Anybody else feel sorry for Redcloak?

[Chirios]

Seriously man. All dude wants is fairness for his people. The universe is literally set up such that he is a second class citizen.

[Snake-Aes]

Seriously man. All dude wants is fairness for his people. The universe is literally set up such that he is a second class citizen.

Doesn't change the fact that He's Evil and Had It Coming®. Otherwise, yes.

[Belkster11]

There are other pathways he can explore if he wanted fairness for his kind, yet he elected to invade/conquer Azure City, enslave the populance, torture a paladin and would no doubt do it to every single human settlement from here on out.

Yeah, he had it coming. He has good intentions, but the way he's going about doing it is wrong. Take Ghandi and MLK for example. Did they go around invading their oppressor's cities? No. They talked it out with them, negotiated with them. Redcloak is doing none of that.

On a random note= YAY! I'M DWARF RANK. :D

[Ancalagon]

Seriously man. All dude wants is fairness for his people. The universe is literally set up such that he is a second class citizen.

Yeah, but he's doing it the wrong way. He even sacrifices the very people he wanted to save. Really, how many goblins died needlessly in his task?
And all that "grouping with Xykon"... really. Totally awful idea - and he KNEW it.

Redcloak may have a good motivation, but he totally has lost it a long time ago. He now got from O'Chul what he asked for.

[Chirios]

There are other pathways he can explore if he wanted fairness for his kind, yet he elected to invade/conquer Azure City, enslave the populance, torture a paladin and would no doubt do it to every single human settlement from here on out.

Yeah, he had it coming. He has good intentions, but the way he's going about doing it is wrong. Take Ghandi and MLK for example. Did they go around invading their oppressor's cities? No. They talked it out with them, negotiated with them. Redcloak is doing none of that.

On a random note= YAY! I'M DWARF RANK. :D


... The only reason Ghandi and MLK didn't fight for their freedom was because it was logistically impossible. They were outnumbered and outgunned and what's more, they lived in societies which were by and large, filled with people who would listen to their demands. The Paladins slaughter goblin villages yearly, and the Gods have literally made it so that Goblins are just cannon fodder for druids who can't get enough EXP.

You think Ghandi and MLK could've been pacifists if they had lived in societies which captured brown-skinned people, then had their militaries hunt them down in order to train the soldiers for jungle warfare?

As for invading Azure City, like Xykon said, the McGuffin was there, and the Gods won't listen without it.

[Ancalagon]

"Did they go around invading their oppressor's cities?"

Err... hrm... the reason might have been... there were no "oppressors cities" that you just could "take"?

[theinsulabot]

no, not really. to me he is kind of like v. had a real need, did totally the wrong thing trying to pull it off, and while there are occasional successes (new hobgoblin city) the price tag is building fast and will almost certainly end up biting both him and all of goblin kind in the ass

[dancrilis]

Why would anyone feel sorry for Redcloak at the moment?

His life has been justified.

His family are avenged.
His brother was wrong about Xykon, through the alliance the goblin peoples are doing very well.
Xykon has stopped randomly killing the Dark One’s worshipers.
He has made friendly contact with humans (Tsukiko) and presumedly other mercenary nations nearby, which is the first step to full and lasting peace.
Etc, etc, etc.

Ever since Xykon was destroyed in the mountains team evil has become team competent and it is showing.

The subtle character development of Xykon after his destruction has been a masterpiece in its own right.

[shadzar]

Not having read SoD I will base this solely on the tidbits I have been graced with and the strips themselves.

RC wants equal rights for goblins, but had for a long time treated his kin (hobgoblins) the same way goblins were treated. Sorry that is a bit of karma right there.

Now what he set out to do originally might not have been the right thing and could have changed his ways had he not gotten caught up in league with Xykon. He wanted to use Xykon to his own ends, but the tables were turned on him after he helped/saved Xykon.

There is a bit of chance for redemption for him even using the Crimson Mantle wherein he could become of neutral not evil intent. (Take him a while to work to good if a goblin could).

So yeah I feel sory for him meeting up with Xykon to begin with that has caused his efforts to work backwards and caused more deaths and stress for his people.

But he is learning the wrong of his ways, so I have faith in him yet! Now moreso that he might just be free enough from Xykon to sit and give a good think about what has transpired recently in relation to his goals.

[SoC175]

There are other pathways he can explore if he wanted fairness for his kind, yet he elected to invade/conquer
[...]
They talked it out with them, negotiated with them. Redcloak is doing none of that.
Because the Dark One's fate showed how much of an option a peacefull negotiation truly is.

[fangthane]

I don't feel sorry for Left-eye; the pain, suffering and indignity he's received thus far are a weak punishment for having sold out his people, his family and his ideals in the hopes that Xykon will accomplish the blackmail The Dark One means to employ.

speculative/SoD-related
I suspect it'll get really bad for Redcloak when Xykon reveals that he's known about the Plan (and its divergence from his Plan) for years. It'll be either Redcloak's emancipation by force, or a reprise of SoD - I'm hoping for the former but we'll see.

[Ancalagon]

Because the Dark One's fate showed how much of an option a peacefull negotiation truly is.

Correct. But there are differences between the "hard and evil way" and "the hard and very, very evil way". Redcloak chose the latter... without actually having to.

[SnowballMan]

... The only reason Ghandi and MLK didn't fight for their freedom was because it was logistically impossible.
No, it's because they did not believe in violence. There have been any number of people willing to fight against 'logically impossible' odds.

You think Ghandi and MLK could've been pacifists if they had lived in societies which captured brown-skinned people, then had their militaries hunt them down in order to train the soldiers for jungle warfare?
Yes I do. A persons deeply held convictions are not changed simply because it is more expedient to do so. They may have been less effective in such a situation, but that does not automatically mean that it would have changed who they are.

[Estelindis]

I feel sorry for Redcloak. Sure, he brought a lot (though far from all) of it on himself. But sometimes that's the worst kind of situation: the one you know you could have prevented if you made the right choices, but didn't.

In a way, I feel sorrier for Right Eye. But I think, given his choices, Left Eye has to live with a guilt that Right Eye did not.

[Ancalagon]

In a way, I feel sorrier for Right Eye. But I think, given his choices, Left Eye has to live with a guilt that Right Eye did not.

Well, duh, Right-Eye is dead? ;)

[Kyronea]

Seriously man. All dude wants is fairness for his people. The universe is literally set up such that he is a second class citizen.

Yes, absolutely.

I've always had a hard time with the D&D notions of good and evil too. I'm well aware that in a D&D setting they're fixed and quantifiable, but I've always looked at them as just concepts in reality. I don't buy the notion of "true evil" or anything like that.

Redcloak is probably my favorite character in the whole comic because he has a desire I'd like to see actually happen, albeit not in the way he intends to bring it about. That is, goblins should have equality on level with the other races. I'm a firm believer in equality so I agree with that goal of his.

Of course I disagree with his methods, but that's beside the point.

[Ancalagon]

Of course I disagree with his methods, but that's beside the point.

Hehe, in contrast to that I'd even say... that's the entire point. ;)

[Eleutherius]

Yes I feel sorry for Redcloak. In SoD we see that Xykon is sadistic and had always been that way. Nothing 'turned him' to the dark side he was born that way.

Redcloak on the other hand was wanted to be a good upstanding member of the community, until that community was wiped out by the paladin for harbouring the Crimson mantel. Kind of like bombing an entire village because a terrorist lives there.
Readcloak set out to fight for equality for his people but to get it he needs to take on the Gods themselves. Think of it like the girl who found out the only reason she had been borne was to donate her liver to her sister. They both were created only sacrifice themselves (or part of themselves) for the favourite child.

In action movies straight laced heroes are boring and the win by flukes and luck. We admire heroes like Liam Neeson’s character in Taken who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty: to torture and kill anyone they need to, to accomplish their goal. Really the main differences between Neeson’s character and Redcloack are that Redcloack is fighting to save a species instead of one person and is partnered with a sadist.

This brings us to Redcloack’s treatment of the hobgoblins. Ever since Xykon came to Right-Eye’s village Redcloack has essentially been Xycon’s prisoner. Redcloack cannot leave Xykon or Xykon will find and kill him plus if he tries he would feel like he was betraying the memory of his brother. It is for this reason I do not blame Redcloack for becoming more like Xykon. I attribute this as well as him not destroying Xykon’s phylactery after Roy destroyed him to Stockholm (http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Stockholm+syndrome) syndrome. In fact I am impressed he figured out what was happening to him as soon as he did.

In short yes I do feel sorry for Redcloack: he is doing his best to the best of his abilities including his ability to judge what’s right. That is not to say he didn’t deserve to have his eye poked out I think it will be good for him in the end. WOOT for O’Chul!!!

[Underground]

No.

Simply: no. Not at all.

Seriously, I could as well feel sorry for Hitler. Theres some remote rests of good intentions even in that guy, too, but its all, like with Redcloak, based on bad assumptions and prejudices, and the way he executed it was, like with Redcloak, completely evil.

[jidasfire]

Not even a little. I feel bad for all the goblins he's led to their deaths on his insane Plan. I feel bad for Right-Eye's family and his village, who were drafted by Xykon when they just wanted to live in peace because Redcloak led him right to them. I feel bad for Right-Eye, who showed some courage, and was rewarded for it by being murdered by Redcloak. But no, I don't feel bad for Redcloak. He's every bit as bad as the humans who've mistreated him, and the "enlightened" goblin nation he wants to live in would probably be built on his tyranny. It would be bad for all the humans he'd treat as second-class citizens or worse, and it would be bad for any goblins who didn't share his dogma. Maybe he dresses it up in pretty words, but Redcloak is well and truly evil by this point. In many ways, he's worse than Xykon, because Xykon has no conscience whatsoever. Redcloak has one, he just twists and ignores it.

[Raenir Salazar]

Also he got stabbed in the eye, thats guaranteed to make people go ooooo ouch.

[Dr. Cthulwho]

Seriously man. All dude wants is fairness for his people. The universe is literally set up such that he is a second class citizen.

Yes and no.

Yes because he and his race are in a very unfair position. I can understand wanting out of such a situation and being so angry about it your perfectly willing to do bad things because you think it is justified or because it is the only way. Plus if you are a member of a race designated as little more then good sources of XP that could easily twist a person - the whole "treat me like a monster and chances are I'll start acting like one" thing.

No, because he is almost certainly going about it the wrong way and generally being evil about it, and is contributing to the problem some. Two wrongs often don't make a right.

It might be more conflicted if there was the sense Redcloak was purely misguided about his path (say Miko who did bad in the belief it was good), but he is fairly rational and he knows full well where his actions place him in terms of good/evil. Plus the whole back up plan of "if it works - great, if it doesn't the Snarl destroys everything and next time round it will be better".

And in that sense I would say "Yes, I am deeply sorry about how your people are treated, but you just can't go around risking existence and thinking that is the best way to fix it. If you do you'll deserve to be defeated."

Still, Redcloak is one of my favorite characters in the comic. If he organized a protest for Goblin rights I'd attend. I'd make my own banner and everything.


Yes I do. A persons deeply held convictions are not changed simply because it is more expedient to do so. They may have been less effective in such a situation, but that does not automatically mean that it would have changed who they are.

Actually the way I read that question was more a kind of nature vs nurture situation. Not whether you picked them perfectly out of their moment in history and put them somewhere else, where presumably there is a good chance their attitudes and philosophies would remain the same, but rather if they had grown up in the hypothetical situation proposed - would they still develop the same approach?

[Volkov]

Grrr only elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and humans deserve nations grrrrr. All other species must go extinct to make room for the human species. Grrrrrrrrrr!!! Teh Humanity is teh ownage. Other races suck. Grrrrrr. Better yet kill everything the dwarves, halflings, elves, and gnomes too they're not human so by definition they are bad! Grrrrrrr.

Seriously, if I had to pick one race to go extinct in all D&D worlds, it would be humanity. That's why I feel pity for redcloak, he has to fight an uphil battle against a species that is so very beloved when it doesn't deserve a single ounce of all the love we heap on ourselves. For every act of good we do, we do ten acts of evil. He lives in a world intentionally made to screw his people over.

If he makes his nation and enslaves humans, I say they deserved it. No one cares when a nation of humans enslaves goblins and probably would say "Yeah those goblins had it coming! Whip em harder!" but if that order is reversed everyone starts going "OMFG THOSE GOBLINS ARE BAD!!!! KILL DEM ALLZ GGGGGRRRRRR!!!!""

[evileeyore]

Seriously man. All dude wants is fairness for his people. The universe is literally set up such that he is a second class citizen.

Live by the Evil. Die by the Smite Evil.

[jidasfire]

Grrr only elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and humans deserve nations grrrrr. All other species must go extinct to make room for the human species. Grrrrrrrrrr!!! Teh Humanity is teh ownage. Other races suck. Grrrrrr. Better yet kill everything the dwarves, halflings, elves, and gnomes too they're not human so by definition they are bad! Grrrrrrr.

Seriously, if I had to pick one race to go extinct in all D&D worlds, it would be humanity. That's why I feel pity for redcloak, he has to fight an uphil battle against a species that is so very beloved when it doesn't deserve a single ounce of all the love we heap on ourselves. For every act of good we do, we do ten acts of evil. He lives in a world intentionally made to screw his people over.

If he makes his nation and enslaves humans, I say they deserved it. No one cares when a nation of humans enslaves goblins and probably would say "Yeah those goblins had it coming! Whip em harder!" but if that order is reversed everyone starts going "OMFG THOSE GOBLINS ARE BAD!!!! KILL DEM ALLZ GGGGGRRRRRR!!!!""

I don't think anyone is saying that. Most people can sympathize with the point of view while recognizing that the person is carrying it out in a very flawed way. It's an interesting moral conundrum, and the author clearly wants us to think about it in terms that aren't quite so binary, but reducing it to some shouting match with lots of snarling and net-speak doesn't exactly aid your point.

[Yoyoyo]

I think Redcloak is a great character and adds, pardon the expression, humanity to SOD. I felt worse for him in that book (which showed his personal weaknesses in gory detail) than I do for him getting a stick in the eye now. Setting aside the larger Goblin plight, its hard to feel bad for RC on an intimate level when a tortured O-chul gives a little first hand payback. While Team Evil is always hiring, I'm still rooting for OOTS to stop them from ending the world. Working to destroy everything tempers my sympathy.

[Estelindis]

Well, duh, Right-Eye is dead? ;)
Ugh... I really set myself up for that one, didn't I? :smallsigh:

[Dark Matter]

Seriously man. All dude wants is fairness for his people. The universe is literally set up such that he is a second class citizen.He and his kind Deserve to be second class citizens.

This in the kind of world they want to build: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0511.html

They don't want to be free from oppression, they want to be free to oppress.

[Tempest Fennac]

In SoD, RC's dialogue to RE, who he had no real reason to lie to at the time, suggested that he had the attitude that if Goblins couldn't succeed with a level playing field, they didn't deserve to succeed at all. It appears from the slavery and whippings that his views changed a lot for some reason since then. It could be that he was lying all along, or his views could have changed due to events leading up to that point, but I can't honestly think of any events other then ending up as Zykon's slave that would make RC think enslaving humans who had nothing to do with the Saphire Guard would be justified. (The Hobgoblins wanting slaves could be a reason, but looking at their unswerving loyalty to RC, the chances are that he could easily stop them if he wanted to.)

[shadzar]

He and his kind Deserve to be second class citizens.

This in the kind of world they want to build: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0511.html

They don't want to be free from oppression, they want to be free to oppress.

NO!

While the hobgoblins are his kind RC ha only been thinking of goblins for some time. Those POW's were treated as such under the articles of prisoner handling for the area they are in.

RC was thinking mostly of goblins for the longest time, and has be re-evaluating his treatment of the other goblinoid races as of late. What he would probably want for his people (goblins) would be what the hobgoblins already had outside of Xykon's tower where he was waiting to reform.

A vast city in a valley somewhere, they could be left alone. He already had it and passed it up forsaking his brethren prior to becoming aware of what he was doing.

The question is has he realized that with the remaining ones in Azure City, and could they go back to that should the leave Azure City and have no more slaves?

[Scarlet Knight]

Hey, goblins are the bunny rabbits of the sentient word! They live to multiple and be prey for the other creatures in the dungeon. How do you think all those carnivores in the old modules could live side by side like they did in 1st & 2nd edition?

[Dr. Cthulwho]

Setting aside the larger Goblin plight, its hard to feel bad for RC on an intimate level when a tortured O-chul gives a little first hand payback.

Even though he is one of my favourite characters I don't feel to bad about him loosing an eye either that much.

If I was ye olde tavern keeper and he word of recalled in an sat down and spun his story I'd definitely say "You and your people really have had a tough old time of it. But the eye thing? You've brought that on yourself, and probably worse."

Then hopefully he wouldn't disintegrate me, because I'd die disappointed I didn't have the chance to suggest some rights for Goblins T-Shirt slogans.


In SoD, RC's dialogue to RE, who he had no real reason to lie to at the time, suggested that he had the attitude that if Goblins couldn't succeed with a level playing field, they didn't deserve to succeed at all. It appears from the slavery and whippings that his views changed a lot for some reason since then. It could be that he was lying all along, or his views could have changed due to events leading up to that point, but I can't honestly think of any events other then ending up as Zykon's slave that would make RC think enslaving humans who had nothing to do with the Saphire Guard would be justified. (The Hobgoblins wanting slaves could be a reason, but looking at their unswerving loyalty to RC, the chances are that he could easily stop them if he wanted to.)

Maybe power has gone to his head, or hanging around with Xykon has led to a reduction in his nobler aspects/thoughts?

[Linkavitch]

He got what was coming to him with the eye thing. Now we can call him Left-eye! And I sense some more Reddie Character development soon...

[Tempest Fennac]

That's an excellent point, Dr. Cthulwho. RC seemed shocked when he realised he was turning into Zykon during the battle for AC, but it does appear as though his previous noble intentions have mostly gone altogether, unless it directly benefits Goblins.

EDIT: Actually, based on his willingness to kill Hobgoblins over childhood bullies, punishing random humans for the Saphire Guard's crimes is completely IC for RC, even without power.

[Dark Matter]

While the hobgoblins are his kind RC ha only been thinking of goblins for some time. Those POW's were treated as such under the articles of prisoner handling for the area they are in.Being whipped because the evil guards think it's funny and promotes the cause of evil doesn't sound like "articles of prisoner handling" for anything other than a lawful evil group.


