View Full Version : OOTS #640 - The Discussion Thread
The Giant
2009-03-26, 05:05 PM
New comic is up.
Mc. Lovin'
2009-03-26, 05:10 PM
Wow, awesome comic! I can't beleive they didnt have any effect at all though
Nevitan
2009-03-26, 05:11 PM
Wow..
I'm glad Familicide got outlined at least.
MuLepton
2009-03-26, 05:11 PM
Well, not all black dragons are dead. And I wonder how people will come up with a justification that V is still neutral now. Without doubt they will try to, just curious about their reasoning...
Trazoi
2009-03-26, 05:11 PM
I have liked how in this arc that even supercharged Evil V has basically been acting like V. A V on the edge, but V's always had a bit of that edge to V's character throughout the comic.
I'm just pleased that V didn't go moustache twirly, evil-purely-for-the-evulz evil and actually had some of V's logic behind the actions taken.
Although - how does an undead severed dragon head fly? :smallconfused:
Oh dear. I'm not sure how to feel about learning the souls weren't altering V's alignment. :S
Still, it's nice to get some answers. Great comic. :smallbiggrin:
afroakuma
2009-03-26, 05:17 PM
The Raistlin comparisons become even more apt now.
One of the best lines of the arc:
"We are all in the Monster Manual somewhere, are we not? My entry lies between Elemental and Ethereal Filcher."
Antacid
2009-03-27, 08:03 PM
In before "Madness?! THIS... IS... SPARTA!!!!"
Edit: So what we see now is, that the Red Globe/Blue Globe choice wasn't set up to force V to choose between good or evil at all. Rather, it was to make him feel like he'd already chosen, so that he'd be more likely to go with the flow when he had the power to do something genuinely unnecessary of his own free will. And even though V's soul is only the property of the IFCC for a short time under the conditions of the contract if he ends the splice soon, he can still earn an eternal visit to the Lower Planes the old fashioned way. The upcoming strips where we see V's behavior and the reaction of his family now his primary task is done will be interesting to say the least.
MReav
2009-03-27, 08:05 PM
That... was utterly sadistic. V's gone off the deep end.
CyberRebirth
2009-03-27, 08:05 PM
:smalleek:
I didn't think V could be so nasty! Though, I bet I would be just as bad if I didn't think I would have to own up to it.
CrimsonAngel
2009-03-27, 08:06 PM
Love panel 7. :smallbiggrin:
xyzzy
2009-03-27, 08:07 PM
So is the implication here that V is evil, or isn't? The statement that they were kidding when they said V's alignment might be affected could either suggest that it somehow isn't because he didn't think he was responsible, or that it was changed because she thought she was.
I'm thinking it's the latter, but it's still rather oddly-worded.
Landon_Fox
2009-03-27, 08:07 PM
Mad props to the Giant for this twist. It fits so perfectly with human nature. I will never forget about the Milgram experiment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Llama231
2009-03-27, 08:07 PM
Wow, one quarter...
Awesomesauce comic!:smallbiggrin:
Surfing HalfOrc
2009-03-27, 08:08 PM
OK, I should know this, but I don't...
Who are the Demon/Devil friends/fiends? They look like college mascots, but I'm drawing a blank! :smallredface:
David Argall
2009-03-27, 08:08 PM
So it seems V killed a good deal more than 60 dragons. Not enough to eliminate black dragons, but quite a massive slice.
Also V continues to say that protection of her family is his major reason for the spell.
The claim is rather dubious. Sharp boundaries to what constitutes kin don’t exist. There should still be bereaved cousins of some of the dead dragons. But the comic seems to ignore this and would have us assume that there are none left who will be interested in revenge.
The Blackbird
2009-03-27, 08:11 PM
1/4th of all black dragons, dang thats a lot.
I'm almost sorry for the ABD...
stevekgoodwin
2009-03-27, 08:12 PM
Is the last panel a joke? Could someone explain it if it is? Ta.
Trixie
2009-03-27, 08:13 PM
I somehow feel that people who invented genocide and these ridiculous triple digit caster levels will still try to argue that the rules (or common sense) shouldn't apply to epic magic and the entire population of the chromatic dragons plus their gods died :smallsigh:
Anyway, what does that last obscure reference mean? And what they have written on their shirts?
And I totally called V being evil now out of her own volition (they wouldn't try that "cutting off the head" gambit otherwise, now, would they?) :smallbiggrin:
Plus, that last disintegrate was totally uncalled for :smalltongue:
pyrefiend
2009-03-27, 08:15 PM
Hmmmm... so then I guess V's insane laughter was more due to the general rush of power/lack of sleep, than just evilness? I guess that makes sense.
otakufan
2009-03-27, 08:19 PM
And the "Alignment Feedback" defense for V's actions goes up in smoke...
Well played, Fiends. Well played. :smallamused:
xyzzy
2009-03-27, 08:22 PM
So it seems V killed a good deal more than 60 dragons. Not enough to eliminate black dragons, but quite a massive slice.
Also V continues to say that protection of her family is his major reason for the spell.
The claim is rather dubious. Sharp boundaries to what constitutes kin don’t exist. There should still be bereaved cousins of some of the dead dragons. But the comic seems to ignore this and would have us assume that there are none left who will be interested in revenge.
We're to assume that's what Vaarsuvius' twisted mind has produced, at least --- I think it's pretty clear that the threat to V isn't gone by any stretch of the imagination.
Cousins would presumably all be covered if I'm reading the description right. The dragon's parents (if they're alive) would die, and their grandchildren would be their direct relatives.
Studoku
2009-03-27, 08:23 PM
Although - how does an undead severed dragon head fly? :smallconfused:
A wizard did it.
I've been waiting two days to post this.
EmeraldPhoenix
2009-03-27, 08:24 PM
Well, I'm screwed. There goes my theory that it wasn't V's fault.
I wonder how V's family will react to that little show...and how long it will be until V decides to end the soul splice.
And what is up over in Greysky, in the afterlife, on the boat, in Azure city, with EVERYONE ELSE? It's about time for a scene change, and my money is on a switch sometime in the next ten strips, and that's being generous. Just a few wrap-ups, and a cliff-hanger, and we can get on to :haley:, :belkar:, :roy:, :durkon:, :elan:, :xykon:, :mitd:, Hinjo, the theives guild, and Celia. That's a lot of people to check on, so get a move on, Rich!
Antacid
2009-03-27, 08:27 PM
For the people wondering, I think the last panel is a joke-via-comic-juxtaposition. First half of comic is an established hero being horribly evil, second half shows us that uber-evil fiends can feel cheesy, relatable nostalgia thinking about their college years. It's not a reference so much as a deliberately whacky contrast.
EDIT: lol, apparently it's also a reference.
Swordlol
2009-03-27, 08:28 PM
What if they lied about what will happen to V's soul?
They lied about the Souls may influence - so what would stop them about lying that rather than each one of them getting V's soul for the same amount of time V keeps the Soul Splice - that V is actually damn'd.
[TS] Shadow
2009-03-27, 08:28 PM
Hmm...now I can spit in the faces of the "V is still neutral" people! YES! But then again, seeing how many people STILL say that Belkar isn't Evil, I doubt it'll end any time soon.
Earendill
2009-03-27, 08:28 PM
Is the last panel a joke? Could someone explain it if it is? Ta.
My guess it refers to "March Madness" - a college basketball event in the US. One of the mascots has "Duke", as in Duke University on it's shirt.
Liwen
2009-03-27, 08:28 PM
Although - how does an undead severed dragon head fly? :smallconfused:
That my friend is only for the show. Would you rather have a flying dragon undead head or just a regular dragon undead head?
So V appears to be genuinely evil from the information we got from this strip. But allow to point out one of the trio's footnote about the soul splice : They wanted her to reject the responsibility of her evils to the 3 souls, which is probably what V believes right now. Rejecting responsibility allows people to do some of the worst atrocities man as ever committed, but this people aren't evil, they are weak. They found it easier to obey than to confront the authority and express their position
Authoritarian figure : "Hit this man with a baseball bat."
Person : "Why? That gonna hurt him."
Authoritarian figure : "Do Has I demand. We will take full responsibility for your actions, and obeying will grant you the comfortable carefree life you desire, for we can provide."
Person : "in this case" Whack!
Here the Authoritarian figure is V own unwillingness to admit that she fails at magic and that magic ain't the solution to everything. And with the new powers she has now, the little objecting voice saying : "why can you just admit defeat and accept the help and support of others and move on? Those soldiers died, there was nothing you could do to save them and trying will have gotten you killed." is muted.
Finally, allow me to add that a bunch of voices suggesting to make the enemy, who's trying to murder your family to suffer much and die for all eternity, suffer as much as said enemy planned to spread suffering does have a little more power than a bunch of cheerleaders. Three voices you can't shut up constantly suggesting you commit x,y,z atrocities will turn anyone mad very quickly.
SilentDragoon
2009-03-27, 08:31 PM
The last panel refers to college sports, specifically Duke Blue Devils and Arizona State Sun Devils, most likely basketball due to the comment by orange in the previous panel.
Tredrick
2009-03-27, 08:31 PM
For those who do not know:
Arizona State Sun Devils
Duke Blue Devils.
Shame there was not a Wake Forest Demon Deacons joke as well. :P
Hell Puppi
2009-03-27, 08:31 PM
The guys at the end are University mascots.
The red and yellow one is the Arizona State University devil (the red devil? I dunno, he's red and has a pitchfork).
The other is from Duke University
Edit-Dang! Double-ninja'ed!:smallredface:
Surfing HalfOrc
2009-03-27, 08:33 PM
Anyway, what does that last obscure reference mean? And what they have written on their shirts?
OK, I zoomed in on the shirts, and one is Duke, while the other looks like Arizona.
So they are college mascots.
Duke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Blue_Devils)
Arizona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparky_(Arizona_State_Mascot))
(And the NCAA Championships are on right now! I guess we know who Rich has in his betting pool!)
Plus, I answered my own question.
EDIT: Multi-Ninja'd!
Skeppio
2009-03-27, 08:35 PM
Excellent comic. Let's see anyone try to justify V's behavior now.
Assassin89
2009-03-27, 08:35 PM
We now know that either Cedric or Nero is a devil, meaning that Lee is a demon or the NE evil outsider. I wonder if the Oracle will be killed soon for causing those deaths, albeit indirectly.
snoopy13a
2009-03-27, 08:36 PM
Also note the title of the comic: "Madness" as it applies to the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament (nicknamed March Madness) reference in the last panel.
I wonder how the Giant's bracket is doing? I was doing fairly well but I lost a Final Four team (Memphis) last night.
I believe this increases the total of sports mascots making an appearance to three (Mr. Met was among the golems in Greysky).
JeminiZero
2009-03-27, 08:37 PM
Well, not all black dragons are dead. And I wonder how people will come up with a justification that V is still neutral now. Without doubt they will try to, just curious about their reasoning...
Marching into their caves, killing them and then looting their treasure is still considered a "just and necessary (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0207.html)" even by the most uptight paladin. Massacring them wholesale to protect your family can't be too far off.
EmeraldPhoenix
2009-03-27, 08:38 PM
Authoritarian figure : "Hit this man with a baseball bat."
Person : "Why? That gonna hurt him."
Authoritarian figure : "Do Has I demand. We will take full responsibility for your actions, and obeying will grant you the comfortable carefree life you desire, for we can provide."
Person : "in this case" Whack!
*Laughs @ss off*
Can I put that on my sig?
Victor Thorian
2009-03-27, 08:41 PM
Go 'suvie. It's sad that most of us would do horrible things if we didn't have to face the consequences.
Admit that you all want to listen to Linkin Park sometimes!
Bastian
2009-03-27, 08:42 PM
A quote comes to mind..."Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power" (Abraham Lincoln)
Or an Elf's, that is.
AtomicKitKat
2009-03-27, 08:43 PM
Huh. Been a while since I posted so soon after forums return to work. Those college mascots are hee-haw-larious, and I knew that was a pretty high, near destruction of the species. Plus if those 60 were all who died(50+, if you don't count the non-Dragon Half-Dragons), that makes some 250(200) Black Dragons throughout the world, which I'm pretty sure is close to what I estimated last thread.
Edit:
We now know that either Cedric or Nero is a devil, meaning that Lee is a demon or the NE evil outsider. I wonder if the Oracle will be killed soon for causing those deaths, albeit indirectly.
CEdric is Chaotic Evil
NEro is Neutral Evil
LEe is Lawful Evil
Kind of obvious, if you think about it. I forget who is which colour though. LEe is the one who speaks the most Legalese, CEdric is probably the one who keeps talking about his University days.
Edit 2: Yep, I called 1/3, which is about 200, so pretty close, if we exclude the non-Dragon Half-Dragons from the *4.
bluewind95
2009-03-27, 08:44 PM
Wow... that comic was... interesting. What the fiend said about not taking responsibility for one's actions... that's harsh, but true.
Zevox
2009-03-27, 08:46 PM
Well then, I think that's that for V's alignment. If her actions were not, in fact, the result of influence from the Soul Splice on her alignment, but completely of her own will, then what she has done here really does represent a true shift of her alignment to evil. That's... unexpected, disturbing, and quite interesting.
Anyway, seems like all the potential delays are out of the way now, so we can expect comic #641 to finally have V's family react to the events in full. I look forward to that.
Zevox
Hadrian_Emrys
2009-03-27, 08:48 PM
Once again people, V is a pragmatist. Not nice, not bad, just one to opt for the shortest distance between him and his amoral goals. As to old saying goes: If all you have is a hammer, all your problems begin to look like nails. In his case, the hammer is his MAGIC. :smallbiggrin:
Sure, this current event involved him indulging in his pet vice (Wrath), but targeting a black (i.e. created evil) dragon and her offspring is clean enough intent for even a paladin.
Kaytara
2009-03-27, 08:48 PM
...Whoa.
Beautiful psychology there, Giant. Really, the fiends have been written very well as the masters of manipulation they should be.
At least V didn't smile in this one. His smiles are creepy.
And an evil black dragon that previously intended to torture small children without batting an eye calling V a monster? Ouch indeed. (Though nicely ironic, given V's "No! You monstrous-" stammer earlier.)
So they were "kidding"? :smalleek: Interesting. So first they lie about V's importance as a customer, they presumably lie by omission by not correcting V's assumption about when they get to use his soul, and now it turns out they were just "kidding" when they said it might influence his alignment. It seems the fiends as a group aren't really bound to only tell the truth, which makes sense, I suppose, considering that two of them aren't Lawful...
Yet there IS a glimmer of hope, sort of. If - when - Vaarsuvius eventually learns that there WAS no alignment feedback, he'll have to face the fact that he "had it in him" all along to do something like that. Facing that kind of truth about oneself can only make or break an individual, and I doubt V can be broken any further, given his role in the story. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some positive character development in the near future, for a change.
However, given how furious the dragon was at the end, I imagine she may be off to complain to Tiamat in the next moment. :smalleek:
Lamech
2009-03-27, 08:51 PM
Psychology. Where would we be with out it? Also 1/4 of the population. Thats a good 5% of timats worshippers. She'll be... upset. Maybe V has some good elven gods to pull her out of the fire?
The Bookworm
2009-03-27, 08:52 PM
I can't wait to see what V's family thinks. Disgust? Anger? Fear? Maybe the emotions will be disguised...
tcrudisi
2009-03-27, 08:53 PM
Well, not all black dragons are dead. And I wonder how people will come up with a justification that V is still neutral now. Without doubt they will try to, just curious about their reasoning...
I do not believe V is neutral. I'm of the opinion that V is Good. He just eliminated 25% of all the black dragons of the world. I look at it as though it's a war between good and evil: if a paladin see's a black dragon, he smites it. That's a good act, right? So killing off hundreds at one time is just an insanely good act.
Yeah, I don't expect V's alignment to stay Good, but if I were DM'ing it, I buy the argument that V is Good over any other argument, at the moment.
pyrefiend
2009-03-27, 08:57 PM
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some positive character development in the near future, for a change.
Agreed. I get the feeling that V's splice will end very soon. V's family probably won't want anything to do with him, and so V may end up returning to the order, in shame, to atone for his misdeeds. I think that this story arc may be coming to a close fairly soon.
Tremas
2009-03-27, 08:58 PM
I haven't played in decades (we're talking the basic, expert, and original advanced editions) - and we were too busy hacking and slashing to worry about tracking alignments.
SO - my question is - what's the impact of a PC alignment change? According to today's rules? Does the character not get experience for their most recent actions? (Wouldn't matter anyway - V wasn't expecting experience for this.) Do levels get removed from their character? Do they just end up in a different plane of existence after death (different than the plane they were aiming for)? Or something else?
I could see huge consequences if you're a cleric and you're now out-of-alignment with respect to your deity. But - for a wizard (or a thief, or a warrior), what does it matter?
rgrekejin
2009-03-27, 09:01 PM
I've been seeing the theory that "Tiamat will somehow exact revenge on V" an awful lot around these boards. I'm really not sure how having that happen would tell any kind of an interesting story. If I were in a campaign playing V, and Tiamat just appeared out of the blue to exact immediate vengeance or some such thing, I'd probably accuse them of lazy DMing. The idea that V has angered Tiamat, and vengeance is forthcoming, is certainly plausible, but it isn't really that interesting. I suspect any sort of draconic revenge will probably be either much more subtle than that, or simply nonexistent (karma doesn't count).
Bastian
2009-03-27, 09:02 PM
...Whoa.
Beautiful psychology there, Giant. Really, the fiends have been written very well as the masters of manipulation they should be.
...
Yet there IS a glimmer of hope, sort of. If - when - Vaarsuvius eventually learns that there WAS no alignment feedback, he'll have to face the fact that he "had it in him" all along to do something like that. Facing that kind of truth about oneself can only make or break an individual, and I doubt V can be broken any further, given his role in the story. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some positive character development in the near future, for a change.
I agree with you, Kaytara, that was a masterstroke. And indeed, it is only by an individual's acceptance of his own 'dark' side (in the broader meaning of unaccepted, unrecognised, not merely 'evil'), the chance for trascendance may exist. It's really a make or break passage. V's penchant for rationalizing and his apparent unwillingness to cope with his own vulnerability or limitations does not bode well. I am keeping my fingers crossed too.
afroakuma
2009-03-27, 09:03 PM
For those who were wondering, the last panel is supposed to be confirmation that Orange is a devil.
The mascots appearing with him are the mascots for the Arizona State Sun Devils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_State_Sun_Devils) and the Duke University Blue Devils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Blue_Devils).
meerkat
2009-03-27, 09:04 PM
I think Nietzsche sums it up best with half of a quote of his, as to what has happend to V.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
Long time lurker, first time poster. :smallcool:
silvadel
2009-03-27, 09:04 PM
"You..you MONSTER" by the ABD was very powerful. The black dragon is calling V a monster....
It actually reminded me of Shrek.
V's response reverse-lightshades the scene when Farquad was torturing the Gingerbread man.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 09:07 PM
So V decided to give a Villain's Monologue right within earshot of his husband, eh? One that decribed in painful detail just what the spell did? To a person who has already given a My God What Has Happened To You outburst?
Not very wise, Suvie. Not very wise at all. :smallamused::smallamused:
Bastian
2009-03-27, 09:08 PM
I think Nietzsche sums it up best with half of a quote of his, as to what has happend to V.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
Long time lurker, first time poster. :smallcool:
Haha, long time lurker, first time poster here too. It seems that we both opened with a quote in our first post. Plus, that was one of my favourite quotes by Nietzsche.
Aaron
2009-03-27, 09:09 PM
Wow!! So the three evil soles have no control or influence over V's actions and/or alignment at all!? I find that very disturbing. I liked the fiend's explanation of why V is going "Mad" and how it also refers to real life situations.
munehiro
2009-03-27, 09:10 PM
I wish to congratulate with the Giant. The last three comics, and this one in particular, were incredibly disgusting, as they are meant to be. Setting this kind of feeling in your reader just with stick figures definitely takes a lot of skills.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 09:10 PM
CEdric is Chaotic Evil
NEro is Neutral Evil
LEe is Lawful Evil
The problem with that theory is that we already know that Lee is the Yellow Fiend (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0637.html) and the Orange Fiend is the one who hung out with Devils in his youth. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0640.html)
Could be a slight problem for the whole LEe, CEdrik, NEro = LE/CE/NE theorizing. :smalltongue:
Reverent-One
2009-03-27, 09:15 PM
While I'll believe that the soul splice doesn't automatically change his/her alignment against his will, I think saying the soul slice has no affect on V's actions is incorrect. For example, in #635, right after the soul splice, V doesn't know why he is laughing, and that was even before the three mentioned the supposed "alignment feedback". Honestly, you really think having 3 incredibly evil minds in your head, talking to you, would have no effect?
Mando Knight
2009-03-27, 09:16 PM
Amusing lie... which became the truth merely by altering Vaarsuvius's expectations. Clever... I should have thought of that, myself. Half-truths and lies are the classic MO of a fiend trying to get you to sell your soul...
Perhaps Lee is CE and the orange one is Cedrik?
Porthos
2009-03-27, 09:18 PM
I do not believe V is neutral. I'm of the opinion that V is Good.
And yet, according to the poll that you set up, you seem to be in a VERY exclusive club. :smalltongue:
He just eliminated 25% of all the black dragons of the world.
So.
What.
If he did it for evil reasons, and I am convicned that he did, then it still is an evil act. Otherwise Xykon would be good after all of the evil goblins he killed. :smallwink:
I look at it as though it's a war between good and evil: if a paladin see's a black dragon, he smites it. That's a good act, right? So killing off hundreds at one time is just an insanely good act.
Errrr. If you say so. Puts a whole different perspective on the Blood War, I suppose. :smallbiggrin:
Yeah, I don't expect V's alignment to stay Good, but if I were DM'ing it, I buy the argument that V is Good over any other argument, at the moment.
And if I were DMing, I'd compliment my player on role playing a recent convert to Neutral "The Ends Justify the Means/By Any Means Necessary/Mess With My Interests and I'll Brutally Slaughter Everyone You Ever Cared About" Evil so perfectly.
I guess Milage Does Vary. :smalltongue:
Sutremaine
2009-03-27, 09:19 PM
The statement that they were kidding when they said V's alignment might be affected could either suggest that it somehow isn't because he didn't think he was responsible, or that it was changed because she thought she was.
I'm thinking it's the latter, but it's still rather oddly-worded.
The implication is that there is no alignment feedback. While the three souls are egging her on, they have no more sway over her than if they were real people standing over her shoulder. Whatever V does, she does it herself, stone cold sober.
By strict D&D morality she's probably not Evil, as even Miko remained Good despite her smite-on-sight policy. As with Roy, V could easily be accused of overly enjoying the beatdown, but that doesn't result in anything more than a slap on the wrist.
