Vigilantism and the Lawful Alignment in OotS

[Carry2]

You want evidence that Lord Shojo's actions left Azure City in a state of increased Chaos...

Well, yes, there is some evidence for this. But my point is that, if you can blame Shojo for these kinds of increased chaos, then it also makes him look like a net force for evil, not good. If, on the other hand, Shojo cannot be blamed for the bickering nobles left after his reign, then there is little evidence that he made his city, on balance, more chaotic than he found it. And if he actively tried to reign them in and keep the city politically stable, he could even, by Tarquin's warped standards, be lawful.

[Snails]

Actually, since you can technically be one alignment step away from the god you worship, a worshipper of Venca COULD non-evil (for example, worshipping him because of his knowledge domain). Where trouble comes in is the passing of information to other cult members. If she knows or suspects that the information is going to be used for evil purposes, she's moved into evil territory since she's now part of any evil they commit. So, it's not the worship of Vecna that makes her evil, but the actions she is taking.

One might imagine that worshiping Vecna strongly tends to lead towards evil alignment, for the reasons you cite. If you do not play the same game as the others, how exactly are you going to climb the ranks? A few might succeed through adventuring, but those must be peculiar oddballs. One might find a Neutral sect that emphasizes a particular non-evil aspect of Vecna over the others, however.

[Sunken Valley]

I really hope someone with a forum account comissioned a Tarquin and Shojo crayon drawing. It must be seen and I know those are the two I'd have picked had I had the money.

[Sir_Leorik]

Actually, since you can technically be one alignment step away from the god you worship, a worshipper of Venca COULD non-evil (for example, worshipping him because of his knowledge domain). Where trouble comes in is the passing of information to other cult members. If she knows or suspects that the information is going to be used for evil purposes, she's moved into evil territory since she's now part of any evil they commit. So, it's not the worship of Vecna that makes her evil, but the actions she is taking. Now, whether Vecna and/or his cultists will allow worship at all without some support is another matter entirely. Does Vecna have worshippers (those who pray to him as their patron) AND cultists (those who actively work to further his ends) or just cultists? The woman in the example above is a cultist. She's taking an active (if minor) role in furthering Vecna's ends and as such is responsible (along with others) for any evil resulting from the information she obtained.

Vecna is a Neutral Evil god whose portfolio includes Magic, Secrets, Magical Secrets, and Magical Secrets That Will Allow Vecna to Kill All of the Other Gods and Rule Creation. In the World of Greyhawk, worship of Vecna is illegal almost everywhere, even especially in the Empire of Iuz. I'm not sure that a True Neutral character can worship a God that isn't also True Neutral; you can't be a True Neutral cleric of a god that isn't True Neutral.

The goal of the washerwoman who joined the cult is to get personal power. The cult assigns her to spy on her neighbors in the hopes that they will get valuable blackmail material. Plus she's risking her life by being a member of the cell, since in most areas worship of Vecna is punishable by summary execution. I'd say that she should be considered Evil.

[Carry2]

I think it is fair to assume that Shojo was trying his best to serve his people as well as he can. The assassination of the monarch of a state probably wouldn't be too helpful in preventing infighting between that state's feudal lords, so Shojo may quite reasonably have seen protecting his own life as a way of protecting many other innocent lives. It certainly seems a stretch to say that all was hunky-dory between the lords until Shojo stirred things up.

That is a totally plausible scenario. But my point is that, if keeping the nobles in check in order to protecte the city works out as a Good thing to do, it also counts as a net win for Team Law.

Trying to save the world by going behind the backs of Paladins, faking senility to free himself from fear of assassination and with it any obligation to pander to the nobles, these are very very clearly Chaotic Good acts.

As I mentioned earlier, there is nothing terribly altruistic about self-preservation. Shojo could be trying to save the world and remain in power out of a genuine and selfless concern for others' well-being. He could just as easily be trying to save his own skin, because he would obviously not survive the end of the world. Taken in isolation, these decisions don't tell us he's particularly moral.

In terms of approaches, the key difference is their respective general tendencies. Tarquin achieves his goals by using, upholding, and even strengthening the legal system and the rigidness of its enforcement. Shojo simply ignores the law whenever he sees fit, but it is always because he thinks it serves the greater good. Sure, Shojo turned out to be wrong that some of those actions were the best ones, but we don't penalize people for ineffectiveness.

But Tarquin's explicitly declared motive is also, after a fashion, 'for the greater good'- the reduction of violence and conflict and suffering across the continent- which means that if his policies don't actually have that effect, he can also use the "okay, so it didn't work out that well" defence. If, on the other hand, ostensibly good intentions are not enough, and you have to actually produce beneficial results, then that might send Tarquin straight to hell, but it's also not good news for Shojo.