RC was thinking mostly of goblins for the longest time, and has be re-evaluating his treatment of the other goblinoid races as of late. What he would probably want for his people (goblins) would be what the hobgoblins already had outside of Xykon's tower where he was waiting to reform.Of which we know little or nothing other than they were willing to drop everything and follow RC. Did they have, and abuse, their slaves too? The only sliderule that we have to judge them by is their treatment of the people in that comic.


A vast city in a valley somewhere, they could be left alone. He already had it and passed it up forsaking his brethren prior to becoming aware of what he was doing.A lovely thought. The problem is that's a "good" idea and not going to sit well with a race that thinks whipping slaves to make food taste better makes intuitive sense.

As a general rule, the non-evil races aren't going to want people with that innate sense of right and wrong to be running the show. For that matter even the other evil races aren't going to enjoy it either.

RedCloak's people were created to be (usually) evil monsters. Ergo we shouldn't be shocked that they're (usually) evil monsters. They hit the radar as evil because they are evil. If they weren't usually evil, then they wouldn't be goblins. RC doesn't want to redeem his people, he just wants them on top making everyone else suffer.

That's not a noble goal.

[Badgercloak]

RC's loss of an eye will open his eyes, pun very well intended, and bring about some change. Whether positive or negative depends on how he sees the situation. hehehe.

[SavageWombat]

Just because RC wants a "level playing field" for the goblin/human conflict doesn't mean he's not also Evil in alignment.

He may not want to enslave all of humanity, but these humans here? He WON these. He beat them in a fair fight (so to speak). They're his property now.

He doesn't think the gods should rig the universe in his favor, because he thinks that goblins can dominate humanity without their help.

[Cracklord]

... The only reason Ghandi and MLK didn't fight for their freedom was because it was logistically impossible. They were outnumbered and outgunned and what's more, they lived in societies which were by and large, filled with people who would listen to their demands. The Paladins slaughter goblin villages yearly, and the Gods have literally made it so that Goblins are just cannon fodder for druids who can't get enough EXP.

You think Ghandi and MLK could've been pacifists if they had lived in societies which captured brown-skinned people, then had their militaries hunt them down in order to train the soldiers for jungle warfare?

As for invading Azure City, like Xykon said, the McGuffin was there, and the Gods won't listen without it.

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a city called Jerusalem. It was a corrupt, bloody place that was little more then a puppet state of the Roman Empire. For most people the laws were there more as a means of oppressing them then keeping them safe. Power was abused, violence was the law, and those who could not protect themselves were preyed on by everyone else.
Then the son of a carpenter began talking, and teaching, and showing them all a better way of life, and the inherent goodness in themselves. Some of them listened, and some of them didn't, but he kept on teaching, and slowly people began to learn. He was deemed to be dangerous, betrayed and nailed to a cross. His last words? Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Convictions, true, genuine convictions, are not mitigated by circumstance. I don't know if Martian Luther King or Ghandi would have sung the same tune in those conditions, but I suspect they would have.

Mohammad led a holy war. He did his best to talk his way around using negotiation and diplomacy, but one way or another they wound up part of his empire.
If the old testament is to be believed, Moses called down plagues on Egypt, until he called down the Angel of Death himself.

Redcloak is more like the latter then the former, but his sin is more that he has compromised then that he hasn't. By allowing Xykon to lead him around, his eliminated any legitimacy his claim may once have had.
Yes, goblins are appallingly treated, but his actions have done nothing but prove those who are against goblins absolutely right.

I like Redcloak. But he needs to grow up.

[Spiky]

All the comparisons of RC to these particular famous leaders are poor analogies, except possibly Mohammed, I'm not sure, not being familiar with him. RC is fighting a war against his enemies across borders. The others were fighting internal issues. That's why some are confused about the comparison.

[Cleverdan22]

Grrr only elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and humans deserve nations grrrrr. All other species must go extinct to make room for the human species. Grrrrrrrrrr!!! Teh Humanity is teh ownage. Other races suck. Grrrrrr. Better yet kill everything the dwarves, halflings, elves, and gnomes too they're not human so by definition they are bad! Grrrrrrr.

Seriously, if I had to pick one race to go extinct in all D&D worlds, it would be humanity. That's why I feel pity for redcloak, he has to fight an uphil battle against a species that is so very beloved when it doesn't deserve a single ounce of all the love we heap on ourselves. For every act of good we do, we do ten acts of evil. He lives in a world intentionally made to screw his people over.

If he makes his nation and enslaves humans, I say they deserved it. No one cares when a nation of humans enslaves goblins and probably would say "Yeah those goblins had it coming! Whip em harder!" but if that order is reversed everyone starts going "OMFG THOSE GOBLINS ARE BAD!!!! KILL DEM ALLZ GGGGGRRRRRR!!!!""

First, nobody said any of this. Plus, I wasn't familiar with humans growling. Is that a regional dialect?

Also, you talk of love we heap on ourselves, while still talking of the DnD universe. This suggests a parallel between we humans and DnD humans being the same. Yes, people do tend to prefer who they are over who they are not. As far as I can tell, that is just how the human brain works.

Not to mention that this stuff about a world created against goblins is mostly Rich's thing. The DnD creators originally created goblins as stupider, bloodthirsty, war-loving beings. They were designed to love to kill, thus making it okay to kill them. I'm okay with this because IT'S A GAME. Rich's interpretation of the goblins makes them of equal intelligence to humans and elves and such, making them easier to sympathize with.

Oh yeah, and one final note: You get to hate humanity because you are a human. In the real world, we're the only ones who possess rational thought.


But I digress. Redcloak had it coming. Also, nobody should blame O-chul because he didn't really know of Redcloak's true motivation. All he knew was the sworn enemy of the sapphire guard was torturing him for months on end. Well-founded (and well-exacted, if I do say so myself) revenge.

[EyethatBinds]

I'd feel sorry for him but he's worth too much exp to pass up. I'd have tried to finish him off too. That way I could get story experience as well.

[Darklord Bright]

I stopped feeling sorry for him at the end of Start of Darkness. From that point on, he will deserve everything he gets in my eyes.

[Tempest Fennac]

As far as Goblins being created evil in the OotS world goes, I think it was more of a case of them being put in a position where they would have to resort to evil acts to survive rather then them being evil. Admittedly, the fact that they seem to be happy to commit evil when it's not necessary suggests that they aren't happy with getting an even playing field.

[Pronounceable]

I don't, cos he was pwnt so AWESOMELY.

That said, goblinoids are evil. They're created that way. So is it their fault, or the gods'? Should they be punished for their nature? Those are the difficult questions here.


I'd feel sorry for him but he's worth too much exp to pass up. I'd have tried to finish him off too. That way I could get story experience as well.

Also, this. (tho I'm quite certain O-Chul got XP for "defeating" him)

[FujinAkari]

Even though he is one of my favourite characters I don't feel to bad about him loosing an eye either that much.


Now we can call him Left-eye!


RC's loss of an eye will open his eyes, pun very well intended, hehehe.

Am I the only one that expects that Redcloak will simply cast regenerate? I mean, ironic and all, but there is no reason to willingly suffer an unnecessary handicap...

[Iranon]

Even though I rather like Redcloak, I find it hard to feel sorry for extremists. He plays hard, is willing to go very far for his goals and doesn't mind causing grievous bodily harm himself, so it's hardly as if he's an innocent victim.

'It's all fun and games until *I* lose an eye' isn't a good attitude.

[mirth7]

Ghandi was not outnumbered. It was quite the other way around which he pointed out to the British officials: which also they were quite aware of.

[Dr. Cthulwho]

I don't, cos he was pwnt so AWESOMELY.

That said, goblinoids are evil. They're created that way. So is it their fault, or the gods'? Should they be punished for their nature? Those are the difficult questions here.

Well I guess even if they are naturally predisposed towards "evil", as defined by other sentient creatures, they still have free will and intelligence.

Right Eye is evidence that Goblins don't have to behave that way. And Redcloak's moment before the battle for Azure City show Goblins have the same feelings about family and loss, the same as humans or elves etc, and there were those Goblin teenagers back in the original dungeon...

So I'd say they should only be punished if they choose to accept their nature in a way that conflicts with others. If they don't, or they want to change their people then work with them.

However I'd get Celia to totally sue the gods for being such jerks.


Am I the only one that expects that Redcloak will simply cast regenerate? I mean, ironic and all, but there is no reason to willingly suffer an unnecessary handicap...

I imagine he certainly could, but I don't know. It would seem odd to develop such an interesting character feature with symbolic meaning if it was just going to be magicked away next strip.

Unless it serves to show something about Redcloak - like he catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror, is shaken and then regens as soon as possible.

[latwPIAT]

Am I the only one that expects that Redcloak will simply cast regenerate? I mean, ironic and all, but there is no reason to willingly suffer an unnecessary handicap...

Redcloak can, but he could choose not to for symbolic reasons, just someone else we know who lost and eye and chose not to have it regenerated.

[J.Gellert]

Definitely not sorry. What's a villain with a half-good motivation worth if not a tragic death?

[B. Dandelion]

A lovely thought. The problem is that's a "good" idea and not going to sit well with a race that thinks whipping slaves to make food taste better makes intuitive sense.

You have it backwards. It DIDN'T make intuitive sense. It was met with a response of "...what?" and then he was fed some plausible-sounding logic that relied on invoking the arbitrary nature of the alignment system (and there IS actual evil food, the evil diner, the spice rack of the damned...). Then they laughed at him, thinking he was an idiot for falling for what should have been patently obvious nonsense.


Well I guess even if they are naturally predisposed towards "evil", as defined by other sentient creatures, they still have free will and intelligence.

Harks to the old religious debate about whether divine omniscience and human free are mutually exclusive. Real-life theists can hold up an argument on that count, whether or not everyone agrees, but the OOTS gods fail so hard (which is somewhat ironic given that they are demonstrably neither omnipotent nor omniscient, but never mind.) They made multiple sentient races who are, by "free will," "always chaotic evil" "often neutral good," and so forth??? God can know you will be evil but that doesn't mean he forced you -- okay, that's not completely unreasonable. God saying 70% of one race will be evil, and only 5% of another? By explicit design?!

NO friggin' way. That's influence, it's interference and it completely destroys the claim of objective morality because we can't measure different races by the same yardstick. If the gods wanted evil, and they wanted only specific races to be evil, and they had the power to make it so, and did, they can't turn around and say it is equally evil for an "always chaotic evil" character to do evil as it is for a character from good- or neutral-leaning race. Mind, the humanoids are not removed of ALL culpability for their own actions, but it's less. You can't even compare the plight of goblins to real-life issues of racism or whatnot. People raised in poverty and ignorance have a system working against them, so they have to struggle harder for less, but that's not usually something people try to create on purpose. The system here? WAS. Having societal pressures working against you is hard as hell, but having explicit DIVINE INTERVENTION being the dominant force at work!? That's not even FATHOMABLE to people from our world and its rules.

Sorry, didn't mean to take YOUR head off. It's just that EVERY time I think about the issue I realize some new horrible angle and become infuriated with the gods all over again.

[Anteros]

He's been torturing O'Chul to the brink of death, and then healing him so he could repeat the process for months.

To be honest, he deserved more than what he got.

[shadzar]

He's been torturing O'Chul to the brink of death, and then healing him so he could repeat the process for months.

To be honest, he deserved more than what he got.

And in doing so has been preventing Xykon from going for either of the other gates to control or destroy since already 3 of 5 gates have been destroyed and the snarl rifts are probably growing where they all were.

[Dark Matter]

You have it backwards. It DIDN'T make intuitive sense. It was met with a response of "...what?" and then he was fed some plausible-sounding logic...I.e. it made intuitive sense.


Then they laughed at him, thinking he was an idiot for falling for what should have been patently obvious nonsense. And then explained that he should be whipping the slaves for pleasure, another concept that made intuitive sense to him.


They made multiple sentient races who are, by "free will," "always chaotic evil" "often neutral good," and so forth??? It's the deliberate variance in gradation here that sinks them. God can know you will sin but that doesn't mean he forced you -- okay, that's not completely unreasonable. God saying 70% of one race will sin and but only 5% of another? By explicit design?! There is NO "sin" in D&D. Evil and evil races are NOT "punished" in D&D. There are evil gods who reward their evil followers with things that they enjoy.

Take Belkar. He's going to die. He's Chaotic Evil, he'd *never* be happy with Roy on the mountain. Instead after he dies he'll become a demon and do in the afterlife the things that he enjoys now (i.e. murder and the like).

[B. Dandelion]

I.e. it made intuitive sense.

"Intuitive" and "arbitrary" are antonyms -- something makes intuitive sense because it appeals to the basic understanding of reality most everyone comes equipped with. An argument that sounds plausible for arbitrary reasons is one that would otherwise be perceived as nonsense. His intuitive response was much like Durkon and Daigo's to Elan in 556 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0556.html). His argument is entirely plausible on the grounds of his awareness of genre, but he'd be a mental case anywhere else.


And then explained that he should be whipping the slaves for pleasure, another concept that made intuitive sense to him.

He didn't get that either. He didn't see any practical use in it. The other two were just jerks. Evil jerks, sure. I'm not really trying to deconstruct your entire argument here, I just think you're factually incorrect about what was shown in that particular scene. I wouldn't have seen it as out-of-place if they hadn't just been messing with him -- the logic sounded okay to me, and, again, there IS "evil-flavored" food.


There is NO "sin" in D&D. Evil and evil races are NOT "punished" in D&D. There are evil gods who reward their evil followers with things that they enjoy.

You're contradicting Xykon, aren't you? Avoiding the fire below and all that? Redcloak also mentions a "punitive" afterlife during the scene with O-Chul on the roof. If they're not "punished" in the afterlife for simply behaving as they were created to behave, than I withdraw my complaint.

[Dark Matter]

"Intuitive" and "arbitrary" are antonyms -- something makes intuitive sense because it appeals to the basic understanding of reality most everyone comes equipped with. An argument that sounds plausible for arbitrary reasons is one that would otherwise be perceived as nonsense. His intuitive response was much like Durkon and Daigo's to Elan in 556 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0556.html). His argument is entirely plausible on the grounds of his awareness of genre, but he'd be a mental case anywhere else. This is an argument for, not against, what I'm saying. Elan was right for the universe in which he lives.


He didn't get that either. He didn't see any practical use in it. The other two were just jerks. Evil jerks, sure.I.e., two naturally evil, the third more neutral... but the two evil jerks are the average, not him. More, he's apparently comfortable living in this society.


You're contradicting Xykon, aren't you? Avoiding the fire below and all that?Xykon was referring to our assumed afterlife and was also referring to non-D&D people.


Redcloak also mentions a "punitive" afterlife during the scene with O-Chul on the roof. If they're not "punished" in the afterlife for simply behaving as they were created to behave, than I withdraw my complaint.Many of the afterlives ARE bad and it totally sucks to be there. But there's no "punishment" for "being evil". You become a low level demon, and life is harsh & brutal because you're a low level demon.

But it's also true that the more evil you are, the less it sucks (i.e. the higher your rank is).

[WarriorTribble]

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a city called Jerusalem. It was a corrupt, bloody place that was little more then a puppet state of the Roman Empire. For most people the laws were there more as a means of oppressing them then keeping them safe. Power was abused, violence was the law, and those who could not protect themselves were preyed on by everyone else.
Then the son of a carpenter began talking, and teaching, and showing them all a better way of life, and the inherent goodness in themselves. Some of them listened, and some of them didn't, but he kept on teaching, and slowly people began to learn. He was deemed to be dangerous, betrayed and nailed to a cross. His last words? Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Convictions, true, genuine convictions, are not mitigated by circumstance. I don't know if Martian Luther King or Ghandi would have sung the same tune in those conditions, but I suspect they would have.From a secular viewpoint the... carpenter was right because we now accept that all humans deserve to be treated a certain way. And of course at least two major religion state he was preaching the morals of a higher divine power. The situation in OotS is far bleaker. Sentience in this universe has all the negative baggage that we do. However, they also have divine confirmation that treating certain sentience as garbage is moral and even just. When worshipped being are allowing (even encouraging) people to do this, then the only folks left who'll act in a manner that we'd consider ok are the radical fringe groups who dare believe their gods are immoral. Frankly I'd think such people would be as common as humanists within the ranks of the KKK.

Jesus, Gandhi, and Luther all had pre-existing moral guidelines that they could use to guilt trip people into acting right. Trying to get equal rights for goblins peacefully is analogous to vegetarians trying to stop meat eating through peaceful means. Both concepts are fairly new, and outright foreign for too many. Plus their respective oppositions have far too much momentum. Of course while we in the real world can be convinced eating meat is wrong (well certain meats), there's no way killing Goblins can be seen as anything more than a neutral act the way things currently stand.

[Lord_Drayakir]

No, I will never feel sorry for Redcloak at all.

First off, he's a terrorist. That has been explicitly shown in the scene with the Rift and O'Chul. And not the "cool" kind of terrorist either. Not to mention the fact that his over-arching plan relies on terrorism on a world-wide scale. Oh, and he's also a fanatic, because he's willing to lay HIS life and the life of ALL of his fellow goblins for his plan.

Second, he's a filthy hypocrit. Right-Eye has already shown him HOW to win over the human. Had the goblinoid BUILT a city, started agriculture, stopped raiding, and send envoys over to the human cities- the world would've been different. Instead, he CONQUERS a city, uses slave labor, and allies himself with mercenary cities. When Azure City is cleansed, it'll be poetic justice.

And finally, he's a goblin. In D&D speciesm actually makes sense. If you're an elf, people are right to call you a "singing androgynous homosexual," because... you are. And if you're a goblin, you can't really deny that you're a "vicious, bloodthirsty, green-skinned bastard." Because there are literally RULES saying this.

So I don't see how anybody can feel bad for a vicious, fanatical, non-human terrorist.

[Kish]

And finally, he's a goblin. In D&D speciesm actually makes sense. If you're an elf, people are right to call you a "singing androgynous homosexual," because... you are. And if you're a goblin, you can't really deny that you're a "vicious, bloodthirsty, green-skinned bastard." Because there are literally RULES saying this.
Congratulations. You are right that Redcloak is a goblin.

Unfortunately, every other syllable in that paragraph is dead wrong, but the first sentence is the one that counts.

[Morty]

It's funny how many people read OoTS yet happily adhere to the cliches and stereotypes it parodies.
@V Case in point.

[Gredival]

Grrr only elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and humans deserve nations grrrrr. All other species must go extinct to make room for the human species. Grrrrrrrrrr!!! Teh Humanity is teh ownage. Other races suck. Grrrrrr. Better yet kill everything the dwarves, halflings, elves, and gnomes too they're not human so by definition they are bad! Grrrrrrr.

