The World of Layonara
The Layonara Community => Just for Fun => Topic started by: Talan Va'lash on April 23, 2005, 05:33:00 pm
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This question has stumped people as long ago as.... the 70's
Robin Hood, NG or CG?
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I would think that since Robin was descended from nobility, and that his actions are a direct result of the usurption of his lands and the 'rights' of the peasants etc. that he would be neither CG or NG, I would think him more in the LN camp. I could see a LN character resorting to banditry in the face of a LE oppressor with far superior numbers, etc.
Just my take on it though.
Vyris
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Robin hood is a rebel, he is Chaotic Good.
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He's not rebelling completely, though. He's rebelling against the Sheriff's laws. He's still a supporter of the king, right? Guess it depends on which version of the story you're thinking of.
Neutral Good (in this case) - he'll follow the laws that are just, but doesn't have a problem turning against the laws that are bad for the peasantry.
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To me this is a no brainer. When you break down the first part of the alignment you are trying to decide the persons attitude toward law. Lawful characters tend to view obedience to authority as a goal in itself regardless of the motives of the authority as long as the authority is rightful authority. The sherrif was a rightful authority and Robin rebelled. On the other hand a chaotic character views opposition to authority as a goal regardless of the motives of the authority. Robin would never have opposed the true king who was ruling in the best interest of the people. So I think Neutral for the first part. The second part of allignment is easier since I don't think there could ever be an evil motive attached to any of his actions and he was sacrificing his position and reputation for the sake of the poor so I would clearly put in the good category. The neutral good character in my mind does what is righteous in accordance with his ethical rules, supports laws in line with those ethics and opposes those which are not.
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I agree with the people who said NG.
But I think Vy's idea was interesting: Robin Hood is merely fighting the sheriff so he can put the old king back on the throne and regain his previous power and station. Hehe, the conflict theorist's take on robin hood.
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Heh I'm going to disagree with all of you and say that he was actually Lawful Good :) This sounds odd right? But there is a very good reason for this which no one seems to have thought of. Basically in England at that time the law was embodied in the person of the king and while the king lived it was his laws that were right and just. Therefore Robin would have been Lawful in following them and opposing anyone else who decided without the kings authority to set up laws of their own. Well John was not the king...King Richard was still alive and held for ransom but John wouldn't pay the ransom to set him free in order to put forward his own claim to the throne. The sheriff and his cronies where put in power by John (It was often standard procedure for new rulers to put there own supporters in positions of authority) so in Robins view the sheriff had no legitimate authority as his authority was supposed to come from the king and the person who claimed that authority in England was not a legitimate king as the true king was still alive and held captive. Consequently Robin opposed him and his unlawful laws and taxes :) Therefore I don't think there can be any doubt that Robin was lawful and this combined with his care for the poor and oppressed demands that he be Lawful Good :)
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I think CG bacause the definition is quite clear. A CG person is one who normaly obeys the law but when the law conflicts with what he/she believes the person will choose his view over the law.
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Heh except it wasn't legimate law...the person making a law has to have the authority to do so and in this case John did not and therefore by default neither did the sheriff. Otherwise anyone could go around making all sorts of laws and if you were a lawful character you would have to obay them :)
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I see. I guess you are right.
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Thats correct steve but during the course of the story the "law" wasn't king richard and hence he broke it. Hence why he became a rebel. Hence why he was Chaotic Good.
He wasn't neutral good because Neutral Good characters do not go against order whether its an oppresive order or not. Neutral good characters will help those that are under stress and try to do the good thing, but they will not actively go against the law.
Sure, after the King returned he went back to being a goodie goodie. But truthfully during the story which is really what matters he was chaos in the shire and the best rebel around.
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I gotta side with Steve on this. Classic noble Robin lost everything because the law was lawless. Also, classic noble Robin was actually putting his plunder toward the ransom of King Richard so that he could be freed and returned home. Now, if the previous law was upsurped and corrupted into something not very "lawful", or at least "law" when the authority in power wished it to be, would Robin's "lawlessness" be such? King Richard was the lawful ruler and his "laws" were being abused by those in power back home so.... would this possibly make classic noble Robin even lawful good? At least neutral good, I dare say.
The myth of Robin Hood is that he actually was NOT a nobleman but a yeoman (a step away from peasant) and his actions actually had little to do with King Richard. He might have taken what he got and distributed it among the poor he knew but, even so, that would make "true" Robin Hood chaotic good or chaotic neutral, depending.
