...presuming, of course, that you define "having the populace of Athlatka afraid of them," "making their enemies disappear," and even, "being able to perform experiments on helpless prisoners with no moral limitations" as "no benefit."
The in-game Cowled Wizardss don't appear to particularly care what the populace of Athkatla think of them (they're apparently even happy for other government officials, such as members of the watch, to disapprove of them), no mention is made of any enemies of the Cowls, and I don't recall anyone in BG2 saying that they conduct experiments on the inmates - there's a lab in Spellhold, but for all we know it was constructed by Irenicus. The talk by some of the inmates of "tests" appear to be in reference to what Irenicus is doing to them.
...and perform hellish experiments on them...
See above. IIRC this is just an assumption on your part, though perhaps I'm wrong.
I see you're avoiding talking about Valygar entirely, except, indirectly, with your blithe and unsupported assertion that a LN character would be happy to commit every action mentioned in my post.
If you're going to accuse someone of ignoring parts of your post, you may want to check that you don't do that exact thing yourself
. You forgot to address the issue of the Cowled Wizards being entirely willing to sacrifice themselves to stop Irenicus - not something any evil character (be it LE, NE or CE) would be entirely happy about doing.
If LN characters aren't willing to commit every act mentioned in your post, perhaps you would care to explain why not? I see no reason for it myself. But I will address each and every point, if you so wish it:
Grabbed off the street, to disappear forever without trial: if every single judge in the country witnessed a person committing a crime, would a trial really be neccessary? Even if so, a fair trial certainly wouldn't be possible. Cowled Wizards appear to have an innate ability to detect unauthorized magic used in Athkatla (since they automatically appear if the player casts a spell); meaning that if a non-licensed mage is using magic in the city, the Cowled Wizards will already know of his guilt without needing to waste time and money on something which has a pre-determined outcome.
Your loved ones will never learn what happened to you: If the Cowled Wizards truly believe that they're doing good by locking the "deviants" away, they'll hardly want to allow for the possibility of their prisoners spreading the deviancy to others, will they? Hundreds of years ago in the real world, there was a similar attitude towards insanity, yet that doesn't make all the wardens of medieval mental asylums evil (though many were, of course).
The Cowled Wizards don't answer even to the already-corrupt government of Athkatla: So? In pnp the Church of Ilmater doesn't answer to the government of Calimshan, and in fact many of the church officials are considered outlaws because they give to sanctuary to escape slaves. Does that make them evil?
Sending a goon squad to bring Valyhar back dead or alive: how do we know the Cowled Wizards didn't originally offer Valygar some sort of deal, but he was so outraged by the suggestion he turned around and killed them in cold blood? Okay so he's good (though our in-game character has no way of knowing that - given his magical background, Valygar may even be able to fool Detect Evil and similar spells), but there may be a "magical curse of rage" on him or something, which he conveniently doesn't know about. We just don't know the circumstances of the encounter.
Also, how do we know that Teos isn't working for his own personal gain, rather than for the good of his organization as a whole?
You're also ignoring the fact that they break the law when it benefits them, as with sending goon squads after Valygar.
How is this breaking the law? BG2 establishes that the Cowled Wizards have been given full authority by the government to operate exactly as they see fit, just like for example the Spanish inquisition or the witchfinder generals.
Huh? By that assertion, the Underground Railroad was...evil?
I think he's saying that if you break a law (no matter whether the law was written by a pure and just government or an evil and corrupt one), the people responsible for upholding said law aren't neccessarily evil themselves.
There's also the little matter that while they give the PC a warning, they don't do that for everyone--most notably, Imoen.
Those were extraordinary circumstances, though. The number one priority of Athkatla is trade (I think this is specified in-game several times, if not please forgive me for introducing a pnp elemenet
), and an unlicensed mage had just destroyed part of the most important trading point in the city. Several of their members had just been killed.
I think it's safe to say they were rather... annoyed at that point, and wanted to set an example (in fact, doesn't even one of them specifically say they want to make an example?) to show that such behaviour will not be tolerated. If it had been some little back street brawl then Imoen would probably have gotten away with it, but it was a major incident with dozens of witnesses.
*scribbles in notebook* Someone...who...kills...in...self...defense...murderer. Got it.
IMHO someone who kills in self defense when he could have escaped or overpowered his attacker(s) in some other way is a murderer, yes. My reasoning is that in a situation where killing isn't your only option, the act of killing wouldn't actually be self defense.