Seriously, if I had to pick one race to go extinct in all D&D worlds, it would be humanity. That's why I feel pity for redcloak, he has to fight an uphil battle against a species that is so very beloved when it doesn't deserve a single ounce of all the love we heap on ourselves. For every act of good we do, we do ten acts of evil. He lives in a world intentionally made to screw his people over.

If he makes his nation and enslaves humans, I say they deserved it. No one cares when a nation of humans enslaves goblins and probably would say "Yeah those goblins had it coming! Whip em harder!" but if that order is reversed everyone starts going "OMFG THOSE GOBLINS ARE BAD!!!! KILL DEM ALLZ GGGGGRRRRRR!!!!""

Of course it's justified to enslave completely innocent people merely on the account that other members of their race did something. It's not like that's the same very exact justification the humans used in the first place which you disagree with, right?

Sorry but this is a world with alignment. Stereotyping tends to work in these situations because well, that is what alignment facilitates. Thus, goblins may be ill treated but are ill-treated with good reason (they are evil). They, by definition, always "have it coming."

Remember Redcloak *is* evil. Why? It's not just his methodology or the willingness to work with Xykon. It's the fact he doesn't want Goblins to co-exist with other races in peace. He wants Goblins to be at the top.

The whole monsters wanting to be something more because "we're not just chunks of XP" can and has been done. But not the way Redcloak wants to do it. If there are goblins who *are* exceptions to the rule, i.e. they are not evil, they have to prove it and have to seek to live in harmony with other good and neutral aligned beings... not conquer and take their place at the top along the Goblins > All line.

The "hierarchy" in D&D worlds correlates with racial lines merely because races have alignment tendencies. But for good creatures, it ultimately comes down to alignment divides, *not* racial divides.

If a Paladin stumbles upon a human or dwarf or elf whom he *knows* to be evil about to slay a drow or ogre whom he *knows* to be good, the Paladin will save the good creature, regardless of its race. It's "Smite Evil" not "Smite Usually-Evil"

The ultimate basis of judgment for the good aligned is to look at someone as a person and individual and hold someone accountable only for who they actually are; you look past race to see character and see good for good, innocence for innocence, evil for evil -- e.g. O-chul and the MitD.

In many cases yes we end up killing the commonly-evil thing and save the thing we commonly-good thing... but only because it turns out that racial - A L I G N M E N T - tends to be accurate (as intended)

Redcloak cares for none of this; he cares for Goblins and only Goblins. He does not recognize *why* his people are evil; in fact, he doesn't care. To me, that more than anything else, is what makes him evil. Plus well, assisting Xykon in his attempts to unravel the very fabric of the universe

[Kish]

Sorry but this is a world with alignment. Stereotyping tends to work in these situations because well, that is what alignment facilitates. Thus, goblins may be ill treated but are ill-treated with good reason (they are evil). They, by definition, always "have it coming."

Except that Goblins are "Usually Neutral Evil," not "Always X Alignment," not that even "Always" actually means "always" in real-world terms.

What you're saying about goblins is exactly as true as, "Every single elf is Chaotic Good" or, "Every single halfling is True Neutral" or, "Every single human is all alignments simultaneously." So, why are goblins Usually Neutral Evil? In most D&D settings, I would say because their culture promotes it. This makes them different from a hypothetical similar culture of real-world humans only in that there are no spells to detect good or evil in the real world.

Oddly enough, I agree with the last three paragraphs of your post, but they seem to coexist badly with your second paragraph.

[HandofShadows]

So I don't see how anybody can feel bad for a vicious, fanatical, non-human terrorist.

The non-human part is not at all needed. And in fact it weakens your argument by adding the possibility of speciesim.

For me the viciouse, fanatical and terrorist are more than enough.

[AkodoKoji]

You think Ghandi and MLK could've been pacifists if they had lived in societies which captured brown-skinned people, then had their militaries hunt them down in order to train the soldiers for jungle warfare?

*Cough* Vietnam War. *Cough*

[Baalthazaq]

There is NO "sin" in D&D. Evil and evil races are NOT "punished" in D&D. There are evil gods who reward their evil followers with things that they enjoy.

Take Belkar. He's going to die. He's Chaotic Evil, he'd *never* be happy with Roy on the mountain. Instead after he dies he'll become a demon and do in the afterlife the things that he enjoys now (i.e. murder and the like).

Erm, completely untrue. The 9 hells are populated by people who are there because they are evil.

[WarriorTribble]

The whole monsters wanting to be something more because "we're not just chunks of XP" can and has been done. But not the way Redcloak wants to do it. If there are goblins who *are* exceptions to the rule, i.e. they are not evil, they have to prove it and have to seek to live in harmony with other good and neutral aligned beings... not conquer and take their place at the top along the Goblins > All line.While I mostly agree with your post, I just can't see how the Goblins would have meaningful peace as long as they're second class sentients via divine mandate. Since there are no moral reasons not to attack/kill/pillage a goblin settlement, goblins can only hope to achieve peace through practical means, perhaps economic and/or political incentives. If these practical reason ever disappear, or if the profitability of looting/pillaging/killing goblins ever outweigh the peaceful options then the goblin race is back to square one.

[The Tygre]

On the whole, I feel sorry for Redcloak. I mean, by the time he realized that there were other ways to go for equality, he was in too deep. And even when he did get to that conclusion and was poised to live with RE and help build up a village, maybe even city, that caught up to him.

As for having his eye stabbed out... nah, he totally had that coming. Karma's a bitch like that. Kind of cool though. There's definitely going to be some connections to RE at this point.

[Baalthazaq]

Can I just say 4 things here.

1) This is going to devolve into an alignment thread.

2) Intention is more important than action. If a doctor prescribes the wrong medicine he is not a murderer, he is not evil. There is nothing about him killing someone that makes him evil, unless his intentions were suitably aligned. Similarly, if he fires a gun at someone and misses, he is not good because he "didn't kill them". His intention is all that is required.

Evil/Good are completely disconnected from action. Redcloak is trying to be good.

3) Any criticism of goblin actions are invalidated by the fact that the Gods unfairly made them evil through design. "Oh look at them acting all evil, what pricks". Not in the slightest. Not any more than someone who is dominated performing those actions.

What Redcloak is trying to change is the fundamental design of the universe that strips his people of the free will to choose to be good/evil. Until that point you cannot criticize the actions of his race. They are all effectively being partially mind controlled.

4) In DnD the alignment line in a creature description shows tendency. "Orcs are evil because their society promotes it and runs this way".
In oots, the lore is different. The alignment line according to oots directly determines what alignment you are.

Redcloak lives in an OotS world, not a DnD one, though they share many many similarities.

[B. Dandelion]

This is an argument for, not against, what I'm saying. Elan was right for the universe in which he lives.

*sigh*

You stated that the evil hobgoblins were of a mindset that would find the concept of "torture going into evil food makes it taste better to us (as we are evil)" intuitive when NONE of them did. The newbie was flummoxed and the other two were surprised they'd been able to string him along -- in other words, they didn't think it was intuitive and they didn't think anyone else would either.

What I said regarding Elan's genre savvy was that he was CORRECT, but NOT intuitive. Daigo and Durkon were the ones behaving intuitively.


I.e., two naturally evil, the third more neutral... but the two evil jerks are the average, not him. More, he's apparently comfortable living in this society.

I already told you I'm not taking apart your argument. What's the point? Neither of us are going to change our minds. I zeroed in on the one aspect that had to do with a matter of verifiable fact. They did not consider "torture = yummy food" intuitive. Period. You think I'm, what, building up a defense on that? Talk about damning with faint praise...

[Tempest Fennac]

I disagree about Goblins being partially mind controlled; RE and the teenagers had issues with steriotypical behavious and the god's plan for keeping them evil was to make them live in unproductive areas so they have to raid the lands of PC races. While I'd say the plan to blackmain the gods is CG in tiself due to it being concerned with correcting a great injustice, the fact that it involves the risk of killing everyone, in addition to RC's methods of accomplising it, make it evil, and RC is aware of this.

[Code Black]

I think a big idea behind Redcloak is that you're supposed to sympathize with him, but not empathize or excuse his actions. His intentions are noble, but he's in no way a hero. A tragic villain, driven by the call of vengeance for his slaughtered people, perhaps, but still a villain: genocidal and megalomaniacal.

[Counterpower]

Can I just say 4 things here.

1) This is going to devolve into an alignment thread.

Yeah, you're probably right.


2) Intention is more important than action. If a doctor prescribes the wrong medicine he is not a murderer, he is not evil. There is nothing about him killing someone that makes him evil, unless his intentions were suitably aligned. Similarly, if he fires a gun at someone and misses, he is not good because he "didn't kill them". His intention is all that is required.

First, intention isn't the last word. Sure, the doctor's action doesn't necessarily mean he's evil, but he's still responsible for that death through his mistake and needs to respond in some manner. If he just says, "Well, damn, I killed someone. Well, I didn't intend to, so no worries!"... yeah. Not good.


Evil/Good are completely disconnected from action.

No, not really. If someone decides to take some guns and go on a killing spree to try to illustrate his deeply held belief in the dangers than gun violence presents, he's still blindingly evil. The fact that his intention was "good" doesn't change the fact that his actions are evil.


Redcloak is trying to be good.

... This is the same Redcloak that tortured O-Chul for months and was prepared to kill innocent civilians to try to get O-Chul to talk. This is the same Redcloak that has enslaved the remaining human population of Azure City.

SOD:
This is the same Redcloak that killed his brother and wants to unmake all of creation if he doesn't get what he wants.

Is that the same Redcloak who's trying to be good? Because I really, really don't think any of that counts as "trying to be good."


3) Any criticism of goblin actions are invalidated by the fact that the Gods unfairly made them evil through design. "Oh look at them acting all evil, what pricks". Not in the slightest. Not any more than someone who is dominated performing those actions.

What Redcloak is trying to change is the fundamental design of the universe that strips his people of the free will to choose to be good/evil. Until that point you cannot criticize the actions of his race. They are all effectively being partially mind controlled.

Sorry, not buying it. They are not mind-controlled, they are free to choose the actions they take. Redcloak was perfectly free to choose a different course of action. The gods haven't stripped them of free will, only generally given their societies a hard time. They were the ones that chose to turn to evil actions to remedy that.

As a result, I don't feel sorry for Redcloak in the slightest.

[WarriorTribble]

Sorry, not buying it. They are not mind-controlled, they are free to choose the actions they take. Redcloak was perfectly free to choose a different course of action. The gods haven't stripped them of free will, only generally given their societies a hard time. They were the ones that chose to turn to evil actions to remedy that.While I agree they had free will, I wonder what good/neutral paths do you think the goblins could have taken?

[Superglucose]

*Cough* Vietnam War. *Cough*
To be absolutely fair, everyone was drafted (except, of course, sons of congressmen and the like).

No. I don't feel sorry for Redcloak. There is nothing in Redcloak that is "good" or even "ok." His cause is not to create a society of equals, he's already said (in SoD, iirc) that equality isn't enough, that he has to be on top, that goblins have to be on top and that humans, elves, dwarves, etc. have to be where the goblins used to be.

Plus he spends his time torturing prisoners... for fun.

I don't think he really forces any moral quandaries either, my thoughts of him are, "Ah, his cause is almost just, but he carries it too far. Pity."

[Counterpower]

While I agree they had free will, I wonder what good/neutral paths do you think the goblins could have taken?

To quote Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you should just live proudly in the open."

If Redcloak had dedicated his life to building a goblin city, without all of the evil plots and evil actions, but simply building an honest, peaceful society of goblins that tried to live equally with the other nations, I would be singing his praises up and down the streets. But he chose a course of continued destruction instead.

[Baalthazaq]

If someone guns down people because he believes it will save more lives than it will end, why is that any more "evil" than any soldier in any battlefield where civilian casualties are likely?

Both know they will kill innocents. (Even extremely accurate wars demonstrate over 50% of casualties are civilian, e.g. 80% of deaths in Iraq are civilian).
Both believe that if they do not, more people will die.

People can do horrible things in trying to do the right thing. This has nothing to do with their alignment. I'm sorry but it doesn't. Massacres. Genocides. Whatever. Good people can do these things if they feel they have to for some reason.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, were performed not by one person, but by several along a chain of command, from scientists, to generals, to presidents, to pilots. Listening to those involved you will clearly see that some a wrought with guilt and shame, whilst some will gleefully brag about their role.

Some are Jap hating flag waving *******s. Some are truly sorry for the things they had to do to protect their country from harm.

They are not omnipotent. They don't always get the best choices. That is not their fault.
They are not omniscient. They don't always know the best choices. That is not their fault.

The only way a definition of good based on action and not intent is valid, is if you define good as being something not inherent to the person at all. That to me is so disconnected to any concept of what a good person is, that it's not even worth considering.


First, intention isn't the last word. Sure, the doctor's action doesn't necessarily mean he's evil, but he's still responsible for that death through his mistake and needs to respond in some manner. If he just says, "Well, damn, I killed someone. Well, I didn't intend to, so no worries!"... yeah. Not good.

The entire sentence here is irrelevant.
Does the doctor's action make him evil? No.
Could the doctor be evil? Sure, but that has 0 to do with what he did, and even in your example is only changed by his attitude/motivation/etc.

Finally:

Redcloak <blah blah blah> if he doesn't get what he wants.

You have changed everything about redcloak in that one sentence and then call him evil because of it? Nothing he does is "to get what he wants". He specifically does things over and over again that he doesn't want to do in order to fulfill a final goal that is good.

It is the opposite of your suggestion. He is performing evil acts he does not wish to do, but feels he has to do, in order to remake the universe in a way that is fair for his people.

An omniscient, omnipotent Redcloak who performs these actions is evil. The real Redcloak who does not have the foresight to see that it might all be for nothing, or to envision the perfect way out of every scenario without bloodshed, without violence, and with sheer diplomacy (not to mention the fact that that was the first route tried and it failed massively), is not evil because of those actions.

What would make him evil, is if like the doctor, he says "Oh well, I killed him, wasn't my fault", and he doesn't specifically in some of the examples you give of his evil actions.

SOD:
He didn't care about killing his brother? Utter bull. It killed him to do it. You know this.

[WarriorTribble]

To quote Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you should just live proudly in the open."Well most goblins we've seen aren't exactly sneaky or subtle... What are you trying to say with that quote? Live life, and just toughen up if something bad happens?
If Redcloak had dedicated his life to building a goblin city, without all of the evil plots and evil actions, but simply building an honest, peaceful society of goblins that tried to live equally with the other nations, I would be singing his praises up and down the streets. But he chose a course of continued destruction instead.I think my previous post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6141069&postcount=66) would work as a response. In a nutshell, what you're proposing could bring peace, but the goblins will still be little more than talking animals, and that will always create enough drama to make any peace a short-term thing.

[Optimystik]

Xykon has stopped randomly killing the Dark One’s worshipers.

That's because he's surrounded by hobgoblins now, which neither he nor RC care about. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0416.html)

Which makes you wonder... do hobgoblins worship the Dark One too? And if so, does Redcloak's racism toward them override his duty as their high priest?

[Cúchulainn]

To quote Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you should just live proudly in the open."

If Redcloak had dedicated his life to building a goblin city, without all of the evil plots and evil actions, but simply building an honest, peaceful society of goblins that tried to live equally with the other nations, I would be singing his praises up and down the streets. But he chose a course of continued destruction instead.

His god has him convinced the whole world is against him, and that's not far from the truth either. Yeah, I can't judge RC for his path, I probably would have done the exact things he's done - to an extent. He's fighting for justice, and he's going about it the only way he knows how, but he still has a choice to stop his actions from being evil. He could easily be lawful neutral if he wanted to, it's just convenient for him to be evil with evil people around him, even if it's just with a little 'e'.

[Kish]

That's because he's surrounded by hobgoblins now, which neither he nor RC care about. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0416.html)

Present tense, yes, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0451.html) Redcloak (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html) does (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0548.html).



Which makes you wonder... do hobgoblins worship the Dark One too? And if so, does Redcloak's racism toward them override his duty as their high priest?
I would say my first link above answers these questions, as well.

[warmachine]

No. Though I have sympathy for someone fighting for equality and freedom, he has let the monstrous Xykon ruin the lives of his people.
That could be forgiven as removing the incredibly powerful Xykon isn't possible but he betrayed a golden opportunity to do so. Righteye had the courage to admit he made a monstrous mistake but Redcloak doesn't and he betrayed his brother instead. Redcloak would rather let his fellow goblins suffer than admit his mistake and seek an alternate arcane caster. Even a kobold sorcerer might work.

[Optimystik]

I would say my first link above answers these questions, as well.

The pro-goblin epiphany slipped my mind, thank you :smalltongue:

[Volkov]

No, I will never feel sorry for Redcloak at all.

First off, he's a terrorist. That has been explicitly shown in the scene with the Rift and O'Chul. And not the "cool" kind of terrorist either. Not to mention the fact that his over-arching plan relies on terrorism on a world-wide scale. Oh, and he's also a fanatic, because he's willing to lay HIS life and the life of ALL of his fellow goblins for his plan.

Second, he's a filthy hypocrit. Right-Eye has already shown him HOW to win over the human. Had the goblinoid BUILT a city, started agriculture, stopped raiding, and send envoys over to the human cities- the world would've been different. Instead, he CONQUERS a city, uses slave labor, and allies himself with mercenary cities. When Azure City is cleansed, it'll be poetic justice.

And finally, he's a goblin. In D&D speciesm actually makes sense. If you're an elf, people are right to call you a "singing androgynous homosexual," because... you are. And if you're a goblin, you can't really deny that you're a "vicious, bloodthirsty, green-skinned bastard." Because there are literally RULES saying this.

So I don't see how anybody can feel bad for a vicious, fanatical, non-human terrorist.
And if your a human, "Free willed, short lived bastards who can't even get their own gods."

[the_tick_rules]

No. He's gone way over the line,

[Volkov]

Redcloak has not reached the moral event horizon, he can still be redeemed. Xykon has however. Multiple times.

[BlueWizard]

One eye makes him cooler! He'll have added character!

[Dark Matter]

Evil/Good are completely disconnected from action. Redcloak is trying to be good.You're trying to say that his end goal is good. Considering all the blood on his hands, and all the blood that will be on his hands, I don't think we can say he's trying to be good right now. He's hoping the end will justify the means. Which raises the issue of what his "success" would mean for all the other races.

