My thoughts on IWDII

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This is becoming and interesting, philosophical discussion.

I think the ancestry of the cambion twins may influence their alignment, being that daddy Belhifet was an abyssal demon, i.e. chaotic evil. They did go see their father in the abyss after all. Doesn't define them completely, but 'the apple never falls far from the tree', and 'like father like son', and 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks', and so on and so on.

I don't think the people of the Ten Towns appreciated the practical joke the mayor of Bryn Shander played on the twins. He was a part of a decentralized government, and pulled a pretty chaotic stunt.

Yeah this is hugely off topic, and belong in a political forum, I apologise if I'm putting people off.
I don't think I'm mixing up alignment spectra, I think we just have a different definition of what a government is. Courts are always lawful, they must uphold the laws that define a country. But a government can change its laws at will, even retroactively. Since they don't have to abide by their own laws, it remains to be seen whether they are indeed lawful or not.
A lot goes on in a government that isn't seen by the public either, intelligence agencies give a government exactly the freedom it needs to do what it sees fit, and maintain the guise of lawfulness, and goodness. Lack of media coverage helps to blur out the many blunders the CIA and its Al Qaida branch make. If you watch the BBC report on the collapse of WTC7 on YouTube, you'll see how ridiculous it gets. Don't remember World Trade Center building 7? That's exactly what I'm talking about. The BBC reported its collapse 20 minutes before it happened, and you could see it on satellite as the reporters were talking about how it collapsed!
It's important to note that 'terrorists' have been given a label by a biased government, the definition is clear, but the judges aren't impartial.
The USgovt is fast becoming an army with a country instead of the other way around. Since armies thrive on war/chaos, I'd say the alignment of the US government can't be lawful. So, is anyone who dares to rebel against it actually lawful? I'd say, only if they're motivated by a strong feeling of injustice.
But war itself is chaos, and any government unwilling to be chaotic, break rules, and improvise, will lose fast. It's only when war tactics define the behaviour of a government outside wartime, that a government becomes truly chaotic, and eventually 'evil'. Many people return from war changed. Since people are mostly neutral, they become chaotic neutral, also considered the alignment of 'crazy' people.

And finally, 'rebels' and 'terrorists', as labeled by governments, can consider themselves lawful, as they see their attacks as just punishment for evildoers. Separatist rebels are real, but I don't believe in nonsense like muslim terrorist movements. Any dimwits that take part in such things, are encouraged by government-sponsored terrorism. 90%+ of terrorists work for the government, and are there to encourage further conflict and sway public opinion.

 

Within the way D&D treats monsters and templates, including demons, you're right about ancestry. The Monster Manual will always specify the "usual" (that's the term the book itself uses) alignment of a particular monster. However there's always room for exceptions, although obviously the majority will stick to the usual alignment. D&D canon has a pretty large number of exceptions, the most famous being Drizzt. It seems as if the Twins could have been exceptions as well. Some dialogs early on seem to build a really good case for the Twins and Sherincal's actions, but I agree with Scythesong and Count that the game set up a potentially very interesting situation and did not flesh out this possibility of them having been an exception, especially in the last parts of the game where this plot thread seems to be lost and the Twins revert to acting and sounding like generic Evil Demons.

I'm not going to comment on the rest of your argument as it really belongs in the Alleys, but this one sentence explains the problem we're having, so let me clarify: I was specifically talking about alignment and the spectra in D&D. I do not believe that the D&D alignment bears on real life (not directly anyway). The point I was trying to make about governments was how they could be described in terms of the D&D alignment system. I wasn't saying this was my personal vision of what governments are, or that they truly are always lawful in real life. Sorry if I didn't make that clear in my previous post.

 

I always thought Madae sounded like a lawful counterpart to Isair's chaotic speeches. Then again, Xvim priests probably can't be lawful, since they worship a demon lord.

