"With respect, Nirvana feels those precedents were wrongly decided. It is well-established case law that many Evil acts, if committed under threat of torture, are Neutral at worst. How much more so, then, if the torture is potentially infinite? If we accept that it is not Evil to murder an innocent if you have a legitimate and well-grounded fear of being tortured for days or weeks, surely it is not Evil to become an undead-- something which, after all, causes no direct harm to any being-- because you have a legitimate and well-grounded fear of being tortured for millennia."  

"Not the precedent."

"This court has overturned precedent before, in extreme situations. 'An incorrect sorting in the past doesn't justify incorrect sortings in the future,' Hell v. Cayden Cailean." 

"I hate Hell v. Cayden Cailean."

"Is Tar-Baphon really the decedent you want to use as your test case here?"

"I argue the case that's in front of me, as do we all.

"Nirvana further argues that the decedent's actions during the Shining Crusade are Neutral at worst. The decedent had a well-justified fear that Iomedae and the other members of the Shining Crusade would kill him, which would consign him to, again, an eternity of torture. Self-defense is not murder."

"Iomedae was trying to kill him because he was trying to take over the world."

"Self-defense is a mitigating factor in cases of homicide even if the decedent is committing an Evil act at the time, in re: Ker." 

"Ker is about dealing drugs, you disingenuous snake-tailed fuck, you can't possibly be arguing that that applies to world conquest especially when Iomedae would have respected a surrender--"

"Given Iomedae's stated commitment to destroying Evil, the decedent had a well-justified belief that she would not accept his surrender, particularly since his continued unlife is dependent on him being an lich."

I GUESS EMOJI. 

Yeah, it was pretty obvious that 'Iomedae accepts surrenders' is absolute bullshit, at least when it came to people who were trying to take over Avistan. 

"As a key member of the Whispering Way, the decedent helped thousands of people become undead and avoid dire fates in the Evil afterlives. Although Pharasma considers this action to be Evil, the decedent's motivations were purely altruistic. He sincerely believed that unlife is superior to life, because the undead don't know pain and fear, and acted to bring this state to as many people as possible. Eventually, he hoped to end all life and leave only the undead, who would have no risk of going to Hell, Abaddon, or the Abyss--"

"Destroying the world out of negative utilitarianism is also Evil, I was literally there last time you defended a Rovagug cultist with this argument."

The azata smiles. "Technically, no! The decedent's plan was that sentient beings would continue, as a different and superior form of life. This court has historically found behavior of this sort to be Neutral-- see Lykos v. Parker."

"I think that turning everyone into dinosaurs is a little bit different than turning everyone into undead!"

"Only if this court continues its unwarranted bias against a perfectly legitimate form of existence, namely, unlife."

YEAH. For a Chaotic Good entity this azata is surprisingly right on. 

"What is unlife, really? It is simply continuing your existence on the Material Plane in a different form after your death. Truly, how is it different from Immonhiel or Pulura, both of whom maintain multiple incarnates on the Material? Is the difference that neither Immonhiel nor Pulura were born on the Material? Or that they maintain multiple incarnates instead of a single one? Neither of those intuitively reflects on the fundamental Goodness of the action. And even if this court concludes that, after your death, you can live on any plane you weren't  born on, making an honest mistake about such a complex issue hardly makes someone Evil."

"You are sufficiently good at twisting words that you should work in the soul contracts department."

Smile. "Thank you.

"I would like to direct the court to the creation of the Mirrorgrave, which I believe is indicative of the decedent's true nature."

A child to whom Tar-Baphon was kind, long ago, when it was costless to be kind-- you're smart, you know, there's no reason you couldn't hang a cantrip, if you were less nervous, here, let me show you--

Tar-Baphon in prison, a decade later, and the child is a young man now, although still so young to Tar-Baphon's millennia-old eye. Tar-Baphon doesn't even recognize him, had entirely forgotten that afternoon, but he sneaks Tar-Baphon the keys and poisons his family and Tar-Baphon is free--

Tar-Baphon tracks the boy's family down and kills every single one of them, slow and lingering, so that they know what happens when you imprison Tar-Baphon, so that they know what happens when you hurt the boy who is Tar-Baphon's--

The boy, his shadow, eternally loyal, the only person it is safe to relax around, the only person to whom Tar-Baphon can show his underbelly and expect not to have it stabbed for his trouble--

And the boy is dead, and he died saving Tar-Baphon, and he's in the Abyss being tortured because he was loyal, and Tar-Baphon can give up everything he has for a diamond but next time there might not be a diamond and it is not acceptable that this could happen, Tar-Baphon will shake the foundations of the universe itself before he lets the boy get hurt. Tar-Baphon has long ago stopped being the sort of person who can think friend, much less love, but the boy hears it when Tar-Baphon shows him the cloak and tells him about the souls captured in it that can take the damage for him.

None of his imprisonment was as bad as seeing the broken body of the boy who would become the Mirrorgrave.

"Therefore," the azata says, "we see Good within the decedent's soul. Love and friendship and self-sacrifice. Caring about someone else more than he cares about himself."

"By... enslaving and tormenting the souls of the innocent."

"The initial seeds of Goodness inside a mortal soul are often directed in a perverse manner."