[RC] is performing evil acts he does not wish to do, but feels he has to do, in order to remake the universe in a way that is fair for his people.What happens if he wins? Does he want to remake the universe so goblins aren't evil (and thus will cease to be goblins)? My impression is he's unhappy the goblins are at the bottom of the heap. That there are 12+ human gods for every goblin god. He's trying to remake the universe so goblins are still on top... and are still goblins (i.e. still evil).

Erm, completely untrue. The 9 hells are populated by people who are there because they are evil.In D&D souls sent to hell aren't "punished" as such. They're converted into devils.

There are evil gods who reward evil acts. Evil is a valid lifestyle, even considering the afterlife.

...why are goblins Usually Neutral Evil? In most D&D settings, I would say because their culture promotes it. This makes them different from a hypothetical similar culture of real-world humans only in that there are no spells to detect good or evil in the real world.In D&D the gods are real and they have actual influence on their people.

In D&D the goblins were created by evil gods to do evil things for the cause of evil.

[Counterpower]

If someone guns down people because he believes it will save more lives than it will end, why is that any more "evil" than any soldier in any battlefield where civilian casualties are likely?

Both know they will kill innocents. (Even extremely accurate wars demonstrate over 50% of casualties are civilian, e.g. 80% of deaths in Iraq are civilian).
Both believe that if they do not, more people will die.

Willfully choosing to kill innocent lives is evil. Soldiers do not willfully choose to take innocent lives. That is a consequence of war, yes. But a person who specifically and willfully chose to kill innocent people, regardless of the theoretical justification they may create for themselves, is evil.


People can do horrible things in trying to do the right thing. This has nothing to do with their alignment. I'm sorry but it doesn't. Massacres. Genocides. Whatever. Good people can do these things if they feel they have to for some reason.

Actually, it does. A person who's willing to do evil things, regardless of their justification, is evil. Genocide, massacre of civilians... having these as accidental consequences is bad enough. Willingly and actively choosing to kill millions upon millions of people is far worse.


Hiroshima, Nagasaki, were performed not by one person, but by several along a chain of command, from scientists, to generals, to presidents, to pilots. Listening to those involved you will clearly see that some a wrought with guilt and shame, whilst some will gleefully brag about their role.

Some are Jap hating flag waving *******s. Some are truly sorry for the things they had to do to protect their country from harm.

And those that are wrought with shame and/or sorry for what they did are one thing, but for me, anyone that can be glad to kill millions of people, many of whom were innocent civilians, clearly qualifies as Evil under the alignment system. I never said that intention was irrelevant; all I'm arguing is that action isn't irrelevant. People doing things that are morally questionable cannot simply hide behind their justifications. The only ones that can get away without close scrutiny are those whose intents and actions are good.


They are not omnipotent. They don't always get the best choices. That is not their fault.
They are not omniscient. They don't always know the best choices. That is not their fault.

Not sure I see your point here. Of course mistakes based on lack of knowledge can be made, but we've already touched on that...


The only way a definition of good based on action and not intent is valid, is if you define good as being something not inherent to the person at all. That to me is so disconnected to any concept of what a good person is, that it's not even worth considering.

It's not based on action alone. It's based on action and intent. The action to kill millions of innocent civilians is extremely questionable. If the person doing so has an iron-clad reason (even Hiroshima and Nagasaki are only maybes, person trying to demonstrate dangers of gun violence is clear no) and regrets that decision and tries to make up for it, then that is possibly neutral, maybe even good. If the person doesn't regret that action at all and would do it again, then they're evil without question.

I do not believe that intent can be completely divorced from action. A good intent is not a blank check to take any action you believe justified.


The entire sentence here is irrelevant.
Does the doctor's action make him evil? No.
Could the doctor be evil? Sure, but that has 0 to do with what he did, and even in your example is only changed by his attitude/motivation/etc.

The action is morally questionable either way, especially in this circumstance. For this situation, one mistake is one mistake too many. I wouldn't call him "good" regardless of intent or lack thereof.


You have changed everything about redcloak in that one sentence and then call him evil because of it? Nothing he does is "to get what he wants". He specifically does things over and over again that he doesn't want to do in order to fulfill a final goal that is good.

It is the opposite of your suggestion. He is performing evil acts he does not wish to do, but feels he has to do, in order to remake the universe in a way that is fair for his people.

Actually, every action I listed, with the possible exception of the SOD ones, is something Redcloak did gladly. Furthermore, "he feels" he has to do them is not the same as being justified in doing so. Which I suppose you would answer with the final part of your post...


An omniscient, omnipotent Redcloak who performs these actions is evil. The real Redcloak who does not have the foresight to see that it might all be for nothing, or to envision the perfect way out of every scenario without bloodshed, without violence, and with sheer diplomacy (not to mention the fact that that was the first route tried and it failed massively), is not evil because of those actions.

Yes, yes he is. He's evil for not trying. It didn't work the first time? Then try again, for all the gods. It's not like real non-violent protest works the first time. It's not like people haven't died before for a belief. But to abandon that belief after they've died for it? To have someone die in the name of peace and diplomacy and start a war in his name?

This is evil. Redcloak does not want to simply throw off the yoke that the gods placed on him. He wants everyone else to suffer under that yoke, as his treatment of the Azure City civilians shows. Redcloak is not justified any more than any other delusional leader in history, killing and murdering while trying to justify it under the veil of the greater good.


What would make him evil, is if like the doctor, he says "Oh well, I killed him, wasn't my fault", and he doesn't specifically in some of the examples you give of his evil actions.

Not anymore. He not only doesn't regret the takeover of Azure City, he actively revels in the joy of seeing the human civilians enslaved.


SOD:
He didn't care about killing his brother? Utter bull. It killed him to do it. You know this.

And you note he hasn't done something about it. No one's forcing Redcloak to constantly follow the Plan at the expense of the goblin race. He killed his brother in the name of that plan without even stopping to consider that maybe the plan itself is flawed.

@WarriorTribble: Unfortunately, I'm making my arguments in a general sense. I'd like to believe that OotS morality is not so much different from D&D codes or real-world codes that a peaceful society of goblins could be attacked without repercussions, and I think it is in most respects.

As for the quote, well, here's a more complete version of the scene:


Mithos: …Then where should the half-elves go?

--There was a brief pause.--

Mithos: We aren’t accepted anywhere. We opened our hearts, but no one took us in. Where should we live?

Lloyd: You can live anywhere you like.

Mithos: …Don’t make me laugh.

Lloyd: I’m serious. Anywhere is fine. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you should just live proudly in the open.

If the goblins aren't doing anything wrong, they should live out in the open with everyone else. They're perfectly justified to defend themselves, should they be attacked simply for their race. That is the course Redcloak should take.

SOD:
That is the course he almost took, before Xykon came back...

[Lerky]

Seriously man. All dude wants is fairness for his people. The universe is literally set up such that he is a second class citizen.

of course I feel sorry for Redcloak! Look at my signature! I support the Goblinoid revolution! JOIN NOW!

[Lord_Drayakir]

Congratulations. You are right that Redcloak is a goblin.

Unfortunately, every other syllable in that paragraph is dead wrong, but the first sentence is the one that counts.

Would you perhaps like to prove that?


And if your a human, "Free willed, short lived bastards who can't even get their own gods."

Did I argue that in D&D rules that we aren't? I'm just saying that the the literal fundamental rules of the universe say that goblins and goblinoids are evil. And every good-aligned goblin is an aberration (not the monster type) that doesn't really impact the statistic.

[WarriorTribble]

@WarriorTribble: Unfortunately, I'm making my arguments in a general sense. I'd like to believe that OotS morality is not so much different from D&D codes or real-world codes that a peaceful society of goblins could be attacked without repercussions, and I think it is in most respects.Do you mean legal repercussions? I don't think any civilization would condemn killing goblins since that'll mean defying the rules of higher authorities. Also, The slaughter that created the Dark One did make the humans, elves, and dwarves believe that any serious organization of goblins must be eliminated before they could repeat that historic mass killing.And of course real life shows us that there're plenty of instances where peaceful societies/societies that want peace are attacked for a myriad of reasons. The events in the Middle East are probably the most current examples.

[Antacid]

It's impossible not to find his character compelling. He's almost inarguably the most original character in the strip, and his backstory really exemplifies the metafiction/game satire fusion that makes OotS work in the first place. Think about all the ways it twists normal cliches:

- He has the standard backstory of a hero ("my village was destroyed by goblin raiders"), but he's the race normally responsible for the raiding.
- His plan is a twist on the Don Juan plot: declaring his moral judgement superior to those of the Gods. (Or at least, the Dark One's moral judgement). Only he's trying to literally remake creation.
- He's Cain to RightEye's Abel.

There's probably more. What's most amazing about his character is that he manages to be a total hypocrite and honest about his motivations at the same time, best shown when he declares O'Chul's refusal to break means O'Chul doesn't care about the lives of his own people. :smallbiggrin:

Did he 'deserve' to lose an eye? Who cares!! It's the just latest awesomely ironic thing about his storyline! Mark my words, before the end of the strip he'll have been betrayed by Xykon, betrayed Xykon, redeemed himself, unredeemed himself, screwed the Gods over successfully whilst trying to do something else, and established a Goblin utopia whilst actively trying to destroy the universe in an emo-rage over the destruction of The Dark One by the Snarl. Or something like that.

He's standing on the fulcrum of the plot: the one character that could plausibly wind up in any concievable circumstances by the end and it would be possible to make the story work overall.

Feel sorry for him? He'd never accept pity of a bunch of humans anyway, so why bother? Just lie back, get some popcorn and watch what happens. :smallcool:

[B. Dandelion]

Did he 'deserve' to lose an eye? Who cares!! It's the just latest awesomely ironic thing about his storyline! Mark my words, before the end of the strip he'll have been betrayed by Xykon, betrayed Xykon, redeemed himself, unredeemed himself, screwed the Gods over successfully whilst trying to do something else, and established a Goblin utopia whilst actively trying to destroy the universe in an emo-rage over the destruction of The Dark One by the Snarl. Or something like that.

He's standing on the fulcrum of the plot: the one character that could plausibly wind up in any concievable circumstances by the end and it would be possible to make the story work overall.

Feel sorry for him? He'd never accept pity of a bunch of humans anyway, so why bother? Just lie back, get some popcorn and watch what happens. :smallcool:

: : s l ow : : :c l a p : :

THAT trope is a dumb cliche, but I gotta tell you in all honesty this DID put a big fat grin on my face, and I wanted to say thank you for that. See, now, this is what I call keeping priorities in order! :smallcool::smallbiggrin:

[Gredival]

Intention is more important than action. If a doctor prescribes the wrong medicine he is not a murderer, he is not evil. There is nothing about him killing someone that makes him evil, unless his intentions were suitably aligned. Similarly, if he fires a gun at someone and misses, he is not good because he "didn't kill them". His intention is all that is required.

Evil/Good are completely disconnected from action. Redcloak is trying to be good.

I'll put aside the fact that I completely disagree about intention vs. action for a moment and point out that Redcloak is *not trying* to be good.

All he's doing is trying to bring about a world that is better for Goblin-kind. That isn't necessarily good. Case in point: I want to make a sanctuary for pedophiles and violent rapists and bloodthirsty murderers so they aren't persecuted by those judgmental moralists in society and can rape, molest, murder, ravage to their heart's content. Does this mean I'm trying to be good?

Redcloak is a racist/speciest (with a sad sob story about why he thinks humans are the real monsters that makes some people empathize with him) that is trying to rearrange the way the "hierarchy" of society to match the racial hierarchy of his head. All Redcloak sees is a type of D&D high school where humans are a "in-crowd races", Goblins are a "social outcast race", and he hates getting picked on so he wants some Revenge of the Nerds style payback.

He's not some misunderstood hero fighting for "a better world" for his people free of "unjust repression." All Redcloak sees is Goblin/Not-Goblin. He doesn't give one whit about suffering or injustice so long as Goblins aren't the ones suffering.

A good character, or a character that cared anything about good, would have problems with bad acts. A truly good character would recognize what's bad about a raid is the death of innocents. That's the difference. Good aligned races don't purport their superiority on pure racial lines. They defend the "hierarchy" because of alignment. They judge based on character. If a Paladin stumbles upon an elf whom he *knows* to be evil about to slay a goblin whom he *knows* to be good, the Paladin will save the good creature, regardless of its race. It's "Smite Evil" not "Smite Race-That-Is-Usually-Evil".

If Redcloak cared about "goodness" he would care about what binds the "civilized" world. He would be able to distinguish civilization's different way of life ("goodness") and not just the greenness of skin.


Any criticism of goblin actions are invalidated by the fact that the Gods unfairly made them evil through design. "Oh look at them acting all evil, what pricks". Not in the slightest. Not any more than someone who is dominated performing those actions.

Only if you believe that moral responsibility and determinism are incompatible. I don't. There are plenty of reasons to still hold people morally and legally culpable for their actions even if you believe those actions have external causes which rendered the actions inevitable.


What Redcloak is trying to change is the fundamental design of the universe that strips his people of the free will to choose to be good/evil. Until that point you cannot criticize the actions of his race. They are all effectively being partially mind controlled.

No he just wants to be on the top of the totem pole instead of on the bottom.

Redcloak is not trying to establish a free Goblin city where Goblins can be good. He is trying to conquer; he wants Goblin dominance.

Things like Orc cities which coexist peacefully with Human/Dwarven/Elven settlements have been done in D&D based realms before... the key to this is that the Orcs tried to co-exist!


If someone guns down people because he believes it will save more lives than it will end, why is that any more "evil" than any soldier in any battlefield where civilian casualties are likely?

Both know they will kill innocents. (Even extremely accurate wars demonstrate over 50% of casualties are civilian, e.g. 80% of deaths in Iraq are civilian).
Both believe that if they do not, more people will die.


It's not evil at all... if it's necessary to do so and he's right.

You see a bomber and you have excellent reason to believe he's about to go blow up a school of innocent kids, then you have good reason to shoot him down to stop him. But you may not have such good reason to shoot him down if you also have, say, a tranquilizer gun which can subdue him instead.

And you also don't have good reason to shoot him down if you're wrong. Mistaken beliefs don't change the rightness/wrongness of your actions (more on this below)


People can do horrible things in trying to do the right thing. This has nothing to do with their alignment. I'm sorry but it doesn't. Massacres. Genocides. Whatever. Good people can do these things if they feel they have to for some reason.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, were performed not by one person, but by several along a chain of command, from scientists, to generals, to presidents, to pilots. Listening to those involved you will clearly see that some a wrought with guilt and shame, whilst some will gleefully brag about their role.


You are assuming that dropping the atomic bombs were evil and thus the actions don't match up with alignment The rebuttal at this point would be that the actions were good precisely because they saved more lives, therefore there's no conflict with alignment.

Guilt in this case would have to do with whether or not an agent expresses lots of regret for being part of the "necessary means" chain, not necessarily about whether the act was *evil*. Someone could regret doing what they did and still feel they did the right thing.


The real Redcloak who does not have the foresight to see that it might all be for nothing, or to envision the perfect way out of every scenario without bloodshed, without violence, and with sheer diplomacy (not to mention the fact that that was the first route tried and it failed massively), is not evil because of those actions.

Premised on Redcloak actually trying to do something good. He is explicitly not trying to do something good. He wants mere racial dominance.

And the OOTS universe disregards your logic explicitly. Miko was trying to do something good (in her head) by slaying the traitorous Lord Shoujo. She was punished because she was wrong and committed an actually evil act: "It seems not everyone agrees with your assessment."

[Wynters]

Yes, I do feel sorry for him. He's trying to do a good thing and it's all going very, very wrong.

Sure, he could have made better decisions but given his upbringing, cultural background, racial history, theological education and personal experience his choices were a bit limited. He also clearly cares for his people. If the roles were reversed (he was human living in a world where Goblins are king and spend their spare time hacking up humans) then I wonder if he would get more sympathy?

I quite like the idea people have of him gathering goblinoids together, founding a haven away from the xenocidal predjudice of the rest of the world and becoming self-sufficient.

Unfortunately, whilst it would be beneficial to the local populace, it wouldn't solve the global problem.

Additionally, sending out envoys to tell people where they are and what they have done might be a little brave. But I'm sure the Paladins who take delight in wiping out entire settlements would be very grateful that he's rounded everyone up and pended them into one walled area for them. This would mean that the City would have to be isolated, both culturally and geographically, and self-sufficient. Those are quite difficult conditions to meet. Especially if the location has to be within walking distance.

People have also argued that RC is wanting to readjust the world so that Goblinoids will get to the top of the pile, allowing them to bully and enslave everyone else.

I disagree

SoD
RC explains to his brother that if the Dark One is properly invovled in things then everything will be better as "no humanoids" will be disadvantaged. Humanoids sounds pretty generic to me. If he was exclusively about goblinoid supremacy, I'm sure he would have said that. Especially given that it was a private conversation with another goblin who he trusted.

You are assuming that dropping the atomic bombs were evil and thus the actions don't match up with alignment The rebuttal at this point would be that the actions were good precisely because they saved more lives, therefore there's no conflict with alignment.That rebuttal holds no water though. Given that the deployment of atomics brought a new depth to a campaign that specifically and exclusively targetted civillians, I find it hard to consider it a 'good' action. Nor was there any guarantee that said deployment would bring about a radical shift in the course of the war, given that the actual 'immediate' damage inflicted by the bombs did not stand out in comparison to the conventional bombing campaign.

There were also, of course, other less lethal options.

[Kish]

People have also argued that RC is wanting to readjust the world so that Goblinoids will get to the top of the pile, allowing them to bully and enslave everyone else.

I disagree

SoD
RC explains to his brother that if the Dark One is properly invovled in things then everything will be better as "no humanoids" will be disadvantaged. Humanoids sounds pretty generic to me.



But insufficiently generic, in a D&D world. What did the nonhumanoid "monster" races, the beholders and aboleths and, oh yeah, black dragons, do to deserve being treated as XP-fodder by Redcloak's new PC-race goblin adventurers?

I don't mourn for the Sapphire Guard or grant any credibility to arguments that go "they did nothing wrong by massacring goblins, or they would have fallen," but I think Redcloak comes off as plenty villainous even from a(n objective) goblin's perspective. He killed his own brother to save his ego, because he was more willing to do that than he was to admit that allying with Xykon had been a mistake. His rationale then was that if his brother attacked Xykon, Xykon would wipe out all the goblins he had enslaved, and he couldn't allow anyone to harm his people. Where are those goblins now? Oh, that's right, every last one of them is dead, and Redcloak's failure to take action against Xykon made their death inevitable.

