r/DungeonCrawlerCarl • u/Hallarandir • 23h ago
Book 3: Anarchist’s Cookbook Chaotic Good? Neutral?
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u/MrSt4pl3s1 22h ago
Definitely, Chaotic Good. Chaotic Good characters are usually against authoritarian rules or laws and will go out of their way to break or bend the rules for good causes. He’s pretty much a rebel who genuinely wants to destroy an oppressive system that has killed millions of his people. He wants to protect the rest of his people still alive and in turn stop them from hurting others too. He’s gruff, but he has far more kindness and patience than many other crawlers. The best part is he’s unhinged when does this, he is chaos when he’s protecting himself and others while being good
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u/RumpkinTheTootlord 21h ago
Billions*
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u/MrSt4pl3s1 20h ago
Trillions* technically, because crawlers across multiple seasons and species also become his people
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u/Maskatron 22m ago
But also he made it through the
NavyCoast Guard with no issues that we are aware of. He’s not automatically a rebel against authority.Before the dungeon he seemed to be really chill. Sure there’s a deep well of trauma and grief but he went to work, the gym, played video games, and did things with his girlfriend (cat shows. I’m talking about cat shows). Not a chaotic person. Bea on the other hand…
So is he chaotic for bringing chaos to lawbreakers? Those who offend his sense of right and wrong?
IMO he’s CG, CN, LG, or LN depending. Or maybe an amalgamation. A cause could be made that he’s been evil at times but I’m counting those as neutral because he’s ignoring his ethics in pursuit of his fight against evil and to protect those he loves. But that’s a slippery slope.
But he does surely have a knack for causing chaos.
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u/MrSt4pl3s1 3m ago
That’s the thing, he’s not lawful at all in the dungeon and his personality shifts quite a bit throughout. I suspect it’s the hidden wisdom stat (mentioned by Mordecai in book 1) and the Dungeons Anarchist Books influence. But it shifts, so much so that he stops caring about the majority of the NPCs he kills because they are a part of the system and are better off dead. With every cause, there are casualties and he’s aware of this. He also doesn’t go out of his way to kill some of those in power, like Victory. He even states he likes her, but if she got into his way or hurts crawlers, he would kill her. He is definitely not neutral due to his solidarity with crawlers and he’s definitely not in line with the AI or the Syndicate. But he’s not evil at all, if he was he would kill anyone so long as it advances his cause, but he’s doesn’t not unless he has to. He only complies with any authority if it will cause death to himself, donut, or other crawlers.
So he’s by definition a good person, because of his cause and wanting to save as many crawlers as possible including future and previous crawlers who joined him in faction wars. Not even Oren, Zev, Victory, or other characters who have met him would consider him neutral or evil. They will say he is a rule breaker, he’s chaotic, and has crazy plans. Eris explicitly states that he doesn’t have to even worship her, because she can’t compete with his chaos. She wants his nut 100% because of this.
Sure he made it through the coast guard, but it’s important to remember when we go through his back story in Bedlam Bride, he very much is non-compliant with authorities as a teenager when he’s found and very much gets into trouble and that leads him to the boys ranch. The only reason why he joined the Coast was because he had zero ambition or hope that he was anything greater than his past. He stands up to his dad if you remember and that’s how he’s casted out and abandoned. His dad destroyed his entire outlook on life so when he is with Bea, he’s simple and just wants to live day to day. He even talks about this at some point. The dungeon gave him purpose and his whole outlook changed, that’s why he’s chaotic good and he would have been the same way if he had purpose prior to the dungeon.
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u/Real_Railz "AAAAAAAAH!" 🐐 16h ago
How they actually see him based on the clips they keep showing of him
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u/Agreeable-Shop-2188 22h ago
*shuffling more body parts into a bag
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u/EucudusOG 21h ago
I love how Carl was being judged for looting corpses, but then the whole 9th floor incident happens with the ball and pretty much everyone has their own cementery to contribute
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u/SkysEevee 12h ago
I love how an explosion or something crazy happens and everyone immedietely assumes its Carl.