Of course, Rich could consider strict D&D morality to be fallible and inflexible, in which case V's fallen so hard she's left an amusingly-shaped hole in the floor. We might or might not get a Dectect Evil to congirm this. If I were Rich, I'd be sitting back, watching the constant arguments over the ambiguously-everything elf, and giggling like a little girl.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 09:22 PM
For example, in #635, right after the soul splice, V doesn't know why he is laughing, and that was even before the three mentioned the supposed "alignment feedback".
Rush of Ultimate Power? Might be like getting very very high, very very quickly.
Honestly, you really think having 3 incredibly evil minds in your head, talking to you, would have no effect?
Well, I suppose that depends on just how much do you buy the underlying theories when it comes to the Milgram Experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment), now doesn't it? :smalltongue:
AtomicKitKat
2009-03-27, 09:24 PM
My guess it refers to "March Madness" - a college basketball event in the US. One of the mascots has "Duke", as in Duke University on it's shirt.
I thought that was as in ArchDUKE of Hell.
Flying Dragon Head=Telekinisis?
Skeppio
2009-03-27, 09:29 PM
I do not believe V is neutral. I'm of the opinion that V is Good. He just eliminated 25% of all the black dragons of the world. I look at it as though it's a war between good and evil: if a paladin see's a black dragon, he smites it. That's a good act, right? So killing off hundreds at one time is just an insanely good act.
Yeah, I don't expect V's alignment to stay Good, but if I were DM'ing it, I buy the argument that V is Good over any other argument, at the moment.
I think your morality meter is broken.
Morgaledh
2009-03-27, 09:32 PM
Been DM'ing since 82 or 83, and as for V, he is still neutral. Rant and rave, he's still neutral. What happens next will decide if he stays that way. Does he lay down the power? Does he use it to destroy even more evil? Does he go bonkers?
Right about now, what he needs to be worrying about is Tiamat... "no one left" indeed.....
Zevox
2009-03-27, 09:33 PM
I haven't played in decades (we're talking the basic, expert, and original advanced editions) - and we were too busy hacking and slashing to worry about tracking alignments.
SO - my question is - what's the impact of a PC alignment change? According to today's rules? Does the character not get experience for their most recent actions? (Wouldn't matter anyway - V wasn't expecting experience for this.) Do levels get removed from their character? Do they just end up in a different plane of existence after death (different than the plane they were aiming for)? Or something else?
I could see huge consequences if you're a cleric and you're now out-of-alignment with respect to your deity. But - for a wizard (or a thief, or a warrior), what does it matter?
Mechanically, it doesn't. Unless you're a member of an alignment-restricted class - such as a Paladin, Monk, Bard, or Barbarian - or a divine caster devoted to a deity who would object to your new alignment, alignment changes mean nothing for you from a rules/combat mechanics point of view. And as you note, V, as a Wizard, doesn't fit into the categories that have to worry about that.
Its the shift in V's personality and the impacts it will have on her as a character in the story that are important.
Zevox
AtomicKitKat
2009-03-27, 09:34 PM
The problem with that theory is that we already know that Lee is the Yellow Fiend (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0637.html) and the Orange Fiend is the one who hung out with Devils in his youth. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0640.html)
Could be a slight problem for the whole LEe, CEdrik, NEro = LE/CE/NE theorizing. :smalltongue:
I go with this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0633.html) for my colour guide.
Conjurer Conqueror=LE=Orange
Necromancer=NE=Purple
Sorceror=CE=Yellow
Although in the first strip they appeared, Purple gave legal disclaimers.
Reverent-One
2009-03-27, 09:35 PM
Well, I suppose that depends on just how much do you buy the underlying theories when it comes to the Milgram Experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment), now doesn't it? :smalltongue:
Well, I don't think the Milgram Experiment is quite the right parallel, as it is about someone following orders of a authority figure. Which I don't think really applies here, as we have no reason to think V considers any of them an authority figure. I think it more like peer pressure, but on a much more intense scale, as they are not merely talking to V, but actually bound to his/her soul, in his/her head. Three very evil, and from their achievements, very strong willed individuals bound to one's own self, if that doesn't affect an individual somewhat, I'd be surprised.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 09:36 PM
Been DM'ing since 82 or 83, and as for V, he is still neutral. Rant and rave, he's still neutral. What happens next will decide if he stays that way. Does he lay down the power? Does he use it to destroy even more evil? Does he go bonkers?
If it was just this, I might be tempted to agree with you. However, he killed Lord Kubota simply because he was wasting V's time ("what is a 'Kubota'?") and not for any other more noble reason. He also demanded that Qarr set up the whole "sell my soul" business, and was forced to admit that a large reason for doing so was a quest for power.
These don't exactly scream "outlook of a morally neutral person" to me. :smalltongue:
Artevoi
2009-03-27, 09:39 PM
I do not believe V is neutral. I'm of the opinion that V is Good. He just eliminated 25% of all the black dragons of the world. I look at it as though it's a war between good and evil: if a paladin see's a black dragon, he smites it. That's a good act, right? So killing off hundreds at one time is just an insanely good act.
I hate alignment arguments, but I thought I should add this: If Vaarsuvius is "Good" then it's a very, very, very, very, (etc) stupid variant of "Good."
Killing ~25% of the black dragons in the world with one super-epic-level spell, thereby angering the remaining ~75% of them, all the other chromatic dragons, and the dragons' deity, can't be a good idea if one wants to continue living. No matter how many levels of infernal magical power one has...
brilliantlight
2009-03-27, 09:41 PM
So V decided to give a Villain's Monologue right within earshot of his husband, eh? One that decribed in painful detail just what the spell did? To a person who has already given a My God What Has Happened To You outburst?
Not very wise, Suvie. Not very wise at all. :smallamused::smallamused:
Agreed, he will act either very frightened or angry or both. I would vote both. However sheer fear might cause hubby not to bawl her out.
brilliantlight
2009-03-27, 09:44 PM
If it was just this, I might be tempted to agree with you. However, he killed Lord Kubota simply because he was wasting V's time ("what is a 'Kubota'?") and not for any other more noble reason. He also demanded that Qarr set up the whole "sell my soul" business, and was forced to admit that a large reason for doing so was a quest for power.
These don't exactly scream "outlook of a morally neutral person" to me. :smalltongue:
Yeah, she has been going downhill for some time now. Now that she has (hopefully) hit bottom she will start climbing back up again. I used to like V.
slayerx
2009-03-27, 09:45 PM
Also V continues to say that protection of her family is his major reason for the spell.
The claim is rather dubious. Sharp boundaries to what constitutes kin don’t exist. There should still be bereaved cousins of some of the dead dragons. But the comic seems to ignore this and would have us assume that there are none left who will be interested in revenge.
Not exactly... V isn't talking about the splice but is talking about punishment for the dragon. V wanted to punish the dragon fro threatening her family, the splice just gave her the means to deliver such a punishment; she would have wanted to punish the dragon severely with or without the splice
I feel the rest of the dragon population - the 3/4th that is left - might feel.... a tad ticked off at V for you know the whole....
killing a quarter of their species.....
Thins is though, it will be a while before they realize that so many black dragons had been slain... i mean how will they know that hundreds of dragons died in this instant?... sure a few might realize one or two of the dragons died, but they would likely assume that they were just killed by adventurers... there is no way for them to know that hundreds died given that black dragons are few in number, live far apart from each other, and thus unlikely to have contact with more than a handful of their kind
Not to mention if they DID find out, we would have to ask if they realized that V's awesome power was only temporary... cause if they don't then i doubt any dragon would be stupid enough to try and get revenge unless they want to see another 1/4th of their race die off
What if they lied about what will happen to V's soul?
They lied about the Souls may influence - so what would stop them about lying that rather than each one of them getting V's soul for the same amount of time V keeps the Soul Splice - that V is actually damn'd.
They are incapable of doing so... they were making a deal, and arch fiends if i recall are magically bound to uphold those deals...
The lie about the souls influence came AFTER the deal was made... when they are not making a deal they are free to lie as they desire
CEdric is Chaotic Evil
NEro is Neutral Evil
LEe is Lawful Evil
Kind of obvious, if you think about it. I forget who is which colour though. LEe is the one who speaks the most Legalese, CEdric is probably the one who keeps talking about his University days.
Problem with your theory is that one of them pointed out that Sabine (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0637.html) is a succubus, which means she's a Demon (unless they were talking about someone else which is highly unlikely)... she was working under Lee, which would imply that he is also a Demon
Furtharmore, of the 3 evil souls, the sorcerer, mister "Tear down creation just to see if you can", seemed like the Choatic Evil of the trio... and he was working under Lee
canterrain
2009-03-27, 09:52 PM
Although - how does an undead severed dragon head fly? :smallconfused:
Although I understand the point of your question, and I admit I'm simplifying it ALOT but...
You're trying to bring logic into something where the something allows you to ask a question that begins with "an undead severed dragon head"
Me personally? I let little things life flying body part slide when the somethings in question has things like ... well undead severed dragon heads. :smallbiggrin:
Although yes, I understand the need to still ask for logic in fantasy before it becomes ridiculous and all.
I don't know about Vaarsuvius, but the Giant is definitely evil!
Out of all the teams existing out there, out of the whole sleuth of colleges with a basketball team in the USA... he has to choose frickin' Duke?
spooon
2009-03-27, 09:56 PM
VAARSUVIUS IS NEUTRAL. OotS example (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0343.html). Non-OotS example (http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2004-02-26). Both ways, people.
Continuity error: Qarr remarking that they had said V's alignment might be affected. "You may be experiencing some feedback." was the full extent of it, and it was immediately negated by "YOU are the one in control!"
Further, I submit that Vaarsuvius is well aware that it's all her. She never claimed to be Good in the first place, and leave us not forget the numerous fits of temper we've seen, as well as such premeditated acts as her efficient disposal of the younger dragon and of Kubota, the violent feud with Belkar, the repeated attempts to Disintegrate Qarr without immediate provocation, and, of course, Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion.
Familicide differs from these only in magnitude; not in kind. None of the earlier targets had threatened V's family. The ancient dragon did. That's crossing the line.
Enlong
2009-03-27, 10:00 PM
The problem with that theory is that we already know that Lee is the Yellow Fiend (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0637.html) and the Orange Fiend is the one who hung out with Devils in his youth. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0640.html)
Could be a slight problem for the whole LEe, CEdrik, NEro = LE/CE/NE theorizing. :smalltongue:
And the orange fiend is still hanging out with devils in his adulthood, what's the problem? :smallamused:
Porthos
2009-03-27, 10:01 PM
VAARSUVIUS IS NEUTRAL. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0343.htmlOotS example[/URL]. Non-OotS example (http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2004-02-26).
Continuity error: Qarr remarking that they had said V's alignment might be affected. "You may be experiencing some feedback." was the full extent of it, and it was immediately negated by "YOU are the one in control!"
Further, I submit that Vaarsuvius is well aware that it's all her. She never claimed to be Good in the first place, and leave us not forget the numerous fits of temper we've seen, as well as such premeditated acts as her efficient disposal of the younger dragon and of Kubota, the violent feud with Belkar, the repeated attempts to Disintegrate Qarr without immediate provocation, and, of course, Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion.
Familicide differs from these only in magnitude; not in kind. None of the earlier targets had threatened V's family. The ancient dragon did. That's crossing the line.
People can change alignment you know. :smallwink: It's called Alignment Drfit/Sliding in DnD parlance. As for "magnitude; not in kind", an act done in the small (punching someone) might not be evil at all but ramping up the magnitude (punching someone hard enough to kill them) might very well be.
Also, intent matters. As does actions. And let's not forget that people can delude themselves into all sorts of self-justifications when it comes to what they do. But just because one has deluded themselves into thinking that they're doing something for a decent reason, doesn't actually mean that they aren't lying to themselves about said reason.
In fact, a large portion of Start of Darkness was devoted to this very subject.
This is just Rich reinforcing the point. IMNSHO, of course. :smallbiggrin:
Trebuchet
2009-03-27, 10:11 PM
Well, I don't think the Milgram Experiment is quite the right parallel, as it is about someone following orders of a authority figure.
The Milgram Experiment might not be a perfect fit, but it is certainly appropriately evocative. After reading the comic, I was reflecting on how perfectly it could be used as an illustration in Dr. Zimbardo's book The Lucifer Effect (http://www.zimbardo.com/), about why people do evil things and how to avoid doing them.
I loved the way the fiends were able to tempt V into evil in such a straightforward way and then explain it so academically. They are true professionals, those three.
Code Black
2009-03-27, 10:15 PM
Just a thought... Can V's family understand the anything but Elven? If they can't, then it's a possibility that they don't even know what just happened, just that V killed the monster trying to kill them, revived it's head, talked to it for a while, and then killed it again.
I doubt that's the case, though, I'd bet the family reactions will be... less than inviting (I'm betting on repulsed, myself).
spooon
2009-03-27, 10:17 PM
People can change alignment you know. :smallwink: It's called Alignment Drfit/Sliding in DnD parlance. As for "magnitude; not in kind", an act done in the small (punching someone) might not be evil at all but ramping up the magnitude (punching someone hard enough to kill them) might very well be.
Also, intent matters. As does actions. And let's not forget that people can delude themselves into all sorts of self-justifications when it comes to what they do. But just because one has deluded themselves into thinking that they're doing something for a decent reason, doesn't actually mean that they aren't lying to themselves about said reason.
You seem to be missing the part where Neutral does not equal Good. I'm saying Vaarsuvius knows this act is evil and doesn't care. She wants vengeance (not justice; vengeance). She needs no self-justifications. Is my theory, anyway.
And it doesn't necessarily have to affect her alignment. Neutral does not equal Good nor Evil.
afroakuma
2009-03-27, 10:18 PM
For those who were wondering, the last panel is supposed to be confirmation that Orange is a devil.
The mascots appearing with him are the mascots for the Arizona State Sun Devils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_State_Sun_Devils) and the Duke University Blue Devils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Blue_Devils).
Self-quoted, because I think people missed it on the first go-around.
canterrain
2009-03-27, 10:19 PM
Just a thought... Can V's family understand the anything but Elven? If they can't, then it's a possibility that they don't even know what just happened, just that V killed the monster trying to kill them, revived it's head, talked to it for a while, and then killed it again.
I doubt that's the case, though, I'd bet the family reactions will be... less than inviting (I'm betting on repulsed, myself).
It appears as though Suvie's spouse addresses ABD in common on this page: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0636.html
So it's likely at least one of them did understand.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 10:19 PM
Just a thought... Can V's family understand the anything but Elven? If they can't, then it's a possibility that they don't even know what just happened, just that V killed the monster trying to kill them, revived it's head, talked to it for a while, and then killed it again.
V's mate knows Common, at the very least. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0636.html)
Undead Prince
2009-03-27, 10:20 PM
Awesome strip.
No one mentioned it, but this strip gives further proof to V's evilness and his desire to hold on to the splice: he spends six panels talking to the dragon (taunting, insulting, and gloating), instead of helping his family and generally not wasting time (which will have to be repayed to the fiends). This amount of talking would never go down as a free action, and most probably took several rounds. This, in my eyes, shows that V is 1) completely evil now, 2) does not intend to let go of the splice, so doesn't care about wasting time.
On another topic, consider this: the voices are actually V's own subconscious thoughts. They are a manifestation of his evil side. If you read again everything the voices said so far, and imagine that it's V speaking to himself inside, you'll see what I mean. The fact that the voices repeat V and themselves so often ("Your doom is here" etc.), that V and the voices agree so readily, and the things they say - the most glaring recent ones being:
V: I destroyed a quarter of the black dragon population.
Voices: They should melt the unguarded treasure and make a statue of you myself out of gratitude and fear!
V: I killed your family because you threatened my family. You brought this doom on yourself.
Voices: Yeah, that's right, you started it! well, kinda... at least, you started this part...
When V casts Familicide, the voices are all: I can't wait! This will be fun! And V is smiling.
It goes on and on.
Of course, from a purely mechanical perspective, these are the voices of the spliced souls. But I think the schizophrenic aspect of the spliced V is a very good tool to show off V's actual inner turmoil and his succumbing to his own inner evil. As the devil said, the souls can't actually change V's alignment; he's doing it all on his own.
I wonder how V's family will react to that little show...
From their initial reaction I conclude that they, especially the spouse, will not take it well.
I just hope V has the spine to say "Screw you, then".
and how long it will be until V decides to end the soul splice.
I don't believe he'll ever decide to end it himself. Too much power, and too much trouble he's already in to care about consequences. In fact the power is his only real chance to escape the consequences.
And what is up over in Greysky, in the afterlife, on the boat, in Azure city, with EVERYONE ELSE? :haley:, :belkar:, :roy:, :durkon:, :elan:, :xykon:, :mitd:, Hinjo, the theives guild, and Celia.
I don't care about that bunch of losers in the slightest. Seriously, the Thieves Guild? Celia?? Who cares!! That sideplot already took WAY too much space. And these... npcs are nothing compared to V now. More Evil Epicness, and Epic Evilness Please Mr Author, Sir!
Anyway, what does that last obscure reference mean? And what they have written on their shirts?
(already stated...) The blue guy has "DUKE 1"; Duke is both a university (in the States), and a title in DnD's Nine Hells which is just below the Lords of the Nine Hells. So this guy's #1 Duke of Hell. Which makes Orange a fiend of the same league (i.e. a Duke of Hell).
spooon
2009-03-27, 10:20 PM
Just a thought... Can V's family understand the anything but Elven? If they can't, then it's a possibility that they don't even know what just happened, just that V killed the monster trying to kill them, revived it's head, talked to it for a while, and then killed it again.
I doubt that's the case, though, I'd bet the family reactions will be... less than inviting (I'm betting on repulsed, myself).
Parent spoke to the dragon without brackets in #636 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0636.html). He always speaks to the children in brackets, though.
Once again... awesome!
I guess that ends the debate of how many dragons are left... and I was right :smallbiggrin:.
The last panel was hilarious!
Kholdstare
2009-03-27, 10:28 PM
I think V fits the Anti-Hero thing pretty well. Do bad things to achieve good things.
Or anti-villain. Not sure. However this large amount of slaughter by epic magic makes me love V a whole lot.
snafu
2009-03-27, 10:30 PM
Me, I think V is neutral. Always has been. She's been working for a broadly Good-aligned party for quite some time and she's occasionally been frustrated by it. Whenever she's had a pretext to do so, she's acted the bitch: she hated Miko from the very beginning, and demanded extra payment for spells in the service of a third party which went beyond the terms of her original deal. And she made a habit of leaving booby-traps around the place for Belkar to find, mostly just for the lulz. That's a danger sign: she spends so long playing the intellectual, the rational, the Spock - cultivating a self-image as the sane one, the brains of the operation, elevating the intellect above all these fools who favour strength or dexterity or wisdom or charisma as a solution to their troubles. But these childish tricks with Exploding Runes show that's a facade. She's capable of extremely spiteful behaviour.
Well, she had a contract with Good in the past, but that contract was with Roy and he's dead. Now she's signed a deal with Evil. And Evil have given her all the pretext she needs to indulge herself. Roy argued once that travelling with Belkar kept that little sociopath from causing real damage; well, the same goes for V. She won't kill for fun, like Belkar will - she's not Evil - but once she has decided she has reason to kill, then why should she not take great satisfaction in it?
So she's terribly susceptible to the kind of trick the fiends have pulled here. First they took away her moral certainty - offering an alternative scheme, however implausible, made her make the deal not in the confidence that it was the only way, but in doubt, wondering whether she could have done it another way. Then they offered her a moral blank cheque - do as you please, blame it on the alignment feedback. Write explosive runes on the whole world if you want to. So she goes above and beyond the call of duty and not only destroys the dragon, but all the dragon's relatives, and all _their_ relatives. Monumental overkill.
Those who have mentioned the Milgram experiment already are quite right: if you assure someone that what they do is not truly their responsibility, they can easily convince themselves to do it. More usually the feeble excuse we tell ourselves is something like 'I was only following orders', or 'If I hadn't then somebody else would have' - but 'I was under the influence of a weird energy being' works fine too. I mean, Captain Kirk got away with that excuse how many times?
Is V now evil? I don't know. Now after hundreds and hundreds of pages of Good being mostly ineffectual she has turned to Evil and found it a most efficient way of getting things done, and I think she'll like that a whole lot. She still prizes reason as the highest of all virtues, and will not descend into cackling, cartoonish supervillainy. She can still be dealt with as a rational being and is unlikely to become a terrible danger to the world at large. Even after this it will still be possible for people to do business with V.
But she may become a reasonable evil. She won't hurt you unless she needs to, but if she decides she needs you dead then you die; and her motives won't be in favour of any celestial or infernal agenda, but only for her own advancement. Amoral practicality. Think Don Corleone here. Vito, I hope. Michael, I fear.
Xorbon
2009-03-27, 10:32 PM
I don't know how much more obvious it has to get: V is now EVIL!!!
Whether you personally think V's acts are evil, it doesn't matter. It's so obvious that the Giant considers her acts to be evil, and that's all it requires. If you can't see it, I can't help you.
What'll it take to convince some of you?
V kicks a homeless person?
V disintegrates a basket full of puppies?
V tears the "Do not remove" tag from a mattress?
Qarr shows up and stands next to V while wearing an "I'm with Evil -->" T-shirt?
:smallwink:
Porthos
2009-03-27, 10:33 PM
You seem to be missing the part where Neutral does not equal Good.
I'm not missing it at all. I'm flat out saying that V's actions ever since he offed Lord Kubota have been in the NE camp. I also think V's stated reasons for doing things aren't the sole reasons, or even the main reasons. V's motivations, and least the ones I perceive, are textbook Neutral Evil.
Neutral Doesn't Equal Good, true. But as you note, Neutral Doesn't Equal Evil, either. In other words, if a person starts committing evil acts, starts to delude themselves that they are doing them for "pure" reasons, and then eventually starts grasping for the slimmest of straws to nuke from orbit 25% of a species, he is...
Ohhh, I dunno... Evil. :smallsmile:
Or to put it yet another way: Evil Doesn't Equal Mustache Twirling Cliche either (thou let's face it, V is hamming it up pretty good here). Redcloak, for all of his self-justifications, is evil. And if Redcloak is evil, then I'm putting my marker that V is as well.
V started showing the slighest of small signs of a change of outlook way back in #399. He then turned on the blinker light during the Stuck at Sea Arc. I then think he hit the gas pedal with the Kubota Incident, shot up the ramp when he demanded that Qarr initiate the Sell Soul business and fully launched Eval Keneval style when he offed 60+ dragons for no more of a reason than they might threaten him and his family one day.
And that's if you don't think, as I do, that V did this just to stick the knife in and twist it to the Ancient Black Dragon.
To put it another way, what does V have to do to establish his (perhaps temporary) Evil credentials?
