Writers and Order versus Chaos stories with grey morality.

...both law and chaos shown as being more or less good?

I'm sure it's not a first, as one is often favoured over the other, but it's still interesting.

You and I probably have spend much time with SMT to be honest.

To Ambar Sonofdeshar

You see, I know that lots of stories use Order as synonimous with good and Chaos and evil in Black-and-White Morality style, but I mean stories that have some amount of moral greyness and Order CAN be dangerous and Chaos CAN be good, usually it will either end with Chaos being or the lesser evil or outright good.

What I mean is that, in Order Versus Chaos in stories with some grey morality between them will usually end with Chaos being more positive unless the author go for a good old fashionated Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous. This threat is for stories where Chaos is NOT synonimous with evil but is also show as a suboptimal option.

Honestly, this thread is because as Rob say, I played too much SMT and watched enough anime.

To Handsome Rob, I have a friend outside of Tv Tropes that said me basically that in stories Order is associated with vague current status quo and "normal" lifestyles while SMT Law is based on Universalist Greater Good logic, so, most stories with Lawful Good heroes striking down Chaotic Evil monsters are just Neutral in a SMT sense.

He actually summarized it in that way. In SMT , Neutral is your average heroism, Chaos range from outright villainy to anti heroism and Law is the Well-Intentioned Extremist Utopia Justifies the Means villain show as a possible option.

About the whole Japan thing, I think that a Kado: The Right Answer thread on reddit defined it pretty well, Japan had a emphasis on nature so, depening of the story, Nature is either Lawful or Chaotic, if Nature is Lawful then the story will be orderly based, if the Law side is "anti-nature" then it will be biased against it, Japan is a nation that currenly lives based on technology, so they have basically found themselves living "at the middle point", trying to mix modernity and tradition. To the Japanese, because the world is always changing, then social progress is good but it should never actually disturb the "balance/order/harmony/ -insert your positive status quo here-", something that both Order and Chaos can do, that and them associated Order with Technology and Enlightement ideas instead of romanticism and nature worship, things that are vital to japanese culture.

SMT anti Law bias in general is a mix of Law being basically, Western philosophies being seen in the lens of oriental cultures (they have a pretty negative view of Universalist Greater Good logic) and the whole punk attitude of the creators of the series.

edited 24th Nov '17 6:51:18 PM by KazuyaProta

I was actually thinking of writing a story that tackled this very issue, in addition to deconstructing the entire Order Versus Chaos setup.

The main character is a member of a group of people who were responsible for maintaining peace in the name of the Four Sentinels, divine beings responsible for the whole "order" side of the equation. At least, that's what the old stories said. . .

When the world as he knows it is threatened by a similar force governing the "chaos" part, at first he thinks it's his job to stop it. But as the story goes on, he learns that his people, rather than being the guardians of peace and justice he always assumed them to be, were actually aggressive and ruthless in enforcing their ideals.

He ends up going into a Heroic BSoD because of this. Eventually, though, he realizes that the only way to end the perpetual war between order and chaos that his people have been fighting is to not fight at all and allow both to exist.

edited 5th Jan '18 6:20:02 PM by ElSquibbonator

That's hardly a deconstruction, Is just going Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous, a deconstruction would be something like, both sides don't like fight but their struggle is necessary to keep a cosmic balance, so their fights are impersonal and filled with mutual sorry.

edited 5th Jan '18 7:41:01 PM by KazuyaProta

I was thinking about how The Matrix presented its core struggle, particularlly in light of the online game. Both the rebels and the machines are fighting for survival, both need the titular Lotus-Eater Machine, and the overall theme of the story is that even rebellion can be turned into a controllable cycle, while artificial programs can exhibit entirely human traits. There's also the more explicit contrast between purpose and choice, as while Neo is guided in his development by a number of characters fulfilling their purpose, it is ultimately his choice that breaks the cycle...

Really, it's not named as order versus chaos, but if you want grey morality and navel gazing, and awesome action scenes to top it all off, you can't go wrong with The Matrix. And yes, I actually like the sequels, games and other supplementals.