hyzmarca wrote:NixingAlignmntCrap>Lur wrote:
Note that alignment nomenclature utterly obscures these obvious ideas.
A: The defendant murdered six children!
B: And then he atoned — look, his aura is lawful good!
A: Fuck his feelings, he still did it — and two years ago, he murdered three children!
B: He atoned after that one, too. Do keep up.
The atonement spell also gives the game away. If you’ve murdered a child and your alignment says “it’s okay it’s cool” but the people of your region say it’s definitely not cool, they are going to call you evil. And they will be right. Utterly correct. It doesn’t matter what you say or feel. But the rules of the universe say that it does. Hell, if a paladin rolls up and scans you, he’s going to declare you totally kosher. This means that the term “good” being used by D&D is obviously not the same as the term “good” in English.
The people will be utterly and completely wrong. Because you're forgetting that the English language has tenses.
I’m not forgetting that: with respect, the point of the argument flew over your head since the dialogue I mentioned above relies on that fact.
Here is what you are quite fervently ignoring: the word “good,” in English, does not apply to a mystical cosmic construct created by Gygax et. al. for storytime until YOU show that it does. Until you show that it does, your position that it does is total horseshit, and the definition of good in English remains unmolested.
So let’s go through the example again, slowly this time.
The defendant commits murder then has the atonement spell cast on him. As such, his alignment is left being the one associated with most paladins — let’s call it Bracket Folkmusic (random word generators are proving more entertaining than they have any right to be). Before that spell was cast on him, but after the murders, one might well hold that he stopped being associated with Bracket Folkmusic. Indeed, the people who misunderstand alignments often insist that this be so, lest alignments be rendered (even more) meaningless. So let’s go with that.
The order of events, proceeding forward in time, is therefore:
• The defendant is aligned with Bracket Folkmusic.
• The defendant murders children.
• The defendant ceases to be aligned with Bracket Folkmusic.
• The defendant has atonement cast upon him.
• The defendant is aligned with Bracket Folkmusic.
So, moving really slowly here, here’s the issue: at what point in the above chain of events did the defendant cease to be a) guilty of murder and therefore an evil wrongdoer in a legal sense, b) a murderer who has committed an offense against the children, their parents, their families, and the state and therefore an evil person in a moral sense? Obviously, at no point.
The problem here is the atonement spell made the cosmic horror properly called Bracket Folkmusic like the defendant. No one else gives a shit about that, nor should they.
Indeed, so long as the defendant continues to use that spell and feel bad about every time he upsets Bracket Folkmusic, he can continue to be in the good graces of Bracket Folkmusic. He will not be in the good graces of his victims.
And it’s the victims who are using the English, or any other, language to call the defendant evil and very much not good.
Now assume the following: as part of a PR campaign, Bracket Folkmusic insists on being called “good” in english in order to protect its reputation. Does that change the nature of Bracket Folkmusic or its relationship with humans? Does it change the definition of “good?” No. It doesn’t change shit. Even if it had traction, people in other languages would point out that they haven’t had the word for “good” corrupted, and spanish-speakers would still point out that the defendant, regardless of what unspeakable alien nightmare he may bend knee to, is still muy malo.
Passionate assertions that Bracket Folkmusic is the same as the word “good” in English go beyond just being wrong — they make you an asshole. Worst-case scenario you’re literally excusing wrongdoing; best-case scenario you’re indulging in rampant sophistry. The word “good” in any language doesn’t mean “sapient metaphysical entity that grants super-powers and inhabits corporeal weapons and armor in a reliable, mechanical fashion.”
But that's what Bracket Folkmusic does. That’s literally. What. It. Fucking. Does. So if you say Bracket Folkmusic is the same as “good,” having been made thoroughly aware of its other attributes, you are straight-up lying. That’s the problem.
People aren’t having arguments about morality in D&D — mostly. Those happen, but those happen in any rpg discussion. People are having arguments about maliciously-misnamed cosmic forces vis-a-vis human behavior, including morals and ethics. I mean, look at this. I’m replying to someone citing a dictionary definition of a word as a defense of that word defining something
that is explicitly not in the dictionary definition. That’s like next-level bullshit.
Here’s the continuation of the quote:
hyzmarca wrote:In the scenario you describe, the person was evil but is good.
No. He. Isn’t. He has done nothing to ameliorate his actions. In order to cover for his actions,
you had to lie about the definition of good.
hyzmarca wrote:And many good redemption stories also have a revenge-obsessed group that don't accept the character has changed. Angel had Holtz. Xena had Calysto. Teal'c had that guy on that planet where he murdered elderly people.
None of those people interacted with an immortal entity that granted super-powers, defined entire dimensions of space-time, and acted as the very substance of literal gods. You’re trashing your own point. I don’t want to say this because it seems dismissive, but I think it’s accurate to say that you don’t know what you’re talking about. What the actual FUCK does the existence of Bracket Folkmusic have to do with Teal’c being a stand-up guy?
You have made the same assumption that the OP has made, that Bracket Folkmusic or any other alignment is the same thing as the dictionary definition of a completely different thing when the entire point of the OP (and others) was to define that thing. You’re begging the question a-fucking-gain. The point of the OP was to define these terms, so:
Define your motherfucking terms.
(Reiterated ProTip: You cannot define these terms. Literally no one can. Supposition: if you could, you would have, instead of bullshitting.)
…
Not a fan of MtG for a source for these entities. But thinking about how these critters would play out, I’ve often thought that it would be cool if the gods themselves strained against alignments. Gods form pantheons and, out of some metaphysical necessity, individual gods draw from different alignments but still closely associated with one another. If the gods sought to “overthrow” the tyranny of the very alignments that they relied upon, using mortals as agents in this conflict, that could be interesting. This works particularly well in a milieu where mortals can achieve apotheosis.
