Why is it a problem to list Character Alignment on Character pages?

How about we require people to sign their examples, so someone who thinks Bob is Chaotic Good won't have to edit war with someone who thinks he's Neutral Good?

The character alignment tropes go on the YMMV page, which isn't an area where you're allowed to refer to yourself. It's still part of the wiki; it just needs to be regulated.

Earlier discussion in this thread seems to support keeping all character alignment examples quarantined to their sub-pages.

edited 3rd Feb '11 12:11:22 PM by SpellBlade

The alignments are an exception to the YMMV rules. They don't go anywhere except the trope pages themselves.

Which is why I made the signature suggestion.

How about a Flame Bait banner instead?

That would work too.

Question: why is Character Alignment any different than any number of other very subjective tropes? What constitutes High Octane Nightmare Fuel, Squick, a Crowning Moment Of Awesome, a Complete Monster, a Moral Event Horizon, etc. can vary just as much from one person to another and cause just as many arguments as whether, say, Superman, is Lawful Good or Neutral Good can.

The whole point of a YMMV tab is for there to be a place to list subjective tropes that may or may not apply subject to an individual troper's personal opinion/interpretation. I happen to agree that the alignment system is a fairly simplistic way of describing morality and that for many characters without canonical alignments, assigning one can be very problematic. However, I don't think it's necessarily any more so than drawing the line between, say, Anti-Hero and Anti-Villain for a character who's right on the borderline between the two. In that situation I've seen characters described as both (i.e. * Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain), with a further notation that YMMV on which they are - what's wrong with in the above example listing Superman as possibly providing an example of either alignment Depending on the Writer, the incarnation, subjective opinion, etc.? Seems like that would quash 90% of arguments right there, since I'd guess most tropers are willing to acknowledge that theirs is not the only valid interpretation on subjective questions like these and would be happy to let an argument go so long as the possible validity of their opinion was acknowledged.

If the powers that be start making it against the rules to list subjective tropes even on a work's subpages because it might start an Edit War / Flame War, we'll end up with a wiki that's a lot less interesting and useful, because a great number of tropes are by nature subjective, and if they're quarantined to their respective pages it will make it more difficult for people to surf the wiki. Banning listing character alignments on the Main or Characters pages unless they're canonical, I fully agree with; banning listing them on the YMMV page strikes me as a Wikipedia-esque edict to "Stop Having Fun" Guys. Just my two cents. That said, I'll refrain from adding any character alignments to work pages in the future as per this policy.

edited 5th Feb '11 6:35:40 PM by burstroc

It sees a much higher level of natter across the site. Some of the others that seem like high level natter bait get locked.

To be honest, I haven't noticed this. In fact, from the articles I've read, some of the others I listed (e.g. Crowning Moment Of Awesome or Complete Monster) tend to create MORE natter than Character Alignment, probably because the concepts are clearly understandable to everyone and not just people who have experience with Dn D or Dn D derived/inspired works. Natter annoys me too, but when you have a Wiki that has subjectivity and a breezy, informal style as two of its hallmarks it's something of an inevitable by-product of Wiki Magic. IMO it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater to severely limit the use of subjective tropes just because they cause people to sometimes go outside of standard editing guidelines. Creating something like a YMMV page is a good way to cut down on natter on the main pages, but if tropers aren't allowed to list tropes for which YMMV even on that page, what's the point of having it?

Not just talking about Character Alignment here, but anything which creates tons of argument - why not in the case of extremely controversial examples just lock in a description that says something like "character X has caused tons of controversy on this point - see this thread for a rundown" with a link to a Just for Fun discussion or what have you? Or, as an alternative, create another subpage in which tropers can post their opinions of where certain characters fit in external, non-canonical characterization systems like the Dn D character alignments, Master Character Heroes, etc.?

Obviously some tropers don't like character alignments as a concept, which is fine - everyone's entitled to their opinion. However, there are others who find it interesting and/or productive as a basic character-sorting algorithm. Why should any trope be scrubbed from the entire wiki except its own little ghetto, just because some people don't find it useful? Personally, I find Complete Monster a rather problematic case for the same reason many people don't like character alignments, and not just in the case of the already-banned practice of applying it to real people - it's not particularly useful in regard to any work that features a great deal of moral ambiguity, complex characters, etc. However, I don't think it should be scrubbed. There's clearly something there in the sense that writers sometimes create villains meant to be nigh-impossible to sympathize with, and having a trope to describe that tendency - even if creates lots of problems in the context of some works - brings something to the Wiki and is worth the natter it causes. The same is true of Character Alignment IMO - even in works that don't canonically have an alignment system, writers often create contrasts among characters using "is/is not a nice person" and "follows/doesn't follow the rules" as dividing lines. A good, law-abiding person being confronted with the necessity of breaking the rules to do what they think is right is a pretty common type of moral dilemma, as are questions like whether the spirit of the law is more important than the letter, whether someone who follows the rules but is still a raging, selfish asshole counts as a "moral" individual, etc. Character Alignment doesn't provide answers in these sorts of moral debates of course - but it is a valid way of framing the questions for some people.

