Editing Lawful Stupid (section)

== Examples of Lawful Stupid ==
* [[Games Workshop#Back_on_the_Old_Shit|The Games Workshop Legal Team]]
* [[Wizards of the Coast|The Wizards of the Coast Legal Team]], though this one is so bad it straight up went into [[Stupid Evil]] as well.
* The [[Inevitable]]s, divine [[golem]]-like beings with the duty to enact laws and enforce contracts. There's a story of one named "Obligatum VII" (the seventh in its line because six times prior people had the common sense to stop him) who’s trying to free the [[BBEG]] in a campaign from the book [[Elder Evils]]. The story goes that some mages summoned an eldritch abomination named [[Pandorym]] to blackmail the gods, making a contract with it to kill said deities when it was summoned. The wizards imprisoned Pandorym instead of finishing the ritual to let it loose so that it wouldn't destroy the universe before they were ready, but the gods just smote the stupid wizards the instant they were done imprisoning Pandorym so he's stuck. Well, Obligatum is here to set things right, and make sure that poor, imprisoned death machine gets the freedom it was promised to carry out its goal, which through some warped sense of honor it is willing to do. How exactly this does not bring him into conflict with another type of Inevitable, the Varakhut, whose job it is to prevent deicide is a whole other box of worms. Maybe that's what happened to one of the six other ones.
* The [[Harmonium]] from [[Planescape]]. ''"The Harmonium believes that peace is a better end than war. [...] If it takes thumping heads to spread the truth, well, the Harmonium's ready to thump heads. Sure, there may not be peace right away, but every time the Harmonium gets rid of an enemy, the multiverse is that much closer to the universal harmony it was meant to have."'' This attitude is how the third layer of [[Arcadia]] shifted into [[Mechanus]], and the gods of Arcadia had to start over. Whoops. What's more, don't forget that they exterminated all non-lawful ''good and neutral'' species in the world where their faction originated. Some good.
* The [[Modron]] race, similarly to the Inevitables above, due to being extraplanar mechanical lifeforms who embody Lawful Neutral. Except they somehow have even less personality. Imagine a poorly-written chatbot with arms, legs and the ability to beat you over the head; that's basically a Modron. They can't even understand the idea that their assumptions may be incorrect.
* [[Helm]], the Lawful Neutral God of Guardians and Watchmen from the [[Forgotten Realms]] has earned this kind of reputation in-universe. Nobody will ''ever'' let him live it down that, during the [[Time of Troubles]], he killed Mystara, the Goddess of Magic, for trying to get back into the upper planes after Ao kicked them all out, despite the fact he knew that this would severely damage the fabric of reality in the process. As a result, [[wild magic]] zones and dead magic zones are commonly called "Helmlands". He also catches a lot of flak for the role his worshippers played in the massacres in [[Maztica]], but that's not so much Lawful Stupid as religious bigotry and the priest's only daughter being sacrificed by one of the natives.
* The stereotypical [[Space Marine]]. Stealth is cowardice, frontal assaults are the only way to go. On the occasion they do utilize tactics like stealth, feints, and flanking, it's all to help the frontal assault succeed rather than the other way around. Retreating is never an option, even if it's to gain more cover. Some will never field [[psyker]]s or ignore [[xenos]], and some won't even cooperate with other [[Space Marine Chapter]]s. A special case being [[Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine|Leandros]].
* The Starks from [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones]]. When Ned Stark finds out that Joffrey and his siblings are incest born bastards, he does the most asinine thing possible and tells Cersei, instead of going to Robert directly. He also tells his daughters of his plan, which causes Sansa to blab to everybody. His son Robb Stark has even more fuckups, namely executing one of his top generals when he should have kept him around (though said Karstark general undeniably disrespected his authority), failing to communicate with Edmure (though Edmure is incompetent), and blatantly breaking his promise to Walder Frey because he felt bad he screwed some other chick and decided to marry her in order to keep their honor intact (though Walder is admittedly a backstabbing opportunist who might have betrayed him anyway, as Robb was undoubtedly losing the war. Also, Walder’s choice to violate one of the most valued rules of honor that even pirates, thieves and murderers keep, simultaneously fucked over his own side by becoming the group absolutely nobody on any side wants to be associated with. Not even the people he betrays Robb in favor of). This kind of shit ends up with the Starks practically destroyed.
