# What Alignment is Rorschach?



## Heckler (Mar 9, 2009)

Given that the _Watchmen_ movie has just come out, and the number of similar threads we've had previously, I just had to ask.

Rorschach is a hero, saving humanity from the worst scum we have to offer.  No criminal is safe from him.  He shows no mercy to those who have committed wrongs.  He is completely driven to eliminate those who would do evil.

But he works outside the law.  He is a vigilante who uses violence to get what he wants and murders his victims rather than turn them over to the police.

So, what alignment is he?


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## Rechan (Mar 9, 2009)

Lawful Insane.


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## Scott_Rouse (Mar 9, 2009)

Chaotic Awesome


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## Illadar (Mar 9, 2009)

Lawful Evil


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## Andor (Mar 9, 2009)

Pretty much.

Lawful Neutral in AD&D terms.

He's not evil because he's not arbitrarily cruel, nor driven by personal gain. He does not prey upon society at large and would probably give his life to save an innocent. Assuming you could find someone who qualified as an innocent in his eyes.

He is certainly not good either. He'll cheerful torture and murder his foes. Fear is his chief weapon.

Now of course the trouble with the Lawful vs Chaotic question is does lawfull mean he obeys societies laws, or his own code? Some think that a strong personal code at odds with societies is chaotic, the "Robin Hood is CG" crowd. If so he could conceivably be argued as CN. Societies laws have never even slowed him down. But his own code is absolute. He would destroy the world before he would bend an inch. I'd peg him at Lawful Neutral (Insane).

It should be noted that most PCs wouldn't even blink at Rorschac's behavior in a party member. Untill they had to lie to save the world...


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## Celebrim (Mar 9, 2009)

The only reason the problem seems hard is you've used such a terse summary of events, and colored those events according to particular biases, that it would appear to be contridictory.

Would a person with a very great commitment to _the law_, be so cavalier about breaking it?  The answer is pretty clearly, "No.", so it must be that Rorschach's fanatic commitment is to something else entirely.  If we begin exploring the character a bit, I think we will probably find that there isn't as much contridiction as your summary would indicate.

But before we go there, I want to note that you can do this with any character, but doing it doesn't prove anything because the contridictions are false.  I can take a character like Jean Valjean from 'Les Miserables', and say, "Jean Valjean is a hero and an honorable man, yet he is also a criminal and also evades the law?  So which is he, lawful or chaotic?", and all I've done is create a false dichotomy using imprecise descriptions, and not proved anything about either Jean Valjean or the alignment system.   

Rorschach is by the author's own estimate, "Extreme right wing", "anti-liberal" (alias 'socialism', if that makes it more clear), "anti-communist" (alias 'collectivism', if that makes it more clear), and "a nutcase" (alias, 'crazy').  We also know that he has virtually no respect for government, authority, or the law and that he self-classfies himself as a rebel and a dissident.  He defines himself as a guy who says, "No."  

He wears a mask that is always changing, but is always absolutes - black and white.  Rorschach believes good and evil to be clearly defined and absolute, but tellingly he also considers himself personally to be the absolute judge of what is good and evil and holds himself accountable to no one and everyone accoutable to him.  Also telling, his definition of 'absolute good' based on the causes he fights for (or against) seems to revolve around 'personality liberty, provided you do not harm others' (and if you do, then 'eye for an eye').

I consider Rorschach's alignment to be about as clear cut as any in fiction sense it very much was intended to embody a particular ideology.  He's a slightly psycho anarchist libertarian vigilante.  I think Rorschach is pretty much the iconic example of a Chaotic Neutral.

As further evidence of this claim, it wouldn't be very hard to go around the web to various right-wing Libertarian and Objectivist political blogs, and see them proudly claiming Rorschach as their own, identifying him with 'John Galt' and so forth.  I'd link, but I don't want to drag this more political than it has to be (given that Watchman is openly political commentary).  (I hope I don't have to prove an ideology briefly summarized as 'personal freedom is the highest good' is chaotic neutral.)

Additionally, Rorschach was based on a character named 'The Question'.  The creator of that character was himself an Objectivist.


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## Thasmodious (Mar 9, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Would a person with a very great commitment to _the law_, be so cavalier about breaking it?  The answer is pretty clearly, "No."




I agree with much of your post, but not this statement.  History is full of people who did just this.  




> so it must be that Rorschach's fanatic commitment is to something else entirely.




That I agree with.  Rorshach isn't dedicated to the law, but to absolute good versus evil.  In a very similar way to the traditional D&D paladin, who's code places fighting real evil above obeying laws.  The paladin is often a rebel, fighting a despotic tyrant or some other form of man-made evil.  I could see making a case for Rorshach as LG.  The key would be if his perception of absolutism gels with the settings.  What shouldn't a paladin do in pursuit of a vengeful demon or other great evil?  Where does Rorshach violate that code in his fight against evil?

On a personal note, I frakking hate objectivism.  So does the global economy.


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## Creamsteak (Mar 9, 2009)

Lawful Chaotic. Or was it Chaotic Lawful?


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 9, 2009)

Rorschach clearly follows an extremely rigid code of ethics and will not compromise that code under any circumstances. So he is lawful.

Rorschach regularly disregards civil law and shows open disdain for legal authorities. So he is chaotic.

From the SRD:



> Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.



So he is lawful because he always tells the truth, keeps his word and judges those who fall short of their duties. But he is chaotic because he does not respect authority, resents being told what to do and follows his conscience. 



> Lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability



Sounds like Rorschach...so...lawful.



> Chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility



So...chaotic...


::Head Explodes::


Do you think maybe they tried to cram about 50 different dimensions of personality and moral code into one dimension? Could that be why nobody can ever agree whether Batman is chaotic or lawful?


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 9, 2009)

Thasmodious said:


> On a personal note, I frakking hate objectivism. So does the global economy.



I don't want to violate the "no religion, no politics" rule, so I won't retort to this statement.

Strangely, even though you and I obviously see the world quite differently, like you, I find much to agree with in Celebrim's post.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 9, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I consider Rorschach's alignment to be about as clear cut as any in fiction sense it very much was intended to embody a particular ideology. He's a slightly psycho anarchist libertarian vigilante. I think Rorschach is pretty much the iconic example of a Chaotic Neutral.




As an aside, Rorschach clearly has problems with homosexual activity, drug use and prostitution. It's not a matter of simple personal preference; he views them as examples of the pervasive corruption that plagues modern society and favors (violent) action to stamp them out.  As such he doesn't fit the mold of the typical libertarian, "live-and-let-live," (but you'll get no help from me) type.

I view him as an reactionary authoritarian figure. He has extreme disdain for the current legal code because he thinks it has become soft and useless, another causality of society's downward spiral into decadence. He attempts to remedy this by dispensing justice when legal authorities shirk their duty to punish the corrupt. Under a particularly draconian legal regime I can imagine him as a content law-abiding citizen.

That doesn't fit neatly into the law/chaos divide. He doesn't fit neatly into a good/evil framework either (the only thing we can say he is that he is a deontologist and not a consequentialist). The character is meant to be morally ambiguous and to leave readers ambivalent about his behavior. 

The correct answer to the question, "is Rorschach lawful or chaotic?" may be, "yes."


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## Celebrim (Mar 9, 2009)

> "Rorschach clearly follows an extremely rigid code of ethics and will not compromise that code under any circumstances. So he is lawful."




Most rebuttles to what I wrote seem to have this misunderstanding at there heart.

A code of ethics does not make one lawful.  Adhering to a reviewable defined code of ethics defined by some external authority makes you lawful.  Accepting some external source as the primary judge of what is right and wrong makes you lawful.  If you personally write the code, and believe it applies to you, and only you know it's rules, and only you know how to abide by them, and only you get to judge whether you are abiding by them, and you believe you are answerable to your own consciousness, it doesn't matter how rigidly and fanatically you adhere to your code - you aren't lawful; you are an individualist.

A lawful person follows the dictates of an external code of ethics, even when such an action goes against his own judgment and consciousness.  The lawful person assumes the primacy of 'the law' over his own reason and judgment.  If the two conflict, it's probably his reason that is faulty.  The chaotic person follows the dictates of their own consciousness, even when such an action goes against the laws of their community or society.  The chaotic person assumes the primacy of his own judgement and reason over that of the law of their community or society. 

Can anyone imagine Rorshach accepting the authority of anything over his own judgment and reason?  Most people's relationship to internal and external authority is pretty complicated.  They might except one in one case, and another in a different case and we could only talk about them 'on the balance'.   But for Rorschach the problem is 'black and white'.  Clearly in Rorschach's opinion, Rorschach always knows best.  He's an extreme example of 'Chaotic'.


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## Cyronax (Mar 9, 2009)

He's obviously too dark to be Good, but the ambiguity in everyone's analysis over Law and Chaos makes me think that he's True Neutral. 

He's not a balance-crazy True Neutral like Mordenkainen or a 2e Druid, but he effectively has such an idiosyncratic and personalized view of the scope of his world and his resulting 'heroics' that doesn't think about Law/Chaos.

Look at it this way .... he started as a costumed hero while being a relatively angry young man. He may have done it for the right reasons or just to have a righteous feeling adventure. OR ... he may have seen the road he was taking. 

He came into himself when he went after the kidnapper and murderer in a very emotional and personal way that seemed to involve almost primal rage. 

Even a lawful evil character (at least many maybe) would be a little queasy about wanton abuse and murder of a young child. So to me Rorschach was being true to True Neutral .... as in he takes each person as they come, but (like many many people) he does have certain stereotypes that he immediately raises his hackles over. 

And to be consistent, any alignment debate over Batman needs to really take about specific movies or comic story arcs, since different authors have done different things with the Dark Knight. Generally with Batman ... I'd say he's Neutral Good with Lawful Neutral leanings ...... sort of like some of Gygax's old Greyhawk Gods were ...St. Cuthbert?

C.I.D.


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## frankthedm (Mar 9, 2009)

Lawful Good when that alignment is not being







Celebrim said:


> Would a person with a very great commitment to _the law_, be so cavalier about breaking it?



Yes a character committed to _Order_ would be caviler about breaking laws that allow Chaos and evil to fester.


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## Celebrim (Mar 9, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> As an aside, Rorschach clearly has problems with homosexual activity, drug use and prostitution. It's not a matter of simple personal preference; he views them as examples of the pervasive corruption that plagues modern society and favors (violent) action to stamp them out.  As such he doesn't fit the mold of the typical libertarian, "live-and-let-live," (but you'll get no help from me) type.




I'll grant you that point.  The best I can answer is that generally Libertarians accept as valid, "You ought to do no harm to others."  While most libertarians see homosexuality, drug use, and prostitution as activities without a victim, if Rorschach doesn't see them as victimless crimes, then they wouldn't fall under 'live-and-let-live'.



> Under a particularly draconian legal regime I can imagine him as a content law-abiding citizen.




Sure.  One where Rorschach gets to define all the rules.  This is not a particularly strong objection to the claim that Rorschach is self-centered.

I think for me the most telling thing is that when we are introduced to the character, and have to catalogue him, the author asks us to catalogue him according three highly salient points: he's the and only one of the Watchman who is still an active vigillante (in defiance of the law), he's characterized even by his friends as insance, and he makes a very Objectivist rejection of altruism - if asked to save the world, he wouldn't: "Why should I?".   All these point to me to someone who is highly 'chaotic' in D&D terms.


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## Nivenus (Mar 9, 2009)

Rorschach's alignment is really difficult to pin down, ultimately, as others have pointed out. On the one hand, he's actually probably the most moralistic of all the characters. And yet, on the other hand, he's clearly done very evil things - albeit not on the scale of some other characters and only generally to those who "deserve" it (though if we're going by D&D alignments than that doesn't qualify as good, via the Book of Exalted Deeds where mercy and forgiveness are good virtues and cruelty, regardless of the target, is an evil vice).

He's also, as others pointed out, got an uncompromising attitude - which _seems_ lawful. As others have pointed out though, it's not really.

My guess is that, if we're going by D&D alignments rather than say, Utilitarianism, Objectivism, or any other "real life" moral philosophy that Rorschach.

I would actually almost say that Rorscach is chaotic evil, though in a weird way that makes him admirable from a certain vandpoint. He's clearly chaotic because he cannot stand authority, is reckless, is driven by an internal sense of justice rather than an external one, and is essentially a free spirit. The reason I say he is evil is mostly due to his sociopathic tendencies to do atrocities nearly as cruel as those wreaked by his enemies, albeit to those very enemies rather than innocents (except, perhaps, the "villain" begging for a beating Nite Owl and Silk Spectre discussed). However, I wouldn't be too surprise to see Rorscach pegged as true neutral, neutral evil, or chaotic neutral either.

It actually posits an interesting scenario if I'm correct since, at the end of the story, Rorscach is in some ways more sympathetic and morally sound than his "good" allies. It also puts his opposition to *spoilers* in an interesting light, reflecting the war between lawful and chaotic evil as well as good and evil.

I think we can all agree, however, that Dr. Manhattan is true neutral .


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 9, 2009)

> Would a person with a very great commitment to the law, be so cavalier about breaking it? The answer is pretty clearly, "No."




It's a personal pet peeve of mine when people equate "Lawful" with "Obeys the Law," so I'm here to kick you in the shins for that. 

The following is, of course, given my understanding of alignment...

Lawful is ordered, believing in patterns, systems, and codes. 

I don't think Rorshach is quite Lawful. It's a mistake to think that just because someone adheres to an abstract code that they're Lawful. Chaotic people adhere just as strongly to their own codes.

I don't think Rorchach is quite Chaotic. It's a mistake to think that just because someone violates the laws flippantly that they're Chaotic. Lawful people will violate a petty legality to uphold a greater law easily.

On the Law/Chaos axis, he's "unaligned." He does what suits him. Sometimes he ties up the bad guys and puts them in jail, sometimes he beats their heads in with an axe. He does believe in a greater meaning, but it isn't Order, and it isn't Chaos...

It's Good.

I think that Good characters can be tremendous jerks, especially to those that oppose them. It's a mistake to think that you have to be nice to be good. Good people slay evil all the time, even without a proper trial, especially when the legal system wouldn't do justice. 

Rorchach is Neutral Good.

He's a jerk. He's got no regard for order, but no love of freedom either. He's tremendously egotistical. Like all the Watchmen, he's a deeply flawed kind of Good. 

I think the Watchmen is a good case for the idea that Good characters can come into conflict. Everyone is trying to do the right thing, but what they think of as "the right thing" is in direct conflict. Everyone has the good of humanity in mind, and just differs about how to achieve it. 

Coming back from the movie, I was thinking about how most of my campaigns have that sort of ambiguity to them, and how much I like doing that -- nothing is untainted, and rational people can disagree on whether Good or Evil (as D&D alignments) is the best way to achieve a given goal.


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## pawsplay (Mar 9, 2009)

Given his respect for the Comedian's patriotic actions, I would have to say he has respect for the authorities, in the abstract. Also, there is the line "Never compromise, even in the face of Armageddon." Pretty lawful. He lives by his personal code, and is even willing to admit from time to time when he falls short.

I think Rorschach likes the idea of Lawful Good in some respects, but he falls into the category of people who are decent but not willing to go the extra mile to actually be Good. He accepts collateral damage routinely, and his view of what to do about the coming End of the World is to try to punish as many evil people as possible before the party's over. He has righteousness, but not charity. He admires Justice, but without Plato's ideal of harmony; rather, Justice is a natural force that must be heeded, even if it means extinction.

So Lawful Neutral, St. Cuthbert-style.


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## Nightson (Mar 9, 2009)

I don't know where people get the idea that Rorschach is supposed to be a hero.  He's an insane extremist.  I don't think insane people can really be put on the alignment axis.


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## Nivenus (Mar 9, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> On the Law/Chaos axis, he's "unaligned." He does what suits him. Sometimes he ties up the bad guys and puts them in jail, sometimes he beats their heads in with an axe. He does believe in a greater meaning, but it isn't Order, and it isn't Chaos...
> 
> It's Good.
> 
> ...




