(no subject)
Joe and I, because we're geeks, spent a good portion of the weekend discussing fictional characters and trying to determine their character alignments.
Alignments are very confusing for me for some reason. I mean, the basic concept makes perfect sense and seems like it should be easy to determine, but in practice, I end up going, "Uhhhh..." a lot. I'd seen this thing online somewhere that listed the alignments and had pictures and quotes from different superheroes/villains, and I shared it with Joe, which is what started the conversation. Superman = Lawful Good. I get that. Joker = Chaotic Evil. No problems with that one.
Then we started discussing other characters from other works, and how we often see characters shift from one to another over the course of the movie -- for instance, in "Thor", we see Loki shift from Chaotic Good (although I'm still not convinced he's actually *good*... but definitely on the gooder side of neutral) to Chaotic Evil.
Then we moved on to Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. Aral Vorkosigan pretty much walks into the room for Lawful Good and takes a seat. His wife's a little more complicated. She's definitely Good... she cares about people and will sacrifice for them whether she knows them or not. When it comes to Lawful vs. Chaotic, though, she's... odd. She hates the strictures and structures of the *Barrayaran* government, but not necessarily the Betan one. She is definitely not a proponent of Chaos, but prefers a less rigid form of order. So I think we ended up putting her in "Neutral Good".
Miles Vorkosigan, on the other hand, is a different kind of complicated-- because I think Miles Vorkosigan and Admiral Naismith are two different alignments. Lord Vorkosigan is Lawful, whereas the Little Admiral is Chaotic. Both are Good, of course, because Miles has a pathological compulsion towards helping people. :)
And then we moved on to The Dresden universe... We didn't discuss Murphy, but I think that's because we both knew we'd find her sitting in a chair having a talk with Aral over in the "Lawful Good" room. Harry himself, I think we've seen shift over the course of the stories as he's come to understand more and more the *reason* that laws are in place. I would still put him as Lawful Good regardless, just because his magic is specifically about creating order out of chaos, but Joe was arguing that he fights against the establishment (ie: The White Council's rules) from the time we meet him.
And then there's Marconi. We finally put him down as "Lawful Complicated".
Marconi's odd because Harry clearly sees him as a villain, and he does run an organization that deals in organized crime, prostitution, and drugs... but the reason he does it is because if he didn't, things would be worse. Someone needed to take charge and keep the drugs away from the children and the violence away from the innocents. The question though, is "Would he sacrifice himself for people that he doesn't know?" ... and we're not really sure. We've seen him do some pretty spectacular acts of heroism, but he doesn't really do it selflessly, and we've never really seen him do anything to save or protect a complete and utter stranger. He's definitely not Evil, no matter what Harry thinks -- or what the police force thinks -- but is he selfless enough to be considered Good?
And I think the conversation shifted over to Once Upon a Time about 5 different times over the course of the weekend -- specifically to Rumplestiltskin. Evil Queen is easy. She couldn't be more Chaotic Evil if she tried. She's evil incarnate and you can't trust a word out of her mouth. Rumpie/Gold is a bit more complicated, though. Joe and I both agree that he's as Lawful as Regina is Chaotic. He does not lie, in that fey what-you-think-you-hear-is-not-necessisarily-what's-being-said kind of way. He's ruled by contracts and deals and "honesty" and "my word is law" kind of things. I'm not sure if we know enough about his motivations to classify him as Good or Evil, though. On one hand, he loves taking advantage of people... but at the same time, he ALWAYS gives them a choice. And he really doesn't ever hide the fact that there is a price for everything. All of the characters in Fairy Tale Land (and most of the ones in Storybrooke) call him evil... but have we *really* seen him do anything that would be considered evil? On the contrary, we have actually seen and heard him say things that would be considered heroic and sacrificial. In the scene where he explains the dagger-stealing plan to his son, he says "If I kill the Dark One with his dagger, I take his powers. Can you imagine me with those powers, Bae? I could get to redeem myself. I could turn it toward good. I'll save all the children on the front lines, not just you, my boy." (Bae would love to see that, but unlike his father, he is not a coward. "If the law says I'm to fight, I can fight.") Rumpy: "No, the law doesn't want you to fight, son. The law wants you to die. That's no battle, that's sacrifice, son." He points out the scarlet sky in the distance. "That's not the fires of the battlefields. That's the blood of our people, son. That's the blood of children -- the blood of children like you. What sane person would want to get involved with that?"