[hamishspence]

I'm not sure that a True Neutral character can worship a God that isn't also True Neutral; you can't be a True Neutral cleric of a god that isn't True Neutral.

You don't need to be a cleric to worship something.

[Cavenskull]

In theory, yes. In practice, sooner or later, there's always an opportunity. More to the point, the purpose of smiting isn't really about preventing past crimes, because you can't. It's about preventing or deterring future crimes. In which case, again, the alignment system has effectively done your legwork. It's kind of a silly basic premise, but again, if you accept it, reflexive smiting is actually a logical policy extension.

EDIT: But okay. Let's imagine a homebrew magic spell called Detect Evil Guys Who Have Actually Done Really Bad Stuff And Can We Smite Them Now? ...Same difference.

The problem is that such a detection would only go so far. Detect Evil wouldn't have stopped Haley from swindling her fellow party members. It wouldn't have stopped Elan's thefts or prevented him from helping a known murderer from escaping from jail. It wouldn't have prevented Roy's fraud or abandoning a fellow party member to brigands. And it wouldn't have stopped Vaarsuvius from murdering Kubota simply to avoid a tedious trial. Good people can do evil things--sometimes very evil things. Conversely, an evil person might only ever commit minor evil acts. Also, just because a person is evil doesn't make them indiscriminately evil. For instance, a human may delight in torturing goblins, yet would never dream of harming a fellow human.

Would a society really want to choose a Good person who doesn't agree with the current government's policies and who actively works against it, over an Evil person who only commits evil against that society's enemies? Being Good doesn't mean a person will always do what you want, and being Evil doesn't mean a person will always be conspiring against you.

[tomandtish]

You don't need to be a cleric to worship something.

Exactly. And while the worship of Vecna may be illegal, illegal does not make it inherently evil.

And I certainly agree that the woman in the example above is evil. I'm simply pointing out that it's not the inherent fact of worshipping him that makes him evil (and RAW allows this interpretation). It's her motivations and actions that make her evil.

Now, if a specific DM wants to say in their campaign that Vecna and his cult specifically do not allow worshippers to get away with sitting on the sidelines, I'd be fine with that if it was made clear upfront to any PC considering worship.

[hamishspence]

Also, just because a person is evil doesn't make them indiscriminately evil. For instance, a human may delight in torturing goblins, yet would never dream of harming a fellow human.

Would a society really want to choose a Good person who doesn't agree with the current government's policies and who actively works against it, over an Evil person who only commits evil against that society's enemies?

True.

Same might apply to Law and Chaos- just because someone's Chaotic, doesn't mean that Lawful societies won't make use of them- a Lawful society is unlikely to have a cadre of clerics casting Detect Chaos and locking up all the Chaotics.

[BroomGuys]

That is a totally plausible scenario. But my point is that, if keeping the nobles in check in order to protecte the city works out as a Good thing to do, it also counts as a net win for Team Law.

It does, but Shojo's attitude is the important factor here. It's not that he's using Chaotic means (deceiving the entire Sapphire Guard) to achieve Lawful ends; he's using Chaotic means to achieve Good ends, and a side effect is a decrease in Chaos in the political structure. His indifference to the increase in Law might not be a Chaotic aspect of his personality in and of itself, but it pales in comparison to the Chaotic means he uses.

As I mentioned earlier, there is nothing terribly altruistic about self-preservation. Shojo could be trying to save the world and remain in power out of a genuine and selfless concern for others' well-being. He could just as easily be trying to save his own skin, because he would obviously not survive the end of the world. Taken in isolation, these decisions don't tell us he's particularly moral.

True, these acts are not enough to prove that Shojo is Good. But you seem to be making the case that it damages the story by not making it explicit enough that he's Good, and I just don't see that. If in a story we're told that the helpful authority figure who's trying to save the world is a Good guy, it's not really necessary to have that character go save a dozen orphans from a burning building just to prove to us that he really is Good. I agree with you that it would be nice to see more of Shojo's exploits as a Chaotic Good ruler, but I disagree that the plot is weakened if we don't see more of Shojo's exploits as a Chaotic Good ruler.

But Tarquin's explicitly declared motive is also, after a fashion, 'for the greater good'- the reduction of violence and conflict and suffering across the continent- which means that if his policies don't actually have that effect, he can also use the "okay, so it didn't work out that well" defence. If, on the other hand, ostensibly good intentions are not enough, and you have to actually produce beneficial results, then that might send Tarquin straight to hell, but it's also not good news for Shojo.

Tarquin is not actually trying to reduce the amount of suffering across the continent; otherwise he would at least worry a little bit about just how gratuitously he murders people. He murders people far, far, far too much to be a well intentioned extremist, so he is either making up that justification to make him a more iconic villain or he is deluding himself.