[Dark Matter]

Additionally, sending out envoys to tell people where they are and what they have done might be a little brave. But I'm sure the Paladins who take delight in wiping out entire settlements would be very grateful that he's rounded everyone up and pended them into one walled area for them.If we assume the Paladins are actively trying to kill them, we then have to ask the question of "why". What is it that the goblins are doing which merits such a harsh response? I suspect trying to live peacefully wouldn't do it.

People have also argued that RC is wanting to readjust the world so that Goblinoids will get to the top of the pile, allowing them to bully and enslave everyone else.Given recent examples of what the goblins (and RC specifically) set up when they're in charge, and also given who is backing them (Xykon, evil gods, team evil), this seems likely.

SoD RC explains to his brother that if the Dark One is properly involved in things then everything will be better as "no humanoids" will be disadvantaged. Humanoids sounds pretty generic to me. If he was exclusively about goblinoid supremacy, I'm sure he would have said that. Especially given that it was a private conversation with another goblin who he trusted.Since a member of Team Evil claims things will be "better" if they're running things, we should believe them? I'd feel a lot better about that claim if it came from a Good creature, or even one we were sure was Lawful. I'd feel better about that claim if the various good creatures and gods weren't trying to stop it.

The assumptions needed to make this claim work are staggering. We basically have to assume that the good gods are selfish and evil, and that the evil gods really do have the best interests of everyone at heart (and are therefore not selfish and evil). Or evil might be lying about what's likely to happen after it's controlling the snarl.

Even the word "disadvantaged" leaves a lot to be desired. Does that mean that the goblins will have just as many gods backing them as the humans? Does it mean that the goblins will be able to fight/kill/win against the humans on an even level? I don't see 'anything' in that statement which suggests that evil is going to be less evil, just that they're going to lose less often.

There were also, of course, other less lethal options.The least lethal option was Japan surrendering, which wasn't a menu option that we could activate on our own. The most lethal option was us going into a land invasion and killing basically everyone who looked like they were even trying to resist (i.e. pretty much everyone), which was plan "B".

The war had already been absurdly brutal and horrific, with Japan responsible for war atrocities on a scale where we need to use the name "Hitler" to even make sense of it, and even he probably comes in second place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#Crimes

With Japan having already killed 30 million or so people, and perhaps millions more yet to come in the actual invasion of Japan yet to come, killing a few tens of thousands of people to halt the war seemed like a bargain at the time.

[Kish]

If we assume the Paladins are actively trying to kill them, we then have to ask the question of "why". What is it that the goblins are doing which merits such a harsh response? I suspect trying to live peacefully wouldn't do it.
The answer to this is in the notes on War and XPs.

The hobgoblins say that their raids against Azure City are motivated by previous attacks from the Sapphire Guard. The Sapphire Guard say that their attacks on the hobgoblins are motivated by past attempts by the hobgoblins attempting to manipulate the Gates. Neither could prove their case if they were asked to, no one still alive was there on either side, and to most on each side, the other side is the enemy simply because they are.

Rich does not mean either side to come off well, and as far as I'm concerned, they don't.

[Dacia Brabant]

Considering his entire gambit hinges upon being able to threaten to destroy the whole world in order to get his fair and equal place at the table--a table that may or may not be rebuildable by the gods, who may or may not survive said destruction in the first place--I would have to say no. I don't feel sorry for him. At all.

Even Xykon, who is a complete monster, wouldn't go that far--all he cares about is allieviating his boredom, and I imagine non-existence would be pretty darn boring.

If Redcloak were just a conqueror and limited himself to that, to carving out a place for his people much like every other founder in our history has done, sure I could feel some small bit of sympathy for him for choosing that wrong but oft-traveled path. He'd still be a jerk but a reasonable jerk. But what he's really trying to do is totally insane and not worth the risk of potentially throwing away every life and soul, including his precious goblins, with no guarantee of a new world replacing it.

Which gives me a thought: you know what would be pretty darn ironic in the end, is if the Snarl does get loose and one of its victims is...the Dark One. Whoops! So much for the plan.

[Baalthazaq]

Indeed.

People who responded to me: Give me an actual definition of good then that isn't contradictory with your earlier statements. So far, good is whatever particular actions you determine to be good. As you are not currently rulers of the universe I have no reason to defer to your judgment for individual cases.

What makes something good?

I argue intention is all that is needed.

You've raised some valid points, but you're skipping in my opinion the depth of what intention means. It isn't limited to the final action. It isn't just "the ends justify the means" which I disagree with. It is entirely different.

You need to justify every means internally as well as externally to the best of your knowledge and ability. This takes into account everything from the psychological trauma Redcloak has been through already. Of course he's wrong, but he doesn't know he's wrong, and there are severe psychological barriers preventing him from admitting it.

I would say at this stage he is psychologically incapable of admitting he was wrong. It would kill him to know all the evil acts he committed were a mistake. That's why he's not evil. An evil character would not care that he commits evil acts.

By your definitions, O-chul is evil, after all, he lets his people die by not giving an answer, and "Oh well, not my fault, nevermind" applies more to him than to Redcloak.

[Swordster]

I love Recloak as a character. His development during the battle for Azure City is probably my favorite thing to happen in OotS so far. But I can't bring myself to feel sorry for him. I did while I was just reading the online strip. And I did for about two-thirds of SoD.

But Xykon's speech at the end was spot on. Redcloak is too cowardly to make the right choice. He saw Right-Eye's successful village, even ACKNOWLEDGED that it was better than the Plan, and then gave up and killed Right-Eye. He's using his dependence on Xykon as justification for why he can't change course now. Incidentally, this is why I'm so excited about what happened to him in the latest strip. I see him losing his eye as a second chance of sorts to be more like Right-Eye and less like Redcloak. And I predict that Word of Recall is taking him somewhere far away where, even if he gets a new holy symbol, he'll be prevented by the Cloister spell from returning to Azure City by anything but a conventional course. I see this as a chance for him to break his dependence on Xykon.

[Giggling Ghast]

Yeah, I feel so sorry for Redcloak. I mean, the guy who Redcloak tortured for several months broke out of his cage and stabbed him! That is a GROSS violation of the captor/prisoner relationship! How dare he!

[Cracklord]

Well, if a god tells you a plan, and you are the high priest of that god, things have been taken out of your hands. It's not his plan, it's his gods. What's he supposed to do?
He's a deeply flawed character, perfectly honest yet hypocritical, and over all the strips the most interesting character. But he doesn't want our pity.
He made the decisions that led him to this point, but he has never really had a ll that much control over his life. Would you betray Xykon? Would you refuse an order directly from the lips of a god? He doesn't have the courage or the power to do so.

[dancrilis]

No. Though I have sympathy for someone fighting for equality and freedom, he has let the monstrous Xykon ruin the lives of his people.
That could be forgiven as removing the incredibly powerful Xykon isn't possible but he betrayed a golden opportunity to do so. Righteye had the courage to admit he made a monstrous mistake but Redcloak doesn't and he betrayed his brother instead. Redcloak would rather let his fellow goblins suffer than admit his mistake and seek an alternate arcane caster. Even a kobold sorcerer might work.


Redcloak was right here, if he hadn't intervened then Xykon would have killed the goblins. Righteye was completely wrong in his attempt on Xykon, and it would have backfired horribly without Redcloak's intervention.

[thalandus]

Perhaps the humans should just lie down and let the goblins of the world kill, rape and pillage them at will? Defending yourself and your village against invading goblins makes you a 'racist'? Please. The goblins systematically pillage and slaughter the countrysides that they settle. That is why they are hated. Humans do kill as well, and some many kill goblins on sight regardless of their capacity for redemption. But the majority of humans cities would be willing to make peace with its neighbours in the d&d world, as long as they were guaranteed peace in return. RC complains about the harsh treatment goblins get, and then tortures innocents (I categorize O-Chul as an innocent as he was defending his city from invasion), and invades a city. It is hypocritical, and he deserved losing his eye in my mind. You cannot attack someone and call them violent when they defend themselves. That is ridiculous.

Most human cities in this kind of world have the army and resources to totally destroy any goblin settlement nearby. But they do not totally. Human armies will attack goblin cities during wars, some extreme human elements may pre-emptively attack goblin settlements. But, although they have the power to, they do not declare total war on goblins. Humans do not try and commit totaly genocide on goblins. If goblins had large, powerful armies which are well-equipped, they WOULD commit total genocide on humans. Goblins and monstrous humanoids have to build their own cities and cease hostilities against other factions, before asking for peace and complaining about ill treatment.

Turning the moral dichotomy of D&D around completely and saying 'Dees guys were bad, now they are good. I am morally complex now!! The good guys are now bad!' is just as shallow as the old system were whole races were totally good, and evil races were totally evil. It is just reversing the system for 'shock value'. Looking through a really morally complex lens, we would see that there is evil and good in humans and goblins, and every race. But if a race like goblins is wholly dedicated to plunder and destruction of their neighbours. If you say goblins are justified for killing humans because of their bad treatment, how come humans are not justified for killing goblins because of the damage they have done to humankind? The fact that goblins tend to lose, and humans/dwarves/elves tend to win, does not make goblins the good guys. It just means they lack the technology or advancement of society and weaponry to win consistenly. Before someone says it, the fact that humans tend to win in literatute does not make them the good guys, I am not claiming that.

RC is a great character, but I see him as neutral. A good goblin would try and build cities and stop hostilities. RC is compelling to me because he is evil so I want him to be slain, but he has motives and some positive attributes. But in no way do I morally want him to win.

It is easy to say 'humans deserve to be enslaved, look at how we treat each other etc'. But, if in reality, you and your loved ones were enslaved by goblins, you would not be saying that. Every species, human or goblin, is entitled to self-preservation. Even though I find a lot to hate about humans I meet in the real world, in no way would I just throw my hands up and say 'I hope Mother Nature wipes us out'. I want to live. If the goblins claim their evil actions are a result of them doing what they need to do to survive, the humans can claim their actions are what they need to do to survive against goblins. If goblins hate losing the war, instead of trying to guilt trip humans into giving up their survival instincts, maybe... stop being a threat. Stop plundering, start building.

[Baalthazaq]

I should also probably mention that this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0547.html) just by coincidence, is the bookmarked page I have for coming to OOTS, for no other reason than that being the page Chrome picked up on as my "favourite".

However, I think it is the comic that perfectly illustrates my appreciation of Redcloak.


1) :redcloak:"It gives me no pleasure to end those men up there"
2) :redcloak:"How can you condemn 14 of your own people like that?! Don't their lives - their very souls - mean anything to you?"
3) :redcloak:"Humans... I've come to expect your lack of respect for the lives of MY people, but I am still continually amazed at how little you value your own".
4) "Are we throwing people off the roof?" :redcloak: "No, let them go".

Furthermore, to your "if the Goblins were acting good, the people would respect that", I present:


5) :redcloak:"They can go back and tell the others how merciful we were, and how one of their own paladins was willing to let them die".

What was the reaction? This will be the reaction every time to every act of mercy, every offer of peace, every attempt at negotiation. they will side against the "evil" goblins in favour of "the good guys" because that's what the rulebook says, and they know the rules.

Not only does it demonstrate how the humans think, but it also shows how little Redcloak understands the humans. His flaw is his lack of understanding, not his lack of morality. He does not know there is another way.

Do this: DM a game. Give your players hints, but nothing obvious, that the goblins are good. Play the goblins as humans. They will retaliate against violence, they will defend themselves. Have the first encounter be against goblins who are asleep in their own isolated castle.

How many goblins will the PCs murder before they find out? Will the goblins be letting bygones be bygones for their 40 odd murdered women and children? 1 murdered child? Someone's whole family?


*******************

Let me be clear here. In real life, because of the colour of my skin, my windows had bricks thrown through them, my mother was assaulted, my friend was beaten to the point where he lost several teeth, my father's car was destroyed, my sister was stoned, several family members were beaten in the streets, I wasn't allowed outside the house unaccompanied until I was 14 because of racial violence in my neighbourhood. On average, in both Scotland and Newcastle, I was assaulted at least once a year, as a child. Once every couple of years as an adult.

Why? My race. I think any "Paki" growing up in the UK in the 80s will tell you a similar story.

If you're seriously going to give me an idealist speech about living out on the open and just being peaceful and there being no repercussions to that... I'd argue a lifetime of experience that this is not the case. In a society where a slightly brown human cannot exist peacefully, I highly doubt a spiky toothed green skin in a medieval one can, where the rules of the universe tell you they're evil and reward you for killing them.

[B. Dandelion]

Personally I'm not willing to draw conclusions about Redcloak if they're taken ONLY from what was said or done up on the roof with O-chul -- that entire sequence was completely scripted! Going by what's said in 548--

-By that point in time he was already three-quarters sure O-Chul DIDN'T know anything.

-by the climax, he was 100% sure. That little freakout session? Oscar-worthy.

-he wasn't particularly upset about this, despite the setback to the Plan, because O-Chul's "interrogation" sessions were giving him a chance to establish Azure City as a real goblin nation.

-He believed O-Chul would have done anything in his power to save his fellow humans. His claim of possessing greater "mercy" than the Paladin wasn't made under a delusion that O-Chul HAD been willing to let them die, it was a psychological ploy, the last one he had left. Redcloak COULD possibly have believed the HOSTAGES would have thought their paladin abandoned them, but it's just as likely IMO that he hadn't given it much thought.

[Dark Matter]

What makes something good? I argue intention is all that is needed.

You need to justify every means internally as well as externally to the best of your knowledge and ability. This takes into account everything from the psychological trauma Redcloak has been through already. Of course he's wrong, but he doesn't know he's wrong, and there are severe psychological barriers preventing him from admitting it.In D&D good is defined as what the good gods approve of. And while "intention" is important, it's not a blanket excuse or Miko wouldn't have fallen. Only *some* characters don't care or willingly admit that they're doing evil. Miko's act of murder, even done with the best of intentions and a lack of internal admission, was still an evil act.

Most villains don't acknowledge internally that they're evil. They can not use that lack of self awareness as an excuse to commit murder, etc. Red Cloak is Evil with a capital "E".

Granted, he's an interesting character, and also granted, he has reasons why he does what he does. But us knowing and understanding his reasons doesn't change that his actions and intentions are Evil with a big E. Every villain has reasons. Good authors make the villains more interesting by letting us know and relate to their reasons.


Furthermore, to your "if the Goblins were acting good, the people would respect that", I present:

What was the reaction? This will be the reaction every time to every act of mercy, every offer of peace, every attempt at negotiation. they will side against the "evil" goblins in favour of "the good guys" because that's what the rulebook says, and they know the rules. Redcloak's act of "mercy/propaganda", i.e. not destroying innocent people's souls to make an ignorant Paladin talk (and I should add, a Paladin RC knows is ignorant) doesn't change that...

1) RC is the head of an occupying army.
2) These human slaves are being regularly tortured by the guards for their entertainment (or that RC could order the guards to stop).
Etc.

The humans don't think RC is evil because of ignorance, they think he's evil because of personal experience and observation. And they're right.

How many goblin slaves did we see the Paladins abuse before the war? None? How many goblin Paladins are out there created by the good Goblin gods? Oh, right, there are no goblin Paladins and no good goblin gods.

The two sides aren't morally equivalent and I seriously doubt that RC is ultimately trying to create a bunch of good goblin gods. He doesn't want to be good. He doesn't want his people to be good.

[B. Dandelion]

Most villains don't acknowledge internally that they're evil.

I think you're pretty verifiably wrong on this count. I mean, that USUALLY applies -- in most stories, even characters who know they're bastards often rationalize themselves as merely pragmatic, clear-headed, impersonal, etc.

But in OOTS the concept has been turned on its head. The overwhelming majority of characters that are evil realize it, and aren't ashamed either to admit to it or be accused of it. Xykon, Nale, Sabine, Belkar, Samantha, Pompey, Leeky, Kubota, Tsukiko, Qarr, the IFCC... even most of the mooks are proudly evil mooks. It's pretty easy to see why that sort of self-delusion is uncommon in world where everything's related to alignment in some fashion or another -- it's not going to be productive to your own long-term survival to not be aware of and take into account things like your own vulnerability to detect evil. (Which adds Therkla to our list of "self-aware.")

It's the ones who straddle the line that stand out. Thog comes up a lot as conceivably he is either evil due to his violent nature, or else he is violently-inclined and too stupid to understand the difference, which Nale exploits. Redcloak ESPECIALLY stands out. I've never seen any character besides him actually offer up a definition for evil, "as defined by our opposition for those who choose to call themselves good." Note that it's not "good people" but people "who choose to call themselves good," which suggests he doesn't even believe such a thing really exists.

You want to talk about a lack of self-awareness? How the hell was he ever going to come up into the world with ANY kind of meaningful understanding of good or evil? Did you notice that when the paladins were slaughtering everything that moved, whether it was resisting, fleeing, or just trying to hide, they kept screaming about how evil the goblins were and never said what that meant? That they were the good guys -- what made them good, that they had a spell called "smite evil"? That's a "functional" understanding of a difference, but it's certainly not a profound or meaningful one, and taken into conjunction with things like his "evil" mentor trying to sacrifice himself for the sake of the other villagers, or the "good" paladins slavering at the mouth with anticipation of decapitating his little sister, you start to see where "evil is good and good is evil" is actually pretty well-grounded in observable, unbiased fact. Where was "good" ever shown as something independent of friendship, love, or loyalty between people of like minds (and usually of like-species)? Do you honestly think it makes any sense that Redcloak would consider himself a bad guy for wanting to oppose the paladins years later when they met Xykon? So why the hell would it make sense to see a human who showed up and started killing things left and right, and say, "hey! This guy's evil! Maybe we should ask him to help our cause of goblin equality!" and not, "hey! This guy DOESN'T LIKE PALADINS, maybe he'll have sympathy for our position too."

It made sense for them, because it was blue vs. red -- if there were moral differences between good and evil as THEY understood them, evil was probably better in that it at least wasn't pretentious. Also, they had hotter chicks. So they take Xykon to the Evil Diner with the authentic evil food garnished with herbs from the Spice Rack of the Damned and so forth. This is a farce. But not entirely. Looking back on it now, I think it was fairly appropriate that it was Xykon's murder of the "Beezlebuddie's" waitress that was their first introduction to evil of the REAL sort, not the superficial as they had always known it.