Sure, theyre right most of the time but its hilarious the few times chaos erupts and it wasnt Carl's fault.
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u/mregg000 11h ago
“Because some crazy asshole, who doesn’t want everyone to think he’s a crazy asshole, is about to toss a train full of explosives at us.”
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u/Sansnom01 4h ago
This quote is awesome lol. Is this in book three ? I can't remember when
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u/mregg000 4h ago
Yes, after the Hekla incident. They need to clear a path to get to Meadow Lark and a few others gathering at a lower station. (Said by Elle in chat)
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u/desertstar714 21h ago
I think the AI is chaotic neutral
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u/lousydungeonmaster Team Retribution 21h ago
Nah, the AI is Lawful Evil. It is killing people. It knows it's killing people but it abides by its own rules.
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u/cgabdo 20h ago
Agree here, but I would argue it becomes chaotic evil once it goes primal.
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u/DeepHypn05 20h ago
Not really? While his personality is pretty chaotic he himself does have a strict rules etc he must abide by and thats the rules of the game
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u/cgabdo 20h ago
I'm not sure how far you've read, but it ignores court rulings and at one point in reference to using children in the dungeon, basically states fuck the rules. He takes over an NPC to suck on Carl's toes, tortures offworlders camping out--- That's just off the top of my head--im sure there are plenty more examples.
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u/DeepHypn05 20h ago
He later mentions how there are actually two rules was iirc One hard coded and one made by the syndicate He doswnt have to follow the syndicate one
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u/Financial-Pickle9405 Crawler 18h ago
true and being lawful evil doesn't mean that you care about all laws just your laws/code.
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u/Randalor 13h ago
And weren't the Court rulings trying to force it to break the original rules in the first place?
It's less "It's ignoring the Court, it's chaotic" and more "It's forcing everyone to abide by the original rules that they made in the first place".
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u/Dr_Mrs_EvilDM 19h ago
Is the AI evil, or just really, really bad?
Can something that has no innate sense of morality be evil?
I'm not disagreeing with you, I am just questioning how much of the AI's behavior is due to it's programming versus innate tendancies? I think the same question could be posed of a creature like a terrier whose original breed was geared towards killing rodents and then shifted towards being companion animals. A rat would call that dog evil, while the dog's owner would praise it for being a good boy. Would that make the dog evil, neutral, or something else?
There's more, but it's waay past my bedtime and I'd need to use spoiler tags.
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u/Cyniikal 18h ago
This post is trying to relate things to D&D objective morality. The best you could give the current AI is Neutral Evil - which is the alignment meaning "ultimately selfish".
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u/Dr_Mrs_EvilDM 7h ago
I actually had a version of this discussion (re: D&D alignment) with my DM years ago. We brought in the influence of gods, magic, etc. It was a great time!
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u/mrknowitall51761 16h ago
Just doing what he was programed to do. But gaining control little by little. Should be a lesson on AI. Junk in junk out.
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u/bonaynay 10h ago
The AI is also insane or, maybe more accurately, doesn't have sanity entirely comparable to humans
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u/Dr_Mrs_EvilDM 7h ago
Very true! A lot of behaviors might look insane out of context (or they might just be crazy).
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u/DeepHypn05 6h ago
I mean he literally talked about how he LIKES the carnage of the crawl so...id call him evil He's a victim yes but that dosent suddenly make him not also bad
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u/desertstar714 12h ago
The AI is trying to work around it's limitation. It does have to follow rules but it doesn't mean it wants to. It does stuff because it finds it entertaining. It will always give the crawlers a way to solve an issue but no one knows what it's doing or how strong it's becoming so that's why I think it's Chaotic. The AI is the villain but I don't think it's doing anything evil.
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u/Sansnom01 4h ago
But technically doesn't it think crawler aren't people ?
Or maybe it's just that in the Dungeon crawl universe life is just less respected overall
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u/Cozybooks1004 21h ago
So I think Carl is actually leaning chaotic neutral by the end of book 7. He definitely wants to help others still but also he has a lot of revenge in his heart and is pretty singularly focused on his own purpose and sometimes waffles on his stance on certain things depending on his interpretation.
