You know how you think you know yourself, and then something happens that throws a spanner in the works?  Maybe – like me – you’ve got a few hard-won years under your belt, and you’ve really worked some stuff out.  Then you take a personality quiz.  You try not to, because you know that a personality quiz often leaves you more confused than ever, even the scientific ones.  You really try to ignore it, and then – bugger! – boredom and curiosity take over.  Plus, you encounter someone else who you like and/or admire who’s done it, and so it must be okay after all.  It’s called getting ‘sucked in’.  I can’t remember ever finishing one of these quizzes and thinking “oh, that really nailed me”.  Mostly, I found that I ended up with conflicting information about who I am, and I’ve never actually needed a quiz for that.

Well, have I got a quiz for you!

Remember when the table-top game Dungeons and Dragons came out? I f you’re younger than about one hundred years old (or thereabouts) you won’t remember when it came out, but take it from those of us who do remember, in the world of games it was hot!  Now that I’ve given it the grand introduction, I have to admit that I don’t really remember much about it at all.  But I know that it was the best of games, because everyone who played it raved about it.  Even if you didn’t like it, you still raved about it, otherwise there was a serious danger of not being cool.

So, there I was, minding my own business with nose buried in book, when the author mentioned the nine character alignments from Dungeons and Dragons – Lawful Good; Neutral Good; Chaotic Good; Lawful Neutral; True Neutral; Chaotic Neutral; Lawful Evil; Neutral Evil; and Chaotic Evil.  Then proceeded to give the name of the god-damn website where the reader could go and do the test to see which character alignment fitted them.  I really did try to read on past it, but then the author mentioned it again, so I had to go and take a look – but I wasn’t going to get sucked in.

I got sucked in.  The quiz takes about 15 mins to do, and if like me, you don’t believe the initial result so you do it again, and try to mix the answers up a little the second time round, it will take longer.  Once you’re convinced that the quiz doesn’t lie – no sir, the quiz never lies! – then there’s another interesting wee thing you can do.  You can do a search of movie and TV characters to see who has the same character alignment as you.  And then, when you discover that Hans Solo from Star Wars and Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates Of The Caribbean (there are eff-all female characters to choose from) have the same character alignment as you, that really messes with your head.  Okay, by now you’ve figured out that it messed with my head, and why I had to do the test more than once.  I think it’s fair to say that I have never been considered the swashbuckling type – never, ever.

Although I’m no Hans Solo nor Captain Jack Sparrow, as I read over the character traits for the twelfth time, I had to admit that I could begin to see a glimmer of truth in there somewhere.  I wasn’t all that comfortable with some of those traits, to be honest, as I had quite a different notion of myself.  When I relayed my new-found characteristics to my friend, and she said “it’s taken you all this time to realise that?”, I knew that I really had uncovered something new about myself.  At least, it was new to me.  I won’t be doing a Hans Solo or Captain Jack Sparrow anytime soon, but I began to see the way I expressed similar characteristics in my own unique not-a-bad-boy way.  It’s certainly been food for thought, a bit of entertainment, and good to know that we’re never too old to waste some time – and maybe reinvent ourselves if that’s what the Dungeon Master orders.

So, what Dungeons and Dragons character alignment are you? Want to find out? Click here.