Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-11533671-20140912050918/@comment-19765459-20140912220052

Jestermonkey4u wrote: ^ Sorry but you are incorrect. I am a D&D uber-nerd when it comes to alignment with going on 16+ years of experience in this particular area.

Peter promised Kate he wouldn't kill Chris...he upheld that promise, as per Lawful Evil alignment definitions. A Chaotic Evil person would disregard any such promises.

I've got you beat by more than a decade kid! Heck, I remember when we only had Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic, before EGG added the Good/Evil axis for AD&D.

You seem to misunderstand that a character does not always have to follow the terms of their alignment exactly. For example, Chaotic Good elves still tend to be ruled by monarchies. They're just a lot looser than Lawful ones. Likewise, a Chaotic-aligned character doesn't always have to break promises or agreements. Just the ones that they really feel like breaking. So Peter promising Kate (who he has every reason to hate passionately) not to kill Chris (somebody he barely cares about at all, even back in S1) is purely arbitrary. It's not a sacrifice for him all things considered and Peter is a very arbitrary sort of person. Now, if killing Chris (or anybody else, including Kate) was something he really wanted, he would do it without hesitation.

Remember that a Chaotic individual is driven by personal morality, not external. If they keep promises because they like to fancy themselves a person of honor, that does not push them towards the Lawful end of the scale, since the rules they're following are subject only to their own willingness to abide by them and not the sense that they have to because of something beyond them requiring it. At best, keeping promises might push Peter towards Neutral Evil, but given his arbitrary behavior on the whole that does not really seem to be the case. It definitely is not enough, in and of itself, to make him Lawful Evil.

Neutral Evil is best represented by both Kate and Gerard, especially Gerard. He believed that Hunter rules applied to everybody - except him. So outwardly he appeared Lawful Evil, but he was revealed to be Neutral Evil in that he was secretly abandoning the Hunter Code for his own benefit while still enforcing it on others. Kate followed his example, doing what she was "supposed" to do for the most part, but also being flexible about the rules when they applied to her personally. Lawful Hunters, such as Chris, obviously did not approve.

Lawful Evil was represented by Victoria Argent, who was shown to be incredibly callous for somebody whose supposed mission in life is protecting people. Her daughter had to practically scream at her to go back and check on somebody she nearly ran over! She also seemed to enjoy hurting people (e.g. the BHHS principal). But at the same time she was religiously devoted to the Code, to the point that when Bitten she abided by its terms and committed suicide.

Note that alignment is not a fixed stat. People do drift around a bit, and some actually change alignment. Chris is a good example. He started out as Lawful Neutral (with Evil tendencies) but began moving towards Lawful Good as he realized how badly Evil had twisted his family and the Code he believed in. He did not move as far as Neutral Good, because he was still very rule-minded. But he began to focus more on the fact that the Code did not technically require him to hunt, or hate, non-malevolent werewolves like Scott and Isaac, and he released Boyd and Erica when he came to the realization that Gerard's motives for holding them captive had nothing to do with the Code.