Tsukiko and Xykon [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Trixie

2010-01-26, 10:24 AM

Last I checked, BoVD was an official D&D sourcebook.

It isn't Core, and OotS is mostly Core, except for a few one panel jokes.

Also, making undead is Evil even in core.

Really:

Necromancy

Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force. Spells involving undead creatures make up a large part of this school.

See anything about evil?

Animate Dead
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Clr 3, Death 3, Sor/Wiz 4

It doesn't even belong to Evil domain. Yes, it has evil subtype, but it does virtually nothing, except making it vulnerable to good subtype spells. It doesn't even give Taint if you use this variant. It is as evil as Protection from Good is.

The rules of war apply to open combatants, not people who turn around and massacre their own allies.

Which is clearly not what happened, as she asked Xykon, received his consent, openly declared changing sides, casted a buff on Xykon - all of this took at least a minute, in which Xykon and Tsukiko were busy and not attacked anyone, but were attacked several times. Then, and only then she begin fighting back.

See any turning around? :smallsigh:

I guess she could do the honorable way, that is, she could stand for another minute in place doing nothing and be hacked to pieces, but that would be dumb.

Or, have you any better ideas what she could do to be free of forced pledge so that she could fight for a better (for her) side without being falsely accused? C'mon, share :smalltongue:

Actually, she clearly wasn't. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0420.html)

Hinjo: "Here, you have 5 minutes to become conscripts in our force, or instead of transporting you somewhere safe we will lock you in a tiny cage in a tower being prime target for Team Evil's artillery". And guess what, the only guy that didn't take the offer was splatted. Choice, indeed.

If that's not duress to you, I have a nice bridge I can sell you for a modest fee :smallamused:

She was locked up for animating undead - whether she was imprisoned on moral or legal grounds isn't really relevant. The PHB (and BoVD, LM etc.) are clear on the morality of the situation, and I doubt she had a permit to hit up the local graveyard either.

You don't know that. For all we know, she was locked for possessing forbidden spells in her spellbook. And I'll bite - where in SRD (or PHB, for that matter) it states casting Animate Undead is jailable offense?

Torture. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0548.html)

What? She is standing next to a few zombies Xykon ordered her to make. Just where do you see any torture here? :smallsigh:

Are you sure you haven't mistook Tsukiko for a certain goblin?

Attempted murder. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0518.html)

Yeah, fighting back against armed brigands and terrorists* who struck first is murder :smallsigh:

You're not even trying anymore.

*defined as not members of certain quasi-religious organization, but as their real definition - armed bands of paramilitaries doing raids and acts of terror to undermine enemy's morale, as Haley was clearly doing here.

Asta Kask

2010-01-26, 10:27 AM

B) Giving expensive help without asking for anything in return is something good guys do, isn't it? :smallbiggrin:

Nope. Heroes demand rewards just like everyone else.

Besides, it's irrelevant. All X do Y does not imply that all who do Y is X.

Optimystik

2010-01-26, 10:44 AM

It isn't Core, and OotS is mostly Core, except for a few one panel jokes.

Show me where the Giant says that, and I'll cede the point.
BoVD is in the strip, thus I can cite it until he specifically disallows it, whether you like it or not.

It doesn't even belong to Evil domain. Yes, it has evil subtype, but it does virtually nothing, except making it vulnerable to good subtype spells. It doesn't even give Taint if you use this variant. It is as evil as Protection from Good is.

Ah, so Evil spells aren't Evil! My, you're certainly reaching now.

Which is clearly not what happened, as she asked Xykon, received his consent, openly declared changing sides, casted a buff on Xykon - all of this took at least a minute, in which Xykon and Tsukiko were busy and not attacked anyone, but were attacked several times. Then, and only then she begin fighting back.

See any turning around? :smallsigh:

Yes, I do - both literally and morally.

I guess she could do the honorable way, that is, she could stand for another minute in place doing nothing and be hacked to pieces, but that would be dumb.

You're the one claiming that the rules of war make raining magical death on her former allies acceptable behavior, not me.

