I had placed an example of chaotic good for Elan from Order Of The Stick. This was the example:
"* While Elan from Order Of The Stick has been classified (by himself) as Chaotic Good, his actions seem to drift towards Neutral Good. He follows the law as best he could, even when dealing with major villains, who can probably weasel their way out of punishment, yet he's perfectly willing to break out of prison to save his friends, and (apologetically) steal some new clothes, all while leaving behind a note. Compared the Haley, who is as close to Chaotic Good you can get without being stupid, you can see the difference."
It was removed by K Sonik, with this reasoning:
"No, Elan is canonically chaotyic Good as he acts based on his whims. He wasn't sorry about stealing the clothes because it was illegal, but because he thought it was evil as the shop keeper needed the money."
Good reasoning, but I still think his actions as neutral good. For example, he followed what the paladins said to the word, even capturing a villian who hurt him personally, rather than kill him, which is what he wanted to do (and would have been wiser, as said villian boasted about getting out easily). When Vaarsuvius killed said villian outright, he was very upset, as he was against killing the villan and wanted to turn him in legally.
And even if he was he left a note because he did an evil act, the fact that he regretted it shows he might not be as chaotic as he seems.
Compared to Haley, a complete case of Chaotic Good, who does things to help people out of the goodness of her heart, but would not hesitate to kill in cold blood, like when she executed her rival. While Elan would try to follow the law, breaking it when necessary, Haley would break it without second thought. Just because he commited a chaotic act doesn't make him chaotic, just as him wanting to legally turn in the villain rather than execute him outright doesn't make him lawful. He seems in between.
I'm hoping to get some insight on this topic, as it would help draw the line between chaotic and neutral as a subject at large, rather than just with these characters. If this goes uncontested, then I'll add my example back in, but I'm hoping for some feedback.
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Elan has been confirmed to be canonically Chaotic Good. That's all I need to say on it.
Also on the stealing issue, remember just because something is chaotic doesn't mean it cannot be judged under D&D rules in terms of the Good-Evil axis. Hypothetically speaking just because a bank robber, mugger and conman are Chaotic under D&D definition doesn't mean that it is an acceptable profession under the same rules for any single type of chaotic character. Why? Because these professions are also Evil under the same D&D rules as they hurt people(via emotionally, physically or psychologically).
Elan definetly has no problem with breaking laws in itself but that does not mean that he will hurt other people. He probably assumed that by stealing the shopowner would be affected and so felt stealing from him/her was an Chaotic Evil act and so felt bad.
Just to mention killing someone in coldblood is Evil under D&D terms, not necessarily Chaotic but definetly Evil.
Edited by KSonik
True, but it isn't the first time a character has been assigned a trope that is the opposite of what is canon, simply because his behaviour may suggest otherwise. While he may be Chaotic by canon, his actions may say otherwise, or at least enough to warrent a spot on this trope. The author can say one thing, yet the actions of their character may say another.
I am not confused as to whether or not his chaotic actions are evil, that wasn't the point. However, there has been plenty of times where Elan would do the legal thing, and not want to break the law. From comic 594
to 599, he was completely willing to arrest Kubotoa trough legal means, clearly feeling uncomfortable with lying to the paladin.
Just because he is willing to break the law alone doesn't make him chaotic. Spiderman, for example, breaks the law constantly, yet he respects it, and tries to uphold it, breaking it when neccesary. Robin Hood also breaks the law, yet he is chaotic. The difference here is that Robin feels the laws have no value, and will do good in spite of it. Haley's actions on OOTS clearly place her as chaotic. Durkon's actions place him squarley on Lawful, you can see a difference. Roy is barley Lawful, getting by on the skin of his teeth (canonically, mind you, according to the author's views), while V is on True Neutral, although that is up to debate. Out of all of them, Elan is the most middling, though soley on good.
He may as well be chaotic. I am not saying he isn't. As you said, canonically, he is Chaotic Good, so we must out that down. However, his actions may say something else, and there are some examples. And of course, the stealing is *not* the only factor in this. As I have said, his action on the Migrate Fleet is what greys this up a bit.
Elan not executing Kubota and being upset with V killing him had nothing to do with Lawful/Chaotic and everything to do with Good/Evil. Elan thinks of himself as a Good Guy. That means capturing the villain if he surrenders; Elan just simply is not a Dark And Edgy enough character to kill a man who's surrendered—he's Chaotic Good, not a '90s Anti-Hero. Elan is, at heart, an innocent guy; practically what a kid thinks a hero should be, if you think about it. Note how Elan was trying his darnedest to kill Kubota until that surrender, but in his mind, the Good Guys don't execute a surrendered prisoner.