If a paladin rides into a land where slavery is legal and against everything he's been taught... what does he (she) do? Or, not slavery, but oppressive taxes to the point of death and starvation...
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And thats where my point eventually leads. A paladin enters an oppresed land and his first attempt is to solve things by the Law. Whatever the "real" state of the situation was when the story took place is irrelevant. That being, wherever the King was, it wasn't in the scene. So the "law" was Nottingham and so the paladin (right or wrong) wasn't about to start a rebel movement. That goes against the principles of being Lawful.
Not saying the paladin wouldn't do anything about it, he would just go through different routes. Probably leading to open war. The way Paladins do things.
Instead we get this rebelious hidden movement that supports thievery (albeit for a good cause), and generally under the table dealings to exploit the current leaders and return peace to the land.
Sure at the end King Richard was back and the order was restored. But I bet you if King Richard was ever to become like the sheriff, Robin would resource to the same rebelious manners or a CG individual. And not some paladinish I'll smite you behaviour.
Then again the view of paladinhood is all skewed. But thats another unhealthy subject. :)
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But if that "paladin" knew what the law should be and that it was being corrupted... his fighting against the "lawfully" appointed regents is... what? Is that paladin now chaotic? I don't think so.
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Heh yet while the king still lived he was still the source and authority for the law...don't forget being a king involved both religion as well as secular authority. Its something that doesn't really exist now in our society, although I suspect that the nearest thing today is marrage :) If your a religious person and you get married then there is a religious aspect to it 'joined together in the sight of god' and the secular aspects to it as well. This was the same when someone became king...except in those days the religious aspect was much more prominent...so someone ruled by the will of god and divine law. So just as if you and your spouse were seperated by great distance for a long time you don't just cease to be married so the king and his authority weren't lost or diminished in the same way. This is importent because in those days king actually lead their armies in battle or were at least on the scene, they were not expected to stay at home whilst their armies were fighting. This would not have happened if they lost their kingship everytime they left the country. When John usurped the throne he broke not only secular law he also broke divine law and there was no legal way to fight those who held the reins of power in those days and if you did you were an outlaw as was Robin Hood.I have to say though that in the real world, forgetting all the mythos around Robin Hood who probably never really existed. Prince John was actually the best thing that happend to this country. He was the King who signed the magna carta which was the beginning of democracy in the west and all the bull about taxes etc was just that bull. The problem was that he was a stay at home king and a norman to boot, so he really wasn't popular with the people don't forget that Britian had been invaded and defeated by the normans less then 200 years previously...most of the rulers were of norman blood and most of the people were of saxon blood and they never even spoke the same languages. The language of the rulers was french while most of the people spoke old english which was mainly saxon and danish with a little french thrown in. King Richard though had mainly English blood though and he was a dashing hero type and so was very popular. Of course in reality he couldn't speak english either and spent very little time in this country whilst John lived here. The difference between the two was that Richard was a man of action who cared about fighting and furthing his own fame and glory wereas John actually cared about the country. The legends of Robin Hood though really spring up from the divide between the ruling classes and the people two different 'races' really sharing the same land.
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the thing is, Prince john was the authorty and the proper one while King Richard was away on the crusades, John was in charge and had full authority to rule as he saw fit, that meant raising Taxes so him and his buddies could horde the money and get rich, Robin Hood openly Rebeled against the laws of the land for the betterment of the people as a whole, therefor he is CG
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Steve man.. spaces and paragraphs!!
Ok from what I COULD get from that post and the one before. In the heart of it all its still a manner of execution. No, a paladin would not be chaotic going against a despotic government, but he would definitely not use the methods implemented by Robin.
And Steve you totally lost me in your argument about the veracity of the King's rulership. Distant or not, the sheriff was in charge, it was the law of the land, to me that spell authority vested even if the king was away.
If we are going to speak marriage though then the argument shifts to Maid Marian :P.
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Heh sorry I'm using the opera browser at the moment and for some reason my spacing and paragraphs don't seem to come out at all...belive it or not that post had three paragraphs when I originally posted it :)
Yeah I know what you mean about the John being in charge whilst Richard was away and that he and the Sheriff were 'in charge' whilst he was gone. But that is a modern view of how govenment is organised, in those days it was a very different world people had a completely different outlook on things to how we do today especially when it came to law and authority and also the raising of tax's incidently which could only be done on the say so of the king. If you look at things from a viewpoint of todays society Robin could not have been lawful good. But from a viewpoint of those days with there values it would have been hard to call him anything else.