I agreed with you up until the end of the Law/Chaos bit. Law and chaos are commonly misunderstood, in part because they're not a major part of our cultural consciousness the way they were of many ancient societies (which D&D's inspirations were largely based off of). Our primary moral consciousness is D&D's good/evil axis, based around Platonic and Judeo-Christian ideals.

However, at least in D&D terms, you're dead wrong about Good and Evil. True, good isn't necessarily about being _nice_, but being nice is a very large component of D&D's definition of good. Courtesy and consideration for others' feelings is considered a minor virtue of good.

More to the point, being nice is one thing. Having respect for life is another, and that is a very, very strong component of good according to the Book of Exalted Deeds. And Rorschach has _no_ respect for life in of itself. In fact, he looks down upon and scorns most of everybody around him. He still doesn't think people should go around ax murdering people at random. Hardly. After all, his entire schtick is going around and brutally torturing/murdering people who do that sort of thing.

But he doesn't respect life in of itself. And he has no qualms about ending it whenever he feels it necessary.

The aforementioned incident with the masochistic would-be villain is, I think, a good point. Granted, its anecdotal, so it's not very strong evidence. But the fact that the other characters are willing to believe it, that Rorschach would casually end the life of an admittedly kooky and kind of disturbing fan is definitely strong evidence he's not good, at least not by D&D definitions (as I said, Rorschach may fare "better" by different moral standards).

Secondly, another large virtue of good, according to the Book of Exalted Deeds, is mercy and forgiveness. Rorschach has no sense of either word. To him, a villain is a villain, deserving of as much cruelty and pain as they deal out. Mercy is for fools. Forgiveness is a little evil. He has no faith in the justice system, no faith in trial by peers or judgment by others. This is not good, by D&D definitions. This is, in fact, treading very closely on the toes of evil.

I can see the argument that Rorschach is neutral. I may even be convinced by it. But he is most definitely _not_ good.


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## pawsplay (Mar 9, 2009)

Nightson said:


> I don't know where people get the idea that Rorschach is supposed to be a hero.  He's an insane extremist.  I don't think insane people can really be put on the alignment axis.




If you excluded insane extremists, you would end up with a lot of people in the True Neutral category. 

As for why he's a hero... he 



Spoiler



gave his life to stand up for what he believed. He can be wrong in every other way you can think of and you can still admire his integrity.


 Watchmen isn't about true blue heroism. He's a hero because he does not qualify as an anti-hero... he may be tragic, but he does not fail. Just because someone is a hero in a piece does not mean you have to agree with their morality, or that the author does. Rorschach is not a role model or the epitome of cool, but he does represent something important to us.


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## arscott (Mar 9, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> A code of ethics does not make one lawful.  Adhering to a reviewable defined code of ethics defined by some external authority makes you lawful.  Accepting some external source as the primary judge of what is right and wrong makes you lawful.  If you personally write the code, and believe it applies to you, and only you know it's rules, and only you know how to abide by them, and only you get to judge whether you are abiding by them, and you believe you are answerable to your own consciousness, it doesn't matter how rigidly and fanatically you adhere to your code - you aren't lawful; you are an individualist.



This.  A personal code isn't evidence of lawful alignment unless it derives from an external authority.

I'd peg Rorshach as Chaotic Neutral, if not Chaotic Evil.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 9, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Most rebuttles to what I wrote seem to have this misunderstanding at there heart.
> 
> A code of ethics does not make one lawful.  Adhering to a reviewable defined code of ethics defined by some external authority makes you lawful.  Accepting some external source as the primary judge of what is right and wrong makes you lawful.  If you personally write the code, and believe it applies to you, and only you know it's rules, and only you know how to abide by them, and only you get to judge whether you are abiding by them, and you believe you are answerable to your own consciousness, it doesn't matter how rigidly and fanatically you adhere to your code - you aren't lawful; you are an individualist.
> 
> ...




From the SRD:

*Lawful Neutral, "Judge"*



> A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a _*personal code*_ directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her.



Italics are mine. The alignment descriptions are ambiguous about this internal/external code dimension so I don't think it is fair for you to claim that others have some "misunderstanding," at the heart of their arguments.

The problem is that "law" is meaningless without analogous norms to guarantee enforcement. Norm enforcement occurs as a result of norm internalization (through primary and secondary socialization processes) on the part of those that sanction deviance. 

If compliance with a law on the part of an individual becomes rooted over time in an associated internalized norm, is that individual by your definition now "chaotic," because his behavior no longer depends on the continued existence of that law as an external written code? Even if that external code is the origin of his internal code? Would he be lawful if he continued to follow the law while it existed but suddenly become "chaotic" if he continued to follow the obligations/restrictions after the law was repealed?

Are people only "lawful," if they follow currently existing laws out of fear of sanction(that is, they have not internalized associated norms but do not wish to provoke the ire of those who have)? Are they only lawful if they automatically accept all governments as legitimate?

Say I am a citizen of country X and I admire the legal code of that country. I have in fact internalized those laws. Now I move to country Y and find that the legal code is quite different, I dislike it greatly and think that it is in fact immoral. I continue to follow the legal code of country X to the letter even when it contradicts the legal code of country Y. Am I chaotic now?

St. Augustine (and others) argued that there was a natural law that ordered the universe and that could be discovered through reason. That law was objective and ought to be followed. Human law was a pale imitation of natural law and when it contradicted it, it was illegitimate and ought not to be followed. St. Augustine laid this all out in City of God (and compared the City of God to the City of Man). St. Augustine thought that he (like other reasonable men) had knowledge about the natural law and lived his (later) life according to it. Is St. Augustine chaotic? Is he only chaotic if there actually is no objective natural law that trumps the law of man (i.e. he was wrong)? What if there is but he was mistaken about a few of its details?


I don't think there is an easy answer to these questions. I certainly don't think we can locate all individuals on some order/chaos scale (or love/fear for your Donnie Darko fans) without losing a great deal of nuance.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 9, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Given his respect for the Comedian's patriotic actions, I would have to say he has respect for the authorities, in the abstract. Also, there is the line "Never compromise, even in the face of Armageddon." Pretty lawful. He lives by his personal code, and is even willing to admit from time to time when he falls short.
> 
> I think Rorschach likes the idea of Lawful Good in some respects, but he falls into the category of people who are decent but not willing to go the extra mile to actually be Good. He accepts collateral damage routinely, and his view of what to do about the coming End of the World is to try to punish as many evil people as possible before the party's over. He has righteousness, but not charity. He admires Justice, but without Plato's ideal of harmony; rather, Justice is a natural force that must be heeded, even if it means extinction.
> 
> So Lawful Neutral, St. Cuthbert-style.




Yeah, if I was forced to stuff him in one of these inadequate boxes I think I'd put him in the lawful neutral box. I think he views himself as a servant of some higher justice, one that the authority figures seem to have forgotten.

So here is a question. Say I follow the dictates of my conscience. In doing so I evaluate my actions based on how they conform to to some external code I learned and have internalized.

Am I chaotic only in as much as I stubbornly maintain that I can, for myself, adequately judge whether I am adhering to that code? Am I only lawful if I allow others' interpretations of that code and my actions to help determine whether I am in accordance with it? I am still chaotic if I maintain that I am the final judge of my adherence but admit to my shortcomings when they are pointed out by others?

I think of this as the Martin Luther question. Was Luther chaotic for maintaining that the church authorities were incorrect in their interpretation of scripture (i.e. he relied on his own instincts/conscience/reason rather than on their judgment) and rebelling against them? Or, was he lawful because he was a firm believer in a objective higher law, and, as a servant of that law, attempted to correct the inconsistency?


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## Nivenus (Mar 9, 2009)

> A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. _*Order and organization*_ are paramount to her.




Emphasis _mine_.

Rorscach is a lone dog who prefers to work alone. He doesn't play well with others. And he doesn't care to. That's a chaotic trait.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Mar 9, 2009)

He's Unaligned. He hasn't made any real commitment to anything except his own, personal convictions. He has an egoistic streak, but he doesn't exploit people or take joy from harming others. He doesn't want to destroy anything, either.


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## pawsplay (Mar 9, 2009)

Nivenus said:


> Emphasis _mine_.
> 
> Rorscach is a lone dog who prefers to work alone. He doesn't play well with others. And he doesn't care to. That's a chaotic trait.




He's apparently responsible for putting dozens of criminals into the prisons. He also made it clear that what affects one of them (the Watchmen) affects all of them. Simply being a loner and a misanthrope does not disbar you from believing in an ordered society. That is a matter of temperament, not morality.

Bottom line: Rorschach believes morality is absolute, intelligible, and universal. Lawful, plus a bag of chips.


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## avin (Mar 9, 2009)

LN - he follow his own rules, and never step away from them.

Ozymandias is True Neutral or LN?


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## Charwoman Gene (Mar 9, 2009)

Unaligned, the whole bloody lot of them.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 9, 2009)

Whatever his alignment, he is certainly a "Knight Templar,"

Knight Templar - Television Tropes & Idioms



> To many Knight Templar types, All Crimes Are Equal, and the lightest offenses are met with full imprisonment, death or brainwashing.  Note that the canonical "minor offense with staggeringly out-of-proportion punishment" is jaywalking. If you're in a story like this, don't jaywalk. It's important to note that Knights Templar believe fully that they are on the side of righteousness and draw strength from that, and their opponents are not. Invoking goodness and decency will have no effect, save for making Knights Templar decry your cause as the work of the devil. After all, they are certain their cause is just and noble, and anyone who stands in the way is a deluded fool at best or another guilty soul to be 'cleansed' or evildoer to be killed


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## Hairfoot (Mar 9, 2009)

Sex.  No, wait!  I mean "butterfly".


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## Mercutio01 (Mar 9, 2009)

Nivenus said:


> I think we can all agree, however, that Dr. Manhattan is true neutral .



This is where 4E has alignment from 3E trumped.  He's not neutral, which implies some sort of caring. Dr. Manhattan is completely unaligned.  Once Laurie sends him packing, his attachment to humanity is completely gone.  He seriously could not give two craps about anything on Earth.

Edit - and on topic - Rorschach doesn't fit into an alignment box.  It's like assigning an alignment to the Punisher.  His moral code is less nuanced than a lawful stupid paladin like OotS' Miko.  He's not lawful (although he once was when the laws actually allowed for "masks" to operate), but he's also not chaotic.  He follows a rigorous routine, is not erratic, and has a plan for just about everything.  He's not good because he kills, but he's not evil because he only kills those that are worthy of it.  At the same time, his moral code does have a little bit of gray - he lets Moloch off even though Moloch does have illegal drugs.

As further evidence of his not being erratic - he plans so far ahead that he leaves his scripted journal for the New Frontiersman, hoping they print the truth of what happened.

Characters like those in Watchmen so clearly break the idea of alignment boxes that I am actually glad to have "unaligned" as an option in 4E.  Every character I play or run as a DM will be unaligned.


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## Dragonhelm (Mar 9, 2009)

Chaotic Good.  He works for good, by any means necessary.

Oh, wait, CG doesn't exist anymore.  Therefore, Rorschach doesn't exist.  Therefore, Watchmen never happened.  Yet clearly, Watchmen did happen.  Therefore, we're living in a temporal paradox.  

I want my old alignment system back.


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## The_Fan (Mar 9, 2009)

In 4e terms, he would have to be Unaligned. He is dedicated to ultimately good ideas, but he has to enforce them in an evil manner. See what he did when he went to the bars gathering information. Several "innocent" (as in, not guilty this time) people got their fingers broken just for being in the wrong place or somehow sticking out from the crowd.

I think he'd also probably be an Avenger, dedicated to a G or LG deity.


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## Jhaelen (Mar 9, 2009)

I love this thread! 

It illustrates pretty nicely why I think that alignments weren't a good idea to begin with. Why, oh, why are they still present in 4E?

They aren't helpful for players and they fail utterly at properly portraying anything but the worst npc/monster stereotypes. The personality of lifelike characters is way too complex to gain anything from being sorted into one of nine (or five) drawers.


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## RyvenCedrylle (Mar 9, 2009)

*Rorschach is Bad.*

(deleted by user)


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## Klaus (Mar 9, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> Rorschach clearly follows an extremely rigid code of ethics and will not compromise that code under any circumstances. So he is lawful.
> 
> Rorschach regularly disregards civil law and shows open disdain for legal authorities. So he is chaotic.
> 
> ...



Ergo:

True Neutral.

In 4e: Unaligned.

In that vein:

Dr. Manhattan: Unaligned
Silk Spectre II: Lawful Good
Nite Owl II: Lawful Good
Ozymandias: Unaligned
The Comedian: Chaotic Evil


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## heirodule (Mar 9, 2009)

Supporting the "Rorschach is Lawful" side, he's willing to bust Moloch for owning an illegal drug that is only illegal because it is ineffective as a cancer treatment. 

President Truman was one of the only noble men to Rorschach. Rorschach is an agent of the FDA.

Very Lawful  The problem is he's in a Chaotic society.


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## Irda Ranger (Mar 9, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Most rebuttles to what I wrote seem to have this misunderstanding at there heart.



They were probably misled by reading the DMG. _Shame on them!_ 



Celebrim said:


> A code of ethics does not make one lawful.  Adhering to a reviewable defined code of ethics defined by some external authority makes you lawful.



So ... Paladins are lawful in D&D because the Gods are occasionally physically apparent (and can be visited at-will by high level priests to be questioned on the finer points of catechism), but they would by Chaotic in the real world because they would "answer only to God" and ignore the "unjust laws" of King and Pope?

Celebrim, you clearly have a very well thought out definition of alignment, and I'm sure the clarity and guidance you can provide benefit your campaign. But the D&D rules over the years haven't been nearly as clear. Occasionally they're downright contradictory. There are alternative explanations that have just as much support from the text as yours.

---------------------------------------------------------------

D&D's alignment system is famously inadequate at pegging real world people in one slot or another, but if I had to I'd peg Rorschach as Lawful Neutral. 

Lawful: He has his code, which is fully internalized, and abides by it. He judges others and finds them wanting. The fact that the US government in the comic is also found wanting does not make him chaotic; it just shows how unwilling he is to compromise his principles.

Neutral: For the reasons Nivenus outlined, he cannot be considered "Good."  But he is also unselfish and can be kind. He does not work to acquire power for himself or for a higher authority, but is trying to improve (as he sees it) the world.  So Evil doesn't apply either. Neutral is therefore the default.

P.S. - Picking Unaligned is a cop out.  Just admit that the Alignment Axes are a stupid ontology and refuse to play the game.


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## Celebrim (Mar 9, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> Yeah, if I was forced to stuff him in one of these inadequate boxes I think I'd put him in the lawful neutral box. I think he views himself as a servant of some higher justice, one that the authority figures seem to have forgotten.




That's possible, and one of the problems I have with 'chaos' and 'law' is there are couple of extreme cases where it is impossible to determine 'law' or 'chaos' by external evaluation but only by knowing the character's internal mental state.  Particularly for law and chaos, we have to know what motivates the character as well as how they act because there is a pretty large subjective component to the law/chaos access.  

'The servant of an extinct of forgotten authority' is one of the two cases that is very hard to answer.  In this case, the individual would appear to have all the characteristics normally associated with 'chaotic'.  They would tend to be a loner, tend to be following a personal code distinct to them, tend to reject existing authorities, and so forth.  However, in fact, if we could see their motivations, we'd realize that they weren't motivated by their consciousness and personal choice, but were one of the last isolated members of a now faded organization and were motivated by the loyalty to the memory of that organization and the code which governed it.

With Rorshcach, it's possible that the loyalty could be to 'the America that was' and he rejects modern authority as having lost his way because his deepest loyalty is to 'the American Way' rather than American institutions itself.  I don't think that is the strongest possibility, because a number of things argue against that, but it is certainly possible.