[Sir_Leorik]

Well, yes, there is some evidence for this. But my point is that, if you can blame Shojo for these kinds of increased chaos, then it also makes him look like a net force for evil, not good. If, on the other hand, Shojo cannot be blamed for the bickering nobles left after his reign, then there is little evidence that he made his city, on balance, more chaotic than he found it. And if he actively tried to reign them in and keep the city politically stable, he could even, by Tarquin's warped standards, be lawful.

Shojo is not responsible for the fact that the nobles of Azure City bicker over politics, hire ninjas to assassinate their rivals or don't like Meat Loaf's music.* He is responsible for pretending to be senile for decades, not actively trying to rein in the nobles, lying to the secret order of Paladins he led, sending Miko off on missions to foreign countries unsupervised, or breaking an oath he swore to uphold.

Let me explain to you the difference between Lord Shojo's deceptions and Tarquin's deceptions, and you'll see why Shojo is Chaotic and Tarquin is Lawful. Shojo pretended to be senile for years in order to avoid assassination. However, everyone in Azure City acknowledged him as the rightful ruler, even scum like Daimyo Kubota. By acting in a senile manner Shojo was thus undermining his own authority.

Tarquin is officially the General of the Empress of Blood. If anyone asks, he'll insist that's all he is. If anyone asks the Empress of Blood, she'll probably eat them and then forget the question. What Tarquin is doing is concealing how much power he has; if anyone questions him, he'll say that the Empress ordered him to do it, and no one in their right mind will confront her (she's trying to level up and learn Arcane spells you know). Tarquin thus has more room to manuever and he avoids repeating the mistake he made early in his career. Plus he can always say that he's acting in the Empress' interests while she gorges herself. If he decides she's a liability or he needs to switch to a new patsy, he'll probably slowly poison her meals (and tell her that eating more is the best way to cure an upset tummy!) and when she's dead he'll blame the herdsmen who feed the cows, and then stage an improptu "coup" led by the patsy. General Tarquin and Minister Malack will withdraw, and two of the others take over. At the same time they will have replaced their currents patsies with new ones in the other two kingdoms and the game continues on schedule.

So why aren't their schemes identical? Because Shojo's plan demeans the role of Azure City's leader, cuts that leader off from his closest allies (since Shojo can't confide in them without passing on Mr. Scruffy's "wisdom") and sows confusion among the populace. Tarquin's scheme involves making a figurehead look like a tyrant. The fact that he chose a Red Dragon is probably because "Lord Tyranar the Bloody" was such a disappointment. His schemes make the central government more feared, make each of the three fiefs more feared and secure his position of power.

*Or it could be they don't like to eat too much meat loaf.

[The Giant]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Is this an official statement of how you feel about alignment (in or out of game world) or an oversimplification - shorthand for "that's how he turned out in his life / that's how I always intended to write him?"

No, of course he wasn't literally popped out of his mother's womb Chaotic Good. I meant that the character was created that way, and that I then had him take the actions that I had him take because I had already determined his alignment. Or, that he came into adulthood already CG due to events in his childhood, and lived his life that way.

I am in no respect arguing that Law intrinsically equals Good, either within the D&D alignment framework or elsewhere. But while things like, say, creativity, free speech and freedom of travel might be considered more on the positive end of the alignment spectrum, stirring up trouble with a bunch of feudal warlords is an extremely dangerous thing to do. When these guys have serious disagreements, they often resolve them with armies of footsoldiers who pillage the countryside.

"Feudal warlords?" Huh, I didn't know that I had put any of those in the strip. Oh, wait, that's because I didn't. The nobles of Azure City have small personal defense forces. Each noble has maybe 20 samurai and 100 men-at-arms, at most, plus some casters and maybe ninjas if they lean that way. They use them for self-defense and messing with other nobles. There may be a few dozen nobles total. There are no armies to pillage the countryside, and your assertion that this was a likely outcome is pulled from thin air. There was no immediate danger, during Shojo's rule, of some sort of civil war where the nobles massed their armies against the crown. That is not how the civilization was structured.

As for details on this point being beyond the pale of relevance: Given that Durokan's tryst with Lirian, a random encounter between Right-Eye and Eugene, or even Haley's bubble-bath made the cut in other prequel books, I don't think it's unfair to suggest the public policy of a man who directly or indirectly affected millions of in-setting lives and vast stretches of the storyline- basically anything after strip 200 and/or involving any of the Azurites- might merit being more than just an informed attribute.

This is not a treatise on alignment. This is a comic strip. The scenes you mentioned were there for entertainment purposes. A detailed accounting of the political dealings of a minor character who has been dead for 500 strips is the exact opposite of entertaining.

I have limited time and energy to create comics, I am not going to spend even one moment drawing scenes that only you seem to think are necessary. Everyone else seems to get it, and I can't imagine any way to make such things interesting or funny or relevant to anything.

