Homestuck Alignments

[PaladinFoster]

What are your opinions on the moral and ethical alignments of Homestuck characters? I'm sure everyone is familiar with the D&D system, so I made up this chart to show what I think of some of the characters.

Do you agree with my choices?

[MrBims]

Do you agree with my choices?

No.



What, is there something else to say?

[PaladinFoster]

Well there are other characters I didn't include, only having nine slots and all. Also you could explain why you don't agree, and we could discuss it.

[Axillary]

The only ones I think you got right are Dave, Terezi, and crazy Gamzee. Karkat and AR evil? No, I don't agree at all. They're just dicks.

There are surprisingly few truly evil characters in Homestuck, and we still don't know the real motivation behind some of the biggest players.

[PaladinFoster]

Perhaps Jack Noir would be a better fit for Neutral Evil?

[Roundy210]

I think it's more...

Lawful Good-i dunno. not really any of those in the game
Neutral Good-Yeah, Dave probably
Chaotic Good-Karkat or Nepeta
Lawful Neutral-Terezi still
True Neutral Doc Scratch
Chaotic Neutral-Vriska
Lawful Evil-Jack Noir (before he got the ring)
Neutral Evil-Jack Noir(after he got the ring)
Chaotic Evil-YOU KNOW MOTHERFUCKING WELL WHO }:OD

[PaladinFoster]

Nah, Jack hated the rules enforced on him by the Black Queen even before he got the ring.

[Axillary]

Jack would be chaotic evil, neutral characters don't spurn the rules just out of spite. He's basically an anarchist.

I'm not yet convinced that Lord English is more than a force of nature, in which case he/it would only incidentally be considered evil.

John is goofy and plays the prankster, but he sucks at it and being goofy and 13 doesn't necessarily mean a chaotic spirit, particularly if you consider their actions, which is supposed to be the basis for alignment. I would place all four of the kids in lawful or neutral good.

[Roundy210]

Equius would probably be Lawful Evil because he's a RACIST.

[DucTape]

Look at this page and the one after it and call AR evil again.
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003867
What's that? You can't?
I though so.

[Axillary]

I'm really bored today so I made a list. Not nearly bored enough to open photoshop and make a huge image. I didn't include everyone because I stopped caring. Not too sure about Diamonds Droog, he's kind of hard to pin down. Enjoy some footnotes on your way out.

Lawful Good
John
all of the exiles except the Midnight Crew
Tavros (6)

Neutral Good
Rose
Dave
Kanaya
Aradia (5)

Chaotic Good
Feferi (4)
Jade
Nepeta (3)

Lawful Neutral
Karkat
Equius (2)
Terezi

True Neutral
Sollux
stoned Gamzee
Becquerel

Chaotic Neutral
Vriska

Lawful Evil
Eridan (1)
Doc Scratch

Neutral Evil
Diamonds Droog

Chaotic Evil
Jack Noir
Li'l Cal (7)
psycho highblood Gamzee
Spades Slick

???
Lord English

Who Cares
sprites
horrorterrors
lusii
denizens
guardians


(1) Eridan is genocidal and has been for a long time.
(2) Equius seems to be much less staunchly racist than he lets on. It's a character fault for sure, but he doesn't seem to have evil intentions towards anyone.
(3) I dunno, whatever.
(4) She wants to institute massive societal change by breaking all the rules
(5) I don't think she's changed much in alignment over the course of the story, so this is for all stages of her existence.
(6) I can't think of a single thing Tavros has ever done that is chaotic or evil. He also wouldn't make Vriska god tier.
(7)

Well, thoughts? Also is it possible to make a table on this forum? I can't figure out how to do it and this post is so long.

[dhromed]

Oh! Categorization! Mine!

I have a few small notes with your list, Auxillary. I think things become clearer when you compare them to characters from other media, such as Star Wars.

