Just like the title says, what is the alignment for the character called the Operative in the Firefly movie Serenity?
I've heard good cases for lawful neutral, lawful evil, and neutral evil. For the people I've spoken to, the varying positions on the Good vs. Evil axis are due to the dependency on the overall alignment of the Alliance. For those who think LN, it's because it wouldn't matter to the Operative whether the aims of the Alliance were good or evil: he is only interested in furthering those aims because the Alliance is "bigger than" himself.
Another friend makes a case for moving away from lawful on the Law vs. Chaos axis because the Operative breaks the laws of the Alliance itself in order to further the Alliance's aims.
I see him as lawful neutral, but I understand this is subjective and I'm curious about how other people interpret him.
Secondary question: does his alignment change by the end of the movie?
Tertiary question: what class is he?
LE at the beginning. LN at the end.
100% LN. At the beginning he just didn't have all the information.
LE at the beginning. LN at the end.
+1
Did anyone else get the impression that Shepherd Book was an agent before he became a shepherd?
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IMO he's firmly lawfully evil. He does horrible things and he knows they are horrible things and he still does them, he's evil and he even sees himself as such.
By the end of the movie I would agree he has become LN.
As to class, if he was in Pathfinder I'd argue for a Paladin of Tyranny or possibly an Inquisitor.
Hellknight. All about the law. Any means necessary.
I don't see knowingly doing awful things as evil, so long as it's for the greater good and greater order. He isn't attempting to benefit, either. I see a LE character as using the law to try to come out ahead. It's why Hellknights actually have trouble allowing LE members. Focus on the self detracts from focus on the law.
Strikes me as pretty clearly LN.
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Lawful Neutral. Not in the sense of always obeying the law, but in the sense of having a specific code of behavior that he abides by no matter what, and caring more about that code and his own ideals than petty concerns like innocent human lives. LE, he'd be actively cruel, or at least uncaring, which he's not. He legitimately regrets killing innocent people. He feels bad about it. He'd do it again, sure, but he'll try and avoid it if he sees a way to do so. I mean, look at his attempts at diplomacy, trying to avoid killing the entire crew. A LE guy would've just killed everyone.
And no, it doesn't change at the end. Or at least we don't see it do so. He served the Alliance because he believed it was the right thing to do. He was never loyal for the sake of loyalty, he was loyal to an ideal, and when his faith in that ideal was broken, it requires no Alignment shift to do what he did from there. If he finds a new ideal to follow in the same manner, he'll stay LN, if it's a better code (one that, say, values human life more, just for example) he might go LG, if he loses faith in all such codes, he'll probably shift to N, or maybe NG if he decides to work on making up for past mistakes. But we don't see any of that, so we don't know.
And the Alliance is an extremely self-centered Lawful Neutral verging on Lawful Evil. They want power and authority, but don't actively oppress their random citizens in day-to-day life. Now, everyone involved in the whole project with River? Varying shades of Evil, but the government's agenda as a whole? Not really. The kind of thing chaotic characters would oppose? Oh yeah. Evil? Not mostly.
I always viewed the operative from Serenity as a good example of Chaotic Evil. He has no regard for laws, they don't apply to him. That's about as chaotic as you get. He's evil by his very actions. Hence Chaotic Evil.
So when I think of a Chaotic Evil bad guy I don't think baby eating random idiot. I think a cold calculating above the law person with no value for life and social norms. To me that's the Operative from Serenity.
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I always viewed the operative from Serenity as a good example of Chaotic Evil. He has no regard for laws, they don't apply to him. That's about as chaotic as you get. He's evil by his very actions. Hence Chaotic Evil.
So when I think of a Chaotic Evil bad guy I don't think baby eating random idiot. I think a cold calculating above the law person with no value for life and social norms. To me that's the Operative from Serenity.
Ah, but everything he does is in the service of order. In fact, it's in the service of the greater good.
Also, everything he does is legal. He doesn't act like he's above the law, he acts like he has a rank that allows a great deal of privileges. A samurai who executes a peasant for insulting him is still lawful, and may even be neutral or good (though that's a harder sell). The system allows him the freedom to do what he does, and he serves the system.
