Checking in so you know I'm here.
I agree that the current descriptions take quite a bit of focused reading to get a solid handle on them and could stand to be streamlined, but I'd caution against streamlining them too much and removing what might be important content.
I feel it's important to mention that the Type 3/Personal Code write-up should mention that the character's code is most likely at odds with, or at least orthogonal to, established laws in the setting (For instance, the Asari Justicar's Code in Mass Effect requires a Justicar to do an awful lot of killing, much to the dismay of law enforcement officers who might be legally required to risk their own lives by interfering with the technically illegal violence, considering how Badass Justicars are.)
Otherwise I think I rather like your write-ups.
I don't have an opinion on your second and third questions; I'd like to see some discussion before I form an opinion.
One issue I'm seeing be overlooked here is that Lawful Neutral isn't really a trope.
It is definitely a trope, you just never post examples that aren't canon.
edited 4th Feb '15 12:34:27 PM by Karxrida
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Well, it's a Character Alignment, and it's YMMV. It is a trope, it's just not objective. It's also forbidden to add Character Alignments for any work in which it isn't canon. (A double-whammy to prevent misuse: It's YMMV, because people may disagree about what alignment a character is, but it's also not to be added unless it's canon, so it's not to be treated as a YMMV trope—though it does go on the YMMV page).
edited 4th Feb '15 12:34:19 PM by SolipSchism
But all the big picture analysis of internal subtropes seems to be ignoring that. There's really only a small selection of works - pretty much limited to D&D tie-ins or works otherwise set in a D&D setting - that can actually have examples for any Character Alignment trope. So I'm not sure why there's a need to define all the precise ways in which it can manifest. This isn't a D&D fansite, after all.
The more I think about it, the more I think that 3/Personal Code and 4/Order Imposer aren't true Internal Subtropes. They're not distinct from 1/Order Upholder and 2/Rules Zealot, but can overlap with them in any combination. An Order Imposer is just an Order Upholder or Rules Zealot that has to create his own rules when he enters a situation that doesn't have any in place. A Personal Code can be subject to either the letter/spirit of the law dichotomy of an Order Upholder or the inflexibility of a Rules Zealot.
As for whether it's a trope, aligning characters according to lawfulness vs. chaos and evil vs. good and treating those concepts in-universe as objective facts of nature as opposed to subjective abstractions is definitely a trope, if one that is usually only expressed in those exact terms in D&D tie-in materials. It shows up in enough other places (Finn being told that Flame Princess is Chaotic Evil in Adventure Time, etc.) that it's worth listing examples, and if it's worth listing examples, it's worth defining.
In a way, listing non-canonical examples under the individual alignment tropes is more like a Just for Fun exercise than a YMMV trope, though.
edited 4th Feb '15 1:06:07 PM by hbi2k
I think it straddles the line between JFF and YMMV. It's YMMV because people may interpret characters differently, but it's also JFF because by and large, tropes are deliberately or at least subconsciously used by creators; character alignments are something that could, in theory, literally be applied to every character ever, whether the creator knows the first thing about character alignments, which in that case makes it less of a trope and more of a method of categorizing/defining characters. It's the act of defining a character as a particular alignment that is a trope; the actual statement that "Alice is Chaotic Evil".
A Troper claiming that Alice is Chaotic Evil without any canon material supporting it explicitly is JFF because it's a Troper saying "Hey, let's apply this category system to Alice."
Thus, really the only legit examples that wouldn't be JFF are, as mentioned, canon—either an In-Universe or Word of God mention of the trope.
edited 4th Feb '15 2:16:12 PM by SolipSchism
YMMV articles do not describe tropes. Tropes, by definition, are objectively present or not.
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.I've addressed this elsewhere, but "YMMV" and "Trope" are not mutually exclusive terms. The definition of a trope is objective. Whether its presence is objective or not is the difference between an objective trope and a YMMV trope. Nobody disputed the definition of Lawful Neutral, only whether it applies in any given case.