Or, have you any better ideas what she could do to be free of forced pledge so that she could fight for a better (for her) side without being falsely accused? C'mon, share :smalltongue:

Easy. Keep her butt in jail where it belonged.
She took the deal, fully intending to pervert it. Betraying allies for personal gain is textbook Evil, end of discussion.

Hinjo: "Here, you have 5 minutes to become conscripts in our force, or instead of transporting you somewhere safe we will lock you in a tiny cage in a tower being prime target for Team Evil's artillery". And guess what, the only guy that didn't take the offer was splatted. Choice, indeed.

If that's not duress to you, I have a nice bridge I can sell you for a modest fee :smallamused:

It's her fault for being in there in the first place. She wasn't locked up for her looks, you know.

It's called prison. Bad people are sent there.

You don't know that. For all we know, she was locked for possessing forbidden spells in her spellbook. And I'll bite - where in SRD (or PHB, for that matter) it states casting Animate Undead is jailable offense?

I wasn't aware the SRD was the lawful government of Azure City.

What? She is standing next to a few zombies Xykon ordered her to make. Just where do you see any torture here? :smallsigh:

Are you sure you haven't mistook Tsukiko for a certain goblin?

So you create three zombies (or wights, judging by the red eyes, even better), and go so far as to outfit one with a spiked dire mace, with the express intent that they be pitted against a naked and unarmed prisoner purely for your amusement... and none of that counts as torture to you?

Kinky.

Yeah, fighting back against armed brigands and terrorists* who struck first is murder :smallsigh:

You're not even trying anymore.

*defined as not members of certain quasi-religious organization, but as their real definition - armed bands of paramilitaries doing raids and acts of terror to undermine enemy's morale, as Haley was clearly doing here.

None of that makes "Kill on sight" the appropriate response. She's not trying to capture Haley, any more than she tried to capture Isamu.

"Personally, I think you and Haley will both appreciate how wonderful and special the undead are after you walk a mile in their shoes." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0516.html)

But I suppose none of that's Evil to you? Maybe she should grow a moustache, so she can twirl the ends. :smallsigh:

Asta Kask

2010-01-26, 10:51 AM

Maybe you two should tone it down a couple of notches. Tsukiko isn't worth fighting for.

Ancalagon

2010-01-26, 10:56 AM

Trixie seems to disagree. I also find it absolutely mind-boggling that someone could consider Tsukiko to be non-evil.

Also about toning it down: so far Optimystik has given many good reasons why Trixie's point of view is "probably very, very wrong"... I'm not seeing any need to tone it down.

They are also not fighting "for" Tsukiko, but about her alignment. That seems perfectly legit to me.

To commit a bit more to the discussion: I find it absolutely mind-boggling that someone could consider Tsukiko to be non-evil. ;)

Scarlet Knight

2010-01-26, 11:08 AM

Tsukiko isn't worth fighting for.

Are you kidding? Have you seen her in a teddy?

How many readers have written about looking into those odd colored eyes and hoping to hear the words: "Use bone as a verb for me..."

:smallamused:

Kome

2010-01-26, 11:40 AM

Hinjo: "Here, you have 5 minutes to become conscripts in our force, or instead of transporting you somewhere safe we will lock you in a tiny cage in a tower being prime target for Team Evil's artillery". And guess what, the only guy that didn't take the offer was splatted. Choice, indeed.

If that's not duress to you, I have a nice bridge I can sell you for a modest fee :smallamused:

She probably thought to switch sides if an advantageous opportunity arose, so I'd say she felt that saying yes to Hinjo provided her a win-win opportunity. Azure City wins: reduced sentence (possibly set free, depending on term limit). Invading force wins: join them, prove your worth by helping them win, and be free of prison. Doesn't seem like there'd be much duress there.

Yeah, fighting back against armed brigands and terrorists* who struck first is murder :smallsigh:

You're not even trying anymore.

*defined as not members of certain quasi-religious organization, but as their real definition - armed bands of paramilitaries doing raids and acts of terror to undermine enemy's morale, as Haley was clearly doing here.