He even says that he is tainting himself, denying himself the paradise he seeks to create. His actions are not random or against order, ergo not chaotic. His actions are not self-serving, ergo not evil.
Of course the alignment system is fuzzy to begin with. Reasonable people not only can disagree - they will.
IMO Evil isn't just about the self. The Agent is a monster and calls himself such, he acts without regard to others and kills the innocent without a second thought.
Killing the innocent always makes one evil? How about American WW2 bombardiers? I'm not so sure that the evil outcome of innocents killed automatically makes the participants evil.
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IMO Evil isn't just about the self. The Agent is a monster and calls himself such, he acts without regard to others and kills the innocent without a second thought.Killing the innocent always makes one evil? How about American WW2 bombardiers? I'm not so sure that the evil outcome of innocents killed automatically makes the participants evil.
The deliberate, explicit and intentional killing of sentient beings almost wholly unconnected with the conflict at hand? Yeah. Pretty much always evil.
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Did anyone else get the impression that Shepherd Book was an agent before he became a shepherd?
Yes, definitely.
Ron Glass was a guest at GenCon (or was it Origins?) a few months before Serenity came out, and I had him sign a picture and was all bubbly about how awesome it was that he had this cool backstory with awesome potential for future storylines, once the River thing played itself out, and he gave me a kind of pained smile and signed the picture and was not in a talkative mood, which, after seeing the movie, made sense.
Doh.
Tricia Helfer was there, too. She's much prettier when she's wearing a bra and you can't see her ribs or her adam's apple.
The deliberate, explicit and intentional killing of sentient beings almost wholly unconnected with the conflict at hand? Yeah. Pretty much always evil.IMO Evil isn't just about the self. The Agent is a monster and calls himself such, he acts without regard to others and kills the innocent without a second thought.Killing the innocent always makes one evil? How about American WW2 bombardiers? I'm not so sure that the evil outcome of innocents killed automatically makes the participants evil.
I respectfully disagree. The ovens have to be stopped, and to stop those, you have to end the means of production for the armed forces that are keeping you from stopping them. The technological means at your disposal are not at all sufficiently accurate to avoid collateral damage that results in the deaths of innocents. So someone of (perhaps arguably) questionable alignment has to make this difficult decision, and others are ordered to carry out the mission do so out of a sense of loyalty and a desire to achieve a greater good. I disagree that these individuals - the pilots, the bombardiers - would chart anywhere on the evil axis simply for obeying these orders.
Another vote for LE here.
Did anyone else get the impression that Shepherd Book was an agent before he became a shepherd?Yes, definitely.
Ron Glass was a guest at GenCon (or was it Origins?) a few months before Serenity came out, and I had him sign a picture and was all bubbly about how awesome it was that he had this cool backstory with awesome potential for future storylines, once the River thing played itself out, and he gave me a kind of pained smile and signed the picture and was not in a talkative mood, which, after seeing the movie, made sense.
Doh.
Tricia Helfer was there, too. She's much prettier when she's wearing a bra and you can't see her ribs or her adam's apple.
I always thought Boomer was hotter than 6.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Definately LE. In fact likely one of the better examples* of LE.
*
When I played my LE psychic warrior, he was always doing what he thought was the 'greater good'. If you asked him it would go like this.
"Are you evil?"
"No. Just right."
And do not read The Sheppard's Tale unless you want Book totally ruined.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Did anyone else get the impression that Shepherd Book was an agent before he became a shepherd?Yes, definitely.
Ron Glass was a guest at GenCon (or was it Origins?) a few months before Serenity came out, and I had him sign a picture and was all bubbly about how awesome it was that he had this cool backstory with awesome potential for future storylines, once the River thing played itself out, and he gave me a kind of pained smile and signed the picture and was not in a talkative mood, which, after seeing the movie, made sense.
Doh.
Tricia Helfer was there, too. She's much prettier when she's wearing a bra and you can't see her ribs or her adam's apple.
I always thought Boomer was hotter than 6.
+ infinity
The case can be made for LN all the way through, but...
He just stuck me as a little too willing to follow orders in the beginning, which is what LE is all about.
If you use the law as the excuse so you don't need to ask questions or do the right thing, you're LE.
Definately LE. In fact likely one of the better examples* of LE.
