Basic Trope: An entire race of creatures is good, down to every last member of the group.
- Straight: There's a race of angelic beings who are all good in one way or another.
- Exaggerated: From the moment they are born until the moment they die, every member of a humanoid angel race strives to be a living example of Incorruptible Pure Pureness.
- Downplayed:
- The angelic beings are all
Chaotic, Lawful, or True Neutrals with good tendencies. - The race can be any alignment that isn't evilnote .
- The species are all Anti Heroes who try to do the right thing and their attempts at such end up morally ambiguous.
- An angelic race is a form of good but can range from the lawful-to-chaotic spectrum depending on the character in the race.
- The angelic beings are all
- Justified:
- The race is in perfect tuning with The Light, which is good in this setting.
- The race is led by a powerful celestial-king who enforces a supernatural law that will expel a member from their land/world/dimension if said member does something that's not 100% Good. Naturally, most people choose the path of Good for their own convenience.
- The race is from a Death World where they must band together to survive, and thus uphold high moral standards to keep things from falling apart.
- They were artificially created to be Good/so zealously altruistic that they're, by any standard, Good.
- They are part of a Hive Mind which is dedicated to Good.
- It is needed be Good to turn yourself into a member of the race.
- Their gods simply made them that way.
- Similarly to how the Fey cannot understand lying, the race doesn't understand cruelty/murder/etc. and as such no one of said race has those qualities.
- The race suffers from a case of Blue-and-Orange Morality, and while their actions render them Always Lawful Good in our purview, they may believe they are neutral or even evil.
- They're a race of Emotion eaters who eat happiness so they do their best to spread it around.
- The race is the Anthropomorphic Personification of benevolent concepts, like hope or justice.
- Any Bright One who forsakes goodness transforms into a Shadow, so any that still retain their Bright One form are necessarily good.
- Inverted:
- Always Chaotic Evil
- Members of this race can be any alignment except Good alignments.
- Subverted:
- 1.) We see some angel race on the side of Good, but then it turns out there are just as many of them allied with the Big Bad's side, we just hadn't run into them yet.
- 2.) Characters get to meet the Knight Templar side of the race.
- 3.) Characters find a Good angel, but it wants to kill them and take their belonging.
- 4.) The race isn't Good, but it is portrayed as such as a massive propaganda campaign by said race.
- Double Subverted:
- 1.) The 'Good angel race' turns out to not be entirely Good, since some are on the evil side, until the innate spark of Good-ness in their blood causes the evil angels to switch sides when the world starts to fall apart.
- 2.) The Knight Templars are right.
- 3.) After all those homicides and robberies the characters do, it would only be right for an angel to kill the characters and bring back the belongings.
- 4.) The propaganda campaign is carried out via word of mouth by people who see and experience the constant good deeds of the Good Race. Just because they're kind and altruistic doesn't mean they don't like tooting their own horns.
- 4.) The race is actually Good Is Not Nice.
- Parodied: An angel who is easily fooled/manipulated/bullied into doing Good things heroes are supposed to do, because, you know, angels are supposed to be Good.
- Zig Zagged:
- The angels are seen performing apparently-evil actions against the heroes. The heroes start to view them as evil, until it turns out those evil actions really were necessary, and Good Is Not Nice after all. However, having got a taste of nastiness, some of the angels decide they like it and start doing unnecessary villainous acts For the Evulz. The remaining good angels confront them with a What the Hell, Hero? type speech, and the evil ones all simultaneously go into Villainous BSoD at the Heel Realization that they've become the bad guys.
- Angels are benevolent, but they have Blue-and-Orange Morality, so they seem evil at times.
- Averted: There is no 'good angel race'. Good is made up of races that are also just as likely to be evil.
- Enforced: The race come from Heaven itself- if we portrayed them as being unfriendly in any way on a popular show, the Moral Guardians will not be happy with us.
- Lampshaded: The heroes ask a member of the 'good angel race' why she's helping them, and she answers with "Haven't you seen? My whole race is Good!"
