorship - when your stories are allegory (which children's and fantasy stories in particular are), then exaggeration of features, emotion and deed are very useful tools in creating a more visceral story.

So a monstrous, evil murderer becomes a monster in truth, with fangs and claws, who eats babies. This alone makes the heroes in the story, who defeat the monster, immediately appear more heroic.

That last, incidentally, is also an example of stereotyping. Marketeers do it all the time because it's useful.
[...]
Stereotyping is used in marketing because it works.

And because marketers are lazy (this is why when you get one advert with, for example, inanimate talking characters (or opera singing, or whatever) it is quickly followed by half a dozen similar ones - even if they're for quite different products)

You've usually only got a few minutes (or seconds) to market something to someone - so turning to stereotypes is the easy option. It's a shorthand.

But it doesn't always work, and sometimes it costs sales - either because the stereotyping is misunderstood ("only 18 year-old white men want this product") or because it is received as offensive, and the product becomes tainted by association.

[The Extinguisher]

This goes right into the heart of the matter, and where I fundamentally disagree with you.

I think you are selling D&D and the Fantasy genre short by anthromorphizing the various species - humanoid or otherwise.

D&D features intelligent beings that have nothing in common with the PC races. I'm not talking about different tastes in housing or music; I mean they are created by an entirely different deity, for an entirely different purpose, on an entirely different PLANE, perhaps, and they might have instilled within their very souls (or fire, or goo, or holy spark, or the void, or whatever you can imagine) the indifference or hatred of all things you take for granted.

Maybe they want to simply own you, or control you. Maybe they like pulling your arms off when they're bored because they enjoy your screams. The only reason they may care about you - if care is a concept to them - is because you taste good.

Kobolds have their own deities in D&D, as do Orcs, Goblins and Kuo-Toa. You cannot simply lay your ethics down like a blanket over these things simply because they have two arms and two legs. You sell the entire Fantasy idea short, the idea that capital-e Evil can be imagined and encapsulated in a form that can reach out and touch your Heroes.

I think it's even more interesting (and scary) that the monsters might look like you. But they are monsters, and treating them as such is not a reflection on how we treat each other, in any way.

They are still motivated by human factors with human thought processes. All of these motivations being bad things just furthers my point. We create this monsters that look different than we do and are the very worst of human behavior. We do it because it's much easier to put a villain in a foreign and unfamiliar face. We sympathize much less with the unfamiliar.

I'm not sure if that's necessarily a "bad thing" that this happens, but it's certainly something we need to look critically at in how and how often it does happen in art and entertainment. Because it does reflect how we treat each other. Blindly accepting that these different looking humans are bad and wrong because they were created by bad and wrong things and only want to hurt and kill you is not really a good idea.

[Thrax]

All I can say is that I'm baffled how the OP seems to think D&D rules and telling a good story are mutually exclusive. In fact, I've been using D&D's basic outline (never one for the strict rules) to tell stories since years now. And almost always, I've been subverting many tropes of classic D&D, including moralities, alignments and intelligence of different creatures. My bugbears are no stupider than any other humanoid, and hobgoblins have a thriving civilisation. Elementals aren't crazy destructive forces, but artistic shapers of the world's form. Guess what, it's still D&D.

Though I think people don't give enough credit to the alignment system. It does work more often than not, if you don't forget that most people, ever, are according to it True Neutral. That's why they seem to have traits of LG, CG, LE and CE all at the same time - because like 99% of real people, they really are neutral. Only the rare heroes and villains of real world go anywhere close any other alignment.

[Imperii]

She had not committed an Evil act.

The audience had no way of knowing whether or not she had committed an Evil act. Now that you have declared that she had not done so, this is no longer the case. However, such a declaration is irrelevant to any prior discussions.

And it's ridiculous to think that any given six-year-old may have committed a horrible act worthy of being executed unless the text says otherwise, just because that six-year-old has green skin and her parents bring her to their church services. That right there is enough reason for the story to be the way it is. No author should have to take the time to say, "This little girl ISN'T evil, folks!" in order for the reader to understand that. It should be assumed that no first graders are irredeemably Evil unless the text tells you they are.