*** spoiler omitted **
When I played my LE psychic warrior, he was always doing what he thought was the 'greater good'. If you asked him it would go like this.
"Are you evil?"
"No. Just right."And do not read The Sheppard's Tale unless you want Book totally ruined.
Oh man, really? He was my fav character...
Can you give me a spoiler of what they ruined?|
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RAW, good and evil is value of life, I suppose. RAW alignment is meaningless, though, as it's pretty much always up to your GM. I feel that value of life really doesn't get good/evil. It's self serving vs self-sacrificing. People will disagree, but I think someone can do pretty evil things without killing anyone. Meanwhile someone sent to kill the tyrant taxing everyone to starvation, not so evil.
I disagree completely with valuing life. I think even the books tend to consider good/evil on the self-serving/sacrificing axis.
People will disagree that evil is necessarily self-serving. Disagreement is proper in something so deeply philosophical.
I just feel that my definition avoids a lot of pitfalls... like killing irredeemably evil creatures. A paladin who seeks to slaughter every demon who has taken over a town is not evil. An antipaladin doing so might be, if he does so to take the town for himself. If he slaughters them with no expectation of reward, the antipaladin needs an atonement.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Definately LE. In fact likely one of the better examples* of LE.
*** spoiler omitted **
When I played my LE psychic warrior, he was always doing what he thought was the 'greater good'. If you asked him it would go like this.
"Are you evil?"
"No. Just right."And do not read The Sheppard's Tale unless you want Book totally ruined.
Oh man, really? He was my fav character...
Can you give me a spoiler of what they ruined?
After reading that, I had to agree that Firefly dying might have been a good thing.
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I always thought Boomer was hotter than 6.
Oh yes. Her and 'Dee' (Dualla) not only were hot, but they seemed much less crazyflakes than Six or Starbuck, whom I kind of wanted to fall into a black hole.
Really, 95% of the characters were so damaged and self-destructive that I felt like I was watching 'Survivor: Galactica Island' and praying for the volcano to explode and wipe them all away. At the end of just about every episode I wanted Boomer, Helo and child to get in an escape pod and be the only survivors of both species... :)
Still, it wasn't as bad as Heroes. Ye gods, being a superhero / fantasy / sci-fi fan can be painfully disappointing at times...
I always thought Boomer was hotter than 6.Oh yes. Her and 'Dee' (Dualla) not only were hot, but they seemed much less crazyflakes than Six or Starbuck, whom I kind of wanted to fall into a black hole.
Really, 95% of the characters were so damaged and self-destructive that I felt like I was watching 'Survivor: Galactica Island' and praying for the volcano to explode and wipe them all away. At the end of just about every episode I wanted Boomer, Helo and child to get in an escape pod and be the only survivors of both species... :)
Still, it wasn't as bad as Heroes. Ye gods, being a superhero / fantasy / sci-fi fan can be painfully disappointing at times...
I lovingly reffered to it as:
"As the stomach turns"Some of the characters were so impossibly self loathing and unbelievable it looked like a day time drama.
Definately LE. In fact likely one of the better examples* of LE.
*** spoiler omitted **
When I played my LE psychic warrior, he was always doing what he thought was the 'greater good'. If you asked him it would go like this.
"Are you evil?"
"No. Just right."And do not read The Sheppard's Tale unless you want Book totally ruined.
Oh man, really? He was my fav character...
Can you give me a spoiler of what they ruined?** spoiler omitted **
After reading that, I had to agree that Firefly dying might have been a good thing.
I'm not buying that drivel for a second. Did Whedon write that?
Definately LE. In fact likely one of the better examples* of LE.
*** spoiler omitted **
When I played my LE psychic warrior, he was always doing what he thought was the 'greater good'. If you asked him it would go like this.
"Are you evil?"
"No. Just right."And do not read The Sheppard's Tale unless you want Book totally ruined.
Oh man, really? He was my fav character...
Can you give me a spoiler of what they ruined?** spoiler omitted **
After reading that, I had to agree that Firefly dying might have been a good thing.
To be fair, Joss didn't write that.
Although he did green light it. :(
Definately LE. In fact likely one of the better examples* of LE.