As for V killing him, Elan was surprised at it at first, but note how he almost immediately says that it was probably for the best, given what kind of guy Kubota was, and how he might've gotten out of punishment. What Elan is upset by, is that V didn't know any of this, and killed him on the flimsiest of excuses—his reasoning was correct, yes, but he still basically executed a guy he didn't know on an assumption.
So, in short, Elan is Chaotic Good, but he focuses a lot more on the "Good" than on the Chaotic.
And that's what is so confusing about it. What would a chaotic person have done in this sort of situation? I feel it has everything to do with lawful, neutral, and chaotic, especially when compared to Haley. She is a very clearcut case of Chaotic, and it is impossible to argue otherwise. If she was on the boat, with the exact same role as Elan, she would have killed him outright. Elan, however, was fully willing to take him in through legal means, clearly uncomfortable with lying to the paladin, and telling V that needing to lie to them is an indicator that he is doing the wrong thing.
As you said, he focuses more on the good. He'll use chaotic means if neccesary, but he'll follow the law if need be. While Haley (and apparently V) would say "screw the laws", Roy and Durkon (especially Durkon) would follow the law as much as possible, Elan would rather focus on the good, following the law if need be, breaking them when apropriate. That, according to this site, is the very definition of Neutral Good.
While he is still canonically Chaotic, which of course, trumps all, his actions, as I said, shows otherwise. It isn't the first time that a character on this site had a trope associated with them that went against canon (Superman is canonically Lawful, yet does plenty of neutral things, for example).
Edited by sims796
A chaotic person would have done...whatever the hell he/she wanted. "Chaotic" doesn't mean there's a set guideline of actions they're expected to take in a given situation. Just because a person confirmed to be Chaotic would do one thing doesn't mean that other people who call themselves "Chaotic" have to do the same; that would be rather counterintuitive, come to think of it. There is no absolute to chaoticness.
Haley may be more chaotic than Elan, but that doesn't mean he himself isn't Chaotic.
Again, I never said that Elan wasn't chaotic. However, many of his actions are neutral.
That said, there should be some sort of guideline as to what is chaotic and what is neutral. Without it, there is literally no difference to Chaotic and Neutral. Elan doing things by the book (to the best of his ability) is a lawful act, and not the first time he has done that. He is also willing to do things illegally. While I am not saying him doing a lawful act automatically sets him at neutral (as Roy does a few chaotic things), he has done so a few times, and only cares about the good. There is no argument that he is naturally lawful, as it has been said multiple times, it is canon. However he is the most neutral oof the group. Even your arguments seem to support this, as you have said, he is an all aroundd good guy.
Furthermore, I am not truly concerned with how the author of Oo TS characterises his...characters, I am more concerned with how we characterize them. By the description of this site, he seems to lean more towards neutral. Not htat he isn't chaotic, but what we have seen seems to be neutral.
Of course, this could also mean that I am confused with the difference between neutral and chaotic. If any of those debating with me would like to clarify, that would be great, as they seem to be not so different.
Edited by sims796
Lawful != always follows the law. Chaotic != doesn't care about laws.
Just wanted to point that out, 'cause that issue annoys me.
Then what is neutral? That is what confuses me. That's kinda my whole point in the matter, too. I don't really care whether or not Elan gets picked, but there should be a stronger definition on Neutral Good.
Is it sometimes follow the law, sometimes break it? Because if a chaotic person would also do that, then there is no point in having neutral.
Well, people argue a lot about what constitutes Lawful,Neutral and Chaotic. For example is a vigilante who has a personal code of conduct Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic? This is a classic example of a character that could be argued to be more than one alignment. There are canonical contradictiory Dn D sources which could support any of the Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic point. This site's definition after all, doesn't get the last or the first say on what constitutes each alignment
Lawful != always follows the law. Chaotic != doesn't care about laws.
Some people might(and could technically) argue that's what it exactly means
Of course, this could also mean that I am confused with the difference between neutral and chaotic. If any of those debating with me would like to clarify, that would be great, as they seem to be not so different.
None of us can give an perfect difference that everyone would agree on
Then for the sake of this site, we need a "perfect" definition. We can't just have some loosely defined term and expect that to fly. When it comes to tropes on this site, we have the final word. When it comes to character alignments on Order Of The Stick, they have the final word, and so on and so forth.