** An important qualifier is that these decisions aren't entirely motivated by stupid adherence to honour, with personal history heavily motivating the decisions or with the full consequences of the actions not being immediately obvious.
* The Jedi from the Star Wars Prequels are this, as [[Ultramarines|they followed the Jedi Code - which was meant as a mere guideline - as a set of unbreakable rules]] and set out to completely repress all emotion in somewhat unfounded fear of those emotions leading to the dark side, when they should have acknowledged that which makes us human and simply taught how to use them positively. Such arbitrarily following of the code leads the Council to turn a blind eye to the various problems Anakin Skywalker was having, thereby unintentionally sealing their own downfall.
** Works set before the Prequels shows that this is hardly a new problem for the Jedi Order. Knights Of The Old Republic II features a Jedi named Atris who's incredibly obsessed with following the code to the letter and wiping out the Sith. This leads to her being filled with bitterness and remorse after her best friend/secret crush the Exile is kicked out of the Order, but also leaves her too arrogant to talk to anyone about it. Instead she starts to hide herself away in a temple filled with Sith holocrons to be alone and meditate, and since Sith holocrons literally exude Dark Side-tainted Force energy, she gets unknowingly corrupted into a Sith. Yes, she was so Lawful Stupid that it ''turned her evil''.
** Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Clone Wars demonstrates another problem with his adherence to the rule against killing an unarmed enemy. He has been caught in life or death struggles where he still refuses to kill his enemy if they unarmed. That said, he does '''not''' hold non Jedi to this standard, something a dumb slaver once found out.
** however, the poster boy for this in Star Wars, Is Mace Windu. Though less because he strictly adhered to the Jedi code, and more because he was a [[Imperial Cult|diehard patriot]] for the Republic. Put simply this man was once said to be “in love with” the republic.(take that as you will drawfags) and refuses to accept any other system of government as being civilized. Admittedly, he does have the excuse of being born and raised in space Sierra Leone, but he was barely there before becoming a Jedi. Palpatine was probably planning on him doing something stupid from the very start.
* The [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dawi]]. They are obsessed with the concept of revenge, as '''all Grudges must be answered for.''' This causes them to wage many unnecessary wars, which is especially stupid since they are a dying race. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of these wars waged to avenge their honor just end up creating yet more grudges (because weirdly, their enemies might kill a Dwarf or two when defending themselves instead of bending over and accepting their "punishment" like a BDSM starved daemonnette), creating a never ending cycle of conflict. The fluff speaks of two dwarven lords who were fighting each other in a generation-spanning War of Grudges, even while they were being invaded by an Orc warband. The two lords eventually got together and realized that neither of them remembered what their clans were fighting over, forgave each other, and resolved to ally against the Orcs beating down on their gates. Both sides were promptly crushed by a cave-in caused by ''the gods themselves'' for failing to avenge their respective Grudges and the Orcs got to loot another Karak without difficulty.
* The [[Azorius Senate|Azorius]] from [[Magic: The Gathering]]. The guild makes so many laws that they can literally arrest ANYONE, and then justify it by finding one of the myriad of pointless laws they've passed that the individual has undoubtedly broken. They'll even arrest someone for merely ''thinking'' about breaking a law (see the card [https://scryfall.com/card/rtr/47/psychic-spiral| Psychic Spiral] for proof.) This culminates in them, under Dovin Baan, endorsing [[Bolas]] in ''War of the Spark'' - doesn't matter if there's undead killing everyone and everything erupting into war, as long as your guildleader is officially elected everything is fine.