*** spoiler omitted **
When I played my LE psychic warrior, he was always doing what he thought was the 'greater good'. If you asked him it would go like this.
"Are you evil?"
"No. Just right."And do not read The Sheppard's Tale unless you want Book totally ruined.
Oh man, really? He was my fav character...
Can you give me a spoiler of what they ruined?** spoiler omitted **
After reading that, I had to agree that Firefly dying might have been a good thing.
To be fair, Joss didn't write that.
Although he did green light it. :(
That makes me sad.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I always thought Boomer was hotter than 6.Oh yes. Her and 'Dee' (Dualla) not only were hot, but they seemed much less crazyflakes than Six or Starbuck, whom I kind of wanted to fall into a black hole.
Really, 95% of the characters were so damaged and self-destructive that I felt like I was watching 'Survivor: Galactica Island' and praying for the volcano to explode and wipe them all away. At the end of just about every episode I wanted Boomer, Helo and child to get in an escape pod and be the only survivors of both species... :)
Still, it wasn't as bad as Heroes. Ye gods, being a superhero / fantasy / sci-fi fan can be painfully disappointing at times...
Yeah, on Matthew's sliding scale of BSG hotness.
1)Boomer
2)Dualla
3)Tory
4)Callie
5)Ellen.
I've seen Grace Park, Rekha Sharma, Tricia Helfer, and Kate Vernon in other projects. I would love to see Kandyse McClure and Nicki Clyne in leading roles.
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And do not read The Sheppard's Tale unless you want Book totally ruined.I'm not buying that drivel for a second. Did Whedon write that?
According to the credits, Joss and his son Zach wrote it.
Oy. This is the problem with Joss. He invents something that sounds so amazing and rich with potential, and then he ***** it all up when his fickle muse moves on.
He's got artistic ADD, coming up with brilliant ideas with incredible franchise potential, and then just falling down on the follow-through and the 'tedium' of development when his attention is distracted by a new 'shiny' thing.
He needs to be locked in a room, and his ideas developed by people who actually *like* his ideas, and aren't going to get bored and start smashing stuff just to see it broken.
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Yeah, on Matthew's sliding scale of BSG hotness.
1)Boomer
2)Dualla
3)Tory
4)Callie
5)Ellen.I've seen Grace Park, Rekha Sharma, Tricia Helfer, and Kate Vernon in other projects. I would love to see Kandyse McClure and Nicki Clyne in leading roles.
With the exception of replacing Callie with D'Anna, your list is also mine. (Although Nicki Clyne, like Tricia Helfer, appears to be *much* prettier in non-Galactica pictures.) Ellen/Kate Vernon has a Michelle Pfieffer quality about her. Mmm. Michelle Pfieffer...
I liked Tricia in Burn Notice.
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I respectfully disagree. The ovens have to be stopped, and to stop those, you have to end the means of production for the armed forces that are keeping you from stopping them. The technological means at your disposal are not at all sufficiently accurate to avoid collateral damage that results in the deaths of innocents. So someone of (perhaps arguably) questionable alignment has to make this difficult decision, and others are ordered to carry out the mission do so out of a sense of loyalty and a desire to achieve a greater good. I disagree that these individuals - the pilots, the bombardiers - would chart anywhere on the evil axis simply for obeying these orders.The deliberate, explicit and intentional killing of sentient beings almost wholly unconnected with the conflict at hand? Yeah. Pretty much always evil.IMO Evil isn't just about the self. The Agent is a monster and calls himself such, he acts without regard to others and kills the innocent without a second thought.Killing the innocent always makes one evil? How about American WW2 bombardiers? I'm not so sure that the evil outcome of innocents killed automatically makes the participants evil.
The pilots to which you refer were not deliberate, explicitly and intentionally killing innocents. The Operative does. My point was not to condemn the pilots, but to reject your comparison in its entirety. The comparison is not to bombadiers trying their best to hit military targets in a situation where there are no "good" options, but rather to a terrorist who bombs civilians in order to achieve unrelated ends. So yes, always evil.
The pilots to which you refer were not deliberate, explicitly and intentionally killing innocents. The Operative does. My point was not to condemn the pilots, but to reject your comparison in its entirety. The comparison is not to bombadiers trying their best to hit military targets in a situation where there are no "good" options, but rather to a terrorist who bombs civilians in order to achieve unrelated ends. So yes, always evil.