Another complexity is that an chaotic philosophy can be instituted into a rigid law which can then become the external authority to which other people then subjegate themselves.  We can easily imagine for example, Objectivism becoming the dominate morality of a land and the government being organized according to minimalist principles that celebrated personal liberty.  We can imagine then the writings of Ayn Rand and others being used almost as bibles.  In such a situation we'd ironicly have at least some Objectivists who were 'lawful Objectivists', who might for example have occasional pangs that perhaps Socialism isn't such a bad idea in the face of human suffering, but who distrusted their own feelings and reasoning in favor of adhering loyally to the admired external authority or who rigidly and fervently adhered to Objectivism precisely because it was the lawful external authority.  In such a situation it would be very hard to tell the chaotics from the lawfuls, without internal evidence.



> So here is a question. Say I follow the dictates of my conscience. In doing so I evaluate my actions based on how they conform to to some external code I learned and have internalized.




Then like most people you are in the ambigious middle.  In particular, someone with a well thought out 'neutral' position on the law/chaos axis would probably say that using the combination you just described would be the only way to choose the middle path that led to correctly maintaining your way on the good/evil axis.  

My general assumption is that 80%+ of people have ambigious complicated morals.  Only a few 'extremists' are really going to stand out as having a definite ideology.  Rorschach is definately an 'extremist' and since he isn't an extremist about 'maintaining the balance', I think we have to throw out neutrality as a likely candidate.



> Am I chaotic only in as much as I stubbornly maintain that I can, for myself, adequately judge whether I am adhering to that code? Am I only lawful if I allow others' interpretations of that code and my actions to help determine whether I am in accordance with it? I am still chaotic if I maintain that I am the final judge of my adherence but admit to my shortcomings when they are pointed out by others?




The lawful would argue thusly, "Suppose everyone was allowed to judge for themselves whether they were adhering to that code?  If everyone was there own judge, then each individual could interpret the code differently, and no one could judge whether they had done so rightly or wrongly.  In such a situation, there could be no order.  In such a situation, no one could say that they have rightful authority, nor could they ever issue a decree with the expectation that it would be obeyed.  Such a situation would be indistinguishable from anarchy where everyone made their own laws, and held themselves to be the judge."



> I think of this as the Martin Luther question. Was Luther chaotic for maintaining that the church authorities were incorrect in their interpretation of scripture (i.e. he relied on his own instincts/conscience/reason rather than on their judgment) and rebelling against them?




I love how you see the heart of the problem clearly.  In some cases, we can only answer the question if we know who was right.  If Luther was wrong and the church was right, then clearly he is a rebel and clearly his loyalty lies to his own conscious.  But if Luther was right and the church was wrong, then its quite possible that it's Luther's loyalty which is true and pure, and the church is the rebel with a corrupt loyalty to its own self-interest.

My position on Luther is too complicated to go into here in much detail, but I would say that the crux for me are two things.  First, that Luther was unwilling to become a martyr, and secondly that judged by his fruit, Luther followers had a spirit of contention, division, and strife we would not expect of Lawful minded people.  Finally, it's quite possible that both the Luther and the Church were wrong at some levels.  (Lest anyone think I'm being too judgmental here, I should say I'm a Protestant myself.  Please don't jump me in defense of your personal beliefs, to which I'm probably quite sympathetic, in this forum.)



> Or, was he lawful because he was a firm believer in a objective higher law, and, as a servant of that law, attempted to correct the inconsistency?




I think he certainly saw himself in this way, but we aren't always the best judges of ourself.  I think personally, he's was a Chaotic follower of his own consciousness who'd been set off by some very hypocritical (and 'not good') actions on the part of those with lawful authority.  There are of course other possibilities, but the evidence we would need to make a definitive statement is invisible too us.


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## Celebrim (Mar 9, 2009)

Irda Ranger said:


> They were probably misled by reading the DMG.




Indeed.



> So ... Paladins are lawful in D&D because the Gods are occasionally physically apparent (and can be visited at-will by high level priests to be questioned on the finer points of catechism), but they would by Chaotic in the real world because they would "answer only to God" and ignore the "unjust laws" of King and Pope?




I think I've already answered enough real world religion questions for one thread.



> Celebrim, you clearly have a very well thought out definition of alignment, and I'm sure the clarity and guidance you can provide benefit your campaign. But the D&D rules over the years haven't been nearly as clear. Occasionally they're downright contradictory.




Yes, they are.  That makes them a very bad guide for creating an orderly system.


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## Mallus (Mar 9, 2009)

re: Rorschach & alignment.

Inside the frame of the story Rorschach ends up being _evil_ --he won't keep silent about the plot _after it's clear it is working_-- and Veidt is _good_ --through his actions nuclear war is averted and billions are saved by the involuntary sacrifice of millions. 

Outside --ie, for the reader-- this is supposed to sound downright crazy. 

Watchmen can be seen as an engine built to grind up comic book morality (and the costumed freaks and uncaring gods who theoretically subscribe to it). Since D&D alignment is similar comic book morality, the correct answer to the original question is: sod off. 

Actually, the correct answer wouldn't make it through the language filter...


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## Obryn (Mar 9, 2009)

Watchmen is one of the main reasons I dislike alignment systems in general.  (Or, generally, like 4e's loose alignments and the inclusion of Unaligned.)

I'd rather look at characters in terms of what their motivations are.

-O


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## Umbran (Mar 9, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> Rorschach clearly follows an extremely rigid code of ethics and will not compromise that code under any circumstances. So he is lawful.
> 
> Rorschach regularly disregards civil law and shows open disdain for legal authorities. So he is chaotic.




This makes him _neutral_, in the large balance.

Set aside, for the moment, that a character must rest at an extreme in order to me highly motivated, and it rather makes sense.


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## davethegame (Mar 9, 2009)

Scott_Rouse said:


> Chaotic Awesome




Crap, that's what I was going to say.

Sadistic Neutral was another fake alignment a friend used to play, which might work as well.


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## Klaus (Mar 9, 2009)

Alignment isn't personality. They're methods and beliefs. WHY you hold to those methods and beliefs varies from character to character.

In 3E, I'd peg Rorschach as Lawful Neutral, based on his beliefs, or True Neutral, based on his methods. He has an absolute moral code and sees the world as failing to live up to it. His moral code is so absolute, he's unwilling to compromise, not ever, even if it means the end of the world.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 9, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Inside the frame of the story Rorschach ends up being _evil_ --he won't keep silent about the plot _after it's clear it is working_-- and Veidt is _good_ --through his actions nuclear war is averted and billions are saved by the involuntary sacrifice of millions.




Many, many folks here would argue that you are too quick to define utilitarianism ("the ends justify the means") as _good_.

There are moral _actions_, and there are moral _outcomes_.


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## FourthBear (Mar 9, 2009)

Is there any benefit to undertaking the assignment of alignment?  It seems to me that once you've explored a character's motivations and actions to the point where you can assign an alignment tag to that character, you already have a far more understanding and grasp of that character that can ever be encompassed by something as broad and generalized as alignment.  Does it really help storytelling, roleplaying or anything other to be able to put LN next to Rorshach's name?  It seems the most likely outcome of doing such a thing would be leading to people falsely associating stereotypical Lawful Neutral traits to the character.  Where's the benefit that outweighs the risk of stereotyping?


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## Thasmodious (Mar 9, 2009)

I think we've seen Rorshach pegged as every alignment except NE (and I may have just missed it).  

This just highlights that alignment is and has always been a poor system that has never managed to accomplish its purpose.  I like that 4e removed mechanical effects based on alignment, but it would have been much better to just remove it entirely.


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## Umbran (Mar 9, 2009)

Thasmodious said:


> This just highlights that alignment is and has always been a poor system that has never managed to accomplish its purpose.




Incorrect, I think - in that I don't think the purpose has ever been to make these things consistent across all gaming groups.  So long as each DM can peg him as something within the interpretation that he uses, the thing serves its purpose.


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## Mallus (Mar 9, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Many, many folks here would argue that you are too quick to define utilitarianism ("the ends justify the means") as _good_.



Mind you, that's my take on what Alan Moore is doing in Watchmen. He posited that Veidt _may_ be right in order to criticize a moral system in which Veidt _could_ be right. I'm not defending utilitarianism, at least not here or before a second cup of coffee.

In some ways Watchmen is a bit of kangaroo court (of ideas). But I won't hold that against it.


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## Umbran (Mar 9, 2009)

Klaus said:


> His moral code is so absolute, he's unwilling to compromise, not ever, even if it means the end of the world.




Well, this raises a question - is it that he's unwilling to compromise, or actually _unable_ to do so?

In 3e, neutrality was used to handle animals, and those creatures unable/incapable of making moral or ethical judgments.  In the story, several characters remark that he's outright insane, and this is at least partly supported by the character history - there is a point where he snaps.  

If, at the end, his mind is such that he _cannot choose_ to do otherwise, then he isn't aligned any more than a wolf or a force of nature.


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## davethegame (Mar 9, 2009)

Thasmodious said:


> I think we've seen Rorshach pegged as every alignment except NE (and I may have just missed it).
> 
> This just highlights that alignment is and has always been a poor system that has never managed to accomplish its purpose.  I like that 4e removed mechanical effects based on alignment, but it would have been much better to just remove it entirely.




Plus it's given D&D fans something to argue about since the Internet was created.

After discussing this thread with a friend, we were able to spin off a number of fake alignments that people nonetheless play. Both "Rorscach" and "Batman" would reasonably fit in there.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 9, 2009)

All I know is Rorschach tickles me in all the same places that "Wulf Ratbane" tickles me.

(Which should probably cause me to lie awake at night...)


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## Wombat (Mar 9, 2009)

Give me more ammunition for "Why Alignment Simply Doesn't Work".

But it is obvious when you think about it -- Rorschach's alignment is Batman...


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## Dragonblade (Mar 9, 2009)

Rorschach is my hero.


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## balard (Mar 9, 2009)

I think Rocharch started as a Lawful Good, and than went downhill. He has values, he do what he do by the greater good. The point is that he was getting more and more cynical as the time passes. He started to see everyone as guilty and evil, and the laws and the society weak and decaying. 

He is Lawful Good Insane. He does so much Chaos and Evil in the name of Lawful and Good that his mind snaps. He is True Neutral, in the way he goes both sides of the spectrum many times in a day. He is TN not because the tries to be in the middle, or because he is a instinctive person, but because he act as a Lawful Chaotic Good Evil person. That is his insanity.

Rocharch is a deeply complex character, almost all of then falls in the True Neutral, Lawful Batman, or Chaotic Awesome aligment spectrum.


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## AFGNCAAP (Mar 9, 2009)

FWIW...  IMO, here's what Rorschach's AL would be:

3.X AL: Lawful Neutral
4e AL: Unaligned.

For 3.X, I'd say Lawful Neutral because he adheres to a personal belief system (the absolute black & white view of the world) and acts accordingly.  He wouldn't be good, IMO, because he does things that aren't good to bad people (which, according to his viewpoint, is totally acceptable).  It fails to account for the shades of grey common throughlout life, and the very grey area in which he himself operates (which I'm not sure if he's aware of or not—if he were, I doubt he'd have such an absolute black & white about things).

Also I'd argue Lawful Neutral because he's strongly adhering to a personal code, along the same lines as a samurai (whose code may conflict with the local laws of the area he's traveling in, esp. a samurai character in a typical pseudo-European setting—he's following a code, just not necessarily the code used by his local equivalents).

For 4e, I'd say Unaligned, more or less for the same argument.  He's not Lawful Good because he does some decidedly non-Good actd, & because he doesn't use the system itself to try to carry out justice (he believes in a code, but not the system).

Then again, a core idea behind D&D is that there are supernatural forces and genuine absolutes of concepts such as "good" and "evil", and the existence of supernatural beings that act accordingly to those absolutes.  While it can incorporate the "shades of grey" of the real world ala Unaligned (because, really, that would be the dominant AL IMO), there's the existence of pure good & pure evil in the world (angels, demons, devils, deities, etc.)

(However, keep in mind that even the most powerful beings aren't genuinely flawless & all-powerful—hence the 4e backstory of devils & the like).


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## Mallus (Mar 9, 2009)

Wombat said:


> Rorschach's alignment is Batman.



Well said!


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## Mistwell (Mar 9, 2009)

I think the point of Watchmen was to break down the comics "alignment" system, as Alan Moore saw it at the time.  And Rorschach was one of the chief tools used to make that point.  

It's therefore not surprising that Rorschach doesn't fit into the D&D alignment system well, and answers vary across the spectrum.  As many have said, he does not fit that system well, intentionally so.  That was the point - to break the "alignment" system of pop culture assumptions about morality and ethics.


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## WizarDru (Mar 9, 2009)

I'm assuming here that the core question is actually "_What Alignment is Rorschach by the end of the Watchmen, or at least post-1976?_"

Because there are two Rorschachs in the story...the one who Walter Kovacs pretended to be and the one who replaced Walter Kovacs.  They are two different people and have different alignments.

Nite Owl II teams up with the former.  He prefers to work alone, but found some value in teaming with Dan and was at least willing to hear Captain Metropolis out about a new team.  He fights in the mean streets of NYC, working in the shadows.  That Rorschach is gruff, violent and impersonal but finds value in fighting criminals and is trying to save the city.  He beats muggers to a pulp, but leaves them tied up for the cops.

That Rorschach never comes out of the burning building, either.  In his place is another Rorschach, the one who considers the mask his true face.  He kills criminals, has little respect for anyone and believes that the previous Rohrschach was 'soft'...as are any of his previous allies.  He sees himself as one of the lone voices in the dark, one of the few that actually cares stopping evil.  His respect for the Comedian comes from the fact that he sees a kindred spirit...someone who has lost respect for mankind and knows..._knows_...that it is filled with irredeemable monsters and weaklings.

The first Rorschach is trying to save the world and believes in justice;  the second Rorschach is only concerned with punishing the wicked.  The second Rorschach sees nothing but Kitty Genovese's everywhere.

Rorshach is, IMHO, way too complicated a question for the alignment system to answer.


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## Celebrim (Mar 9, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> Rorshach is, IMHO, way too complicated a question for the alignment system to answer.




Walter Kovaks = Chaotic Good
Rorschach = Chaotic Neutral

The thing is that as complex as the story might be, if I said, "Walter Kovaks was a Chaotic Good hero and he suffered a tragedy and his alignment shifted to Chaotic Neutral.", even given the often confusing and contridictory signals D&D has given with respect to alignment, most players of D&D would 'get' the basic ethos of the character from that description alone and know basically how to play him.  Some finer points of his personality might be lost, but alignment was never for conveying detailed personality traits anyway.

"OK, he's one of those vigillante good guys, but then tragedy struck and he got 'darker'/'grayer'."

"I can do that."


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## Irda Ranger (Mar 9, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> Because there are two Rorschachs in the story...the one who Walter Kovacs pretended to be and the one who replaced Walter Kovacs.  They are two different people and have different alignments.



That's a really good point. I was trying to peg "Rorschach", rather than Walter Kovacs.

I'm not sure they have different alignments though. One thing the D&D alignment system doesn't capture is the level of "intensity" with which one practices their alignment. Most understand there's a difference between a Paladin and a "merely" LG character of another class. Similarly, both demons and cultists can be "Chaotic Evil", but you know the demon is _more_ chaotic evil than the cultist (usually).

Further, Rorschach (the guy who escaped the fire) may have changed his perception of the how the world works and what "best practices" should be used to accomplish goals, rather than a change in the goals themselves. You could posit that both Walter Kovacs and Rorschach were Lawful Neutral (or whatever) but that Rorschach was some Paragon Path "living embodiment of harshest justice."

Or, to riff Scott Rouse and George Orwell, some people are more Chaotic Awesome than others.




WizarDru said:


> Rorshach is, IMHO, way too complicated a question for the alignment system to answer.



Every literary (and living) character of sufficient complexity is. It's a limitation of the system.