Don't tell me he has to kick a dog or sumthin. Coz that's just silly. :smalltongue:
canterrain
2009-03-27, 10:34 PM
You know.
I know the alignment argument is 'important'. And needs 'resolution'.
I know the reunion family will be interesting.
I know the splice has to end.
... but I don't want any of that. I don't care -that- much if V is evil or not. Or how the family takes it. And I don't want the splice to end.
For one reason.
I want to see Xykon vs. Spliced-V.
... ... ... My mind trembles at the awesome that could be.
EDIT: But then again... maybe not. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html)
snafu
2009-03-27, 10:40 PM
Something else I notice here:
Take a look at the fiends' reaction when they see what V has done. They're clearly shocked. Or 'surprised' might be a better word, since 'shocked' implies some kind of moral disapproval.
They didn't expect V to go anywhere near that far. She's exterminated a huge slice of the black dragon population out of sheer spite. Now what I'm wondering is, are they happy?
What do they hope to get from one respectably-levelled wizard, that's worth their investment of three epic-level souls and the lives of (probably) north of a thousand evil dragons? Even if, after dropping the splice, V were to dedicate the rest of her living days to the furtherance of the cause of evil, how could this possibly end up with the fiends in profit?
Just what in hell do they have in mind for V anyway?
Porthos
2009-03-27, 10:43 PM
Just what in hell do they have in mind for V anyway?
(Spoilered, even though it's an exceedingly common theory)
The Number One theory running around right now is that the IFCC will take control of V/Use V as an Agent when he is next near a Gate and then use V to attempt to take control of said Gate. That way the IFCC has control over a "God Killing Abomination" and can, quote, alter the cosmic balance between Good and Evil (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0380.html), end quote.
Having control over the Ultimate Doomsday Device makes for a pretty powerful bargaining chip, after all. :smallwink:
Kaytara
2009-03-27, 10:47 PM
Just what in hell do they have in mind for V anyway?
To drive the point home on the above post, they never confirmed that they would only collect V's soul AFTER V died. That is, the chances are strong that they're planning to take control of Vaarsuvius while he's still alive, and yes, someplace near a Gate would indeed be critical timing.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 10:50 PM
To drive the point home on the above post, they never confirmed that they would only collect V's soul AFTER V died.
And, as you noted earlier, they lied/left out important details about a few things about the deal already.
So what's one more little Lie by Omission between friends? :smallamused:
snafu
2009-03-27, 10:52 PM
(Spoilered, even though it's an exceedingly common theory)
The Number One theory running around right now is that the IFCC will take control of V/Use V as an Agent when he is next near a Gate. That way the IFCC has control over a "God Killing Abomination" and can, quote, alter the cosmic balance between Good and Evil. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0380.html)
Having control over the Ultimate Doomsday Device makes for a pretty powerful bargaining chip, after all. :smallwink:
Yeah, I've seen that going around. Can't see how it's going to be done though.
It's a risky bet. Possess V in the middle of a fight over a Gate with Team Evil and you risk the party losing entirely and the Gate falling into Xykon's hands. That's probably not what they want.
Possess V after a victory, when the OotS have unchallenged access to a Gate, and you have V trying to do eeeeeevil deeds while surrounded by a (mostly) Good party. Again, not a sure bet.
Either is avoidable if they supercharge V as they have done at present, which gives them an easy win over pretty much anything. But if that's the plan then any old peasant would do as their super-powered epic-casting evil avatar of doom.
I imagine the long-term plan involves the Gates all right, but not so directly. They'll use V in a more subtle manner - and manipulate both the OotS and Team Evil into battle such that the Linear Guild get a clear shot on goal. Then Sabine takes control of the Gate ;-)
Undead Prince
2009-03-27, 10:54 PM
VAARSUVIUS IS NEUTRAL. OotS example (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0343.html). Non-OotS example (http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2004-02-26). Both ways, people.
Actually, DnD alignment doesn't work that way. You can't commit atrocities, then kill some evil monsters and end up with a True Neutral alignment. First, killing evil creatures just because they're evil is not a good act (at best, it's neutral), so it does not counterbalance the evil act of killing innocents. Otherwise, even Fiends would be morally good, because they slay a lot more of each other (Blood War) than of innocents and good creatures. Second, Neutral alignment means that you don't go to the extremes: you abstain from markedly evil acts (like killing innocents for personal gain), but you lack the desire to actively help the needy and do other good deeds.
V slaughtered a quarter of an entire race. That's worse than what Nazis did to Jews. Moreover, many of his victims did not have an evil alignment (most notably, half-dragons have a good chance of being non-evil, even good), and many did not commit any misdeeds (the eggs etc.).
Not only that, V gloated the whole time and took active pleasure in inflicting physical and moral suffering upon both an actual foe (ABD) and completely uninvolved strangers.
Not only that, V totally ignored the injuries of his spouse and children, preferring to spend time gloating over the Dragon.
Not only that, V made a Faustian Pact, dealed with devils, consorted with fiends - an "irredeemably evil" act, as the Fiendish Codex puts it.
Not only that, V casted Create Greater Undead which has the [evil] descriptor (and Familicide probably has [EVIL!!] in its header).
And he did some other nasty things which I don't have time to enumerate.
In short, he's done more than half of the deeds listed as EVIL ACTS in the Book of Vile Darkness. And on a planetary scale, no less.
No killing of evil dragons will ever be able to compensate for that.
Further, I submit that Vaarsuvius is well aware that it's all her. She never claimed to be Good in the first place, and leave us not forget the numerous fits of temper we've seen, as well as such premeditated acts as her efficient disposal of the younger dragon and of Kubota, the violent feud with Belkar, the repeated attempts to Disintegrate Qarr without immediate provocation...
And there were also occasions where V took the philosophically evil standpoint (even to the point of defending the halfling's logic). This all serves as a very good illustration of V's slippery slope towards an Evil alignment.
David Argall
2009-03-27, 10:59 PM
this strip gives further proof to V's evilness and his desire to hold on to the splice: he spends six panels talking to the dragon (taunting, insulting, and gloating), instead of helping his family and generally not wasting time (which will have to be repayed to the fiends). This amount of talking would never go down as a free action, and most probably took several rounds.
As has been noted many a time in drama, dramatic speeches/conversations take zero time [unless they take a lot because the plot says so]. So no, we can't assume V is taking any time at all here.
This, in my eyes, shows that V ... does not intend to let go of the splice, so doesn't care about wasting time.
As far as V [or we] knows, V will have to let go of the splice eventually. She likely has time to repair the house & family, find Haley, revive Roy, dice Xykon, and misc, but even if it is a matter of weeks [which is very unlikely], V is losing the splice, and knows it.
On another topic, consider this: the voices are actually V's own subconscious thoughts.
Not a chance. The voices of souls is just too right.
From their initial reaction I conclude that they, especially the spouse, will not take it well.
This often happens in stories, but most real people are a good deal more practical, and would welcome super-V, probably with lists of wishes to grant.
I just hope V has the spine to say "Screw you, then".
The problem is that V can use a really big screw, fatally big. It's not impossible V ends up dicing them. I would hope not, but...
Porthos
2009-03-27, 11:01 PM
Yeah, I've seen that going around. Can't see how it's going to be done though.
It's a risky bet. Possess V in the middle of a fight over a Gate with Team Evil and you risk the party losing entirely and the Gate falling into Xykon's hands. That's probably not what they want.
Possess V after a victory, when the OotS have unchallenged access to a Gate, and you have V trying to do eeeeeevil deeds while surrounded by a (mostly) Good party. Again, not a sure bet.
Either is avoidable if they supercharge V as they have done at present, which gives them an easy win over pretty much anything. But if that's the plan then any old peasant would do as their super-powered epic-casting evil avatar of doom.
I imagine the long-term plan involves the Gates all right, but not so directly. They'll use V in a more subtle manner - and manipulate both the OotS and Team Evil into battle such that the Linear Guild get a clear shot on goal. Then Sabine takes control of the Gate ;-)
Well, now we're arguing details. :smalltongue: Hence my "using V as an Agent" type musing.
However, I will point out that the Linear Guild is already actively committed to finding another Gate. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0458.html) And it is a VERY long established fan theory that Nale's/Elan's Father = Person Who Is Holding Haley's Father Captive. And said person just happens to rule a nation on the Western Continent.
And Girard's Gate also happens to be on the Western Continent.
Now the Western Continent is a pretty big place. But it isn't the biggest stretch in the world to think that the Next Major Plot Arc will revolve around these plot points.
And my personal supposition is that the major "themes" are going to be deciet, treachery, and various other clandestine diplomatic stuff. Fits right in with the LG modus opperandi, as well as thematically when one considers that Girard's Gate is protected by illusions.
Which would, when it comes right down to it, fit right in with this whole idea with V.
slayerx
2009-03-27, 11:02 PM
And the orange fiend is still hanging out with devils in his adulthood, what's the problem? :smallamused:
Because before the ICPP, Demons, Daemons and Devils did not hang out with eachother...
Ravenred
2009-03-27, 11:03 PM
Godwin alert! Godwin alert!
Seriously, though, that's one of the better comics Rich has drawn / written (along with "Azure city is off the grid"), and the reveal that V's actions spring from his own sense of morality rather than being imposed by the Soul Splice is genuinely chilling.
V is now evil, and it was his choice to be evil and to do evil.
(I really have a problem with any justification for mass killing as a solution to political problems, and my problem extends to the OOTSworld)
The big question is what Rich does with him in the medium-term aftermath. Quite frankly, I think he'll rejoin the party in his new form and continue to fight against Xykon. The Snarl isn't necessarily an alignment thing, and not too many other beings on the face of the OOTSworld have either the willingness-to-gamble-creation of Redcloak or the pure, unadulterated arrogance of Xykon.
There's a chance he'll turncoat to the other side, but unless Roy's sister is going to be subbed in as the replacement wizard for the order or an entirely new character is introduced "cold", I somewhat doubt it.
Eat your heart out, Faust.
Xorbon
2009-03-27, 11:06 PM
No one's mentioned it yet so I will. There's a typo in the 2nd last panel: similie should be simile.
Mr. Scaly
2009-03-27, 11:09 PM
Well, I'm glad that argument is definitively over.
I have a question about the three fiends there. If one is a devil and one is a demon, then what's the third? I remember they mentioned 'daemonic' but I've never heard of daemons in any source books.
Berserk Monk
2009-03-27, 11:10 PM
If the next comic is called "This is Sparta," I may have an awesome overload.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 11:14 PM
Well, I'm glad that argument is definitively over.
I have a question about the three fiends there. If one is a devil and one is a demon, then what's the third? I remember they mentioned 'daemonic' but I've never heard of daemons in any source books.
Yugoloths were called Daemons in 1e. :smallsmile:
More info @ Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoloth#Publication_history).
slayerx
2009-03-27, 11:16 PM
The big question is what Rich does with him in the medium-term aftermath. Quite frankly, I think he'll rejoin the party in his new form and continue to fight against Xykon. The Snarl isn't necessarily an alignment thing, and not too many other beings on the face of the OOTSworld have either the willingness-to-gamble-creation of Redcloak or the pure, unadulterated arrogance of Xykon.
With how much power V has, she could easily wipe out Xykon and redcloak and probably still have enough spell slots to wipe out most of the hobgoblins... Really if she was gonna rejoin the party, she'd just skip ahead and just teleport to Azure city and finish the job on her own; it would be a lot faster
no, the splice will have to end before she realizes that she has a chance to go after Xykon and end the fight against him once and for all
Iamyourking
2009-03-27, 11:19 PM
Daemons are the Neutral Evil Fiends; also called Yuguloths.
I think I should point out that V almost committed genocide; and genocide is the primary portfolio of Bael: Warlord of Avernus, Master of the First Hell, and Commander of the Infernal Vanguard; although he did it for NE rather than LE reasons
snafu
2009-03-27, 11:20 PM
Neutral alignment means that you don't go to the extremes: you abstain from markedly evil acts (like killing innocents for personal gain), but you lack the desire to actively help the needy and do other good deeds.
Of what you list, I'd say the deal with the fiends is evil - by its very nature, trafficking with fiends is an evil deed - and so is the familicide, which is the pre-emptive killing of thousands of creatures with whom V had no particular quarrel.
Gloating? That's nasty, but not an extreme evil. And V has been doing that all along. She's always been prone to taking pleasure in superiority over others. Is arrogance evil? Perhaps, but it's not in the same league as the above.
Ignoring her family's injuries is cold all right. Once she established that they were not life-threatening, she moved on. This is a D&D world, though, and V knows people who can heal those injuries in a moment - it's three shots of Cure Moderate Wounds at most. Hell, she's probably got the relevant potions on her right now. It's not as if they're going to have to spend months in hospital or the rest of their lives crippled.
She's definitely taking big steps towards evil, and I fully expect to see her continue on that path now she's seen how effective evil can be... but given that she's spent several years contracted to the service of a good adventuring party, I'm not convinced she's quite all the way there just yet.
Schaffer1979
2009-03-27, 11:21 PM
Ok, I didn't read all the posts, rather I just had to respond to one poster on the first page who seems snarkily sure that any neutral argument could be out of the running.
I'd like to reiterate that according to canon, killing a non shiny dragon, black, was already supported by lawful good characters in the storyline as a non-evil act. So, from the point of canon mechanics, V's act in killing the black dragons cannot be consigned as evil. However much you wish it, the evilness of V's actions will be decided by the authority in the storyline.
Now, from a non mechanic, non canon perspective I do consider V's motivations to be a little emotional. I would not consider him insane nor would I consider him evil.
You could say that he is overzealous and certainly driven by more than a sense of justness. He is in fact returning tenfold or more retribution that the dragon had for him.
If this were not in a game world, I would say he is too zealous on border with someone like Hitler in his drive to remove the black dragon's family. And I would consider it bad and not want it directed towards me. From the practical standpoint of wanting to eliminate an enemy and all threat, it is still an economic maneuver and were I able to pull off such an act without any consequences I would. And I do not consider myself evil.
Just cold bloodedly practical. Cold blooded and evil are not the same. Unfortunately, emotions often color our perceptions and I would say a good bit of the heated postings on this forum in relation to what is or what isn't as concerns a character is colored by the emotions and perspectives of the poster and are not objective and not always accurate.
So rather than pat anyone on the back for being right, why not wait for the story to unfold?
I consider the fact that we only have pieces of the OOTS world which makes it hard to tell whether someone has been evil or not. I actually don't consider Redcloak evil, I think he is a hero to his people. Evil and Good is wholly subjective on the mores of the people making the judgment and I don't consider our discussions very accurate to impose modern day morals on an imaginary universe in which we don't even know the whole of the world.
As we have discussed on other threads, one might just look at the deities in existence we have been shown and know that the methodology of good and evil in this world is not like our own precepts, which makes it hard to say definitely So-and-so character was good or evil.
We can't have it both ways. Either it is like our world and our rational is just and makes sense or it is not like our world and we cannot apply our rational. Personally, I think it's well established that OOTS is not like our world at all. So many of these arguments of this poster is wrong or that poster is right are all guess work.
Which I very much enjoy reading. But enough with the smugness. I will retract my statement of V's neutrality when I see something in game/in canon story to change that (such as a spell detecting him as evil or smiting evil working on him). That is the type of proof I need, not your justification but an in story reason to change my mind.
I will likely continue reading the arguments though because it amuses me and I think people have good points. I adore discussions in philosophy. And I wasn't saying anyone was right or wrong, merely that we don't have enough information to support who is right or wrong. I need more information before I change my mind.
Ravenred
2009-03-27, 11:27 PM
With how much power V has, she could easily wipe out Xykon and redcloak and probably still have enough spell slots to wipe out most of the hobgoblins...
Hence why I specified medium-term. The soul-splice is game-breakingly powerful, and the DM (er.. author) will dispel it as soon as the plot-resistance effect runs out.
Mr. Scaly
2009-03-27, 11:31 PM
Yugoloths = neutral evil fiends, check. They must get outshined by their more famous cousins or something.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 11:31 PM
I'd like to reiterate that according to canon, killing a non shiny dragon, black, was already supported by lawful good characters in the storyline as a non-evil act. So, from the point of canon mechanics, V's act in killing the black dragons cannot be consigned as evil. However much you wish it, the evilness of V's actions will be decided by the authority in the storyline.
Well, the authorities in the storyline (i.e. Mr. Burlew :smallwink:) have already said that Intent Matters. And Self-Delusion.... Doesn't. Or rather it can't be used as an excuse for one's actions.
Here are four relevant quotes from the comic that I happen to have on hand.
I have them collected because I am toying with the notion of starting a thread looking at in depth the ideas of Intent and Rationalization in regards to Alignment in the World of OotS - but if I do go ahead and post it, it won't be a few days, so I might as well post the quotes now.
"People forget how crucial it is to keep trying, even if they screw it up now and then -
- You... Well, your record is full of grey spots, but you never stop working at improving it. That's what's important. To us, anyway."
-Celestial Deva OotS #490
"A good way to get a decent person to do something horrible is to convince them that they're not responsible for their actions."
- IFCC Director, OotS #640
"True redemption demands that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds -
- That you even acknowledge that you could, in fact, be wrong. You have done none of this."
-Lord Soon, OotS #464
(and from Start of Darkness)
"And, hey, we can both pretend that you really don't have any options about any of despicable actions that I ask you to take from here or out rather than acknowledging that you do in fact have a choice-
- You'll obey me forever now, because I give you an excuse for your inexcusable behavior."
-Lord Xykon, Start of Darkness pg 108
I think these quotes show, pretty clearly to me at least, where Rich comes down on the whole Actions/Intents/Rationalizations arguments in regards to alignment. You can get away with small hits to your alignment if you are truly trying to be true to it. But if you lie to yourself or if you just say, "screw it"... Well, not so much. :smalltongue:
More later in another thread if I ever decide to actually write the blessed thing. :smallcool:
Ninjamuffin
2009-03-27, 11:32 PM
So, here's a question (That has probably been asked already).
What does the Fiends' possession of V's soul entail? Will they be able to order V around? Or will it be more of a standard lower planes visitation?
I can imagine one of them forcing V to turn on V's family the moment the soul splice wears off, just to make V's 'fall' pointless.
Red XIV
2009-03-27, 11:36 PM
So.
What.
If he did it for evil reasons, and I am convicned that he did, then it still is an evil act.
I think the rules disagree. Killing evil creatures is considered inherently good.
Hence Miko not falling despite her kill-on-Detect-Evil-no-exceptions policy, until she killed the Chaotic Good Shojo.
Otherwise Xykon would be good after all of the evil goblins he killed.:
Xykon tended to raise those evil goblins as evil zombies. And any incidental good from killing minions here and there is more than cancelled out by all the massively, unquestionably evil acts he's committed in his life (er, unlife).
Alair
2009-03-27, 11:38 PM
Yet there IS a glimmer of hope, sort of. If - when - Vaarsuvius eventually learns that there WAS no alignment feedback, he'll have to face the fact that he "had it in him" all along to do something like that.
Who's going to tell her though? The Fiends told V that lie in order to loosen her up, I'm sure they'll be just as happy to let Suvie rationalize her actions behind it to the end of her days.
Warren Dew
2009-03-27, 11:38 PM
That... was utterly sadistic. V's gone off the deep end.
What's sadistic in this comic? Sending mother dragon back to be reunited with her family? Personally, I think that's the first time I've ever seen a disintegrate used as an act of mercy.
Also V continues to say that protection of her family is his major reason for the spell.
The claim is rather dubious. Sharp boundaries to what constitutes kin don’t exist. There should still be bereaved cousins of some of the dead dragons. But the comic seems to ignore this and would have us assume that there are none left who will be interested in revenge.
Er, "the comic" doesn't ignore it, necessarily. Vaarsuvius ignores it, but Vaarsuvius could be wrong.
We could also be wrong about how kinship works with stickworld dragons.
Yeah, I don't expect V's alignment to stay Good
... especially since it likely started this arc at neutral.
To put it another way, what does V have to do to establish his (perhaps temporary) Evil credentials?
Kill an innocent gnome.
They didn't expect V to go anywhere near that far. She's exterminated a huge slice of the black dragon population out of sheer spite. Now what I'm wondering is, are they happy?
Maybe they're worried about tomorrow morning's sales presentation to Tiamat.
Kaytara
2009-03-27, 11:39 PM
In the discussion thread for V's Evil Transformation, I read someone post a rather thoughtful idea of how the loss of the golden circlet and the wild hair symbolised a release of inhibitions.
A release of inhibitions.
Almost creepy how right this turned out. Vaarsuvius is acting on urges and impulses that are coming from him, that have been in him all along and have grown like fungi on the soil of his frustration and bitterness over the course of the past few months. Earlier, he suppressed them with varying levels of success. Now, he no longer even tries to, because he believes that it is the influence of the souls, and that he cannot truly help but indulge those tendencies.
A release of all inhibitions indeed. Viva la Dark Side!
Mr. Scaly
2009-03-27, 11:45 PM
I think the rules disagree. Killing evil creatures is considered inherently good.
Hence Miko not falling despite her kill-on-Detect-Evil-no-exceptions policy, until she killed the Chaotic Good Shojo.
Xykon tended to raise those evil goblins as evil zombies. And any incidental good from killing minions here and there is more than cancelled out by all the massively, unquestionably evil acts he's committed in his life (er, unlife).
Considering Miko, let us look at who she's killed in this comic:
Samantha and Bandit Chief. She killed Samantha because the sorceress assaulted her first. Same goes for the chief.
The ogres. They'd been pillaging the area mercilessly.
Lord Shojo. Which was the end of her paladin status.
That's not very much killing there and most of it was justified, I.E. self-defence or to vanquish an actual threat. She's killed other evil creatures thus far I'm sure but since we don't know the identity or circumstances of that we can safely disregard those.
Besides, the way I see it the gods would only punish her for killing a non-monstrous creature. Start of Darkness says that many of those races were created specifically as exp mustard packets, so why should gods that are suck ****s care if their followers kill them?
Warren Dew
2009-03-27, 11:46 PM
I think the rules disagree. Killing evil creatures is considered inherently good.
There's a difference between "good" and "nonevil".
A release of all inhibitions indeed. Viva la Dark Side!
If the dark side is "release of inhibitions", I'll argue for "balance in the force". This strip's speech was much more powerful and less tedious that Vaarsuvius usually is.
Just as a devil's advocate, I'll also note that the fiends' statements are also consistent with their thinking Vaarsuvius has not turned evil, though I don't think that's the most likely interpretation.
Porthos
2009-03-27, 11:48 PM
I think the rules disagree. Killing evil creatures is considered inherently good.
Not according to any rule book I ever saw. :smalltongue:
As for Miko, one might notice that she never killed someone when she wasn't in a non-hostile situation. We liiterally have no idea if Not Yet Crazy Miko randomly went around killing every evil thing/person she saw.