But knowing that evil can indeed be evil as we know it doesn't help him get to an understanding of "evil is bad and good is good," it gets him to "everyone is evil." Which is indeed where we are now. But while for most villains I think this would just be self-serving, his induction to this line of thinking is completely reasonable and really tragic when you get down to it, and out of everything that he's done, I think that's one of the few things we really can't criticize him for. Even Right-Eye, who was also limited in that sense, was able to in some ways overcome that obstacle in understanding yet even before he died he thought that "good... never really entered into it" and was disgusted at the idea of his daughter being raised by humans. And Right-Eye was the most extraordinary goblin character the comic (and possibly the world) ever saw.

[Wynters]

If we assume the Paladins are actively trying to kill them, we then have to ask the question of "why". What is it that the goblins are doing which merits such a harsh response? I suspect trying to live peacefully wouldn't do it.
When asked by his brother what he had been up to during the years between them seeing each other, RC pointed out that he had been hanging around the lair defending themselves from bands of adventurers.

Sounds as if he was being pretty passive and humans kept turning up to kill them.

As for the concerns that he was lying to his brother about whether things would be '"better" for humanoids... I repeat. He was talking, in confidence, to the one person who he really trusted. Why would he lie? What possible motivation does he have?

Saying "Yeah, but he's EVIL" doesn't cut it."

The least lethal option was Japan surrendering, which wasn't a menu option that we could activate on our own.

The most lethal option was us going into a land invasion and killing basically everyone who looked like they were even trying to resist (i.e. pretty much everyone), which was plan "B". The US could have surrendered. That's pretty non-lethal.

They could have tried to trade their conquored territory for peace.

They could have initiated a total blockade of the remaining islands of Japan. Given the economic status of the Japanese, they would have been unable to continue the war within weeks, a few months at the most.

There were other options as well. Saying that there was only plan 'A' or plan 'B' is disingenious in the extreme.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#CrimesWikipedia, whilst convenient, is about as reliable and accurate a source as asking a random child on his way to school.

I should also point out that Japan was hardly the only nation to take part in war crimes. For instance, it's well documented that US Bomber command alone committed war crimes on a massive scale. These have been admitted by at least one very senior source within the US administration who was instrumental in the adoption and execution of the bombing campaign (McNamara).

To tie this back to RC. If RC sacks a city and enslaves the remains of the populace that hadn't escaped, that's bad. However, if he does it in order to setup a safe haven for all of goblinkind then the numbers add up in his favour. A few thousand dead and enslaved, an entire species saved.
killing a few tens of thousands of people to halt the war seemed like a bargain at the time.

[Volkov]

When asked by his brother what he had been up to during the years between them seeing each other, RC pointed out that he had been hanging around the lair defending themselves from bands of adventurers.

Sounds as if he was being pretty passive and humans kept turning up to kill them.

As for the concerns that he was lying to his brother about whether things would be '"better" for humanoids... I repeat. He was talking, in confidence, to the one person who he really trusted. Why would he lie? What possible motivation does he have?

Saying "Yeah, but he's EVIL" doesn't cut it."

The US could have surrendered. That's pretty non-lethal.

They could have tried to trade their conquored territory for peace.

They could have initiated a total blockade of the remaining islands of Japan. Given the economic status of the Japanese, they would have been unable to continue the war within weeks, a few months at the most.

There were other options as well. Saying that there was only plan 'A' or plan 'B' is disingenious in the extreme.

Wikipedia, whilst convenient, is about as reliable and accurate a source as asking a random child on his way to school.

I should also point out that Japan was hardly the only nation to take part in war crimes. For instance, it's well documented that US Bomber command alone committed war crimes on a massive scale. These have been admitted by at least one very senior source within the US administration who was instrumental in the adoption and execution of the bombing campaign (McNamara).

To tie this back to RC. If RC sacks a city and enslaves the remains of the populace that hadn't escaped, that's bad. However, if he does it in order to setup a safe haven for all of goblinkind then the numbers add up in his favour. A few thousand dead and enslaved, an entire species saved.
Agreed. What Redcloak does is nothing compared to what your average blood war army does. An army of demons that attacks a material plane city to gain a foothold in the bloodwar does much, much worse things to the populace than Redcloak did.

In fact Redcloak's conquest was fairly mild in evil, no rape, fairly limited looting, just doing what a typical lawful evil society does when they have a new city, they just put the populace to work. It would have been much worse if bugbears instead of hobgoblins overtook the city.

[Baalthazaq]

I think another problem this debate might be having is the following:

What is good in OOTS?
What is good in DND?
What is good in the real world?

These three things are not the same. Is the answer to the question "Is Redcloak good" the same for all of these? I don't think so. Some are blurrier than others at the very least.

I'm also extremely unhappy with people in here blurting out whether Hiroshima was good or bad based on 15 seconds of thought, not even giving any consideration to whatever the hell you were saying in your previous post and utterly contradicting yourself.

No one has yet to give an actual definition of what they think good/evil is, yet everyone seems quite happy throwing the words around. If you don't know, or can't explain what the word means to you, calling Redcloak it is as meaningless as a debate about whether Redcloak is truly Luqueve.

[Volkov]

I think another problem this debate might be having is the following:

What is good in OOTS?
What is good in DND?
What is good in the real world?

These three things are not the same. Is the answer to the question "Is Redcloak good" the same for all of these? I don't think so. Some are blurrier than others at the very least.

I'm also extremely unhappy with people in here blurting out whether Hiroshima was good or bad based on 15 seconds of thought, not even giving any consideration to whatever the hell you were saying in your previous post and utterly contradicting yourself.

No one has yet to give an actual definition of what they think good/evil is, yet everyone seems quite happy throwing the words around. If you don't know, or can't explain what the word means to you, calling Redcloak it is as meaningless as a debate about whether Redcloak is truly Luqueve.
Evil is the interest in causing the harm of others. Rather than simply not caring about other's well being, you actually want to harm their well being.

[jidasfire]

Agreed. What Redcloak does is nothing compared to what your average blood war army does. An army of demons that attacks a material plane city to gain a foothold in the bloodwar does much, much worse things to the populace than Redcloak did.

In fact Redcloak's conquest was fairly mild in evil, no rape, fairly limited looting, just doing what a typical lawful evil society does when they have a new city, they just put the populace to work. It would have been much worse if bugbears instead of hobgoblins overtook the city.

It takes an apologist on an amazing level to defend the actions of Redcloak and his army (not to mention Xykon). "It could have been worse" is not a defense. I wonder if you'd be grateful if someone conquered your home, enslaved and whipped you and your family, and every now and again forced you into gladiatorial combat to the death or threatened to destroy your soul, because at least there was no rape or looting. Probably not.

You can talk all you want about how humans are bad and the like, but it's not a race thing, it's a decency thing in general. Good, or even neutral, people don't crush entire civilizations because of a few bad apples. Just because Redcloak has rationales for his actions doesn't mean he's nice and cuddly. Most of the bad people in the real world have had bad lives or been wronged one way or another, and some may even have a valid point or two. That doesn't mean you tolerate or encourage what they do. I have to assume anyone who vehemently defends fictional monsters hasn't met enough real ones.

[Zerg Cookie]

Not sure if someone else mentioned it, but... SoD:
There is another way to make the world a better place for goblins.

Maybe I should be trying to build our people up instead of tearing other people down
Right-Eye built a village and had a family and everybody seemed happy. In time, more goblins would have settled in his village and it could become a true goblin nation.

[Volkov]

It takes an apologist on an amazing level to defend the actions of Redcloak and his army (not to mention Xykon). "It could have been worse" is not a defense. I wonder if you'd be grateful if someone conquered your home, enslaved and whipped you and your family, and every now and again forced you into gladiatorial combat to the death or threatened to destroy your soul, because at least there was no rape or looting. Probably not.

You can talk all you want about how humans are bad and the like, but it's not a race thing, it's a decency thing in general. Good, or even neutral, people don't crush entire civilizations because of a few bad apples. Just because Redcloak has rationales for his actions doesn't mean he's nice and cuddly. Most of the bad people in the real world have had bad lives or been wronged one way or another, and some may even have a valid point or two. That doesn't mean you tolerate or encourage what they do. I have to assume anyone who vehemently defends fictional monsters hasn't met enough real ones.
I'd rather work and die, because I'd still have my dignity.

[Pronounceable]

So, it's official: :redcloak: is the NEW :miko:

I wonder what either of those would think about this development. Me, I'm lmaoing at this.

[hamishspence]

Redcloak is an evil guy who can sometimes be sympathetic- because he and his people appear to have, over time, been picked on a lot.

Miko was a good guy who could sometimes be very unsympathetic- because we saw her (and, in SOD, her people) doing the picking.

[Chirios]

No, it's because they did not believe in violence. There have been any number of people willing to fight against 'logically impossible' odds.

Yes I do. A persons deeply held convictions are not changed simply because it is more expedient to do so. They may have been less effective in such a situation, but that does not automatically mean that it would have changed who they are.

Seriously?

Ghandi's situation:

The indians had already tried several uprisings, and failed. Miserably. Ghandi came along with his pacifism, and it worked, because the British people were willing to listen. Had he tried that in say, Nazi Germany, he and the rest of the protesters would've been brutally slaughtered.

MLK's situation:

It is impossible to win the war. There is no way that an uprising of individuals would lead to anything more than a sound beatdown of the rebellion. Once again however, the American people was willing to listen (for the most part). Had MLK tried that **** in say, China or Imperial Japan, or hell, pretty much any European country during the 1800's, he and his peaceful protesters would have been roundly slaughter.

Pacifism only works when the other side is willing to allow you not to fight dude. In Redcloaks case, they aren't willing to allow him not to fight.

[Dark Matter]

But in OOTS the concept has been turned on its head. The overwhelming majority of characters that are evil realize it, and aren't ashamed either to admit to it or be accused of it...True. Most OOTS villains (like D&D villains in general) have backing by evil gods, etc. Being evil in D&D isn't a "bad" thing like it is here.


...Redcloak ESPECIALLY stands out. I've never seen any character besides him actually offer up a definition for evil, "as defined by our opposition for those who choose to call themselves good." Note that it's not "good people" but people "who choose to call themselves good," which suggests he doesn't even believe such a thing really exists. You want to talk about a lack of self-awareness? How the hell was he ever going to come up into the world with ANY kind of meaningful understanding of good or evil?The high priest of an evil god who has been hit with Smite Evil at least twice doesn't understand he's evil? When he's feeding the MitD live babies, does he think that's a "good" thing?


Did you notice that when the paladins were slaughtering everything that moved, whether it was resisting, fleeing, or just trying to hide, they kept screaming about how evil the goblins were and never said what that meant? That they were the good guys -- what made them good, that they had a spell called "smite evil"?It's been what, a century? How is it that RC remains as innocent as a new born kitten?


Where was "good" ever shown as something independent of friendship, love, or loyalty between people of like minds (and usually of like-species)?And how much love & loyalty does RC have for Xykon? The rest of team evil? His brother? Or even his fellow goblins for that matter? Him understanding that the pointless killing of his fellow goblins is a bad thing is at best new (sacrificing minions, is there any problem it can't solve?)


Do you honestly think it makes any sense that Redcloak would consider himself a bad guy for wanting to oppose the paladins years later when they met Xykon? ...This guy DOESN'T LIKE PALADINS, maybe he'll have sympathy for our position too." So take RC's feelings towards Paladins off the table. Other than that, he's a good guy? Doesn't "accidentally" try to kill his team mates (Chlorine elemental). Doesn't feed live babies to the MitD? Doesn't murder more of his own people than he absolutely needs to?



But knowing that evil can indeed be evil as we know it doesn't help him get to an understanding of "evil is bad and good is good," it gets him to "everyone is evil." Bull. When O-Chul and RC where up on the roof, RC showed that he knew darn well what the Paladin rules were. RC has shown a high awareness and knowledge of how team good operates, what their rules are, and what their restrictions are.

He's even contrasted how team good operates to how his team operates and stated outright that his crew are the "bad guys". http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0433.html


Which is indeed where we are now. But while for most villains I think this would just be self-serving, his induction to this line of thinking is completely reasonable and really tragic when you get down to it, and out of everything that he's done, I think that's one of the few things we really can't criticize him for.All you're saying is that we understand and sympathize with RC. That's fine, and a credit to Rich. But it doesn't change what RC is, or what he does, or what he knows.

[Chirios]

*Cough* Vietnam War. *Cough*

I wasn't aware that any of the ruling bodies involved in the Vietnam War captured people of the opposite skin colour and then sent them out in the jungle to train for jungle warfare.

[Kalbron]

Eh.

Honestly this discussion seems like the ten thousand arguments that can spawn up by saying "Che Guvera was a good man because..." or "Stalin was evil because..." or even "Hilter had a few decent points because..." - simply put, one man's justified heroic sociopathic freedom fighter is another man's bloodthirsy psychopathic mass murderer.

The OP views Redcloak from the freedom fighter perspective because he has come to associate their treatment at the hands of the OOTS world with how he has been treated in ours.

Personally I'd make the case that it is more that his attackers could be better equated with the goblins, what with them most likely having families that they loved and wished to protect, but fully willing to leave said homes and "raid" those that are different from themselves for no particularly good reason except perhaps "they have our jobs/food/money and they don't deserve them!" If challenged they would have likely created a spiel about how they had been treated unfairly from the outset by the world, and that they were fully justified in their actions specifically because of that ufair treatment.

[Dark Matter]

Pacifism only works when the other side is willing to allow you not to fight dude. In Redcloaks case, they aren't willing to allow him not to fight.In the real world Pacifists often get killed for a while until their point is made.

Pacifism in D&D would work perfectly in this situation. The FIRST time a Paladin murders a "Good" goblin "because he's a goblin", he falls.


When asked by his brother what he had been up to during the years between them seeing each other, RC pointed out that he had been hanging around the lair defending themselves from bands of adventurers.

Sounds as if he was being pretty passive and humans kept turning up to kill them.

As for the concerns that he was lying to his brother about whether things would be '"better" for humanoids... I repeat. He was talking, in confidence, to the one person who he really trusted. Why would he lie? What possible motivation does he have?What, you don't have family? People lie to look good (especially to their family). Similarly, "adventurers" doesn't mean "Paladins", and RC can easily be skipping some important details.


The US could have surrendered. That's pretty non-lethal. They could have tried to trade their conquored territory for peace. They could have initiated a total blockade of the remaining islands of Japan. Given the economic status of the Japanese, they would have been unable to continue the war within weeks, a few months at the most. 30 million people dead. Most of them civilians. Most of them deliberate, i.e. as a direct result of what we now consider to be "war crimes". And that's ONLY during the actual war, Japan had been pulling that kind of stuff for decades before this.

So... are you seriously claiming that leaving the people responsible for this in charge is going to result in "fewer" deaths? Personally I think any of your options would result in serious and easily foreseeable problems in the future.

These were the Japanese equivalents of Hitler. By some lights they were worse (i.e. killed more people). So... what do you think of the idea of leaving Hitler in charge after we beat his army? Do you think that would have resulted in fewer deaths than invading Germany proper?


Wikipedia, whilst convenient, is about as reliable and accurate a source as asking a random child on his way to school. If you have some reliable information claiming the Japanese were all cute, cuddly and misunderstood, feel free to post them and I'll read it. Japanese war crimes are historically well documented. The Chinese still hate Japan after all this time for the same reason that Israel still has mixed feelings towards the Germans.


I should also point out that Japan was hardly the only nation to take part in war crimes. For instance, it's well documented that US Bomber command alone committed war crimes on a massive scale. These have been admitted by at least one very senior source within the US administration who was instrumental in the adoption and execution of the bombing campaign (McNamara).Very true. And if the alternative was leaving those previously mentioned people in charge, then this looks like the lesser evil, even retrospectively.


To tie this back to RC. If RC sacks a city and enslaves the remains of the populace that hadn't escaped, that's bad. However, if he does it in order to setup a safe haven for all of goblinkind then the numbers add up in his favour. A few thousand dead and enslaved, an entire species saved.Define "safe haven". I find it very hard to believe it means "goblins don't hit Paladin radar as evil".

I find it much easier to believe it means "there are no more Paladins (or humans)". Or alternatively, it might mean "the goblins are strong enough that they can kill/enslave/torture as many humans as they want".

As far as I can tell, RC *doesn't* want to make his people good. He wants to WIN. He wants victory, not peace.

[Kish]

Pacifism in D&D would work perfectly in this situation. The FIRST time a Paladin murders a "Good" goblin "because he's a goblin", he falls.
In a generic D&D world, yes. In OotS, no.

[eras10]

He's unquestionably evil, by both DoD rules and human morality. But yeah, I feel sorry for him anyway. His options have basically been limited to war on the human race, or death; and at later points, the Plan for world domination, or death.


First off, he's a terrorist. That has been explicitly shown in the scene with the Rift and O'Chul. And not the "cool" kind of terrorist either. Not to mention the fact that his over-arching plan relies on terrorism on a world-wide scale. Oh, and he's also a fanatic, because he's willing to lay HIS life and the life of ALL of his fellow goblins for his plan.

Second, he's a filthy hypocrit. Right-Eye has already shown him HOW to win over the human. Had the goblinoid BUILT a city, started agriculture, stopped raiding, and send envoys over to the human cities- the world would've been different. Instead, he CONQUERS a city, uses slave labor, and allies himself with mercenary cities. When Azure City is cleansed, it'll be poetic justice.


We're all hypocrites to one extent or another. The word sets a basically impossible standard. As for terrorism; yeah. But that demonstrates that he's evil, not that we shouldn't feel sorry for him.

As SoD demonstrates, given a demonstration by Right-eye that living in peace and abandoning revenge was a possibility even for Goblins, Redcloak begins to come from his senses and get over the traumatizing massacre that defined his life. He had just come to accept the idea of, essentially, not being evil. Then Xykon comes over the hill and traumatizes him further. In a variety of ways, Xykon has essentially raped Redcloak and manipulated him into justifying it; has intimidated Redcloak into doing things that have scarred his personality forever. Redcloak doesn't want to die. He lacks heroic courage. So he has submitted to Xykon.

So I feel sorry for Redcloak. As Rich has gone out of his way to make clear in a variety of ways, DoD as currently defined offers only death for peaceful goblins. The system is not set up for peace. The system all but demands racism - for *every* side - and it gets what it demands. I find it hard to be all righteous about how Redcloak slaughters humans left and right, since, as has been repeatedly pointed out in this comic, humans are explicitly given a pass to commit morally evil acts, such as killing defenseless nonthreat members of evil races, as long as they're against "evil" races.

