Character Alignment is a shorthand for a given character's (or religion's, society's, organization's, etc.) moral/ethical outlook on life, the universe and everything. Many roleplaying games use some sort of alignment system as a Karma Meter, an "ideal" for a character to live up to, or just a descriptive shorthand for characters, though some gamers deride them as crutches to "real roleplaying," and some systems accordingly have none at all.
Always remember that the vast majority of characters in fiction are not tabletop game characters, and therefore lack a canonical interpretation of alignment by the standards below. Characters should only be categorized under them when their alignments are clearly and explicitly stated in canon. As both the standards and especially character personalities are vague, complicated to interpret, and subject to change with Character Development, thus leading to endless debate, the assignment of alignments to characters not stated to have them is considered strictly subjective.
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