So why the whole "paladin falls" thing is a meme anyway...

So why the whole "paladin falls" thing is a meme anyway? And let's distance ourselves from the whole deity for the purposes of this debate, because paladins are not champions and never were supposed to be.

Anyway, consider the following: the main two concepts of the paladin code are justice and mercy.
The thing is, you have to choose one or another, because mercy gives no justice to the victim, while justice gives no mercy to the perpetrator. I mean, it is conceptually impossible to enact justice AND mercy at the same time.
So, in essence, your average paladin has to choose which approach to apply on a case-by-case basis, in the end relying purely on his personal judgement. The orc baby dilemma, for example, is not a dilemma at all, because the answer to it is "depends on the circumstances".
I mean, falling because of a lapse in personal judgement? A dick move, but justified. Falling, because you didn't combine the two approaches that are conceptually impossible to combine? Utter fucking bullshit.
So why the fuck the whole "paladins have to be both just and merciful all the time, or otherwise they fall" is a meme?

Because Blizzard and muh Grimdark Games Workshop made it popular to have good guys go bad and turn on the paladin order and wipe them out.

See Arthas, Lorgar and Diablo 1 heroes

Paladins falling is older than both.

...

Is it possible for an anti-paladin to "fall" and prestige into whiteguard?

The whole notion with those examples AND Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker is that being they were more radical than those around them and while they were devout to the principles they would end up betraying later, they start in the path to darkness led by their own devotion. So the oldest meme isn't 'paladin fall', but 'Even in blind devotion to an ideal, you might end up the very thing you fought against'. This sort of corruption is a common literally theme and not exactly bad.

Arthas and Anakin were also young and youth tends to come with radical ideas and a certain rush in wanting to change thing. Diablo 1 Hero and Lorgar I don't know much about but...

I guess what I am saying is that...The whole idea with paladins falling originally wasn't (I hope) "hurr durr must put him in a impossible dilemma and make them fall" but letting the player be constantly more self assured of the righteousness of his actions until he might end up, by himself, doing something ultimately cruel and unjustifiable in name of his cause, and therefore, falling. For example, tempting him with a pact that would allow him the power to destroy his order greatest enemy or another great source of evil, but with dire consequences that were foreshadowed but never explicit.

Yes, it's possible for an Anti-Paladin/Black Guard to change his ways and depending on the DM / Setting, he might be allowed to retrain his levels as a Paladin. Creating a specific class for evil people seeking redemption could be cool too.

How does that happen? Make the angsting, grimdark doomstalker of petty vengeance, murder and destruction want to cuddle?

I think for maximum effect Joey Blackguard needs to start out fiercely dedicated to Evil, and willing to do whatever it takes to perpetrate villainy, and then slowly slide into Good until one day he's betraying his master and arresting the darklings in the Sith Temple, you feel me?

First of all, showing mercy is not the same as not giving justice. For example, maybe a poor woman kidnapped the child of a noble, and the paladin decides to end the crime, but not the criminal. When the kid is safe, he decides to let the woman go free. He decides justice has been had because the innocent is safe, and he gives mercy to someone who only acted out of desperation.

But to answer your other question, it's actually pretty simple. It's not nearly as huge a problem as the memery suggests. Most of the horror stories are fake or played up so hard that they either have to be leaving out incriminating details or exaggerating for the sake of a good story. But it does happen. A lot of people just assume fedoras and move on, and sometimes that may even be the case. Edgelords can't stand the idea of a holy warrior with morals and try to force situations where they fall.

But the actual explanation is more than that. See, when the paladin was first introduced, it was at an age where you rolled your stats, and instead of picking a class freely, your rolled stats determined what classes you could even have. Paladin had the absolute HIGHEST stat requirements, and it was also a VERY powerful class. It was somewhat balanced out with not only the very stringent entry requirements, but also the fact that Paladins could lose all their powers on a small misstep, and believe me that was a lot easier than even in 3.5. A LOT. Paladins had a code they had to follow to the LETTER to keep their awesomeness. So, in the beginning, it wasn't so much DMs being assholes so much as it was legitimately hard to keep that code intact. But when 3rd edition rolled around... (cont)

Well, certainly there are things that can change the nature of a man, aren't there?
[updated my journal]

Don't let the 3.5 grognards fool you. At the time, the complaints about 3.5 mirrored the complaints about 4e or 5e. It was thought to be watered down feel-good trash for casuals. The Diablo edition, it was called. And it was harder for Paladins to fall. A lot harder. No more did they need to follow an absurdly restrictive code, now they just had to not be assholes. The thing was, Paladins weren't really OP anymore, but there were still connotations. Grognard GMs who hated the paladin class for how strong it was assumed the new paladin was just as strong, but less limited. Or maybe they were just grumpy about the new watered down casual trash. Either way, they had to actually TRY to get a paladin to fall... And they wanted to. On the flip side, newfags came into the hobby in droves when 3rd edition hit the shelves, and a lot of these new players didn't really get these connotations. And hell, some of them were just hipsters who hated the concept of a just and good holy person. The problem was, Clerics basically couldn't lose their powers all that easily, they'd have to radically switch alignment. But Paladins 'only' had to fuck up, somehow, and do something evil.

TL;DR: Grognards hate paladins because 'muh second edition', and fedoras hate paladins because 'muh edge', and paladins are easy to fuck with.