No; what is ridiculous, is for you to suggest that the default assumption for a Goblin should not be Neutral Evil. We have the very information that you are asking for. "The text" states that they are "Usually Neutral Evil." No exception or distinction is indicated for first graders.
Your depiction of this position is an obvious Straw man. Nobody has suggested that the girl is evil "just because that six-year-old has green skin and her parents bring her to their church services." I can't really speak as to the reasons why other posters formulated their opinions, but mine is very straightforward:
D&D Goblins are "Usually Neutral Evil."
The girl is a D&D Goblin.
Therefore, the girl is "Usually Neutral Evil."
At least one of the premises must be untrue for that conclusion to be false. Since the SRD is an authoritative source for information on D&D Goblins, we know that the first premise is true. As for the second premise, a direct query ought to do the trick: Is the girl a D&D Goblin?

[Math_Mage]

The audience had no way of knowing whether or not she had committed an Evil act. Now that you have declared that she had not done so, this is no longer the case. However, such a declaration is irrelevant to any prior discussions.




No; what is ridiculous, is for you to suggest that the default assumption for a Goblin should not be Neutral Evil. We have the very information that you are asking for. "The text" states that they are "Usually Neutral Evil." No exception or distinction is indicated for first graders.
Your depiction of this position is an obvious Straw man. Nobody has suggested that the girl is evil "just because that six-year-old has green skin and her parents bring her to their church services." I can't really speak as to the reasons why other posters formulated their opinions, but mine is very straightforward:
D&D Goblins are "Usually Neutral Evil."
The girl is a D&D Goblin.
Therefore, the girl is "Usually Neutral Evil."
Both premises must be untrue for that conclusion to be false. Since the SRD is an authoritative source for information on D&D Goblins, we know that the first premise is true. As for the second premise, a direct query ought to do the trick: Is the girl a D&D Goblin?

This is a grouping fallacy. Just because a race is Usually Neutral Evil does not mean that every member of that race can be considered Usually Neutral Evil. ESPECIALLY given the presence of factors that would bias the particular element being considered compared to the average element in the set ("she's 6 years old" is a good example), it's absolutely fallacious reasoning to draw the conclusion you reached.

[skaddix]

agreed math mage

[B. Dandelion]

The assumption wasn't even that the kid was evil, since her race is usually evil, but that she had probably committed an evil act by attending the ceremony and there had doubtless been some kind of evil audience participation aspect she had personally taken part in. It was conjecture from start to finish.

[hamishspence]

It does work more often than not, if you don't forget that most people, ever, are according to it True Neutral. That's why they seem to have traits of LG, CG, LE and CE all at the same time - because like 99% of real people, they really are neutral. Only the rare heroes and villains of real world go anywhere close any other alignment.

Not true. The PHB states that humans have no tendency toward any alignment, "not even neutrality" (page 13)

True Neutral is the most typical alignment for humans (they're in the True Neutral box in the chart on page 104) but that's a far cry from saying that 99% of humans in the D&D world are True Neutral.

[Thrax]

Not true. The PHB states that humans have no tendency toward any alignment, "not even neutrality" (page 13)

True Neutral is the most typical alignment for humans (they're in the True Neutral box in the chart on page 104) but that's a far cry from saying that 99% of humans in the D&D world are True Neutral.

I meant real world - that's why I said "real people". Also, there is a whole lot of PHBs from all sorts of editions, and I remember the assertion that humans are usually true neutral - one I found particularly true.

[Kish]

No; what is ridiculous, is for you to suggest that the default assumption for a Goblin should not be Neutral Evil. We have the very information that you are asking for. "The text" states that they are "Usually Neutral Evil." No exception or distinction is indicated for first graders.

That would be an excellent argument--if D&D didn't provide any information about what the "Usually" alignment tag meant except the single word.

Well, and if "sapients who are not particularly magical creatures are born any alignment other than True Neutral" wasn't flat-out silly.

D&D Goblins are "Usually Neutral Evil."
The girl is a D&D Goblin.
Therefore, the girl is "Usually Neutral Evil."
Both premises must be untrue for that conclusion to be false.

