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You may have seen a chart like the above before. It’s an alignment chart, and it assigns alignments from Dungeons & Dragons to various fictional (or non-fictional) characters. I developed this one per a request from someone on Twitter…though I intentionally left out Light from Death Note because I couldn’t decide where to put him; a significant part of the story is basically his move from one alignment to another.
Now, alignment is a role-playing tool; it’s designed to give players a sort of guideline to consider when deciding their characters’ actions. It’s also a simplification of human behavior, so of course, it’s subjective and constantly-shifting. In other words, don’t take any of the alignment assignments above to be 100% fact…they’re just good examples of characters who tend to fit them.
How does alignment work? Basically you’ve got two scales: Lawful to Chaotic and Good to Evil, with neutral in the middle of each.
Lawful/Chaotic
Lawful: Note that “lawful” does not necessarily refer to someone who only obeys official laws. Lawful characters feel that obeying a consistent order, set of rules, or moral code, whatever that code may be. Lawful characters will also generally choose to benefit a group over an individual. Think: honor, trustworthiness, and willingness to obey authority.
L-C Neutral: Aiming for or believing in a balance between law and chaos (or perhaps between predictability and luck) usually makes someone neutral on the law/chaos balance.
Chaotic: People who rely on chance and luck, believe the world is ultimately unpredictable, act on a whim, and who value the individual are often chaotic. They find value in both lying and truth-telling, in saving and destroying, etc. Think: Flexibility, unpredictability, and defiance of authority.
Good/Evil
This distinction can become complex because one character might conceive of their action as “good” and another might think it “bad.”
Good: Think altruism, personal sacrifice to assist others, and a general willingness to get involved when one sees a perceived injustice.
G-E Neutral: Neutral can refer to several different types of people. A neutral person may specifically try to balance their good and evil actions; they may sometimes act good and other times act evil; or they may be unwilling to do anything significantly evil (like kill an innocent person) but also be unwilling to do anything good (like help save an innocent person).
Evil: Evil people may simply have no concern for the harm done by their actions (but are aware of them) or actively seek to harm others for fun or profit, or just because they can.
Again…these are a roleplay tool and an (over-)simplification, not a mathematical formula with absolute answers.
Lawful is not necessarily group oriented (though LG and LN often are, but this is a side effect). IE, in a society in which the laws of society benefit the group, a LN characters rigid adherence to them is of benefit to the ground. In the same setting, a LE character will work to abuse the law (‘technicalities’ loop holes, etc) for his own personal ends.
Neutral on a LC (called the ethical axis) axis doesn’t represent any intrinsic belief in balance (though, we have an unofficial term ‘Druid Neutral’ for those who actively strive to maintain a balance between the two extremes), but more commonly a lack of strong affinity to either side. In the case of NE and NG, it usually represent that a characters moral compass has far more pull than their law/chaos alignment. A NG character will do what’s right regardless of law, where a CG might actively look to flout the law or undermine it, and a LG character would try and do good while upholding it.
I would also somewhat contest your Chaotic definition, as your definition implies the CN and CE ends, but ignores CG (which admittedly is hard to distinguish from NG most of the time). Chaotic is hard to define (appropriately so), but generally, I consider a character chaotic if they are ‘anti-authority’, ‘random’ ‘impulsive’, or generally behave in an unpredictable fashion. The Dark Knight’s Joker is the best of all Chaotic Evil villains, but the far more common one is a cruel bully/bandit, who robs people on the road if he thinks they are weaker than he, but would be fawning and sychophantic if faced with a more powerful villain. CN characters are almost always people who are purely lunatics (very few people are truly CN and not insane) as this represents an orientation towards chaos over all else. Brad Pitt’s character in 12 monkeys would be a fairly good example.
On the moral axis Neutral, I might clarify that “would be unwilling to do anything good that puts them at risk, or at a loss to themselves.” Even most NE characters (at least those that aren’t actively dedicated to an evil god/goddess whose beliefs dictate otherwise) would help a innocent person if it cost them nothing, because the odds are it will benefit them down the line.