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excepts that everything Prince John did was within his right as when Richard leaves he left John in Charge,
taxes in those days would change from year to year based upon how much money the kingdom needed to run if the king was away someone would need to be in charge to run things smoothly, in this case that person was Prince John
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Well you're talking mostly now of the spirit of the cause. He was out to restore a good and real lawful kingdom. Agreed there. And yes, his general outlook might have been seen differently at his time than right now. The point still stands that it was a rebelious acts. Lawful characters do not rebel. It goes against the grain of the alignment.
Lawful characters instead skillfully use their knowledge of the law to restore order and if that doesn't work they use the "effective" method of restoring order. Which of course is war. By all means if Robin indeed would have been Lawful, the quest wouldn't have been to kill the prince and so on. But to look for the King and make him aware of what was going on so that the proper authority figures could enact the law.
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Heh it looks to me Talan that this question is going to be argued about just as much for the next 3o odd years as well :)
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Heh... alignments are just guidelines anyway. So this whole conversation is pointless. I'm just bored and I like to argue for the sake of arguing and I know the description of the what DnD "thinks" alignments are and what actions dictacte that alignment.
If you want to carry that to real life, the line is bent in sooooo many ways it no longer applies. But if you take the strict walls DnD places on characters then by those definitions my argument stands.
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For kicks and giggles. Chaotic Evil. Here is my justification.
Robin Hood, defender of the peasents was little more then a minipulative petty noble like all the rest, he just won. Law and Chaos has nothing to do with obediancet words the law mearly obediance twords a certain set of personal ethics and morals, lawful being the embodyment of honer and ecetera (to the point of oppression), chaos being more about freedome (but also maddness). Robin expresses an extreamly chaotic side by jumping the fence repeatedly into changed plans and defyance of what he suposedly held dear dropping to robbery and murder.
Evil and good are more easly represented by the simple constants, helping others vs helping yourself while a good character will in general try and help others (a smart one will try and get himself in with the 'others') an evil one will be determined to help himself once again a smart one would be helping others to increase their own personal power. What beter way to gain power and prestege not to mention legendary status but by helping the poor by stealing from the rich? The poor were oppressed already so he steals from the rich and gives the poor a cut 'free' so they love him, thus makeing the sherif have to raise taxes, slaughter the doe and cancle christmiss causeing the poor to hate the sherif and undermine his authority givein Robin the Power he wished.
As you can see from my INSANE arugment that the legendary Robin Hood was a chaotic evil anarchist determined to undermine the power of england the way power is usualy attained, the systamatic exploitation of people.
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Ozy has just demonstrated what we have all (well at least me) have begun to suspect:
You can justify any action with any alignment.
hehe
But he brings up that Law vs chaos does not mean just "the law" of whomever is in power. It also means a strict code of behavior. This is why monks must be lawful, not that all monks abide by "the law" according to law makers or the authority.
The paladin that fights slavery in a new land or whatever, is still lawfull because he is abiding by his strict set of principles and beliefs and his own moral code of conduct in carrying out his fight.
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What alignment is Gandhi? This'll be fun to see...
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Heh wasn't he above alignments? Sort of 'Do you see the alignment...there is no alignment' :)
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In reguards to the Ghandi question, I would have to say that again... All actions can be taken by any alignment. Frankly, this whole alignment thing is really just how twisted we really can be. We can take someone like Robin Hood and make him Chaotic Evil just as easily as we can Lawful Good and they are both easily supported. Really I think it's just the wonderful gift humanity has to rationalize reality into any form it likes, even conflicting forms that cause migraines.
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I havent looked at this thread in a while, so, in response to what Pan said:
"By all means if Robin indeed would have been Lawful, the quest wouldn't have been to kill the prince and so on. But to look for the King and make him aware of what was going on so that the proper authority figures could enact the law."
In most (i think all) of the versions of the story I've read/seen Robin was sending the majority of the money he stold secretly to pay the kings ransom. John refused to pay the ransom since it gave him more power. John was breaking the law at that point, er, I doubt there was a written law against not paying the kings ransom... but sine the Kings word was law, he was breaking it by not allowing him to return by not paying his ransom.