Law and Chaos

[SilentScope001]

Okay. I'm writing a small novel about the alignments of Law and Chaos battling each other in a modern-day City. Fun. The themes I will be dealing with is conterverisal, so, um, I best hope everything will be okay.

 

Anyway, you may be wondering why the battle between Law and Chaos? Why not Good and Evil? Well, to tell you the truth, the battle between Good and Evil is stupid and overdone. Plus, there is no objective definition of what is good and evil outside of D&D, and you can easily say, "I'm good!" or "I'm evil!" and offer justifications for it. Hopefully, Law and Chaos has some more specific rules, and can be determined more "objectively".

 

 

If you really must know, I would consider personally both sides to have what a D&D GM would call 'Netural Alignment' or 'Evil alignment'.

 

 

So, what I want to know is how you define Law and how you define Chaos. Hopefully that may help me in that Untitled Novel Project I'm writing.

Edited August 23, 2007 by SilentScope001

[Spider]

I would recommend that you go and read any of the eternal champion books by Michael Moorcoock. The central theme in those books is the battle between Law and Chaos. A lot of them have been collected in omnibus editions by White Wolf. I'd especially suggest the one called The Eternal Champion and the Elric ones. Both are mostly fantasy but illustrates the different sides fairly well.

 

But in short, for me Chaos is about change, anarchy and magic while Law is about stability, rules and technology. (or if you prefer corruption and lawlessness vs stagnation and bureaucracy)

[Walsingham]

*Lifts eyepatch*

 

I'm a freelance systems scientist. What you're talking about is the distincion between life and entropy. For life to exist it must counter-entropy. Since doing so is unnatural it requires control, and hence order at anything above the level of the virus. Chaos is allied to entropy in that it accelerates entropy and expoits the energy released by the breakdown of ordered systems. However this is not the whole story in my opinion. Systems that are too tightly controlled have a tendency to resist the influx of energy, since energy also accelerates entropy. Hence they stagnate and solidify.

 

 

A good book that looks into this is Skyttner, L. (2001)

[Guest The Architect]

Oh hi there, SilentScope001. Haven't seen you around here in a while. Well, I haven't made a non-spam post in some time I believe, so, this is my chance to post something that isn't spam, something which actually does have some point, or relevance.

 

I {well technically, no, it's not me that defines these words. The dictionary, the founder/s of these words; they're the ones who did} define Law as obligatory, enforcable rules, a piece of legislation, a legal system, a form of regulation or authority, a branch of knowledge, a general rule or principle. You get the point, right?

 

And Chaos is pretty much a state of complete anarchy and confusion.

 

And it's as simple as that.

Edited August 23, 2007 by The Architect

[Sega_Shaman]

In Dominic Deegan, which is a pretty good web comic by Michael Terracciano, on the good side of Law, it is reason, logic, and perfection, but the downside of it is opression and conformity. Chaos is adaptabilty, freedom, spontaniety, with instability and madness as its negative parts. I think these are pretty good descriptions of them.

Edited September 22, 2007 by Sega_Shaman

[Musopticon?]

In Dominic Deegan, which is a pretty good web comic by Michael Terracciano, on the good side of Law, it is reason, logic, and perfection, but the downside of it is opression and conformity. Chaos is adaptabilty, freedom, spontaniety, with instability and madness as its negative parts. I think these are pretty good descriptions of them.

My landmass erupts in kittens!

[Sega_Shaman]

My landmass erupts in kittens!

 

 

Only real men wear pink

 

Oh yeah, and in the comic, both Law and Chaos are neutral with applications for both good & evil.

[Nartwak]

Forming your own coherent system will give you better footing with your novelette.

[metadigital]

Dirty Harry is strong on Chaos ... meaning that he serves Law by any and all means possible, including illegal and unlawful ones (like torturing Scorpio in the sports field to find where he hid the body of the teenage girl he kidnapped, killed and raped, for example). The end (smiting evil) justifies the means.

 

Law believes that following the law at all times is the best way to spread good (sort of a rephrasing of Buddha: There is no way to happiness [goodness], happiness [or goodness, for this metaphor] is the way). The stereotypical Paladin will always follow the rules, even when evil may gain some advantage by this, notwithstanding. So even though a Paladin might come across a civilization of peacable undead creatures living in harmony with each other and their underdark neighbours, that Paladin must smite the undead no questions asked.

 

There is a difference between Good and Evil; you are struggling because there is no embodiment of pure good or evil in our reality. Causing hurt to others for no other reason that to gain some sick personal thrill is generally regarded as evil regardless of the perpetrator and victim, for example. (Read Zimbardo's latest book The Lucifer Effect, which is subtitled Why Good People do Evil for an excellent definition of evil, as well as a thorough discussion on the power of situation forces to affect individuals, especially in novel scenarios.)

 

Perhaps a useful way to examine the various facets of Good, Evil, Chaos and Lawfulness is by considering the mixed alignments, like Chaoric Good (the person who is prepared to bend the rules to gain the most good) and Lawful Evil (people who may be trapped into behaviours because they are rules).

Edited October 6, 2007 by metadigital