Those terrorists did not, in fact, strike first since they are the survivors of the conquering army's invasion and massacre. They are attempting to defend and reclaim what is rightfully theirs, which was forcefully and violently taken from them. Not to mention trying to free those who are enslaved by said conquering army.

In fact, in the history of terrorism, terrorist movements almost never strike first. Terrorism is a retaliatory tactic (whether the offense being retaliated against is legitimate or illusory is, sadly, not so clear cut in some real world circumstances; as far as Rich's world goes it is pretty cut-n-dry).

Asta Kask

2010-01-26, 11:47 AM

Are you kidding? Have you seen her in a teddy?

How many readers have written about looking into those odd colored eyes and hoping to hear the words: "Use bone as a verb for me..."

:smallamused:

Yeah, but she's loopier than a whole flock of loons. Psycho chicks never really did it for me. Give me Lien any day... :tongue:

veti

2010-01-26, 05:09 PM

Actually, she clearly wasn't. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0420.html)

Optimystik, I agree with you in this thread, but I think you're overstating your case here. Whether the threat of going back to jail counts as "duress" is, at the very least, open to interpretation, so "clearly" is an exaggeration.

Attempted murder. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0518.html)

And here. If that's "attempted murder", then what does that make Haley's initial attack (first panel)? Fighting self-identified enemies in a war, even with lethal damage, isn't murder - it's the way the game is played.

DarklingPerhaps

2010-01-26, 05:33 PM

Kish

2010-01-26, 05:35 PM

The more we see of her the more I think of her as something neutral instead of evil. Just because she's more self-serving than wanting to kill everything. The undead argument I think is too weak to hold actual ground, because its too easy to subvert and the rules don't say it's even evil.
Yes, they do. Also, she comments casually that "we all" have fun torturing O-Chul, remember?

If "wanting to kill everything" is a requirement to be evil, then no one in the whole comic is evil, including Xykon.

Optimystik

2010-01-26, 05:39 PM

The more we see of her the more I think of her as something neutral instead of evil. Just because she's more self-serving than wanting to kill everything. The undead argument I think is too weak to hold actual ground, because its too easy to subvert and the rules don't say it's even evil. And it makes some sense to me that an order of paladins sees it as against the law just because of the negative views.

Every now and again, the odd opinion surfaces on this forum that a sympathetic villain is somehow not really a villain. We're still seeing it with Redcloak, and now Tsukiko. It never ceases to amaze me.

Eating babies isn't a requirement. Really!

DarklingPerhaps

2010-01-26, 05:46 PM

I meant 'killing everything' figuratively, such as evil's way is, as core, to inflict harm on the world. Also where does it say necromancy is explicitely evil? Sure it's used by evil mostly, but it's not evil in and of itself. Not to mention it's plausible (maybe not likely but plausible) she does certain things just because of her Xykon crush.

I'm not saying she's not evil, I'm just saying I like to think of her as neutral. If the Giant came out and said specifically her alignment was evil, I might just continue thinking of her as neutral because I fancy the idea. It adds a spin on her character I like.

At Belowx2: I read it. I see an evil subtype, but that doesn't say the caster has to be evil. I guess it does mean the magic is technically evil, but that could stew up a whole argument of 'if evil is used for good (or neutral) is it really evil?' Mainly I read that as a rules only thing, making against alignment things actually work.

hamishspence

2010-01-26, 05:49 PM

The more we see of her the more I think of her as something neutral instead of evil. Just because she's more self-serving than wanting to kill everything.

"Wanting to kill everything" is more "stupid evil"

Being self-serving doesn't automatically equate to evil, but its quite common.

Tsukiko's career in the comic though, is not really typical of a Neutral character.

Kish

2010-01-26, 05:53 PM

I meant 'killing everything' figuratively, such as evil's way is, as core, to inflict harm on the world.

Something Tsukiko doesn't often do, of course.

Also where does it say necromancy is explicitely evil?