You are, naturally, free to disagree, which is to say, ignore me entirely. But given that you have some vague ambitions of imparting moral lessons with your storyline and/or fondness for D&D as a hobby, you may not be serving either through ambiguous standards or incomplete examples.

I'm pretty sure the moral lesson of Shojo is already front and center. There is a difference between, "This story has a lesson about the consequences of your actions," and, "This story is a textbook for you to dissect about how to play a character of this alignment."

This is how this conversation has gone:

You: I insist that you justify this thing.
Me: OK, here's my justification.
You: That's not good enough.
Me: Um...OK.
You: And I feel these three points you made about the alignment system are wrong.
Me: OK, well, that's why you don't understand what I wrote. I don't think they are wrong, I think they are right, and I based my writing on them.
You: Why aren't you justifying it??

I don't know what to say at this point. You are doomed to be unsatisfied with my explanation, because my explanation relies largely on aspects of the alignment system that you reject. Of course it's not going to make sense to you. I guess I'll have to settle for the other 99.9999999% of my readers who understand what I was trying to do.

Is this all theoretically compatible with a CG alignment? Yes. I can retroactively imagine some set of policies that would make Shojo both chaotic and good.

Then why aren't you doing so??? If you can fill in the blanks yourself, then fill in the blanks! Stop wasting my time demanding answers that you can deduce yourself.

Will the actual in-comic record provide a useful example to those who want to role-play CG political masterminds themselves?

No, because that is not my job. I'm not writing a sourcebook here. If you can't draw anything useful from Shojo's characterization, that's not my problem. This isn't, "The Amazing Adventures of Shojo," he's a minor character with a limited role in the narrative. I describe the broad strokes, anything else is beyond the scope of my work.

[Sir_Leorik]

You don't need to be a cleric to worship something.

The rules are that a Cleric can't be True Neutral unless he worships a True Neutral deity; I'm trying to remember if this holds true for regular worshippers or not. If it doesn't then Vecna could have non-cleric worshippers who are True Neutral (though why they'd want to is another story...)

EDIT: Okay, I double checked my copy of the 3.5 PHB; technically a non-cleric can worship any deity they wish. The PHB notes that characters usually worship deities whose alignments are close to their own. So a True Neutral character can worship Vecna, but I don't think the character would remain Neutral for long.

[Sir_Leorik]

Exactly. And while the worship of Vecna may be illegal, illegal does not make it inherently evil.

And I certainly agree that the woman in the example above is evil. I'm simply pointing out that it's not the inherent fact of worshipping him that makes him evil (and RAW allows this interpretation). It's her motivations and actions that make her evil.

Now, if a specific DM wants to say in their campaign that Vecna and his cult specifically do not allow worshippers to get away with sitting on the sidelines, I'd be fine with that if it was made clear upfront to any PC considering worship.

Vecna is generally more interested in long term schemes with big payoffs than in quick schemes that have to be done last week, now hop to it! (That's Cyric's ball of wax.) Generally Vecna's cultists recruit people who can report secrets back to them; think of Varys' "little birds" from "Game of Thrones". Plus in certain editions of D&D deities like Vecna draw power from their worshippers; giving Vecna a bit of juice to power Citadel Cavitius or keep his link to the Hand and Eye of Vecna going is probably an Evil act.

[BenjCano]

You're thinking of Cliffport. There is no equivalent panel for Azure City.

The law may well exist. It's a good law. But there is no actual indication that it does.

Actually, there's some supplementary material in "War and XPs" that gives us Azure City in the style of Greyhawk Gazeteer.

Trials make extensive use of divine magic, with most verdicts being made on the basis of divination results. In important cases, beings from the Upper Planes are summoned to serve as jurists.

[rodneyAnonymous]

Who said suspects? I'm not talking about crime at all. I'm suggesting that a society might want to exile, jail or otherwise take care of evil people.

Evil actions are against the law, not evil thoughts or indeterminate past behavior. Presumably in a world where discerning alignment is possible, characters with a definite alignment got it by taking certain actions, but "did bad things at some point in the past, and I don't know what they were" isn't very strong grounds for "exile, jail, or otherwise tak[ing] care of [...] people."

The unlawfulness of activity that creates the potential to take evil actions is very rarely codified, unless there is a strong correlation between that behavior and the "evil" outcome (e.g. drunk driving).

I realize that's a somewhat modern/Western take on justice and morality, but "thoughtcrime is not a good basis for secular laws" is not a particularly new or localized idea.

[wumpus]

No, of course he wasn't literally popped out of his mother's womb Chaotic Good. I meant that the character was created that way, and that I then had him take the actions that I had him take because I had already determined his alignment. Or, that he came into adulthood already CG due to events in his childhood, and lived his life that way.

One of the many annoying things about the D&D alignment system is that it does seem to set alignment at birth (possibly they are CG, maybe they just grow into it). Some characters may fall, others may be redeemed, but most muddle through with thier initial alignments.

