Imaginary Worlds - Why They Fight

Episode Date: March 10, 2016

On the big screen this Spring, Batman will try to take down Superman, Iron Man is going to fight Captain America, and Daredevil will battle Punisher on Netflix. Cleary we are more interested in watching superheroes fight each other instead of the bad guys. The brawl between these characters isn't just about ego -- it taps into a larger conflict about personal ethics and the law. In other words, it's a battle of character alignments, a term first made popular by the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Featuring novelist and comic book writer Samuel Sattin, Florida A&M University philosophy professor Michael LaBossiere and Brooklyn assistant district attorney Patrick O' Connor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. So back in September, I did an episode about Dungeons & Dragons, which I had never played growing up. But I had read so many interviews with writers who talked about how D&D influenced them. I wanted to learn how to play and kind of unlock the secrets. And I'm still playing with a private group. But there's one element of the game, which at that time, I didn't really truly understand or appreciate.

But in the months since I've done that episode, I've come to realize that this aspect of Dungeons & Dragons has had a profound impact on pop culture. It was almost like I discovered the secret code, and once I unlocked it, I never saw any of my favorite fantasy worlds the same again. It's called character alignments. Basically, when you create a new character in D&D, you have to choose whether your character is good, evil, or morally neutral.

Simple enough. But then you also need to decide if your character is lawful, neutral in regards to the law, or chaotic. Now I know that sounds a little heady, maybe confusing. Samuel Satin felt that way when he started playing as a kid. I'm 13 years old.

I'm kind of an idiot. You know, so I'm trying to think about who I am, like what's going on. And then all of a sudden I'm playing this game and somebody's like, well, you have to pick your alignment. And I remember being like, what? And being like, well, what are these things? I had to read about examples

of what a lawful neutral character was versus a chaotic neutral character. And I was confused by it. Now he's a novelist and a comic book writer, and he uses character alignments every time he creates a new character. Okay, so if you're still confused, and you probably are, the best way to wrap your head around this whole thing is to imagine a grid. A grid that's like Hollywood squares or the opening credits of The Brady Bunch.

You've got nine squares in total, three on each side, and one square in the middle with Anne B. Davis as Alice or Paul Lynde. Okay, so you've got that nine-square grid in your mind. Zoom in on the square in the upper left-hand corner. That square is lawful good. Think of Superman, the Boy Scout who cares as much about saving the planet as he does about saving a cat from a tree. Good afternoon, Mr. President. Sorry I've been away so long. I won't let you down again.

Now, the movie Man of Steel was controversial because the director, Zack Snyder, and screenwriter David Goyer, wanted to give Superman more of an edge than the Christopher Reeves movies. And this is a big spoiler, but it is an important point going into Batman v Superman. At the end of Man of Steel, they had Superman kill his arch nemesis, General Zod, by snapping his neck before Zod could kill innocent civilians. Snyder and Goyer are still, to this day, defending that scene against very upset fans who keep insisting that is not in Superman's nature. You know, something has to is not in Superman's nature. You know, something has to happen in that character's life.

Superman has to have something terrible happen to Superman, you know, or something, some huge shift, some seismic shift in the way that he thinks about the world in order for him to go and just be like, I'm going to kill that guy. Okay, the next square over in this top row is neutral good. So if you're going to go maybe to the Star Trek universe, Spock is lawful good. Kirk is neutral good because he is willing to break the rules or the law if he thinks it is preventing him from doing as much good as possible. You are looking at the only Starfleet cadet who ever beat the no-win scenario. How? I reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to rescue the ship. What? He cheated. I changed the conditions of the test so it was possible to rescue the ship. What?

He cheated. I changed the conditions of the test. Got a commendation for original thinking. But Kirk is still part of the system. He's a captain and eventually an admiral. But if you go to the last square on the right, you get chaotic good. Somebody like Robin Hood, who will never be tied down to an organization. He thinks the only way to do good in the world is to just upend the social order. And I'll never rest until every Saxon in this

shire can stand up free men and strike a blow for Richard and England. All right, so that's the upper row. Lawful good, neutral good, and chaotic good. The middle row are the characters that are morally neutral. Lawful neutral would be a mindless bureaucrat. Or a brutal enforcer of the law, like Judge Dredd. I am the law. True neutral, in the center square, is a character like the Oracle in The Matrix, who accumulates wisdom from witnessing everything, but rarely takes a side. Candy?