No. You're assuming an insupportable unstated premise, that being, "Alignment is inborn, fixed, and has nothing to do with culture or upbringing." What the D&D books support, is that a goblin who grows up in a fierce warrior culture that treats nongoblins as if they aren't people will Usually (more than 50% of the time) be Neutral Evil by the time s/he is finished growing up. Not that most goblins are picked out at birth and labeled "Neutral Evil."

[hamishspence]

I meant real world - that's why I said "real people".

The phrasing seemed to imply that "PHB humans seem to have traits of LG, CG, LE and CG, because, like 99% of real humans, they are True Neutral"

[Mellhurst]

Something about Redcloak has been bothering me for some time.
<OP>

I agree with your OP in its entiriety, except for one point. Given that the comic started as mainly gag-oriented it would necessarily have to compromise itself to add shades of grey, or else let the villains and enemy race (or local population) die or be pacified and replaced with more complex challengers. Sagas, even novels, and especially ongoing serial works such as this are rarely extremely consistent due to their length. This is both good and bad.

I dunno why so many people disagree with you (though some of them have very strong arguments I might be convinced by), but keep in mind I ran a poll on this site many years back (this is a new account) and like 65% or something said OoTS is the best webcomic ever, bar none. Granted, it is a very good comic, possibly even one of the best, but what I mean is people will be defensive.

Case in point. There is no moral crisis to fighting monsters in D&D, we must create one for ourselves if we wish it to be so. But as soon as we do that we're not longer satirizing, critiquing, or even attacking the game, rather just our own spin on it. So even if "The Order of the Stick" is making a pointed satirical barb at mainstream gaming, it is a barb directed not on the game itself. Really, the only thing we can say about the game is that it doesn't make sense; but again, so what? That's so evident that it doesn't seem worth saying, much less getting up in arms about.

Yeeeaah... I stopped reading Goblins for a while over that (and my friend said he just ignored it). Then I decided to just put up with and am now reading it again for its other qualities. : )
Happy ending? My friend is now tired of the preachy.

[Imperii]

*SNIP* Well, and if "sapients who are not particularly magical creatures are born any alignment other than True Neutral" wasn't flat-out silly.

The only response I will give this is to point out that Appeal to Absurdity is a fallacy, and thus bears no relevancy to the debate at hand.

No. You're assuming an insupportable unstated premise, that being, "Alignment is inborn, fixed, and has nothing to do with culture or upbringing." In a standard D&D game, a goblin who grows up in a fierce warrior culture that treats nongoblins as if they aren't people will Usually (more than 50% of the time) be Neutral Evil by the time s/he is finished growing up. Goblin five-year-olds? Still True Neutral.

I'm interested to know what makes you authoritative, as to what constitutes a "standard D&D game." I'm also very interested to know where the "Usual Neutral Evil" is tied to culture or age. The support for my premise, that the alignment is tied to species, is this: It is in the Monster Manual entry (categorized by species) for the goblin species.

[Math_Mage]

I agree with your OP in its entiriety, except for one point. Given that the comic started as mainly gag-oriented it would necessarily have to compromise itself to add shades of grey, or else let the villains die and replace them with new ones and a new race to be grey. Stories can rarely be perfect.

I dunno why so many people disagree with you (though some of them have very strong arguments I might be convinced by), but keep in mind I ran a poll on this site many years back (this is a new account) and like 65% or something said OoTS is the best webcomic ever, bar none. Granted, it is a very good comic, possibly even one of the best, but what I mean is people will be defensive.

The issues most people take with N_P's remarks are:
1. He criticizes the comic for not adhering to D&D's black-and-white morality, when a major theme of the comic is that D&D morality doesn't have to be black-and-white to work;
2. He often claims non-evil goblins don't work based on their Usually NE entry, when Usually NE doesn't imply no non-evil goblins;
3. He describes Redcloak's characterization as "failed," when most people consider it one of the best parts of the comic.

[hamishspence]

I'm also very interested to know where the "Usual Neutral Evil" is tied to culture.

PHB example, page 104, for Usually Lawful Evil- explains that it's much more tied to culture for kobolds, than it is for beholders.

It's not a great leap to extrapolate from kobolds to other "monster races".