* The Sangheili, or Elites, from the [[Halo]] franchise. With a ridiculously rigid Bushido-style code of honor that makes the Ultramarines seem like pragmatic chaps, the Elites have often lost battles to humans they could have otherwise won, if they weren't so blindingly "honorable" (Ignoring for the minute that they had no problem turning a planet into slag from orbit). Full frontal assaults, suicide charges, blindingly following three shady testicle-looking douchebags, and a stupid insistence on fighting "worthy" enemies fairly are all par for the course (granted, they have no problem massacring unarmed civilians or "dishonorable" opponents). There are also numerous examples of otherwise unarmed Elites preferring death over deigning to touch a fully loaded human weapon at their feet. But the most glaring example of their stupidity has to come from the fact that they consider it a [[What|dishonor to either get their own blood shed off the battlefield or become involved in a medical practice]]. This stigma is to such a degree that the Elite Shipmaster who became the Arbiter was secreted away from his keep in the dead of night to visit a doctor (against his will) after he suffered a severe accident during a training session shortly upon his promotion to Shipmaster. Even Klingons aren't that stupid. The only reason they even win against the Jiralhanae (Brutes) is because the Brutes are more Stupid Evil than the Sangheili are Lawful Stupid. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Well, that, and the fact that they had allied with the Humans by that point and have been inspired to move past some of their ass-backward stances on medicine and weaponry.]] of course not all of them have fully escaped this “bullshito,” and now the humans have the very difficult task of teaching them to wear scarves with pride. They learn to do that they’ll be invincible.
* The Nugganite religion, from Terry Pratchett's ''Monstrous Regiment'': the decrees of the Borogravian god Nuggan forbid everything from garlic, chocolate, and the smell of beets, to the color blue and ''babies''. Many Borogravians privately acknowledge that most of Nuggan's Abominations are completely ridiculous (and let the most extreme ones slide, because they're virtually impossible to enforce anyway), even while fretting about which Abominations they're currently committing. Due the way belief works in Discworld, Nugganites came to believe in nothing but the Abominations themselves, which diverted worship away from Nuggan himself. In the end, it's revealed that Nuggan has rotted away until nothing is left but a disembodied voice babbling Abominations nonstop.
* For the literature amateurs, Inspector Javert from ''Les Misérables''. As the author himself explained: the man was built upon two simple and good precepts, namely respect of authority and refusal of rebellion; but he made those look evil in his fanatical exaggeration of them. In a rare occurrence for that kind of character, Javert ends up overcoming the stupid part of the alignment as part of his character arc: When finally faced with a Lawful Good convict, he [[Blam|BLAMs himself]] rather than capture him (or let him go and live as an imperfect cop). Way to get out of a Paladin dilemma.
** As Hugo injected a ton of social criticism in his books, public servants putting the law above morals is a recurring theme. Ninety-Three has Cimourdain, a political commissar during the French Revolution, who ends up condemning his own adoptive son to death for freeing a traitor. Much like Javert, he takes his own life during the execution.
*Speaking of [[Commissar]]s, although protagonists like [[Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt|Ibram Gaunt]] or [[Ciaphas Cain]] will mostly be sensible individuals (if only because nobody wants to read about a teamkilling fucktard for a dozen or so books), background commissars in the Imperial Guard are often the epitome of Lawful Stupid: You left your post to report vital intel to Headquarters? That's a summary execution for ya. Even "protagonists" aren't immune to this. [[Severina Raine|Critiqued an order that'd get your men killed but didn't refuse to follow it? That's a summary execution for ya (though in this specific instance, this was Raine being a ruthless bitch more than lawful stupid.]]
* [https://oots.fandom.com/wiki/Miko_Miyazaki | Miko Miyazaki] from the webcomic ''Order of the Stick'' is another example. She is an overzealous paladin who sees herself as judge, jury, and executioner. The author of the webcomic specifically wrote her to be a parody of 3.5th edition paladins. Her most notable action was murdering her own lord for conspiring against the paladins (although said lord had [[Chaotic Good|good intentions]]). She is disliked by the other members of her order and is sent on missions far away so no one has to deal with her.
* When written poorly, the heroes in [[Star Trek]] following the Prime Directive turns into this. The rule is that Starfleet isn't to intervene with pre-Warp civilizations in order to prevent their exploitation like European colonizers did to other civilizations. Kirk never followed the Prime Directive at any point since he always felt the pre-Warp civilization was in some kind of danger that warranted violating it. Later shows would give more weight to the Prime Directive by creating situations where it should be followed, and then eventually had characters treat it as a religion that dictated they should never intervene with a pre-Warp civilization under '''any''' circumstances even if it meant preventing their extinction [[What| with the excuse that preventing them from dying out was interfering with their natural development]].

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]][[Category:Stupid Alignments]]