Presumably Eric Greenhilt was either born lawful good or became such rather quickly. Maybe he was just granted a chance to reunite with his family (nuetral good would make as much sense for kids).

[pendell]

You think the murder of a new ruler who you think is probably unqualified--but you have no real reason to believe that--is a nonevil act? That's quite a claim.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. A good noble might, in some circumstances, murder the lawful leader if s/he is convinced the alternative is destruction of the city at the hands of a goblin horde because the leader is unable to prevent it and someone else can. I would expect a Deva judging the case would have access to what actually would have happened in the alternative case, and could determine whether it really did result in the greatest good for the greatest number or was simply delusion.

I think the nobles of Azure City had a real reason to believe Hinjo was unqualified. Surely they knew him from birth and have been observing his career with great interest ? In the panel I showed, he asked for their support and they seem to have instead come to the conclusion that he was weak and ineffectual, no proper replacement for Shojo. And , let it be pointed out, Hinjo lived down to their expectations. He lost the war and the city, just as they anticipated.

Really? You think Soon handed over leadership of his paladin order to a habitual liar?

Speculation. We don't know whether the son was a habitual liar or not. If he was, he may have developed that method of dealing with aristocracy after Soon passed away. Or he may have concealed it quite carefully from Soon. Detect Evil doesn't tell you whether a person is chaotic or not, and not every chaotic person lies.

I think Soon would expect that any leader of a city lies from time to time. Tarquin is lawful and does so. Hinjo disguised himself to participate in a sting. The fact that the lying reached a point where the son actually flipped over from lawful to neutral to chaotic may or may not have happened when Soon was present. Recall also that Soon was an adventurer and may not have spent enough time with his son to realize how different they had become. Or maybe he knew full well what he was and handed over the city anyway because he trusted him more than anyone else in the city even so.

But, as I said, it's all speculation. The father may have been as lawful as Soon was, but absent backstory there's no way to know.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Snails]

One of the many annoying things about the D&D alignment system is that it does seem to set alignment at birth (possibly they are CG, maybe they just grow into it). Some characters may fall, others may be redeemed, but most muddle through with thier initial alignments.

Within D&D, the alignment system brings with it certain mechanics. I would not claim that they are good or great mechanics, but, overall, most players seem to believe they add to the fun, rather than subtract.

Changing one's alignment is allowed, but, without some kind of oversight, could easily be used to game the system. Formalizing such alignment changing mechanics is arduous and would probably not add fun to the game. Because the formal mechanics do not exist, most players simply do not bother trying (and they probably would not try even if the mechanics existed).

One could play D&D without any of the alignment system. It would trivial to make the necessary changes, if desired.

[wumpus]

Political stability is neither Good nor Evil by itself. Not everything a Chaotic Good character does is both Chaotic and Good.

Considering that politcal instability will likely be settled with swords, evocation magic and stronger spells of mass destruction, that seems surprising. As far as I can tell, it is still true in most fantasy situations (assuming said characters aren't damaging a liege they have pledged to).

"The needs of the plot is greater than the needs of the NPCs". Ah, now I understand.

[Porthos]

Maybe he was just granted a chance to reunite with his family

I suspect this was much more likely the case. Roy surmised that Eric might grow up to be a Bard. Bit of a problem when it comes to lawfulness there.

[wumpus]

True, but many criminals in D&D style fantasy worlds are evil. There are also plenty of Neutral and Good criminals (eg. Haley Starshine). Detect Evil only becomes useful when the criminal you're looking for is so evil that their aura is Strong or Overpowering. It would be useful when used on magical items that are found on the person of a suspect, or to track a fleeing suspect who has a Moderate, Strong or Overwhelming Aura. Even in those two cases, you would need to have already had probable cause to search a suspect, and then found his mace of blood or heard a gunshot, seen someone flee a dead body and set chase. Just walking into a bar and detecting evil won't cut it; Sir Francois, for example, planned to make a few Gather Information checks in a wretched hive of scum and villainy in Greysky City (before Elan tipped off everyone in the bar that Sir Francois was a paladin); he didn't just use his detect evil power because it was a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Anybody know when the Know Alignment (second level cleric spell, reversable to Mask Alignment (DM's choice to allow good clerics to reverse the spell*)) spell was removed from D&D? It was included in 1e, but isn't in d20srd.org, so I assume it was removed either in 2e or 3e, presumably to require an extreme aura.

I could see Belkar's (and Xykon and Redcloak if they showed without an army) evil aura being sufficient "probable cause" to have a large chunk of the police force sent to tail him wherever he goes.