Gandhi would have had no chance whatsoever in the system. He would have been killed, and his movement crushed - at least according to the way Rich has defined the reactions of human society. In other stories in the D&D universe, the "Good guys" can recognize moral good in "evil" races, at least some of the time. In those universes, peace could have a chance. But not in this one. In this one, Redcloak's *general* path - war - is the only way that the Goblin race has a chance at ending their 20-to-1 unfavorable kill ratio.

Redcloak has committed many morally evil acts along the way, many of them probably uneccessary, and is morally evil by now in any system, but that's more of a judgement than a description. As a description, Redcloak still has an interest in morality. In some unrealistic deus ex machina that saved his race without need for what he's doing, he might be able to live a life of good, or at least neutral actions, hereforward. But that's not going to happen.

So,


Redcloak is a racist/speciest (with a sad sob story about why he thinks humans are the real monsters that makes some people empathize with him) that is trying to rearrange the way the "hierarchy" of society to match the racial hierarchy of his head. All Redcloak sees is a type of D&D high school where humans are a "in-crowd races", Goblins are a "social outcast race", and he hates getting picked on so he wants some Revenge of the Nerds style payback.

He's not some misunderstood hero fighting for "a better world" for his people free of "unjust repression." All Redcloak sees is Goblin/Not-Goblin. He doesn't give one whit about suffering or injustice so long as Goblins aren't the ones suffering

Yes. But that's no better or worse than the rest of the OOTS verse.

I feel sorry for Redcloak. He was blackmailed and brutalized at every step along the path of bad choices that he's made. He didn't have to make those choices. He could have died a good man, and in some cases he could have been more fair or merciful and still lived. But just because he still had free will shouldn't obscure the reality that 99% of human psyches born into his role would have followed similar lines. Survivors of massacres given substantial military power and forced to serve abominations at point of death do not typically end up as good people. The chances, I'd say, were fairly miniscule.

So I feel sorry. Compassion is a virtue, and I don't try to avoid it.

[B. Dandelion]

The high priest of an evil god who has been hit with Smite Evil at least twice doesn't understand he's evil?

...WHOOOOOOSH

Missing my point ENTIRELY. He does not understand that he is evil in a sense that goes beyond mechanics. He doesn't see that there's any intrinsic difference between evil people and good people except that they call themselves by a different name. Team Blue can cast Smite Red. Team Red can cast Smite Blue.


When he's feeding the MitD live babies, does he think that's a "good" thing?

The MitD specifically says it is Xykon who tries to feed him live children to make him "scarier."


It's been what, a century? How is it that RC remains as innocent as a new born kitten?

Not about innocence. I'm saying they called the goblins evil over and over again -- without ever defining evil. Why did they deserve to die? They were evil. What is evil? Something that sets off an "evil radar."


And how much love & loyalty does RC have for Xykon? The rest of team evil? His brother? Or even his fellow goblins for that matter? Him understanding that the pointless killing of his fellow goblins is a bad thing is at best new (sacrificing minions, is there any problem it can't solve?)

Again missing the point. Good-aligned people are capable of love and loyalty. Evil-aligned people are capable of love and loyalty. What makes "good" better than "evil"?


So take RC's feelings towards Paladins off the table. Other than that, he's a good guy?

First of all, I am talking about a specific moment in time, the occasion of meeting Xykon. Redcloak and Right-Eye were trying to stage an uprising, with a number of other goblins who'd been victims of the paladin's genocidal campaign. Before battle, he starts to give a speech, referencing this but also saying that he's been given a "vision" and blatantly goes MLK Jr. -- judge us by our characters, not our superficial differences. He WAS a pretty good guy at that point, and saw himself as a liberator. Yet despite the fact that he's talking to his fellow goblins he doesn't say they're superior to humans and they're going to crush them all, he wants a peaceful co-existence.

Then Xykon shows up and starts killing people. Right-Eye concludes, after watching Xykon make a man beg for mercy only to laugh in his face and kill him anyway, that since he is obviously evil he must be like them (?!), and wanted to talk to him about the plan. He is perceiving this quality, evil, largely as an antagonism toward an opposing quality which is equally ill-defined. You would think the apparent SADISM would have set off warning alarms but, no. They think the paladins are sadists too. Let's go talk to him because a guy who likes to set people on fire for fun is REALLY likely to sympathiize with your campaign of civil rights. Please do note that they did NOT really have anything to offer Xykon that would have appealed to him. Xykon wound up signing in to the Plan because he jumped to a conclusion that Redcloak allowed him to keep, erroneously.


Doesn't "accidentally" try to kill his team mates (Chlorine elemental).

He didn't regard her as a "teammate" and didn't feel a need to be "loyal." Xykon recruited her, what obligation does that put on him? I actually think he might not have done anything to her but for the fact that she expected him to drop everything to process her application forms, and then when she tried to threaten him with the specter of going to Xykon as if he were their schoolteacher he thought it'd be pretty funny if she found out EXACTLY how much Xykon'd care about her demise. In a way, that could even be seen as tough love.


Doesn't feed live babies to the MitD?

Where is it ever said that he does.


Doesn't murder more of his own people than he absolutely needs to?

Well there's several issues here. For one, again, I am talking about a specific moment in time that you are decades separated from, during which he very ably DID meet this qualification, two, this is also another issue of whether he is obligated to see them as "his people" when he didn't want to recruit them and was forced into the role of Supreme Leader, and three, when he realized that he WAS obligated to them in his role as the head priest, he immediately started trying to make amends, although he acknowledged that he couldn't take back the mistakes he'd already made. You really can't ask for much more than that.


Bull. When O-Chul and RC where up on the roof, RC showed that he knew darn well what the Paladin rules were.

ONCE more, again, it is not a denial of the mechanics that is the problem here! Knowing that someone is magically obligated to behave in a certain fashion does not mean that this is a necessarily virtuous thing, O-Chul is called good and abides by all of those rules, and "good" is, in Redcloak's mind, Evil by a different name.


RC has shown a high awareness and knowledge of how team good operates, what their rules are, and what their restrictions are.

Yes, again, this is addressed by the simple fact that knowing what the rules ARE is not knowing what the rules are FOR.


He's even contrasted how team good operates to how his team operates and stated outright that his crew are the "bad guys". http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0433.html

The bad guys fight more efficiently? Granted, this is one that suggests being a "bad guy" implies less compassion than "good." I think he reversed on that one though. Again, the definition in 548. Xykon is evil, like them, and like them opposes people who "call themselves good," but he is a "monster" in spite of being evil.


All you're saying is that we understand and sympathize with RC.

No, dude, I'm not. I do, but that's not what I wrote about.


That's fine, and a credit to Rich. But it doesn't change what RC is, or what he does, or what he knows.

Are you trying to tell me I can't magically influence people by writing stuff up on a board in the internets?! MY GOD!!! MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIE!

[Weiser_Cain]

... The only reason Ghandi and MLK didn't fight for their freedom was because it was logistically impossible. They were outnumbered and outgunned and what's more, they lived in societies which were by and large, filled with people who would listen to their demands. The Paladins slaughter goblin villages yearly, and the Gods have literally made it so that Goblins are just cannon fodder for druids who can't get enough EXP.

You think Ghandi and MLK could've been pacifists if they had lived in societies which captured brown-skinned people, then had their militaries hunt them down in order to train the soldiers for jungle warfare?

As for invading Azure City, like Xykon said, the McGuffin was there, and the Gods won't listen without it.
Where's the ignore list?

[Antacid]

In the real world Pacifists often get killed for a while until their point is made.

No less than George Orwell pointed out that passive resistance only works against relatively benign authoritarian governments. Had Ghandi tried the same tactics on Stalin, Orwell said, he would have simply vanished into a gulag early in his career and never been heard of again.


Pacifism in D&D would work perfectly in this situation. The FIRST time a Paladin murders a "Good" goblin "because he's a goblin", he falls.

The Dark One wasn't killed by paladins.


I find it much easier to believe it means "there are no more Paladins (or humans)". Or alternatively, it might mean "the goblins are strong enough that they can kill/enslave/torture as many humans as they want".

I'm sure Redcloak would accept either result happily. That doesn't mean he's going to actively pursue those alternatives over some variant of "equality" in the unlikely event that he/The Dark One gets to dictate terms.


As far as I can tell, RC *doesn't* want to make his people good. He wants to WIN. He wants victory, not peace.
Like anyone fighting a war, RC wants victory, and then peace on terms that favour his side. That's not inherantly evil; your judgement of the morality of his actions depends on what you think about his justification for fighting the war. What you seem to be saying is that the only option that isn't evil is to not fight at all. The paladins certainly don't seem to agree with you there.

[Dark Matter]

First of all, I am talking about a specific moment in time, the occasion of meeting Xykon...If you want to make the claim that, at this point in time, he didn't understand the difference between good and evil and/or he was effectively neutral, then that's fine. I don't have enough source material to contest this.

But he's long past that. He's murdered his family, he's sent large numbers of goblins out to die pointlessly, he's openly admitted his long term plans include killing all the humans. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0544.html

He's read the rules well enough to understand how Paladins are going to behave, and maybe even how they think. Granted, there was a time when RC might have been turned towards the cause of good... but that time is long past. He's gained a lot of experience since then, and his Wisdom and Intelligence are both pretty high.

If at this point he doesn't understand the difference but he can still predict Palidin behavior then this is willful ignorance.


He didn't regard her as a "teammate" and didn't feel a need to be "loyal." Xykon recruited her, what obligation does that put on him?She's an example, but only *one*. There are many others. A loyal goblin (i.e. green) child who died to bring him a message about what the OOTS was up to and how they'd destroy Xykon... and he didn't bother casting cure light wounds on him.

Modern RC knows he doesn't really give a damn about Goblin life (just like team good). Team Good does care about innocent "good" life.

Put differently, team good treats themselves pretty good, but they treat goblins pretty much the same as the goblins treat themselves.

[Cúchulainn]

...WHOOOOOOSH

Missing my point ENTIRELY. He does not understand that he is evil in a sense that goes beyond mechanics. He doesn't see that there's any intrinsic difference between evil people and good people except that they call themselves by a different name. Team Blue can cast Smite Red. Team Red can cast Smite Blue.

Mmm...hmm. I'm pretty sure that's impossible with the wisdom stat of a cleric his level. Regardless of that, he knows it's evil, he just doesn't agree with what is evil and what is good. He thinks what the paladins did to his village was good, but that doesn't mean he thinks what he's doing to the humans now is good. He understands the rules of the world, he just doesn't agree, that's his whole point.

[Kish]

He's read the rules well enough to understand how Paladins are going to behave, and maybe even how they think.
Except that he manifestly doesn't. He pontificated (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0547.html) about the despicable lack of regard for everyone that he could still find disgusting even though he expected it, before he sent O-Chul back to his cell--saying that he expected it to be a PR coup that he had spared the lives and souls of the humans while O-Chul was willing to let them be destroyed.

In other words, he sees humans the same way adventurers like Roy's former party see goblins: petty, venal, devoid of honor or courage.

Mmm...hmm. I'm pretty sure that's impossible with the wisdom stat of a cleric his level. Regardless of that, he knows it's evil, he just doesn't agree with what is evil and what is good. He thinks what the paladins did to his village was evil,
*cough* No, good. He thinks what the paladins did to his village was good, therefore the concept of "good" is meaningless.

[Cúchulainn]

*cough* No, good. He thinks what the paladins did to his village was good, therefore the concept of "good" is meaningless.

Right, right. I shouldn't post while sleep deprived.

[Antacid]

Redcloak was blackmailed and brutalized at every step along the path of bad choices that he's made. He didn't have to make those choices.
He could have died a good man, and in some cases he could have been more fair or merciful and still lived. But just because he still had free will shouldn't obscure the reality that 99% of human psyches born into his role would have followed similar lines. Survivors of massacres given substantial military power and forced to serve abominations at point of death do not typically end up as good people. The chances, I'd say, were fairly miniscule.
I basically agree with the gist of this, but regarding the bolded part I think something extra needs to be added.

It needs to be remembered what a giant gobsmackingly huge Plan the Plan is. It's significantly more ballsy than would ever be attempted by PCs in most D&D campaigns. The facts that Redcloak is: a) following the will of his God and b) is the the main cleric for his God and c) is aware of what has happened previously when the Dark One's high priest has tried to just live quietly somewhere; all make it much more debatable that many of the decisions he made were "bad" from the admittedly specialised point of view of his God and the Plan.

Living in peace didn't work out so well for the previous bearer of the crimson mantle. Negotitating with humans didn't work out so well for the Dark One. So fanatical commitment to a Plan that has the potential to change the groundrules makes sense, and is the logical course of action... as long as your point of view happens to regard the future existence of the world as an acceptable thing to risk.

Everything Redcloak has done must be viewed through the lense of extreme committment to what he's attempting. Given that what he's attempting is so insanely ambitious, decisions like "make powerful psychopath into a lich" and "kill own family members if they try to stop you" are, in a weird way, in proportion to what he's attempting to do. It's just that he's already totally outside the limits where normal morality could be said to apply. Had Redcloak not been so completely uncompromising at every stage, he probably wouldn't have come as close as he is to achieving the Plan, which arguably would have simply left the situation at the start of the comic unchanged, unfair Goblin world system and all. He may be the first High Priest to get this close precisely because he was willing to make these decisions.

So even if it would be his technical alignment in a D&D game, his actions don't make him so much evil as completely amoral. The idea that he thinks of "good" as a meaningless statement of allegiance at this point really supports this idea.

[Dark Matter]

The Dark One wasn't killed by paladins. But it is a group of Paladins that are basically running the local government (or were until recently).


I'm sure Redcloak would accept either result happily. That doesn't mean he's going to actively pursue those alternatives over some variant of "equality" in the unlikely event that he/The Dark One gets to dictate terms.

Like anyone fighting a war, RC wants victory, and then peace on terms that favour his side. That's not inherantly evil...Read the last two frames here:http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0544.html. O-Chul says RC's version of "peace" means the humans are in a grave, RC agrees.


...your judgement of the morality of his actions depends on what you think about his justification for fighting the war. What you seem to be saying is that the only option that isn't evil is to not fight at all. The paladins certainly don't seem to agree with you there.Just because two sides are fighting a war doesn't mean that both sides are ethically the same.

One side was following an evil god, committing evil actions, casting evil spells, (etc). The other side was their mirror opposite and led by a group of Paladins.

If team Evil wins and the world gets remade in their image, I don't expect Good things. None of us should.

[Dark Matter]

Except that he manifestly doesn't. He pontificated (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0547.html) about the despicable lack of regard for everyone that he could still find disgusting even though he expected it, before he sent O-Chul back to his cell--saying that he expected it to be a PR coup that he had spared the lives and souls of the humans while O-Chul was willing to let them be destroyed.

In other words, he sees humans the same way adventurers like Roy's former party see goblins: petty, venal, devoid of honor or courage.Except that RC's lying. He KNOWS O-Chul simply doesn't have the information he seeks and ergo O-Chul is NOT disregarding those people's lives.

Knowing that means this is either self justification on RC's part (i.e. you're just as bad as me) or more psychological torture.

[Antacid]

One side was following an evil god, committing evil actions, casting evil spells, (etc). The other side was their mirror opposite and led by a group of Paladins.

I get what you're saying, but I really think you're tripping over OotS's deconstruction of D&D's objective morality.

The idea that the goblins have the option of being good and getting different spells and become paladins isn't credible: that would only happen if The Dark One became a "good" god. There is no good Goblin god, because Goblins were never intended to have their own gods in the first place and the only one they do have was not made divine in circumstances condusive to goodness. It's a case where everyone's problems can be traced back to the god's decision to create human-like sentient monster races and give them the role of being purely XP-fodder.

If the Goblins were ever going to fight a war, it would have to be following the God they have, with the magic they have access to. And given that no good-aligned wizards were going to be motivated to help Redcloak pwn the Gods into submission whilst possibly destroying the multiverse, he was pretty much limited to an evil arcane user as well. It's all a case of very brilliantly worked out dramatic inevitability.


If team Evil wins and the world gets remade in their image, I don't expect Good things. None of us should. ace.
I don't think Rich will go down the "world gets completely remade" route. I'm sure whatever happens will involve very very bad things happening to someone, it's the question of who and what that we're waiting to have answered.

EDIT re. your interpretation of #544:


he's openly admitted his long term plans include killing all the humans. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0544.html
I don't think Redcloak is saying he wants to kill all the humans in this comic. He's just saying that it would be much more convienient for him if they didn't resist, even if it meant them all being killed in the event of the world being unravelled. It's a subtle difference, true, but it's just his, uh, practical nature showing. :smallbiggrin:

[Lamech]

I feel a little sorry for Redcloak. He's had a lot of crap happen too him. The slaughter of his village, killing his brother, getting his eye-stabbed out by a member of a genocidal orginization... ect. I feel soory for him even if he hasn't been perfect.

Now Redcloak has made a number of bad choices, abusing the hobgoblins, abusing the people of Azure City, abusing Tsukiko, all these things show he isn't good. And none of them were nessacary for his plan. Abusing the hobo's was not needed. He obviously should have had the people of Azure City put to work like the hobgobs; enslaving and whipping them served him in no way. Risking the life of a potentially valuable ally; this should be obvious.

As I've kind of hinted at, I think that Redcloak is justified in his quest for the gates. The gods deserve some wrath. Tha palidins attacked and killed childern; the goverment of Azure City had to be removed, genocide makes you a valid target for conquering. He could have been good, but he hasn't.

[The Tygre]

Quick question: Does anything ever explicitly say that the Goblins -have- to worship the Dark One? I don't ever recall reading that, y'know, anywhere...

[TheNifty]

Once again;


Read the last two frames here:http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0544.html. O-Chul says RC's version of "peace" means the humans are in a grave, RC agrees.

RC really does want to exterminate or enslave all non-goblin races. That's always been the plan; he doesn't want peaceful co-existence like Right-Eye, he wants revenge.

[B. Dandelion]

If you want to make the claim that, at this point in time, he didn't understand the difference between good and evil and/or he was effectively neutral, then that's fine. I don't have enough source material to contest this.

I'm trying to show where his understanding of morality started from and evolved. Not to prove that he at one point could have been neutral.


But he's long past that.

That's not the POINT. It's not the point that he's corrupt now when he wasn't then -- he is, YES. What's changed is obfuscating what HASN'T changed. He knows nothing of "good" that encompasses behavior exceptional to "evil" and vice-versa. The words could be "blorsk" and "malk" or something for all the difference it could make. The "malk" paladins are tyrannical and kill the "blorsk" goblins all the time, so for a while it seemed "blorsk" was probably better, but Xykon, while "blorsk," also turned out to be a real wanker so now BOTH words are not an indication of trustworthy behavior.


