It was this or rank all the versions of A Christmas Carol and, despite a hefty campaign, I’m still about six short of doing so.
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Great stuff as always sir. Nice to see that you’ve added the website name directly to the chart – perhaps it will discourage the blatant thievery that happened to some of the other charts.
I only saw A Muppet Family Christmas for the first time last week. Love it.
I can’t place the LN or LE ones.
Look, MGK. It was a nice bit of photoshop, but using photoshop to create a CE one because you can’t think of any is unfair. Obviously nothing so horrific can ever be true, and no one will believe it even exists.
LN: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, based on the freaky-ass book by L. Frank Baum, wherein a group of immortal spirits essentially holds a trial to see if Santa Claus is worthy of receiving the gift of immortality.
LE: ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, wherein the creepiest-looking Santa ever decides to skip past a town because someone in it wrote him a letter saying they didn’t believe he existed, and the town frantically tries to make amends by erecting a giant clock which literally sings Santa’s praises.
I’m tempted to ask what the heck that CE thing is, but I’m afraid that the answer might release some carefully-repressed memories. It is not possible to drink fast enough.
…it might, though, be possible to collectively create a Rifftrax-style commentary fast enough. Possibly. Given the option to avert the eyes and cover the ears on occasion. And I may possibly someday forgive the friend who forced a group of us to make the attempt.
One of the many, many things that didn’t make sense about ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas was exactly why you’d bother to write a letter to someone whose existence you didn’t believe in. At the very least, you should remain quiet by virtue of some X-Mas version of Pascal’s Wager.
The CE entry reminded me of yet another reason why Boba Fett sucked: That’s what he was originally created for.
Bea Arthur as a Star Wars scoundrel is exactly the sort of thing that makes chaotic evil so seductive.
Bea Arthur: the true Dark Lord of the Sith. Palpatine was nothing but smoke and mirrors compared to Mistress Drusilla…
I’ve actually had that song from ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas about not thinking running through my head of late. As a kid, that was whimsy at its finest. As an adult? Creepy.
Hmmm…so in this context, “good” and “evil” seem to relate to the special’s actual qualities, right? Or at least, how they make you feel?
Given that, I’m kind of surprised by the placement of Rudolph. The other two Neutral entries I can see, but surely that one’s a classic? Or is it just that it’s not really as much of a feel-good story?
I was going more for their approach to Christmas. A Charlie Brown Christmas is LG because it’s explicitly (but not hamfistedly) religious and because it is about the redeeming power of goodness. Frosty is CN because it’s really just about weird shit happening all the time and has no real moral centre. Shrek the Halls is NE because it’s about how Christmas is a pain in the ass but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Given that, I’m kind of surprised by the placement of Rudolph.
The morals of Rudolph are:
1.) People will be dicks to you until they need you.
2.) There is a purpose for everything, even if it doesn’t make sense to you at the time.
That’s pretty TN.
Snow Miser and Heat Miser are beyond your silly alignments!
Prankster: “Or is [Rudolph] just that it’s not really as much of a feel-good story?”
Well, let’s see. The adults all declare it’s okay to ostracize the one who’s different. Santa hates elves and Christmas music. Toys that don’t conform to his standards are banished to a remote wasteland. And so on.
Yeah, neutral might be to “good” a rating for it.
The SW Holiday Special was made for Thanksgiving/Life Day, not Christmas.
Where’s the Inspector Spacetime Holiday Special?? 😛
But more seriously, we should figure out where all the Dr. Who Christmas specials fit.
Anybody else thing the girl rat there looks like Velma from Scooby-Doo?
Paramandyr perhaps?
The “girl rat” is actually a boy.
GENDER-SHOCK’D
I was hoping for A Blackadder Christmas at CE.
@Sean D. Martin, but all that’s before the happy resolution. By that logic The Grinch, not to mention A Christmas Carol and It’s A Wonderful Life, aren’t feel-good either.
But the happy resolution of Rudolph really isn’t that happy. They don’t learn humility and treat Rudolph as special because of his gift. They act like it’s a privilege for them to be helping him. Their awful, awful society remains fundamentally unchanged.
*A privilege for him to be helping them, I mean.
I disagree with the Grinch as Neutral Good… has to be Chaotic Good.