I checked the Alley, but I don't think my rants would fit in there. First of all, I don't know that much about the day-to-day minutiae of american politics. Secondly, there's too much inside-the-box thinking going on there. If I went in and made large generalizations about politics, they'd make mincemeat out of me. Probably boring me to death with minor facts, diverting from the main issue.

Wait a minute, there's another alley: The Alley of Dangerous Angles! I was talking about the Alley of Lingering Sighs. That forum is indeed interesting. Thanks for pointing it out

 

Demon lords aren't necessarily chaotic in alignment. The Tanar'ri are usually chaotic evil, while the Baatezu are lawful evil, and the Yugoloths are neutral evil. Xvim is considered a lawful evil deity.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Iyachtu_Xvim

Still, the actions of Madae and Isair are clearly chaotic. Overthrowing the established order (ie. rebelling) is a very chaotic action.

 

Just needed to reply.

The act is evil. But if the driver was a simpleton who couldn't hold a chain of thought past "drag racing + public streets = someone is likely to get hurt" then he's not evil. But while ignorance can excuse someone as not evil, negligence or complacency cannot.

Irenicus was smart enough to know that the consequence of his little "experiment" would likely include the death of all the Elves of Suldanesslar. He probably didn't think everything through until he had been captured and things finally started to sink in. He probably thought that things would still turn out fine in the end or whatever but the fact was he knew. He acknowledged this. The Seldarine's punishment on him was somewhat extreme though, and it was for this that Irenicus sought revenge.

BTW, even if the driver had killed no one but himself then it would still be an evil act.

 

So for attempting to destroy the tree of life, and use its power to become a member of the elven pantheon of gods, he got his mortality/elvenhood/soul taken away. But he was still alive to alter his destiny. Yeah, that's some pretty harsh punishment right there!
Seeing as highwaymen and thieves get killed for trying to rob people, I'd be inclined to get rid of a power-hungry sorcerer for good as well. But that's just me, these are different times in a world with a different culture. Or perhaps a plothole?
If you think about it, Irenicus is just a big self-absorbed crybaby to be bitter about that. He should thank the elves for letting him continue to exist. His second most evil trait: angstiness.

 

I consider the twins' behaviour lawful. Lawful doesn't mean suicidial. Lawful persons wouldn't just let themselves get killed without a reason just because the authorities want them dead, they'd see the system as unlawful and therefore their "laws" as worthless.

Building a society is lawful, chaotic characters don't bother with etablishing states or sending embassadors.



About the Irenicus off-topic: He wasn't a nice guy who was punished too hard for a nuisance and became evil because of it. He wanted to strip his people from their connection to nature causing harm or even genocide in his greed for power and was punished by loosing the connection to nature himself.
His too soft punishment caused the drama since he could continue living and doing evil things. Lawful authorities like the order of the radiant heart surely wouldn't have left him stayed alive and avoided that suffering.
Having a cool voice acting or reappearing to get defeated again and again doesn't change him from villain to poor victim of unjust elves.

 

It was more complicated than that. They took away his ability to feel emotions too, so in a way it was like being forced to watch while he lost everything that ever mattered to him.
To put it bluntly, death would be a more preferable punishment. Perhaps the Seldarine were giving him a chance to change, or simply wanted to see him suffer, but looking back they should just have killed him and be done with it.

I don't think Irenicus was wholly evil when he was still with Ellesime. The fact that Ellesime cared for him at all should speak for itself. It was more likely he was a young elf who was too smart for his own good. A "young "elf (around 120 years old?) elf is not much wiser than a teenage human.

"Villains" come in several sizes of "simple". The victim of a rather extreme ("unjust" is the wrong word) punishment laid seige to and almost killed every single elf in Suldanesslar; a pair of twins who learned just how humans treated "freaks" in general almost succeeded in wiping out every human settlement in the North; and a rather simple man who just happened to stumble across a relic in Neverwinter one day almost released a creator race of ruthless, lizard-like creatures.