{"id":6851,"date":"2012-02-28T14:00:04","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T19:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=6851"},"modified":"2012-01-19T18:13:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T23:13:47","slug":"trope-tuesday-chaotic-neutral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-chaotic-neutral\/","title":{"rendered":"Trope Tuesday: Chaotic Neutral"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Look, I ain't in this for your revolution, and I'm not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid--I'm in it for the money.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’ve ever read a space adventure with smugglers and pirates, or a sword & sorcery with rogue thieves and master-less swordsmen, or a western with gritty outlaws and mountain men, you know this character alignment. \u00a0If you’re a fan of any of these genres, chances are you love him, too.<\/p>\n

The Chaotic Neutral<\/a>‘s\u00a0one consistent rule is to always look out for #1. \u00a0Beyond that, he’s a free spirit who believes in individuality and resists anyone or anything that tries to control him. \u00a0Rebellious spirits<\/a> and lovable rogues<\/a> tend to fall into this alignment, but so do tricksters<\/a> and wild cards<\/a>. \u00a0Their resistance to any form of personal restriction<\/a> makes them unreliable allies, despite what Jack Sparrow says<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From the easydamus alignment page<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A lot of characters start out as this but tend to shift as the story progresses. \u00a0Han Solo, for example, shifts from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good as he becomes more and more involved with the Rebellion. \u00a0The J\u00e4gers from Girl Genius<\/a> are Chaotic Neutral until they have a Heterodyne to lead them. \u00a0But in other stories, such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Schlock Mercenary<\/a>, the Chaotic Neutral serves as an anchor.<\/p>\n

My favorite Chaotic Neutral is probably Waylander from David Gemmell’s Drenai series. \u00a0The Jerusalem Man is another good one–in fact, just about every one of his books has a Chaotic Neutral that I love. \u00a0Haruhi Suzumiya<\/a> is an excellent example of a female Chaotic Neutral–in fact, she’s probably the queen of this particular character alignment.<\/p>\n

In my own work, the best example of a Chaotic Neutral would probably be Tamu from Bringing Stella Home \/ Sholpan<\/strong>.\u00a0 Even though she’s technically a slave, she doesn’t really mind it because she has everything she wants and doesn’t have to be beholden to anybody (not even Qasar, really, since she’s his favorite). \u00a0Amina from Desert Stars<\/strong>\u00a0is also Chaotic Neutral, in contrast with Surayya, who is more of a Lawful Neutral, though sometimes it’s hard to tell. \u00a0And in Genesis Earth<\/strong>, Terra is definitely<\/em>\u00a0a Chaotic Neutral at the beginning, though she shifts a little somewhere around the middle.<\/p>\n

I’m hesitant to admit this, but when I took the character alignment test<\/a> for myself, I tested out as a Chaotic Neutral. \u00a0As to what that means, exactly…I’m not going to say. o.0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve ever read a space adventure with smugglers and pirates, or a sword & sorcery with rogue thieves and master-less swordsmen, or a western with gritty outlaws and mountain men, you know this character alignment. \u00a0If you’re a fan of any of these genres, chances are you love him, too. The Chaotic Neutral‘s\u00a0one consistent… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: Chaotic Neutral<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,44,32,541,1],"tags":[416,112,690,113,681,672,691,306,499,641,565,626,621],"class_list":["post-6851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bsh","category-ds","category-ge","category-sholpan-novella","category-uncategorized","tag-anime","tag-character","tag-character-alignment","tag-david-gemmell","tag-girl-genius","tag-schlock-mercenary","tag-space-adventure","tag-star-wars","tag-sword-sorcery","tag-trope-tuesday","tag-tropes-and-cliches","tag-tvtropes","tag-westerns","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1Mv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6851"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6879,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions\/6879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}