- Invoked: A race of angelic creatures raise their children to act Good because enough of them are beautiful that they'll probably end up stereotyped as Good anyway, and they don't want the trouble of being a non-conforming person struggling against the views of others.
- Exploited: Bullying the aforementioned angel. By Heavens, heroes, what are you doing?!
- Defied:
- A member of the normally Good race decides to live a life of cruelty and villainy, refusing to be classified by their race.
- A member of the race begins preaching that they all have free will and do not have to simply be Good. This gains credibility among everyone, and so some members turn Evil while some remain Good. The ones who remain Good feel reinvigorated because they have now chosen Good, and become more Goody-Good than ever. The Good members proceed to kill the Evil Overlord, because lolGood!.
- Discussed:
- "See, if this were a fantasy book, I wouldn't be able to beat the living crap out of you and take your belongings, since angels have to be Good and all. You guys are just plain unlucky!"
- "I'm an angel; smiting evil and saving good is in my blood."
- Conversed: "In those RPGs I play, there are both sweet, innocent angels along with seductive, sexy angels and a trash-talking and crude unicorn. Pretty cool, don't you think?"
- Deconstructed:
- 1. The angel race are all Good... because they discarded their free wills and subjected themselves to a Hive Mind dedicated to Good-ness. Eventually the Hive Mind is dismantled (for good), and they have a hard time deciding just what is Good on their own.
- 2. The presence of an Always Lawful Good race leads to discussions of moral relativism vs. moral absolutism and whether or not we can force our moral standards on a race.
- 3. Everyone assumes that a celestial race is all good... thus forcing an utopian sense of morality on celestials who, despite their great abilities, have human limitations.
- 4. Members of this race are prone to stress, insecurity, unjustified guilt, and messiah complexes. Their very nature drives them to be heroic in their every waking moment, but nobody's perfect. Whatever drives them to this altruism doesn't have an off switch, and they just can't manage to forgive their own failures and shortcomings, not when innocent lives may be at stake.
- 5. The Always Lawful Good race really is as completely pure and good and honest as they sound, to the extent that they are not only incapable of evil, but unable to even conceive of the concept or recognize evil behavior in others. When they encounter evil, they are incapable of defending themselves against it, and may not even realize that such defense is necessary until too late, and they are brutally slaughtered. A race with both good and evil impulses has no such difficulty, and can survive and fight back against the onslaught of a greater evil.
- 6. Because their normal is our good, they have higher standards when it comes what is good/moral. As a result; they're self-righteous & preachy and see themselves as being better than us.
- 7. If they're incapable of doing evil or even being neutral, then the good they do isn't by choice, thus they can't be praised. Only people of morally varied races can be viewed as true heroes.
- Reconstructed:
- 1. Since (at the very least, some) of their ideals of Good work, they continue to do Good despite now having no magical morality leash.
- 2. They cut the knot by stopping the discussion and deciding to be nice to each other. They help without being overly preachy.
- 3. The celestial race, as a whole, does their best to live up to expectations, and though they're not perfect, they're an example for everyone else.
- 4. While good, the members of the race recognize that they are imperfect beings, and have learned not to beat themselves up over every little mistake. You can't change the past, so the best you can do is admit you were wrong and try to do better next time.
- 5. The race is a Proud Warrior Race Culture of Martial Pacifists. They do their best to look for the good in others and give them the benefit of the doubt, but if they are attacked they respond in kind. They had a sister race with good and evil impulses, but it bred so many Blood Knights that the sister race caused itself more trouble than invaders ever did.
- 6. Their normal is our good, and we don't like Smug Snakes, so they abhor them. They do their best to be Humble Heroes and say Think Nothing of It. Nonetheless they are accused by other races of thinking themselves better than them because they are so humble.
- 7. Even if they can't be truly heroic, they're still a good example for morally flawed races to follow. Thus, it is more common for one of the angel race to be The Mentor or The Lancer for up-and-coming heroes than to do be The Hero themselves.
Back to Always Lawful Good.
