loadingreadyrun.com

Duckay wrote:I don't know. In general, I think Vimes is a very good person. He's not necessarily a nice person and he's a long way from being a perfect person, but he's ultimately good.

But then, this is why alignment is an imperfect system.

I think Vimes is an example of a realistic Lawful Good, one that could actually function without being crushed by their own guilt or turning into some sort of Knight Templar (or worse). I think that's why Carrot is there. At first he was a way for Vimes to redeem himself, but then I think he functioned as a way of contrasting a fantasy hero with a real one.

Actually, yes, plummeting_sloth. That's exactly the kind of detail I was trying to put my finger on.

Now Vetinari... there's someone I think is hard to put into an alignment chart.

I have no idea what alignment Vetinari would be. All I know is I would be very interested in spending some time with him. Such a sexy mind.

Trixy wrote:I have no idea what alignment Vetinari would be. All I know is I would be very interested in spending some time with him. Such a sexy mind.

Actually, it sound like you know precisely what "alignment" you'd like him to be in.

Hahaha well that's true...

I'd say Vetinari was True Neutral - He's quite happy to manipulate people into doing good or bad things as long as it serves the interests of the city, but he's not really Lawful because he makes the laws.

Other characters:

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg - both Chaotic Good
Death - Starts off True Neutral but turns to Neutral Good
The wizards - Generally Lawful Neutral with some Lawful Good
Dibbler - Chaotic Neutral (he's happy to bend whatever laws (specifically food safety laws) he needs as long as he gets money out of it

I can't think of any characters that would definitely fall on the Evil side, at least none that last more than one book.

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.

I feel your goad sir and I must respond.

I can understand what you say about Vimes but he will always act within the law. And then when the law runs out he acts within what he believes the law should be. As we saw in Thud Vimes has his own system in place to make sure that he never jumps off the deep end.

Vetinari is True Neutral because he will not hesitate to condone questionably legal acts if it will benefit, if not himself, then his city and the system he has always tried to maintain (guilds/foreign policy etc).

Colon and Nobbs are not evil by any definition. Fred is Neutral Good at most, Chaotic Good at worst. Nobbs is unquestionably Chaotic Good. Sure he does a lot of petty theft but he would never do anything to harm his fellow Watch. There was a time when Nobbs was offered the ultimate power in the city and he outright refused because "Mr Vimes would go spare".

Actually I have thought of a few evil characters -

The Auditors of Reality are Lawful Evil (see Thief of Time for proof of the Lawful part)

Chrysoprase the Troll is Neutral Evil - he's a mafia boss but he wouldn't upset the balance of power in the city just for the sake of it.

I have to side with jack on this one, especially the Vimes part. Vimes is a lawman but to him right and wrong is more important than lawful and unlawful. Colon and Nobbs are not good people. They may be police but that doesn't preclude being bad, and they are bad. Evil is too strong a word for them but they definitely fall into the evil alignments. I'm not really sure Nobbs really fits in the Chaotic Evil category though - Neutral Evil maybe.

Trixy wrote:Hahaha well that's true...

I guess it's too bad that he's in a pseudo-relationship with that vampire who apparently dresses disturbingly similarly to my aunt.

And, you know: fictional.

The relationship between Vetinari and Margolotta doesn't really strike me as being romantic, more the kind between a vampire and his sire, in that I believe that Vetinari is a vampire who turned his addiction into a devotion to Ankh-Morpork... and possibly pioneered the technique so that the Black Ribbon league could use it.

But that's just my opinion.

I had 'Born to Rune' as my Guild note in WoW for months. I was the only one who got the reference

I prefer "live fats die yo gnu".

FWIW, I'm beginning to dislike even the IDEA of Discworld alignment charts. I know, I know. It's all a bit of fun. But here's the thing. Even discounting that alignment as a concept is a really poor idea, reducing complex characters to essential categories; even discounting the arbitrariness of it all; there's an element of it particular to Discworld that bugs me.

Wasn't this the very kind of malarky Discworld was made to satirize, at least in part? That kind of lazy application of moral standards as some sort of inherent quality rather than a label upon behaviour? Discworld's gone to lengths to break down the kind of Always Chaotic Evil labels upon orcs and goblins (both recently, indeed). And I'm in turn reminded of the observation: "You can grind the world down into the finest dust and not find one atom of justice." Evil, neither.

Isn't alignment hunting in Discworld all a bit... perverse?

Jack's got a fair point. After all the characters have progressed to the stage now where you can't really fit them into just one label.

Jack, i disagree with Neutral Good on Vimes. He will not murder people even if he believes it's what they deserve. In both Thud (with the deep downers in the cave, after attacking his wife and kid)and Night Watch (Carcer at the end of the book) he refuses to kill even though his deepest emotions were screaming to him to do it.
In the case you mention, Vimes told him he was under arrest. Sure, he knew he wouldn't listen, so he went with something to defend himself. sure, he knew this would kill him, but it was the only way to uphold the law. I believe he was completely by the book, although he was walking a fishing line of a thight rope there.
Beside, Lawful Good characters are allowed to step over the line in rare occasions in my book. Its not like a Chaotic Neutral character suddenly becomes good after giving away a single gift for free.
(All this aside, I believe the discworld characters are so much more then simple dots on a alignment wheel, more like big smugdes)

Wasn't that the same incident of Vimes loudly telling his opponent three times that he was under arrest so that someone else would be able to confirm that he was resisting arrest?

I'm a bit sketchy on the details as I haven't read it for a while.

I thing it happened like that, yeah. But then again, i haven't read it in quite some time either.

He was toeing the line extremely closely; that's more like bending the law to suit him rather than abiding by it, but I do acknowledge the point.

..... I started with The Last Continent. Which I'm pretty sure none bar one of you recommended and has not come up in any conversation. On the plus side, its a good book

Yay... I'm a one.The Last Continent is an awesome book. But I think most of the jokes only work if you know quiet a bit about Australia, especially the Outback.

Trixy wrote:Yay... I'm a one.The Last Continent is an awesome book. But I think most of the jokes only work if you know quiet a bit about Australia, especially the Outback.

Luckily I am Australian, as such I am both offended and amused by this book

I don't know; I am a bit of a time travel fan, but then, I've always preferred the interpretation that Ridcully expounds in this book to the one Ponder does.

I wish my Discworld novels were in Australia and not Canada.