As far as on topic, I have to say Anomen and Aerie. Anomen and Aerie both annoyed the crap out of me when I first started playing.
Anomen mainly because I thought he was such an a**hole and Aerie because I couldn't stand her whining and her voice.
I recently took Anomen with me and was totally laughing my butt off at everything he said! He is like the Korgan for the good guys: a total pompous jerk that is very well written.
I still get annoyed by Aerie's voice, but I am finding that her story is much deeper than I thought at first. Her first few love talks are definitely whiny, but as it progresses, I love how she responds to the faith placed in her and becomes a stronger person for it.
The alignment system isn't really applicable to real life, because most real life people aren't only good or only evil. Trying to explain why fictional characters aren't evil or good because it wouldn't make sense logically in the real world is kind of along the same lines, imho. But it is still fun to speculate. The alignment system was really meant as a tool to help enrich role-playing, writing, and character development (and as an excuse for the PCs to slay entire villages of orcs ) When taken in that light, it can be totally understood why Viconia and Korgan are labeled as evil. Their characters role-play and are written as evil.
I will say this, though: evil people don't believe they are evil. Almost everyone believes, or at least tries to rationalize, that they did the best they could in their situation; the methods of this implementation vary between people.
Viconia uses her victimization as a justification for worshipping her an evil goddess and appreciates harming surface dwellers out of revenge against those who have hurt her. Korgan is greedy and wants what he wants and he believes that others are generally trying to screw him over...which is one way he justifies his actions as good.
Both characters believe they are good, or at least doing what makes sense or what is right by them or best for them. Which just spectacularly fantastic writing! Only writers with an understanding in real psychology could have written something that makes you question whether or not a character labeled as evil really is evil, or good really is good. Characters that fit the stereotypical fantasy mold of evil and good have no interest for me, which is why I am so attracted to most of the Baldur's Gate characters.
Good and Evil in a DnD setting is actually pretty much set in stone insofar as what makes you Good and Evil. The makers even have 2 books dedicated to the DnD concept of Good and Evil. It may not match up with our own individually held notions of Good and Evil, but that is just too bad. Being Good or Evil in DnD actually have consequences, the mildest of which that you show up in a Detect Good/Evil scan. Good and Evil in DnD are real "energy" (for want of a better word), not just abstract concepts. Entire planes of existence can be permeated with Good or Evil "energy".
Therefore, what individuals believe about their alignment is irrelevant. In the DnD-verse, your actions will determine your alignment, and this is actually spelt out very clearly in those two books (Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness, for those who are wondering). A ping-thump Paladin, regardless of whether he believes he is doing Good, WILL lose his Paladin abilities for doing so (assuming the DM has the guts to pull the plug on the guy). That, too, is spelt out explicitly in the Book of Exalted Deeds.
The thing is, neither Viconia's nor Korgan's justifications make them Evil. It is natural tendency to seek revenge when grievously wronged, and you really cannot get much more grievously wronged than what Viconia went through. Korgan wants what he wants, and he wants Mazzy. Don't see him attempting to do anything other than a bunch of innuendo which he does with humour rather than slime.
It is easy to SAY what you think you should be like. To actually DO it, that is another story. That is why the two books spell out that it is what you DO that matters, not what you believe or say. You can say that you are the most bloodthirsty pirate to sail the seven seas, but if you can't bear to hurt a fly, there is no way you are going to be classified as Evil in DnD-verse. I see shades of this in Viconia. Korgan, less so, but I don't see anything that makes him explicitly Evil either.
At the table, good and evil is subjective to DM's discretion and interpretation, so it's still going through that person's perceptive filter. He/she may believe evil is set in stone based on actions, or that it is based only on intentions, or that the books you mentioned are the final say in what is good and evil (although I find games where the DMs and players are constantly looking up rules a bit boring).
The DMs (writers) of Baldur's Gate role played the NPCs Korgan and Viconia as evil. Perhaps you as a DM would have written their characters' actions and intentions as neutral, or even good. I would have a lot of interest in playing one of your campaigns as a result, because I like psychological challenging.
I haven't read any of those books you mentioned, so I can't say what is or isn't in them. But if you want to talk about actions as the only determinations of good and evil, then I believe it is safe to say that most DMs would rule that if, as a PC, you in your past had sacrificed hundreds of people to an evil god and haven't found some way to atone for those actions, or at the very least are not a servant of an evil god still, you're probably evil...as well as if you kill people in cold blood for money and personal gain without any altruistic intentions...probably ruled as evil.