One mod (I forget who exactly, probably Fighteer or Septimus) did give me a small correction the last time this came up: Audience Reactions are not tropes. But aside from those, YMMV Tropes are, in fact, tropes. That's why YMMV Tropes is a Blue Link.

I asked for clarification on the InternalSubtropes of Lawful Neutral on Ask the Tropers; I wanted to replace the generic numbered Type labels with descriptive ones (the former being out of vogue nowadays) and realized that I wasn't confident that I fully understood the distinctions.
Solip Schism helpfully offered the following explanation:
Type 1: Believes that rules are important, not for their own sake, but because in the larger context of things, rules foster order and prosperity. It's similar in theme to people who believe that religion is a positive influence whether or not God is real: For instance, an agnostic character who respects religious people because their religion encourages them to be selfless and generous. Religion makes people behave as good people, therefore religion is good, whether or not its teachings are objectively true. This type of character may not believe this or that law is the best it could be, but they will fastidiously follow the laws because they believe in the order fostered by laws in general. Rampant anarchy would terrify this character, because without laws, how will anyone know how to be a good person? This character is more likely to follow the spirit of the law rather than the letter, but even then, they believe that the letter of the law is part of its spirit, so they are not likely to practice much Loophole Abuse. If a law is obviously troublesome, this character will be the most likely to attempt to change it through legal channels, but until it is changed, it is still the law, so they will follow it on principle.
Type 2: Much more focused on the letter of the law. This character thrives on rules and structure, and takes rules/laws as their scripture. If the law says "Thou shalt not do X," this character will not, under any circumstances, do X, and they will most likely rat out other characters they see doing X, merely on principle. They don't question, they aren't interested in changing laws; after all, a devout Catholic wouldn't petition to remove all that stuff about women being silent; it's in the book. This is the most likely type of character to say something like "I don't make the rules, I just enforce them."
Type 3: This character has a code or creed, maybe not an officially recognized one such as actual laws or religious scripture. It might be a personal code, but I think more often it would be an organizational one, like the eponymous Assassin's Creed of the video games. This character strongly believes they are right and good, but their code or creed is likely at odds with what others would consider good (case in point, the Assassins are definitely portrayed as the good guys, but, well, they do make a living out of being serial killers, after all). Another example might (but exercise Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment) be something like the Soldier's Creed that U.S. Army soldiers are supposed to live by (and presumably other branches have something similar). Granted, the SC demands that we exercise our personal moral judgment in addition, but other parts of it are not really tied to any objective morality or law, such as "I will never quit" or "I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself." Personal examples would be like a character who has vowed never to touch a weapon, or never to refuse help to someone asking for it. Yes, those seem like they could be moral guidelines to live by, but what makes them more rigid and Lawful is that they include the word always/never, making it an actual rule that the character will follow even at the expense of more adaptable moral judgment (for instance, they may refuse to lift a weapon in defense of an innocent).
Type 4: Seems to me like this is what would happen if a Type 1 found himself in a situation without any rules: He would either create rules, or continue living by the rules he knows, because he doesn't know how to live any other way. I could see this character running a survivor group in a post-apocalyptic situation, because he'd be the one to say, "Yes, governments have fallen and the world has gone to shit, but if we're going to survive and thrive, we need to impose some sort of order on ourselves so that we don't become animals."
Feeling that I understood them better, I tried to summarize them like so:
At this point we realized that what we were really talking about was rewriting a large section of the description, so Solip Schism suggested we Take It To The Forums so we could give the matter a proper place for discussion and input.
The issues at this point:
1.) Do the descriptions for the Internal Subtropes need to be changed at all? Personally, I find the existing ones to be kind of rambling and hard-to-understand, but if I'm the only one who feels that way, we can just move on.
2.) If the answer to 1 is "yes," do we keep the same list of Internal Subtropes we have now, or does the list need to be changed? I sort of wonder if 1 and 4 couldn't be merged, and maybe 2 and 3 as well.
3.) Once we've agreed upon an answer to 2, we'd need to arrive at good descriptions for whatever Internal Subtropes remain.
edited 4th Feb '15 12:55:07 PM by hbi2k