Character partnerships strattling a lawful good / chaotic neutral line

January 16, 2023 1:18 AM

I'm looking for book recommendations where the main characters maintain a working partnership and mutual respect that straddles a wide morality gap. I know there's a ton out there that fits this bill, including many common tropes like 'cop working with a partially reformed criminal.' But what's an example that you think is exceptionally well conceived and written?

Thanks in advance for any recommendations!

And here are two examples to get things started :)

1. Skewed towards unlawful morality: Hadrian and Royce in the Riyria Revelations series by Michael J. Sullivan

2. Skewed towards lawful morality: Mercy and Adam in the Mercedes Thompson series by Patricia Briggs

posted by ch3cooh to Writing & Language (18 answers total)

Best answer: "Good omens" - sorry if too obvious?
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:39 AM on January 16, 2023 [10 favorites]

Best answer: Damien and Tarrant in C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy.
posted by henuani at 1:45 AM on January 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

(on edit: not a book, scratch that idea)
posted by vincebowdren at 2:31 AM on January 16, 2023

In Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy the protagonist is highly, eccentrically, moral (and hyper-Catholic), but he has to set his sense of rightness against a cast of even more eccentrically weird grotesques and cynics: and doesn’t always come out righteously. Waugh is an acquired taste and the Catholicism is hard, but the books hold up I think.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:40 AM on January 16, 2023

Best answer: This made me think about Vimes and Vetinari in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels - both ostensibly on the side of the good - Vimes is head of the police force and Vetinari is the ruler of the city. But Vetinari's approach to ruling the city (which is hard to summarise but is somewhat cynical - he holds all the cards and knows far more than he lets on at any time) clashes with Vimes's straightforward morality and bruised sense of idealism.
posted by unicorn chaser at 2:49 AM on January 16, 2023 [14 favorites]

Also Vettinari and Moist Von Lipwig, a con man he enlists to run the post office and the royal mint In Going Postal and Making Money.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:36 AM on January 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Perhaps Penric and Desdemona from Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric novella series! The series starts when Penric is possessed by literal-chaos-demon Desdemona, and they go on to form a very fruitful partnership where her powers allow him to work magic. As a demon of the fifth god, the Bastard, Desdemona is a personification of chaotic neutral misfit energy, and there's a constant tension in their relationship between Penric's viewpoint as a fairly normal human man and Desdemona's existence as a very different sort of creature, ethically and metaphysically, who thinks of humanity and nature differently. This ends up being very fruitful for them both and it's wonderful to see how their partnership and personalities develop as Penric goes through his life.

I'm also kind of reminded of a childhood beloved favourite, The Immortals quartet by Tamora Pierce. The protagonist Daine has wild magic that allows her to talk to animals, and is sort of a "wild child"/raised by wolves, whereas her mentor Numair is a university-schooled wizard in a more traditional type of magic. Daine often doesn't fit into (or has very little patience for) straightlaced society and there are times when her solutions to problems prioritize the animals of the realm and appear very unconventional/chaotic/irrational to other humans. Numair isn't directly opposed to her, exactly; more like, he's forced to be the mediator between her and the rest of their allies.

Last one: there are many examples of this in superhero fiction! Vigilante justice vs. organizational oversight. My point of reference is the Young Justice and Justice League Unlimited cartoons. There are often characters within superhero teams who lean chaotic neutral or true neutral and tend to "go rogue" or "take matters into their own hands." Batman and Superman, of course, Batman and Commissioner Gordon, Black Canary and Huntress. Nightwing in Young Justice.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 4:11 AM on January 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Trigun pairs a highly chaotic Vash The Stampede (who is seen by many as evil, but isn't) with the highly lawful good insurance agent Meryl Stryfe. Also has a nice mix of light humor, action, and serious examination of several classic philosophical issues.

The manga and anime are pretty different in terms of how the story is told, but the same qualities apply to both.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:55 AM on January 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

The classic: Sherlock Holmes (opium addict and person of questionable moral character) and Dr. John H. Watson.
posted by desert exile at 8:36 AM on January 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

(If looking for a specific book in the whole series, I recommend the one in which they first meet: A Study in Scarlet.
posted by desert exile at 8:38 AM on January 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

isn't this kind of the trope in Star Wars, where Han is a brigand and Luke is a goodytwoshoes?
posted by fingersandtoes at 9:53 AM on January 16, 2023

Best answer: Just refreshed the first book because the sequel came out this week - Ninth House and now Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo, fantasy/horror/very dark academia in an alternate version of Yale University. There are multiple law-abiding characters... and then there's Alex Stern, who has absolutely no limits. LA street rat versus yacht club preppies has rarely been so satisfying.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:03 AM on January 16, 2023

Best answer: Sherlock Holmes doesn't have a questionable moral character in the original stories. Holmes and Watson both share a comfortable Victorian morality. Something in the same time period that fits slightly more would be the Raffles stories, where Raffles steals gleefully while Bunny feels guilty and miserable most of the time.

James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere and L.A. Confidential both have detectives at very different points on the moral spectrum who need to work together.

Back to Sherlock Holmes, the manga Moriarty the Patriot has Holmes and a Moriarty working together for reasons even though one typically solves crimes while the other does them.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:06 AM on January 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

His Dark Materials trilogy— Lyra and Pan fit this, as do Lyra and Will.
posted by supercres at 10:35 AM on January 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you're open to manga: Rurouni Kenshin. Multiple character pairings meet your criterion, but the one that came to mind first is the uneasy relationship between Kenshin and Saitou Hajime.
posted by heatherlogan at 1:54 PM on January 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: In The Book of the Long Sun, the central character is the goody-two-shoes priest Silk, but he is forced into a difficult situation where he must seek out the help of burglar and thug Auk.

Actually in the book it emerges that the gods themselves, the objects of Silk's veneration, may not actually be good in any sense, but nonetheless doing good requires participating in their schemes. A general theme of the book is that evil is perverted into good in various ways. As a result, there are many examples of cooperation across a "morality gap."
posted by grobstein at 2:27 PM on January 16, 2023

Best answer: This may be a bit tangential to your desires, but the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brien puts two men together who are very different in terms of personality and ideals. But in many ways they are morally compatible (being fighting men of the British Empire) so possibly not what you're looking for. Thought I'd mention it though as one of the more famous odd couples in literature.

The Plague by Camus pits a few ideals against one another in the pressure cooker of a town in quarantine. There are definitely some moral battles here and it's a wonderful book.

Actually someone mentioned Ninth House above, but by the same author, Six of Crows and its sequel have a pretty prominent reluctant pairing as well between a criminal and a pious sort of witch-hunter.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:44 PM on January 16, 2023

Totally different genre, but I am reading the memoir Born a Crime by Trevor Noah and of him and his mom (the main theme of the book), he writes:

"My relationship with my mom was like the relationship between a cop and a criminal in the movies--the relentless detective and the devious mastermind she's determined to catch. They're bitter rivals, but, damn, they respect the hell out of each other, and somehow they even grow to like each other."

The book itself is a masterpiece, well worth checking out.
posted by lizard music at 3:58 PM on January 16, 2023