Not "necromancy," animating undead. In the Player's Handbook. Check the Animate Dead spell.

hamishspence

2010-01-26, 06:01 PM

Technically, spells like Enervation (which inflict negative levels) are the only way to create wights, since neither Create Undead nor Create Greater Undead lists them.

Killing a creature with an energy drain spell or effect (anything that inflicts negative levels) causes it to rise after death as a wight, unless the creature's specific effect says otherwise.

And Enervation does not have the Evil subtype.

However (at least by BoVD) creating undead at all is considered evil by default (unless there are specific exceptions).

So the spell isn't evil, but the side effect created when used to kill (creating the wight) is.

There is also the "creating evil creatures is evil" bit in the same book.

Which would imply that even if humanoids like lizardfolk, goblins, etc are Always evil in the Stickverse, the gods creating them is therefore also evil.

Gift Jeraff

2010-01-26, 06:08 PM

Since when does Xykon have an inherent dislike for all divine casters? He hates druids (on account of being nature-loving hippies) and paladins (since he's a villain and paladins are, y'know), but not clerics (by default). Unless you mean her clerical status shouldn't make up for being a wizard, then I guess.

But as for wizardry, well, think of it this way: Something he hates (a wizard) is submitting to his every order. Think how that might stroke the Evil Ego. :smallamused: Also, she's a powerful ally (probably 4th most in all of Team Evil) who has similar tastes, so might as well take advantage of her.

And, to me, Tsukiko is about as evil as Xykon, Redcloak, and Nale. It's just that she has a bit of sympathy attached to her reasons, much like Redcloak, but they're still horrible, vile, despicable monsters in my eyes.

hamishspence

2010-01-26, 06:14 PM

Redcloak seems a bit like Watchman's Ozymandias to me- both commit terrible atrocities-

Ozy's are "to save the human race from the inevitable World War 3"

Redcloak's are most often "to save goblins from an eternity of adventurers murdering them for XP"

At least, these are their professed reasons.

Optimystik

2010-01-26, 06:24 PM

hamishspence

2010-01-26, 06:29 PM

True- Summon Undead isn't exactly core, but we see her use a lot of non-core spells, so its not implausible.

Optimystik

2010-01-26, 06:40 PM

Ah, but non-core from what sources? I doubt Rich is incorporating every 3.5 splatbook Complete Adventurer to Tome of Battle. :smallwink:

That's why I'm so interested in Isamu - if she did use a spell from that book to keep him around, it will give conclusive evidence on the Libris Mortis inclusion issue... which would then lend additional weight to the "Xykon's phylactery is totally irreplaceable" theory.

It would also give us insight into the Giant - I doubt he'd draw upon a sourcebook he hates for his webcomic.

AceOfFools

2010-01-26, 09:55 PM

Now that I think about it... Tsukiko is almost certainly something that can learn and prepare spells. Barring Wu Jen (which would be appropriate given the Eastern theme) it means she is (probably) a Wizard. She also has some sort of a divine casting class.

We know Xykon hates the first category and has no love for second, either... Yet they seem to get along just fine. Has this been in any way justified, such as in commentary of WaXPs or DStP? :smallconfused:

And while we are at it, don't you think she might not be evil? :smalltongue: Not because of her misguided ways, but, unlike Redcloak and Xykon, she actually agreed to listen to and give expensive help to MitD without compensation?
In both the online comic and Start of Darkness, Xykon's army has included wizards. What he doesn't like is people who rub their superiority in his face. Frankly, who doesn't?

If you think Tsukiko holds sorcerers in contempt for their tiny bones, then I won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Callista

2010-01-26, 10:13 PM

Why are we assuming wizards and sorcerers hate each others guts by default?

Dr.Epic

2010-01-26, 11:04 PM

Now that I think about it... Tsukiko is almost certainly something that can learn and prepare spells. Barring Wu Jen (which would be appropriate given the Eastern theme) it means she is (probably) a Wizard. She also has some sort of a divine casting class.