Kaytara
2009-03-27, 11:51 PM
Just as a devil's advocate, I'll also note that the fiends' statements are also consistent with their thinking Vaarsuvius has not turned evil, though I don't think that's the most likely interpretation.
Since they use a simile about what "a decent person" might do while discussing Vaarsuvius, this would seem to support the idea that Vaarsuvius is not evil in normal circumstances, yes. Although we already established that since they rely on V to provide "the good, or the neutral, as the case may be" in their arrangement.
seanearlyaug
2009-03-27, 11:54 PM
OK, I should know this, but I don't...
Who are the Demon/Devil friends/fiends? They look like college mascots, but I'm drawing a blank! :smallredface:
The blue one had DUKE on its T-Shirt. Duke's mascot is the Blue Devils.
The other one had something, maybe begining with A. The
Arizona college team has Devils as mascot, using a red motif.
Sorry if this has already been said.
Sean
Jooky
2009-03-28, 01:09 AM
Am I the only one here that sees V as Chaotic Neutral? Some see her acts of late as evil, some see them as good. As far as I can tell V is doing none of them because of the alignment of the act, but is instead doing them because he/she wants to them. Vengeance on a dragon? Probably on the low end of good or upper realm of neutral. Vengeance on that dragons entire bloodline? Lower end of neutral, upper level of evil. V did not kill Kubuto out of malicious desire or intent, He/She killed him out of expedience. Some may argue that that is an evil act. I say it is neutral without the evil intent behind it. Is V edging towards the dark side of things right now? Yes, but I don't see this as an irrevocable slide with no redemption possible. V is acting as V has always acted only this time V has greater power at hir disposal. Chaotic Neutral is what I am seeing.
Dr. Cthulwho
2009-03-28, 01:22 AM
Another top strip. Am I the only one who thinks the expression on the ABD's head isn't one of sorrow (or even impotant anger), but rather "Oh Elf, this isn't over. Now I'll dedicate my afterlife to getting revenge!"
And I love Qarr and the IFCCs looks of "Well... damn. Just damn". Seems they weren't expecting such an act on V's part, but they don't look disapointed either. Never a good sign when you manage to impress those kind of higher ups.
Good to see we have a sign of what the Familicide spell will have achieved. Still a lot of angry black dragons out there (the relatives of any of those slain dragons who weren't related by blood to the ABD for example).
The cheerleader comparison also seems suitable. The evil souls can advise/ask/tell/etc V to do evil all they want, but at the end of the day V is in charge of the game, and any acts - good or evil - are down to him and him alone. If they do influence him, it is only because V chose to accept that influence and act upon it.
What if they lied about what will happen to V's soul?
They lied about the Souls may influence - so what would stop them about lying that rather than each one of them getting V's soul for the same amount of time V keeps the Soul Splice - that V is actually damn'd.
I don't know if they could go that far. Lying about the consequences of the splice on alignment would be one thing, since it wasn't really part of their contract... but the rest of it was largely based on how long V could (or would want to) maintain the splice.
[QUOTE=Warren Dew;5929371]Just as a devil's advocate, I'll also note that the fiends' statements are also consistent with their thinking Vaarsuvius has not turned evil, though I don't think that's the most likely interpretation.
It actually does sound like they are saying V is, of his own accord, acting towards a more evil alignment.
Qarr says they weren't lying about the splice affecting V's alignment, which would imply to Qarr's eyes that V is acting in a way that suggests his alignment is, well, different then non-spliced V.
The IFCC say they lied about that, and that the souls have no ability to alter V's alignment one jot. Therefore any evil or alignment shifts on V's behalf have nothing to do with the souls, they are all down to V acting of his own accord.
Which I imagine is also meant to dispel the argument "Well, V might be evil (or whatever) now, but once he is done with the splice and he expels those icky souls he'll be good old neutral V again - because it is the splice affecting his judgement/alignment".
Titanium Dragon
2009-03-28, 01:37 AM
What if they lied about what will happen to V's soul?
They lied about the Souls may influence - so what would stop them about lying that rather than each one of them getting V's soul for the same amount of time V keeps the Soul Splice - that V is actually damn'd.
Because the nature of contracts in legend is such that they are held.
The entire point of this is, very likely, to make V evil, and therefore fall under their control even apart from the contract.
Morgan Wick
2009-03-28, 01:39 AM
Probably ninja'd several times over, but... actually, before I start, I don't think Rich thought this joke through. Many MANY webcomiceers fall into the trap of making jokes that Americans and Americans ONLY will get.
In this case, I think a stumbling block to identification here even for Americans is that the one on the left has "Arizona" on the shirt, but is a reference to Arizona State and its "Sun Devils" mascot (so Orange-y is standing between a Sun Devil and a Blue Devil, which suggest he's the devil, which suggests the names don't correspond to the alignments since Yellow was identified as Lee in 637).
My bet offer to David Argall is reinstated because the revelations of this strip put SERIOUS doubt into the idea that V will relinquish the splice on his own power, if she committed quarter-genocide on her own power even if she thinks she didn't.
Scorer
2009-03-28, 01:48 AM
I knew there were still some black dragons left... however I didn't get the last panel joke :smalleek:
Porthos
2009-03-28, 01:55 AM
Probably ninja'd several times over, but... actually, before I start, I don't think Rich thought this joke through. Many MANY webcomiceers fall into the trap of making jokes that Americans and Americans ONLY will get.
But Rich has done this before, and I suspect he'll do it again (eg. his rifs on American TV Commercials).
Besides, they're both devils. That's the main joke, and funny in and of itself. Everything else is just micro-targetting. :smallamused:
And one look at the Jokes You Didn't Get (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32128&highlight=joke) thread (which really needs to be brought back, IMO) suggests that this is hardly a unique situation. :smalltongue: So if someone must know what the joke is about they can either check the forums or Google/Wiki it and find out.
Ridureyu
2009-03-28, 01:55 AM
of COURSE people are going to call V Neutral/good. Remember that when V made the "Elan, either you help me and stay out of my way or I will murder you" threat, plenty of people were sure that it wasn't a sign of evil or even chaotic activity.
Wildgeist
2009-03-28, 01:58 AM
I didn't understand the last panel as well until I read the arizona-explanation... And Im begining to understand why V hates Belkar so much... he's just like him...
Calmness
2009-03-28, 02:24 AM
V sure loves that disintegrate spell, doesn't she? She would have made a fine sorceress.
Helgraf
2009-03-28, 02:32 AM
I think the rules disagree. Killing evil creatures is considered inherently good.
No, killing evil creatures is not inherently good. It may be neccesary, it may be expedient, but it is solidly neutral.
I shall quote the often disparaged Book of Exalted Deeds. I will bold (and underline for extra emphasis in places) the parts that I feel are most relevant, but quote the whole section so you may, of course, draw your own conclusions.
"Violence is a part of the D&D world, and not inherently evil in the context of that world. The deities of good equip their heroes not just to be meek and humble servants, but to be their fists and swords, their champions in a brutal war against the forces of evil. A paladin smiting a blackguard or a blue dragon is not committing an evil act: the cause of good expects and often demands that violence be brought to bear against its enemies.
That said, there are certain limits upon the use of violence that good characters must observe. First, violence in the name of good must have just cause, which in the D&D world means primarily that it must be directed against evil. It is certainly possible for a good nation to declare war upon another good nation, but fighting in such a conflict is not a good act. In fact, even launching a war upon a nearby tribe of orcs is not neccesarily good if the attack comes without provocation - the mere existance of evil orcs is not a just cause for war against them, if the orcs have been causing no harm. A full-scale war would provoke the orcs to evil deeds and bring unneccesary suffering to both sides of the conflict. Similarly, revenge is not an acceptable cause for violence, although violence is an appropriate means of stopping further acts of ecil (as opposed to paying back evil already committed).
The second consideration is that violence should have good intentions. Launching an incursion into orc territory is not a good act if the primary motivation is profit, whether that means clearing the treasure out of the ruins the orcs inhabit or claiming their land for its natural resources. Violence against evil is acceptable when it is directed at stopping or preventing evil acts from being done.
The third consideration is one of discrimination. Violence cannot be considered good when it is delivered against noncombatants (including children and the females of at least some races and cultures). Placing a fireball so that its area includes orc women and children as well as warrior and barbarians is evil, since the noncombatant orcs are not a threat and are comparatively defenseless.
Finally, the means of violence must be as good as the intentions behind it. The use of evil spells, obviously, is not good even when the target is evil. Likewise, the use of torture or other practices that inflict undue suffering upon the victims goes beyond the pale of what can be considered good.
Within these limits, violence in the name of good is an acceptable practice in the D&D universe.
Selene
2009-03-28, 02:34 AM
"People forget how crucial it is to keep trying, even if they screw it up now and then -
- You... Well, your record is full of grey spots, but you never stop working at improving it. That's what's important. To us, anyway."
-Celestial Deva OotS #490
"A good way to get a decent person to do something horrible is to convince them that they're not responsible for their actions."
- IFCC Director, OotS #640
"True redemption demands that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds -
- That you even acknowledge that you could, in fact, be wrong. You have done none of this."
-Lord Soon, OotS #464
(and from Start of Darkness)
"And, hey, we can both pretend that you really don't have any options about any of despicable actions that I ask you to take from here or out rather than acknowledging that you do in fact have a choice-
- You'll obey me forever now, because I give you an excuse for your inexcusable behavior."
-Lord Xykon, Start of Darkness pg 108
I think these quotes show, pretty clearly to me at least, where Rich comes down on the whole Actions/Intents/Rationalizations arguments in regards to alignment. You can get away with small hits to your alignment if you are truly trying to be true to it. But if you lie to yourself or if you just say, "screw it"... Well, not so much. :smalltongue:
More later in another thread if I ever decide to actually write the blessed thing. :smallcool:
Note also, that a fiend just said that V did something horrible. I would have expected that to end the argument that V's action was good.
Am I the only one here that sees V as Chaotic Neutral? Some see her acts of late as evil, some see them as good. As far as I can tell V is doing none of them because of the alignment of the act, but is instead doing them because he/she wants to them.
Just like Belkar.
Dr. Cthulwho
2009-03-28, 02:38 AM
So, here's a question (That has probably been asked already).
What does the Fiends' possession of V's soul entail? Will they be able to order V around? Or will it be more of a standard lower planes visitation?
I can imagine one of them forcing V to turn on V's family the moment the soul splice wears off, just to make V's 'fall' pointless.
I was under the assumption it would be either:
A - They get his soul, to do with as they please, for the required amount of time when he dies
or
B - They get to call it in for the amount of time while he is alive.
I don't think, if it was the second, they be bothered with killing his family or whatever. They are positioning themselves as major masterminds with long term goals etc. I can't see them doing something as petty, or wasting their time with V's sou,l on that kind of thing.
Especially as they could almost certainly have demanded a lot more from V in return from the splice, and I'm pretty sure V would have accepted. They are definitly being subtle.
I'd like to reiterate that according to canon, killing a non shiny dragon, black, was already supported by lawful good characters in the storyline as a non-evil act. So, from the point of canon mechanics, V's act in killing the black dragons cannot be consigned as evil. However much you wish it, the evilness of V's actions will be decided by the authority in the storyline.
Ehh, I'm not sure a conversation between Roy and Miko serves to establish some sort of moral "canon" that states "A non-shiny dragon is always evil, therefore it is never evil to kill a non-shiny dragon, regardless of one's reasons for killing it. In fact, because it is never evil to kill a non-shiney dragon it can be said a person will never be evil no matter what they do to non-shiny dragons or however many they do it to, or why they are doing it to them in the first place."
Besides I'm still fairly sure at that point the primary reason for V killing the dragon is because it would have killed the OotS if given the chance, not simply because it was a black dragon.
So, from the point of canon mechanics, V's act in killing the black dragons cannot be consigned as evil. However much you wish it, the evilness of V's actions will be decided by the authority in the storyline. [...] I will retract my statement of V's neutrality when I see something in game/in canon story to change that (such as a spell detecting him as evil or smiting evil working on him).
Good Lord, it's like the OMFG BELKAR CAN'T BE EVIL debate all over again: "But as long as he keeps on holding the lead sheet how can we call him evil?" Now we will be having these threads for weeks.
He's evil. That's it. C'est tout. Fertig. Всё. Do you need it signposted? I guess even if the Giant posted in one of these threads that Vaarsuvius is indeed evil now, you guys wouldn't accept it, since it's not in game.
Hadrian_Emrys
2009-03-28, 02:56 AM
Pragmatism people, this if the third time I've said it. The "gloating" may have been malicious in it's delivery, bit it's purpose is a meta one. How the heck else was the mood to be set for that scene? Since the word go V has been doing just as he is, only without as much posturing. Again, recall his actions on the ship. He ashed the noble and let the blond twit know that there are more important things at stake than catering to his naive idealism.
Hugh Bliss
2009-03-28, 03:27 AM
Well that shut me up about V's actions not being zir own
Finzy
2009-03-28, 04:18 AM
Damn, finally couldn't resist the urge to register for good. :P
I personally don't think there's anything dramatically wrong with what V's doing now, and I can't understand how people are making such a shock of everything. Adventurers kill billions of monsters and god knows what from time to time; and heck, black dragons are EVIL - V's doing more of a favor for the entire world by destroying one of their major families.
How you do it may have some significance (soul splice), but judging by his/her actions, I'd say she's still safely neutral. Nothing wrong there, saving your family from a bloodthirsty dragon. Killing a whole bunch of evil twisted creatures in the process = more good than bad.
If that made you evil, most PCs and other heroes out there would have gone evil too a long time ago and paladins wouldn't even be a possibility.
If V say, got lost in her madness and got into a fight with her family resulting in her killing or otherwise hurting them, THEN I'd say she's switched to evil. Now she's done nothing else bad than attempting a soul splice.
iTookUrNick
2009-03-28, 04:34 AM
The last panel refers to college sports, specifically Duke Blue Devils and Arizona State Sun Devils, most likely basketball due to the comment by orange in the previous panel.
Tnx to everybody who explained the last panel reference. It would have been very hard to get 4 people outside the US.
Moving on, is there anything V should do before ending the splice? Are they going to end it?
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 05:11 AM
Even BoVDs "Killing a fiend is always good" is subject to motivations- i.e.: Not when the motive is evil- the Blood War being obvious example.
And thats the only place where "killing evil" and "always good" are combined.
Everywhere else, context matters. Evil being is directly threatening other people's lives? Killing it is OK. Evil being has refused offers to surrender? Killing it is OK (if you are attacking it with just cause and good intentions)
Eric O'Really
2009-03-28, 05:12 AM
Although - how does an undead severed dragon head fly? :smallconfused:
dint he cast telekinesis before, to free her mate from the tree? if my memory doesnt deceive me, you can hold that spell several rounds.
factotum
2009-03-28, 05:14 AM
He's evil. That's it. C'est tout. Fertig. Всё. Do you need it signposted? I guess even if the Giant posted in one of these threads that Vaarsuvius is indeed evil now, you guys wouldn't accept it, since it's not in game.
People were still insisting Belkar wasn't evil LONG after the Giant actually said he was in a forum thread. I just think most people don't understand a protagonist who isn't good or some variant of it...even anti-heroes generally have good motives. In this case, V has gone way past anti-hero actions; he's on a one-way trip to the Lower Planes when he dies even if he ends the splice now and does neutral stuff for the rest of his life!
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 05:24 AM
If V was lawful, there are ways that V wouldn't go to Nine Hells.
1: V repents, successfully resurrects all the dragons, apologizes to them (or Tiamat maybe on their behalf), does some heroic deed. This constitutes Atoning.
2: V repents, tries to atone by doing this, dies while trying, having not yet succeeded- V gets resurrected as a Hellbred, and Still has to do deeds of great heroism in order to Not go to Nine hells when V dies a second time.
If V isn't Lawful however, this doesn't apply.
This is based on Fiendish Codex 2. However not everyone uses it.
TheBST
2009-03-28, 05:26 AM
The look on Qarr and the Fiends' faces is priceless.
Reminds me a lot of the points made about the psychology of evil in Start of Darkness. Maybe there are only three types of villains- ones who know they're evil and and fully embrace it (Xykon, Nale, Kubota, Belkar); and ones who know they're doing evil but rationalize it away to mitigate themselves and avoid admitting responsibility (Redcloak, perhaps V) and ones who are ignorant of the fact that they're doing evil (Thog, Miko)
I don't think V will ever make the leap into the first category. V may do some evil things but s/he won't ever embrace it as a way of life.
So I doubt that V will turn on his family next, and if there's going to be larger consequences of his dragon genocide, I don't think they'll appear until the next time the story focuses on V. Sticking with my theory that V'll now try to tie up as many of the loose plot-threads as possible in a way that will also act as an end-of-book montage. Including making at least an attmept to combat Xykon- which will fail just to emphasise who is the real Big Bad of the story
Bastian
2009-03-28, 06:09 AM
The look on Qarr and the Fiends' faces is priceless.
I interpreted that as a 'I would have never seen that coming' or 'that far exceeds expectations'.
Qarr, which has only a partial understanding of the mechanics of the deal, immediately assumes that the sheer magnitude of V's actions had to be caused by the soul splice's feedback.
I don't thibk that even the trio expected their escamotage to induce a decent person to commit evil acts to have such consequences.
Undead Prince
2009-03-28, 06:12 AM
As has been noted many a time in drama, dramatic speeches/conversations take zero time [unless they take a lot because the plot says so]. So no, we can't assume V is taking any time at all here.
Drama?! THIS… IS… DND!!!
*ahem*
Seriously though, in DnD extensive speech takes up time. It says in the PHB (which I advise you to examine on this topic), that speech is a free action only when it involves a maximum of a few short sentences. 25 words is a good rule of thumb, as it is used to describe the limit of “simple commands” for dumb creatures, and is also used in the Sending spell. V is filling six panels with his speech balloons. On a previous occasion, roughly half that amount of speaking cost him an entire round. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0186.html)
Thus, V’s spent 1 or even 2 rounds of the “precious” splice time just to gloat over a doubly defeated opponent. Not only it shows how evil he is (gloating is in itself evil, and the fact that his spouse and kids are currently suffering from horrible injuries makes it much more so), but clearly demonstrates that V doesn’t care about spending spliced time. The fact that he pays no heed to the price he’ll have to pay means that he already decided to hold on to the splice for as long as possible.
As far as V [or we] knows, V will have to let go of the splice eventually. She likely has time to repair the house & family, find Haley, revive Roy, dice Xykon, and misc, but even if it is a matter of weeks [which is very unlikely], V is losing the splice, and knows it.
You’re totally missing the point. Of course V knows that some day he’ll lose the splice (although if he makes himself into a lich, or uses other forms of effective immortality like Magic Jar, it could last a very very long time indeed). It’s that he decided not to let go of the splice voluntarily, and therefore does not care about wasting a few rounds gloating over a vanquished foe. He does not care about his soul being in the fiends’ dominion for a longer time. Perhaps he already recognised himself as evil, and intelligent as he is, concluded that since the Lower Planes are his afterlife final destination anyway, he might as well make the most of the splice.
On another topic, consider this: the voices are actually V's own subconscious thoughts.
Not a chance. The voices of souls is just too right.
What, you didn’t care to read the next paragraph?
Of course, from a purely mechanical perspective, these are the voices of the spliced souls. But I think the schizophrenic aspect of the spliced V is a very good tool to show off V's actual inner turmoil and his succumbing to his own inner evil. As the devil said, the souls can't actually change V's alignment; he's doing it all on his own.
From the story perspective, the voices come from the souls. From the metatext perspective, the voices are a metaphore for V’s personal inner turmoil. They just happen to reflect V’s actual [evil] motives which he hides behind all the justifications.
This often happens in stories, but most real people are a good deal more practical, and would welcome super-V, probably with lists of wishes to grant.
Lists of wishes imply greed, a desire for personal gain. Mooching off an epic evil wizard implies that the moocher herself is willing to turn a blind eye to the methods by which this evil wizard might grant her the wishes. Such behaviour is proper at best for a Neutral with evil inclinations, at worst for a Neutral Evil. While the spouse may be former, s/he is almost certainly not latter.
A Good character (or a Neutral with good inclinations) who really loves V, would on the contrary attempt to “save” V from this lure of evil power. Once the situation is made clear, a Good spouse would not turn her back to V, and would not attempt to gain some personal benefit from the deal, but would rather try to show V that the pleasure he gets from being evil and having all this power is not worth the consequences for himself, his family, his friends, and the entire world. Sure, it can be used for good; but it should not be used for evil (like personal vengeance on genocide scale), and it should not be abused (like wasting spliced time on gloating).
Of course, V being much more intelligent (and much more disturbed) than his spouse will probably discard this entire line of arguments. But even in this case a Good spouse would not turn her back to him. Redemption and atonement are never quick or easy, and V would need all the support there is to get back on the Neutral path.
Personally though, I sure hope V stays evil. Consciously evil.
The problem is that V can use a really big screw, fatally big. It's not impossible V ends up dicing them. I would hope not, but...
I would hope so! Frankly, the family’s been disturbing me from their first appearance. They’re better off dead.
With how much power V has, she could easily wipe out Xykon and redcloak and probably still have enough spell slots to wipe out most of the hobgoblins... Really if she was gonna rejoin the party, she'd just skip ahead and just teleport to Azure city and finish the job on her own; it would be a lot faster
no, the splice will have to end before she realizes that she has a chance to go after Xykon and end the fight against him once and for all
V undoubtedly has already realised this. In fact, his inability to defend Azure City from Xykon and subsequently find/save Haley and Roy had been a major factor in forming his favourable disposition towards dealing with the fiends.
I suppose Haley is on V’s list of things to do right after his family, and while he’s there, he’s certain to take a shot at Xykon. His PRIDE dictates it.
There are basically three outcomes I see of this.
1) V is somehow stripped of his powers before being able to confront Xykon. As the fiends show no intention to end the splice themselves, and neither does V nor the spliced souls (all of them seem to get huge kicks from the entire deal), and no mortal has the power to stop V, this would imply Deific intervention. Either Tiamat or the Good Gods.
2) V confronts Xykon and defeats him (though not permanently; Xykon manages to escape somehow, don’t tell me he hasn’t got any contingency prepared in case of a major screwup! Although from his character, maybe he really doesn’t). After which, V becomes the antagonist, because his plans for the Gates might now be different from the Party’s. He is after CaTUAP, and all he’s got so far is a mortal version. Ascending to Godhood seems like a logical next step, and the Snarl could help in that. This is plausible from the plot metaperspective for one reason: V is constantly under the Damocles’ Sword of splice ending and/or Divine intervention/vengeance. Once V loses his powers (and perhaps his life), Xykon again assumes the throne of Main Antagonist, and we’re back to Square One.