edited 5th Feb '11 7:51:51 PM by burstroc

I question the degree to which the separate Character Alignments are tropes, subjective or otherwise. They often evoke archetypes, but they aren't about the archetypes. Iconic individuals often hailed as the ur-example arguably fit into multiple categories. They may contain philosophies, but they are not one set philosophy either. Chaotic Good could describe many different outlooks. A good person who defies an evil authority. A well-intentioned person with a knee-jerk defiance of all authority, and possible trust issues. A passionate individualist with nothing against authority per se, but mostly concerned with following their own personal code. A drifting, erratic type with a good heart. So what does a Chaotic Good listing tell people? Besides that there exists such a thing as a Character Aligment system and that there is at least one troper who's aware of it?

Should we start letting the individual Myers Briggs types get their own pages and warrant entries on the YMMV tab, when no characters have taken the actual test and it would be complete speculation? How about the different astrological signs, you can totally speculate on that. Or maybe try and figure out which of the four houses in Harry Potter the characters would have wound up in. There is no logical limit to this.

Well, you could say the same of many other tropes. Let's take Anti-Hero, for example. Is an Anti-Hero a basically heroic character who has some minor character flaws that your typical Knight in Shining Armor doesn't? A schlub with no heroic characteristics who finds him/herself thrust into the role of the hero in the story? Or a morally ambiguous or downright evil person who just happens to be on the side of the good guys? In truth, it can be any of these things, which is why the page lists five different subtypes of Anti-Hero. Many of the Character Alignment pages do likewise - e.g. Lawful Evil breaks down to "people who believe in civic order and will go to evil ends to achieve it" and "villains who may not care about civic order but, while ruthless, selfish, violent, etc. nevertheless have a personal code of honor".

People should definitely be willing to acknowledge that something as simplistic as an alignment label cannot fully explain the morality and motivations of a complex character, and that any alignment (even a canonical one) is a starting point rather than a final word on parsing a character's morality - but IMO the various alignment pages do a pretty good job of making this point, and many of the better-written examples I've seen elsewhere on the Wiki do likewise - explaining, for example, that Darth Vader is a type I LE character, while Michael Corleone is a type II.

As for whether we should get into characterizing characters by Myers-Briggs type, HP house, etc. - I'll let the Wiki decide that. If people out there want to venture their opinions on what M-B type Spider Man is or which house Buffy would be drafted into, they can knock themselves out. I'd venture, however, that there are likely not enough people out there who'd find those exercises interesting or useful to sustain them. That does not seem to be the case with character alignment.

edited 5th Feb '11 8:08:14 PM by burstroc

Even a broad archetype like the antihero does serve as an archetype in and of itself, as the contrast to the typical protagonist hero. You could break it down into further archetypes such as are outlined on the sliding scale, but the basic is there.

Where is the narrative function inherent to Chaotic Good? Is Chaotic Good invoked by the narrative, used as a tool by the narrative? It's really going about it from the other direction entirely. You have your archetypes, your tropes. Antihero spawned many variations. Character Alignment tries to group many pre-existing archetypes under one broad banner. Character Alignment isn't a trope but a tool used to classify them under an arbitrary framework, and its application outside of any source that doesn't explicitly use such a framework in the first place is dubious.

I don't doubt some people have enjoyed using it as a framework for moral questions. But even if we leave aside the natter and Edit Warring Character Alignment spawns, is it relevant to troping? We are categorizing tools used by the author to shape the narrative, not tools used by the audience to interpret it.

But even if we leave aside the natter and Edit Warring Character Alignment spawns, is it relevant to troping?

Not really. Sure I can believe it is an interesting piece of trivia to list, let's say, Sonicthe Hedgehog as Chaotic Good, though Even I, who has no problem with Character Alignment in of itself, argue it certainly isn't relevant nor really useful.

edited 6th Feb '11 4:48:51 AM by KSonik

I disagree, to an extent. It does describe broad moral archetypes that can be used as a starting point in setting up the moral conflicts of a story. Chaotic Good, for example, could succinctly be described as "doesn't like rules or formal hierarchies but nevertheless has a benevolent morality". As has been pointed out that's a very broad description, and there are lots of character archetypes that fit under it. But I think, as with Anti-Hero, that it does describe a valid category - albeit not one that tells you everything there is to know about the character. If we were to get rid of Character Alignment, somebody would probably eventually make the case that this basic character morality archetype is a valid trope, along with those described by the other alignments, and we'd be more or less back where we started (though maybe with less baggage).

Does it have a narrative function? I dunno. I'd argue that in some cases it does - when I write myself, I don't think specifically in terms of C.A., no, but I do sometimes start from a basic personality template like "doesn't follow rules but is a good person" and then flesh out specifics as I build the character. In other cases, it may not serve a narrative function. But if we're going to restrict the wiki to tropes that serve a narrative function, it's going to be a lot less interesting, because narrative function is only one aspect of the act of storytelling, and there are many audience reaction tropes (e.g. Values Dissonance, So Bad, It's Good, Seinfeld Is Unfunny, etc.) that don't really have a narrative function either, unless deliberately invoked by the author in-story.

