Alignment

added Sep 11, 2009 at 04:33PM UTC

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part of a series on Demotivational Posters

Origin

The concept of character alignment as it is typically viewed comes from the game Dungeons and Dragons, wherein players were able to create their very own characters, customizing a variety of different aspects. One of these aspects is the alignment of the character, which basically indicated whether your character was good or evil and whether he followed the law or not.

The system operated on two axis, one consisting of “Lawful”, “Neutral”, and “Chaotic”, and the other of “Good”, “Neutral”, and “Evil”; you would combine one of the traits of the first axis with one of the traits of the other, thus resulting in alignments such as “Lawful Good” or “Chaotic Evil”, with nine possible alignments in total.

Alignment as a Meme

This all becomes a meme with the practice of taking pictures of characters (or concepts, or a variety of other things) and (usually in the form of a demotivational poster) labeling them as one of the nine alignments. This is then expanded upon by editing together such images (usually following a theme) into a chart, thus giving a representation of all possible nine alignments. Images dealing with just one of the alignments, or just with the subject of alignment itself, also exist.

As for the actual origins of this practice, things aren’t very clear, but many demotivationals exist. Such comparisons have been made since the first release of Dungeons and Dragons, though it’s possible that the book Complete Scoundrel, published in 2007, may have popularized the concept.

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22 Comments

Captain Blubber
Sep 11, 2009 at 05:45PM UTC , Captain Blubber wrote:

Most of these images are too big for my screen.

is that remediable?

DoubleBond
Sep 11, 2009 at 05:57PM UTC , DoubleBond wrote:

Unfortunately I only realised the impractical size of some of them too late. I’ll try to fix this issue shortly.

Jostin Asuncion
Sep 11, 2009 at 11:14PM UTC , Jostin Asuncion wrote:

Ah, yes. This most definitely is a meme. I’ve seen it around a couple of times. If more of its history on the internet and its memetic spread could be found, this would be a great entry to confirm. Also, I think this should be subbed under Demotivational Posters, if what DoubleBond states in the description is true.

Tomberry
Sep 11, 2009 at 11:21PM UTC , Tomberry wrote:

Ha yes, I remember it !
And Jostin is right, it’s a submeme from Demotivational. The alignment thing is only represented in demotivationals images.

DoubleBond
Sep 16, 2009 at 02:57AM UTC , DoubleBond wrote:

I can’t figure out a way to delete the images I have uploaded. Were I able to do so I could replace them with ones of a more reasonable size. As it is you’ll have to settle for opening each individual image’s page.

Chris Menning
Sep 18, 2009 at 03:34PM UTC , Chris Menning wrote:

I’ll go ahead and delete them so that you can upload smaller ones.

LessThanHero
Sep 19, 2009 at 07:20PM UTC , LessThanHero wrote:

The paladins one I posted may not fit completely but this meme was the closest fit.

DoubleBond
Sep 22, 2009 at 07:41PM UTC , DoubleBond wrote:

Thanks for deleting the problimatic images. Unfortunately I’m away from the computer I stored the pics in question on, and can’t upload it right now. They’ll be up as soon as possible, though.

Tomberry
Sep 26, 2009 at 03:57PM UTC , Tomberry wrote:

I like this meme.
There are so much demotivational pictures of it.
Ha, damn, I posted the lawful evil cat picture twice…

Captain Blubber
Sep 26, 2009 at 04:00PM UTC , Captain Blubber wrote:

Fixed it Tomberry.

Chris Menning
Sep 30, 2009 at 05:53PM UTC , Chris Menning wrote:

I went ahead and confirmed this even though the origin isn’t completely clear.

For the sake of a meme like this that consists entirely of demotivationals, I don’t think figuring out the origin is really of a high priority.

Alignment is something most RPG players are probably familiar with, and demotivationals are basically a staple in internet memes. So it’s just the marriage of two well-established memes.

Badgerfrank10
Oct 03, 2009 at 06:55AM UTC , Badgerfrank10 wrote:

ah D&D

i miss you

Pterodactyl
Oct 04, 2009 at 06:33PM UTC , Pterodactyl wrote:

Is it okay I laughed really hard at the Code Geass one? I’m a Rivalz fangirl.
The ones grouped together are great.

prokadae
Oct 04, 2009 at 07:28PM UTC , prokadae wrote:

CHAOTIC NUETRAL.
“don’t care who wins, as long as somethin’ goes boom.”
\m/

DJ Intercept
Oct 05, 2009 at 10:37PM UTC , DJ Intercept wrote:

this makes my d20’s jiggle with delight.

PTL
Nov 03, 2009 at 02:27AM UTC , PTL wrote:

I’m True Neutral: “I really don’t give a fuck either way.”

Chi The Cat
Dec 16, 2009 at 11:21PM UTC , Chi The Cat wrote:

By the way, for the really huge ones, I finally figured out to right click and pick “View Image” to see it at a reasonable size.

Nifty.

I’m a noob for not figuring that out sooner.

Sir Derick
Dec 31, 2009 at 01:39AM UTC , Sir Derick wrote:

The one with the dark tower had me laughing my ass off.
My fried asked my why it was so funny, I said “You’ll need to read seven books for that answer!”

Matt Hopper
Jan 14, 2010 at 05:19PM UTC , Matt Hopper wrote:

chaotic good

Zantetsuken
Jan 26, 2010 at 02:18PM UTC , Zantetsuken wrote:

Chaotic Neutral myself. Figure it’s the best: Not bound by rules, nor by ethics. Although that might be True Neutral. I prefer not to follow rules, anyway.

And I was so bored today, a friend and I picked Discworld characters for each of the alignments. And found quotes.

nate1256
Feb 14, 2010 at 06:10AM UTC , nate1256 wrote:

im chaotic awsome

reyo
Feb 20, 2010 at 06:31AM UTC , reyo wrote:

I uploaded a bunch involving the cast of Fringe. Golly I love that show…

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