Sense8: D&D Moral Alignments Of The Main Characters

Netflix’s Sense8 ran from 2015-2017, and after it was canceled, fans of the show were given some closure with a film-length series finale that aired one year after the last episode.  Though the series was short-lived, it cultivated a permanent and enthusiastic fanbase that is ever-growing still.  The show went down in history as one of the most expensive shows to ever be filmed, coming in at approx $9million per episode—not because of CGI dragons, but because of filming locations.  The show is legendary for its extremely diverse cast and list of set locations.  But should it also be legendary for its diverse display of D&D moral alignments?  Let’s find out.

8 Capheus Onyango: Lawful Good

Though he breaks the law frequently in season one to obtain medicine for his very ill mother, Capheus is a true beacon of lawful good.  Even though the system he lives in has given him no other choice, he greatly regrets breaking the law and expresses this by hackling the criminals he interacts with.  He even peer-pressures his local crime boss Silas Kabaka to start down the path of lawful good, or at least it seems like that was going to be a plot before the show was canceled tragically.  If Capheus breaks the law, it’s to survive, and he always feels really bad about it afterward.

7 Sun Bak: Lawful Evil

A business executive by day, street kickboxer by night, Sun Bak seemed to spend most of her time pre-sensate time being angry at her family, smoking cigarettes, and beating people up before she is reborn as sensate.  When she discovers her brother has been skimming off the company’s profits, she volunteers to take the blame because her family believes it will affect the company less if a woman takes the blame for the embezzlement.

Stricken with guilt, her father tries to tell the truth in court, but her brother Joong-Ki murders him before the truth is revealed.  This sets Sun on a war-path for revenge.  Even though when she finally gets to her brother she simply disowns him and lets him go, Sun’s vengeful nature and combative tendencies make her lawful evil—also known as someone you don’t want to mess with.

6 Nomi Marks: Neutral Good

Like most hacktivists, Nomi falls into neutral good territory.  Though she’s been mixed up in tons of illegal stuff, she mainly used her hacking powers for the forces of good, doing things like forging state IDs for people who’s state government wouldn’t allow them to change their gender on the ID.  Nomi is in love with her girlfriend Amanita, and many of Nomi’s scenes feature the two of them surrounded by bright colors in their spacy San Francisco apartment.  Nomi’s hobbies include partying with faeries who deliver edible brownies to her in the park and using her hacking skills to help her other seven selves via the sensate connection.  Plus, her friendship with a tech-savvy loner named Bug is the purest thing about the show.

5 Kala Dandekar: Lawful Evil

The relationship between Kala and Wolfgang only gets more interesting when you look at their D&D alignments.  Though she has a bright and optimistic spirit, Kala is lawful evil in her actions.  In some situations, she shies away from violence, such as when her father-in-law is stabbed.

But other times, she seems to beeline towards violence, such as when Lila betrays Wolfgang in the restaurant.  Even though her connection with Wolfgang is complicated, Kala does lie to her husband Rajan while she carries on an affair with Wolfgang.  Kala works for a company that she later finds out distributes counterfeit medicine to the area where Capheus lives.  At the end of the show, it seems like Kala may be in the beginnings of transitioning to lawful good, but her first two seasons’ worth of actions land her firmly in lawful evil.

4 Riley Blue: Lawful Neutral

A lot of parallels can be drawn between Riley Blue and her sensate mother Angelica—but one of the most direct comparisons is their moral alignment: lawful neutral.  Though Angelica and Riley both make choices that tend to have good outcomes, their real goal is the downfall of BPO, which is personal.  Riley was a prominent DJ who frequently squatted in empty buildings, hung out with shady people, and never turned down a recreational drug before she was reborn as sensate.  After she was reborn and met Will, her objectives change, but her methods don’t.  In season two, she shows this by solving Will’s dilemma with Whispers by supplying him with heroin.

3 Wolfgang Bogdanow: Chaotic Neutral

As Berlin’s best safecracker and thief, Wolfgang is introduced to the audience smack in the middle of a plot to steal a thieving job from his cousin, just so he could say he did it.  In Berlin, Wolfgang has exactly one friend and ally, and practically all of his enemies are afraid of him.

The thing is, Wolfgang doesn’t seem to want to be rich—just to be the best.  In season two, Lila (The Queen of Naples) even offers him Berlin, and he refuses, saying if he wanted Berlin he would have taken it already.  Though he does a lot of good things for his other seven selves, such as when he fought Joaquin for Lito, his affinity for bazookas and tendency to taunt his enemies as he demolishes them plants him firmly in chaotic neutral.

2 Lito Rodríguez: Chaotic Good

Like most of the other characters, Lito’s life was drastically changed when he was reborn as sensate.  Unlike many of the other characters, the thing that changed most for Lito was his alignment.  As of episode one, Lito is true neutral, caring only about the advancement of his acting career, to the point of hiding his relationship with longtime boyfriend Hernando, and lying to the media about his nonexistent relationship with Dani.  Initially, he doesn’t care much for Dani.  He does care about Hernando, but even that connection is not enough to make him change his behaviors to prioritize the people he loves.  It’s the sensate connection that makes him begin to see how intertwined he is with the people around him, and very quickly he stops using Hernando and Dani and truly begins to provide for them.

1 Will Gorski: Neutral Good

After examining their moral alignments, it makes a lot of sense why Will Gorski would be so connected to Nomi Marks from the very beginning of his sensate existence.  Will spent most of his life trying to live up to his father’s legacy as a cop but repeatedly found himself in situations that challenged those morals, such as when he tried to save a young boy in episode one, begging a hospital that had a “no gunshot victims” policy to help the young gunshot victim he carried into the hospital from his cop car.  Will continues down this path, and when he discovers the existence of BPO, he makes it his mission to take them down—not just for his sensate cluster, but for all sensates and humans too.

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