[Kish]

You only become evil by doing distinctly crime-like things, in the sense of 'things that are universally considered reprehensible and harmful'. That's what evil means. You can argue about the precise threshold needed to actually trigger DE, but it's trivial to imagine a homebrew spell to the tune of Detect Evil Of Sufficient Magnitude As To Warrant Immediate Terminal Smiting. How does it work? Like DE, only more so. What is it going to be? 3rd, 4th level at most?

You can argue that having the alignment system is kinda silly in the first place, but if you accept the basic premise- that the metaphysical laws of a fantasy universe are capable of automagically and categorically assessing very complex moral and ethical quandaries- then it's a pretty minor step to Evil == Needs Smiting. The legwork has been done.

So how many house rules are you proposing here? A homebrew spell that detects "legitimate target." You haven't addressed or even acknowledged multiple people pointing out that Detect Evil is easy to fool...but let's assume your homebrew spell is also, somehow, impossible to fool. You're proposing a city ruled by someone with unlimited access to this spell, who uses it to determine who can enter the city and who gets slaughtered for trying, correct? And everyone in the city's government knows that the ruler is not actually a Lawful Evil cleric of Vecna who is ecstatic about the excuse to kill anyone she wants to kill--somehow?

What you call "minor" looks huge and gaping to me. And there's the fact that "impossible to fool" is, bluntly, something you simply cannot have, even if you're fine with pushing your "4th level at most" all the way to epic; there's always a bigger spell.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Annndd I do believe that's the sound of us going to the wrong side of the no-Morally-Justified-threads rule, or the real-world politics rule, or both. Sorry, pendell; I can't address this here.

[rodneyAnonymous]

That is not something that every "good" person agrees with, anyway. Also an evil person may think so. The individual-group axis does not align with the law-chaos axis either.

[Porthos]

And , let it be pointed out, Hinjo lived down to their expectations. He lost the war and the city, just as they anticipated.

And I'm sure their withdrawing of their support (and all of their troops) from the active defense of the city had nothing to do with the city falling, of course.

I would also point out that if a certain paladin had been delayed by even twelve seconds, the city wouldn't have fallen.

Mustn't overlook that minor fact.

[NZNinja]

...if you can blame Shojo for these kinds of increased chaos, then it also makes him look like a net force for evil, not good.

This only seems to hold true when you conflate chaos with evil. Would the death of Lord Shojo have had the same net increase in evil (not chaos) had an epic sorcerer and his cleric side-kick not been knocking on the gates of Azure City with an army of goblins at their back?

If we're going to compare and contrast characters, then let's start with two Lawful Evil characters (both confirmed as such by WoG): Tarquin and Kubota.
Tarquin seeks to solidify his power base in the Western Continent by creating kingdoms of law - where he controls the laws. The people oppressed by these laws often rise up and overthrow these kingdoms, which is why he's only a general, not king, emperor or democratically elected president for life; while the peasants kill the figurehead, he makes good his escape. Tarquin sends death squads to kill his enemies and warps his harsh legal system to work to his benefit (he doesn't just throw the bounty hunters into the arena/dungeon, he makes evidence disappear so that the bounty hunters are found guilty - and then thrown into the arena for his entertainment).
Tarquin believes that procedure is important, which is why he smiles when Elan announces that a "climatic duel is the proper procedure for dramatically defeating corrupt tyrants!" ("On a rooftop, no less. Exquisite.") Also, it's immediately after he says "Procedure is important, Elan."

Kubota lacks Tarquin's power base, and thus has to work on a lower level as one noble among many. But like Tarquin, he also sends death squads to kill his enemies, and seeks to twist the legal system to work in his favor. When captured by Elan, Kubota is happy to submit himself to the legal process, sure that he has manipulated the situation enough that the law will be unable to convict him (V disintegrating him without trial was undoubtedly a Chaotic act, one that V would have been punished for if Elan had not covered for him; although Hinjo asks Lien to go down and investigate, it's not (yet) revealed if Kubota's armor (the only remaining evidence, blown overboard by V's Gust of Wind) is ever recovered and the truth revealed).

Now, to thrust Shojo into the mix:
Someone (likely Kubota) attempted to assassinate Shojo for an unpopular law he had passed (how could you not like Meat Loaf Day? It's delicious!). I assume the poor were given free meat loaf once per week, which was funded by the nobles - which would make it popular with the people, but not with the ruling class. It's also a rather unusual solution to feeding those below the poverty line, which may be an indication of Shojo's Chaotic alignment (I could be completely wrong and Meat Loaf day could be a government-enforced meal choice, a national holiday celebrating the dish, or a recognition of Shojo's love for the song "I'd Do Anything For Love - But I Won't Do That"; but this is the explanation which - to me, at least - most easily reconciles with the other actions we've seen Shojo take). However, rather than launch an official investigation into the assassination attempt or set up a sting operation (ala Hinjo), Shojo decided to fake senility in order to confuse his enemies to the source of the laws that he continued to pass (again, I'm assuming the unpopular laws are normally only unpopular with the nobles; poor commoners generally have better things to spend their gold on than regicide). This chaotic action (in that it disregarded due process, as would be laid out in the law) allowed Shojo to continue to pass laws which kept the citizens of Azure City happy, well-fed on free meat loaf, and not fighting for their lives in unnecessary death matches for the entertainment of their "betters".
Shojo also disregarded due process when he entered into an agreement with Eugene to subvert the courts of Azure City; as Haley realizes when the Order is found "not guilty by reason of it having been necessary at the time"; the judgement probably would have been "guilty" - because they ACTUALLY did weaken the fabric of the universe; but with reduced punishment due to it having been necessary to stop Xykon.

