Alignment (ConceptClass, 5)

From Compile Worlds

Latest revision as of 12:27, 21 August 2011

Alignment refers to the location of a character on the alignment grid below:

History

The first alignment system used on this wiki was a simple "Light - Neutral - Dark" system. However, this didn't properly represent many characters (e.g. Sonic the Hedgehog, who is pure but neutral on this scale), and led to many implications of the dark is evil syndrome. To try to fix these problems, it was adjusted to a "Pure - Neutral - Chaotic" system. This was better, however it still tended to misrepresent some characters, such as Strange Klug who is pure dark and was represented as chaotic on this scale.

After thinking long and hard about the problem, Keiji derived the grid system above, where a character can be described on both "axes" at once.

Explanation

The meanings of each of the 9 alignments in this system are sometimes not obvious. The Light/Dark axis represents the more classical alignment, whereas the Pure/Chaotic axis represents their relationship to this alignment. A pure character can be seen as firm believer in their Light/Dark alignment. Light and Dark are classically opposed to each other, though can get along: pure characters can open up to the opposing alignment, and those in the neutral row do not usually mind associating with someone of the opposing alignment. Chaotic characters, as the word implies, are the troublemakers. A chaotic light character, like Draco, will often go out of their way to oppress those in the dark column, and a chaotic dark character, like Ekoro, will do the reverse.