We know Xykon hates the first category and has no love for second, either... Yet they seem to get along just fine. Has this been in any way justified, such as in commentary of WaXPs or DStP? :smallconfused:

And while we are at it, don't you think she might not be evil? :smalltongue: Not because of her misguided ways, but, unlike Redcloak and Xykon, she actually agreed to listen to and give expensive help to MitD without compensation?

In SoD Xykon expresses his rage about how wizards look down on sorcerers because they didn't have to learn how to cast spells. I doubt Tsukiko ever said anything like that to Xykon. Also yeah she's evil. She betrayed her city, let hobgoblins take it over, turned people into walking undead abominations, and works for an undead evil ruler. Just because she does someone a favor doesn't mean she's good or non-evil. Evil people have loyalties and friends too.

Scarlet Knight

2010-01-26, 11:22 PM

Why are we assuming wizards and sorcerers hate each others guts by default?

Tradition.

If I remember, there was a good thread explaining why back when V got kicked out of the magic shop...

Nimrod's Son

2010-01-26, 11:57 PM

Xykon seemed to "get along" with Yydranna just fine...

Forbiddenwar

2010-01-27, 12:56 AM

Tradition.

TradiTION! TRADITION!
TRAdiTION TRADITION!

Now that I got that song stuck in my head, I want to point out that there is a vast difference between a wizard and a MT, and, perhaps, it is that difference that Xykon hates. Wizards study a lot, and earn a lot of bonus feats as a result, while MT do not.

factotum

2010-01-27, 02:28 AM

Why are we assuming wizards and sorcerers hate each others guts by default?

Many of the wizards we've seen in the comic (or in Start of Darkness, at any rate) consider sorcerers to be beneath them. Xykon hates being looked down on like that, so he dislikes wizards with that attitude. There isn't any evidence that ALL wizards have that attitude, or that Xykon hates wizards generally, though.

Lawless III

2010-01-27, 03:13 AM

There's been a lot of discussion in this thread about which books are relevant to Oots, but I hope I can still quote the good old PHb. Page 104 under the heading "GOOD VS. EVIL" it says "Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil creatures destroy innocent life whether for fun or for profit" and further down "People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others."

The evidence seems to point to Tsukiko having no innate compassion or placing any value upon the lives of others, innocent or otherwise.

On Page 106 "Neutral Evil, 'Malefactor'
A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusion that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble. On the other hand, she doesn’t have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has."

I would say this describes Tsukio almost perfectly. Showing basic kindness to a team mate does not make your disregard for life any less evil. Evil people can form relationships, do eachother favors etc. without suddenly transmogrifying into an achron. They simply do all these things from deep within their evil fortress. I second the notion that all evil people should get mustaches for them to twirl for easy identification. Look how well that kind of thing worked out for dragons.

Lvl45DM!

2010-01-27, 05:34 AM

Just wanting to be loved doesnt make her a good person.
Paying back someone who does you a solid doesnt make you good.
BTW necrophilia is quite certainly evil by BoVD. So is Beastiality.

Oh god! the Crack Thread! they are all neutral evil!

Asta Kask

2010-01-27, 05:36 AM

The Crack Thread is for them who writes it, not them who does it.

Milandros

2010-01-27, 08:38 AM

She probably thought to switch sides if an advantageous opportunity arose, so I'd say she felt that saying yes to Hinjo provided her a win-win opportunity. Azure City wins: reduced sentence (possibly set free, depending on term limit). Invading force wins: join them, prove your worth by helping them win, and be free of prison. Doesn't seem like there'd be much duress there.

Those terrorists did not, in fact, strike first since they are the survivors of the conquering army's invasion and massacre. They are attempting to defend and reclaim what is rightfully theirs, which was forcefully and violently taken from them. Not to mention trying to free those who are enslaved by said conquering army.

In fact, in the history of terrorism, terrorist movements almost never strike first. Terrorism is a retaliatory tactic (whether the offense being retaliated against is legitimate or illusory is, sadly, not so clear cut in some real world circumstances; as far as Rich's world goes it is pretty cut-n-dry).

