Poor Ogres! What did they do wrong?

[Surprise!]

Remember the Ogres from the dirt farmer sidequest? I would link but the comic is not loading what with that new comic traffic up. Will edit later.

But here is my point, seeing as how everyone is defending the motives of the way dragons act, I went back and thought on how the ogres acted. This entire tribe of ogres (elderly and children were not depicted but it a safe assumption they were at the very least defenseless at the end) were slaughtered because the "kidnapped" the old dirt farmer.

Why is "kidnapped" in quotations? Well because that's the basis for my argument. The point of kidnapping is to extract ransom, and maybe coerce the prisoner into performing a service for you. I can find neither motive in kidnapping this elderly farmer. There is no ransom to be had from his *dirt* poor wife, nor is there any special set of skills or labor he can perform.

The answer must be they were kidnapping him just to be evil right? If the intent and motive was to be evil, just to be evil for evil's sake, why then keep him alive? Would not the wife's grief be far greater if she lost ALL hope of his return? Also the Giant has condemned villains who are evil for the sake of evil in his Gaming section.

Which leads me to think the old farmer asked the Ogres to kidnap him, as a sort of vacation from his wife. This is jokingly referred to after the completion of the quest, but tone is not transmittable over the internet. Perhaps it was true.

So an entire tribe of sentient beings were slaughtered to the Ogre by the fearless OotS and their Paladin captor, for the heinous crime of fulfilling an old mans request.

And don't get me started on goblins. :D

[dps]

I figured that they were going to eat him. As to why he was still alive, well, you can own livestock to eat but you don't necessarily butcher it as soon as you acquire it.

[TheSummoner]

Well, since you mention it, I do question the point of the ogres in the first place... Nothing really came of that little trip, but bear in mind that as far as Miko and the Order knew, they were kidnappers, to their knowledge, the Ogres were evil criminals and they were saving an innocent old man. If the Ogres were truely innocent, their deaths is on the old woman's hands...

[David Argall]

Go back to the ogres and look at Miko.

This stupid paladin comes into the middle of their camp and challenges them to honorable combat. Do they decline taking advantage of her insanity? No. Do they simply insist they are innocents who can not morally kill such a suicidal type? No. Do they take maximal advantage of her innocence in order to kill her? Sure do.

They are flat out evil. And dead for not wondering if she could really be such a fool.

[Ladorak]

Well they're evil, no doubt about that... But then goblins are evil, as are black dragons, both have been shown in a sympathetic light. I believe the Giant's point is 'Evil' on the Alighnment section of the monster's manual doesn't mean much if they havn't actually DONE anything yet. It is effectively killing them for something they MAY do in the future, a rather evil act all of its own.

And even if they do do evil, and killing them might be the right thing to do, it should be remembered that most of the monsters in the manual are sentient, and so killing them even if they have done wrong is still a moral issue.

That said the Orges did do evil, and they did pick a fight with the defenders of the innocent, so as far as I'm concerned screw them. Red Cloak's and the dragon's stories are touching, the Orges not so much...

[Pronounceable]

Ogres certainly got the short end of the stick. They weren't really characters, didn't have much going on about them and barely some defining quirks (aka redshirts). Much like the hundreds of azurite soldiers and hobgoblins that died in the siege. So it's not much of a problem they're dead.

If the ogres HAD some actual characterization, I might've cared. As it is, bleh. There's more where they came from...

[David Argall]

It is effectively killing them for something they MAY do in the future, a rather evil act all of its own.

Killing somebody for what they may do is called self defense. That need not be justified, but the base right is acceptable with any good alignment.

[Ladorak]

Killing somebody for what they may do is called self defense. That need not be justified, but the base right is acceptable with any good alignment.

Good point, but in the case of the goblins the paladins killed I don't see it. They have to pose a threat, or at least attempt to, before you can 'defend' yourself from them

[Quorothorn]

Killing somebody for what they may do is called self defense. That need not be justified, but the base right is acceptable with any good alignment.

Self-defense is a very specific case of "killing someone for what they may do". Specifically, that thing they "may do" has to be "kill you" and it has to be an immediate threat. Not some years-down-the-road maybe. Otherwise you can pretty much justify any killing as self-defense.

[Warren Dew]

Black dragons and high priests in black armor are cool, and thus get shown in a favorable light.

The ogres, on the other hand, made the unforgivable error of having no fashion sense. No second chances are given for that!

[David Argall]

Self-defense is a very specific case of "killing someone for what they may do". Specifically, that thing they "may do" has to be "kill you" and it has to be an immediate threat.
Not by theory, tho practical can be a different matter.
The threat needs to be reasonably certain. It does not have to be at all immediate. If you are one of many captives to a dragon and the dragon eats one of you for dinner every day, you do not have to wait until it attacks you, or even until it attacks anyone. You are certain the attack will come, and can thus act far in advance of the actual attack.

Now there is the saying "Predictions are hard to make, especially when they involve the future." If the threat is not immediate, it is routine for it not to be certain either. "Threatened men live long lives" is another good saying. The more time until the threat will be carried out, the more chance for you to avoid it, or it simply not to happen. So as a practical matter, we talk of the need for the threat to be immediate.

[Carnivorous_Bea]

Most people on here seem to assume that the young black dragon was pure, innocent, and gentle up to that point.

Considering what dear ol' mom is like, I doubt it. After all, she's about to torture to death a couple of innocent kids who didn't even know that the event that's going to cause their deaths happened, let alone have any responsibility for it. That sounds like pure, unadulterated evil and malice to me, and as they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Just because the dragon wasn't doing anything evil at that moment, doesn't mean that he was an innocent bystander. Even the worst human serial killers murder what, maybe 50 or 60 people in their lifetimes? That means that they spend most of their time doing no harm. But does that mean that they can only justifiably be arrested at the exact moment when they're actually killing someone?

In the OotS world, arresting the dragon is impractical. So, when you come up against a member of a sadistic, powerful species that views your species as a form of meat animal, the best approach is probably to shoot first and ask questions later. Otherwise, you're either a meal yourself, or you're condemning others of your kind to hideous death in the probably not-too-distant future.

[Quorothorn]

Not by theory, tho practical can be a different matter.
The threat needs to be reasonably certain. It does not have to be at all immediate. If you are one of many captives to a dragon and the dragon eats one of you for dinner every day, you do not have to wait until it attacks you, or even until it attacks anyone. You are certain the attack will come, and can thus act far in advance of the actual attack.

Now there is the saying "Predictions are hard to make, especially when they involve the future." If the threat is not immediate, it is routine for it not to be certain either. "Threatened men live long lives" is another good saying. The more time until the threat will be carried out, the more chance for you to avoid it, or it simply not to happen. So as a practical matter, we talk of the need for the threat to be immediate.

+1 for Yogi quote. :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, I'd term the situation you outlined above as pretty immediate, actually: being in the same space as a proven captive-eater whilst you are a captive pretty much means you are constantly at risk of getting munched yourself. I agree with your post here, though.