[Mellhurst]

The issues most people take with N_P's remarks are:
1. He criticizes the comic for not adhering to D&D's black-and-white morality, when a major theme of the comic is that D&D morality doesn't have to be black-and-white to work;
2. He often claims non-evil goblins don't work based on their Usually NE entry, when Usually NE doesn't imply no non-evil goblins;
3. He describes Redcloak's characterization as "failed," when most people consider it one of the best parts of the comic.

Oh I see. Well #2 is quite silly and I like RC too. He's gotten much better lately, I also understand his concern though, he didn't seem quite that deep to start with, but if the giant decided to give him more depth rather than have a set plan from the start then I think he made the right choice.

#1, yeah I think that's the problem here. I guess I was a bit defensive on his part because he was being criticized so much on page 1.
I think what he dislikes is that it wasn't (though we don't know the Giants plans from the start, plus there were those goblin children they had those arguments with) what it was about at the start and that it should stay true and exclusive to the original perspective.

Basically he's a purist who puts a premium on the structural integrity of his stories and hates Cerberus Syndrom (not that I'm saying OoTS has it, the expansion of plot has been done very smoothly here).

Personally I think the mismatch here between D&D reality and D&D reality deconstructed within a campaign setting is very small. Goblin basically takes your ethics textbook and rams it down your throat till you die of internal bleeding (I'm reading it again though, it does a lot of things so right), whereas the giant spreads a few grains of it over your dinner every day (... well, except in the case of Miko...).

[Kish]

The only response I will give this is to point out that Appeal to Absurdity is a fallacy, and thus bears no relevancy to the debate at hand.

Appeal to ridicule, also called appeal to mockery, the Horse Laugh,[1] or reductio ad ridiculum (Latin: "reduction to the ridiculous"), is a logical fallacy which presents the opponent's argument in a way that appears ridiculous, often to the extent of creating a straw man of the actual argument, rather than addressing the argument itself.

I didn't rephrase your argument. So no, the Appeal to Absurdity fallacy doesn't apply here at all unless you acknowledge that your argument--as it is, without rephrasing needed--appears ridiculous. There is an "Appeal to Absurdity" fallacy, but it doesn't consist of pointing out, "That is silly."

I'm interested to know what makes you authoritative, as to what constitutes a "standard D&D game."

Ah, irony. Again, try reading any part of the Monster Manual except the words "Usually Neutral Evil" in the goblin entry.

#1, yeah I think that's the problem here. I guess I was a bit defensive on his part because he was being criticized so much on page 1.
I think what he dislikes is that it wasn't (though we don't know the Giants plans from the start, plus there were those goblin children they had those arguments with) what it was about at the start and that it should stay true and exclusive to the original perspective.

Occasionally, someone posts complainin' that OotS should have stayed a gag-a-day comic set in a random dungeon.

That doesn't seem to be what the OP is saying, however. It appears that he believes that D&D maintains black-and-white morality and universally valid moral judgments based on race, and that any genuine depiction of D&D must treat said black-and-white morality and universally valid moral judgments based on race as accurate. We have posters like that fairly regularly, too. The D&D books don't back them up, but good luck getting any of them to acknowledge it.

[Mellhurst]

That doesn't seem to be what the OP is saying, however. It appears that he believes that D&D maintains black-and-white morality and universally valid moral judgments based on race, and that any genuine depiction of D&D must treat said black-and-white morality and universally valid moral judgments based on race as accurate. We have posters like that fairly regularly, too. The D&D books don't back them up, but good luck getting any of them to acknowledge it.

I agree, however it is fairly black and white in the original sourcebooks. I don't know about the expansions, except that horrid 'exalted deeds' thing or something what was it with the demons in love that you had to consider whether you should kill or not.

The Giant definitely does a good job of portraying the Goblins as not inherently evil, but raised to be evil, which seems to be on par with their description in the core books.
It's easily analyzed that they're forced into that niche by wider society, but I can't remember it being outright implied or stated in the core sources and worlds (I haven't read the background for most popular game-worlds though).

[hamishspence]

The Alignment section on page 305 is a bit ambiguous as to which to apply to goblins- "strong cultural influences" or "legacy of the creature's origin".

Alignment: Usually:
The majority (more the 50%) of these creatures have the given alignment. This may be due to strong cultural influences, or it may be a legacy of the creature's origin. For example, most elves inherited their chaotic good alignment from their creator, the deity Corellon Larethian.