But my point wasn't that they are or are not evil (I believe that point is moot). My point is that Viconia and Korgan don't believe they're evil, which is what makes it such great writing. They believe they are in the right. They justify their actions to Charname and to themselves, and they are so convincing that 16 years after the game's release, fans of the game can still have meaningful, fun threads where players argue that their favorite characters aren't really evil (even when it says "evil" right under their portraits, lol).
It is not about whether they are really Evil or not. There is no doubt that Dorn is Evil, despite his sob story on how he became a blackguard. The guy really enjoys his killing and is all out for power for himself. He is basically a cackling babykiller archetype. Dorn deserves his Evil alignment.
The same with Sarevok, Hexxat, Eldoth, Montaron and Edwin. They are actively malevolent.
The problem that I (and others, it seems) have is that there is no active malevolence in half the characters that Bioware insist is Evil. That, to me, means that someone in Bioware did something along the lines of Drow = Evil, mercenary = Evil, trashtalker = Evil, misandry = Evil, with complete disregard to what constitutes Evil. That is just lazy.
Similarly, you will have problems trying to convince me that Tomoko (from what little we have seen of her) is Evil.
Basically our disagreement boils down to this: You believe that because they have a label of Evil under their portraits, they must be. I believe that it is their actions that makes them Evil, and if they did not display that in the game, that label is just lazy labelling on the part of the developers.
Atonement is an interesting topic in and of itself. Plainly put, I do not believe that the act atonement gives you a free pass on previous sins. Conversely, I do not believe that just because you did not perform an act of atonement, you are permanently Evil. Once again, we look to your actions. If you stop acting in a malevolent manner, if you do not seek to injure others for the sake of your own selfish desires, there is little that anyone can pin the Evil tag on you. In other words, you have to actively WORK to keep being Good or Evil. Neutral is the natural state, so to speak, and "lazy" people will end up there.
@AdaJ I did not say that i believe that because the word evil is listed under their portrait it makes them evil. You are misquoting me, and thus we are not even disagreeing. I said that bioware wrote them as evil while also writing them as believing they were not evil for justifications personal to the characters. If you want to talk about whether or not I believe Viconia and Korgan are evil, we can go that route, but I have very specifically avoided stating if I believe they are actually evil or not thus far.
The problem is that I don't think Bioware wrote them as Evil. They left out anything that is inherently Evil about their actions. Whether this is deliberate or just poor writing, we don't know.
I don't think that Viconia, at least, believes what she is doing is not Evil. I think she does believe so, which is why she is always trying to justify it by saying she is drow.
If Bioware was trying to write Evil characters, then they did very poorly with Korgan and Viconia. As I said before, if we forget about that label, and just look at what we know about Viconia's actions, she does not come across as malevolent, which immediately strikes off the notion that she is Evil. Sure, she is not altruistic, but that doesn't mean she is automatically Evil either. In fact, Faldorn is more Neutral Evil than Viconia, as Faldorn is actively malevolent towards others in the name of her religion.
The same with Kagain. In fact, they made a complete hash of Kagain in terms of characterisation to alignment. He was not shown to be Lawful or Evil. Him giving up on finding the caravan in one screen change is classic non-Lawful behaviour. Remember that Lawful Evil characters will follow a contract or the law to the letter so that the law cannot be used against them. They may try a bit of trickery with the wording of a contract, but they never violate one. Within a couple of hours of meeting him, Kagain broke a contract.
I suspect that Bioware was just lazy. They characterised their NPCs (and did this part very well, mind you) and then just started throwing alignment at them willy-nilly with little thought if the characterisation actually meeting the criteria of the alignment. With Kagain, it was probably something like: Hey, we don't have a NPC that is Lawful Evil, let's make him LE.
The problem is that I don't think Bioware wrote them as Evil. They left out anything that is inherently Evil about their actions. Whether this is deliberate or just poor writing, we don't know.
I don't think that Viconia, at least, believes what she is doing is not Evil. I think she does believe so, which is why she is always trying to justify it by saying she is drow.
If Bioware was trying to write Evil characters, then they did very poorly with Korgan and Viconia. As I said before, if we forget about that label, and just look at what we know about Viconia's actions, she does not come across as malevolent, which immediately strikes off the notion that she is Evil. Sure, she is not altruistic, but that doesn't mean she is automatically Evil either. In fact, Faldorn is more Neutral Evil than Viconia, as Faldorn is actively malevolent towards others in the name of her religion.
