Zemo and New Cap: Lawful evil or lawful neutral?
Episode 4 of Falcon and Winter Soldier had me contemplating the architypes these characters represent. If you haven't seen the latest episode, I recommend watching it first because it actually does a lot to develop their characters (also spoilers are bound to come up).
Anyways, both characters show a clear commitment towards a guiding set of morals. Zemo with his unwavering commitment against super powered individuals. Cap with his fight against terrorism in the name of justice. Cap obviously believes himself to be good, but his actions don't always reflect that. Meanwhile Zemo seems to be aware that his zealous actions are morally problematic, but doesn't really care.
I realize it's kind of a silly question, but the ambiguity of the actions these characters take has me wondering where they would traditionally fit on the good ole' alignment chart.
Spoilers for Ep 4 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
I don't know how you could Watch Ep. 4 and think that Captain PTSD fits into lawful neutral. They are clearly setting him up to become US Agent and the fact that he murdered an (for the crime Walker was accusing him of) innocent man by bashing his fucking skull in with the shield of Captain America slots him into the evil zone pretty safely. Lawful evil because he is still following orders.
With Zemo it's hard to say. He does not shy away from committing atrocities to meet his goals, but in general his goal of ridding the world of superhumans is one I can understand. It would be interesting to see what he does and how or if he changes once the X-Men are merged into the MCU. I'd probably go with Neutral Evil because his own goals are the only thing that matters, and he does his best to adhere to them and is even friendly with people that aren't in his way.
Are you sure you want to die on that hill?
But that's not what the murder was about. It was solely vengeance for Lamar's death. The bombing isn't even relevant here. Cap's kill in Winter Soldier was mid-combat, Walker's kill was an unarmed man begging for his life while knowing that it wasn't him who killed Lamar because he saw Karli kill him. His orders aren't to kill the Flag smashers, they are to bring them in. He had a man literally at his feet begging for his life and he killed him when he could've arrested him. We can debate the morality of killing all day long but if we disagree here any further discussion is pointless.
If he wants to help people he isn't neutral, and if he is going to break rules then he isn't lawful. What you described would possibly be neutral good to chaotic good depending on the attitude on laws.
I think it was 3 but that's irrelevant. Walker himself says in that same episode that whatever they did to earn those medals was "a long way away from being right".
I am not making that argument, but it raises a nice point: Walker is supposed to be a seasoned veteran who should stay cool under pressure, and yet he again and again displays bursts of rage when things don't go his way. People dying left and right is a fairly normal thing in warfare, while traumatizing, it should not lead you to commit a public execution.
You said that if he wants to help he isn't neutral, and if he breaks rules he isn't lawful, but that's not exactly true in the Dungeons and Dragons sense of alignment charts.
Helping people if it helps yourself is pretty stereotypically "neutral" and Walker seems to fit this bill. He wants to help people, because when he helps people it helps him be more Captain-y. He does not seem to be deeply into doing good for the sake of doing good, and he doesn't seem to be into doing evil for the sake of being evil; he does stuff to advance himself and his orders. From the start, he has seemed like a stereotypically Neutral character to me.
Breaking rules also doesn't mean that you are not lawful. Lawful doesn't mean that you adhere to the rules of whatever society you are in, or it would be really difficult to have "Lawful Evil", as evil acts are often illegal in some sense. Rather it means that you adhere to a rigid set of rules of your own. I think Walker is generally "Lawful" in the D&D sense - there are things that he will do that are within his moral code, and he sticks to them, for the most part. Since we are looking at his story through the lens of the alignment chart, I would say that his story is one of a Lawful Neutral character slowly losing both Lawfulness and Neutrality, and slipping towards Neutral Evil. That's his arc - he's previously been bound by his own rules, but giving himself the serum is pushing him along a path that he might not otherwise want to be on; a path he could control himself away from, with effort, in the past.
With regards to the comments about killing people always being evil, and whether or not that is problematic, I agree with @Loire - we forgive a lot of MCU heroes who have killed a lot of people because we like them. Almost all of the Avengers have killed people, and some of them have killed a lot of people. For some of them, killing people was actually their job, but we still consider them to be the good guys. Considering just Steve Rogers vs. John Walker: according to Steve Rogers' Kill Count Steve has a kill count of 151, and while that's not all humans, there are a significant number of humans in there. Is Steve de facto evil?