But The Dark One isn't the creator of the goblinoids, so "they inherited their alignment from him" doesn't work.

[Imperii]

The Alignment section on page 305 is a bit ambiguous as to which to apply to goblins- "strong cultural influences" or "legacy of the creature's origin".



But The Dark One isn't the creator of the goblinoids, so "they inherited their alignment from him" doesn't work.

Thank you for posting that excerpt. My primary point is that Goblins are, in fact, "Usually Neutral Evil," and that because of this, the default assumption for their alignment should be Neutral Evil, instead of something else.
Note: By no means am I suggesting that any particular goblin *Is* evil, or that all Goblins are evil. I am simply making a (correct) assertion about what the default assumption ought to be, based on the salient facts. I'm not necessarily concerned with *why* the salient facts are what they are.

[hamishspence]

Thank you for posting that excerpt. My primary point is that Goblins are, in fact, "Usually Neutral Evil," and that because of this, the default assumption for their alignment should be Neutral Evil, instead of something else.

The point The Giant was making, I think, was that the default assumption for a first grader goblin's alignment should not be "Neutral Evil".

And in any case, that killing goblins based on a "default assumption" rather than on their actual actions, is abominable.

BoED takes a similar approach- that even evil beings require "just cause" to attack- you can't just attack them "for being evil" on its own if you intend to stay Good for long.

I agree, however it is fairly black and white in the original sourcebooks. I don't know about the expansions, except that horrid 'exalted deeds' thing or something what was it with the demons in love that you had to consider whether you should kill or not.

BoVD's answer was: "Allowing a fiend to exist (let alone helping it in any way) is clearly Evil"

The later Savage Species had (at least in one of the sample "campaign models") a more nuanced view:

With Malice Toward None
(Chaotic/Accepting)
In this campaign model, the prevailing opinion holds that monsters, no matter how foul and evil they may look, are free sentient beings with all the inalienable rights that humans, elves, and every other humanoid species are heir to. The denizens of this campaign are not foolish- they know that many monsters are evil and nefarious. Just the same, they are loath to reject monsters simply because of their origins. The philosophical leaders of this land realize that no medusa or troll really had a choice in how it came into this world, and indeed as oppressed as its upbringing may have been, it is deserving of more sympathy and consideration, not less.

In this world, evil among monsters is largely perceived to be a psychological condition rather than an absolute or genetic one. Most monsters are thought to become creatures of evil or destruction not because of any infernal or diabolic tie, but because of a fear of rejection, loneliness, or some other understandable psychological condition. Even the foulest tanar'ri may in truth be the victim of its own psychoses, and the enlightened people of this world hold out hope that with openness, respect, and even love, the darkest of souls can be redeemed. And who knows? Perhaps they are right.

BoED left it a bit more ambiguous, saying that fiends in general were "best slain, or at least banished, and only a naive fool would try to convert them" but leaving the possibility that naive fools can succeed, open.

[Math_Mage]

Thank you for posting that excerpt. My primary point is that Goblins are, in fact, "Usually Neutral Evil," and that because of this, the default assumption for their alignment should be Neutral Evil, instead of something else.
Note: By no means am I suggesting that any particular goblin *Is* evil, or that all Goblins are evil. I am simply making a (correct) assertion about what the default assumption ought to be, based on the salient facts. I'm not necessarily concerned with *why* the salient facts are what they are.

The only thing the UNE tag tells you is that your odds are better-than-coinflip on any given average goblin (so only 1 in 3 of the people you're brutally slaying are innocent, yippee!). A 6-year-old goblin child is definitely not average. Moreover, the distinguishing characteristic is one that makes her alignment less likely to be UNE (particularly in a society where culture influences alignment, which is plainly the impression we're supposed to have of the mortal societies we see in general, and goblinoid society in particular).

[hamishspence]

With a slight modification for the fact that some will be LE and some CE.

Not that it should matter, since I favour Eberron's attitude to evil aligned NPCs- "They don't necessarily deserve to be attacked by adventurers".

[Joerg]

My primary point is that Goblins are, in fact, "Usually Neutral Evil," and that because of this, the default assumption for their alignment should be Neutral Evil, instead of something else.