Do you already know if I'm going to take it? Wouldn't be much of an oracle if I didn't. The far right square in the middle row is a character that you see much more often. Chaotic neutral. So somebody who can definitely be swayed based on who has the power, whether they know it or not. Think of Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He's a lovable rogue who values his freedom and his survival equally. And that was without even a single drop of rum.

Finally, the bottom row are the three types of evil. There's lawful evil. Napoleon from Animal Farm is actually one of the ones I was thinking about. Really, they create an entire order. They create a law. They create a system. And then they use that system

to destroy the rest of anybody who dissents. To peace and plenty under Pedro. The next square over would be neutral evil. Maybe the Terminator or Voldemort. Because a lawful evil character in the Harry Potter world would want to take over Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic and just turn them evil. But Voldemort would rather just topple them and create his own brutal sense of order. Voldemort will often kill his own followers

or often, like, you know, depending on how he feels about somebody betraying him or coming a little bit too close to doing something that he doesn't want to do. You've been a good and faithful servant, Severus. But only I can live forever. My lord. The last square in the bottom right-hand corner is chaotic evil. That is the Joker, whether he's portrayed as a serial killer or a terrorist. Introduce a little anarchy.

terrorist. Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos our characters act in relation to morality as it pertains to the law. So if you have a character who is just afraid of the law or just wants to follow the law for some reason or another but has no moral bearings, and if you're going to try to write that, you have to

really kind of plot out, like, how are you going to execute such a fascinating and strange character? Sam also likes to encourage his writing students to create characters that are in conflict with their own alignment, or maybe they're in denial about their true nature. His favorite example these days is Jessica Jones, the awesome show on Netflix based on a Marvel Comics character. She's a hard-boiled detective who tries to hide her superpowers because she thinks that she's chaotic neutral. But really, deep down, she's good. And she keeps putting herself in danger to help other people.

Steer clear of me. I don't do that. Please, I can't risk you. She's so different than so many other chaotic good characters in that way because of her constant need to talk herself out of being a good person, right? It's like, you know, like, no, no, you guys don't understand. I'm terrible, right? But storytelling really takes off when the different alignments play off each other.

I mentioned before Spock and Kirk being neutral good and lawful good, and that's kind of their whole relationship is this sort of long discussion about what's the right thing to do. Or being a Batman fan, my favorite example is the relationship between him and Catwoman. She is chaotic neutral. I would say he is chaotic good, but there are a lot of different interpretations of Batman, but that's basically his default mode. And I think that's why the tension and the attraction between them is so interesting and always the same. Whether it's a live action movie like The Dark Knight Rises.

You don't owe these people anymore. You've given them everything. Not everything. Not yet. Or Batman the Animated Series. Why did you do it, Selina? I have to be who I am. I realize now I can't change that.

It's just the cat in me. Or the show Gotham, where Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle are children. I'm going to disappear. You can't do that. I wasn't asking. You can't disappear. You have to come back home with me. When Detective Gordon finds the man who killed my parents, you have to testify.

You really think that was ever going to happen? That's the big, most important part of writing, is the way in which your characters interact with each other. Because that tension that's created, you know, that tension, that mystery, that excitement that's created from different characters interacting with each other is kind of what it's all made of, I think. Now, when I first started talking to Sam, we were kind of bonding over the fact that when our relationship with our wives, we feel like we're neutral good and our wives are lawful good. And we're often getting into these kinds of arguments of like, oh, come on, what's the big

deal? Who's going to notice? And it is so tempting to apply these things to real life, you know, not just with ourselves, but people from the media, people from history. I mean, could we even use character alignments to understand the law itself? Long-time listeners to this podcast might remember my friend Patrick O'Connor. He was the guy that convinced me to watch The Walking Dead as I completely freaked out in my living room. Patrick is a big geek like me, but his day job couldn't be more different than mine. He is an assistant district attorney, prosecutes gang-related homicides. When I came to his office in downtown Brooklyn, it was seven o'clock. The only thing

he'd eaten all day was a loaf of bread sitting by his desk. Yeah, it was a crazy day. We had witnesses who were supposed to come in on a case and testify in the grand jury, and they were reluctant. And we had to convince them to try to do the right thing. And why didn't they want to testify? Ah, fear. Fear. Fear. Fear of retaliation if they are seen to cooperate. So where would these guys fall on the character alignment spectrum?