The senility, the lies, the subversion or outright ignoring of due process are all Chaotic actions. That they were done with both the intention to AND the effect of helping others is why they are Good ("Everything I did, I did for my people.")

Now, had Kubota seized power from Hinjo, he would likely have made the same mistakes as young Tarquin, and discovered that his newly-won empire was harder to hold on to than to win - after all, it's much harder to be the single point of focus for a couple of dozen ambitious nobles than it is to be one of the nobles.

NB: TheGiant has already weighed in on this topic since I started writing this reply, but I'll post it anyway. I've italicized the parts that are me doing as he suggested:

If you can fill in the blanks yourself, then fill in the blanks!

But in my humble opinion, there aren't many blanks to fill; most of the pertinent information has already been shown.

EDIT: I no grammar good.
EDIT 2: Pointing out how unusual Meatloaf Day is, as a law - to the point of being a Chaotic Law, if one could imagine such a thing. Also, that my definition of what Meat Loaf Day actually consists of is entirely my own creation and (as far as I am aware) has no canonical evidence to back it up; much like actual Meat Loaf, no-one knows what's really in it.

[veti]

Being evil is not a crime in our world, because we live in a society that's structured on that type of law. But it's far from the only type of law available.

Side note: the assumption that 'law' is something to be enforced by the state is another of those very modern ideas that may be blinkering us. Before the invention of the telegraph, 'law' was enforced at local levels; and before the state was rich enough to afford professional police and prisons, it was often doled out by very random authorities indeed - local aristocrats, family heads, scholars, the church - without regard to any formal authority delegated to them by anyone. All it took was a significant faction of people who respected you enough to let you sort out certain kinds of messes.

(Think of 'The Godfather', dispensing favours and hearing petitions. It's easy for us to think of this as a sort of 'shadow' equivalent of the state enforcing its laws, but the truth is almost exactly the opposite - it's a much more ancient system that the state has mostly replaced, at least in the first world.)

However, that train of thought leads us into (basically) medieval feudalism. So let's assume that we are talking about a centralised state, with taxation high enough (and well enough collected) to support a centralised structure with police, courts, prisons, and all the other paraphernalia of justice that we've seen in more lawful places in OOTS.

Then the accusation of 'being evil' needs to be treated like a criminal charge. There needs to be a formal hearing, the charge is read out, tested in court, arguments heard (there may be some mitigating reason, it may be a false positive (as caused by Roy's carrying Xykon's crown), or the suspect may have radiated evil earlier but doesn't now - whatever), and sentence passed.

What would be an appropriate sentence?

'Death' seems excessive, if 'evil' may mean something as low-key as a shopkeeper who consistently short-changes her customers. Moreover, death means that the suspect has no possibility to repent and atone, so it's actually counter-productive to the cosmic balance - in the long run, it increases the number of people who end up on the lower planes. (As a DM, I would certainly rule that someone who routinely kills evil people for no other reason than their alignment, is themself evil, for precisely this reason - they're not just killing, they're condemning them to eternal torment.)

'Indefinite imprisonment' (until they no longer ping as 'evil') is both expensive and inhumane. If you set up your prisons to rehabilitate the Evil, they will be more humane, but extremely expensive, and there is still every possibility that many inmates will never be released. Even 'good' citizens might start to balk at the sheer expense of keeping 'evil' people in such conditions permanently.

'Exile' is problematic. If there is a country out there that welcomes 'evil' people, then surely the last thing we want is to keep sending it able-bodied people who (a) know our country well, and (b) have a grudge against it? Alternatively, if we ourselves go to the expense of maintaining a large penal colony, it's only a matter of time before it grows into an independent nation governed by the descendents of our convicts (who are themselves innocent), and at that point we have to normalise relations and stop sending our refuse there.

So what does that leave?

One possibility is reduced freedoms (the evil person must report to the police every week, not allowed in certain places, not allowed to associate with other evil people, sign contracts or get married or whatever without official permission, etc.). This can be done, but it's a huge amount of work to enforce. And if the fraction of evil people in the population is at all signficant - anything above about 1% - it's a recipe for ghettos and whole sub-communities of evil people who will eventually break out and terrorise those around them.