- John doesn't have much in the way of discipline, not like Dave or Rose. He's no Luke Skywalker, and as I see it, he can't be lawful. He's either neutral or chaotic. Since he's more chaotic than Dave and a total derp, I'd put him down as Chaotic Good.
- Tavros hasn't done much of anything. Putting him in True Neutral seems like the most obvious choice.
- The same actually goes for Karkat, but since he's all hard on the outside / soft on the inside, I'm not sure where to put him. He's all about RAEG so that makes him Chaotic, right? But he was also the self-proclaimed leader and visionary, so that made him Lawful. I suppose Lawful Neutral works for now, but his true nature is to do good and protect the ones he loves, so Lawful Good may also be an option, especially considering what we know of his ancestor.
- If there's anything that's an archetypical Chaotic Evil, it's Bec Noir. He kills and destroys because he can. At least Evil Gamzee does it out of some class difference, so Lawful Evil might be fitting for Evil Gamzee as well, strange as it may seem. Evil Gamzee is like Emperor Palpatine and Sauron, and I'm not sure where they go either.*
- Lil Cal has always been an Instrument of Good. Chaotic Good is definitely for him.
- Vriska's a bit of an odd-girl-out, since it looks like she did a Heel-Face-Turn from Lawful Evil to... Chaoticky.. Neutrally... Goodie, or thereabouts.
- I agree completely with Eridan. He's totally Darth Vader with horns.
- Lord English seems like Chaotic Evil, but at the same time seems more like a cosmic effect rather than a person who can have alignment.


*) I guess this exposes a flaw in the alignment chart: are Gamzee and his ancestor in fact Lawful Chaotic?

[deathsbuddy]

The alignment system is overly limiting and assumes shallow, two-dimensional characters. It's overly limiting in Dungeons and Dragons; here it's like. Whoa.

[Axillary]

The alignment system is overly limiting and assumes shallow, two-dimensional characters. It's overly limiting in Dungeons and Dragons; here it's like. Whoa.

Maybe you expect too much out of it? It's not the end-all be-all of a character or their personality or motivations, just a shortcut to understanding what they're like. That's why you pick one when you create a character, it's something to build off of. For an existing character, alignment is something to use or discuss to understand their actions better. And of course characters may naturally shift over the course of their stories.

Kind of like how things like psych inventory tests never really fit anyone to a T.

[Trannisaurus]

[Rothope]

Chaotic Neutral all the way.

[Tyrannic]

- Lil Cal has always been an Instrument of Good. Chaotic Good is definitely for him.

OBJECTION!

I can agree that Cal is not a lawful being, but in terms of good and evil he always matches his current partner. When teamed up with Bro and Dave he is a force for good, helping to raise Dave and even joining in the fight against Jack. But after Bro and Davesprite are defeated he joins forces with Jack without a second thought, going so far as to later assist him in slaughtering the Aradias.

[Sadistic-but-sweet]

Oh! Alignment charts! Something I actually know about and can discuss in depth because I am a total nerd like that!

I can agree with the rest of the posters that the AR and Karkat aren't evil, per se. Given his affiliation for law and the rules, I think the AR and Terezi share a spot under Lawful Neutral. I am not entirely certain we have a truly "Lawful Evil" character in the series, as most of the "evil" charaters we've seen so far seem to be fairly chaotic, running under their own rules. (-coughJackcough-) The closest we get may be Doc Scratch, and he seems to be much more "Lawful Neutral and Scary as Hell". (To me, at least. Although we can't forget what he did to Vriska...)

As for Karkat... I don't even know where to put him.

As for some of the characters not listed...

-Eridan took a nose dive into Chaotic Evil territory back several pages ago, in my opinion, joining Jack and Snowman
-Vriska is very much Chaotic Neutral. She seems to have a tendency between swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other, depending on who she's with.
-Rose, before she entered the game, seemed on her way to Lawful Good... then she decided to screw destiny and turned Chaotic Good.
-Jade seems to be Lawful Good to me. She has a much better grasp of the game than everyone else and seems perfectly fine with following what she's supposed to be doing.

Those are the ones off the top of my head. I'm sure I could give everyone a category, but as previously mentioned, alignment charts are fairly cookie-cutter. With everything that's happened Hussie has proven that these characters change alignments like ... I can't think of a good metaphor, but ya'll get my point.

EDIT: On second thought and some flipping through the MSWiki to remind myself of a few facts - Okay, yeah, Doc Scratch is definitely Lawful Evil.

[elation2.0]

Here's just my list, and reasoning behind it.

Kids

John: Neutral good. He's just a kid playing a game who wants his friends to be okay. He's more or less doing what he's told or what he thinks needs to be done so long as it helps someone. Nothing he's done has been driven by a particular preference for chaos or order.

Jade: Neutral Good as well. Similar to the above, but she has more initiative then John. Most of all, neither law or chaos are her motive.

Rose: I'd say she is somewhere between Chaotic good and Neutral good, but I'll take a stand with chaotic. She wants to help her friends the most, but a part of her seems to want to stand in a place of sheer defiance against the game. She didn't have to blow up her gate, she just did it to show that she could accomplish her goals without the game's order.