Furthermore, some morality tropes that I think very clearly are real, distinctive tropes irrespective of the validity of alignment as a concept - e.g. Always Chaotic Evil or Lawful Stupid - play off of the idea of the alignment system, at least as they're currently written. They'd probably need some heavy modification if the system is scrubbed.

Now, I do agree with you guys that some people get very carried away with this and that trying to assign an alignment to every single character in one's favorite work is an exercise in Fan Wank. I also agree that it's not useful for framing every moral conflict - sometimes there are moral dilemmas that involve following one set of rules versus another set of rules, for example. That's why, except in cases where it's canonical, I have zero problem with banning it from the Main or Characters pages. Even on a YMMV page, I think it's tricky (though as I said no less so than other YMMV items such as Complete Monster or Anvilicious), and if someone's going to put it in the explanation ought to be carefully written and include the caveat that in many cases there are valid arguments to be made that a certain character straddles different alignments, differs in alignment from one incarnation to another, or changes from one alignment to another over the course of their Character Development. But given that it has a certain degree of popularity on the Wiki, banning it outright from YMMV seems a bit excessive to me.

edited 6th Feb '11 5:11:48 PM by burstroc

Alignment is not useful in the way you describe. I'm sorry that you've gone to such efforts to elaborate on your point of view, but when you can't get two people to agree on the definition of Lawful vs. Chaotic, never mind Good vs. Evil, it's worthless as a real evaluation of anything. It's people imposing a framework on things that were never intended to have it.

We are simply not going to allow it and that's final.

One thing Fighteer. I actually thought it was the Law-Chaos axis that was debated more than Good-Evil axis, not the other way around.

edited 8th Feb '11 2:42:17 AM by KSonik

I don't know, I've seen some pretty epic debates over whether Lawful means "following the law" or "following one's own ethical code regardless of the laws". The basic point remains.

Er, maybe that's what you said. I apparently can't read this morning.

edited 7th Feb '11 7:35:20 AM by Fighteer

Fighteer, I've already stated that I think the various pages related to the concept of character alignment do a pretty good job of hashing out the disagreements you cite, as well as why I think it can (sometimes) be an interesting tool for analyzing stories. I've also stated that I understand that not everyone sees the value in it, and I think that's fine. I'm not going to waste time repeating myself.

I'm not really trying to convince you - obviously, the people complaining about this have been louder than the people defending it, the powers that be have sided with the former group, and that's that. I'll abide by the rules. But that won't stop me from stating my opinion that something like C.A., even if it is worthless, falls under the heading of harmless fun rather than actual Flame Bait (which on a website like this should, IMO, be restricted to things like real world politics or religion debates), and that as such banning it is both silly and uncharacteristically humorless and anal-retentive for a website like this. The decision is final, fine - it's also misguided as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe we need an additional tag on which items that are too contentious even for YMMV can be placed, which only people who don't mind a bit of Edit Warring need concern themselves with.

edited 10th Feb '11 2:37:57 AM by burstroc

The things we label Flame Bait are the things that have proven to attract flaming and edit wars. It doesn't matter how silly the subject is, only how serious and how pervasive and how probable the problems it causes are. Character Alignment entry edit wars and flame fests have proven to be extremely probable, extremely pervasive,and extremely problematic. That makes them Flame Bait.

I guess I've just got a higher tolerance for open-ended debate and back-and-forth editing than some people. I've never seen an internet argument over something as ultimately trivial as this get ugly or personal, which is the point at which I would apply the Flame Bait label and shut things down. But it's not my wiki, so whatever.

Anyways, the decision is made. You all are not going to stop thinking it was the correct one, and I'm not going to stop thinking it was silly, heavy-handed, or over-reactive, let's just agree to disagree and drop it, okay?

edited 10th Feb '11 7:11:08 PM by burstroc

Okay, query: what about the quasi-alignments like Neutral Selfish, or goofy ones like Chaotic Stupid?

I have seen people try to get around the Character Alignment thing by listing those instead.

edited 13th Feb '11 3:28:01 PM by Tyoria

Those are fine. They describe a fairly objective pattern of behavior. In fact, they work better than the real alignment system because they're the things people tend to actually expect when they hear them. Kind of ironic in a way.

Hmmm. The Selfish Good Selfish Evil page could stand to be cleaned up from its current dependence on comparison to the standard nine alignments to define the oddball ones, then. I'll take a stab at it after dinner...

Yeah, the Selfish Good Selfish Evil one was more what I was geared towards anyway.

Chaotic Stupid and the like is only annoying when you've bleeped out the page of, say, Chaotic Evil and had someone immediately jump in to fill the gap with Chaotic Stupid and Stupid Evil.