Thankfully, 5e changed the fuck out of that.

To be fair, Arthas was put in an impossible dilemma. He did the right thing, arguably for the right reason, but he just let himself slide from there into evil when his obsession with Mal'ganis took him very firmly out of the justice box and into the 'i just really want to fucking kill you and I don't care how I do it' box. Strathholm was horrible, and it was one hell of a decision, but it was the RIGHT decision. Sacrificing everything else on his way to murdering Mal'ganis, on the other hand...

Of course, most fall-happy GMs would have taken Arthas out at Stratheholm and laughed gleefully about how clever they were.

You could also read it as "Dickish DM made him fall at Stratholme and the rest of it was VENGEANCE".
I've always liked the 4E idea that 'falling out of grace' doesn't actually remove your powers (because that's the worst end of gamist bullshit), either because the god can't directly cut channels to their power after giving them out, or because SOMETHING ELSE steps in to provide power instead.

For that matter, the zero tolerance policy is kind of meh in and of itself. You, a massively powerful and insightful eldritch force, pick the best of the bestest as a champion, winnowing out mere channels of your will and directly crafted servitors, and then they accidentally step on an orc baby so you toss them out on their ass?

>paladins are not champions and never were supposed to be

Prove it.

>inb4 "b-b-b-b-b-but muh edition 0.004 of DeeUnDee"

Doesn't matter what ANY shitty old game says, faggot. You can't get to a "it was never supposed to be this way" like that.

Well, deities are asking for near-perfection, and Paladins are supposed to be the only people who can actually manage that, hence why they're chosen in the first place. But either way, it was talked about in the Book of Exalted Deeds that a Paladin shouldn't lose their powers because they made a mistake, they have to wittingly do something wrong. The example in the book being that a paladin that causes a landslide by accident that destroys a town shouldn't fall. They should feel guilty and work to fix their mistake, but they shouldn't fall. But if that Paladin knew there was a certain or near certain chance of him causing a landslide, and he does the thing anyway, he should fall because at that point he's started to weigh the lives of innocents less than doing his job.

I liked 4e's version, but I like 5e's more: The paladin's powers are based on their confidence in themselves, more than anything else, and that confidence being shaken is what causes them to lose their powers. Of course, that would have let Miko keep her fucking powers and that would have been a god damn travesty.

This. Stratholme was the right call. Everything right after it was a string of horrible decisions. Arthas wanted vengeance, and he wanted it NOW, and his bloodthirst clouded his mind.
I mean, at the minimum, he could go back to his father and say
> Hey, dad, remember that plague I was sent to investigate? Yeah, it's not a simple illness. It's a weapon, and it's being used against us by a fucking demon.
>There are a shitload of witnesses that will prove that what I'm saying is true, including mages of Dalaran.
>So could you lend me an army, call in our allies, and maybe we can go kill this demon together.
But no, at no point he even considered this possibility.

So paladins can be negligent, but they can't be grossly negligent, because that requires conscious disregard of a known risk of harm, then?

That's a pretty easy distinction.

>My son, what are you doing?!

>Being a responsible adult, father.

>Why haven't you married that Proudmoore girl yet? I want to see my grandchildren before it's too late!

Yea. I think it can be argued that when Ulthar and Jaina walked out on him, he assumed he was just alone at that point, and he decided he couldn't trust anyone. To be fair, that WAS mostly their bad, but at the same time, he should have tried harder, after getting evidence that the Scourge was a weapon, to convince everyone. Pride does nasty shit to your head, though.

More or less. A paladin does not have to be, and in fact can't, be perfect. But they have to think about the consequences of their actions and act accordingly. Sometimes, that even means a Paladin shouldn't be selfless. A Paladin wasting his life on holding back an army of hobgoblins would be a great blow to stopping that army later. If the Paladin retreats, he's actually doing something good... Living to fight another day, when they'd be more useful.

On the other hand, a paladin too ignorant to see the consequences of their actions is safe to do whatever. They just have to be actually ignorant and not willfully ignorant.
Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.
>I liked 4e's version, but I like 5e's more: The paladin's powers are based on their confidence in themselves, more than anything else, and that confidence being shaken is what causes them to lose their powers. Of course, that would have let Miko keep her fucking powers and that would have been a god damn travesty.
I think the best option is a gradual dealio, rather than all or nothing, but that's a shitload of annoying bookwork and takes up the DM's time besides.
>You didn't advance the cause of good and right today, so your smites don't recharge for the day
>You did fifty shots, mooned the high priest, and desecrated a minor shrine to an allied god, so I'm pulling your Divine Grace just in time for the hangover
>I swear to me, if you don't stop using Lay On Hands to extend torture sessions I'm gonna make it start pulling injuries onto you instead of just making them go away, you little shit
Going blackguard isn't just failing to live up to potential, it's being such a basic bitch you HAVE to get powers from somewhere and hitting up your former employer's worst enemies for aid.

>Oh yeah, I burned down an entire city, and now she's mad at me. But back to that demon...

Hey, doing fifty shots and passing out was a regular habit for my Paladin! He didn't moon anyone though because he hated fun.

>Try getting her flowers. That always put your mother back in the mood.

>The thing is, you have to choose one or another, because mercy gives no justice to the victim, while justice gives no mercy to the perpetrator. I mean, it is conceptually impossible to enact justice AND mercy at the same time.

FUCK OFF MR. A