An important point for me is that there should not be any default assumption about someone's alignment based on their race or species.

[The Giant]

No; what is ridiculous, is for you to suggest that the default assumption for a Goblin should not be Neutral Evil. We have the very information that you are asking for. "The text" states that they are "Usually Neutral Evil." No exception or distinction is indicated for first graders.
Your depiction of this position is an obvious Straw man. Nobody has suggested that the girl is evil "just because that six-year-old has green skin and her parents bring her to their church services." I can't really speak as to the reasons why other posters formulated their opinions, but mine is very straightforward:
D&D Goblins are "Usually Neutral Evil."
The girl is a D&D Goblin.
Therefore, the girl is "Usually Neutral Evil."
At least one of the premises must be untrue for that conclusion to be false. Since the SRD is an authoritative source for information on D&D Goblins, we know that the first premise is true. As for the second premise, a direct query ought to do the trick: Is the girl a D&D Goblin?

The SRD is a bunch of words written by a bunch of people living in Renton, WA. It has no more authority to determine what is true in my work of fiction than the phone book does.

And my contention, with much of OOTS, is that it is specifically wrong on this issue. Not that it is inaccurate; that it is not as it should be. That the game is teaching the wrong lessons, especially since we place it in the hands of those who are "12 & Up." There is no actual truth about what alignment goblins are, because goblins are made-up. Monsters are made-up. What there is, is a bunch of game designers writing a document that says that some types of people are inherently morally inferior to other types of people. And I find that regrettable.

Arguing, "This is the way it is, so therefore it's this way," isn't much of refutation to my argument that it shouldn't be that way. I'm not interested in supporting the way D&D is, I'm interested in changing it, by changing the minds of the people who play it. If you don't want it changed, that's fine. Just don't criticize me for using my work to promote my feelings on the issue.

An important point for me is that there should not be any default assumption about someone's alignment based on their race or species.

This, exactly.

[hamishspence]

Hmm- how do we retain the alignment system (as per the much earlier post about liking some of it) while jettisoning all "unfortunate implications"?

Maybe, for all Monster Manuals, leave out the alignment line in a statblock entirely?

Leave it up to the DM what alignment to assign a particular monster (based on its personality and actions as determined by the same DM).

[KillItWithFire]

Yeah I'm going to agree with what The Giant said and add in that the funny thing about OotS is that it's him writing it and he can preach whatever morals he wants. I don't understand why everyone is arguing about how alignment should be played in D&D or in a D&D story. Go write your own story or play your own game then. D&D has no concrete setting when you get down to it, it's a bunch of rules for operating in a suggested setting so I don't understand why everyone is quoting the phb like it is the be all and the end all here. We do have one of those in this situation and it's The Giant.

[KillItWithFire]

Hmm- how do we retain the alignment system (as per the much earlier post about liking some of it) while jettisoning all "unfortunate implications"?

Maybe, for all Monster Manuals, leave out the alignment line in a statblock entirely?

Leave it up to the DM what alignment to assign a particular monster (based on its personality and actions as determined by the same DM).

I feel it already is. I think the alignment listed in MMs are more of guidelines that actual rules. Listings of what tends to be the case. But no one is holding a gun to the DMs head and forcing him to play it that way. The only thing I would change is the wording "Always X" to "Nearly Exclusively X." Also Characters should never have any knowledge of the alignments listed in the table at all. Treat every encounter with a creature like it could go either way. I think if more players were able to think of alignment in more broad terms it wouldn't be an issue.

[Thrax]

Hmm- how do we retain the alignment system (as per the much earlier post about liking some of it) while jettisoning all "unfortunate implications"?

Maybe, for all Monster Manuals, leave out the alignment line in a statblock entirely?

Exactly. All non-sapient creatures should be unaligned (because they don't care or don't have the capability to perceive morality), while no sapient creature should have a prescribed alignment.

I think it's one lesson we learned from our history - stereotypes are bad. Some people seem to have learned "stereotyping of X is bad" and just are egalitarian with limited number of groups of actual people, but any hypothetical or fantastical creature they're happily prejudiced against. It's not the point that just X or Y can be good, it's that anyone can be good. And as such I applaud that position by the Giant.