I love complicated characters! :D
Alignments are very confusing for me for some reason. I mean, the basic concept makes perfect sense and seems like it should be easy to determine, but in practice, I end up going, "Uhhhh..." a lot. I'd seen this thing online somewhere that listed the alignments and had pictures and quotes from different superheroes/villains, and I shared it with Joe, which is what started the conversation. Superman = Lawful Good. I get that. Joker = Chaotic Evil. No problems with that one.
Then we started discussing other characters from other works, and how we often see characters shift from one to another over the course of the movie -- for instance, in "Thor", we see Loki shift from Chaotic Good (although I'm still not convinced he's actually *good*... but definitely on the gooder side of neutral) to Chaotic Evil.
Then we moved on to Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. Aral Vorkosigan pretty much walks into the room for Lawful Good and takes a seat. His wife's a little more complicated. She's definitely Good... she cares about people and will sacrifice for them whether she knows them or not. When it comes to Lawful vs. Chaotic, though, she's... odd. She hates the strictures and structures of the *Barrayaran* government, but not necessarily the Betan one. She is definitely not a proponent of Chaos, but prefers a less rigid form of order. So I think we ended up putting her in "Neutral Good".
Miles Vorkosigan, on the other hand, is a different kind of complicated-- because I think Miles Vorkosigan and Admiral Naismith are two different alignments. Lord Vorkosigan is Lawful, whereas the Little Admiral is Chaotic. Both are Good, of course, because Miles has a pathological compulsion towards helping people. :)
And then we moved on to The Dresden universe... We didn't discuss Murphy, but I think that's because we both knew we'd find her sitting in a chair having a talk with Aral over in the "Lawful Good" room. Harry himself, I think we've seen shift over the course of the stories as he's come to understand more and more the *reason* that laws are in place. I would still put him as Lawful Good regardless, just because his magic is specifically about creating order out of chaos, but Joe was arguing that he fights against the establishment (ie: The White Council's rules) from the time we meet him.
And then there's Marconi. We finally put him down as "Lawful Complicated".
Marconi's odd because Harry clearly sees him as a villain, and he does run an organization that deals in organized crime, prostitution, and drugs... but the reason he does it is because if he didn't, things would be worse. Someone needed to take charge and keep the drugs away from the children and the violence away from the innocents. The question though, is "Would he sacrifice himself for people that he doesn't know?" ... and we're not really sure. We've seen him do some pretty spectacular acts of heroism, but he doesn't really do it selflessly, and we've never really seen him do anything to save or protect a complete and utter stranger. He's definitely not Evil, no matter what Harry thinks -- or what the police force thinks -- but is he selfless enough to be considered Good?
And I think the conversation shifted over to Once Upon a Time about 5 different times over the course of the weekend -- specifically to Rumplestiltskin. Evil Queen is easy. She couldn't be more Chaotic Evil if she tried. She's evil incarnate and you can't trust a word out of her mouth. Rumpie/Gold is a bit more complicated, though. Joe and I both agree that he's as Lawful as Regina is Chaotic. He does not lie, in that fey what-you-think-you-hear-is-not-necessisarily-what's-being-said kind of way. He's ruled by contracts and deals and "honesty" and "my word is law" kind of things. I'm not sure if we know enough about his motivations to classify him as Good or Evil, though. On one hand, he loves taking advantage of people... but at the same time, he ALWAYS gives them a choice. And he really doesn't ever hide the fact that there is a price for everything. All of the characters in Fairy Tale Land (and most of the ones in Storybrooke) call him evil... but have we *really* seen him do anything that would be considered evil? On the contrary, we have actually seen and heard him say things that would be considered heroic and sacrificial. In the scene where he explains the dagger-stealing plan to his son, he says "If I kill the Dark One with his dagger, I take his powers. Can you imagine me with those powers, Bae? I could get to redeem myself. I could turn it toward good. I'll save all the children on the front lines, not just you, my boy." (Bae would love to see that, but unlike his father, he is not a coward. "If the law says I'm to fight, I can fight.") Rumpy: "No, the law doesn't want you to fight, son. The law wants you to die. That's no battle, that's sacrifice, son." He points out the scarlet sky in the distance. "That's not the fires of the battlefields. That's the blood of our people, son. That's the blood of children -- the blood of children like you. What sane person would want to get involved with that?"
I love complicated characters! :D