Since there is a two to three vote on it, I'll leave that example out, even though it is an example that meets this particular article's standards & definition. Supes is Lawful, yet he is here for neutral, because his actions says otherwise. Jahiera is here, despite the fact that she is offically True Neutral.
I'll continue this discussion later, but for now, I'll leave him out.
Out of note, the official descriptions to Neutral Good and Chaotic Good listed in the Hypertext D20 are, respectively: "A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them." and " A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he’s kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society."
Edited by MagBas
I would say that a vigilante is Chaotic Good because they will break the rules in order to do good things. Lawful Good is when you abide by the rules (not you're own rules btw) to do good things whenever possible.
A neutral good person is someone who does not have a strict moral rulebook or a need to break the rules. They're just in the middle. They help people whenever they can and don't do anything chaotic or dangerous.
Removed this from the description, because I don't see how it makes sense other than maybe by going awfully stereotypical:
"One of the differences between Lawful Good and Neutral Good is that Lawful Good will always hate Chaotic Evil, and even when the Chaotic Evil character is the resident Token Evil Teammate they will just barely tolerate them. On the other hand, Neutral Good characters may accept and sometimes even be friends with a Chaotic Evil character (as long as they're on the same team)."
Any objections?
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It makes sense to me. Lawfully good should ALWAYS be against chaotic evil. Always. That's because they have a strict moral code.
Vrishchika Ascendant!
How about this for a page image? Caption could be like: Wally West, friend to all, even his enemies. Especially his enemies.
Edited by Cuchulainn Satan says you need more color! Hide / Show Replies
You wouldn't know that character is The Flash's enemy unless you're familiar with the series. Go to the Image Pickin' forum if you want to suggest an image for a page, and don't add notes to pages to get people's attention.
Is it ok to put Oscar Schindler from Schindlers List here, even though he's based of a real person? I genuinely believe he's of this alignment. There's no question of the good part (after the Character Development, of course) and I think he's neutral on the law/chaos axis because he uses both legal and not-so-legal means to keep his workers alive.
I really liked having Harry Potter as the picture. I mean, at least I ever gave a crap about Harry Potter, as opposed to Sailor Moon.
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I agree, I think we should try for something a bit more gender-neutral.
"I wish I could write as mysteriously as a cat." —Edgar Allen Poe
I also not liked of the picture be changed to Sailor Moon. Despite being extremely "Good", she is less "Lawful" than Flonne in "Disgaea". More characters of the Neutral Good list are more "Neutral" than her.
The problem with either of these pictures is that to those not familiar with the characters they're Just A Face And A Caption. A working picture would have to be someone who's iconically Neutral Good in the same sense that Superman is iconically Lawful Good or Robin Hood is iconically Chaotic Good.
Both Harry Potter and Sailor Moon fail on this point- I could not for the life of me guess off the top of my head which one either of these characters are, and I doubt most others could either. And I've at least heard of them.
See you in the discussion pages.
You could grab a picture of Spider Man,seeing as how from how often I see him being cited as Neutral Good,he might as well be.Or a picture of Mario,if we're just talking about familiar faces.
Edited by Xkun01 "You don't need a reason to help anyone,or hurt anyone."
I think the problem with finding a character/image for this is that Neutral Good (and by extension, Neutral Evil) characters aren't readily discernible in general. They can act more lawful or more chaotic depending on the situation, since they are willing to do anything as long as it is for the greater good. They could easily be mistaken for both Lawful Good and Chaotic Good because of this. Therefore the only way for someone to identify one is to examine their beliefs and motivations, which would require an in-depth knowledge of the character. So finding an "iconic" Neutral Good character would be pretty hard.
Edited by Angewomon Talk to the hand.
Seeing as they haven't done the specific crime they are accused of(and that is even if you believe Lawful=Legal) these characters can be of any Good alignment
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Does anyone have a problem with how the alignments are described in the 'if you're trying to find out whether the character is lawful neutral or chaotic good, try this?
2:1
Does anyone have a good idea for an image for the page? I think this is the only character alignment page without a picture.
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I thought it used to have a picture of Harry Potter with "Sometimes saving the world is more important than the rules." underneath it.
Hey there, I believe that like all the other Character Alignment entries, this entry too deserves a photo. I am unsure which one to pick but we certainly need one to not feel left out.