What terrorists? I hate how that word has been perverted to mean "the ones who don't have the biggest army". Haley and co are most definitely NOT creating an act of horror in order to create upset and terror in the civilian populace in order to get them to pressure their leaders into giving up an 'unwinnable' fight - they are strealing food! Stealing food is not an act of terror!

Heck I've heard modern commentators describe acts of "terrorism" in the last few years that, by analogy, would paint George Washington and the revolutionary army as a group of terrorists! They did, after all, do a lot more than just line up in nice, neat ranks to face off against greatly superior redcoats and "honourably" die.

Resistance movements and insurgents are not automatically terrorists, any more than they are automatically freedom fighters.

As for the case in question... wha? Tsusiko not evil? Um... OK, consider that an ugly fat old man animates the corpse of your dead father, rips it out of the ground, uses it to kill your mother who is visiting her husband's grave, then animates her as well and sends them both to rip your face off. Would you claim that he's *not* evil? Because every corpse that Tsusiko animates once was someone - she's not making golems, she's animating the corpses of real people. If she were an ugly fat old man, would you be claiming that she's not that bad lately? It's amazing that any time this strip shows someone who can be imagined as an attractive female, the apologists all come out with reasons why the most terrible acts are ok, really. Whether it's Tsusiko helping kill people who are defending their home, or torturing paladins (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0653.html - "I know we all have fun torturing the paladin") or Miko butchering good-aligned old men sitting peacefully in a chair, there are always some who say "but she's hot [in my head] so she's got to be ok really!"

Scarlet Knight

2010-01-27, 11:01 AM

TradiTION! TRADITION!
TRAdiTION TRADITION!

Now that I got that song stuck in my head, I want to point out that there is a vast difference between a wizard and a MT, and, perhaps, it is that difference that Xykon hates. Wizards study a lot, and earn a lot of bonus feats as a result, while MT do not.

I'm sorry, the only way to remove a stuck song is with another one. Allow me:

"If I were a warlock...da dum deedle dadel..." :smallwink:

Optimystik

2010-01-27, 11:57 AM

Now that I got that song stuck in my head, I want to point out that there is a vast difference between a wizard and a MT, and, perhaps, it is that difference that Xykon hates. Wizards study a lot, and earn a lot of bonus feats as a result, while MT do not.

Actually, MT do study a lot also - they just split their focus, which allows them time for religious contemplation as well as arcane study. Effectively, they trade the wizard feats for divine spells.

The only MT I could picture not being studious at all would be a Sorcerer/Favored Soul.

Nilan8888

2010-01-27, 12:31 PM

If she were an ugly fat old man, would you be claiming that she's not that bad lately? It's amazing that any time this strip shows someone who can be imagined as an attractive female, the apologists all come out with reasons why the most terrible acts are ok, really. Whether it's Tsusiko helping kill people who are defending their home, or torturing paladins (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0653.html - "I know we all have fun torturing the paladin") or Miko butchering good-aligned old men sitting peacefully in a chair, there are always some who say "but she's hot [in my head] so she's got to be ok really!"

There's a LOT of truth in this. And i think male and female readers do it sufficiently equally, actually -- maybe or maybe not for different reasons. Definately this was the case with Miko.

However I would say that I'm not sure this is all completely the case with Tsukiko -- I think there's an element of that there, but I think the way the girl is twisted there might still be a level of sympathy if the character were male.

Miko, for instance, was the way she was: nothing was particularly DONE to her to make her what she was. She had no parents yes, but otherwise she was the author of her background. She may have sacrificed much but she knowingly signed up for whatever sacrifices she made. And in the end, what she did was for herself, whether she really knew it or not.

Tsukiko's a bit of a different case. We don't exactly know her past, but we know she's at the very least been imprisoned. And her dialogue suggests there's been a fair bit more than that to make her the way she is. Her entire concept of death runs in completely the opposite direction of 99.9% of living people.

That doesn't mean she's not evil. It doesn't even mean she's as sympathetic as Redcloak: certainly there's a distinct possibility Tsukiko is the way she is because she doesn't have the level of maturity to look at the world with a greater sense of honesty.