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## doctorhook (Mar 9, 2009)

Rorschach is Unaligned. It's characters like him for whom Unaligned was made.

That's all there is to it.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 9, 2009)

Just a quick point. The lawful/chaotic dimension conflates several related dichotomies:

Order vs. Chaos
Communitarianism vs. Individualism 
Authoritarianism vs. "Libertarianism"
External vs. Internal decision making processes

These are all related but distinct. I've seen various posters make their evaluation of Rorschach with reference to one of these dichotomies. 

For example. I argued that Rorschach would be quite happy/law-abiding under a particularly draconian legal regime. My reasoning was that he favored a strict, all-encompassing legal code that regulated all aspects of others' lives, and severely punished deviance. That makes him rather "authoritarian," and particularly sympathetic to the use of government/law to shape behavior. In that sense he is "lawful." 

Celebrim has clearly determined that what really matters for him is the "External vs. Internal decision making processes," dichotomy. Since Rorschach stubbornly maintains adherence to his code despite opposition by currently existing authorities, he is "chaotic." Under this interpretation, deference to some other is what constitutes a "lawful" act.


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## Mouseferatu (Mar 9, 2009)

Is anyone else vastly amused that, when trying to categorize a character called "Rorschach," people seem to be reading into it and getting out of it based entirely on their own personal beliefs? 

No?

Just me, then.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 9, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Is anyone else vastly amused that, when trying to categorize a character called "Rorschach," people seem to be reading into it and getting out of it based entirely on their own personal beliefs?
> 
> No?
> 
> Just me, then.





I'm pretty sure that's what Alan Moore intended. You win the thread.


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## Wormwood (Mar 9, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Is anyone else vastly amused that, when trying to categorize a character called "Rorschach," people seem to be reading into it and getting out of it based entirely on their own personal beliefs?



Okay, I actually laughed out loud (although scotch may be involved somehow).


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> Celebrim has clearly determined that what really matters for him is the "External vs. Internal decision making processes," dichotomy. Since Rorschach stubbornly maintains adherence to his code despite opposition by currently existing authorities, he is "chaotic." Under this interpretation, deference to some other is what constitutes a "lawful" act.




Yes, that's pretty much it.

I adopted that interpretation from among the competing after getting frustrated with the other ones because it seems to me to be the one most easy to relate back to the other ideas that we gather together in 'chaotic'.  For example, 'individualism' derives directly from the fact that internal decision making process is primary, 'libertarianism' derives simply from extending the rights you grant yourself to everyone else, 'insanity' derives directly from the fact that people who are insane are marked by an internal and uncommunicatiable decision making process not shared by anyone else, and so forth.

But I freely admit there are other ways to define the problem.  For example, I played in one group where the law/chaos spectrum was defined by the question, "Do the ends justify the means?"   Under this definition, 'Lawful' people answer the question, "No.", and chaotic people answer the question, "Yes."  That's a perfectly internally consistant definition and it gives a suitable conflict, albiet not necessarily the immediate one we think of when we talk about 'law vs. chaos'.  

Adopting this definition with respect to Watchman gives us a completely different (and arguably equally interesting) answer.  Under this definition, Rorschach clearly represents an uncomprimising agent of law, and in fact is probably lawful evil (he wants to punish humanity for its trangresses, not save it).  The person at the heart of the conspiracy clearly does believe that the ends justify the means, and clearly has a very good purpose (saving humanity), in which case the story may be about the conflict between lawful evil and chaotic good.

I don't particularly like that axis, despite its internal consistancy, because I don't think its truly independent of the good/evil axis, since the question of 'Do the ends justify the means?' has I think a moral component.  With such a definition lawful good might really mean 'more good' than 'pure good', which explains Paladins and might make it a very suitable interpretation for 4e.  However, even if I don't favor the definition, provided I have an internally consistant definition, I can adapt my thinking accordingly.  The important thing is for the DM to decide on a suitable and clear definition.


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Is anyone else vastly amused that, when trying to categorize a character called "Rorschach," people seem to be reading into it and getting out of it based entirely on their own personal beliefs?
> 
> No?
> 
> Just me, then.




No, you aren't alone; I'm always vastly amused by that.  The thing is, I don't know if you've also noticed this or not, but people do that with everyone and not just character's named Rorschach.  We could throw out some real world names and ask for alignments and get an equally diverse number of answers. 

But this to me proves more about the 'alignments' of the people giving the answers, than it does about the alignment system or the alignment of the people being analyzed.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 10, 2009)

It's probable that, not being a heroic fantasy character, the question of R's alignment is entirely moot. 

Don't let that stop the discussion, though.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 10, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> No, you aren't alone; I'm always vastly amused by that.  The thing is, I don't know if you've also noticed this or not, but people do that with everyone and not just character's named Rorschach.  We could throw out some real world names and ask for alignments and get an equally diverse number of answers.
> 
> But this to me proves more about the 'alignments' of the people giving the answers, than it does about the alignment system or the alignment of the people being analyzed.




Well, it is also evidence that the existing classification system (law/chaos, good/evil) is sufficiently vague and conflationary as to allow numerous conflicting interpretations of alignment in any given case. As a taxonomy system it is thus a failure.


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## frankthedm (Mar 10, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> No, you aren't alone; I'm always vastly amused by that.  The thing is, I don't know if you've also noticed this or not, but people do that with everyone and not just character's named Rorschach.  We could throw out some real world names and ask for alignments and get an equally diverse number of answers.
> 
> But this to me proves more about the 'alignments' of the people giving the answers, than it does about the alignment system or the alignment of the people being analyzed.



 From  http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/178258-why-should-hard-paladin.html



			
				Me said:
			
		

> to some folks, if only subconsciously, there is not a difference between in-game and out-of-game evil. When one person says ” this is not evil” in game, and someone else disagrees on a more personal level, a rift begins because someones _personal beliefs _ have been challenged through the medium of the D&D game. This rift is what I believe makes paladin {alignment] argument so hot blooded.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 10, 2009)

My own take:

Rorschach: Chaotic Neutral
Night Owl: Lawful Good
Silk Spectre: Neutral Good
Ozymandeus: Lawful Evil
The Comedian: Chaotic Evil
Dr. Manhattan: Neutral


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## pawsplay (Mar 10, 2009)

The idea that lawful equates to obeying the status quo authority is demonstrably wrong. If that were true, you could change someone's alignment by changing the regime. Lawful means abiding the legitimate authority, with that determination hinging on a number of factors. In Rorschach's case, that means authority and individuals that acknowledge natural law in the same way he does. He is against Communism and views any communist authority as illegitimate. He helps the police, but will not allow them to arrest him because he sees himself as acting more legitimately. As for as communitarian versus liberal (in the classic sense, not the partisan sense), he is communitarian, as he views every single living person as accountable to all others how they choose to live their lives (hence his cold-blooded response to Silhouette's death... he might have had sympathy, but she had it coming, in his view... does anyone else wonder if he might actually have been the killer?). Thus, he can allow the Comedian his "moral lapses" because on the balance, he sees the Comedian as fighting against utter chaos.  He adheres to a personal code, fiercely, even to the point of embracing his death rather than changing. The fact that he is somewhat self-serving in that respect makes him only human... if he were some kind of LN paladin, he would be in trouble, but that is not the case. Insanity can mix with any alignment, so again, if you consider him insane, that still does not disqualify him from being Lawful. Rorschach considers everything he does necessary, not simply preferable. He is autonomous, not anarchic.

Ozymandias I peg as LN. He is willing to bend and break rules, but ultimately works within a system. His big scheme is really just what Rorschach does on a grand scale, breaking fingers in order to halt evil and save lives. You could call him evil, because he does something evil... yet he would not do it for anything less than what he considered an imperative. 

Doctor Manhatten is TN... very decent and compassionate, but too detached to do good for its own sake. His moral compass is his integrity, not a sense of something outside himself. The universe will abide in its own way.

Silk Spectre... NG. She really believes in doing the right thing. And she does not even hesitate to assault a police officer acting under some insane impulse to enforce the Keane Act during a prison riot. Her mother, CG... a do-gooder and merciful soul, but also someone who believes everyone does things for their own reasons most of all. Rorschach's foil, a sensual, individualistic, relativistic creature.

Nite Owl II... LG. Compassionate, to a fault. Bent by his conscience to accept things he would not choose for himself. The original Nite Owl, probably NG. 

The Comedian... LE. Utterly selfish and destructive, but still capable of being shocked. Never evil for its own sake, always for some gain. Plagued by a vague sense of honor that suggests his lack of self-control is probably a failing.


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## Nightson (Mar 10, 2009)

I don't think classifying alignment should ever come down to how one interacts with the government or laws of the land, that seems to imply that one's alignment can change with a change of address.


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## Heckler (Mar 10, 2009)

Wombat said:


> But it is obvious when you think about it -- Rorschach's alignment is Batman...



 No way!  Batman doesn't kill.

Rorschach's alignment is Wolverine...


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## Heckler (Mar 10, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> I'm pretty sure that's what Alan Moore intended. You win the thread.



 And here I was all set to declare The Rouse winner of the thread for his answer of "Chaotic Awesome."


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 10, 2009)

Mallus said:


> re: Rorschach & alignment.
> 
> Inside the frame of the story Rorschach ends up being _evil_ --he won't keep silent about the plot _after it's clear it is working_-- and Veidt is _good_ --through his actions nuclear war is averted and billions are saved by the involuntary sacrifice of millions.




Actually, in the story, despite the fact that Veidt's plan _works_, it's made very clear that it's quite possible that it won't last. The idea that the ends justify the means is deliberately challenged by pointng out that nothing ever ends.

Veidt achieved a good end through evil means. Rorschach was going to undo the good "end" becase of his objection to the evil "means". Rorschach is willing to cross the line to punish evil ... Veidt is willing to cross the line to _prevent_ evil. 

The book is pretty objective about not saying who was right. Rorschach and Veidt know what side they are on, but both have at least some hesitation. Veidt has an attitude of sacrificing his own morality for the greater good, but still recognizing he has sacrificed his morality (and asks for assurances he did the right thing). Rorschach recognizes and accepts what John has to do. The other characters are more ambivalent to what has happened ... not liking the means, but accepting that, having failed to prevent it, they might as well make the best of it.


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## Krensky (Mar 10, 2009)

Heckler said:


> No way!  Batman doesn't kill.
> 
> Rorschach's alignment is Wolverine...




Rorschach's alignment is The Question/Mr. A.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Mar 10, 2009)

Alignment in D&D has never been well-explained as to its actual purpose - the REASON it is included in D&D. Alignment has further never been well explained as to how it fulfills that purpose, being vague, contradictory, and inaccurate. But it HAS worked. Not universally, perhaps, but it DOES work.

If you accept that the purpose of alignment in D&D is to act as a guide to players for having their characters behave in a reasonable/consistent manner and not just do whatever they want, whenever they want without justification or explanation, then alignment has worked. Oh, people may disagree on how it's supposed to do that, and they may disagree on just what particular little box a given character is supposed to be in, disagree on when they stray out of their box and what the punishment for doing so should be - but in using alignment (even badly or mistakenly) players ENDEAVOR to get their characters into a particular box of behavior and keep them there. That means alignment has worked, even if it's worked poorly as a result of its own inadequacies and ill definition.

Alignment is NOT used in D&D in the same way that it was used in fiction by its creator Poul Anderson (or Michael Moorcock who used Andersons idea if I understand that correctly). Frankly, I doubt that even Gygax had a good conception of what alignment was supposed to be doing for him in D&D. He likely just included his adaptation of it because he thought it was cool - just as he was inspired to include a lot of other bits and pieces from an entire cavalcade of fiction. But once included it DID seem to serve a purpose even if not even Gygax could put into writing at the time what that purpose was. And then with every version of D&D alignment has been REwritten to attempt to make it conform to a new authors misunderstanding of its purpose.

Given the way alignment IS generally described in D&D, and given the above understanding of its purpose, my conclusion has been that the best way to categorize characters within a given alignment is to look at how that character sees their place in the universe and how THEY believe that the universe works.

So let's take Rorschach as an example. On the axis of law-neutrality-chaos he is lawful. In alignment, the opposite of lawful is chaos - NOT unlawful. Looking at Moorcock/Pouls original use lawful/chaos has to do with ORDER. If Moorcock was dealing with gamers he'd have likely used the term order instead of lawful because it more accurately indicates the intended opposite of chaos. If it IS more about order and how you see your place in the universe it's about seeing a universe where order does exist or should exist, and/or where your characters purpose is to seek or maintain that order. Rorschach believes that there needs to be or should be a certain order in the world and that his purpose and that of other masks is to establish and enforce it. Rorshach therefore doesn't CARE what the written law says except as it suits his purpose. If the law fails to understand and assist masks in their voluntary duty then the law is to be ignored.



On the axis of good-neutral-evil Rorschach certainly isn't able to be associated with the extreme of good because he doesn't care about so many of the things that good identifies with (borrowing a list from 3.5) - 

Altruism
Respect for life
Concern for dignity of sentient beings
Tell the truth
Honor tradition
Honorability in general
Trustworthiness
Obedience to authority
Reliability
Making personal sacrifices
Where he agrees would certainly be:

Judge those who fall short of their duty
But neither is he able to be associated with Evil because he isn't indiscriminate or uncaring in his punishments - he's quite narrowly purposeful and willing to apply punishment to ANYONE when he thinks they have it coming and to protect/avenge the rest. He's doing what he believes is appropriate and beneficial for all the right reasons even if he is ruthless and violent in doing so. The ruthlessness and violence are NECESSARY, not fun or meaningless.

Being between the two extremes of good and evil makes him neutral. Lawful Neutral - at least as most D&D alignment approaches would have you think of it.

Even if you disagree with my own or someone elses assessment of a characters alignment or how alignment is to be interpreted and used, alignment still fulfills its purpose in the game if it gets players to attempt to play their characters with some thought towards consistency and being able to provide justification or explanation for why their characters act (or don't act) in the way that they do.


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2009)

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> ...my conclusion has been that the best way to categorize characters within a given alignment is to look at how that character sees their place in the universe and how THEY believe that the universe works.




The problem with this sort of subjective understanding is that in fantasy, good and evil, and presumably law and chaos, are objective things.  It no more matters what you think of them than it matters what you think of a brick wall.  Your perception of the universe doesn't define it, and your beliefs about it don't change it.

Adolph Hitler probably believed that he was lawful good.  (Godwin's Law!)  So perhaps does Robert Mugabe.  Indeed, we should probably expect that the vast majority of people believe that they are 'nuetral good', because they define what ever ethos they believe in as the one that is 'right' and 'good'.  They believe what they do, whatever it is, is the thing that ought to be done.  It's very rare that someone has an objective enough view of themselves in the mirror that they can see themselves for what they are. 

One of the reasons that alignment discussions provoke so much argument is that different people have very different views of what 'Good' means, and so we different groups 'rotate' the alignment wheel so that there particular beliefs get rotated to the top.  The staunch believer in honor and justice is just as likely to define 'Neutral Good' in lawful terms, as he is to see 'Lawful Good' as the highest and most righteous belief system, because for him any definition of good that falls away from legalism, honor, and justice won't feel like a proper definition of 'Good'.  Likewise, the staunch libertarian is just as likely or even more likely to define 'Neutral Good' primarily in terms like 'Harm no one, do as you wish', or 'Individual Liberty', because any definition of good that falls away from those ideologies will strike them as wrong - as 'evil'.  

Objectively seeing ourselves is very hard.  That's why I always try to get across when I explain alignment, that the player should take care to remember that most likely his character - whatever the alignment - sees his beliefs as the correct ones and the ones a person ought to be believe and live their life by.  The villain doesn't see 'villany' as shameful.  A 'neutral evil' character almost certainly believes that life is pain, that 'good' is mere deciet and hypocricy - the illusions of the weak - and that the way he acts is the only truly correct and rational response of the brave-hearted to the universe.  In a universe where 'Good' is tangible, he probably doesn't believe himself to be 'Good', but he probably emphaticly believes 'Evil is _good_'.  It's even possible that he defines that tangible thing others call 'Evil' as 'Good' and the tangible thing others call 'Good' as 'Evil', and would argue with a Paladin, "I'm not evil, you are!"


