Chaotic Good: Difference between revisions

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[[File:errol-flynn-robin-hood 3693.jpg|link=The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)|frame|[[Just Like Robin Hood|He robs the rich to feed the poor.]]]]

{{quote|''"An unjust law is no law at all."''|'''St. Augustine of Hippo.''' }}

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If you have a difficulty deciding which alignment a good-aligned character belongs to, ~~the~~ main difference between [[Lawful Good]], [[Neutral Good]] and '''Chaotic Good''' is not their devotion to good, but the methods they believe are best to promote it:

If you have a difficulty deciding which alignment a good-aligned character belongs to, they're probably too nuanced to even have an alignment. The main difference between [[Lawful Good]], [[Neutral Good]] and '''Chaotic Good''' is not their devotion to good, but the methods they believe are best to promote it:

* Even though there are some situations where they can't always use this method, [[Lawful Good]] characters believe the best way is to have a specific, strict code of conduct, whether self-imposed or codified as a law. Their first impulse when making a moral decision is to refer back to this code; those with externally imposed systems (codes of laws, hierarchies, etc.) will try to work within the system when those systems go wrong. Depending on whether they are more Lawful or more Good, they will either refuse to break the code even though it would hurt someone, or else break it only very reluctantly, and only when it would hurt someone if they kept their code. [[Lawful Good]] characters have to be very good at [[Taking a Third Option]].

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''''''Chaotic Good''' does not mean [[Good Is Not Nice|Jerkass Good]]. While there are several '''Chaotic Good''' [[Anti-Hero|AntiHeroes]], one does not have to be one to be '''Chaotic Good''', and both [[Lawful Good|Lawful]] and [[Neutral Good]] have [[Anti-Hero]] examples as well.'''

{{noreallife|this is a trope about how characters are depicted in media. Real people cannot be pigeonholed this way.}}

{{noreallife|this is a trope about how characters are depicted in media. Real people are far more complex than fictional characters, and cannot be pigeonholed this way. (For that matter, many if not most fictional characters cannot be pigeonholed this way, either; see below for the standards on whether to use this trope at all.}}

'''When dealing with the examples of specific characters, remember that assigning an alignment to a character who doesn't come with one is ~~pretty~~ [[~~Subjective~~ ~~Tropes~~|subjective]]. If you~~'ve~~ ~~got~~ a problem with a character being listed here, it probably belongs on the discussion page. There will be [[No Real Life ~~Examples, Please|no real life~~ examples]] under any circumstances; it just invites an [[Edit War]].'''

'''When dealing with the examples of specific characters, remember that assigning an alignment to a character who doesn't come with one is [[Your Mileage May Vary|subjective]] (and, at All The Tropes, discouraged). If you have a problem with a character being listed here, it probably belongs on the discussion page. There will be no [[Real Life]] examples under any circumstances; it just invites an [[Edit War]].'''

'''on works pages: Character Alignment is only to be used in works where it is canonical, and only for characters who have alignments in-story. There is to be no arguing over canonical alignments, and no Real Life examples, ever.'''

'''On works pages: Character Alignment is only to be used in works where it is canonical, ''and only for characters who have alignments in-story''. There is to be no arguing over canonical alignments, and no Real Life examples, ever.'''

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