So what would you consider the alignments of some of the major characters in the series to be? It is tricky since many of the main characters operate in a moral gray zone constantly. Here are a few of my thoughts.
Ned Stark: Lawful Good
Tyrion: Neutral with Good tendencies
Jon Snow: Neutral Good
Samwell: Neutral Good with Lawful tendencies
Cersi: Lawful Evil
Bronn: Neutral with Evil tendencies
Bran: Lawful Good
Littlefinger: Neutral
Craster: Lawful Neutral with strong Evil tendencies
Arya: Neutral
Brienne: Lawful Neutral with strong Good tendencies
Theon Greyjoy: Neutral Evil
Stannis Baratheon: Lawful Neutral
Walder Frey: Neutral Evil
Ser Gregor Clegane: Lawful Evil
Sandor Clegane: Neutral
So what would you consider the alignments of some of the major characters in the series to be? It is tricky since many of the main characters operate in a moral gray zone constantly. Here are a few of my thoughts.
I agree it's a bit of a difficult idea as the characters are too complex to be boiled down to a simple alignment system, but I'd still disagree with some of those.
Tyrion: Neutral with Good tendencies
Definitely Chaotic Neutral at the end of ASoS. He's clearly gone a bit bananas by this point and killing people in cold blood definitely takes him out of the Good category.
Jon Snow: Neutral Good
Possibly. I see him definitely going Lawful Neutral in the next book though.
Cersi: Lawful Evil
Neutral Evil. She uses the law as a weapon to aid her but does not see herself as subservient to it, as proven at the end of AFFC.
Littlefinger: Neutral
I think I'd go with this. He serves no-one but himself. I'd say possibly light chaotic tendencies for his love of just playing the game and screwing with people's minds seems to come even ahead of his own personal advancement.
Arya: Neutral
Arya is chaos personified, so CG at the start of the series shading towards CN by the end of AGoT.
Brienne: Lawful Neutral with strong Good tendencies
I'd say Lawful Good, definitely.
Theon Greyjoy: Neutral Evil
I'd say NE shading towards CN. I can't quite remember if he actually kills the substitutes for Rickon and Bran in ACoK, which would put him in the evil category.
Stannis Baratheon: Lawful Neutral
Actually, I agree 100% with this one. Probably the best fit :)
Sandor Clegane: Neutral
Neutral Evil to start out with (remember what he does to the butcher's boy) but perhaps closer to True Neutral by the end of ASoS.
So what would you consider the alignments of some of the major characters in the series to be? It is tricky since many of the main characters operate in a moral gray zone constantly. Here are a few of my thoughts.
Ned Stark: Lawful Good
Tyrion: Neutral with Good tendencies
Jon Snow: Neutral Good
Samwell: Neutral Good with Lawful tendencies
Cersi: Lawful Evil
Bronn: Neutral with Evil tendencies
Bran: Lawful Good
Littlefinger: Neutral
Craster: Lawful Neutral with strong Evil tendencies
Arya: Neutral
Brienne: Lawful Neutral with strong Good tendencies
Theon Greyjoy: Neutral Evil
Stannis Baratheon: Lawful Neutral
Walder Frey: Neutral Evil
Ser Gregor Clegane: Lawful Evil
Sandor Clegane: Neutral
ASoI&F could be a poster-child example of "why alignment doesn't work". The characters are frequently put into situations that cause them to make "lesser of two evils" choices or compromises in the name of survival. For alignment to work in such a scenario without making pushing the characters towards one-dimensionality, a GM would have to track where a character falls on the Good-Evil / Law-Chaos axis.
That said, my SWAG at it would be:
Ned Stark: LG. Uncompromising honor, devotion to family, loyalty to liege. One of the easiest characters to peg alignment-wise.
Tyrion: LN (although shifting towards N later in the series). Tyrion is essentially a decent man trapped in a morally bankrupt family. However, Tyrion is loyal to his family and generally works towards its betterment, even while hating himself for doing so. He obviously shifts away from this as the series progresses. Not sure if he's moving solidly into N or on his way to CN.
Jon Snow: LG progressing to NG. Jon is the dutiful son, chaffing under his bastard lineage but toeing the line in the hopes of making his father proud. Life at the Wall throws him curveballs that force him to deviate from lawful behavior and push him towards NG.
Samwell: NG. A decent person with no strong proclivity towards Law or Chaos that I can remember. (He follows the rules b/c it's expected or he fears repurcussions. He reluctantly breaks rules to help his friends.)
Cersi: Neutral Evil. Cersi is only interested in herself, Jamie, and her children. Even then, Cersi's self-interest is #1. Everyone else is a tool to be used and discarded.