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## Felix (Mar 10, 2009)

Chaotic Evil.

---Chaotic by his willingness to follow or flaunt the ruling authority depending upon how closely aligned the goals of that authority are compared with his own.

---Evil by his willingness to visit punishment to those innocent of action, but potentially guilty of knowledge.

Who said Evil can't be motivated by the pursuit of Good? See "The Operative" from Serenity. 

And incidentally, I think in many ways he's the most admirable of the characters in Watchmen. What were his final words to Dr. Manhattan? "What is one more body laying at the foundation of your temple"? Awesome.


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## Deset Gled (Mar 10, 2009)

On the subject of Lawful vs. Chaotic, and having a "personal code"...

I believe that a person can be considered lawful as long as they follow a personal code of beliefs.  No external authority or review is required to be a lawful person.  However, I also believe that such a code must meet a number of strict standards to be considered.

1.  The code must be universally encompassing.  It must lead a person in all aspects of life, giving guidance in everything that is done, on every day.  This isn't to say that it must be the only thing on a person's mind all day, but you cannot claim that a strict adherence to vegetarian is a sufficient system to base one's life on.

2.  The code must be specific.  If must give detailed answers and specific solutions for a vast majority of issues.  There may still be gray areas in interpretation and application, but something as simple as "X is good, Y are bad" is not enough of a statement (by itself) to guide a person in life.

3.  The code must be unchanging.  Let's face it, a code is only a code if it is a constant.  If the code as you change in your life, that means that it really wasn't a personal code in any sense of the word.  It is possible for the code to change occasionally, but a re-visiting of one's inner principles should be a life changing event.

4.  There must be punishment if the code is broken.  To err is human, and it is inevitable that a person will occasionally do something hypocritical.  If the personal code is true, then a person who falls from it will realize what they have done, and mourn or punish themselves in some way.  Otherwise, they are not complying with the above criteria.

Considering these criteria, I would consider Rorschach to have heavy Lawful leanings, but he comes up a little short.  His personal code is that the wicked must be punished, and he follows it in all aspects of his life, which definetally meets criterion 1.  However, it is not particulary specific as to how to define people as wicked, and how they should be punished.  Rorshach makes snap decisions about whether a person is good or evil, and arbitrarily decides how to punish them.  Someone who annoys him may be killed, but a known long-term villian like Mollock is allowed to live after spending time in jail, and someone who commits a crime while in jail is killed in the most painful method possible.  The actions lead me to believe Rorschach does not have a well defined system for judgement or punishment, which are key aspects of a personal code based on judging and punishing the wicked.

Based on his close-but-not-quite code of ethics, I would actually consider Rorschach to be neutral in the Law-Chaos axis.  He has the start of a code, but not all of one.  He tries to uphold his code, but does a number of chaotic things in his attempts to do so.  For reasons others have mentioned, I also place him squarely neutral in the Good-Evil axis.

So, in the end, I think Rorschach is true neutral.  The same alignment that Dr. Manhattan is.  Go figure.


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## JRRNeiklot (Mar 10, 2009)

Interesting thread.  I'm not familiar with the character, but from reading this thread, I'd have to call him chaotic good.  He defends innocents, punishes the guilty, and doesn't give a damn about how he gets his results, as long as he gets them.


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## Mallus (Mar 10, 2009)

Felix said:


> And incidentally, I think in many ways he's the most admirable of the characters in Watchmen.



He is. 

And that's part of the trap-like genius of Watchmen. It gets people to admire a violent sociopath, forever traumatized by a traumatic childhood, who is ultimately willing to jeopardize the newly-minted world peace, invalidating the deaths of millions, just because he's got a personal code of ethics (which coincidentally _doesn't_ preclude all manner of unethical behavior).

He's an example of how audiences react positively to men of action that get the funny, plucky lines (despite the fact they're monsters that the Abyss has gazed _into_).


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2009)

Deset Gled said:


> On the subject of Lawful vs. Chaotic, and having a "personal code"...
> 
> I believe that a person can be considered lawful as long as they follow a personal code of beliefs.  No external authority or review is required to be a lawful person.  However, I also believe that such a code must meet a number of strict standards to be considered.




Interesting.  This seems to be a 'middle ground' between my instance that no pure personal code can be considered lawful, and the opposite contention (held by some) that holding any personal code of behavior makes you lawful.  

I like your reasoning.  For one thing, I think it much more clearly explains why every personal code can't be considered lawful than anything I've said hitherto.



> 1.  The code must be universally encompassing.  It must lead a person in all aspects of life, giving guidance in everything that is done, on every day.  This isn't to say that it must be the only thing on a person's mind all day, but you cannot claim that a strict adherence to vegetarian is a sufficient system to base one's life on.




No, but "Harm no one, do as you wish", might be universally encompassing...



> 2.  The code must be specific.  If must give detailed answers and specific solutions for a vast majority of issues.  There may still be gray areas in interpretation and application, but something as simple as "X is good, Y are bad" is not enough of a statement (by itself) to guide a person in life.




...however, among other things, it would fail to give very specific guidance.  Like any other axiomatic basis of morality, like, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.", broad axiomatic dictums are designed to work counter to strict moral legalism.  

I think a lot of people are mistaking, "Passionate belief in something's value.", for, "Follows a strict code."  I can be passionately motivated by some belief of mine, but that doesn't make my personal beliefs legalistic in any fashion.  I think it just stands to reason that before a code of conduct can possibly be called 'lawful', that it has to have traits that make it legalistic and hense make the person's actions reviewable in an objective way.  

For example, a club, fraternal order, or corporation might have some sort code of conduct.  That code of conduct could either say things like, "Curfew is at 10:00." or "No girls allowed in the dorm." or "If you bring beer, bring enough for everyone to have their own."  or "Don't talk about fight club."  That's a legal code.  Anyone can review whether or not I've broken the rules in an objective manner.  Or the code of conduct can be, "Do nothing that brings shame to the club."  That's not a legal code.  That's a very high standard of behavior, and people who held that maxim in very high regard, might be strongly motivated to engage or not engage in particular sorts of behavior.  But whether or not I'm actually following the code is entirely subjective, and the only real way to decide whether I've broken the code is to ask for someone's opinion.  Hense, such a code mandates not the rule of law, but rather rule by personal conviction.

Naturally of course, many real world codes have both sorts of strictures in them.



> The code must be unchanging.  Let's face it, a code is only a code if it is a constant.  If the code as you change in your life, that means that it really wasn't a personal code in any sense of the word.  It is possible for the code to change occasionally, but a re-visiting of one's inner principles should be a life changing event.




More than just the code must be unchanging.  The code must stipulate that for a given circumstance, there is an unchanging behavior - either a prohibition against doing something specific, or a commandent to do something specific.  For a given circumstance, there must be a predictable responce.  A lawful code can't just simply amount to, "Make it up yourself." or "Do what you want to do."  The personal code actually has to mandate something.  



> There must be punishment if the code is broken.  To err is human, and it is inevitable that a person will occasionally do something hypocritical.  If the personal code is true, then a person who falls from it will realize what they have done, and mourn or punish themselves in some way.  Otherwise, they are not complying with the above criteria.




More than that, the holder of the code must recognize that violating the code brings a just punishment.  From the perspective of law, the problem with a personal code like, "I consider myself a citizen of the world.", is that not only does it not mandate anything specific, but the holder of the code isn't held responcible for their actions by anyone in authority.  No one grants or revokes 'citizenship of the world'.  There is no recognized set of duties imposed on someone by 'citizenship of the world'.  It might be an idea that has real personal meaning and which shapes someones behavior, but no external observer is in any position to judge whether that is the case.  With a personal code like, "I have a responcibility to your fellow humans", or "I have a responcibility to the Earth", it might motivate - even passionately motivate - a particular behavior, but unlike an actual lawful code, nobody would know to expect exactly what that behavior was or whether it would suddenly change according to the vagaries of how the person interpreted their code.  The holder of such a code does not expect and would strongly object to someone else holding them accountable for not doing A or B that that other person thought should be done.  The holder of such a code holds themselves responcible and judges for themselves whether they are doing a good job of living up to their own standards.



> Considering these criteria, I would consider Rorschach to have heavy Lawful leanings, but he comes up a little short.  His personal code is that the wicked must be punished, and he follows it in all aspects of his life, which definetally meets criterion 1.  However, it is not particulary specific as to how to define people as wicked, and how they should be punished.  Rorshach makes snap decisions about whether a person is good or evil, and arbitrarily decides how to punish them.  Someone who annoys him may be killed, but a known long-term villian like Mollock is allowed to live after spending time in jail, and someone who commits a crime while in jail is killed in the most painful method possible.  The actions lead me to believe Rorschach does not have a well defined system for judgement or punishment, which are key aspects of a personal code based on judging and punishing the wicked.
> 
> Based on his close-but-not-quite code of ethics, I would actually consider Rorschach to be neutral in the Law-Chaos axis.




Well, you are free of course to make your own judgement, but I think he comes about as 'far short' of being lawful as you can possibly come.  His ever changing face is about as perfect of a metaphor as you can have for chaotic behavior.



> So, in the end, I think Rorschach is true neutral.  The same alignment that Dr. Manhattan is.  Go figure.




Doesn't this conclusion bother you just a little bit though?  If everyone is basically nuetral, what is the conflict really over?  Is it just that Rorschach is a more extremist neutral, blowing things up to achieve some idea of harmony and balance, and Dr. Manhattan is just neutral apathetic?  Or, is there some actual ethical conflict being played out here, "The good of the many over the good of the few or the one.", for example?


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 10, 2009)

> Doesn't this conclusion bother you just a little bit though? If everyone is basically nuetral, what is the conflict really over? Is it just that Rorschach is a more extremist neutral, blowing things up to achieve some idea of harmony and balance, and Dr. Manhattan is just neutral apathetic? Or, is there some actual ethical conflict being played out here, "The good of the many over the good of the few or the one.", for example?




I love the idea of "extremist neutrality." It reminds me of the "Unitarian Jihad"!


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Mar 10, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> The problem with this sort of subjective understanding is that in fantasy, good and evil, and presumably law and chaos, are objective things. It no more matters what you think of them than it matters what you think of a brick wall. Your perception of the universe doesn't define it, and your beliefs about it don't change it.



But again, it matters very little whether you, I, or anyone else can all agree on how to classify any given individual, but whether or not the PLAYER of the CHARACTER is being guided to keep his characters behavior reasonable and logical in the long term - to behave insanely only if actually insane, to be able to occasionally act "out of his established character" or even contrary to his stated beliefs as long as some reasonable motivation for it is evidenced or reasonably explainable, to otherwise act as if the character does have a wide set of beliefs and motivations without having to extensively define those motivations.  In short - is alignment acting as a guide for the players roleplaying of a given character?

Even if the player is guided to have his character act in a way that the DM wishes to classify in a way that is quite different from the players own understanding of the alignment framework the two points of view can be reconciled as long as the DM can and does explain HIS OWN views to his players, WHY he wants the characters behavior to fit into the DM's defined boxes, and allows the player room to "maneuver" reasonably within that framework, then alignment works as it needs to.  All the discussion seen here is simply the sort of discussion that DM's need to maintain with their players to keep alignment functioning according to its purpose.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Mar 10, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Doesn't this conclusion bother you just a little bit though?  If everyone is basically nuetral, what is the conflict really over?  Is it just that Rorschach is a more extremist neutral, blowing things up to achieve some idea of harmony and balance, and Dr. Manhattan is just neutral apathetic?  Or, is there some actual ethical conflict being played out here, "The good of the many over the good of the few or the one.", for example?




Unless, of course, the alignment system just fails to describe real or fictional personalities of reasonable complexity.


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Unless, of course, the alignment system just fails to describe real or fictional personalities of reasonable complexity.




I don't think the alignment system was ever intended to describe personalities.

What in the quoted section made you think I was talking about personalities?


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## Klaus (Mar 10, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> I love the idea of "extremist neutrality." It reminds me of the "Unitarian Jihad"!



Back in 1e, True Neutral had very active proponents, Mordenkainen being one of the prime examples in Greyhawk. He could help or hinder the forces of Good, as long as the Balance is maintained in the end.


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## Leatherhead (Mar 10, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> Do you think maybe they tried to cram about 50 different dimensions of personality and moral code into one dimension? Could that be why nobody can ever agree whether Batman is chaotic or lawful?




My theory is that people are too focused on the extremes of Lav VS Chaos and Good VS Evil to notice the option of "Neutral."

It doesn't help that few seem to understand what neutral means. That, and some characters (Batman especially), have had their personalities rewritten several times over.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Mar 10, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I don't think the alignment system was ever intended to describe personalities.
> 
> What in the quoted section made you think I was talking about personalities?




Maybe that's the issue. What is it for? What _do_ alignments describe?
Behavior? Tendencies of behavior? How is either not defined by a characters personality?

Maybe that is looking at it wrong. Alignment is more like a team or a party. It is something you associate with yourself, but you don't necessarily agree with all of the teams or parties aspects. (And sometimes you are in a team or party despite there being another one better suited to you.)


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## Nightson (Mar 10, 2009)

Alignment vs. Personality in 4e


> Isn’t alignment just another part of your personality? Yes
> and no.
> 
> Certain personality traits have moral weight, particularly
> ...


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## wingsandsword (Mar 10, 2009)

Chaotic Neutral. . .who _thinks_ he's Lawful Good.


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 10, 2009)

I am Chaotic Neutral.

Anyone that sees Lawful is merely applying a pattern.

Seriously though, one of things about the whole Rorschach test, and things related to it is that people do have a tendency to see patterns in everything, even stuff that doesn't actually have a pattern. So, Rorschach would seem lawful, but ultimately he isn't. He is a blank slate/rorschach test that is hard to pin down, but is useful to tell people about themselves by their reaction to him.

Ultimately though, I'd lean towards pegging him as chaotic. His methods are mostly reactionary. He reacts to problems and criminals ... he doesn't really do much to prevent crimes (at least from the limited extent we see), instead just punishing those responsible. He doesn't seem particularly interested in saving the city, only in punishing the guilty. He also criticizes things like prostitution and drug use without really doing anything to try to stop it. One thing to consider is Rorschach's journal and actions don't necessarily sync up perfectly. One perfect example is the ironic entry bemoaning how few of the masks are still active and sane, considering his own reputation as a loon.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 10, 2009)

> A fastidious and well-organized person can just as easily be
> evil as good. An impulsive prankster can also be good or
> evil.




I think this is yet another aspect of the law/chaos dimension that people latch onto.

fastidious/well-organized = lawful (ordered/organized, predictable, like clockwork)

impulsive/capricious = chaotic (random, whimsical, difficult to predict)

These are aspects of personality that when described offer a player or some other observer some sense of the behavior associated with a character. Since the alignment system is supposed to do the same (though with reference to moral code in particular) and has a related dimension (law/chaos) it is not surprising that that these personality traits became conflated with it.


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## darkseraphim (Mar 11, 2009)

LN (E)

Lawful Neutral with Evil tendencies.

You can do wonders with tendencies.


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## GSHamster (Mar 11, 2009)

Chaotic Evil.

Law vs. Chaos, Rorschach is not orderly or methodical at all. He doesn't really plan. He doesn't carry a weapon. There is no sense of order around him. He is a master improviser as he uses whatever is at hand to brilliant effect.

Second, at the end he is the _only_ hero who does not choose the Greater Good. He chooses justice for the few over safety for the many, even though it costs him his life. This is the quintessential Chaotic choice.