Dave: Dave is really hard to place. He most of all doesn't really give a shit about the games rules, but he never just goes against anything for the sake of it. He's far from evil, but he isn't a particularly good person either in many respects, which he himself points out a lot. I'd place him somewhere between Neutral good and Chaotic Neutral, but he is still mostly good.

Trolls

Aradia: When dead, she was just True Neutral with a dash of lawful. She acted as fate said, no matter what fate told her to do. When Aradiabot, she had a bit of a chaotic streak, but it didn't seem to last long, going right back to True Neutral. When alive however, she I'd probably say she is in the territory of Chaotic Good or maybe Neutral good. Still need to see more of her alive to get an idea of that.

Tavros: Probably True Neutral. He's kinda a wimp and just too passive to act on any sort of impulse. When he does break out of his neutrality, he dies, really a shame.

Sollux: He too impulsive/moody to give a definite alignment, but he seems to have a desire to do good. I'd have to say Chaotic Good, but not in the sense that he's sporadic rather than opposed to law,

Karkat: He's also a tough one to place. He has a bit of "Fight the power!" about him, but he's also the one to take charge as leader during Hivebent. I'll lable him Lawful Good, because he strives to reach order on his own terms.

Nepeta: I don't know if she really have enough screentime to get an alignment. Just leaving this blank. Maybe true Neutral?

Kanaya: She's a very rational person and likes to help people. She's something good. Not chaotice for sure. I guess Neutral Good.

Terezi: Lawful Neutral. She follows her own law, but she is prone to mistake just like everyone else. Neutral is simply more of a result of her not falling into good or evil. Maybe a bit more evil at the beginning, but she's having a slow drift closer to the good side of the spectrum.

Vriska: She is juat a myopia of morality. At the start I'd rank her as Neutral Evil, which she stays on most of the time with a slight lapse here and there. By the time of her death I suppose she may have been a bit more Chaotic Neutral.

Equius: Almost Lawful Evil Almost because he had moments that showed that he was willing to go beyond the caste system. He cared about Nepeta, was in love with Aradia, fixed Tavros's legs, and he even accepted Karkat as leader sorta. Due to his failue to stand up to Gamzee though, I'd put him as Lawful Neutral with a slight tendency towards good.

Gamzee: Stoned Gamzee was just too drugged and passive to be anything short of True Neutral. Sober Gamzee has no goals but to cause suffering though, so he's pretty much Chaotic Evil. A smidgen of Lawful Evil is there though, as he seems to believe he is justified by the caste system.

Eridan: He pretty much runs the gamut of all evil alignments. He start sorta lawful evil, wanting to kill those who were beneath him on the caste, but never succeeded. Then he goes Neutral Evil when he tries to join Jack and kills some peopel, and he sorta degenerated into chaotic evil when he tried to up and kill Vriska and wrecked the matriorb. He's too much of a hipster to be one kind of evil for too long.

Feferi: Lawful Good. She's going to inheirt a lot of power, and she wants to use it to do the best she can. She wants to reform the culling system, and generally lessen the death and pain caused by the current system of Alternia.

[Tenebrais]

Allow me to present my opinion in graph form.


The lines represent the way the characters have changed over the course of the story. The symbol is at the most recent end. Those without lines have remained more or less the same.

[Sadistic-but-sweet]

Tenebrais, that's brilliant. Certainly a lot easier than saying "Well they were this this and then this, but now they're this!" I am curious as to why Snowman started out close to "True Neutral" before moving into "Evil" territory. (Assuming the 8 ball is her.)

...You know, besides her vicious rivalry/kismesisitude with SS (and the whole "cigarette to the eye" thing, but still), have we actually seen her act evilly to anyone? She's just kind of this figure that's there to give SS a really hard time, from what I've seen, unless I'm forgetting something.

[Tenebrais]

As the Black Queen she was antagonistic to the players and a jerk to Jack but not notably evil. The Queens appear to serve a mostly domestic role in running their kingdoms so she isn't to credit for the activity of most of Derse. It was only once she was exiled and became Snowman that she began actively serving an outspokenly-evil demon and casually maiming her kismesis.

[CSDragon]

That one's pretty good, but I think when Aradia stopped being dead her personality had a huge shift that's been unaccounted for, there.

Also: I love how HUGE Vriska's change is.

[Rational Absurdity]

Vriska is all of the alignments.
All of them.

[Sadistic-but-sweet]

Vriska is all of the alignments.
All of them.

Seconded. It explains EVERYTHING.