The same with Kagain. In fact, they made a complete hash of Kagain in terms of characterisation to alignment. He was not shown to be Lawful or Evil. Him giving up on finding the caravan in one screen change is classic non-Lawful behaviour. Remember that Lawful Evil characters will follow a contract or the law to the letter so that the law cannot be used against them. They may try a bit of trickery with the wording of a contract, but they never violate one. Within a couple of hours of meeting him, Kagain broke a contract.
I suspect that Bioware was just lazy. They characterised their NPCs (and did this part very well, mind you) and then just started throwing alignment at them willy-nilly with little thought if the characterisation actually meeting the criteria of the alignment. With Kagain, it was probably something like: Hey, we don't have a NPC that is Lawful Evil, let's make him LE.
Very well, I see your point. I tend to think much more highly of their writing, giving them the benefit of the doubt, as it were, and would say both Viconia and Korgan is anything but poor writing, as they are both so universally loved by BG fans: sounds like a success story to me.
"I suspect that Bioware was just lazy. They characterised their NPCs (and did this part very well, mind you) and then just started throwing alignment at them willy-nilly with little thought if the characterisation actually meeting the criteria of the alignment. With Kagain, it was probably something like: Hey, we don't have a NPC that is Lawful Evil, let's make him LE."
I think you are correct. But I wouldn't put it down to laziness, more that of the two, sacrificing "alignment" was better from a writing/artistic perspective.
Looking at Dorn, written years later after all these hundreds of discussions over the years, does anybody really enjoy the writing of him in BG2? Though I'd say it was truer to alignment.
I really hate the whole "if you are evil, then you must act like it" argument. It's archaic and mostly only applies to real life issues, specifically law-related issues, simply because we have no other choice but to work based on patterns and precedents. In our world mind reading is impossible, and so we work with what we have. And what have is definitely NOT perfect, if our long list of scientific and law-related blunders is any indication. Hell, the problem extends to social issues. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why people have such a hard time accepting that something like sexuality, for example, is more of a spectrum, compared to the simple (but very flawed) "if you have (insert label here) sex, then you are automatically (insert label here)... because evidence". It's even more important to consider that, even in the real world, you only get a true measure of people when they're placed under certain conditions. Like I said before though, this goes back to the whole "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" thought experiment and the dissimilarity between the reality we perceive and what actually is real.
Obviously fantasy goes by different rules since we have the power to determine exactly what our characters are thinking at any particular moment - ergo, in fantasy we have the power to shape reality. And for every two rulebooks you name, there's a ton of D&D novels out there where characters do basically whatever they want (within reason, of course, and despite their alignment) because the author has the power to know their character's innermost desires, fears, ambitions, etc. D&D obviously leaves such interpretations to the players and the DMs.
It all boils down to the old saying: alignment is not a straitjacket. Evil in BG NPCs is generally presented as selfishness, lack of empathy, disposition for betrayal and sometimes for violence. These character traits are explored in different ways depending on the NPC.
Viconia believes everyone should fend for themselves and the weak are to be rooted out. She respects power and that's why she submits to you. She's also proud and will follow your leadership as payment for saving her life, but only if you don't act weak (and going out of your way to help the weak is a type of weakness in her POV). Of course she's also very much a product of her drow society and so, alienation from the Underdark is the first step for a possible change of heart later.
I read people arguing that Kagain doesn't act evil and thus should have been neutral. But he also doesn't act good, either. What little development he gets shows a man who cares more about gold than anything else. And he will have no qualms if that gold comes at the expense of someone else's well-being. You don't need to be a villain to be evil on the inside.
And what about Edwin? He's the comic relief of any evil party. Not Xzar - Xzar is insane and creepy and unsettling. Edwin is a power-hungry arrogant jerk who will work with you as long as it suits his needs. And he's a bigot who will pursue the death of Dynaheir only based on her allegiance. Yet he isn't bloodthirsty, like Korgan, who as we've established, is kind of an affable guy.
To sum it up: alignment is not the same as personality.
It is easy to SAY what you think you should be like. To actually DO it, that is another story. That is why the two books spell out that it is what you DO that matters, not what you believe or say. You can say that you are the most bloodthirsty pirate to sail the seven seas, but if you can't bear to hurt a fly, there is no way you are going to be classified as Evil in DnD-verse. I see shades of this in Viconia. Korgan, less so, but I don't see anything that makes him explicitly Evil either.
No-no, it's not only what you do or don't do, but also why - which includes what you think and believe, obviously. In fact, it's mostly what you believe, which is why spells like detect evil are possible. If you don't kill a man for money just because of fear of retribution, you're not less evil than someone who has no such fear. You're just evil AND coward.