On Good v. Evil. Rorschach is evil. I believe that good and evil are about means and ends. Rorschach chooses evil methods like murder and torture, even to those who pose no threat to him. Remember the story of the crook who wanted to be punished that Rorschach dropped down an elevator shaft. Thus I class him as evil, just like Ozymandias. Both of them chose evil means for a good end.

So Chaotic Evil. I think a lot of the ambivalence towards labelling Rorschach as CE comes not from Rorschach's description, but from our own attitude towards Chaotic Evil. 

In a lot of ways we admire Rorschach. He was clearly the fan favorite at the showing I went to. He is the justice we secretly desire, retribution untainted by mercy, but the justice we are terrified of actually getting.

But Chaotic Evil is the alignment of the monsters, the ugly pyschopaths and murderers. The people we can't admit to admiring. If we as a community want to be "edgy", we drool over villains who have the intelligence and _good taste_ to be Lawful Evil.

Rorschach is Chaotic Evil. He is also the most admirable character in Watchmen.

Other characters:

Nite Owl - Lawful Good
Silk Specter - Neutral Good
Ozymandias - Lawful Evil
Dr. Manhattan - Lawful Neutral
The Comedian - Neutral Evil


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## howandwhy99 (Mar 11, 2009)

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> Frankly, I doubt that even Gygax had a good conception of what alignment was supposed to be doing for him in D&D. He likely just included his adaptation of it because he thought it was cool - just as he was inspired to include a lot of other bits and pieces from an entire cavalcade of fiction. But once included it DID seem to serve a purpose even if not even Gygax could put into writing at the time what that purpose was.



I just have one minor quibble about this.  Gygax didn't define the term in Dungeons & Dragons as Alignment was already a ubiquitous term throughout the wargaming community.  He was writing a small wargame (per the original title) and he didn't need to define it as wargamers already knew what alignment was. 



> And then with every version of D&D alignment has been REwritten to attempt to make it conform to a new authors misunderstanding of its purpose.



I totally grok what you're saying here though.


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 11, 2009)

GSHamster said:


> On Good v. Evil. Rorschach is evil. I believe that good and evil are about means and ends. Rorschach chooses evil methods like murder and torture, even to those who pose no threat to him. Remember the story of the crook who wanted to be punished that Rorschach dropped down an elevator shaft. Thus I class him as evil, just like Ozymandias. Both of them chose evil means for a good end.
> 
> So Chaotic Evil. I think a lot of the ambivalence towards labelling Rorschach as CE comes not from Rorschach's description, but from our own attitude towards Chaotic Evil.
> 
> In a lot of ways we admire Rorschach. He was clearly the fan favorite at the showing I went to. He is the justice we secretly desire, retribution untainted by mercy, but the justice we are terrified of actually getting.




That would also peg the Spectre as evil, as he is justice an retribution untainted by mercy, and is equally random (in a "mysterious ways" meaning). The only difference is that Spectre has divine judgement which is probably a bit more accurate and finding the guilty than Rorschach is. 

Also with the means _and_ ends definition, it would be hard to peg any of the heroes as good as ultimately they don't really _do_ anything. They come out of retirement and save some people (good), lay the beat down on some punks (while not retribution, it's hardly merciful), fail to save a lot of people (not that they really could have). I guess the movie at least gave Nite Owl a "moment" that he didn't have in the graphic novel to show his disapproval.

Now, I can definitely agree with no good people in Watchmen, or at least those that want to do good are either ineffectual at it (and thus have good means to neutral ends) or are willing to go extremely far (and thus have either evil means to good ends, or will result in evil ends by good intention) which is sort of the point of the story. 

Also, considering that this is a D&D allignment system ... Rorschach is not much more evil than some members of "no-evil allowed" adventuring party. He slaughters "monsters", and his torture for information is hardly a long and sadistic process. Not exactly redeeming, but more of an extremely pragmatic do gooder. Which does sync up with Veidt doing what he does, but on a grander scale. In the end, it may be that Rorschach sees that parallel at the end, and it is why he is willing to die since Veidt has shown him the logical end of his methods.


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## Storm Raven (Mar 11, 2009)

Nightson said:


> I don't know where people get the idea that Rorschach is supposed to be a hero.  He's an insane extremist.  I don't think insane people can really be put on the alignment axis.




In a sense, Rorshach is the only one of the Watchmen who could colorably be described as a hero. He's not a mass murderer of random innocent people (like Ozymandias), he's not an inhuman amoral creature (like Dr. Manhattan), he's not a brutal government stooge who apparently killed his own child (like the Comedian), and he's not a limp opportunist who condones mass murder because it is difficult to oppose or expose (like silk stalking or the nite owl). He's the only one who is willing to die rather than participate in the cover up of the murder of millions. Yes, he is objectionable in many ways, but in the end, he is the only one who can even be colorably termed a "hero".


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## Mallus (Mar 11, 2009)

Storm Raven said:


> He's the only one who is willing to die rather than participate in the cover up of the murder of millions.



Thus re-imperiling the lives of _billions_. If he were a hero he'd promise Manhattan that he'd fetch his journal back from the New Frontiersman. 



> Yes, he is objectionable in many ways, but in the end, he is the only one who can even be colorably termed a "hero".



I see you fell into the trap.


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## Umbran (Mar 11, 2009)

Storm Raven said:


> Yes, he is objectionable in many ways, but in the end, he is the only one who can even be colorably termed a "hero".




I don't know what "colorably termed" means.

And, honestly, you can choose who you would, or would not call a hero.  I'd say your ability to decide who I can or cannot call a hero is weak.  What constitutes a hero is subjective, not objective.


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## ThirdWizard (Mar 11, 2009)

Hey, I read a few pages, but I didn't see what I was thinking so I jumped ahead. Pardon me if someone has said it.

Rorschach goes after law breakers. He dislikes many kinds of people, but we only ever have any evidence that he actually pursues those who break the law. Therefore: Lawful. If he were chaotic, those commies and fornicators he hates so much would probably at least get somewhat of a mention as his victims.

As for good and evil, I'm going Neutral for what I think are fairly obvious reasons. You could make a case for Good or Evil, I think, but not a very good case for either (at least not without many inconsistencies). In any case, he walks the line enough to be dubbed Neutral in my eyes.

That's my drive by for the day.


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## WizarDru (Mar 11, 2009)

Umbran said:


> I don't know what "colorably termed" means.
> 
> And, honestly, you can choose who you would, or would not call a hero.  I'd say your ability to decide who I can or cannot call a hero is weak.  What constitutes a hero is subjective, not objective.





No, no...this is an _alignment thread_.  We can only speak of objective absolutes!  Geez.  You've been on the Internet long enough to know that.


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## mlund (Mar 11, 2009)

ThirdWizard said:


> Rorschach goes after law breakers. He dislikes many kinds of people, but we only ever have any evidence that he actually pursues those who break the law. Therefore: Lawful. If he were chaotic, those commies and fornicators he hates so much would probably at least get somewhat of a mention as his victims.




That's not really true. You get a little more insight into what makes him tick when he beats those bullies taunting him about his mother to a bloody pulp. He doesn't go after criminals specifically. He attacks the Malefactor. He doesn't target the people who break the laws of man, but rather people who violate his perception of Natural Law.

While he despises drug-users and prostitutes he doesn't go around beating them up or killing them. They've made their own beds using their own free will in his mind, and he's not there to stop them. Condemn them? Sure. Restrain their liberties? Never.

When I look at Rorschach I see a mash-up of various American Founding Fathers given severe mental / emotional trauma and some vague superpowers thrown into a dystopian, authoritarian world on the brink of nuclear war.

Rorschach sees Governing Authority as a necessary evil he'd rather be rid of. He takes a Thomas Jefferson approach to liberties in a belief that the right to swing one's fist ends at another person's nose. Those who violate that Natural Law forfeit their intrinsic rights as human beings.

He's a Neutral character who *desires* a Chaotic Good world with an incredible intensity. Rorschach is also terribly conflicted in his conception because he's made an avatar / Straw Man for Real World philosophies in a Fantasy World composed of cardboard sets and Straw Man geo-political figures and governments. Watchmen is great and all, but it is ultimately a reflection of emotional and intellectual boogie-men of a past era - kind of like Gulliver's Travels.

- Marty Lund


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## Rykion (Mar 11, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Thus re-imperiling the lives of _billions_. If he were a hero he'd promise Manhattan that he'd fetch his journal back from the New Frontiersman.



Killing _millions_ of people to prevent something that _might_ happen is hardly the act of a hero.  

I doubt publishing the journal would make any difference as people's attitudes would have changed in the face of the tragedy.  If people still wanted to destroy each other after what happend, then they would be back in the same position within a few years even without the contents of the journal.

I think all of the Watchmen are severely flawed, and they all failed in trying to be heroes.  In the end, a world without masked vigilantes and superhumans is better off.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 11, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Thus re-imperiling the lives of _billions_. If he were a hero he'd promise Manhattan that he'd fetch his journal back from the New Frontiersman.




Deontological ethics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is a debate in ethics that has lasted thousands of years.


> *Deontological ethics* or *deontology* (from Greek δέον, _deon_, "obligation, duty"; and -λογία, _-logia_) is an approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of intentions or motives behind action such as respect for rights, duties, or principles, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions.[1]
> It is sometimes described as "duty" or "obligation" based ethics, because deontologists believe that ethical rules "bind you to your duty".[2] The term 'deontological' was first used in this way in 1930, in C. D. Broad's book, _Five Types of Ethical Theory_.[3]
> Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted with consequentialist or teleological ethical theories, according to which the rightness of an action is determined by its consequences.[4] However, there is a difference between deontological ethics and moral absolutism.[5] Deontologists who are also moral absolutists believe that some actions are wrong no matter what consequences follow from them. Immanuel Kant, for example, famously argued that it is always wrong to lie – even if a murderer is asking for the location of a potential victim.[6] Non-absolutist deontologists, such as W.D. Ross, hold that the consequences of an action such as lying may sometimes make lying the right thing to do. Kant's and Ross's theories are discussed in more detail below. Furthermore Jonathan Baron and Mark Spranca use the term Protected Values when referring to values governed by deontological rules.




Also note that deontology has a "lawful' vibe to it as it is based on duty/obligation. This is another reason why some might call Rorschach "lawful."


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## Nightson (Mar 12, 2009)

Rykion said:


> Killing _millions_ of people to prevent something that _might_ happen is hardly the act of a hero.




What if they apocalypse has a 99% chance?  98%  At some point it's acceptable and at some point it's not, given that Ozymandius was the smartest man in the world, who better to evaluate the chances?


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## Silver Moon (Mar 12, 2009)

Wow, six full pages of this!

Why don't we all just consider Alan Moore to be the winner and call it a day.


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## Nightson (Mar 12, 2009)

Storm Raven said:


> He's the only one who is willing to die rather than participate in the cover up of the murder of millions.




Ah, but it "die rather" or "die and"  

After all, he could have lied there in the room, could have said okay and waited till he got back before he said anything.  But he didn't.  Why was Rorshach crying?  Maybe it was for the millions who died, or maybe it was because he found himself torn in two pieces.  Perhaps he found he could neither live with the coverup or expose it, and so he chose death.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 12, 2009)

Nightson said:


> After all, he could have lied there in the room




See my post on deontological ethics...not lying was the whole point.


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## ehren37 (Mar 12, 2009)

Umbran said:


> Incorrect, I think - in that I don't think the purpose has ever been to make these things consistent across all gaming groups.  So long as each DM can peg him as something within the interpretation that he uses, the thing serves its purpose.




If all DM's magically imprinted their beliefs into their players, this would work. Since they dont, alignment is, and has always been, a piss poor system. Well designed rules should be easy to interpret, as they are designed for everyone. I dont have trouble going to one group and calculating my character's attack bonus. I know my first level mage deals d4+1 damage with a magic missile. I dont know if protection from Law grants a bonus to him or not. I frequently cant even get a consensus on a character's alignment within my own group, let alone others.

As there are mechanical consequences for alignment, it should, in a well designed system, be readily apparent what someone's alignment is for all. As its incredibly subjective, its a bad rule. 

For the argument, I'd say Rorschach is Lawful Evil. He's methodical, orderly, and driven to protect society as a whole from the weaknesses of the individual. He's cruel and inhumane in his quest to see his goals.


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## Nightson (Mar 12, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> See my post on deontological ethics...not lying was the whole point.




Yes but the whole fact that he has a secret identity would seem to undermine the idea that he was totally unwilling to lie.  And he lies to the psychologist as well, and I imagine there are other cases.


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## Rykion (Mar 12, 2009)

Nightson said:


> What if they apocalypse has a 99% chance?  98%  At some point it's acceptable and at some point it's not, given that Ozymandius was the smartest man in the world, who better to evaluate the chances?



Someone might be able to predict that the apocalypse is the most likely outcome of events, but no one can be precise to the exact percentage.  There were some points in our own history at which global nuclear war seemed the most likely outcome to many people.  Fortunately, we didn't have an Ozymandius to "save" us.

Ozymandius might be the smartest man in the world, but he was still a victim of his own ego.  There has to be many other ways that Dr. Manhattan could have been tricked or convinced to help stop a possible apocalypse.  The other ways probably weren't spectacular enough to satisfy Ozymandius's superiority complex.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 12, 2009)

A lot of people hate alignment threads because it's pretty much impossible to come to agreement. That's why I LIKE alignment threads. I've learned so much reading this thread about the possible interpretations of D&D alignment and how they correspond to "real" world ethics (viewed through the funhouse mirror of the Watchmen, of course), that it's given me a great deal to ponder.

The point, I suppose, isn't to come up with THE answer, but to seriously consider the question. Thanks all!


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## WizarDru (Mar 12, 2009)

mlund said:


> While he despises drug-users and prostitutes he doesn't go around beating them up or killing them. They've made their own beds using their own free will in his mind, and he's not there to stop them. Condemn them? Sure. Restrain their liberties? Never.




That's a pretty good point.  Moore goes out of his way to show Rorschach essentially stepping around prostitutes and ignoring drunks and drug users in the streets.  The only time we see him harassing one is when he gives Moloch a hard time about the pills...and that's obviously more because it's Moloch, not the pills.



			
				mlund said:
			
		

> He's a Neutral character who *desires* a Chaotic Good world with an incredible intensity. Rorschach is also terribly conflicted in his conception because he's made an avatar / Straw Man for Real World philosophies in a Fantasy World composed of cardboard sets and Straw Man geo-political figures and governments. Watchmen is great and all, but it is ultimately a reflection of emotional and intellectual boogie-men of a past era - kind of like Gulliver's Travels.




I don't know about that.  I find a lot of relevance in the situations and concepts of Watchmen that still resonate strongly today.  I also find it interesting that Watchmen is fundamentally about the US, but the author is British, putting an interesting perspective on the proceedings.

I also wonder about interpretations based on age.  I was 17 when Watchmen came out.  Fear of a Nuclear Holocaust was very real in my teens.  Reflection on the Vietnam War doubly-so.  Bernhard Goetz (dubbed the "Subway Vigilante") and the Guardian Angels were big in the news, referenced by Moore in the introduction to Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns.  I wonder how differently, if at all, someone who didn't live through any of those events or times views the Watchmen and it's themes?


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## Celebrim (Mar 12, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> Deontological ethics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> It is a debate in ethics that has lasted thousands of years.




Indeed.  It is a debate which is at the heart of the Watchman story.



> Also note that deontology has a "lawful' vibe to it as it is based on duty/obligation. This is another reason why some might call Rorschach "lawful."




Yes, it has a 'vibe' but lets base our judgement on reason and not on feelings.  Let's dig a bit below the surface.  I know words like 'duty' and 'code' have a lawful feel to them, but really they are nuetral until we answer such questions as, "Duty to whom?  Or to what?" and "What sort of code?"  There is big difference in believing you have a duty to yourself, or a duty to some higher authority.  Some would argue that duty to yourself is no kind of duty at all.  Others would argue that duty to self is the highest duty of all: "To your own self be true..."  Clearly these people have very different conceptions.