3) V confronts Xykon and is defeated. Three things speak in favour of that: a) Xykon is far more experienced in practical implementation of magic and evil than V, and V is the one making the decisions despite advice from the evil souls; b) the souls have been shown to advise contradictory things, which lead to V being hit by the Dragon’s acid breath, for instance; c) finally, V has enormous hubris now, which has always been the Achilles’ Heel of powerful evil characters in literature. Xykon at least takes everything with a grain of salt and has, IMHO, a more realistic outlook than the drunk-with-power V. V’s defeat, though not costing him his life (he would probably have some sort of escape plan), would severely undermine his self-composition – even with all the power, he still failed! – and would cause the souls to mock him, which would eventually cause V to lose hold on the splice. Again, back to Square One.
I think these three options are more elegant and fulfilling than just ending the splice for some obscure reason. In fact, all three may be combined: V challenges Xykon and loses, escapes, regains his composition, forms a better plan (involving some wicked Epic magic), defeats Xykon, and at the Fiends’ suggestion claims control of the Gates, only to have Tiamat hit him like a ton of bricks at the last moment, or the Good Gods revoking his splice. Now that would be EPIC, and would still not preclude the Party from fulfilling their quest in a more old-fashioned way.
Gloating? That's nasty, but not an extreme evil.
Taking pleasure in gloating over defeated foes, and especially engaging in moral torment as V did to the Dragon, is listed as evil in the Book of Vile Darkness. It’s a thing villains would do (as it makes them feel more powerful). A Good or Neutral character takes no pleasure from inflicting pain and suffering, both physical and moral, on other creatures. If he does, he’s committing an evil act, and doing it constantly would lead to a possibility of alignment shift.
A raging Barbarian may start as Chaotic Good, but if he takes active pleasure in killing and causing pain, he has a good chance of eventually becoming Chaotic Neutral, and later on Chaotic Evil.
And V has been doing that all along. She's always been prone to taking pleasure in superiority over others.
Notice that V has never been previously shown smiling or laughing when eliminating opponents. He dispatched foes with ruthless efficiency, and took pride in his art, but did not show actual pleasure from killing, nor went to any extent to gloat over defeated foes.
Ignoring her family's injuries is cold all right. Once she established that they were not life-threatening, she moved on. This is a D&D world, though, and V knows people who can heal those injuries in a moment - it's three shots of Cure Moderate Wounds at most.
Ask yourself – if your children and spouse were in wracking pain from horrible injuries, and you had the means to heal them – would you do it immediately, or first take some time to gloat over someone whose entire family, and a quarter of race, you’ve killed? This shows V has “gloat” higher in his list of priorities than “relieve children from horrible pain”. IMHO, that’s undeniably, glaringly evil.
but given that she's spent several years contracted to the service of a good adventuring party, I'm not convinced she's quite all the way there just yet.
During all these years, V’s been walking a thin line between good and evil. Very often his advice and actions were starkily not Good, and sometimes he even supported an Evil solution. Killing the surrendered Kubota and denying him the possibility of resurrection was so close to Evil I’d say it was over the line – and at the same time completely in tune with V’s entire character development. No, V’s been showing signs of turning towards evil for a long time, and now it’s culminated in an actual alignment shift.
Sure, his adventuring might count for something. But he committed so many evil acts in the past few strips, and on such a magnitude, that there’s no way he could remain Neutral. Remember, for Miko it took a single murder of an innocent to lose all her paladin powers. V has just murdered countless innocents. That he also killed many evil creatures in the process does not absolve him or neutralize his evil acts. “Ends justify means” is an Evil principle in DnD (just like it is in real life), and V actually took pleasure from the means, which further exacerbates the situation.
He’s evil all right.
I'd like to reiterate that according to canon, killing a non shiny dragon, black, was already supported by lawful good characters in the storyline as a non-evil act. So, from the point of canon mechanics, V's act in killing the black dragons cannot be consigned as evil.
He killed an unknown (but probably just as immense) number of half-dragons, who can equally well be non-evil, and even good. This is the real catch, which firmly enshrines V as Evil with a capital E.
And seriously, before discussing “canon mechanics” of alignment in a DnD-based comic, it would be beneficial to read the relevant sections of the PHB, BoED and BoVD (the books that directly deal with good and evil in DnD).
Now, from a non mechanic, non canon perspective I do consider V's motivations to be a little emotional. I would not consider him insane nor would I consider him evil.
SO you consider it okay to wipe out a quarter of an entire race just because one member of that race picked up a fight with you? There was this one guy, had all sorts of justifications for racial genocide, even wrote a book. Didn’t work out all that well for him in the end, though. Some people call him evil. But maybe he was just “a little emotional”?
You could say that he is overzealous and certainly driven by more than a sense of justness. He is in fact returning tenfold or more retribution that the dragon had for him.
Yep, that’s evil both in and outside DnD alignment canon.
If this were not in a game world, I would say he is too zealous on border with someone like Hitler in his drive to remove the black dragon's family. And I would consider it bad and not want it directed towards me. From the practical standpoint of wanting to eliminate an enemy and all threat, it is still an economic maneuver and were I able to pull off such an act without any consequences I would. And I do not consider myself evil.
Wow, that’s weird. You admit the act is on border with what Mr H did (and let that be the last reference to him here), yet you would still do it yourself, and would not consider yourself evil? I’d say your alignment meter is way screwed up. V just earned himself a whole bunch of Meganazis, and you’re writing it off as being “an economic maneuver”?
Oh, and there are always consequences to being evil. Like, after you die, you end up a lemure at the Lower Planes. Which is, let’s be frank, a very sucky way to spend Eternity.
Also, I have a suggestion. Let's leave real-world politics and religions out of the discussion. Frowned upon by the management.
Alair
2009-03-28, 06:35 AM
And I do not consider myself evil.
Do you suppose that genuinely evil people do?
Look, this is bloody silly. The mama dragon was being quite cold bloodedly evil when she decided that the best way to hurt Varsuvius was to murder his family and rub his face in it. This act does not become any more virtuous when it's Varsuvious doing THE EXACT SAME THING back to the dragon, he's just being less honest about his motivations ("I'm protecting my family").
motub
2009-03-28, 06:35 AM
What if they lied about what will happen to V's soul?
They lied about the Souls may influence - so what would stop them about lying that rather than each one of them getting V's soul for the same amount of time V keeps the Soul Splice - that V is actually damn'd.
Because they didn't have to lie about that, for two reasons.
Firstly, I think that it's clear that the fiends, who have at this point admitted to lying/dissembling on two points-- the fact that V was "just another customer" (revealed as a lie by the alternate "save the family" plan, which revealed that they had been watching V and hir compatriots, but V didn't notice this because shi was tired and panicked), and now, that "alignment feedback" would/could be responsible for V's actions rather than V hirself-- don't actually lie about issues germane to the meat of the contract. The meat of the contract is that three souls would be spliced to V's, shi would acquire their skills/power, that V would be in control of what shi did while the splice was active, that V could reject/lose control of the splice, which would end the splice, and that V would "pay" with 3 times the soul time the splice was "attached" to V.
I'm sure all of this was true, because secondly, there's no profit in lying about any of that, since it would a) invalidate the contract to have lied about its main terms, and b) being discovered in a lie threatens that V would then end the splice (or not have taken it in the first place).
All the fiends have to do is "encourage" V to hold onto the splice as long as possible, and hope that the splices will encourage hir to dare to do something (or several somethings) on hir own account that damns hir on hir own account (in which case, they've got hir for the time in the splice either before or after shi dies under the contract, plus forever after shi dies under the "regular rules" :) ).
Oh, they are clever.... they have misled hir, but not about anything essential, and the deceptions are fairly easy to spot if you paid attention (which is always a good thing to do when dealing with fiends). I mean, "now that I think about it" (famous last words), what the heck is "alignment feedback" supposed to be, anyway? It doesn't even make sense, and if you thought about it for a minute, you'd realize that as well.
I think the cheerleader metaphor is very appropriate. After all, what does a cheerleader do? Seriously-- if you think about it, what is the point of having scantily-dressed non-players doing acrobatic stunts and dance passes while chanting encouraging slogans to the actual players and audience? Really... what is that supposed to do to change the outcome of the game? Well, logically, nothing... unless the players believe it does, and push themselves to greater performance based on the cheerleaders' actions.
Which "feedback" (either audience feedback, the feedback and synergy that can exist between musicians "jamming" together, or similar occurrences) does certainly exist, but ... if you think about it... at any time that you have been "pushed to greater heights" (or have sunk to lower depths) because of such feedback, you rose to those heights (or sank to those depths) yourself; the "feedback" didn't do the achievement for you. The feedback didn't even "make you do it". You used the feedback as a tool to do something that you wanted to do successfully but didn't believe you could before the feedback encouraged you to success.
And we all fell for it. "Alignment feedback," lol.
Gotta say that panel 7 made me roar with laughter--- loved the visual representation of the "1d4 stun effect" that so many of us experienced last strip. Apparently even the fiends were surprised by the revelation that V did not simply "fall" due to their misdirection, but rather jumped with ravening glee into the abyss.
You know shi's never going to (willingly) give up the splice now. Shi can't give it up, because, overtly, there could well be further "threats to the family"; a) in the form of non-familial dragons, which made me laugh as well, since V hirself has adopted children, so you'd think shi'd have thought of that as a possible "revenge vector". Suppose "unrelated-to-the-MBD" dragon B was killed in the course of the usual play of events with unhatched eggs (or hatchlings) and "related-to-the- MBD" dragon A adopted them and raised them as her/his own. Then Dragon A gets trashed by Familicide, but the adopted kids not, because they aren't related to Dragon A by blood, so they are free to avenge Dragon A should they so choose; b) in the form of other species of dragon, Tiamat, or other species/gods/individuals entirely who are disturbed by the existence of someone with such power and attempt their own "pre-emptive strike"; or c) wannabe "spellslingers" who want to challenge V for the position of "top dog" (or want to eliminate the competition, as it were). We'll just ignore that all these threats are likely to target V hirself, and not hir family, though admittedly targeting the family is a good way to "call V out". Covertly, it's hir only excuse for hir behaviour, and if shi gave it up, shi'd have to "account for hirself", which shi is not really ready to do.
No, V ain't ready to pay the piper yet, and shi sure ain't ready to drop down to "low-octane" evil, since if shi gives up the splice, shi'll still have the same urges to decimate stuff, but won't be able to without the splice's power (and that would just blow chunks, to be honest).
Somebody is going to have to slap hir silly before shi wakes up and smells the (burning) coffee, but who that's going to be is anybody's guess. I think shi may just shrug off the family's attempts (shi knows best, after all, and they are just commoners who can't understand the forces in play). I wonder if Xykon is clever enough to spin a plausible recruitment scenario and get hir working for Team Evil of hir own free will.
Undead Prince
2009-03-28, 06:42 AM
Do you suppose that genuinely evil people do?
Look, this is bloody silly. The mama dragon was being quite cold bloodedly evil when she decided that the best way to hurt Varsuvius was to murder his family and rub his face in it. This act does not become any more virtuous when it's Varsuvious doing THE EXACT SAME THING back to the dragon, he's just being less honest about his motivations ("I'm protecting my family").
Not the exact same thing. ABD wanted to kill three innocents. V killed an unknown number of innocents, but possibly in the hundreds or even thousands (1/4 of all half-black-dragons of the planet, at least half of which won't be evil judging from the Half-Dragon MM entry), plus babies and unborn children of black dragons, which although inherently evil, were innocent in the sense that they never actually committed anything wrong (and if they were the brood of a Good or Neutral Black Dragon, which can happen, they would most likely be brought up as Good or Neutral, as well).
What ABD was trying to do, was personal vengeance against a family of four (which was evil). What V did, was a conscious act of indiscriminate mass murder of innocents (which was Very Evil).
Antacid
2009-03-28, 06:54 AM
In this case, V has gone way past anti-hero actions; he's on a one-way trip to the Lower Planes when he dies even if he ends the splice now and does neutral stuff for the rest of his life!
Fwiw, by the technical trope definition whether V is anti-hero or anti-villain depends on whether he winds up with goals antagonistic to the designated heroes, that is Roy and the rest of the non-evil OotS. Until we find out how the last few strips have affected his relationship with the main arc of the story, he's an anti-hero by default.
Of course, that could easily wind up happening: one theory has V being either being manipulated or dominated, post-splice, into seeking control of the Snarl as a super-weapon. The post-splice manipulation may have already begun: for all we know the IFCC gave Ms Bloodsoak's soul orders to provide a spell that would draw Tiamat's wrath so that V would be forced to pursue the Snarl out of the continued need to protect his family from further reprisals, with no pre-mortem control of V's soul being necessary.
What's certain is that the splice will not allow V to break the plot. Some form of antagonism will arise that creates a long-term goal with meaningful obstacles for him either before or after the splice ends. Though Tiamat isn't about to appear physically on Earth, it's appropriate that if V has near God-like levels of power he would be forced to deal with a God that now wants to kill him.
Re. "But how will anyone know the dragons are dead for a long time?" - the visible-from-space pink lightning ought to take care of that. I'd be surprised if (e.g.) V's apparently epic-level master hasn't noticed. The potential for unfortunate misunderstandings re. his black robes and who exactly broke his children's legs means that hilarity will almost definitely ensue.
motub
2009-03-28, 07:01 AM
I agree with you, Kaytara, that was a masterstroke. And indeed, it is only by an individual's acceptance of his own 'dark' side (in the broader meaning of unaccepted, unrecognised, not merely 'evil'), the chance for trascendance may exist.
Now, this is interesting... you're right, of course, but the possibility of transcendence means that, although V may have said the "four words, V has not yet attained "ultimate arcane power" (which I would expect to be a result of transcending this evil power (to good in some way) and then balancing back to Neutral).
While I hate to reopen the "four words" debate again-- since it's also quite possible that those were the four words, which began the much-longer-than-we-expected process of plumbing the depths, then scaling the heights, then balancing back to Neutral (and Ultimate, since Ultimate "must be" the ability to balance the lowest and the highest appropriately)-- I have to concede that what we've got now w.r.t. the four words may be a red herring (albeit a really good red herring). Once the possibility of transcendence comes under consideration, what the fiends have provided is just "a heck of a lot of (evil) power", but not "Ultimate" by any stretch of the imagination, unless you're fairly small-minded (think BIG, V! Keep pushing! This (hopefully) brief foray into evil is only a minor setback in your quest! Keep pushing!).
LuisDantas
2009-03-28, 07:06 AM
If that made you evil, most PCs and other heroes out there would have gone evil too a long time ago and paladins wouldn't even be a possibility.
Nope. The 60+ Dragons slaughtered never even knew what it them. They had no chance to surrender or flee. There is no evidence at all about the alignment or deeds of any of them except maybe three (the first one was engaged in combat with a party, for instance).
To claim that probably "most if not all deserved it" is wrong in so many ways that it is not even funny.
If V say, got lost in her madness and got into a fight with her family resulting in her killing or otherwise hurting them, THEN I'd say she's switched to evil. Now she's done nothing else bad than attempting a soul splice.
Oh boy. Anyway, surely you notice that V is quite guaranteed to have hurt at least the feelings and trust of his family by now?
derfenrirwolv
2009-03-28, 07:06 AM
Marching into their caves, killing them and then looting their treasure is still considered a "just and necessary" even by the most uptight paladin. Massacring them wholesale to protect your family can't be too far off.
The difference is one of care, investigation, and due diligence.
A paladin walking through an area inhabited by a black dragon and confronting it is going to learn something about it. Is it marauding the area? Is it ravaging caravans, burning down villages? Is the dragon in fact, minding its own business sipping tea and crumpets and amassing a perfectly legal fortune by overseeing an overworld/underdark import export business? OR is it that one in a million exception? Does it immediately kill intruders or does it invite people to chat?
V did none of that. He didn't CARE. Sure, he didn't want any members of the black dragon's family coming after HIS family, but he recklessly nuked dragons and half dragons without looking.
“Evil” implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
The bold section is what V did here. He killed without qualms, without the possibility that his nuke would hit an innocent creature, black dragon or half dragon. The ACT was certainly evil, i don't know if on its own enough to push his alignment over, but shocking 4 beings of evil incarnate can NOT be a good sign
dagaarn
2009-03-28, 07:12 AM
the simplest way to put it seems to be that V broke. completely.
i don't know how Rich is gonna fit him back in if the Stick ever regroup.
i guess he can always just hang with Belkar.
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 07:14 AM
D&D does "dragons integrating with society" quite a lot- even if the integration tends to be in a somewhat evil way- such as a black dragon crimelord disguised as a human, in Draconomicon. Faerun- several dragons in Waterdeep. Dragon Magic sourcebook. Etc.
Acts of great massacre for bad reasons are pretty typical of "instant alignment change" Both 2nd and 3rd editions say alignment change is usually slow, but allow for exceptions. 2nd ed example in PHB- paladin burns village full of people to contain plague outbreak. PHB said "instant fall and change to NE or CE alignment."
Roy yells at the paladin in Origin of PCs for exactly the same reason
Roy: "I may kill creatures in the survice of a higher duty, or in self-defence, but I refuse to kill creatures simply because its more convenient than talking to them"
Antacid
2009-03-28, 07:14 AM
The ACT was certainly evil, i don't know if on its own enough to push his alignment over, but shocking 4 being of evil incarnate can NOT be a good sign
Qarr was shocked, but I don't know if we can assume the same about the IFCC. The "circular glowing eyes shrouded in darkness" shape is identical to how the Creature In The Darkness has been drawn from Its first appearance in strip 23. I interpret it as the fiends just vegging out, attentively watching the television, without their usual fiendish expressions of ZOMG EVILZ.
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 07:15 AM
Same convention applies to Xykon- 99% of the time, its the "Fiendish eyes" 1% of the time when really surprised, its circular, "wide eyes"
(Note- the earliest pics show MitD with fiendish eyes- then switched to plain ones, unless its angry- yelling "STOP!" at Haley and Belkar when they try to leave.)
Antacid
2009-03-28, 07:21 AM
Same convention applies to Xykon- 99% of the time, its the "Fiendish eyes" 1% of the time when really surprised, its circular, "wide eyes"
(Note- the earliest pics show MitD with fiendish eyes- then switched to plain ones, unless its angry- yelling "STOP!" at Haley and Belkar when they try to leave.)
Except that Xykon's eye sockets change shape, not his eyes. MitD's are only fiendish when wearing Its Evil face as you say. Every other character in the strip has small oval/large oval eyes similar to the IFCC in panel 7 as their default non-emotive expression.
LuisDantas
2009-03-28, 07:24 AM
Maybe there are only three types of villains- ones who know they're evil and and fully embrace it (Xykon, Nale, Kubota, Belkar);
Belkar does not belong in that list. He seems himself as some sort of hero - actually, as a S.S. God of War.
and ones who know they're doing evil but rationalize it away to mitigate themselves and avoid admitting responsibility (Redcloak, perhaps V)
Once one is sufficiently skilled at rationalizing, ignorance about one's own evil ways results. That is V's current state, quite unlike Redcloak. That is also arguably (and very convincingly IMO) Miko's state before she snapped.
and ones who are ignorant of the fact that they're doing evil (Thog, Miko)
And quite properly Belkar.
Nor do I see how Miko quite fits here either, although she sure tried hard to join this group, to the point of claiming so out aloud after going insane.
V is arguably grasping at his last straws of remaining here as well. His sadism has very nearly kicked him decisively away from this group, however.
Trouble is: true ignorance excludes evil, because evil implies the possibility of recognizing the consequences of one's acts.
Without at least a fighting chance of attaining such understanding, one may be dangerous to the level of deserving to be killed on sight. But not truly evil.
In practice, Evil is akin to an unholy blend of stubborness with dumb refusal to learn from one's experiences. It can by definition be reversed and overcome. In fact, it is meant to, since also by definition Evil eventually destroys its own means of sustainance.
I don't think V will ever make the leap into the first category. V may do some evil things but s/he won't ever embrace it as a way of life.
Actually, he's a very short step away from doing exactly that. His hubris became his downfall.
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 07:25 AM
Artistic licence for the eye sockets- the point is, for Xykon, and the IFCC (and possibly V, now), the "fiendish eyes" represent normal expression.
on acts: "That was an evil act???" is a bit different from: "My cause is just, so my acts are justified"
Alignment, however, using D&D rules, tends to focus more on the acts than why they were done. A person who genuinely believes they are doing the right thing, can still be Evil- by Champions of Ruin description.
And the Atonement spell also mentions "acts committed in ignorance" sugesting that while ignorance is a mitigating factor, its not a complete defense. Thog is both ignorant and Evil.
Antacid
2009-03-28, 07:43 AM
Artistic licence for the eye sockets- the point is, for Xykon, and the IFCC (and possibly V, now), the "fiendish eyes" represent normal expression.
It's not a debate I'm really interested in having, and I feel pedantic just pointing this out... but given that the very next panels have them explaining how they deliberately set up the situation so that V would behave as evily as possible, and given that they're all immortal arch-fiend embodiments of Evil, I just don't think it's credible that they were "shocked" exactly, which was the interpretation of derfenrirwolv who I was originally replying to.
snafu
2009-03-28, 07:45 AM
Sure, his adventuring might count for something. But he committed so many evil acts in the past few strips, and on such a magnitude, that there’s no way he could remain Neutral. Remember, for Miko it took a single murder of an innocent to lose all her paladin powers. V has just murdered countless innocents. That he also killed many evil creatures in the process does not absolve him or neutralize his evil acts.
Remember also that Miko was a paladin - they're supposed to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. Other people don't have a clearly-defined fall: there's no alignment requirement for 'Wizard'. I agree that V's recent acts have been evil, but I'm not certain about the degree. She had a very rightful quarrel with at least her target dragon, enough that the manner in which she took vengeance is quite understandable. If an enemy had threatened me in that manner and I had later vanquished them, I imagine I'd gloat a bit too. Though I hope I'd have the sense to wait until the enemy was an undead severed head entirely in my power before I began talking: monologuing in the middle of a battle that could still go either way is the mark of an amateur.
Going beyond the one dragon with whom she had a quarrel and exterminating a large fraction of the species, that's... well, evil yes, it's a huge and quite unnecessary slaughter, but my reaction is more that it's incredibly reckless. I'm not racist but they were black dragons, and you know what they're like. Thoroughly evil villains more often than not. World's better off without 'em if you ask me. Killing off that many, though... the knock-on effects are going to be enormous. There'll probably be wars over the suddenly-unguarded hoards, all over the world. Remember what triggered the Battle of Five Armies. I'd say the chaotic aspect of that act is far greater than the evil, because I'm pretty sure V has hardly thought through the implications at all.
