#but the Admiralty keeps tabs on you with those labels

[elbiotipo]

Thinking of the D&D alignment system as an in-universe categorization system created by the current ruling power (in my case, the Elvish High Admiralty) to profile individuals and perhaps entire organizations and states. It's considered objective (after all, aren't good and evil objectively observable forces? the manual says so!) and reliable because of course, the most objective and reliable arcanists work for the Admiralty. You will find several contradictions... clerics of *Chaotic* or *Lawful* dieties get stacked in one or another category, and it so happens that every oppossing force to the High Admiralty gets categorized from Neutral to Outright Evil. Meanwhile, organizations that are doing rather terrible stuff but serve the Admiralty's purposes? They're "Chaotic Good", you see. And of course, entire nations of millions of people get labeled one way or the other..

Outside of those who really, really believe the Admiralty's words, everybody kinds of hate and resent the system, but it has seeped so into general society that they still use it consciously or not.

Perhaps not the most original idea, and the concept on itself is rather unsalvageble, but I think it's interesting to explore what if it WAS an actual concept promoted and enforced by the systems of power.