May
29th
2014
A very silly post about To Dance In Shadow · 12:53pm May 29th, 2014
Lately, I have been giving personality profiles out of my characters, like from The Chase and Princess Luna's Suicide Solutions.
While I do have personality profiles for To Dance In Shadow, I am going to skip those.
Instead, I will give out their alignments.
Rookwood: Chaotic neutral.
Hades: Chaotic neutral.
Luna: Chaotic good.
Celestia: Neutral good.
The Accuser: Lawful neutral.
The Defender: Lawful Good. (Yeah, really, I wrote him, don't argue)
Nightmare Moon: Chaotic evil.
Violet: Neutral.
Lodestar: (When she comes along) Chaotic neutral.
Huh. I would've pegged Rookwood as CG.
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Papercuts.
Feeding the dead to psychopomps.
Torturing the damned and taking pleasure in it.
Not the actions of somepony with goodness in their hearts.
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Even good has the concept of punishment. Admittedly, the punishment he's leavening out is hardcore, but the drastic stuff is saved for those who willingly drank the Evil Kool Aid. Under many circumstances he's been as merciful as his job allows from what I've seen.
From where I'm standing, he seems to be trying to be as good a pony as he can be given the circumstances. Many of which are beyond his control. It'd be an act of extraordinary hubris for him to assume full responsibility for everything. He is, after all, just an agent for the powers that be. Powers that have taken it upon themselves to determine the definition of good and evil, and the proper punishments and rewards.
Anyhoo..
"A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer)."
Rookwood very much has the good of others in mind, as I recall. He can also be a bastard, but so far we've seen his full on bastard side when it comes to punishing the truly wicked.
Though trying to define a character in a world with Graecian morality through the lens of D&D is bound to give weird results. Hell, I could make an argument that he's now Lawful Good.
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That would be fascinating. The part about being Lawful Good.
Ultimately, what motives Rookwood is his own selfishness. He wants Luna, and will do anything to remain with her. Even something as mad as embrace immortality and take on a terrible task.
He does good when he can, and is even merciful, but he has no qualms about doing something awful if it needs to happen.
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Then what of the mercy he's shown to the slain soldiers, the comfort he reputedly gives to dead children, the way he took on the pain of the ravaged children? He could've gotten out of that last one and still looked fine. He took a psychic mauling to save others and protect Luna. That goes above just 'wanting Luna'. And there was that bit about him grabbing the Nightmare and trying to drag her down to Hell with him just to save the mare he loves.
What moral system are we using to measure him, by the way? Within the moral framework provided by the Graecian set up, he very well could qualify as Lawful Good. He enforces and upholds the rules as filtered through the lens of his morality, and he's been fairly internally consistent regarding his values.
He's shown mercy when it's deserved and, iirc, very politely disagreed with his bosses at times. He also intends to take up the mantle of the Nightmare, which involves scaring ponies into obeying the moral code established by Hades. So I could argue that he qualifies as LG for being an agent of the law, obedient to that law, internally consistent and demonstrating good aligned characteristics within the context of his capabilities and liberty.
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That is actually a very fascinating point of view, and one I will have to think about.
What you said is actually causing me to reconsider some of my character development. Well, some of it. I never looked at it that way to be honest.
I have always written Rookwood as a character with deeply ingrained pragmatism, a strong measure of selfishness, and an insane sense of near co-dependant devotion.
You're view has shown me that some of these values are interchangeable. Thanks!
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You're welcome.
Also, Shadow Ponies!