I'm waiting for the next few comics before I agree that V is in fact now an evil character, as opposed to being a neutral character who happens to currently be doing evil (just as through most of the story she was a neutral character who happened to be doing good). What I'm waiting to see is what she does next. Her stated mission objectives for her use of this power were: kill dragon, save family. She didn't ever consider making deals with devils in order to gain the power to find Haley or to defeat Xykon, only to save her family. Now that mission is accomplished.
If she now drops the splice (I'll allow her to maintain it long enough to teleport the whole group to a suitable place of healing if necessary) then I'll maintain that she remains Neutral. Dealing with evil forces and doing evil acts in the process will no more have changed that than dealing with good forces and doing good V acts did back when she was, say, defending a city of paladins from a lich out for world domination. Neutral goes both ways (that is so hot).
If however she seizes the opportunity evil provides her and maintains the splice, and goes after Haley or Xykon, using the evil power in furtherance of her other quest goals, then that reflects a deeper change in her nature. She will no longer be using evil power to resolve a sudden and overwhelming crisis: she'll be using it to solve her main quests, which before now she would have aimed to complete herself. That's something to which the old V would never have stooped, and that's the indicator I'm looking for to say that not only has V just racked up a whole lot of minuses on the moral scorecard, but that her nature has actually changed such that she no longer cares about that. And - if we consider alignment as measuring something in the nature of a character, rather than being the sum of all their accumulated brownie points and demerits - that's the important thing in deciding whether she's now evil.
For me the strongest indicator that she may now be evil isn't that she just exterminated a large number of dragons. It's that after doing so, she didn't mind being called a monster for it. What was her response to that? Something along the lines of 'NO U!'? Nothing of the sort: 'We are all in the monster manual somewhere.' That shows a dangerous lack of concern for moral considerations. An acceptance of the role of monster, and a disregard for the opinion of anyone who thinks it of her. That's the strongest sign of a real change in V.
Well, in the absence of anyone around with a detect evil spell, anyway.
the_tick_rules
2009-03-28, 07:48 AM
so now I guess we have to call it D¬hing.
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 07:56 AM
nah, 3/4 of the black dragon population (if V is right) are still there. And all the other species.
on the fiends expression (limited as it is with just the eyes) I'm inclided to go with it being a "Wow" moment, and it being a break from their normal expressions, just as Xykon can change expression for a range of reasons, but its always something major.
If the fiends can and did lie to V, then V had no chance whatsofreakingever in this whole deal and was completely railroaded from the point of ABD's appearance (his only option being abandoning his family). Also, voices in the head and instant access to memories of three evil spellcasters don't count as alignment feedback? Huh.
BlueWizard
2009-03-28, 07:58 AM
Vaarsuvius wins the most evil in the party award over Belkar now.
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 07:59 AM
There is a difference between outright lies, and merely being misleading. They lied about him being "just the latest soul" but that doesn't affect the deal, and:
"you may be experiencing alignment feedback" isn't the same as "you are experiencing alignment feedback"
If anything, the fiends statement confirms they have been telling the absolute truth about V being in control- which was one of the reasons V accepted the deal in the first place.
Bastian
2009-03-28, 08:01 AM
Now, this is interesting... you're right, of course, but the possibility of transcendence means that, although V may have said the "four words, V has not yet attained "ultimate arcane power" (which I would expect to be a result of transcending this evil power (to good in some way) and then balancing back to Neutral).
While I hate to reopen the "four words" debate again-- since it's also quite possible that those were the four words, which began the much-longer-than-we-expected process of plumbing the depths, then scaling the heights, then balancing back to Neutral (and Ultimate, since Ultimate "must be" the ability to balance the lowest and the highest appropriately)-- I have to concede that what we've got now w.r.t. the four words may be a red herring (albeit a really good red herring). Once the possibility of transcendence comes under consideration, what the fiends have provided is just "a heck of a lot of (evil) power", but not "Ultimate" by any stretch of the imagination, unless you're fairly small-minded (think BIG, V! Keep pushing! This (hopefully) brief foray into evil is only a minor setback in your quest! Keep pushing!).
Although I cannot speak for everyone, nor know better than the Giant, V's current level of power is not what I would - personally - consider as 'ultimate'. It is merely a crutch, a three-legged one, but still a crutch. V's power is hetero-reliant, not self-reliant. It does not come after years of training, study and discipline (which is, according to V's words, what being a wizard is about (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0127.html)). In your own words, a very good red herring indeed.
factotum
2009-03-28, 08:16 AM
Although I cannot speak for everyone, nor know better than the Giant, V's current level of power is not what I would - personally - consider as 'ultimate'. It is merely a crutch, a three-legged one, but still a crutch.
I'm really not sure why the SOURCE of the power makes any difference to how ultimate it is. V is in complete control of the soul splice and thus the power granted by the other three souls is entirely his to use as he wills; by any definition that matters I think he's got ultimate arcane power NOW.
I mean, the comic where he accepted the soul splice was actually CALLED "The Four Words"...short of Voice of God that's about as close as you're going to get to confirmation that this is all the resolution of V's prophecy!
Bastian
2009-03-28, 08:23 AM
Once one is sufficiently skilled at rationalizing, ignorance about one's own evil ways results. That is V's current state, quite unlike Redcloak. That is also arguably (and very convincingly IMO) Miko's state before she snapped.
...
Trouble is: true ignorance excludes evil, because evil implies the possibility of recognizing the consequences of one's acts.
...
In practice, Evil is akin to an unholy blend of stubborness with dumb refusal to learn from one's experiences. It can by definition be reversed and overcome. In fact, it is meant to, since also by definition Evil eventually destroys its own means of sustainance.
...
Actually, he's a very short step away from doing exactly that. His hubris became his downfall.
Excellent points Luis, you have touched a crucial issue.
Indeed many western philosophers as well as several prominent eastern religions identify in unawareness or ignorance the root of evil actions. In this view mankind is not evil per se, only unaware. Some have come to the extent of saying that a human being is uncapable to commit evil acts in full awareness.
Many criminals do indeed see themselves as justified victims and not as wrongdoers. And at the basis of many legal systems relies on the concept of 'not guilty by reasons of incapacity', i.e. 'mental incompetence'.
And here comes rationalization as a defence mechanism. V and Redcloack should not feel the need to put so much effort in rationalizing if they didn't know, at least on a subconscious level, that their motives were not so pure. Refusal to learn, refusal to accept.
V's greatest nemesis is really V's hubris, V's ego. V's unability to recognize weakness, limitations, frailty, to admit the need for help.
jafar
2009-03-28, 08:29 AM
Something else I notice here:
Take a look at the fiends' reaction when they see what V has done. They're clearly shocked. Or 'surprised' might be a better word, since 'shocked' implies some kind of moral disapproval.
I would described this more as "pleased" and "pleasantly surprised"! It is clear to me they expected V to go way too far, but the list of possible routes to this magical end was probably amazing given the ability to draw upon 3 spliced wizards. What a show!
They didn't expect V to go anywhere near that far. She's exterminated a huge slice of the black dragon population out of sheer spite. Now what I'm wondering is, are they happy?
Happy? Happy??? How about a bunch of maniacal fiendish laughter to answer your question. They just scored an evil hole in one in the US Open (US standing for "Ultimate Sin")! This result is way more scary and interesting than just a warping of a single powerful spell-caster (who will make a very nice/powerful fiend in the afterlife). This may just blow open the whole Blood War. Remember the ultimate goal of these guys?
Are there any other ex- or current Planescape players out there who know what I'm talking about? These three have proven they can work together effectively to great evil purpose. Now they can sell this to the big boys. If they can band the fiendish hordes together, they can swarm the upper planes and end the nice afterlife for EVERYONE! Including Roy's nice family up there. Maybe V's departed soul can lead a fiendish division into the 7 heavens.
What do they hope to get from one respectably-levelled wizard, that's worth their investment of three epic-level souls and the lives of (probably) north of a thousand evil dragons? Even if, after dropping the splice, V were to dedicate the rest of her living days to the furtherance of the cause of evil, how could this possibly end up with the fiends in profit?
Read a few cartoons back. The fiends made their intentions quite clear. V was too blind with fear, too selfish to figure it out.
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 08:32 AM
since genuine ignorance is on a par with mind control as a "act was evil- you fall" justification in the atonement spell description,
I'd say, that most of the time, a person whose evil deeds were done completely out of ignorance won't change alignment- if, on discovering said consequences, their immediate response is- try and fix the damage. Shrugging and saying "I didn't know at the time, so I don't need to fix it" is mark of a non-good person.
Adeptus
2009-03-28, 08:41 AM
I LOVE IT!
Richard is a genius. I didn't expect this, as the D&D alignment system tends to dilute moral and ethical themes into things labeled with "good" or "evil" in various shades.
But this! This is brilliant, and exactly how the best GM's (I don't play D&D mind you) I know would handle it. Varsuuvius thinks he's controlled and influenced by the hell souls, but actually they are just giving him suggestions (which he full well knows to originate from literally damned, evil bastards). Varsuuvius has near unlimited power, and what he chooses to do with it seems very believable.
Humans (and elves) in righteous(?) anger are capable of really nasty and brutal deeds. This is an awesome strip :smallcool:
jafar
2009-03-28, 08:41 AM
This discussion about whether V is an "evil character" is really quite besides the point. In fact, otherwise good people can often do very evil things. 40 million Germans followed Hitler, but were they all evil to the core? European colonists in America enslaved a good portion of Africa. Were they all evil?
I have no doubt that V's acts were evil, but that does not make V evil for all time (necessarily). Certainly there are evil characters, without a shred of decency or humanity (elvinity..hobbity?) like Belkar and Xykon. But V is not one of these. Just check out V's love for her family.
What really counts now is the possibility of redemption, repentance, and perhaps undoing the evil that V has unwittingly wrought on the Multiverse. V just helped unite the fiends, an act that could unleash the destruction of the Upper planes. Goodbye Heaven! This may even be bigger than the Gate plot in the end. :smallfrown:
Remember: Even Darth Vader was redeemed in the end, and he was a genocidal maniac.
hamishspence
2009-03-28, 08:45 AM
thing is, D&D sourcebooks make a distinction between "evil" and "No redeeming features"
Savage Species: Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas, as it were.
Champions of Ruin: Evil beings can have been driven to evil, believing they are doing the right thing, etc.
BoVD: the Naive villain, who lies to himself
BoED: heavily about redemption
Heroes of Horror- virtually devoted to the antihero.
Balgus
2009-03-28, 08:47 AM
OK, I should know this, but I don't...
Who are the Demon/Devil friends/fiends? They look like college mascots, but I'm drawing a blank! :smallredface:March madness - that's why he mentions he thinks of college this time of year. The one on the left is Arizona Sundevils and the right is Duke's Blue devils.
Bastian
2009-03-28, 08:56 AM
I'm really not sure why the SOURCE of the power makes any difference to how ultimate it is. V is in complete control of the soul splice and thus the power granted by the other three souls is entirely his to use as he wills; by any definition that matters I think he's got ultimate arcane power NOW.
I mean, the comic where he accepted the soul splice was actually CALLED "The Four Words"...short of Voice of God that's about as close as you're going to get to confirmation that this is all the resolution of V's prophecy!
Granted, in the OotS world, V's power can be safely assumed as 'ultimate' as I doubt that no mortal could wield that sort of power. So, yes, in practical terms, the SOURCE of the power is not relevant.
From another persective, which I have stressed to be highly personal and debatable, the SOURCE does matter because it is subjected to external aid, time limitations, and the sheer amount of willpower necessary to control it. Willpower that is destined to run out eventually in the Fiend's word. And power is nothing without control. Ultime arcane power is no exception.
Now, I was far from discarding the Voice of God.
Allow me to better explain what I meant in my personal perspective with an example: in many martial arts, especially those that point to a 'way', a 'do', the gradual phisical training is always coupled with a mental one. In the most strict dojos, belts and ranks are not awarded to the students who haven't matured a certain attitude. Or simply are not taught at all.
Translated into the real of magic, what happened is paramount to give a teenager with unresolves issues carte blanche to do whatever he/she pleases and suffer no consequences at all. The Fiends have given V the means to overcome his limitations (without V raising a finger, without V recognizing his limits, his potential for failure, without really growing), and the moral scapegoat of not being 'fully responsible' for the actions committed.
In this perspective, if V had, after a hardous path, achieve that sort of power by himself and growed accordingly to control it, I would have no objections to call it ultimate.
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 09:01 AM
So it seems V killed a good deal more than 60 dragons. Not enough to eliminate black dragons, but quite a massive slice.
Also V continues to say that protection of her family is his major reason for the spell.
The claim is rather dubious. Sharp boundaries to what constitutes kin don’t exist. There should still be bereaved cousins of some of the dead dragons. But the comic seems to ignore this and would have us assume that there are none left who will be interested in revenge.
Especially for an elf who adopted her own progeny, she now seems really hooked up on genetic families for some reason.
Granted she knows THIS Black Dragon didn't adopt, but of all the others she slayed?? Quite possible at least one did. And that's leaving out freinds, buisness partners, and other associates who would care if their freinds were blasted out of the blue.
motub
2009-03-28, 09:02 AM
Just as a devil's advocate, I'll also note that the fiends' statements are also consistent with their thinking Vaarsuvius has not turned evil, though I don't think that's the most likely interpretation.
Since they use a simile about what "a decent person" might do while discussing Vaarsuvius, this would seem to support the idea that Vaarsuvius is not evil in normal circumstances, yes. Although we already established that since they rely on V to provide "the good, or the neutral, as the case may be" in their arrangement.
But... the complete simile is "... a good way to get a decent person to do something horrible is..."
So while they presumably considered V "a decent person" at the outset, the implication is that the Familicide is "something horrible" to have done (Evil).
EmeraldPhoenix
2009-03-28, 09:03 AM
so now I guess we have to call it D¬hing.
Only 1/4 of the BLACK dragons died. There are still 3/4 left, not to mention dragons that aren't black.
D&Less D, anyone?
Undead Prince
2009-03-28, 09:08 AM
Though Tiamat isn't about to appear physically on Earth, it's appropriate that if V has near God-like levels of power he would be forced to deal with a God that now wants to kill him.
Re. "But how will anyone know the dragons are dead for a long time?" - the visible-from-space pink lightning ought to take care of that.
Portfolio Sense:Tiamat can sense anything that affects the welfare of evil dragons, so long as the event in question affects at least five hundred dragons.
Senses: Tiamat can see (using normal vision or darkvision),
hear, touch, and smell at a distance of ten miles. In addition, she has blindsight to a range of 10 miles and can see invisible and ethereal creatures within 1,600 feet (as a see invisibility spell that is constantly active). As a standard action, she can perceive anything within ten miles of her worshipers, holy sites, objects, or any location where one of her titles or name was spoken in the last hour. She can extend her senses to up to five locations at once. She can block the sensing power of deities of her rank or lower at up to two remote locations at once for 10 hours.
ROUND 1: V casts Familicide, Tiamat perceives "a disturbance in the Force".
ROUND 2: Tiamat uses Alter Reality or a Cleric Spell to Scry on the source of the disturbance. V is protected by Mind Blank, so Tiamat does not perceive his person.
ROUND 3: Tiamat rephrases the Scrying to relate to another creature who is related to the disturbance. V's partner fails Will save. Tiamat perceives the location.
ROUND 4: Tiamat head #1 uses the at-will teleport without error (Greater Teleport in 3.5). Tiamat arrives at Vaarsuvius and...
OPTION 1
Tiamat makes a Full Attack, which is coupled with Annihilating Strike Salient Ability (instant reduction to -10 hp unless subject succeeds on a Fort save vs. DC = 20 + Divine Rank + damage dealt).
Attacks: 5 bites +70 melee, 2 wings +65 melee, sting +65 melee
Damage: Bite 4d6+19/19–20, wing 2d8+9, sting 3d6+9 plus poison;
With a +65 to +70 attack bonus, all attacks will hit V.
1 bite is expended on teleporting; 4 bites from 4 heads deal an average of 33 damage each. 2 wings = 18 average damage each. Sting 19 damage.
Tiamat has Divine Rank 10.
Therefore in one round V will:
a) Suffer 187 damage
b) Be forced to save 4 times vs. DC 63, 2 times vs. DC 48, and 1 time vs. DC 49, or die instantly.
Game Over.
OPTION 2
Tiamat applies Breath Weapons from 4 heads to the hapless elf.
Breath Weapons (Su): Each of Tiamat’s five heads produces a
different breath weapon.
White: A cone of cold 70 feet long; creatures within the cone
take 12d6 points of cold damage.
Black: A line of acid 5 feet high, 5 feet wide, and 140 feet long;
creatures within the area of effect take 24d4 points of acid damage.
Green: A cone of corrosive gas 70 feet long; creatures within the
cone take 24d6 points of acid damage.
Blue: A line of lightning 5 feet high, 5 feet wide, and 140 feet
long; creatures within the area of effect take 24d8 points of electrical damage.
Red: A cone of fire 70 feet long; creatures within the cone take
24d10 points of fire damage.
Each of Tiamat’s breath weapons allow a Reflex saving throw (DC 56) for half damage
Assuming Tiamat used the White head to cast the teleport (lowest damage breath), the average result is: 60 acid (black) + 84 acid (green) + 108 electrical (blue) + 132 fire (red) = 384 damage. With a 56 DC V has no chance of making the save even with Protection from Spells going. His Fire Shield is already gone, and likewise Acid Immunity is either expended or dismissed. Even if they're still going, they will not stop the end result:
Elecrocuted, Deep-fried and Dissolved elf.
OPTION 3
Tiamat casts Otto's Irresistible Dance on V, kills him with Disintegrates, Soul Binds his soul, and then proceeds to wipe out 1/4 of the world Elven population. Starting with his family. Afterwards Resurrects all the slain black dragons, and uses V's soul for various demeaning purposes for ever and ever.
Antacid
2009-03-28, 09:17 AM
ROUND 1: V casts Familicide, Tiamat perceives "a disturbance in the Force".
:eek:
Of course, we have no reason to believe Gods can appear physically on Earth in Rich's world (Thor v.s. Sutur can be assumed to have occured on the Outer Planes). And more importantly it would kill V's whole arc stone dead in a very lame manner. Deities and Demigods sounds like a fun read, though, lol.
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 09:23 AM
V tears the "Do not remove" tag from a mattress?
That's Chaotic, not Evil. :smalltongue:
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 09:29 AM
Something else I notice here:
Take a look at the fiends' reaction when they see what V has done. They're clearly shocked. Or 'surprised' might be a better word, since 'shocked' implies some kind of moral disapproval.
They didn't expect V to go anywhere near that far. She's exterminated a huge slice of the black dragon population out of sheer spite. Now what I'm wondering is, are they happy?
What do they hope to get from one respectably-levelled wizard, that's worth their investment of three epic-level souls and the lives of (probably) north of a thousand evil dragons? Even if, after dropping the splice, V were to dedicate the rest of her living days to the furtherance of the cause of evil, how could this possibly end up with the fiends in profit?
They've proven it works, and they can work together to do it. Next time they do it to someone with a Mad-on for the Good Gods and their followers. Lather, Rinse, Repeat until Good catches on and stops them somehow. :smalltongue:
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 09:42 AM
Probably ninja'd several times over, but... actually, before I start, I don't think Rich thought this joke through. Many MANY webcomiceers fall into the trap of making jokes that Americans and Americans ONLY will get.
Not even them. I got the Duke Blue Devils (but I thought it was their football mascot) and had no idea who the orange one was until I read this thread.
In this case, I think a stumbling block to identification here even for Americans is that the one on the left has "Arizona" on the shirt, but is a reference to Arizona State and its "Sun Devils" mascot (so Orange-y is standing between a Sun Devil and a Blue Devil, which suggest he's the devil, which suggests the names don't correspond to the alignments since Yellow was identified as Lee in 637).
My bet offer to David Argall is reinstated because the revelations of this strip put SERIOUS doubt into the idea that V will relinquish the splice on his own power, if she committed quarter-genocide on her own power even if she thinks she didn't.
Then again, the sooner she reliquishes this power, the sooner she can get back to earning XPs and getting all this power for herself in a more permanent sort of way! :smallbiggrin:
Kaytara
2009-03-28, 09:49 AM
But... the complete simile is "... a good way to get a decent person to do something horrible is..."
So while they presumably considered V "a decent person" at the outset, the implication is that the Familicide is "something horrible" to have done (Evil).
...Which is why I used the phrasing "in normal circumstances". :smallwink:
Particle_Man
2009-03-28, 09:57 AM
The problem with that theory is that we already know that Lee is the Yellow Fiend (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0637.html) and the Orange Fiend is the one who hung out with Devils in his youth. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0640.html)
Could be a slight problem for the whole LEe, CEdrik, NEro = LE/CE/NE theorizing. :smalltongue:
Unless the whole fraternization idea started early, with demons, daemons and devils working together to achieve their aims perhaps being an idea that came up in university during a beer garden?
motub
2009-03-28, 10:00 AM
it is subjected to external aid, time limitations, and the sheer amount of willpower necessary to control it. Willpower that is destined to run out eventually in the Fiend's word.
I strongly suspect (because I haven't gone back to the original strip to confirm), that this is just a little bit more misdirection on the fiends' part.
It seems to me (on a purely logical mechanical basis), that V would only need to exert hir willpower to hold onto the splice if shi was using the spliced power to perform acts that the spliced souls wouldn't agree with/support. It seems to me that while V is slinging Familicide around, and the spliced souls are cheering hir on, that there is no reason that Willpower would be needed to hold the splice at all (since the Willpower of the spliced souls is in concert with V's own Willpower)-- since if everybody wants the splice to continue at that point, there's no reason for it to possibly end.
However, should V want to use hir acquired power in "non-Evil" ways, or for non-Evil goals, presumably shi'd then have a "fight" on hir hands.
Theoretically, that's a possible scenario-- and if V wasn't so gleefully embracing the suggestions of the Evil souls, it would probably be the most likely scenario-- so naturally the fiends would have to explain it in the name of "full disclosure", but it now seems fairly likely that V is living out the exception that they did not explain; that, should the splicee (V) embrace evil, then the whole Willpower thing becomes invalid, and the only way to end the splice is to explicitly reject it (which amounts to the same thing in terms of fighting against the spliced souls, or going counter to what they want hir to do).
No wonder they looked so surprised (I tagged that expression as, "Whoa...!" [in Keanu Reaves voice, even], and of course Lee is so surprised that he's touching Nero's (?) arm, for "balance", in the way that one does when one is suddenly flabbergasted within a small group of close compatriots). This is a monster payoff, much more than they could have hoped for (I'm sure their expected return on investment estimates were "conservative" :smallsmile:).
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 10:09 AM
There is a difference between outright lies, and merely being misleading. They lied about him being "just the latest soul" but that doesn't affect the deal, and:
Heck that could even be TRUE from an Obi-wan-esque "certain point of view".