He's murdered his family, he's sent large numbers of goblins out to die pointlessly, he's openly admitted his long term plans include killing all the humans. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0544.html

You're missing how that one segues into 545. They're actually talking at different ends. O-Chul talks about how they would have "the safety of the grave" because they'll be DEAD, which is bad, Redcloak is responding that the grave will be safe because the afterlife will still be around, as opposed to oblivion should the Snarl escape, which is good.


He's read the rules well enough to understand how Paladins are going to behave,

He knows certain predictable responses to set stimuli. Knowing that it exists does not assign a particular moral significance to it. Redcloak knows that O-Chul is magically obligated to do everything in his power to protect his own people, he knows nothing of that self-sacrificing quality that is universal to "good" people or alien to "evil" ones.


and maybe even how they think.
I REALLY doubt it.


If at this point he doesn't understand the difference but he can still predict Palidin behavior then this is willful ignorance.

He can't entirely predict it and his ignorance is exactly what I am talking about, where he understands certain specific mechanics but not the real unifying principle that is supposed to tie it together. You know the scene where Elan tells Nale that he saved him, knowing he wouldn't tell them his plans, because he was the good twin and not the neutral one? Nale just didn't get it. I think Redcloak would have gone into shock. WHAT?!


She's an example, but only *one*. There are many others. A loyal goblin (i.e. green) child who died to bring him a message about what the OOTS was up to and how they'd destroy Xykon... and he didn't bother casting cure light wounds on him.

Redcloak was entirely derelict in duty there, in a way that is OOC to just about everything that we had seen come before that, AND everything from 451 on. I say to it, much as I say to certain incidents regarding Roy, Belkar, Vaarsuvuis, and the Monster in the Dark -- I don't think the Dorukan's Dungeon strips should be used to contradict themes in the later comics if it doesn't seem to have been intentional and it's feasible it was considered unimportant at the time but would have caused an uproar if it happened today. The Giant is usually really good about this kind of continuity, which I like, but nobody's perfect.


Modern RC knows he doesn't really give a damn about Goblin life (just like team good).

That's not correct. He does care. He cares a great deal. The problem is that he's been putting goblin life second over his own pride because he can't admit he was wrong to team up with Xykon and a lot of people have died as a result. It's too much for him to take all of that responsibility and I think Right-Eye was right when he said Redcloak was in a lot of ways the same kid who put on the cloak in the first place -- the kid who had only been an acolyte for FIVE MINUTES before having to take on the mantle of head priest for his entire race. Fanwank ahead, but I think in part it's hard for him because he's the kind of perfectionist personality that, when things go wrong, blames himself FIRST, and going back over all those accumulated deaths, even from very early on, was something he couldn't forgive himself for if it had been a result of a stupid mistake on his part, even though the plan was not of his invention and those who signed on (at first) did so willingly -- it'd be ALL him and he's a complete failure because they died on his watch.

Yes, it's selfish IN THE EXTREME for him to keep throwing good lives after bad, but it's not that he doesn't care.


Team Good does care about innocent "good" life.

Team Malk does care about innocent "Malk" life, but not innocent "blorsk," like his sister, so that's nothing to him. He probably considers himself better if there are any "Malk" kids in town that he hasn't forced to work as many hours as their parents or allows them to still take reading lessons.


Put differently, team good treats themselves pretty good, but they treat goblins pretty much the same as the goblins treat themselves.

The goblins often treat one another with great respect, love, and loyalty -- as I said before. They are capable of it, and he knows nothing that makes this any different from the behavior "good" people grant to other "good" people. Some "evil" people are jerks even within their alignment, but the "good" people are ALWAYS jerks to them. Why, then, are ALL "evil" people fair targets for "good" people to kill, if you're classifying "good" people as those who treat each other well? By that standard they shouldn't have been evil. But they were, and they set off the "evil radar." Redcloak asked what they had DONE to the humans and the answer was that they hadn't -- so what, then, is he supposed to infer? They weren't the same as the humans because they were goblins?

[Cracklord]

Quick question: Does anything ever explicitly say that the Goblins -have- to worship the Dark One? I don't ever recall reading that, y'know, anywhere...

He's there only god. If they were to worship anything else, it would become a minor god (Banjo), so therefore he is the only god they choose to worship.

However, it has never been explicitely stated that they can't worship, say, Rat or Loki. One of them seems to worship a demon prince. Whether they actually get any benefits from doing so is unknown, but I don't know if they can be clerics of anything but the Darkone. It would certainly be a big hole in the plan if thye could.

[TheNifty]

I'm trying to show where his understanding of morality started from and evolved. Not to prove that he at one point could have been neutral.

If I might summarize your post; you're arguing that RC doesn't understand the meaning of the terms "good" and "evil"?

I disagree with that. He might not understand the words, but the terms behind that he does clearly. He sees the treatment of his own race as a bad thing, he just thinks that the words "good" & "evil" are labels, rather than moral positions.

[Dark Matter]

Quick question: Does anything ever explicitly say that the Goblins -have- to worship the Dark One? I don't ever recall reading that, y'know, anywhere...A good question. As far as I'm aware, the answer is "no".


...The idea that the goblins have the option of being good and getting different spells and become paladins isn't credible: that would only happen if The Dark One became a "good" god.Paladins don't have a follow a specific god. "Paladins need not devote themselves to a single deity. Devotion to righteousness is enough for most". (Players hand book 3.0, page 41).


... There is no good Goblin god, because Goblins were never intended to have their own gods in the first place and the only one they do have was not made divine in circumstances condusive to goodness. It's a case where everyone's problems can be traced back to the god's decision to create human-like sentient monster races and give them the role of being purely XP-fodder.Probably not "the gods". This strikes me as an evil act, ergo it was probably the act of an evil god.


EDIT re. your interpretation of #544:
I don't think Redcloak is saying he wants to kill all the humans in this comic. He's just saying that it would be much more convienient for him if they didn't resist, even if it meant them all being killed in the event of the world being unravelled. It's a subtle difference, true, but it's just his, uh, practical nature showing. :smallbiggrin:If you want to think he didn't mean what he said, then it's easier to say he was trash talking with O-Chul (and he'd lied to him anyway on other matters).

To be fair to RC, he didn't throw the human slaves into the rift. He doesn't appear to kill all humans he finds (enslave is probably a different issue).

On the other hand, at the moment the top guy is going to be Xykon, who has promised that he won't destroy the world unless he's really, really bored. Basically I'm with Roy on this (panels 10 and 11). http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html

[Cracklord]

Probably not "the gods". This strikes me as an evil act, ergo it was probably the act of an evil god.


No, it was the good gods. One of their druids complained at how long it took them to get XP, and they had a brainwave.
This is particularly callous as you can, in time, level up through study and hardwork.

[B. Dandelion]

If I might summarize your post; you're arguing that RC doesn't understand the meaning of the terms "good" and "evil"?

I disagree with that. He might not understand the words, but the terms behind that he does clearly. He sees the treatment of his own race as a bad thing, he just thinks that the words "good" & "evil" are labels, rather than moral positions.

You're on the right track, more or less. I think his entire perception of reality has been affected by the "labels," and part of the problem is that they encompass both the arbitrary and the significant. The goblin designation of "usually evil" is arbitrary, the designation of murder is significant. The people and alliances he was put up against, and those that he was pushed towards, have worked against him for this reason. I don't think he or his brother were evil in any significant sense to begin with, but they knew that classification and it set the tone for everything to come. Yes, I do think he has evolved to a somewhat greater understanding, but it came rather late in the game -- I like to point to what happened the second time in the diner. Evil as Redcloak and his brother knew it was summed up by that, evil people eat evil food at the evil diner and it is entirely a superficial distinction, but suddenly they were up against an evil they hadn't really known before -- who KILLED that pretty little demonic waitress who'd always been completely harmless.

But knowing that doesn't make the negative perception of "good" go away. Right-Eye got even farther than he did along that route, and while he was good-intentioned he was never trying to be "good," the label, which was as meaningless to him as his brother. The good guys are their enemies, and oppose them for reasons he has never been told are founded in he and his allies' lack of things like compassion or self-sacrifice -- largely because they HAVEN'T been, most good people are as arbitrarily assigned to that alignment as he was assigned to evil. His classification is just the justification for them taking violent action against him -- it's basically hypocrisy as far as he can tell. He's never met a good person like Elan or Roy who have demonstrably behaved differently from his expectations. O-Chul is good, and O-Chul is right to want him dead, but you see how that doesn't help move his perspective.

[TheNifty]

No, it was the good gods. One of their druids complained at how long it took them to get XP, and they had a brainwave.
This is particularly callous as you can, in time, level up through study and hardwork.

Well, it was the gods that labeled themselves "good". I'm pretty sure they aren't actual good gods, though.

[B. Dandelion]

Mmm...hmm. I'm pretty sure that's impossible with the wisdom stat of a cleric his level. Regardless of that, he knows it's evil, he just doesn't agree with what is evil and what is good. He thinks what the paladins did to his village was good, but that doesn't mean he thinks what he's doing to the humans now is good. He understands the rules of the world, he just doesn't agree, that's his whole point.

He has no excuse for what is happening under his watch in Azure City, even going by his warped understanding of things -- I don't know how he self-justifies that. He's never said.

[TheNifty]

He has no excuse for what is happening under his watch in Azure City, even going by his warped understanding of things -- I don't know how he self-justifies that.

He doesn't see it, any more than he did the mistreatment of the hobgoblins. RC's fatal flaw is his blindness - not just to the suffering of other races, but to anything other than his own goals.

Right-eyes' dream of a goblin city trading freely with the other races was vastly less risky and more likely to succeed than "The Plan", but choosing it would mean admitting to himself that everything he's sacrificed in pursuit of it was for nothing.

It's what logicians call the "sunk cost fallacy" - he's invested so much in The Plan he can't bear to see it fail.

[Steward]

He has no excuse for what is happening under his watch in Azure City, even going by his warped understanding of things -- I don't know how he self-justifies that. He's never said.

I'm sure if someone were to argue with him on this point, he could make something up. Something along the lines of, "Humans were horrible to my people, and everything I do now is cool." In some ways, Xykon is more honest; he's a jerk, but at least he doesn't insult you by trying to hold you personally responsible for decisions that he would have made even if you had never existed.

[JonahFalcon]

In a world with resurrection and magic healing, no.

[WarriorTribble]

@B. Dandelion
Well said. I'd just like to add that in this topsy-turvy world, a human and a goblin could live the exact same lives with the exact same moral code, yet the goblin could come up evil, while the human pings good. How? Well lets say they both believe killing if used as a last resort to protect loved ones, or self-defense is moral. The human (still assuming he's good) will be defending himself against either evil people, or evil acts and his alignment won't budge. The goblin on the other hand can easily face a murderous good aligned person, and any damage he deals would be evil because he's hurting someone when they're merely doing a neutral or good act.

Of course the more people this goblin kills in self-defense the more the alignment slips and soon self defense equals evil, because he is evil. And that’s assuming goblins start life neutral. It's small wonder why the entire race is mostly evil. To not be evil you'd either need to have almost no contact with humans, be a strict pacifist, or a self-hater who simply accepts that goblins are an inferior race meant to be killed.

[Dark Matter]

...a human and a goblin could live the exact same lives with the exact same moral code, yet the goblin could come up evil, while the human pings good. How? Well lets say they both believe killing if used as a last resort to protect loved ones, or self-defense is moral. ...

Of course the more people this goblin kills in self-defense the more the alignment slips and soon self defense equals evil, because he is evil.Yes and no.

The first question is, Why are the "good" people attacking you? The answer is that they're not attacking "you", they're attacking your neighbor or your brother who unlike you is evil and has been out committing evil acts against them.

Defending yourself in your example isn't an evil act... but yes, it certainly does get you more in the habit of attacking "good" people and seeing them as your enemy. However defending your brother's/neighbor's "right" to go out and commit evil acts *is* evil.

Further this *isn't* a case of tit-for-tat or an escalating war. In *theory*, a god could kill all the races (human, goblin, whatever) and then recreate them without their current history. The goblins are still "usually evil". It isn't going to take all that long to get back to where we are now.

[WarriorTribble]

The first question is, Why are the "good" people attacking you? The answer is that they're not attacking "you", they're attacking your neighbor or your brother who unlike you is evil and has been out committing evil acts against them.It's just as likely an adventurer sees him/the family and thinks "free xp/prestige!"

Defending yourself in your example isn't an evil act...How you can be so sure? On the moral scale, killing goblins is like... weightlifting, or studying. How could a goblin hurt/kill another sentient being for such a "benign" act and be good?
Further this *isn't* a case of tit-for-tat or an escalating war. In *theory*, a god could kill all the races (human, goblin, whatever) and then recreate them without their current history. The goblins are still "usually evil". It isn't going to take all that long to get back to where we are now.As a divinely subjugated race, the goblins have few options. Either live with the fact that they're less than talking animals, fight until this superiority is somehow removed, or hide. From the looks of things, goblins (who're raised in peace at least) and humans seem to be morally similar.

[B. Dandelion]

He doesn't see it, any more than he did the mistreatment of the hobgoblins. RC's fatal flaw is his blindness - not just to the suffering of other races, but to anything other than his own goals.

...eh, heh. His "blindness" to the hobgoblins was specifically kicked off by the strip in which he demonstrated that his FIRST instincts were to put himself at risk rather than any of the people working subordinate to him. Only when tMitD pointed out how non-villainous that instinct was did he reverse course. He deliberately went from kindness to mistreatment, he knew full well what the hobgoblins were suffering at his hands.

I think that Redcloak's preoccupation with the Plan above all else, and the unwillingness to turn back, is rooted in pride -- but not hubris. He's not a megalomaniac, one of the things I liked about him was that now and again he'll do something that will cause the jaws of his nearby allies to drop, and be puzzled by their reaction as he has no concept of how impressive it is, he thought it was nothing special. So I guess I should say it is rooted in insecurity and shame.


Right-eyes' dream of a goblin city trading freely with the other races was vastly less risky and more likely to succeed than "The Plan", but choosing it would mean admitting to himself that everything he's sacrificed in pursuit of it was for nothing.

Um, I personally have to disagree with this, I think that Redcloak's failure to follow along this path after having stated his explicit intent to do so had something more to do with the fact that Xykon turned up out of nowhere, conscripted Redcloak and Right-Eye against their wills and on pain of death, and then burned the whole village to the ground.

...I mean, really!


It's what logicians call the "sunk cost fallacy" - he's invested so much in The Plan he can't bear to see it fail.

At the end? Yes. But his options were not good. They were, as far as he knew, to help his brother kill Xykon, a plan he thought stood a good chance of failing, or stop him. He was probably right that Xykon WOULD have killed all the goblins in retaliation once they proved willing to go that far. He made the wrong choice just the same, because frankly death would have been better in that at least they died for the right reasons, and died as free men and not slaves. The plan was guaranteed to fail, as we find out, but HE didn't know that, so it's not an excuse. Even if it were, all the other goblins died ANYWAY, so... yeah.

[Chirios]

In the real world Pacifists often get killed for a while until their point is made.

Pacifism in D&D would work perfectly in this situation. The FIRST time a Paladin murders a "Good" goblin "because he's a goblin", he falls.


There is no such thing as a "good" goblin. Goblins by definition are inherently evil. Paladins can kill goblin children and suffer no ill effects.

This is something that people don't seem to understand. Redcloak isn't fighting against a few racist people, he is trying to change divine mandate, and the divine in this case see his people as XP fodder for their soldiers.

As for the pacifist thing, I will reiterate, there has never been a case in human history where pacifism has worked in any country wherein the goverments and the vast majority of the population actively and openly sponsored the use of murder as a deterrent against peaceful protest.

In Redcloaks case, the gods are the government, the vast majority of the population are the elves, dwarves, halflings, drow, humans etc.

And this poses a question: if the Gods design creatures to have inherent unchangeable characteristics, are they not then responsible for the crimes that those creatures commit?

The Dark One commited a campaign against the Northerners in order to secure his borders. After doing so, he attempted to sue for peace. After this, he was killed. He then became a God, and once he reached that status, he attempted to point out to the other Gods that the situation was kind of screwed up. What's more, he was ignored.

The Dark One already tried talking with the Gods, they refused to listen, likely because they need high-level warriors and magicians in order to compete with the Demons, Devils and Daemons. But this is the thing, the Gods will not listen, regardless of any amount of talking.

[TheNifty]

There is no such thing as a "good" goblin. Goblins by definition are inherently evil.

We've seen good goblins in the comic, though.

[Killer Angel]

There is no such thing as a "good" goblin. Goblins by definition are inherently evil. Paladins can kill goblin children and suffer no ill effects.


No. the "alignment" description, don't means that 100% of that race's members are of said al., but it's referred to the great percentage.
It's possible find goblins not evil; it's even possible to find demons not evil.
This is why paladins have detect evil :smallbiggrin:

on the OP: yes, i feel sorry for RC, 'cause he's a great villain, but not so bad at the point of hating him! :smallsmile:

[Dark Matter]

It's just as likely an adventurer sees him/the family and thinks "free xp/prestige!"True, that's the selfish aspect of a "good" group. But you can have multiple reasons for doing something.


How you can be so sure? On the moral scale, killing goblins is like... weightlifting, or studying.Only true if they're monsters.


How could a goblin hurt/kill another sentient being for such a "benign" act and be good?It's not "good" when two good creatures, through reasons outside of their control, end up trying to kill each other... but it can be "neutral" if they're both in the right.


As a divinely subjugated race, the goblins have few options. Either live with the fact that they're less than talking animals, fight until this superiority is somehow removed, or hide.They're not "divinely subjugated". They *can* choose to do the right thing, it's just that they're predisposed towards enjoying/being evil. On this subject, they're also not inherently "inferior". Being evil in D&D doesn't make you inferior and RC is the second highest level creature in OOTS. They don't have much backing from the gods, but keep in mind what they'd likely do with more backing.


From the looks of things, goblins (who're raised in peace at least) and humans seem to be morally similar.I think Haley would disagree with you. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0100.html

[Dark Matter]

And on a side note, the goblins aren't the only race that started out "screwed" (i.e. without godly backing).

However the elves apparently dealt with the situation more constructively. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0275.html

[Ancalagon]

I think there's a difference between "starting without own god" and "deliberatly started as cheap xp on the worst and most useless places there are". ;)