We're comparing apples to oranges. Yes, terrorists are always evil. I'm sure they would disagree, but I'm with you there.
But the pilots knew they were hitting industrial targets. They knew civilians were working in those targets. They deliberately and explicitly bombed those targets. Still not evil.
The Operative is most definitely lawful evil - he kills innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of his goal and in the service of a higher ideal. His job is to preserve "order" (making him lawful), and he does so with ruthless, murderous efficiency (making him evil). Only when the "order" he struggled to preserve was already crumbled did he stay his hand. He didn't change, the situation did. Killing the Serenity crew was a moot point, so he didn't.
As for the WW2 bomber notion: the objective was to demoralize the enemy, and to break their capacity and will to fight. Killing civilians and destroying industrial capacity was explicitly the goal, because the harder the war was on the populace, the less will they'd have to sustain the war, IN THEORY. That's the notion of Total War. While the pilots carrying out the mission were not necessarily evil, the strategy itself couldn't be called good. However, sometimes there is no "right choice" and you have to choose the least evil. Just because it must be done doesn't make it good, though.
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You know, it's funny, at the start of this thread, I was in line with Lawful Neutral, after reading all the arguments I've gotta say, I've been convinced that he's lawful evil, and maybe at the end if we saw more he might have changed to lawful neutral, but we don't get any confirmation on that. So look at that, an alignment thread that actually changed someones mind.
on an unrelated note, bombers in WWII not evil.
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Random alignment thoughts, in the spirit of the day;
We do what we do. Sometimes as long as a full second *after* we have already taken action, the section of our brain devoted to rationalizing why it was 'in-character' for us to have done what we just did lights up, providing us with a half-arsed, too-late, made-up, self-affirming justification for why we did it.
That's humanity, forever playing catch-up and trying to rationalize what we've done as being 'good' or 'bad' or 'okay,' when the choice was made before we even thought about right or wrong.
Do enough 'bad' things on the spur of the moment, and society deems that you must be inherently a 'bad person,' possibly even possessed by wickedness or irredeemable or morally justifiable to torture or kill.
Do enough 'good' things, even if the only reason you helped people was because the sight of them in distress *caused you anxiety* (making it completely self-serving), and you are hornswaggled by society into thinking that you are a very special person, incapable of moral fault, which pretty much sets you up for a spectacular fall from grace, since the doctrine of infallibility leads straight into entitlement, self-righteousness and creepy relations with children.
Men, monkeys, millipedes. The only significant difference is that men try to explain why what they just did 'makes sense' after the fact.
Action -> reaction -> weak rationalization.
If the path to hell is paved with good intentions, the bricklayers are people who think themselves more righteous than anyone else.
D&D totally backs that up. You can fall from good, but no amount of absent-minded kindness or flicking coins at beggars or killing demons will ever cause you to 'fall' from evil. Indeed, it's easier to play a 'good' character by writing NE on your sheet, since you will *never* be punished for any act of kindness, mercy or charity, so long as you RP being a condescending jerk to the person you showed mercy towards, and play up mocking the beggars to whom you just contemptuously flung small coin or the remains of your dinner.
"What? I got a tax write-off for that charitable contribution. I don't actually care about legless orphans. Besides, being around the crippled people during the ceremonies always makes me feel better about myself."
"Please, it's hilarious to watch the rabble squabble like rats over the leftovers. I prefer to eat the bread when it's still warm and soft anyway. Let the riff-raff break their teeth on that day old drek."
"It's only copper. It's not worth carrying around anyway. Let them fish it out of the mud. If we're especially lucky, we'll get to see a couple of them fight over it..."
"Of course I showed mercy. Now they totally owe me, and I fully intend to collect on that life-debt for the rest of their miserable days. An execution performed profits no one but the gravedigger, and is over in an instant. An execution stayed can result in a lifetime of grateful service."
"Why wouldn't I staunch his wound? The screaming, the blubbering, the pleading, the stench of bowels unplugged. Who needs that? Well worth the price of a cure light wounds to shut the fool up and not have to lower myself to dragging a smelly peasant's corpse out of here."
