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To Dream the Impossible Dream
(ttrpg.network)
The song is The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha. Amazing song, and I recommend any LG paladin fan listen to it.
Don Quixote was the original paladin, and I will die on that hill
So, paladins are crazy?
Monomaniacal for sure.
But, they're filled with a dedication to law and goodness. Which, within the context of the story, so was Don Quixote. While he certainly behaved in ways that would seem more chaotic from an outside viewpoint, he was a knight on a holy quest.
That kind of dedication to a cause is a little crazy by itself.
That Quixote was towards the end of life and seemed to be in an altered state of mind, his inner self was pure, which makes him a paladin, sworn to an oath.
Moreover, his quest was successful. He achieved what he set out to do.
He killed an innocent man early on because he thought he was being attacked. It's not like his insanity was harmless.
That is true, but it is still an acceptable action within that context.
Paladins, at least the generic form of the term, aren't held to an impossible standard. If you pick specific versions of paladin, you might run into cases where an unintentional violation of oath works to negate their holiness, but that's rule issues, not concept issues.
Self defense is allowed within every version of paladin because they're knights, warriors. Illusion, insanity, trickery, it doesn't matter because that's external the the paladin. If their actions are righteous (and self defense is in this kind of discussion), and their intent was pure, they're still holy.
They might need to atone for the killing anyway, but that's a separate issue from them being a paladin.
If anything, Don Quixote's later actions show that he wouldn't have taken a life in his right mind, which points back to his righteousness.