We can say the same thing of deontological ethics.  All ethical codes impose some responcibility upon someone that holds them, or we couldn't say that they do anything at all.  We could say of someone holding certain consequential ethics, that they have a duty to their fellow man.  So by saying that someone has a duty, we haven't said alot at all really.

I think Rorschach clearly holds deontological ethics, but that isn't sufficient to say whether he is lawful or chaotic any more than we could say he was lawful merely because he held consequentialist ethics (he could be an egoist).  What we really need to look at is what his deontological ethics require of him. 

In Rorschach's case, I think it is fairly clear he doesn't derive his ethical code from any higher authority.  He's not trying to be a good Catholic, trying to uphold the Mafia code of honor, or striving to obey the Laws of the Land.  He is doing what he feels is right.

Let me quote from what I think is an excellent paragraph in the Wiki article that deals directly with the topic under discussion:



			
				wikipedia said:
			
		

> The most pressing difficulty for deontologist philosophers is justifying constraints. Robert Nozick famously points out what has become known as the paradox of deontology. If we are truly concerned about rights (such as the right not to be harmed in certain ways expressed by Kamm's Principle of Permissible Harm) then it seems logical we should seek to minimize violations of these rights. However, deontological constraints themselves prohibit such action. For example, consider a case where someone has maliciously sent a trolley hurtling towards five innocent and immobile people at the end of a track. The only way to stop the trolley and save the five is to throw one innocent bystander in front of the trolley. If the five are killed, this would constitute five violations of the PPH. If the one is thrown in the way, this constitutes one violation of the PPH. However, the Principle of Permissible Harm clearly rules out throwing one in front of the trolley. Hence the paradox. _In order to respect the rights of the five, deontologists tell us we must respect the rights of the one._



_ - emphasis mine

Isn't this precisely the moral conflict that develops at the end of Watchman?

Doesn't Rorschach answer, "In order to respect that rights of the billions, we must respect the rights of the millions."  In other words, in order to respect the rights of the many, we must respect the rights of the few or the one.  In order to respect the lives of the many, we must respect the rights of the fwe or the one.  But quite clearly, if we are respecting the needs of the individual over the needs of the group, we are holding to chaotic philosophy as it was defined way back in the 1st edition Player's Handbook.  Chaotics believe that individualism and freedom, trump the weal or percieved weal of the community.  Were as the lawful believer believes that the individual must be sacrificed along the way for the greater good, the chaotic believes that the greater good is made up of alot of smaller goods or its not good at all._


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## Celebrim (Mar 12, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> I also wonder about interpretations based on age.  I was 17 when Watchmen came out.  Fear of a Nuclear Holocaust was very real in my teens.  Reflection on the Vietnam War doubly-so.  Bernhard Goetz (dubbed the "Subway Vigilante") and the Guardian Angels were big in the news, referenced by Moore in the introduction to Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns.  I wonder how differently, if at all, someone who didn't live through any of those events or times views the Watchmen and it's themes?




I was 13.  I may be odd, or else I'm too young, but I never was terrified of nuclear war.  I never consider it a very likely possibility.  I figured the odds I was killed by a nuclear weapon to be somewhat less than the odds of being killed by a lightning bolt or a catastrophic asteroid strike (the later based on the geological evidence being a good deal higher than most people suppose).  

Rather, even at 13, by understanding of the 'Cold War' was that it was primarily a memetic war - that the two sides were firing dangerous ideas at each other in the form of philosophy and propaganda.  And, that these ideas killed people.  Both sides sought to undermine the culture of the other side, to subvert and weaken their social structures, and ultimately to convert the other side over to its favored ideology once they other side had been sufficiently morally, culturally, and ideologically weakened.  So what I was desparately afraid of may seem a little bit strange, but I was terrified by the memetic war and felt it likely based on what I was seeing that we might either lose or else even if we one we'd find ourselves mortally wounded in a nightmare world of memetic plagues and unexploded memetic weapons.

So my response to Watchman was to consider it just another indirect memetic attack by someone who was unconsciously running memetic programming he'd picked up in the course of the war.  As artistic and well done as it might have been, I saw it is fundamentally disconnected from reality - not because it was a fantasy - but because Miller didn't seem to realize that it was.  Miller seemed to really believe that he was writing in a time when we were edging closer to nuclear war, when the actions of his own government and that of the American government could be characterized as the actions of insane tyrants bent on global holocaust.

Crazy as it was, I was much more terrified of a civil war in the U.S.A, or a Soviet invasion, or some combination thereof, as the U.S.A. fractured into peices that hated, detested, and feared each other.

So in any event, I don't know that it has alot to do with your age, how you respond to Watchman.  As to how someone who didn't even live through the 80's, much less the 50's (Duck and Cover!) or the 60's (Hell no, we won't go!!) responds to Watchman I have no idea, but I admit to being very curious.


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## WizarDru (Mar 12, 2009)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> As artistic and well done as it might have been, I saw it is fundamentally disconnected from reality - not because it was a fantasy - but because Miller didn't seem to realize that it was.  Miller seemed to really believe that he was writing in a time when we were edging closer to nuclear war, when the actions of his own government and that of the American government could be characterized as the actions of insane tyrants bent on global holocaust.




I'm assuming you mean Moore, not Miller there.

I'd put forth that you were not in the majority, there.  Let's look at some of the media you could come across around the time the Watchmen came out:

The Day After  (US TV miniseries)
Threads (BBC TV miniseries)
Russians (song by Sting)
99 Luft Balloons (song by Nena in both German and English)
When the Wind Blows (animated BBC movie)
Cherynobyl Nuclear Disaster
The Manhattan Project (US Movie)
War Games (US Movie)
Red Dawn (US Movie)
Def-Con 4 (US Movie)
Testament (US Movie)
Love Missile F1-11 (Song by Sigue Sigue sputnik)
London Calling (Song by the Clash)
New Frontier (song by Donald Fagen)
Lovers in a Dangerous Time (song by Bruce Cockburn)
It's a Mistake (song by Men at Work)
Hammer to Fall (song by Queen)
Def Con One (song by Pop Will Eat Itself*)

_* - You might remember them for their song "Can U dig it?" in which they say that "Alan Moore knows the Score!")_

That's just a quick list off the top of my head.  Fear of Nuclear War and World War III was nearly ubiquitous in during the Reagan/Thatcher era.  I can understand if you didn't much fear it, but I'd argue that you were very much in the minority, there.


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## Nightson (Mar 12, 2009)

We were edging closer to nuclear war when Watchmen was written and we'd been right up to the edge before.  I mean looking at the Cuban Missile Crisis it's pretty amazing that nuclear apocalypse didn't happen.


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## mlund (Mar 12, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> So in any event, I don't know that it has alot to do with your age, how you respond to Watchman.  As to how someone who didn't even live through the 80's, much less the 50's (Duck and Cover!) or the 60's (Hell no, we won't go!!) responds to Watchman I have no idea, but I admit to being very curious.




I was born in 1980. 

I learned about the events of the 60s and 70s after the fact, rather than lived through them. That stripped away a lot of the emotional investment that colors those eras for many people. I never really got exposed to the cult of personality surrounding Nixon or Kennedy nor did I grow up facing the full brunt of the cold war propaganda. Like children from every generation I looked at what the previous generation believed and found fault.

Looking back on it the idea of a successful preemptive strike seemed laughable and the idea of the government actually trying to pull it off seemed divorced from reality.

Meanwhile the constant revisiting of Vietnam through extremely slanted fiction looked like little more than a tired appeal for the dollars of people who'd once said "Never trust anyone over 30" and were now themselves well over 30.

That's why, to me, the Watchmen feels like it is set in a city made of cardboard cut-outs and populated by straw men. I can feel the author's fears and apprehensions spawned from ignorance and emotional investment and see how the Straw Men he writes are really just the hobgoblins that haunt his own head. I'm not saying his feelings weren't real, or even pervasive. I'm just saying that no matter how strongly he felt that way the world he portrayed was more divorced from reality than he probably realized.

Of course, he wasn't lacking company either. The world many broadcasters, TV executives, movie producers, professors, and journalists portrayed was pretty far divorced from reality as well. There was propaganda everywhere trying to sway people politically and not a whole lot of information resources available to the general public.

- Marty Lund


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## Celebrim (Mar 12, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> I can understand if you didn't much fear it, but I'd argue that you were very much in the minority, there.




I probably was, if only because I hear so many people talking about it.  Maybe I was too clueless, but whenever people talk about their fear of nuclear war during the '80's, it always baffles me a little.  I can kinda understand why you might get all panicky if you lived back in the 50's when we thought (erroneously we now know) that we were close to nuclear war a couple of times like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and when little kids were forced to do nuclear weapon drills alongside fire and tornado drills, but in the 80's we didn't have any of that.

I also should say that I paid very little attention to any of the media you listed, which might have something to do with my emotional inattention to the matter.  In any event, with the possible exception of The Clash, I wouldn't have listened to any of that nor have I see any of the movies you listed except for 'War Games' (which I considered to be more interesting for having games and a computer in it than anything it wanted to say about nuclear war).

To be honest, I considere excessive exposure to any of that fiction, from the right wing ones like 'Red Dawn' to left wing ones like 'The Day After' to be the equivalent of walking around the infectious diseases ward at a hospital rubbing your hands on every thing and sticking them in your mouth.  Even back as a kid, I hated politicized art (as if politics was beauty and meaning).  

Anyway, Rorschach's alignment is clearly Chuck Norris.  Only if Rorschach had been Chuck Norris, he would have round kicked Dr. Manhattan and said, "Get off the planet, you blue skinned mass-murder condoning alien freak.  And get some clothes!"


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## GMforPowergamers (Mar 12, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Anyway, Rorschach's alignment is clearly Chuck Norris.  Only if Rorschach had been Chuck Norris, he would have round kicked Dr. Manhattan and said, "Get off the planet, you blue skinned mass-murder condoning alien freak.  And get some clothes!"




And if Rorschach was Batman he would narrow his eys, look at manhatten and say "Don't make me stop you"...then manhatten would have backed down, and Ozymandius would weep like a little girl...


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## Krensky (Mar 12, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Rather, even at 13, by understanding of the 'Cold War' was that it was primarily a memetic war - that the two sides were firing dangerous ideas at each other in the form of philosophy and propaganda.  And, that these ideas killed people.  Both sides sought to undermine the culture of the other side, to subvert and weaken their social structures, and ultimately to convert the other side over to its favored ideology once they other side had been sufficiently morally, culturally, and ideologically weakened.  So what I was desparately afraid of may seem a little bit strange, but I was terrified by the memetic war and felt it likely based on what I was seeing that we might either lose or else even if we one we'd find ourselves mortally wounded in a nightmare world of memetic plagues and unexploded memetic weapons.
> 
> So my response to Watchman was to consider it just another indirect memetic attack by someone who was unconsciously running memetic programming he'd picked up in the course of the war.  As artistic and well done as it might have been, I saw it is fundamentally disconnected from reality - not because it was a fantasy - but because Miller didn't seem to realize that it was.  Miller seemed to really believe that he was writing in a time when we were edging closer to nuclear war, when the actions of his own government and that of the American government could be characterized as the actions of insane tyrants bent on global holocaust




The Cold War wasn't cold for millions of people, but most people forget that because it happened in the third world. It also wasn't a cultural war, it was a fear of the other side. The US leaders were terrified that the godless communists would be willing to go to war to spread the revolution, potentially even using weapons of mass destruction to do so. A little silly, I admit, but not entirely implusible in the context of the time, espesically considering that Stalin wasn't the most tightly wrapped man in history and the central ideologies of the USSR called for violent global revolution. The USSR, ideologically, was convinced that the powers that be in the west would do anything, upto and including the use of WMDs to stop their revolution and restore class opression. There was also a whole crap load of colonialist and nationalist baggage at play on both sides too. Both sides were silly, and I've come darn close to criminally simplifing the issues and ideology at play, but it wasn't inherently different then a man walking into his home and finding a deer that's crashed through his patio window. The man's terrified, the deer's terrified, the chances of something misreading the other's actions or intentions are striking out solely because of that fear are pretty darn high.

Oh, and memes. Really? Memetics is a pseudoscience that Richard Dawkins invented to explain to himself how people he felt were otherwise sane and rational could believe things he found stupid and repugnant (primarily that they were religous or tolerant of religous people). It also lets him dismiss those who don't agree with him as being sick.

It is also worth noting that there were two incdents that were very likely to have lead to a nuclear exchange. The first was during the Cuban Missle Crisis when a Soviet submarine was cornered and depth charges were being dropped and the Captain and Politcal Officer were prepared to use a nuclear torpedo on the US carrier group involved and were stopped by the Second Captain. The other was in 1983 where a combination of events (including Korean Airlines Flight 007 being shot down by the USSR) and policies (launch on warning) actually meant that nuclear war was avereted by a Russian Lt Colnel deciding to ignore five launch warnings as computer errors rather then report them. Look up Able Archer 83 and Stanislav Petrov. The fact that the USSR had a fail-deadly strategy for most of the Cold War wasn't a good sign either. There were three other incidents where we were on the verghe of nuclear exchange. in 1979 someone in the US ran a training tape for the early warning system and didn't tell anyone. Lauunch warnings were sent to SAC and ICBM sites and Ballistic missle subs. War was averted because the book called for the officers to check the raw data. In 1980 a computer glitch caused a launch alert, this one was not as close because the nature of the glitch made the number of detected launches change frequently and at random, but warning were sent out and  threat assessment was still run. Again, the policy of looking at the raw data stopped things from going further. Lastly, in 1995, a sounding rocket launched from Norway unwittingly followed thge expected flight path of a radar-blinding airburst Trident missle would. Boris Yeltsin actually opened and turned his football on. This means the world was one button away from a nuclear exchange.


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 12, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Indeed.  It is a debate which is at the heart of the Watchman story.




There seem to be two points to your post. The first is that deontology/consequentialism does not equate with your (Celebrim's) definition of law and chaos. I agree. Deontology/Consequentialism is a different dimension from the one that you use.

The one that you use is rather close to the communitarian vs. individualism divide.

The second point is that deontology/consequentialism is totally independent from communtarianism/individualism. In other words you are arguing that these two dimensions have no covariance, that knowing where one falls on one axis tells you nothing about where one likely falls on the second.

I find that point rather interesting and I believe philosophers can, if they haven't already, write volumes as to whether this is the case.

(Omitted philosophical musings that, on second thought, seem entirely inadequate.)


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## mlund (Mar 13, 2009)

The thing I've noticed with human applications of Deontology are that they don't actually disregard consequences. Rather, Deontology requires humans to believe that *in the long term* the outcome of adhering to an objective set of moral guidelines is a the best outcome.

Meanwhile humans embracing Consequentialism run afoul of uncertainty, limited knowledge, and variables all the time. Presumptions can lead to some beneficial outcomes in the short-term, but the long term is impossible to extrapolate adequately. 

Case in point, Ozymandius's plan presumes a whole lot. It presumes that people *would* actually engage in a nuclear exchange without Dr. Manhattan. It also presumes that the outcome of the plan would result in a lasting, meaningful peace. These presumptions are monumental, hence the need for unsympathetic cardboard charicatures to be portrayed with their fingers on the button. There is also a great need for no character to voice any reasonable alternative to his plan and for Ozymandius to be taken seriously as the most intelligent man on the planet. He's essentially taking on the mantel of Hari Seldon out of Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy.

But then there is the matter of Rorschach's journal, which highlights the potentially fatal flaw in such planning. In a very real way Rorshach is the Mule to Ozymandius's Seldon. His journal is only symbolic of the millions of variables that could make Ozymandius's plan fail to achieve its consequences.

