Are there Chaotic Knight Templars, or is it an inherently Lawful trope?

Exactly What It Says on the Tin. When I think of a Knight Templar, it's often easiest to think of someone with great power (political, physical, etc) who is convinced they must do a specific thing in order to make the world a better place, or that a specific group. Whatever they case, they (at least in my view) tend to be the type who believe in some kind of order, and are working to bring about that order. They are also almost impossible to dissuade, totally convinced they are right.

I've been wondering if we have any examples of non Lawful Knight Templar characters. One example I can think of Girard Draketooth from the webcomic The Order of the Stick. He treated all lawful characters (specifically paladins) like they were Lawful Stupid knight templars who would twist the rules to their own favour to justify some horrible act (and while this had been a thing, he was completely wrong about the Paladins who he thought would do it), while only trusting his immediate family and going around robbing anyone else to fund his cause (a good cause mind you; guarding a gate that would release an Eldritch Abomination if it was destroyed but still). This included having his family members seduce outsiders to produce heirs...then rob said outsiders, taking the child with them.

So yeah. That's one example. Are there others, or is this gonna be another stupid Handsome Rob thread where he asks stupid things?

....Hoping for the former myself.

Yes.

Such characters would tend to be along the lines of "fanatical revolutionaries" and the like.

Huh.

So they would. I'm annoyed at myself for not considering that actually.

Damn, someone needs to say more or this thread is gonna die quicker than I'd hoped.

Maybe something like Don Quixote? He thinks he's holding-up the chivalrous virtues of a knightly order but he's really just crazy and fighting windmills.

No, he's just a crazy (and humourous, and sad) wannabe knight... I think a character with a zealous devotion to the concept of chaos itself would be closer to a chaotic Knight Templar.

It seems unlikely that a Chaotic character could fulfill the aspect of the Knight Templar which is to "rid the world of free will". That's not a mandatory part, but it does indicate that disobeying the rules, however insane they may be, is a primary trigger for this character, and a Chaotic character could not have that as a motive by definition.

Someone like Girard Draketooth has a general grudge against paladins and a specific grudge against Soon, which manifests in violently antagonistic behavior that causes serious problems for other characters. That doesn't make him a Knight Templar; it makes him someone with a major grudge.

edited 21st Jun '18 4:29:08 PM by Fighteer

That's an interesting way to look at it.

What about the stuff with his family though?

Again, dickish behavior, but I don't see how it fits the description of Knight Templar.

It could counts as Fanatical Behavior.

Questions like this are kinda the issue of Order Versus Chaos systems where they are defined for personality rather than Ideals on themselves.

edited 23rd Jun '18 8:28:23 PM by KazuyaProta

All cats are animals. Not all animals are cats. A Knight Templar is a fanatic. Not all fanatics are knights templar.

edited 23rd Jun '18 8:55:35 PM by Fighteer

Are you sure, because I always found that Knight Templar just meant "Fanatic behavior".

Also, the very entry said that they can be Anti-Freedom as a concept, but not necessarily.

This is a trope that leans Lawful, but that cant be given certain trappings. A Bomb-Throwing Anarchists (depending of his own brand of anarchism) can count as a CE Knight Templar.

edited 23rd Jun '18 9:07:06 PM by KazuyaProta

No, a Knight Templar is very specifically a character who believes in their own righteousness and takes the enforcement of the law beyond any reason or restraint. Any other definition is misuse.

edited 23rd Jun '18 9:08:44 PM by Fighteer

So what if we focused on the highlighted part. If a person merely believed in their own righteousness (that they were right above all else), but was chaotic in their methods, would they count as a non lawful Knight Templar.

I have to admit, it does seem like a trope that's very tied to those of the lawful character alignment.

I don't think we can shoehorn that in and still keep the trope as intended.

Huh. So a Knight Templar who isn't lawful really is impossible then?

...I don't know why, but that kinda disappoints me.

My name is Mr. Bumpy, I'll give this thread a bump!

....yeah, that was lame. I admit it.

I still say that Knight Templar as a trope had evolved enough to, while still being a primarly Lawful Evil trope, have some Chaotic Evil examples arround.

The issue with both Lawful and Chaotic axis is pretty messy.

Regarding the original question, consider Zaheer from The Legend of Korra. His ideal was to restore the "natural disorder" of the world by slaughtering his way through the world's rulers. Sounds like a Chaotic Knight Templar to me.

I'm with Protagonist on this one. I think a Marxist revolutionary still fufills Fighteer's criteria while working against the social order.

There's nothing stopping a revolutionary from being a Knight Templar. Being against the current order doesn't mean you aren't for another kind of order. Revolutionaries can be Lawful, in other words.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 27th 2018 at 10:29:20 AM

But if is a good revolutionary, then it is Chaotic Good or it flips back to Lawful Good?

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 15th 2018 at 11:23:52 AM

A fundamental issue with the D&D alignment system is defining a concept of "law" and "chaos" that's completely orthogonal to "good" and "evil". A situation where the only good option is to rebel would be a good example.

Indeed, in older editions of D&D this was a problem for Paladins. They were a deliberately overpowered class IIRC so D Ms would often try to get them to lose their paladin abilities by forcing them into a situation where doing the right thing required them to break a law.

Now as for my personal interpretation of alignment, a Lawful Good character "seeks to establish benevolent authority". As such, a Lawful Good character in a Lawful Evil regime might rebel, but primarily to become an authority themselves.

Depends on how you define "order". An anarchist revolutionary wouldnt necessarily agree that they are trying to replace one social authority with another one (even less with themselves). They can be pretty adamant about their ideology, though.

That's true, but I would say that anarchism as a philosophy does not lend itself to being lawful. That's kind of the point, after all.

So anarchists would be "ideologically motivated-chaos".

Edited by Protagonist506 on Aug 20th 2018 at 1:59:08 AM