Think about it as "You were just the next soul to come along" on the extremely short list of 'souls we want for our purpose'. :smallwink:
If it's the whole "claim the gate" goal that a lot of people think it is, then I'm betting ANY of the OotS would have worked for them if htye thought they could corrupt them like that. If it's proof of concept, than any OotS or surrounding players would have worked if they could get them with a serious mad-on enough to commit such attrocities as to prove this is a viable plan.
derfenrirwolv
2009-03-28, 10:11 AM
Belkar does not belong in that list. He seems himself as some sort of hero - actually, as a S.S. God of War.
Belkar is chaotic evil and he knows it.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0610.html
Second page, fourth panel.
He simply considers the concepts of good, working with people, and being nice arbitrary standards he doesn't need to adhere to. Here, he simply learns to PRETEND to adhere to them. Being a sexy shoeless god of war is EASIER because he's evil.
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 10:22 AM
Portfolio Sense:Tiamat can sense anything that affects the welfare of evil dragons, so long as the event in question affects at least five hundred dragons.
ROUND 1: V casts Familicide, Tiamat perceives "a disturbance in the Force".
Given that 60 someodd dragons were "a quarter of all Black Dragons", I'm betting Tiamat has trouble sensing anything involving less than two or three of her races. :smallwink::smallwink::smallbiggrin:
Ampersand
2009-03-28, 10:32 AM
Once one is sufficiently skilled at rationalizing, ignorance about one's own evil ways results. That is V's current state, quite unlike Redcloak. That is also arguably (and very convincingly IMO) Miko's state before she snapped.
What I find interesting about the examples of both V and Our Lady of Chaos is how it seems particularly easy to take that one extra step that leads to ruin when you have both the means and will. V was fairly justified in her actions against the ABD until she committed genocide, and based on his own words words and actions Miko had enough doubt about Shojo's loyalties and motives to justifiably remove him from command of the Sapphire Guard. Both, however, allowed their emotions, conceit and arrogance to override their better judgment with little or no hesitation and act on their baser instincts.
It's interesting commentary on human nature.
Particle_Man
2009-03-28, 10:32 AM
I am not sure I would see V's actions as Chaotic. V was not only aware of the consequences of Familicide, but was casting it to set a new policy or "law". If you mess with my family, I will respond with familicide. That implies some idea of forethought and planning.
Which, alas, does make me think that V is either evil now or getting there very soon. I don't see V giving up the splice voluntarily while there is "work to be done", like stopping Xykon, saving the world from the Snarl, etc. And if you do enough Familicides, you will end up evil.
Sebastian
2009-03-28, 10:46 AM
Pragmatism people, this if the third time I've said it. The "gloating" may have been malicious in it's delivery, bit it's purpose is a meta one. How the heck else was the mood to be set for that scene? Since the word go V has been doing just as he is, only without as much posturing. Again, recall his actions on the ship. He ashed the noble and let the blond twit know that there are more important things at stake than catering to his naive idealism.
Oh, for god's sake. EVIL IS NOTHING BUT PRAGMATIC!!! Evil always have a reason for what he does. It is good that often is unreasonable and unpractical in its actions.
Someway related (http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=314), and is a great comic, too. Read it. Expecially now that it is even free.
Undead Prince
2009-03-28, 11:00 AM
Given that 60 someodd dragons were "a quarter of all Black Dragons", I'm betting Tiamat has trouble sensing anything involving less than two or three of her races. :smallwink::smallwink::smallbiggrin:
1) Nothing tells us that only the dragons shown to be killed were killed. A lot of killing probably occurred off-screen (thus the ever-diminishing frames = imply ad infinitum).
2) The power concerns dragons affected, not just dragons killed. All relatives, friends and acquantances of the slain dragons would be affected.
3) Even if in this Universe there are only 63*4 = 252 Black Dragons (and presumably Black Half-Dragons), this only means that Tiamat's "dragon sense" is activated by a lesser amount of affected evil dragons than her DnD Pantheon counterpart. Point is, by the rules, Tiamat sensed V's act of genocide. And she's going to be pissed.
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 11:18 AM
1) Nothing tells us that only the dragons shown to be killed were killed. A lot of killing probably occurred off-screen (thus the ever-diminishing frames = imply ad infinitum).
I know. Hence the two Winking smileys and a biggrin. It was meant as a joke.
2) The power concerns dragons affected, not just dragons killed. All relatives, friends and acquantances of the slain dragons would be affected.
Relitives definatly, as they are a few seconds from being zapped themselves. :smalltongue:
But you're right I didn't think of it like that.
3) Even if in this Universe there are only 63*4 = 252 Black Dragons (and presumably Black Half-Dragons), this only means that Tiamat's "dragon sense" is activated by a lesser amount of affected evil dragons than her DnD Pantheon counterpart. Point is, by the rules, Tiamat sensed V's act of genocide. And she's going to be pissed.
Only if she has a higher DR. (At least IIRC) Portfollio sense didn't scale to the extent of your portfolio, only to the limits of your power (as defined by DR).
motub
2009-03-28, 11:21 AM
Unless the whole fraternization idea started early, with demons, daemons and devils working together to achieve their aims perhaps being an idea that came up in university during a beer garden?
Or maybe Orange Fiend has just always liked Devils (despite being a Daemon or Demon himself), and the whole IFCC idea was his, to make the Infernal Planes more comfortable for his "unnatural" way of life :smallsmile:.
If that was the case, then (I think) it would be most likely that Orange Fiend is a Daemon, who seems (to me) to be the most "flexible" that he would a) appreciate the useful qualities of a stick-in-the-mud Lawful and a crazy-as-a-fox Chaotic, as well as b) be able to work with them both effectively (and enable them to work with each other as well).
I've also been wondering if they haven't been playing around with "Who's who" just a little bit (as an aside, the same way that somebody might doodle idly, or tap their fingers on a table; idle minor deception).
In other words, I wonder if they might not have "traded clothes" for the course of this endeavor.
I will take it as true that the three "use names" of the demons are Lee, Cedric, and Nero; I believe it to be true that one of them is NE, one of them is CE, and one of them is LE; I also believe that one of them expresses yellow magic (which associates it with one of the alignments), one expresses orange magic (which associates it with another of the three alignments) and the third expresses purple magic (which associates it with the third alignment).
But it seems to me that it would be an awful big giveaway if you could identify which individual fiend was which with the information presented to the naked eye, since then you'd know the alignment of each individual and would have a better chance of predicting their actions and limitations.
Of course, we're not having much success, so maybe I'm wrong, but these guys are cagey. I wouldn't put it past them to disguise themselves as each other at all, even in front of Qarr (who hasn't been working for them very long, after all, and is still a lower-level functionary, even if he is an up-and-comer).
This is brilliant, in a horrible way. (Horrible in that it inspires horror in me, that is.)
I'm hoping that this is going to establish the difference between inherently heroic and inherently villainous characters as follows:
Character--such as, in this case, Vaarsuvius--does something Evil. (I think Familicide was an Evil act, going partly off of the fact that it just killed a quarter of a species and partly off of the reactions of (a) the three souls and (b) the IFCC and Qarr. I know people are arguing about this, but I'm treating it as an Evil act, both for the purposes of this argument and for the purposes of my emotional reaction.)
Character realizes that he, she, or it has done something Evil--whether because he, she, or it stops and thinks about it; because someone else points it out; or because, say, she loses her Paladin status; is irrelevant.
Inherently villainous character attempts to shift the blame--to a soul splice, to someone else, whatever. Either "This wasn't my fault; I was being controlled!" or "This wasn't my fault; someone/the circumstances made me do it!" or "It's your fault I killed you! It had to be done!"
(As I understand it from things that have been mentioned, in Start of Darkness didn't Redcloak do something horrible and not accept responsibility, thus cementing or causing his relationship with Xykon? I'm not sure about this, since I only know about it from things people have said in passing, which I may have misinterpreted. Certainly Miko's problem was that she refused to admit she could possibly have done anything not Lawful Good, and that therefore there was no reason she should have to apologize, Atone, or anything else.)
Inherently heroic character does not attempt to shift the blame. (Note, by "heroic" I'm not necessarily saying "Good" or even "Neutral". I'm treating heroism more as a measure of someone's role in a story than as a measure of their role in the world. Belkar is probably a hero because we--well, I--spend most of our time hoping he'll succeed, even if we/I occasionally am appalled at his methods.)
Inherently heroic character either is dismayed about what he, she, or it has done, and attempts to somehow make it better; or at least accepts the responsibility and then proceeds to do Evil in the service of Good (see, for example, Belkar as opposed to Xykon).
I'm hoping for the former of those two possibilities, because, up until Familicide, Vaarsuvius was definitely my favorite character and I would really like to be able to unhesitatingly continue to say so, but considering how poorly this seems to be going right now I'd be satisfied with the second of the options.
If V is an inherently heroic character, s/he would provide an interesting foil for people such as Miko (and Redcloak?).
but I don't really believe it will. I'm afraid that V is now, permanently, Evil. :eek:
Silverraptor
2009-03-28, 12:05 PM
Woot. Awesome comic. It's amazing that the voices have no influence on V what-so-ever. Also, it seems to me that Rich has reduced the power of authority from the fiends. I mean the fact that they are in awe over what V did kind of says, "Wow, we were not expecting that." I wonder what else the fiends were joking about in their explanation over the soul splice.
Surfing HalfOrc
2009-03-28, 12:11 PM
I don't know why so many people think that Cedric the arch-demon has to become Cedric the arch-devil, just because he's hanging out with the Duke Blue Devil and the Arizona Sun Devil...
College is supposed to be where different people bring different ideas and all that. At least that's what happened when I went to college, one of many military members attending a rather "Liberal" college in Hawaii. We all got along well with our "civilian" classmates, we could argue Left and Right, but put it all aside for later when we reached an impasse...
I would think that attending Devil University together gave Cedric, Nero and Lee the idea for the IFCC.
Alair
2009-03-28, 12:43 PM
Going beyond the one dragon with whom she had a quarrel and exterminating a large fraction of the species, that's... well, evil yes, it's a huge and quite unnecessary slaughter, but my reaction is more that it's incredibly reckless. I'm not racist but they were black dragons, and you know what they're like. Thoroughly evil villains more often than not. World's better off without 'em if you ask me.
It's an offhand thought, but even if we were to suppose that since black dragons are, oh let's say, some form of evil 95% of the time and this justifies murdering them, could we extend the same logic to say a group of half celestials murdering a population of humans since the pure humans are after all likely to be evil far more often than the half celestials?
Woot. Awesome comic. It's amazing that the voices have no influence on V what-so-ever.
I thought it was rather odd that they were supposed to, actually. If you're in the damnation business you want your clients to be quite fully culpable for their actions.
Nerdanel
2009-03-28, 12:43 PM
It's quite an accomplishment to shock an undead Ancient Black Dragon with how evil one is and make her beg for mercy. No wonder the fiends are impressed and surprised.
By the way, I'm now thinking that V's new and spiffy look may be an illusion, which would explain why he didn't take visible damage in the battle. Even though mental changes in OOTS world can cause immediate and visible external changes like with Belkar's clothing under the influence of Owl's Wisdom, the most recent comic suggests that the fiends didn't add a little bonus template on V as an unadvertised extra to make him fanged and Evil. Or maybe they did and didn't feel like telling Qarr.
Zanaril
2009-03-28, 01:25 PM
More importantly, does V know how different she looks? It's not like the fiends held up a mirror for her. Even if she's noticed there's a change, she may not realise that she looks so obviously evil.
Also, anyone else notice that V's ears are pointier that before? :smalltongue:
homeosapiens
2009-03-28, 01:33 PM
Do all think this one was awesome? I think it was the crappiest comic since long time. Brought nothing new(V was said to be in control long time ago, and aligment feedbacks seemed funny since it was said), had no action(i wouldnt call killing already dead dragon action). But that's just my opinion.
factotum
2009-03-28, 01:42 PM
Oh, for god's sake. EVIL IS NOTHING BUT PRAGMATIC!!! Evil always have a reason for what he does. It is good that often is unreasonable and unpractical in its actions.
Not in the D&D alignment system. People having good reasons for their actions, or else being unreasonable and impractical, are more a matter for Law/Chaos than Good/Evil.
Undead Prince
2009-03-28, 01:47 PM
I would think that attending Devil University together gave Cedric, Nero and Lee the idea for the IFCC.
The purple fiend expressly refers to "your university days", not "our university days". And if Rich wanted to show that the IFCC got acquanted and formed in college, wouldn't the photo show all three IFCC fiends, and not, you know, Mr Orange + 2 Devils?
Blaznak
2009-03-28, 01:54 PM
Oooh! Vile-y and Evil-y. Yep. Them dudes are some vile, evil dudes.
I feel like there should be an "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely" quote somewhere...
Undead Prince
2009-03-28, 02:00 PM
Oh, for god's sake. EVIL IS NOTHING BUT PRAGMATIC!!! Evil always have a reason for what he does. It is good that often is unreasonable and unpractical in its actions.
Someway related (http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=314), and is a great comic, too. Read it. Expecially now that it is even free.
1) Considering that the character you're indirectly quoting is obviously intelligence-impaired, I would not attach much importance to its "opinion" 8=)
2) Even so, you're misconstruing the message of the comic you referenced. Evil is "pragmatic" and "always has a reason", sure, but that reason is nothing more than trying to force the world to behave according to the evil person's arbitrary ideas. It's not actually pragmatic (as in common sense), it's delusional and manic.
3) In the DnD alignment system, Neutral Evil may be considered the pragmatic villain, as it is after its own benefit and doesn't care about much else. Lawful Evil, however, commits its villainy in the name of a "cause" (which is often contrary to mundane common sense), and Chaotic Evil is... well, bonkers most of the time, and doing evil for the sake of causing pain & suffering, so no "pragmatism" there.
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 02:05 PM
Oh, for god's sake. EVIL IS NOTHING BUT PRAGMATIC!!! Evil always have a reason for what he does.
Even if the reason is just "I like the way the bodies THUMP when they hit the ground."
motub
2009-03-28, 02:06 PM
More importantly, does V know how different she looks? It's not like the fiends held up a mirror for her. Even if she's noticed there's a change, she may not realise that she looks so obviously evil.
Oh dear. Wouldn't that confirm that shi is now dedicatedly evil (for those who still need convincing)?
Here's what I'm thinking of: You can (let us say) shapechange. So you shapechange into something, then you shapechange back into "you"-- your ordinary self.
How precisely do you do that? I would think that one wouldn't give a detailed description of one's normal self to the spell; just like teleporting to a "very familiar place", you have an image in your mind of what you normally look like, and so you just shapechange back to "me"-- that image that encompasses you without you having to describe every little detail of yourself to yourself casting the spell.
So either V is casting based on hir "old" image of hirself, and it's not working-- or V's image of "the real hir" has changed rather radically, signifying that shi has indeed embraced evil (and will be cackling of hir own free will any second now).
Oh, dear. I like Evil V OK, but I like(d) Evil Self-Justifying V (since it means there is some internal conflict involved). Knowingly Evil V is a pretty scary thought.
Kaytara
2009-03-28, 02:12 PM
Do all think this one was awesome? I think it was the crappiest comic since long time. Brought nothing new(V was said to be in control long time ago, and aligment feedbacks seemed funny since it was said), had no action(i wouldnt call killing already dead dragon action). But that's just my opinion.
You... are in the minority. The reason we consider this to be a significant development is because being in control does not preclude an alignment change, and V's changed look and somewhat changed behaviour really LOOKED like an alignment change.
Also, nothing new? Vaarsuvius has just detailed the entire nature of the EVIL spell he has just cast within earshot of his mate, who can speak Common. And the EVIL dragon called Vaarsuvius a monster. Plenty of things happened here, thank you very much. XD
Also, anyone else notice that V's ears are pointier that before? :smalltongue:
Nicely spotted. :) I had not noticed that except on a purely subconscious level, perhaps... It just looked like part of the "AWESOME" look. This makes me hope even more that at least parts of V's new look will stay.
Inherently villainous character attempts to shift the blame--to a soul splice, to someone else, whatever. Either "This wasn't my fault; I was being controlled!" or "This wasn't my fault; someone/the circumstances made me do it!" or "It's your fault I killed you! It had to be done!"
A thoughtful post, but I think I disagree. For me, the fact that a character even needs to rationalize the action or blame someone else for it is an important indicator that they're not inherently villainous, else they would not try to shield themselves from the moral ramifications of that action. It's a self-defence mechanism against their conscience, which, of course, would be entirely redundant if they had no conscience. Such characters would prefer not being the villain, so I can't see how one can call them inherently villainous.
Antacid
2009-03-28, 03:09 PM
For me, the fact that a character even needs to rationalize the action or blame someone else for it is an important indicator that they're not inherently villainous, else they would not try to shield themselves from the moral ramifications of that action. It's a self-defence mechanism against their conscience, which, of course, would be entirely redundant if they had no conscience. Such characters would prefer not being the villain, so I can't see how one can call them inherently villainous.
As far as we know V isn't rationalising the Familicide. He really does believe that his actions were justified as the "price of threatening my family", and is showing no signs of using that justification because he feels guilty. As far as we know he'd do it all again without hestitation. What's the difference between that and Redcloak, who has entirely accepted the fact that he is doing evil to protect the goblin race? If anything Redcloak's motives are more admirable as they're aspirational in nature, and about changing the world for his conception of "the better".
Ridureyu
2009-03-28, 03:24 PM
Pragmatism people, this if the third time I've said it. The "gloating" may have been malicious in it's delivery, bit it's purpose is a meta one. How the heck else was the mood to be set for that scene? Since the word go V has been doing just as he is, only without as much posturing. Again, recall his actions on the ship. He ashed the noble and let the blond twit know that there are more important things at stake than catering to his naive idealism.
Apparently, threatening to murder Elan if he distracts you is considered a neutral or good act, at least pragmatic.
Memo to me: Do not work in the same workplace as this person.
I've been seeing the theory that "Tiamat will somehow exact revenge on V" an awful lot around these boards. I'm really not sure how having that happen would tell any kind of an interesting story. If I were in a campaign playing V, and Tiamat just appeared out of the blue to exact immediate vengeance or some such thing, I'd probably accuse them of lazy DMing. The idea that V has angered Tiamat, and vengeance is forthcoming, is certainly plausible, but it isn't really that interesting. I suspect any sort of draconic revenge will probably be either much more subtle than that, or simply nonexistent (karma doesn't count).
Well, V could always cast some form of "Deicide," possibly releasing the Snarl a little bit more. Not very likely, though.
And finally, it's been quoted from the D&D rules that killing evil things is not ALWAYS a good thing.
A thoughtful post, but I think I disagree. For me, the fact that a character even needs to rationalize the action or blame someone else for it is an important indicator that they're not inherently villainous, else they would not try to shield themselves from the moral ramifications of that action. It's a self-defence mechanism against their conscience, which, of course, would be entirely redundant if they had no conscience. Such characters would prefer not being the villain, so I can't see how one can call them inherently villainous.
I hate to Godwin, but I can think of a certain other group of people who rationalized their actions pretty well.
Kaytara
2009-03-28, 03:28 PM
As far as we know V isn't rationalising the Familicide. He really does believe that his actions were justified as the "price of threatening my family", and is showing no signs of using that justification because he feels guilty.
But we don't know for sure that it's the reason V is doing it, rather than simply a reason. It would be consistent with the comic if V's decision to cast the Familicide stemmed at least partially from a desire to punish the dragon and to vent his frustration. The way I read 639, Vaarsuvius was already intent on using the great power at his disposal (kind of like a child who got a new toy) and the pretext of protecting his family was a convenient opportunity.
Again, I must stress that the impression I got from the comic - the impression that when V said "I concur" and "I am not done with the dragon", those words were not initially motivated by a protective zeal for his family, but by his need to take it one step further.
malakim2099
2009-03-28, 03:32 PM
It amuses and saddens that even after fiends in the comic pretty much confirm that V is doing evil things, people still defend V's actions as "not evil". :smallconfused:
As far as Tiamat's divine rank (someone mentioned it), Tiamat is not only the "traditional goddess of evil dragons" that she is in the standard D&D cosmology, she is also Tiamat, goddess of the sea and monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat) (remember, the Western pantheon is pretty much the Babylonian pantheon of Earth). Even if her attitudes are more like the D&D version, she would, as the primary evil deity of her pantheon, be a Greater Goddess (Divine Rank of 16-20).
Though now I'm wondering what Rich's bracket looks like. :smallamused:
Mr. Pin
2009-03-28, 03:50 PM
Oh deary, deary me. My "V is still lawful good" theory is getting harder and harder to support with each comic... but I still think that the dragon had it coming, dragons in general are a bunch of jerks, and V did the universe a service. Still, now that I know it was her call, I'm thinking she's not a nice person at all, even if she is technically good. I mean, geez, V, a little compassion for your gravely injured kids? please?
And I really like the way that even the fiends are (somewhat) amazed at how mean V is. Love those "WTF?!" looks.
brilliantlight
2009-03-28, 04:27 PM
Oh deary, deary me. My "V is still lawful good" theory is getting harder and harder to support with each comic... but I still think that the dragon had it coming, dragons in general are a bunch of jerks, and V did the universe a service. Still, now that I know it was her call, I'm thinking she's not a nice person at all, even if she is technically good. I mean, geez, V, a little compassion for your gravely injured kids? please?
And I really like the way that even the fiends are (somewhat) amazed at how mean V is. Love those "WTF?!" looks.
V has been going downhill for some time now and is clearly either CE or NE but she started out either LN(Most likely IMO) or LG. So if you are talking about people now saying she is LG I am with you but if you are talking about things written months ago they might have been right.
MickJay
2009-03-28, 04:32 PM
I don't really see why Tiamat should personally intervene, she may as well send an aleax, seconds before splice ends. Aleax keeps all of V's "spliced" powers and casts familicide on (dead and reanimated by that time) V. He could smash V into the ground even with the splice active, since aleaxi are immune to magic. :smalltongue:
David Argall
2009-03-28, 04:47 PM
I'd like to reiterate that according to canon, killing a non shiny dragon, black, was already supported by lawful good characters in the storyline as a non-evil act.
Now this is a reference to a joke. Highly angry and greatly feared one demands explanation, often of the unexplanable. The endangered one offers feeble explanation. And the explanation is accepted as fully correct despite its obviously inadequate nature. We get a laugh because we feel that non-shiny scales shouldn't be an adequate reason.
Note that this does not mean the dragon killing was to be disapproved of. The joke form often involves our supporting the endangered one, who has done no real sin in our view. We are laughing at Miko's utter "defeat" rather than Roy getting away with some crime. But we are looking at a joke in a comic. That means that logic does not have privileged standing. If a joke is funny, it is used, no matter what plot logic or other principle it violates.
