Alright. Now I've been goaded. I disagree with all of ya. My takes on those first two questions.
Vimes: Neutral Good. The thing is, Vimes is very enamoured of the law right up until the point where it stops being useful. And at that very instant, he will
murder Wolfgang. That right there? That's the moment you stop being Lawful Good. It's the moment when you finally decide that when push comes to shove, the law is all well and grand, but people's lives -- good people's lives -- matter more. Vimes is Neutral Good.
Vetinari: Chaotic Good. Yes, he's a tough one to sort. My first instinct was Lawful Neutral. But no, it doesn't hold up. Not since
Making Money. Up until that book, you could argue that every single thing he'd done was more out of self-preservation than the public good, and since the public good was his best way of preserving himself, the whole city (and indeed world) benefitted. But in that book, he begins a process to dramatically improve the world that really doesn't benefit him in the least (at least, if so, not in a way that we've seen.) He's good. And as for lawful vs. chaotic? One word: "Tyrant." Laws are to be freely ignored whenever even felt like.
Captain Carrot: What do you
think?
Geoff_B wrote:I can't think of any characters that would definitely fall on the Evil side, at least none that last more than one book.
Oh, that's easy: Nobby Nobbs and Fred Colon.
Come on. They're small time, which is why they're mostly harmless affable bunglers rather than villains, but there's not a bone in Nobby's body that isn't selfish in the extreme. He shirks responsibility every time it's near (NEVER VOLUNTEER) and would steal anything, given the chance of not being found out. He's Chaotic Evil as it comes, just very, very poor at it. Colon, by contrast, is Lawful Evil. His evil stems from prejudice and wilful ignorance, but to pretend it's not there is whitewashing him. In his own way he's as nasty an individual as Nobby. But his got so little ambition that he doesn't matter much.
They're not
awful people. Colon'd cheerfully pay for his round when drinking with coppers. (Otherwise, he'd expect it on the house. Not a bribe, of course. It's just gratitude for the good work coppers do, eh right?) Nobby has his gentler moments.
But let me put it this way: Give Vetinari the power he has, the end result is an improved world. Even if Colon and Nobbs had the brains to pull off Vetinari's brilliant schemes, do you think they'd do it?
Neither do I.