"The more laws and commands there are, The more thieves and robbers there will be." - Tao Te Ching.
I was reading about the history of philosophy and had a brief thought on alignment that I wanted to share.
As you know, in OD&D the "cosmic conflict" is framed as Law vs. Chaos, which is really about Good and Evil.
AD&D makes things more complex by introducing nine alignments. Still, the "Good vs. Evil" axis seems more relevant than the Law vs. Chaos one; the difference between, say, Saintly and Beatific or between Devilish and Demonic (which would be nearly synonyms in some dictionaries...) is not as significant as the difference between Saintly and Devilish or Beatific and Demonic.
In addition, rangers must always be good, and paladins not only must be Lawful Good but also cannot associate with non-Good people, although they can freely associate with non-lawful.
You could see Lawful Good as the "best" alignment, in the sense of "summum bonum", while Chaotic Evil are obviously the bad guys.
Orcs, for example, were portrayed as chaotic, lawful, neutral, and evil during the TSR era—but never good. notice that OD&D orcs are chaotic or neutral, but AD&D orcs are lawful evil, despite being the same creatures.
Another example I like is CE gnolls being led by LE flinds, which are very similar creatures.
But Lawful Good versus Chaotic Evil, or Heaven versus Hell, is a simplistic conflict; we can clearly see who is in the right. Maybe if we could see angels and demons, we wouldn’t need philosophy—we would just side with the angels.
Once you start looking into the history of philosophy (and religion—although this post is NOT a comment on real-world religions, but on D&D), you begin to notice a certain pattern.
We have a concept of "Good" and certain laws that are meant to help us achieve that good; this is Lawful Good. Over time, the laws—perhaps because they are simpler, easier, or more explicit than Good itself—start to become more important than Good. In other words, the letter of the law becomes more important than the spirit of the law. So Lawful Good begins to slide toward Lawful Neutral or even Lawful Evil.
Then a new doctrine or figure appears. In a way, it is Lawful Good because it offers a better path (a better law) to achieve Good. It denounces the current regime as Lawful Neutral or Evil, and is often considered Chaotic by the existing doctrine, as it appears to defy the letter of the law.
If the new doctrine succeeds, a new and improved Lawful Good becomes the norm—but it is always at risk of sliding back toward Neutral or Evil, as pure Good is elusive for mere mortals.
This seems especially evident in Taoism, Christianity (particularly in its critique of Phariseeism), Protestantism, and Buddhism, but it’s also present in other philosophies. For example, Confucianism is very heavy on obedience and ritual, but Confucius also emphasizes sincerity in performing such rituals.
I have a feeling that every revolution is also started like this: "the letter of law is now a tool of evil, it must be discarded entirely in favor of good, no matter the chaos we cause in the process".
This is not to say that the battle of Good versus Evil is uninteresting; but this cycle of LG becoming LE and then being corrected by an idea that looks CG until it becomes the new LG seems especially relevant in the history of philosophy and religion, and also in D&D.
In addition, the theme of “adherence to laws originally meant to protect good, but which have grown stale and now protect evil” is a common one in fiction as well; from Antigone to Les Miserables and Game of Thrones.
Of course, there are many other compelling alignment conflicts to explore in D&D: a Lawful Good society growing lax in its adherence to law and falling prey to evil and chaos; two LG factions clashing over fundamentally different interpretations of "good"; or a neutral or good-aligned character living in—or even ruling—a chaotic or evil society. But I’ll save those for another post.
Additional reading:
No comments:
Post a Comment