I wouldn't say they're chaotic evil. I don't think they're going out there purposefully because they're so young. They haven't been jaded yet. They aren't there to necessarily hurt people, but they're there to advance themselves and their reputations and if someone gets in their way then that person needs to be eliminated uh what is that neutral evil maybe i wouldn't say lawful evil definitely not and i don't i wouldn't say chaotic evil you wouldn't say chaotic neutral though i would say say chaotic neutral, though? I would say, yeah.

Although if they kill people, they're not chaotic neutral. Yeah, they kill people. I mean, they do take a certain pleasure. So I would say neutral evil. Now, Patrick is the most lawful good person that I know. And when he played D&D as a kid, he always played lawful good characters. But those are not the type of characters he's drawn to when it comes to comic books. No, I am not into the lawful good characters because that's boring.

I mean, when you're reading a comic book and stuff, it's nice to have the lines kind of blurred. I like Punisher. Oh, you're kidding. No, I don't. Punisher? I'm a big Punisher fan of all people. Which maybe shouldn't be surprising because he's a real rules-based guy. All right, tell me more about Punisher for people who don't know about him. Okay, Punisher is a character who kind of developed in the 70s during the whole Dirty Harry era.

And he was a Marine, and he had a family family and he was a stand-up guy. He was a police officer. And then his family got gunned down by mobsters while they were in, of all places, Central Park. And ever since then, he has dedicated his life to killing criminals, like hunting them down and being a judge, jury, and executioner of criminals. Would you consider him – what alignment would you consider him? That's a good question. He's definitely good. He's probably like chaotic good. He won't kill police officers or law enforcement, definitely, because that crosses his line. But he doesn't believe in the system. He doesn't believe in criminals going through the legal system at all.

He thinks it's corrupt, that they get off, that going to jail is too good for them, and he's going to take it upon himself to enact his beliefs of right and wrong. Now, here's where things get really interesting. This year, Punisher is going to be the main antagonist in season two of Daredevil on Netflix. Now, Daredevil is lawful good. I mean, he's actually a lawyer by day. He will hurt them only insofar as it's necessary. You know, that's not what he's about. He's there to bring them to the police, to the system, so the system can judge them. And then he actually will take over their defense and be their lawyer. People don't have to die. You hit them and they get back up. I hit him and they stayed down. Why are you doing this? Because I think you're a half Of course, Punisher vs. Daredevil is not the only Smackdown happening this year.

Batman is going to fight Superman. And the conflict between them, I mean going back to the comics and the animated series, has always been one between lawful good and chaotic good. This bat vigilante is like a one-man raid of terror. You don't get to decide what the right thing is. Nobody cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman. But what's really interesting to me is that Bruce Wayne is going to voice the criticisms that fans had of the last movie. That this Superman, at least so far, is not really lawful good. But more of a might-makes-right Superman, who's living up to his name as an ubermensch. He has the power to wipe out the entire human race. And if we believe there's even a 1% chance that he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty. And we have to destroy him. And later this spring, Captain

America is going to fight Iron Man in Captain America Civil War. Now in the first Captain America movie, Steve Rogers was the epitome of lawful good. Iron Man was neutral good. You know, like early on, he wanted to join the Avengers, but he didn't want the government to ever get a hold of his suit. As the Marvel Cinematic Universe developed, Tony Stark messed up so many times that he is now willing to accept government supervision out of penance. Meanwhile, Steve Rogers has been betrayed by the government so many times, he doesn't trust them anymore. The two heroes have swapped alignments.

And that's where they're going to come into conflict. Captain, you seem a little defensive. Well, it's been a long day. If we can't accept limitations, we're no better than bad guys. That's not the way I see it. Clearly, we are more interested in watching alignments of the same side fight each other, rather than just having good fight evil, which is a really new development. And every one of these stories is about the conflict between personal ethics and the law, which is what character alignments are all about.

It's how a lot of people feel that, you know, they have these forces, government forces, Which is what character alignments are all about. I mean, maybe Donald Trump comes to mind when you're thinking about that. I mean, somebody who thinks, you know, the government is full of useless people and he is the one to step in and the only one who can be trusted to step in and actually do what the right thing is. We are living in a very highly polarized political era. I mean, compared to other times in American history, there isn't much reverence for the law of the land these days. I mean, it feels like the law of the land these days. I mean, it feels like the law can change pretty radically, depending on which party controls which branch of government. And this is the point where I decided I need to move on from a lawyer to a philosopher.