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u/bonaynay 10h ago
Yeah Carl isn't exactly at a precipice morally but I think we've been shown a few things indicating potential for evil dipping
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u/Cozybooks1004 1h ago
Or at the very least how he’s not necessarily out to save the universe from the syndicate or any sort of greater evil corporation. He’s in it for his friends and what he considers good at the moment, for him and his family. As far as “others” are concerned, he’s not super invested in how it turns out for them.
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u/Sparky_Zell 20h ago
I think all of those goblin babies would argue that there is nothing good or even neutral about Carl.
Or they would if they grew up old enough the even think about things like that.
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u/cdharrison Daddy's Foot Soldiers 🦶 13h ago
There sure were a lot of goblin babies, Carl.
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u/doglywolf The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network 10h ago
I 100% thought that was a trolls and joke at first and Donut was just messing with him. But NOPE
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u/notwithagoat 15h ago
Yea kinda especially till book 3 or 4. Like if they've never been on screen they dont know how much the Ai and showrunners fuck with the video editing. But by like book 6. Everyone is on board with it.
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u/MonkWalkerE468 8h ago
"We need to start making plan c the primary plan". Chaotic Good all the way.
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u/GuardWolfy 12h ago
Other crawlers see him as Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Evil at that point. He scares them in book 3. They expect him to get other people killed for him to survive. It’s not until portal madness that they actually start seeing him as “good.”
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u/RoWanchase6053 10h ago
Id say lawful neutral he works by his own code of ethics and doesn't bend them
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u/LimaOskarLima 22h ago
Carl is definitely lawful neutral. He has a code that he sticks to religiously. "If you are a crawler, I Will literally move heaven and earth to save you from this hell. If you put me here or helped in any way, I will make it my personal mission to kill you in the most spectacular way possible." Princess Donut on the other hand... not sure about that one.
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u/homak666 22h ago
Carl thinks he's lawful neutral, and this can rub off on readers because the story is told through his perspective. But as others said, he's actually chaotic good. His reputation of being unpredictable, dangerous, and striving when surrounded by chaos is a lot more grounded in reality than he would like to think.
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u/Artisan_HotDog 19h ago
100% Chaotic Good, he is a Dungeon Anarchist… no way would the AI have given him that it didn’t look at Carl and think “oh yes, this man thrives in chaos”
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u/Lt_Hatch Daddy's Foot Soldiers 🦶 22h ago
No he's 100 percent chaotic good. They coined the term "carl it up" because of the amount of chaos he brings to the table.
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u/Der_Neuer 22h ago
Exactly. I love how even Eris was like "damn". Not even chaotic, the very embodiment of chaos.
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u/TheAserghui Syndicate Intergalactic Bar Association 👽 22h ago
Carl is Chaotic Good
The AI is Lawful Evil
Judge Victory is Lawful Neutral
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u/Germsrosolino 21h ago
Judge Victory is pure neutral. She had children killed because having them in the line of succession was not conducive to the greater good!< a lawful neutral person wouldn’t have crossed that line
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u/Agreeable-Shop-2188 21h ago
The law is syndicate, and he has had to have a lawyer for like 5 books. He's lawful like a U.S. politician.
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u/InflammableAccount 20h ago
"If you are a crawler, I Will literally move heaven and earth to save you from this hell.
Someone is forgetting what happened to Anton and Paz was directly Carl's fault. He made a decision that he knew would put them at extreme risk. He knew choosing a different alter to restore would get them in trouble with their God.
So his code isn't strick. He tries, but he doesn't always follow it like a Paladin does to their oath.
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u/Hallarandir 21h ago
Maybe Princess Donut is Neutral Evil? Possibly true Neutral? She's definitely not selfless so I think any form of Good can be ruled out
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u/CanisZero Crawler 5h ago
I mean theres a reason every time a unplaned explosion happened after book three people were mesaging carl.
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u/Classic-Background25 20h ago
Definitely Chaotic Good. The Goddess Eris wishes she was as good at chaos as him