While true, I don't think it plays a role in Walker's decision making process in that moment, which is why I said it's irrelevant. No one stopped the Flag Smashers from proceeding with their bombing. There's a very good chance that disturbing the funeral -> Ep 4 finale fight would've still happened without it.
So I did just rewatch (it's honestly a pretty decent action movie) CA: Winter Soldier, so first of all thanks for giving me an excuse to to do that. What I meant with my "middle of combat" justification was that while yes, the men were taken by surprise, Cap made no conscious effort to kill every single one of them. The mission was for him to get to the commander of the pirates and clear the deck. The two dudes that were thrown off deck probably died, but that was more so because Cap was executing the mission as quickly as possible and they were enemy combatants in the way. There is a difference in that.
The difference is, that Captain PTSD is supposed to be one of the "good guys". The man had clearly surrendered and he was killed anyway solely for the reason of vengeance. That's like elevating normal police (outside of the USA)1 to Judge Dredd level. Because if the murder wasn't evil, then it has to be justified which means that Captain PTSD has the power to execute any unarmed person for no reason other than he really doesn't like them.
I'm not saying I don't understand why he did what he did. I just don't think his actions make him a good person, but tbh I think the characters in this show are pretty well written and at that point shit like DnD character alignment charts really fall apart.
I'd also like to add here I'm really not on the side of the Flag Smashers here. I don't think that their actions are justified and I find this strange redemption arc that they are stringing Karli along on rather disturbing. She makes a good antagonist because I can understand her motivations, I just can't agree with them. Her actions definitely are not in "forgive and move on territory" and while she does seem like a kid really, really out of her depth (as shown by the reactions of the flag smashers after Lamar's death), she should be in jail, or at least, tried. As should the now dead man, but he can't anymore.
That's honestly a wonderful question and one I've been asking myself, especially after Lamar got taken in the stairwell in Ep 4. Like they at this point knew they were going in against suped up people and they get 2 pistols and the shield and that's it? Like Lamar at least got a Glock, but Walker was sent in with a bloody 1911! That's an ancient fucking pistol! However this just continues the trend of shoddy action scenes in this show. The fight choreographies themselves are good, but they get ruined by these bizarre set ups sometimes.
I hope that Walker knows this too and we get to see it at some point, because otherwise it really just is shoddy writing. If the GRC is this weird organization with quite a lot of power, they should've given him more to work with.
1 This is a joke. Mostly.
I'm just gonna chime in to agree that the action is the worst part of this show. I watched episode 4 and Inception yesterday. While it's not exactly a fair comparison, I couldn't help but to notice that the action in Marvel shows tend to make me zone out while the action in Nolan's movies keeps me on the edge of my seat.
My honest opinion is that they're both Lawful Evil, just for different reasons. Usually NE characters commit evil because it benefits them and only them; they aren't guided by gleefully sowing chaos, or working within the confines of a moral code.
It's hard to gauge how much Zemo is motivated by revenge, and how much he genuinely buys into his own dogma. If he leans more toward revenge, he's definitely a more NE style character. I think choosing not to take the serum, and instead smashing it makes a case for him being LE though, and this was in fact the scene that got me thinking.
Cap on the other hand...hoo boy. Captain PTSD is probably a good way to put it. Honestly I'd agree that if he wasn't already LE, he probably is now. He's basically being setup to become exactly what Zemo warns against.
I'm finding Zemo to be one of my favorite characters in the MCU because of this show. His actions are awful (bombing the UN, framing Bucky, etc.), but his reasoning is solid, imo. Super soldiers are problematic for society and the Avengers were causing a ton of unchecked collateral damage. He also doesn't seem to be particularly evil in philosophy. He hates fascists (Hyrda) and he hates supremacy...both pretty agreeable stances. He's also got some sick dance moves. More often than not his beliefs are in line with what we'd consider a good person's to be, but he's willing to do evil things to reach his goals.
New Cap...Man I hate him. But he's also been tasked with an impossible mission. The government expect him to be the next Captain America, but didn't give him the advantage (super soldier serum) that Steve had. Yet he's still being put up against super soldiers and expected to perform as Steve did. He's destined to fail and that weighs heavily on him and that finally took its toll in today's episode. I think ultimately he's a good guy with good intentions, but he's clearly got anger issues, he's impatient, and on top of that he's forced to live in the shadow of Steve Rogers. In other words, he's a terrible Captain America and while I empathize with the situation he's found himself in, I can't wait until I don't have to see his goofy-ass face anymore.