Bronn: Chaotic Neutral. Bronn serves Bronn's interests first. Morality doesn't play into it.
Bran: Neutral Good. Bran accepts his responsibilities reluctantly but he does accept them. He rather be off pursuing his own interests, however (climing, training to be a knight, etc.). He wants to be CG but never loses sight of his lawful obligations. Solid NG.
Littlefinger: Neutral Evil. Selfishness personified. A social chameleon, ultimately it's all about him getting what he wants. If he can hurt the loser in the process, so much the better.
Craster: CN or NE. Craster's interest in fulfiling his self-serving objectives. Can't really peg him on what I recall off the top of my head.
Arya: CG. The ultimate free spirit. Rules be damned. Fate may force Arya to make some hard choices but she's a good person. As the series progresses her actions take a hard edge but I'm not sure if that's immaturity/inexperience or the true beginnings of a ruthless edge to her personality.
Brienne: Somewhere between N & NG but closer to NG. Brienne does not conform to social norms so that hurts her in the Law category. She tries to be a good knight in thought, word, and deed - which pushes her towards good. She offers blind obedience to Renly out of infatuation/love, not from a feeling of duty or obligation to her liege.
Theon Greyjoy: Neutral Evil. Another selfish bastard. He lacks much of Littlefinger's subtlety, but is motivated by many of the same desires.
Stannis Baratheon: Lawful Neutral. Another fairly black-and-white selection. I do have to wonder, though, that if the line of succession & legal system didn't give him a solid claim to the throne if he'd be so solidly in the LN camp.
Walder Frey: NE. Yet another selfish bastard. He uses the law when it suits and discards it just as easily.
Ser Gregor Clegane: Lawful Evil. The brutal sadist usually gets portrayed as CE in fiction but Gregor is the poster child for the trained attack dog that's been taught to be mean.
Sandor Clegane: Lawful Evil (shifting to NE as the series progresses). Sandor's a brutal, sadistic, and vengeful bastard, but he's loyal -- at least at the beginning of the series. Neutral? No frakkin' way.
Sandor's behaviour in AFFC to me pushes him towards the neutral camp. True, he has no dialogue and we only see him from afar, but his abandonment of 'The Hound' persona and his apparent decision to change his nature is interesting and would push him more into a neutral perspective. However, that's very tentative, and I think he could return to his old ways quite easily.
Oh, I agree, he's definitely shifting. I just think the shift is more along the lines of moving away from "loyal follower" to "charting his own path". I don't see anything he does as being altruistic in nature, however, so that was the basis for my arguing NE over N.
I will give you Cersi at NE. That is a better fit. I still see "The Hound" as N. He does what he needs to do not because he enjoys it. He stopped his brother from killing the Knight of Flowers at the tourney. His motive was loyalty until he was forced to go into the fire. Now he is a drunk, a killer for hire, and a oath-breaker but I don't see him as evil. Arya also seems to disciplined to be a Chaotic but I agree she is complex young lady.
How about Daenerys? Viserys? Barristan? Khal Drogo?
Interesting topic. I've interwoven my thoughts around your original message in bold and italic form.
So what would you consider the alignments of some of the major characters in the series to be? It is tricky since many of the main characters operate in a moral gray zone constantly. Here are a few of my thoughts.
I appreciate your thoughts on this. I had a hard time getting past the moral ambiguity of the characters. If this was a police procedural, I would be OK with it, but in fantasy and science fiction I want my heroes to be heroes.
Ned Stark: Lawful Good lawful stupid - Ned Stark was just a strawman as a reiteration of GRRM's opinion that good guys finish last and everyone should have a gray moral code.
Tyrion: Neutral with Good tendencies lawful evil - he acted completely out of enlightened self-interest.
Jon Snow: Neutral Good lawful neutral - he followed orders even when it hurt (or killed) those around him that he theoretically cared about.
Samwell: Neutral Good with Lawful tendencies
Cersi: Lawful Evil neutral evil - mostly coniving and thoughtful, but did a fair amount of pure, random, chaotic things too.
Bronn: Neutral with Evil tendencies
Bran: Lawful Good
Littlefinger: Neutral
Craster: Lawful Neutral with strong Evil tendencies
Arya: Neutral chaotic neutral - she did a lot of very random and sometimes quite evil things.
Brienne: Lawful Neutral with strong Good tendencies lawful stupid - ditto the Ned Stark comments
Theon Greyjoy: Neutral Evil
Stannis Baratheon: Lawful Neutral
Walder Frey: Neutral Evil
Ser Gregor Clegane: Lawful Evil
Sandor Clegane: Neutral