One thing to keep in mind with Rorschach is that he's not really fixated on how well people adhere to rules. We don't get a clear picture of what kind of rules he'd have everyone adhere to. Instead, Rorschach seems most concerned with the lack of Virtue in the world at large. His despair at this matter is what causes him to identify with the Comedian to a great extent. They see a hopeless world due to the lack of virtue in the populace. The Comedian, seeing the whole thing as a meaningless joke, gives allegiance to a form of Deontology relative to the government in exchange for what he wants. Rorschach, on the other hand, seems to embrace virtues he condemns others (and himself) for failing to measure up to while never getting what he wants.

- Marty Lund


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 13, 2009)

mlund said:


> The thing I've noticed with human applications of Deontology are that they don't actually disregard consequences. Rather, Deontology requires humans to believe that *in the long term* the outcome of adhering to an objective set of moral guidelines is a the best outcome




What you are describing is actually known as "rule-utilitarianism," or "rule-consequentialism," (depending on the flavor) which is a subset of consequentialist thought.

Deontology can be divided up into "duty-based" and "right-based" deontological frameworks.


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## mlund (Mar 13, 2009)

ppaladin123 said:


> What you are describing is actually known as "rule-utilitarianism," or "rule-consequentialism," (depending on the flavor) which is a subset of consequentialist thought.
> 
> Deontology can be divided up into "duty-based" and "right-based" deontological frameworks.




Actually, I think what I'm trying to point out is that I find the dichotomy between Deontology and Consequentialism to ring false. 

Humans are creatures that assign values to everything around then and then act based on their understanding of those values. Even Kant, the much-maligned Deontologist, was ultimately steeped in the belief that right action aligned itself with an objective or natural Good, which was itself the greatest possible positive outcome from his view.

People can have broadly contrasting conceptions of what is and is not a positive outcome, after all. It makes me think of two objects moving in different straight lines across the surface of a sphere at the same speed. Though their paths are different the inevitable converge on the opposite side of the sphere.

- Marty Lund


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## ppaladin123 (Mar 13, 2009)

mlund said:


> Actually, I think what I'm trying to point out is that I find the dichotomy between Deontology and Consequentialism to ring false.
> 
> Humans are creatures that assign values to everything around then and then act based on their understanding of those values. Even Kant, the much-maligned Deontologist, was ultimately steeped in the belief that right action aligned itself with an objective or natural Good, which was itself the greatest possible positive outcome from his view.
> 
> ...




There are certainly philosophers who agree with you and are attempting to a find a way to reconcile the two schools of thought. There are others who believe that this is impossible. The two frameworks are rather difficult to fit together.

Here is a rather long explanation of the differences and attempts to bridge the gap. The author is not optimistic:

Deontological Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)


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## Celebrim (Mar 13, 2009)

Krensky said:


> The Cold War wasn't cold for millions of people, but most people forget that because it happened in the third world.




Yes, but I was living in the third world in much of the period in question, and actually witnessed a communist revolution first hand.  "Classes will be shortened today due to the revolution, try not to get machetted or shot going home.", sort of thing.  So, slightly different perspective for me.

As for the rest, despite the fact that I agree with you on some points (like the character of Mr. Dawkins) and the fact that I have much the same data as you, I still largely reject your analysis.  However, I won't be able to get into that argument.  I might get away with skirting the rules on politics if I get back on topic quickly enough, but if I start an actual argument over politics its going to attract attention.


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## darkseraphim (Mar 13, 2009)

We came even closer to nuclear holocaust in 1983 than we did during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I don't think anyone who lived through the "evil empire" speech, the shooting down of Korean Air 007 and the recognition that the USSR felt a first strike was imminent would call the Cold War merely a battle of ideas.

Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Krensky (Mar 13, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Yes, but I was living in the third world in much of the period in question, and actually witnessed a communist revolution first hand.  "Classes will be shortened today due to the revolution, try not to get machetted or shot going home.", sort of thing.  So, slightly different perspective for me.
> 
> As for the rest, despite the fact that I agree with you on some points (like the character of Mr. Dawkins) and the fact that I have much the same data as you, I still largely reject your analysis.  However, I won't be able to get into that argument.  I might get away with skirting the rules on politics if I get back on topic quickly enough, but if I start an actual argument over politics its going to attract attention.




It's not really a political debate. The question isn't about whether any side was right or wrong, but how the leaders and general populace thought. The fact that you, if I understand correctly, weren't living in the US in the 1980s means you might not have the best handle on the time, culturally. Terror wasn't the word, profound unease is perhaps more accurate. Watchmen was written after both KAL 007, Abel Archer 83, the leak of Reagan's "We begin bombing in five minutes" joke, the whole SDI thing, Afghanistan, combined with Andropov and Chernenko being just as hard line as Reagan and Thatcher didn't help.

Watchmen was written against this backdrop, the sense of unease and regular news about Afganistan, and the apparent runaway crime and poverty and decay in US cities, and social unrest. Watchmen is a product of it's time that reflects parts of that time. To understand and analysie it, you need to understand it's time and context. You also need to recognise that the book is an alternate history, one where diplomatic relations between the US and USSR had not changed since the 1960s, and where the balance of power had overwhelmingly been in the US's favor since that same time as well.


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## Klaus (Mar 13, 2009)

If anyone is interested in talking about politics of the Cold War, I suggest heading over to Circvs Maximvs and starting a thread in The Senate there.


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## WizarDru (Mar 13, 2009)

mlund said:


> Looking back on it the idea of a successful preemptive strike seemed laughable and the idea of the government actually trying to pull it off seemed divorced from reality.




Only if you weren't from OUR reality.  A preemptive first-strike was considered a best-option-amongst-bad-options kind of issue.  MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, was the policy of the day.  The idea was that pulling the trigger kills us both...and knowing that prevents anyone from pulling the trigger.  Which led to the cold war, where the two super-powers would fight by proxy in places like Afghanistan and Nicaragua.  A pre-emptive strike presupposed that maybe...MAYBE...you could do enough damage to your enemy before they had a chance to damage you and thereby limit their capacity.  For varying values of 'success' in this case, which would be, losing tens of millions instead of hundreds of millions.  MAYBE.




mlund said:


> I'm just saying that no matter how strongly he felt that way the world he portrayed was more divorced from reality than he probably realized.




As others have already pointed out, the world he portrayed was much closer to the mark than you know.  Links are provided above, but seriously...we have come close to nuclear conflict several times, particularly in the heated atmosphere of 1983, when we came damned close.  Moore may have turned up the rhetoric a might, but the danger and threat in the real world were very real.  



mlund said:


> There was propaganda everywhere trying to sway people politically and not a whole lot of information resources available to the general public.




We DID have ways of passing information around before the Internet that didn't involve depending on what we saw on Television, you know.    Sometimes the information channels were slower or clumsier or uglier to look at, but there were plenty outlets and venues for that information to be circulated.  Trust the folks who actually lived through it...we weren't blind puppets to some propaganda machine.  Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were just as heavily criticized as any other US or UK leaders (which is to say, _heavily_).  

Of the many criticisms that one could levy against the Watchmen, the fear of a full-scale nuclear war being apocryphal is not one of them.


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## Krensky (Mar 13, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> Only if you weren't from OUR reality.  A preemptive first-strike was considered a best-option-amongst-bad-options kind of issue.  MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, was the policy of the day.  The idea was that pulling the trigger kills us both...and knowing that prevents anyone from pulling the trigger.  Which led to the cold war, where the two super-powers would fight by proxy in places like Afghanistan and Nicaragua.  A pre-emptive strike presupposed that maybe...MAYBE...you could do enough damage to your enemy before they had a chance to damage you and thereby limit their capacity.  For varying values of 'success' in this case, which would be, losing tens of millions instead of hundreds of millions.  MAYBE.




And, to be explicit, understanding this and the role of game-theory in the Cold War generally, and in nuclear deterrence specifically, is important to understanding Watchmen. So much that one of the post comic 'essays' is about it. Dr. Manhattan destroyed this idea. He destroyed the concept of MAD. He could devastate the majority of the USSR and stop at least 60% of the Soviet strike, whether first or retaliatory, simultaneously (from our mortal perspective, everything was apparently simultaneous to some degree from his).

Also, to be clear and fend off responses that will pull this into an actual political discussion, I am not and do not wish to discuss the politics of the Cold War, other then as elements of history needed to provide context for discussing the work in question, and only in the most emotionless, academic way.


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## WizarDru (Mar 13, 2009)

Krensky said:


> Also, to be clear and fend off responses that will pull this into an actual political discussion, I am not and do not wish to discuss the politics of the Cold War, other then as elements of history needed to provide context for discussing the work in question, and only in the most emotionless, academic way.




Seconded.  I'm not arguing the merits of the policies or the legitimacy of them.  I'm only highlighting them to point out the greater context of the Watchmen as a literary work of it's time.  My point was merely that for the intended audience, this was a very topical current event subject that loomed large in the average Watchmen reader and that it was a legitimate concern, not some boondoggle of Moore's paranoia.


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## Celebrim (Mar 13, 2009)

Krensky said:


> It's not really a political debate.




I'm afraid it is.  I can't construct a counter-narrative to what you describe without broaching alot of topics which will be political.

It's not that I have different data than you have.  It's not like I've never seen or didn't experience any of these things that you are linking to.  It's that my experience of them, and my interpretation of them both at the time and in hindsight (especially in hindsight) is very different than how you interpret them.

I'm aware that Watchman is a novel of its time.  I'm aware that it was percieved as being highly relevant by probably the majority of people.  I also believe that especially hindsight, that you ought to be able to look back and see that it wasn't nearly as relevant as people thought it was.  In particular, I believe Moore was wrong about virtually everything, and that he'd totally misread the time that he was in.  He got it all wrong.

It's one thing to say that we came closer to nuclear crisis in 1983 than we did in the Cuban Missile crisis, because now that we have access to the decision making process of both sides, their diaries, and records and we can see that we didn't come very close to nuclear war in the Cuban Missile crisis at all.  The Soviets didn't even put their forces on alert.  For all their brinkmanship, the Soviets were terrified of the possibility of nuclear war, even to the point of rescinding standing orders that commanders in Cuba had the descrestion to use tactical nuclear weapons if attacked.  There are a few stories circulating about how close we got with this or that submarine, but if you investigate them you find that the are stories that grow larger in the telling and have grown larger because sensationalizing them is more interesting (and maybe more useful) than the naked facts. 

I interpretted the presence of Reagan in the U.S.A. (and Thatcher) as a very positive sign for peace, that it would force the Soviets to come to the table seeking peace where they'd felt no previous compunction, and that it would mean an American administration that actually had the political clout and trust of the American people to make peace.  And that's why I wasn't terrified during the '80's, and that's what actually happened.  And you know, I was pretty far from the only person in the 80's that held similar opinions.


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## WizarDru (Mar 13, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> In particular, I believe Moore was wrong about virtually everything, and that he'd totally misread the time that he was in.  He got it all wrong.




I'm not sure what you mean by this?  Do you think that Moore was actually predicting World War III by proxy in a story with a blue man who walks on Mars and genetically engineered tigers?  As far most people I knew were concerned, Moore was deconstructing the superhero and addressing things like Manichean thought.   I'm not arguing whether or not there were people who were not concerned about the fear of a nuclear conflict...what I'm arguing is that it very much was on many people's minds and all over the pop culture of the time (which you yourself admit to not being very in touch with).  Or at least the pop culture of the US, since you were in a third-world country at the time...which wasn't the market in which the Watchmen was released nor was intended to be read in.

Take Sting's "[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rk78eCIx4E"]Russians[/ame]".  It's a very clear anti-war song that makes its case that our fate depends on '_if the Russians love their children, too_', which is intimates that they do and that's what keeps us from a nuclear war.  Released around the same time is the "Two Minutes to Midnight" from Iron Maiden, a single that actually reference the Doomsday Clock directly, the same clock that is used in the Watchmen.  Because it was topical.  Rush's "Manhattan Project" song about the creation of the atom bomb and nuclear fear also came out at this time.  OMD's "Enola Gay" was another one.  A central conceit of the movie 'Project X' with Matthew Broderick was radiation testing on chimps to better guage how long US pilots would survive during a 'second-strike' nuclear war scenario.  The first Terminator movie features an apocalyptic future in which Skynet triggers a nuclear war.  And so on.

The point is not whether or not some people were not concerned.  Nor is the point I'm making that Moore, Reagan or anyone else was right or wrong (which is a subject of significant debate).  The point is that it was very much in people's imaginations and concerns and I would argue that it was a concern to more Americans than not.  It's pretty obvious that movies, television, music and art throughout the 80s was inundated with references to nuclear war.  

It sounds like some folks are claiming that Moore was some wingnut who solely imagined fear of a nuclear war in his work that was out-of-step with reality and the times, which is demonstrably wrong.  If you're arguing that his work is postulating things about the US and USSR that are wrong, that's fine.  I'm not discussing the political ramifications of the politics of the era.  I'm simply suggesting that nuclear fear and/or knowledge of the nuclear brinkmanship and it's wider effects was a constant background noise in the 80s, especially the first half of the decade.


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## Krensky (Mar 13, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I'm afraid it is.  I can't construct a counter-narrative to what you describe without broaching alot of topics which will be political.




That's perfectly fine, because no counter-narrative is needed. This is literary analysis, not historical examination. What needs to be examined is what the author and audience knew and believed about events and their world, not a hypothetical observer from the future would think of their beliefs. This is important in all (well, there are a few exceptions, but no one's doing or veering into that area of literary analysis in this thread) literary analysis, but especially so in speculative fiction. Criticizing the nuclear threat aspect of Watchmen as silly and saying it renders the work bad is analogous to complaining that War of the Worlds is a bad novel because there aren't any Martians on Mars, or that Asimov's work is bad because the vague hardware descriptions he give for the Positronic Brain don't make any sense. In both of these cases, the 'silly' thing from out future perspective is not the central point of the story, it's a conceit for dealing with other issues.

Both Alan Moore and his audience believed there was a serious threat of nuclear war, not an imminent one, just a serious one. This made the threat of nuclear war a plausible component of the antagonist's plot for both Moore and his audience. Doctor Manahattan's existence, along with his (and to a lesser degree, Blake's) actions and effects on the alternate world's history. Note the parts regarding his effect on the Vietnam war, and Blake's 'resolution' of the Iran hostage crisis.

The primary focus of Watchmen is not nuclear war, or even close to it. It's a convienent and plausible threat for the antagonist to act against. The focus of the novel is in examining the nature of masked adventurers and how they relate to each other and the rest of the world and looking at comic book morality, with special intrest in the emerging morality of the Iron (or Modern) Age of comics, which was essentially continuing the trend from the Bronze Age and contrasting them with the Gold and Silver ages.


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## Krensky (Mar 13, 2009)

Double post


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## pawsplay (Mar 14, 2009)

Storm Raven said:


> In a sense, Rorshach is the only one of the Watchmen who could colorably be described as a hero. He's not a mass murderer of random innocent people (like Ozymandias), he's not an inhuman amoral creature (like Dr. Manhattan), he's not a brutal government stooge who apparently killed his own child (like the Comedian), and he's not a limp opportunist who condones mass murder because it is difficult to oppose or expose (like silk stalking or the nite owl). He's the only one who is willing to die rather than participate in the cover up of the murder of millions. Yes, he is objectionable in many ways, but in the end, he is the only one who can even be colorably termed a "hero".




I agree. I have no problem saying Rorschach is rather heroic without condoning his chosen path. It's the same thing with Mad Max, or some version of Victor von Doom, or Conan. 

Or as Walter would say, "Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos."


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## HardcoreDandDGirl (Mar 14, 2009)

Something about this thread tickles me. I mean assigning alignment to any character has always been hard, but watchmen even more so.

I mean are any of them ‘good’ they all have there dark streaks. Heck the movie added Night Owl reacting the way he did, in the book he pretty much just went with it.

We have a god not sure what his place is, an egotistical madman blowing up part of the world to save it, two ex vigilantes that seam to go along with said egomaniac, and a sociopath that might, just might be the hero of the story.

I would put all of them as unaligned...


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