The Grinch’s evil plan is a fundamentally Lawful one – destroy xmas by capturing the trappings, traditions, and procedures – a very legalistic approach. He is defeated by the Chaotic nature of the xmas spirit – transcending the tags and ribbons. The message is explicitly anti-Lawful.
(The message is definitely, certainly not: we need a balance or blend between law and chaos. The tags and ribbons are a mistaken irrelevancy, to be rejected.)
I was disturbed at the lack of Xmas alignment charts, so assembled my own animated Santa chart. A last scan of the internet before posting pulled this one up. Huzzah. Mine is at the website that should be linked in my name on this post.
@Sean: You also forgot that Hermey basically crippled the Abominable by pulling all his teeth; he has to work for Santa or starve now that all he can eat is mush…
(Weirdly, when recalling the show as an adult, I thought it was an Androcles Lion thing where Hermie cured the Abominable of a nasty toothache and earned his friendship. Re-watching the show was an not entirely welcome revelation.)
Frankly ; Grinch at anything GOOD surprises, unless you show the scene where he becomes good & understands the meaning of X-mas, which is…nevermind.
Where would you classify the very sad story with that snowman ? The one where they started to fly at some point.
This is what you chose for CE ? no, no ,no… THE COVER for that special is Evil’s face, the Bea Arthur part was the only good thing in it ( even though, I have to ask: why would Sidious want to close a bar in Tataouine … errr Tatooine? Doesn’t my count… errr That planet have enough eco-political problems ?)
Highlyverbal, it’s neutral good precisely because the presents are irrelevant. Whether you follow all the rituals and routines of Christmas or dispense with them completely, the good remains unabated.
Yeah, a Chaotic message there would be that the ribbons and tags were somehow preventing the Whos from celebrating Christmas properly, and the Grinch was inadvertently doing them a favor when he removed the paraphernalia.
Nah, the lesson the Grinch learns is that his emphasis on the lawful stuff in his evil plot was WRONG. Not unbalanced, not failing to blend in law and chaos, not whatever would be neutral. Fundamentally in error. The Lawful approach to understanding the xmas spirit offers no value. Nothing useful.
It’s not like the Grinch brought BALANCE to xmas. Jesus, did we even see the same show?!
@nemryn: “…a Chaotic message there would be that the ribbons and tags were somehow preventing the Whos from celebrating Christmas properly”
The ribbons and tags were clearly preventing SOMEONE from celebrating Christmas properly. That’s not good enough? In order to be Chaotic, it has to be absolutely dogmatic and show that every single bit of lawfulness is actively harmful to every participant?
Are you sure the OTHER Chaotic choices meet that standard? (A quick glance over past alignment charts suggests that this is not how Chaotic is defined.) The goalposts have narrowed alarmingly.
highlyverbal: the lawful stuff is irrelevant, not wrong. The Who’s are unaffected by the presence or absence of the Christmas trimmings: when the Grinch returns them they don’t suddenly stop celebrating Christmas.
I mean, the final scene is the Grinch slicing the Roast Beast for the residents of Whoville, a clearly Lawful act reenacting the customs of years past.
@Unstoppable Gravy Train:
‘Christmas Invasion’: Lawful Neutral. “No second chances. I’m that kind of a man.”
‘The Runaway Bride’: Chaotic Neutral. “You had the reception without me?”
‘Voyage of the Damned’: Chaotic Evil. “If you could decide who lived and who died…that would make you a monster.”
‘The Next Doctor’: Lawful Good. “Thank you, Doctor!”
‘The End of Time’: Lawful Evil. “For Gallifrey! For victory! For the end of time itself!”
‘A Christmas Carol’: Neutral Good. “I am showing you your future. Right now.”
…to be continued…
Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny: Far Realm.
There is an American Christmas Carol that stars Henry Winkler. And of course there’s the muppet version, and the Scrooged take on things…
It was a tight race for the CE spot. After all the Inspector Spacetime special caused its creator’s knighthood to be revoked.
[…] were on the same package––two more where there’s nothing much to say, but I do recommend this guide to classifying holiday specials by D&D alignments. And these DVD editions do include bits […]
I’m still trying to decide who would go where in the A Christmas Story chart…
Needz Moar Heat/Snow Misers.