Keeping more to topic, Korgan is probably the only character in the series who isn't a pushover. Keldorn, Viconia, Valygar, Jaheira, Anomen, etc - in the end they all leave the final say with PC. With Korgan, there's a banter when you can explicitly order him to take his words back, and he just says no and walks on party.
Uh oh, he's in my party and I haven't gotten to that point yet. Although at one point he was giving one of the other PCs hell, and I had to step in and tell him to knock it off, which he did.
Comments
Anomen mainly because I thought he was such an a**hole and Aerie because I couldn't stand her whining and her voice.
I recently took Anomen with me and was totally laughing my butt off at everything he said! He is like the Korgan for the good guys: a total pompous jerk that is very well written.
I still get annoyed by Aerie's voice, but I am finding that her story is much deeper than I thought at first. Her first few love talks are definitely whiny, but as it progresses, I love how she responds to the faith placed in her and becomes a stronger person for it.
These games and characters freaking rock.
Therefore, what individuals believe about their alignment is irrelevant. In the DnD-verse, your actions will determine your alignment, and this is actually spelt out very clearly in those two books (Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness, for those who are wondering). A ping-thump Paladin, regardless of whether he believes he is doing Good, WILL lose his Paladin abilities for doing so (assuming the DM has the guts to pull the plug on the guy). That, too, is spelt out explicitly in the Book of Exalted Deeds.
The thing is, neither Viconia's nor Korgan's justifications make them Evil. It is natural tendency to seek revenge when grievously wronged, and you really cannot get much more grievously wronged than what Viconia went through. Korgan wants what he wants, and he wants Mazzy. Don't see him attempting to do anything other than a bunch of innuendo which he does with humour rather than slime.
It is easy to SAY what you think you should be like. To actually DO it, that is another story. That is why the two books spell out that it is what you DO that matters, not what you believe or say. You can say that you are the most bloodthirsty pirate to sail the seven seas, but if you can't bear to hurt a fly, there is no way you are going to be classified as Evil in DnD-verse. I see shades of this in Viconia. Korgan, less so, but I don't see anything that makes him explicitly Evil either.
At the table, good and evil is subjective to DM's discretion and interpretation, so it's still going through that person's perceptive filter. He/she may believe evil is set in stone based on actions, or that it is based only on intentions, or that the books you mentioned are the final say in what is good and evil (although I find games where the DMs and players are constantly looking up rules a bit boring).
The DMs (writers) of Baldur's Gate role played the NPCs Korgan and Viconia as evil. Perhaps you as a DM would have written their characters' actions and intentions as neutral, or even good. I would have a lot of interest in playing one of your campaigns as a result, because I like psychological challenging.
I haven't read any of those books you mentioned, so I can't say what is or isn't in them. But if you want to talk about actions as the only determinations of good and evil, then I believe it is safe to say that most DMs would rule that if, as a PC, you in your past had sacrificed hundreds of people to an evil god and haven't found some way to atone for those actions, or at the very least are not a servant of an evil god still, you're probably evil...as well as if you kill people in cold blood for money and personal gain without any altruistic intentions...probably ruled as evil.
But my point wasn't that they are or are not evil (I believe that point is moot). My point is that Viconia and Korgan don't believe they're evil, which is what makes it such great writing. They believe they are in the right. They justify their actions to Charname and to themselves, and they are so convincing that 16 years after the game's release, fans of the game can still have meaningful, fun threads where players argue that their favorite characters aren't really evil (even when it says "evil" right under their portraits, lol).
The same with Sarevok, Hexxat, Eldoth, Montaron and Edwin. They are actively malevolent.
The problem that I (and others, it seems) have is that there is no active malevolence in half the characters that Bioware insist is Evil. That, to me, means that someone in Bioware did something along the lines of Drow = Evil, mercenary = Evil, trashtalker = Evil, misandry = Evil, with complete disregard to what constitutes Evil. That is just lazy.
Similarly, you will have problems trying to convince me that Tomoko (from what little we have seen of her) is Evil.
Basically our disagreement boils down to this:
You believe that because they have a label of Evil under their portraits, they must be.
I believe that it is their actions that makes them Evil, and if they did not display that in the game, that label is just lazy labelling on the part of the developers.
Atonement is an interesting topic in and of itself. Plainly put, I do not believe that the act atonement gives you a free pass on previous sins. Conversely, I do not believe that just because you did not perform an act of atonement, you are permanently Evil. Once again, we look to your actions. If you stop acting in a malevolent manner, if you do not seek to injure others for the sake of your own selfish desires, there is little that anyone can pin the Evil tag on you. In other words, you have to actively WORK to keep being Good or Evil. Neutral is the natural state, so to speak, and "lazy" people will end up there.