"Norgorber is going to punish me for being a two-faced sophist who says one thing and does another? Good grief, man, he's the *god* of two-faced sophists who say one thing and do another! That makes as much sense as Calistria rebuking one of her followers for being promiscuous!"
"Sirrah, before you continue questioning my lack of short-sighted treachery, thoughtless cruelty, devotion to the tenets of evil or over-the-top sociopathy, do try to remember that you are my travelling companion, and that I watch you sleep..."
Definately LE. In fact likely one of the better examples* of LE.
*** spoiler omitted **
When I played my LE psychic warrior, he was always doing what he thought was the 'greater good'. If you asked him it would go like this.
"Are you evil?"
"No. Just right."And do not read The Sheppard's Tale unless you want Book totally ruined.
Oh man, really? He was my fav character...
Can you give me a spoiler of what they ruined?** spoiler omitted **
After reading that, I had to agree that Firefly dying might have been a good thing.
Wow. It's a good thing I didnt read that.
I always took the Operative's arc in Serenity to be Book's Arc. So while they never got to Book's actual backstory, I feel that they were showing you his arc through the Operative. It hit me after the first viewing, especially after Mal and the Operatives exchange on the landing platform as the Operative is leaving.
To be honest I haven't read all the posts but I wanted to chime in.
At first glance I'd say LN, but really looking into it I'd say LE.
It's true that he follows the orders of the Alliance whether good or bad. The thing is though he's called in to do the dirty work.
This causes the majority of his actions to be evil placing him firmly in the LE department.
At the end of the movie it's up in the air. He doesn't take enough actions to determine what his new alignment would be. He helps repair the ship... so we have one good act and he lies to the Alliance about stuff so neutral or chaotic.
But those actions are a single case and don't show a new trend in and of themselves.
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Lawful Neutral.
No. Lawful Evil. While he is definatly the guy who executes the unaccountable and the Traitors who are assaulting the State from within and/or without, There is also a willingness to execute any Civillian who gets in his way to get the attention of any real target who might be their friend/associate.
Lawful Neutral.No. Lawful Evil. While he is definatly the guy who executes the unaccountable and the Traitors who are assaulting the State from within and/or without, There is also a willingness to execute any Civillian who gets in his way to get the attention of any real target who might be their friend/associate.
Yet he is aware of his own evil acts, feels remorse for them and avoids them if he can. He even accepts that he will not see the better world he is working towards. I'd be tempted to say that he is lawful good.
Random alignment thoughts, in the spirit of the day;
We do what we do. Sometimes as long as a full second *after* we have already taken action, the section of our brain devoted to rationalizing why it was 'in-character' for us to have done what we just did lights up, providing us with a half-arsed, too-late, made-up, self-affirming justification for why we did it.
That's humanity, forever playing catch-up and trying to rationalize what we've done as being 'good' or 'bad' or 'okay,' when the choice was made before we even thought about right or wrong.
Do enough 'bad' things on the spur of the moment, and society deems that you must be inherently a 'bad person,' possibly even possessed by wickedness or irredeemable or morally justifiable to torture or kill.
Do enough 'good' things, even if the only reason you helped people was because the sight of them in distress *caused you anxiety* (making it completely self-serving), and you are hornswaggled by society into thinking that you are a very special person, incapable of moral fault, which pretty much sets you up for a spectacular fall from grace, since the doctrine of infallibility leads straight into entitlement, self-righteousness and creepy relations with children.
Men, monkeys, millipedes. The only significant difference is that men try to explain why what they just did 'makes sense' after the fact.
Action -> reaction -> weak rationalization.
If the path to hell is paved with good intentions, the bricklayers are people who think themselves more righteous than anyone else.
D&D totally backs that up. You can fall from good, but no amount of absent-minded kindness or flicking coins at beggars or killing demons will ever cause you to 'fall' from evil. Indeed, it's easier to play a 'good' character by writing NE on your sheet, since you will *never* be punished for any act of kindness, mercy or charity, so long as you RP being a condescending jerk to the person you showed mercy towards, and play up mocking the beggars to whom you just...
Set, with those quotes, i do believe you won the internet for today.