Another would be fines - basically, extra taxes for evil people. This is entirely possible, and it'd probably be my personal recommendation if I were asked for one. Of course it carries its own problems - the idea that you could buy your way out of wrongdoing is a dangerous one to plant, plus evil people aren't known for their open attitude to paying taxes - but I think these problems are relatively manageable.

[Kish]

The needs of the many
[...]

Actually, while I still can't address the general argument for utilitarianism, I realized I do have a response to certain of your specific claims. Or rather--someone else does.

I think the nobles of Azure City had a real reason to believe Hinjo was unqualified. Surely they knew him from birth and have been observing his career with great interest ? In the panel I showed, he asked for their support and they seem to have instead come to the conclusion that he was weak and ineffectual, no proper replacement for Shojo.

Too weak and ineffectual to be a proper replacement for the senile old man who talked to his cat, who they tolerated because they believed him to be pretty much extinction-level weak and ineffectual? We apparently haven't been reading the same comic. The nobles, led by Kubota, objected to Hinjo because he seemed likely to actually rule. He lost the war and the city in large part because he was fighting against treacherous nobles at the same time he was fighting against Xykon.

And , let it be pointed out, Hinjo lived down to their expectations. He lost the war and the city, just as they anticipated.

Speculation. We don't know whether the son

Who?

was a habitual liar or not. If he was, he may have developed that method of dealing with aristocracy after Soon passed away. Or he may have concealed it quite carefully from Soon. Detect Evil doesn't tell you whether a person is chaotic or not, and not every chaotic person lies.

I think Soon would expect that any leader of a city lies from time to time. Tarquin is lawful and does so. Hinjo disguised himself to participate in a sting. The fact that the lying reached a point where the son actually flipped over from lawful to neutral to chaotic may or may not have happened when Soon was present. Recall also that Soon was an adventurer and may not have spent enough time with his son to realize how different they had become. Or maybe he knew full well what he was and handed over the city anyway because he trusted him more than anyone else in the city even so.

But, as I said, it's all speculation. The father may have been as lawful as Soon was, but absent backstory there's no way to know.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Instead of thinking about the end state and whether it was a stable government, think about the delta-v: Did the rule of law have more of a hold in Azure City at the end of Shojo's rule—compared to when he took office—or less? Clearly, less. Before Shojo ascended the throne, it is highly unlikely that his father ignored the rules that he found inconvenient, encouraged the nobles to blame each other for his unpopular edicts via an elaborate ruse, seized citizens of other countries on charges he knew to be false, and snuck around making secret policy behind the backs of even his own most trusted advisors. You can't separate the fact that his government fell apart when Shojo died, because that was a direct result of him kneecapping that government over the years so that it depended on him, personally. Shojo was handed a Lawful system and made it more Chaotic than it was before, so that only his own personal scheming was holding it together.

[NZNinja]

...I'm not writing a sourcebook here.

I have to admit, I kind of want that sourcebook.

[The Giant]

Considering that politcal instability will likely be settled with swords, evocation magic and stronger spells of mass destruction, that seems surprising.

People keep making assertions like this, and they don't have any real relevance. "Instability" does not mean "civil war." It means, "uncertainty." Uncertainty can be resolved by conflict, or it can be resolved by reform. This idea that all governmental Chaos leads directly to warfare, and all warfare is evil, so therefore Chaotic rulership is evil is ridiculous.

If you take away the external threat of Xykon, the most likely outcome of Shojo's rule is that he dies (whether from Miko or old age), and the more Lawful Hinjo takes over. He reforms the system and the nobles either fall in line or get crushed by his much larger army. The only reason Kubota takes the risky actions he takes is because Hinjo has virtually no army anymore, and Kubota has no ancestral holdings to lose. It is a highly unusual vulnerability on Hinjo's part that certainly could not have been predicted by Shojo.

Further, this idea that Shojo "should have known" that his actions would lead to open rebellion is silly. They didn't. They led to 50+ years of prosperity, peppered with a few instances of violence against him. Which I'm sure he would argue was his risk to take. This is the whole point behind his final lines: He has no regrets over his actions, because he did it all for his people at the possible expense of his own safety or liberty should his transgressions be discovered.

I can't really wrap my head against this idea that his reign wasn't Good because the things he did could have lead to other people performing Evil acts at some vague future point, even though it didn't. The only way his rule would be non-Good is if there was no other outcome except for there to be an increase in Evil, AND he knew it. And we know that isn't the case because that's not what happened. Compare Tarquin, who knows that his rule will bring about more Evil the longer it continues because he and his evil cronies will be the ones committing it.

Alignment is not determined by what could have happened but didn't, or by what other people with free will may or may not choose to do in response. The fact that the nobles "could" have rebelled is not nearly as important as the fact that they did NOT rebel.