I did not say that i believe that because the word evil is listed under their portrait it makes them evil. You are misquoting me, and thus we are not even disagreeing.
I said that bioware wrote them as evil while also writing them as believing they were not evil for justifications personal to the characters.
If you want to talk about whether or not I believe Viconia and Korgan are evil, we can go that route, but I have very specifically avoided stating if I believe they are actually evil or not thus far.
I don't think that Viconia, at least, believes what she is doing is not Evil. I think she does believe so, which is why she is always trying to justify it by saying she is drow.
If Bioware was trying to write Evil characters, then they did very poorly with Korgan and Viconia. As I said before, if we forget about that label, and just look at what we know about Viconia's actions, she does not come across as malevolent, which immediately strikes off the notion that she is Evil. Sure, she is not altruistic, but that doesn't mean she is automatically Evil either. In fact, Faldorn is more Neutral Evil than Viconia, as Faldorn is actively malevolent towards others in the name of her religion.
The same with Kagain. In fact, they made a complete hash of Kagain in terms of characterisation to alignment. He was not shown to be Lawful or Evil. Him giving up on finding the caravan in one screen change is classic non-Lawful behaviour. Remember that Lawful Evil characters will follow a contract or the law to the letter so that the law cannot be used against them. They may try a bit of trickery with the wording of a contract, but they never violate one. Within a couple of hours of meeting him, Kagain broke a contract.
I suspect that Bioware was just lazy. They characterised their NPCs (and did this part very well, mind you) and then just started throwing alignment at them willy-nilly with little thought if the characterisation actually meeting the criteria of the alignment. With Kagain, it was probably something like: Hey, we don't have a NPC that is Lawful Evil, let's make him LE.
"I suspect that Bioware was just lazy. They characterised their NPCs (and did this part very well, mind you) and then just started throwing alignment at them willy-nilly with little thought if the characterisation actually meeting the criteria of the alignment. With Kagain, it was probably something like: Hey, we don't have a NPC that is Lawful Evil, let's make him LE."
I think you are correct.
But I wouldn't put it down to laziness, more that of the two, sacrificing "alignment" was better from a writing/artistic perspective.
Looking at Dorn, written years later after all these hundreds of discussions over the years, does anybody really enjoy the writing of him in BG2?
Though I'd say it was truer to alignment.
It's even more important to consider that, even in the real world, you only get a true measure of people when they're placed under certain conditions. Like I said before though, this goes back to the whole "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" thought experiment and the dissimilarity between the reality we perceive and what actually is real.
Obviously fantasy goes by different rules since we have the power to determine exactly what our characters are thinking at any particular moment - ergo, in fantasy we have the power to shape reality. And for every two rulebooks you name, there's a ton of D&D novels out there where characters do basically whatever they want (within reason, of course, and despite their alignment) because the author has the power to know their character's innermost desires, fears, ambitions, etc.
D&D obviously leaves such interpretations to the players and the DMs.
Viconia believes everyone should fend for themselves and the weak are to be rooted out. She respects power and that's why she submits to you. She's also proud and will follow your leadership as payment for saving her life, but only if you don't act weak (and going out of your way to help the weak is a type of weakness in her POV). Of course she's also very much a product of her drow society and so, alienation from the Underdark is the first step for a possible change of heart later.
I read people arguing that Kagain doesn't act evil and thus should have been neutral. But he also doesn't act good, either. What little development he gets shows a man who cares more about gold than anything else. And he will have no qualms if that gold comes at the expense of someone else's well-being. You don't need to be a villain to be evil on the inside.
And what about Edwin? He's the comic relief of any evil party. Not Xzar - Xzar is insane and creepy and unsettling. Edwin is a power-hungry arrogant jerk who will work with you as long as it suits his needs. And he's a bigot who will pursue the death of Dynaheir only based on her allegiance. Yet he isn't bloodthirsty, like Korgan, who as we've established, is kind of an affable guy.
To sum it up: alignment is not the same as personality.
If you don't kill a man for money just because of fear of retribution, you're not less evil than someone who has no such fear. You're just evil AND coward.
Keeping more to topic, Korgan is probably the only character in the series who isn't a pushover. Keldorn, Viconia, Valygar, Jaheira, Anomen, etc - in the end they all leave the final say with PC. With Korgan, there's a banter when you can explicitly order him to take his words back, and he just says no and walks on party.