Michael Labossiere teaches philosophy at A&M University in Florida, and he's a big gamer. He likes the challenge of playing lawful good characters in D&D because they often go to situations where the law is in conflict with their own values. Like a common situation is his character will go to a kingdom where slavery is legal. And then he gets into arguments with the other players because he wants to free the slaves.

And they say, that's not necessarily what you do as lawful good. And they'll use the example of the Star Wars prequels, where the Jedi come to Tatooine, a planet where slavery is legal. And while they want to personally free Anakin Skywalker, they don't try to end slavery as an institution on the entire planet. And this is often used in real life to kind of justify, like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson to say, well, they're good people, but they aren't slaves. But that's, you know, that they were just following the social conditions of their time.

So that was OK. It's funny how often we judge people in history in terms of, you know, people we want. Historically, we want people to be chaotic good in times like that. historically, we want people to be chaotic good in times like that. It's easy to say, oh, if I was there, I just, you know, you'd become the Batman of that society or something. And you're right. I think people do like to think, oh, if I was alive then, I would be fighting all this evil. And my reply is, there's lots of evil today. You put on your cape and go do it.

Now, Michael does use character alignments when he teaches philosophy classes, but his approach is more holistic. He thinks that all of us can embody any one of these alignments at any point in our lives. Well, it's kind of like in psychology, we talk about people putting on different masks, having different personalities. So like a person is not, doesn't act the same around, say the workplace that's different than what they do like when they're hanging out with their friends which is different from how they behave say with their their children and probably a similar thing with like i guess our alignments that depending on our situation sometimes you know we're more good sometimes more more neutral sometimes more evil or some situations we kind of fall into bad behavior,

like a person can be basically decent, but have those neutral evil moments when they're selfish, when they take that last piece of pie, for example. Or do something much worse. The really interesting question is that in our real world, when you talk about people being evil, like dictators, like Assad, or people being good, someone like Pope Francis and Mother Teresa, are we talking about things that are objective? I mean, are there really good and evil law and chaos, or is that just kind of our perspective? Although, to some extent, we're all trapped. We will forever, for all of our lives, we'll be trapped in whatever our point of view is. I will always

see ISIS as evil in the same way that you read Harry Potter and you don't think, well, that's what J.K. Rowling says, but I'd really like to read the book where Voldemort's the hero because I bet he has a really interesting take on the story. You know? Yeah. But I think fortunately with the case of ethics,

we can kind of think, you know, because you gave the example of, you know, I'd like to see this from the standpoint of Vold of ethics, we can kind of think, because you gave the example of, I'd like to see this from the standpoint of Voldemort, but you kind of think, well, what would it be like to see the world from this different perspective? That's one thing I think actually role-playing games are very good for, because when you play them as a game master or a player, one of the most challenging things is try to be someone that you're not and be that sort of an implausible way to understand, you know, what is it that motivates them?

How are they seeing the world? I find myself, of course, always condemning, you know, people I regard as evil, but I do find I've got a better, you know, understanding of them from trying to be, you know, trying to play those different alignments in the game. to be you're trying to play those different alignments in the game what's so satisfying to me about fantasy worlds is that a character can embody a single idea and fight a character who embodies that opposing idea i mean it's over simplification but it gives these stories an epic quality so that you feel that really important stuff is at stake. And I wonder, in this latest crop of superhero battles,

if the good guys will resolve their differences, push each other into being better heroes, and reunite to take on whatever threatens the Earth next. Because that's certainly not happening in real life. Well, that's it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Patrick O'Connor, Samuel Satin, and Michael Labossiere.

My mother was a guidance counselor. She had heard that role-playing games help people develop social skills, and so she got me the basic set and was my first dungeon master. So your mother was your first dungeon master? Yeah, yeah. That sounds kind of awkward. Well, how was she as a DM?

She was great. I actually wish my mom was my first DM, just so I could hear every term in the player's handbook pronounced with a Boston accent. Imaginary Worlds is part of the Panoply Network. I am my own GabFest. You can like the show on Facebook or leave a comment in iTunes. I tweet at emolinski. My website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org. Panoply.