So we can't deduct in any absolute sense from the joke that killing evil dragons is a good deed.
I actually don't consider Redcloak evil, I think he is a hero to his people. Evil and Good is wholly subjective on the mores of the people making the judgment
A hero to some people does not make one good, or even non-evil. Even if we accept that Good and Evil are subjective [which neither comic nor game does], we still have standards defining good and evil that are wider than the given group.
We can't have it both ways. Either it is like our world and our rational is just and makes sense or it is not like our world and we cannot apply our rational.
It is like our world. Otherwise how do we know who to cheer for?
The reason we consider this to be a significant development is because being in control does not preclude an alignment change, and V's changed look and somewhat changed behaviour really LOOKED like an alignment change.
Also, nothing new? Vaarsuvius has just detailed the entire nature of the EVIL spell he has just cast within earshot of his mate, who can speak Common. And the EVIL dragon called Vaarsuvius a monster. Plenty of things happened here, thank you very much.
Plenty of things happen in most of the strips. 640 is hardly outstanding in that respect. I'd class it as just doing some detail work that should have been done earlier. It is as if our writer said "I didn't make this or that as clear as I should have, and I now must pause and clarify." It is rather like 412, where the party members are used to verify that Miko was nuts. It's not particularly a bad strip, but it is definitely no more than average.
The purple fiend expressly refers to "your university days", not "our university days"
Not likely to mean much. Even if we assume they were chums in college, they would have spent a good deal of time apart, and use of "your" would often be correct.
if we were to suppose that since black dragons are, oh let's say, some form of evil 95% of the time and this justifies murdering them, could we extend the same logic to say a group of half celestials murdering a population of humans since the pure humans are after all likely to be evil far more often than the half celestials?
A little math should show the answer is no. You kill 1 good dragon in the process of killing 99 evil ones and preventing 99+ evil deeds [which may be 99000 actual deeds, but we are assuming their sum is enough to justify killing the dragon.] We can think of possible cases where the one innocent victim is enough to tip the balance, but it's pretty obvious this is not going to happen often.
But the humans are assumed here to not be particularly evil. Even if we casually assume 50-50, we have to show twice as much evil per evil one killed. And we would more be assuming something like a 30-40[neutral]-30 split, which makes the amount of evil per evil one even higher.
So if we assume the dragons and evil humans are even vaguely the same degree of evil, our celestials can not kill the humans.
Oh, for god's sake. EVIL IS NOTHING BUT PRAGMATIC!!! Evil always have a reason for what he does. It is good that often is unreasonable and unpractical in its actions.
Quite wrong. Evil is often unpragmatic even on its own terms. Indeed, evil's basic definition can be that it is not pragmatic on a societywide basis. But any evil man would agree it is not pragmatic to shoot the waiter for being slow when the room is full of cops. Hasn't stopped some fool hotheads from doing that.
Thinking of good as unpragmatic is thinking of good as a sucker you can rob. When he gets pragmatic and refuses you the money you want to waste, you grumble about his not being good, even tho the money will now be used in a much more useful manner.
in DnD extensive speech takes up time. It says in the PHB (which I advise you to examine on this topic), that speech is a free action only when it involves a maximum of a few short sentences.
This is taking a good general principle to the level of holy writ. PH, p. 144, only gives a general guideline. It is left to the judgment/whim of the DM just how much is allowable, and that follows the principles of drama, which means entire speeches can happen in a second.
On a previous occasion, roughly half that amount of speaking cost him an entire round.
Which increased the drama of the situation. The actual number of words was not important in either case.
(gloating is in itself evil,
See SoD p. 18 where the good guys do the gloating. You are reading too much into too little.
clearly demonstrates that V doesn’t care about spending spliced time. The fact that he pays no heed to the price he’ll have to pay means that he already decided to hold on to the splice for as long as possible.
That does not follow. She is showing no rush, and thus can't be frantic to get things done as fast as possible, but V has ever been willing to talk at great length even when time is of vital importance. See Origin for an example.
Lists of wishes imply greed, a desire for personal gain. Mooching off an epic evil wizard implies that the moocher herself is willing to turn a blind eye to the methods by which this evil wizard might grant her the wishes.
And such cases are in the vast majority in reality, so much so that we can hardly call them evil.
A Good character (or a Neutral with good inclinations) who really loves V, would on the contrary attempt to “save” V from this lure of evil power.
Such is not an uncommon drama theme, but it is there to show the evil of the character, not to be real. This theme also requires space to develop. One has several scenes of the good character expressing more and more concern, not just one scene of final rejection. So this idea does not fit the plot here.
LuisDantas
2009-03-28, 05:13 PM
Belkar is chaotic evil and he knows it.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0610.html
Second page, fourth panel.
He simply considers the concepts of good, working with people, and being nice arbitrary standards he doesn't need to adhere to. Here, he simply learns to PRETEND to adhere to them. Being a sexy shoeless god of war is EASIER because he's evil.
I don't think this proves much. This dream scene even imediately has Belkar tell himself (through his imagining of Shojo) that CE is "just a label".
Belkar is aware that he fits in such a label. But, naturally enough, he doesn't understand what it actually means in any level. You sort of made my point for me with a different wording.
LuisDantas
2009-03-28, 05:19 PM
I am not sure I would see V's actions as Chaotic. V was not only aware of the consequences of Familicide, but was casting it to set a new policy or "law". If you mess with my family, I will respond with familicide. That implies some idea of forethought and planning.
Imposing one's will over others does not hint at respect for established laws and customs.
Lamech
2009-03-28, 05:21 PM
ROUND 1: V casts Familicide, Tiamat perceives "a disturbance in the Force".
ROUND 2: Tiamat uses Alter Reality or a Cleric Spell to Scry on the source of the disturbance. V is protected by Mind Blank, so Tiamat does not perceive his person.
ROUND 3: Tiamat rephrases the Scrying to relate to another creature who is related to the disturbance. V's partner fails Will save. Tiamat perceives the location.
ROUND 4: Tiamat head #1 uses the at-will teleport without error (Greater Teleport in 3.5). Tiamat arrives at Vaarsuvius and...
V casts Celerity (not on Tiamats spell list and alter reality takes a standard action) and follows it up with a time stop? Followed by a couple more time stops, and five or six maws of chaos. Readies a shaped disjunctions breaks any buffs as soon as time stop ends, then casts another Celerity readies Greater Teleport, and leaves with her family? At CL 100ish thats 500-600d6 so 500*3.5 = Tiamat dies. And V gets a level. Then she'll probably use some more epic level magic to make Timait into a undead something.
So V is up a level, and now controls his own god. And there was much rejoicing.
Kaytara
2009-03-28, 05:50 PM
I don't think this proves much. This dream scene even imediately has Belkar tell himself (through his imagining of Shojo) that CE is "just a label".
Belkar is aware that he fits in such a label. But, naturally enough, he doesn't understand what it actually means in any level. You sort of made my point for me with a different wording.
I'm convinced Belkar knows himself to be Evil and knows exactly what that means.
Amoral Dilemma (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0435.html): "THAT is for forcing me to perform a quasi-Good act!"
He laments having to act in a manner that is marginally Good. IMHO, it means he has embraced and accepted evil.
The MunchKING
2009-03-28, 05:55 PM
V casts Celerity (not on Tiamats spell list and alter reality takes a standard action) and follows it up with a time stop? Followed by a couple more time stops, and five or six maws of chaos. Readies a shaped disjunctions breaks any buffs as soon as time stop ends, then casts another Celerity readies Greater Teleport, and leaves with her family? At CL 100ish thats 500-600d6 so 500*3.5 = Tiamat dies. And V gets a level. Then she'll probably use some more epic level magic to make Timait into a undead something.
So V is up a level, and now controls his own god. And there was much rejoicing.
A) IIRC Multiple Timestops don't stack. You can't get more than one going at a time. So he'll have to drop into "real time" at least one round for each Timestop he wants to cast.
B) Do the Maw of Chaoses stack? One would think you can only have so many maws in a place at a time.
C) wouldn't the Disjunction Disjuct all her Maws of Chaos? Thus rendering setting all those trap spells as pointless??
Sutremaine
2009-03-28, 07:46 PM
Can V get through the Cloister spell? Even if Ganonron has Epic teleport spells, can they nullify Cloister simply by virtue of their Epicness? Not that she couldn't teleport outside the city and fly the rest of the way...
If V can get through, maybe Xykon cuts a deal with the souls and they threaten to cut V off if she doesn't cooperate. It would have to be established beforehand that there's some mechanism for this, though, and I have no idea how to reconcile that with #633.
Bloodrage
2009-03-28, 07:49 PM
Bad karma points for V! :smallconfused:
SteveMB
2009-03-28, 07:53 PM
Oh deary, deary me. My "V is still lawful good" theory is getting harder and harder to support with each comic...
Especially since there's no indication that s/he was Lawful Good to begin with.
The fiends are doing a nice balancing act of making V take enough responsibility for h** actions to shift alignment, with enough wiggle room for rationalization and self-justification to make it easier to do the evil acts in the first place.
Lamech
2009-03-28, 09:18 PM
A) IIRC Multiple Timestops don't stack. You can't get more than one going at a time. So he'll have to drop into "real time" at least one round for each Timestop he wants to cast.
B) Do the Maw of Chaoses stack? One would think you can only have so many maws in a place at a time.
C) wouldn't the Disjunction Disjuct all her Maws of Chaos? Thus rendering setting all those trap spells as pointless??
A) Good point! Unfortunately Celerity still works, soo... he'll instantly be back in time stop.
B) Tiamats colossal so no, they could all be cast at different points. At least I think thats how it works...
C) Thats why he needs to have it be shaped. Its an archmage ability, and a fairly good one so I assume the sorc. has it. Otherwise Tiamat probably has something to keep herself from dying a horrible painful death. In fact I think it might be better to have a shaped epic dispel, but V might not have one.
More importantly, I don't think Tiamat can intervene because V is an elf in the elven lands. And when he leaves he will be in either the southern or northern lands. So again I think Tiamat will be unable to intervene.
homeosapiens
2009-03-28, 10:54 PM
You... are in the minority. The reason we consider this to be a significant development is because being in control does not preclude an alignment change, and V's changed look and somewhat changed behaviour really LOOKED like an alignment change.
Also, nothing new? Vaarsuvius has just detailed the entire nature of the EVIL spell he has just cast within earshot of his mate, who can speak Common. And the EVIL dragon called Vaarsuvius a monster. Plenty of things happened here, thank you very much. XD
Mb i am in minority, but i am right - this comic cannot compare with any 1 since "Roy on the cloud" (i dont say all of them were bad, but it wasnt taking the main plot any further). So what? V is evil now, becouse he/she thinks its not h*s fault. And when the splice ends, he ll probably act naturally. I d call splice ll end really soon, and your BIG DEVELOPMENT will be worth ****. I would still think that if V explained (ofc not mentioning alternate plan) Mate would forgive him, and nothing really changed.
Dr. Cthulwho
2009-03-28, 11:32 PM
The purple fiend expressly refers to "your university days", not "our university days". And if Rich wanted to show that the IFCC got acquanted and formed in college, wouldn't the photo show all three IFCC fiends, and not, you know, Mr Orange + 2 Devils?
The real question, and one I haven't really seen discussed would be...
So what was Orange Eyes studying university? And did he graduate?
And where did he study?
Mb i am in minority, but i am right...
I've personally found nothing convinces people like saying "I'm right." :smallwink:
And I'd disagree on V being normal again when the splice ends. It is like saying "eh, when Belkar is cured of the MoJ he will be old Belkar again." The MoJ activation served to set up his character development.
Same with Elan's conversion to Dashing Swordsman.
At no point has Rich ever spent time dealing with a character just to discard character growth so easily. After all, this latest bit with V was set up hundreds of strips ago (killing the dragon guarding the starmetal).
This strip is good, and I'm right.
brilliantlight
2009-03-28, 11:36 PM
V used to be my favorite character and I even admit she is now evil.
Warren Dew
2009-03-29, 01:11 AM
The IFCC say they lied about that, and that the souls have no ability to alter V's alignment one jot. Therefore any evil or alignment shifts on V's behalf have nothing to do with the souls, they are all down to V acting of his own accord. (129)
It leaves the question open as to whether there are shifts, however. It can be read as either of the following:
"No, Qarr, Vaarsuvius's shifting toward evil is Vaarsuvius's own doing"
or
"No, Qarr, Vaarsuvius hasn't shifted toward evil at all"
Now, I tend to agree with those that interpret it as the former, but the latter interpretation is also consistent with the fiends' words.
There is no evidence at all about the alignment or deeds of any of them except maybe three (the first one was engaged in combat with a party, for instance). (157)
There is most certainly evidence, in that they are black dragons. It may not be conclusive evidence, but it is evidence.
But... the complete simile is "... a good way to get a decent person to do something horrible is..." (emphasis omitted) (184)
No, the complete simile includes, roughly, '... to make them think they're drunk, so they act like they actually were drunk'. The kinds of "horrible" things that decent people do when drunk do not make then non-decent people; they just make them decent people who have done some "horrible" things.
I think the fiends are mistaken, anyway. It seems fairly clear that this is a straightforward example of power corrupting: now that it's trivial for Vaarsuvius to gain an iota of additional safety by slaughtering dragons, why not do it? It doesn't seem to me that Vaarsuvius thinks the spliced souls are in control; quite the opposite.
Tremas
2009-03-29, 01:29 AM
I'm convinced Belkar knows himself to be Evil and knows exactly what that means.
I can't believe all of you keep saying Belkar is evil just because the Giant says so, or because Belkar says so, or because of anything else Belkar may have said or done.
Here's my simple logic, proving once and for all that Belkar is good:
Good people have good heroes
I am a good person
Belkar is my hero
Therefor, Belkar must be good (Q.E.D.)
Of course, you'll have to trust me on the point that "I am a good person" - but everyone believes that about themselves, so it's a self-evident truth. The rest of the proof is extremely simple and straight-forward. I hope this puts the Belkar debate to rest...
Belkar - solving problems one violent death at a time :belkar:
Porthos
2009-03-29, 01:38 AM
Mb i am in minority, but i am right
Well, that's us told then. :smalltongue:
There's an interesting thing about Personal Opinion tho. No matter how much one KNOWS that they're right about something, other people out there insist on having other viewpoints.
Funny that. :smallbiggrin:
Oh well, whatcha gonna do? :smallcool:
V's greatest nemesis is really V's hubris, V's ego. V's unability to recognize weakness, limitations, frailty, to admit the need for help.
His greates nemesis is plot that repeatedly throws at him/her challenges, absolutely unsurmountable without or with any practically available help. That's the reason his/her whole subplot leaves me greatly disappointed. Story about a character who makes poor choices due to his flaws simply doesn't work, when there is no viable alternative to that choices, and the last time V had such alternative was when he left the ship (I don't buy "no backlash" retcon for his after-splice state).
Porthos
2009-03-29, 02:08 AM
His greates nemesis is plot that repeatedly throws at him/her challenges, absolutely unsurmountable without or with any practically available help. That's the reason his/her whole subplot leaves me greatly disappointed. Story about a character who makes poor choices due to his flaws simply doesn't work, when there is no viable alternative to that choices, and the last time V had such alternative was when he left the ship (I don't buy "no backlash" retcon for his after-splice state).
Well then maybe V shouldn't have left the ship in a huff, eh? Seems to me that the viable alternative was to never leave in the first place. The current situation is just a (fairly major) consequence of V's exceedingly poor judgement when he decided to Swan Off, Stage Left.
EDIT::::
BTW: What's this "repeatedly" thing you speak of? Seems to me the only challenge he faced was the situation with the ABD. He, admittedly, couldn't win that fight. He then turned to an Imp and said, more or less, "I know that it's a Buyers Market... Well here I am Big Boy. Give me your best deal."
V could have done other things, of course. This forum came up with dozens of alternative plans, with varying degrees of practicality. But V didn't. And that's a damned shame.
Pun intented.
Particle_Man
2009-03-29, 02:16 AM
Imposing one's will over others does not hint at respect for established laws and customs.
A love of free will sounds suspiciously Chaotic to me. "Imposing one's will over others" (if that is what V is doing by setting forward a new "law" or "rule") sounds explicitly Lawful. Like, 1984, perhaps. After all, *someone* has to make the rules in any lawful society. And what would a Lawful Evil character (assuming V's level of intelligence and foolishness) do differently from what V did to the Black Dragon, assuming V wanted to ensure the protection of his family from it and any others like it looking for revenge? Especially since Black Dragons, being CE, are explicitly against being part of a society that obeys rules?
Anyhow, my guess is that V was Neutral and now is Neutral Evil (or on the way there, but I think he is there), but that is only my guess.
By the way, why is there so much fuss about what pronoun to use for V, when "V" is in fact shorter than any of the suggested pronoun (as is "V's" for the possessive)? The point of pronouns is that they are usually shorter than the names they replace, but in this case V will do as an identifier, and without having to play "what's-the-gender"?. It is not like we are going to confuse the abbreviation with the Roman numeral for 5, right?
Particle_Man
2009-03-29, 02:17 AM
So what was Orange Eyes studying university?
I am guessing an M.B.A., in Commerce. :)
Well then maybe V shouldn't have left the ship in a huff, eh? Seems to me that the viable alternative was to never leave in the first place. The current situation is just a (fairly major) consequencec of V's exceedingly poor judgement when he decided to Swan Off, Stage Left.
You know, I noted just that. Except, "you should not split the party otherwise the universe will go out of its way to sodomize you" is not an aesop I like.
V could have done other things, of course. This forum came up with dozens of alternative plans, with varying degrees of practicality. But V didn't. And that's a damned shame.
Except, none of said plans would have a snowball chance in hell of actually working. He/she was almost too late even with teleporting straight to the location and, for that matter, even assuming that Aarindarius or whomever could actually handle ABD, already is grasping at straws. And he/she was smart enough to figure that out.
So, the only morals of this story, to me, are 1) "there are situations where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't" and 2) "sometimes the uncaring universe/the author want to screw you and then all of your acts will have extremely bad consequences, so, see 1)".
Halvormerlinaky
2009-03-29, 02:29 AM
Giant,
I don't want to be annoying, but I have to point out a problem with the latest comic.
The Arizona STATE University Sun Devils are the Minions of Satan depicted in 640, not the University of Arizona Wildcats. Perhaps your saw the Wildcats get trounced by Louisville in the Sweet Sixteen. Arizona are the Wildcats (not to be confused with the comic, or Kentucky, or countless other schools), whilst Arizona STATE are the Sundevils.
I mention this only for the benefit of the future paper version of the strip. But, you know, if you want to fix the online version I'm totally okay with that.
Porthos
2009-03-29, 02:29 AM
Except, none of said plans would have a snowball chance in hell of actually working. He/she was almost too late even with teleporting straight to the location and, for that matter, even assuming that Aarindarius or whomever could actually handle ABD, already is grasping at straws. And he/she was smart enough to figure that out.
I'm not even going to get into the Alternative Plan(s) bit, coz ultimately it's not important (and also coz I've talked myself to death about it). Instead I'm going to ask a very simple question.
What gun was pointed at V's head to make him act like an Stupid Poo Poo Head AFTER he got the Soul Splice?
When one can answer me that question, then I'll take the arguments over V's culpability a bit more seriously. :smallwink:
EDIT::::
Since you added this bit in after you posted, let me address it real quick. :smallsmile:
So, the only morals of this story are 1) "there are situations where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't" and 2) "sometimes the uncaring universe/the author want to screw you and then all of your acts will have the worst conceivable consequences, so, see 1)".
You know there are a couple of alternative morals to take:
1) If you're going to make a Deal with the Devil, MAKE SURE you know why you're really doing it.
and
2) Should you get Ultimate Arcane Power, don't blame others for the evil you cause while you're on your Power Trip.
Alternatively, you might wait to see what Rich has to say about this situation when he gets around to the Author Commentary before you state what Rich is saying the moral of the story is. :smalltongue:
What gun was pointed at V's head to make him act like an Stupid Poo Poo Head AFTER he got the Soul Splice?
Flood of thoughts and memories of 3 evil spellcasters which made him to behave uncharacteristically on the very first panel after getting the splice, which fiends conveniently forgot to mention until after the fact and which now seems to be swept under the carpet? Either way, it is clear that fiends can either lie about properties of soul splice or omit them, so it is not as if he had any chance of avoiding being screwed from the beginning.
Porthos
2009-03-29, 02:41 AM
Since we're talking about The Moral of the Story...
It's fairly obvious to me that the main Moral of the Story is this:
When you're having trouble dealing with your personal failings and or stressing out at not being able to solve all of the worlds problems, then what one should do is confide in someone. Be it a friend, or trusted firgure.
However if one becomes more and more isolated, you're just going to eventually explode and leave in a huff...
... And if you do that you're liable to be smacked around by an Ancient Black Dragon.
So remember Boys and Girls, when you're feelling frustrated about stuff, talk to somebody. Otherwise you'll eventually committ Genocide.
Or something like that at any rate. :smalltongue:
When you're having trouble dealing with your personal failings and or stressing out at not being able to solve all of the worlds problems, then what one should do is confide in someone. Be it a friend, or trusted firgure.
...to have this figure tell you to shut up and and put up? V tried that, you know.
Porthos
2009-03-29, 02:51 AM
so it is not as if he had any chance of avoiding being screwed from the beginning.
Sure it is. He could have decided not to be a Poo Poo Head after getting a Rush of Power. He could have decided to not cast Familicide. He could have decided to show an ounce of warmth of compassion toward his family when he ported in. He could have put down the ABD without extending it's misery.
V could have done lots of things post Splice.
It seems to me that you just don't like the idea that the Soul Splice isn't really doing anything to V besides give him a lot of power. Well, let's not forget the old phrase about Absolute Power, eh?
Anyway, when it comes right down to it, Rich's explanation about V's culpability works for me. If the IFCC says that the soul splice isn't affecting V's judgement, and in this case the IFCC has no reason to lie to Qarr, then I'll go with that. It's hardly a retcon when it's three or four strips later after all.
But, then, I've thought that V's judgement has been off kilter for a while now. Or have you forgotten the whole "What is a Kubota?"? :smalltongue:
It seems to me that you just don't like the idea that the Soul Splice isn't really doing anything to V besides give him a lot of power.
Yes I do. Because it does. It is even freaking changed his/her physical appearance. So no "alignment backlash" looks like a retcon made precisely to make things look like V is not influenced in his choices by little things that fiends forgot to mention (and again, as fiends can lie about the details/omit them, he had no chance of not dancing to their tune from the beginning, his/her only chance of avoiding this being to reject the deal and let his/her family die - damned if you do, damned if you don't). Even the fact that such thing needed to be mentioned explicitly indicates that V's fall to hardcore evil in about one minute of OotS-world time is unnatural enough to raise the question of massive mental influence.
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.