But I doubt in this case the fact that she's female plays all THAT much into how sympathetic she may or may not be. There'd be a good amount of room to write that character as a male.

Moriarty

2010-01-27, 12:43 PM

Raging Gene Ray

2010-01-27, 12:51 PM

where did you get that quote from Nilan?

it's completely rediculous to claim Tsukiko or Miko wouldn't be defended if they were less atractive, when we have the same amount of people trying to defend Belkar or Redcloak. (guess we have a lot of halfling/goblin fetishists around here)

From Milandros, about 2 posts before Nilian's. Also, I agree with you. Despite what my sig would leave you to believe, I sympathize with Miko because I actually didn't see anything wrong with her style of party leadership. I've worked in groups where the leader was strictly business. Giving orders, doing their fair share or more, and generally getting things done without being malicious, but not taking time to use work-time for social-time. And I enjoyed it, not because the leader was HAWT (he wasn't), but because I can appreciate how someone can give orders, NOT be your friend, but still be a good person.

I don't know enough about Tsukiko to form an opinion, but if her hatred of humans is based solely on a cheating boyfriend or unrequited crush...she still wouldn't be quite as unlikable as Belkar or Xykon, but she'd come close.

Same with this theoretical ugly, old, fat man. Is he doing this because he's been legitimately abused by the living? For the money in his victims' pockets? Because he likes it when the red water comes out?

Kish

2010-01-27, 02:55 PM

Whether it's Tsusiko helping kill people who are defending their home, or torturing paladins (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0653.html - "I know we all have fun torturing the paladin") or Miko butchering good-aligned old men sitting peacefully in a chair, there are always some who say "but she's hot [in my head] so she's got to be ok really!"
I find it hard to believe that anyone said that. If you mean you know it's what they really meant, you should say that instead.

Also, I imagine the set of Miko-defenders has minimal to nonexistent overlap with the set of Tsukiko-defenders.

Lvl45DM!

2010-01-27, 07:00 PM

Same with this theoretical ugly, old, fat man. Is he doing this because he's been legitimately abused by the living? For the money in his victims' pockets? Because he likes it when the red water comes out?
Emphasis mine
There is no legitimate abuse for what she does. No amount of parental violence excuses raising the dead. Its a blasphemy for the religious and horrifically grotesque for the atheists. Its the same as if in the real worl someone dug up a corpse, that they hadn't killed, tied strings to the wrists and ankles and made it dance like a puppet. In fact its worse than that since you use this puppet to kill people. Tell me the Freudian excuse that makes that ok.
Imagine you are one of the prisoners in Azure City. After seeing your friends, and possibly family chopped up, blown up, crushed and eaten (by undead), you are locked in a jail cell. When you friend in that jail cell dies from the conditions in there, rather than properly bury or burn him a goth chick comes along performs some voodoo, and your mate billy bob rises up from the lack of a grave gets chalk white skin, fangs red eyes and his clothes turn black. Oh he also gets cape on the plus side.
Then when you plan your escape slip out past the hobgoblins the goth chick pops in front of you and sicks your friend billy bob onto you. Billy ob then eats you.

Hmmm.
Evil.
Which is why Xykon likes her so much

Nilan8888

2010-01-27, 07:10 PM

it's completely rediculous to claim Tsukiko or Miko wouldn't be defended if they were less atractive, when we have the same amount of people trying to defend Belkar or Redcloak. (guess we have a lot of halfling/goblin fetishists around here)

I can assure you sir, it's not.

Tsukiko yes: I don't think there'd be all that large a difference.

But a Miko character as a male? I highly doubt it. I think that would change the reaction significantly.

From Milandros, about 2 posts before Nilian's. Also, I agree with you. Despite what my sig would leave you to believe, I sympathize with Miko because I actually didn't see anything wrong with her style of party leadership. I've worked in groups where the leader was strictly business.

From what I understand Miko was not just "strictly business". She was far too passive agressive and pushing her ethics onto her party for that. V, for all his/her issues is probably by and large a better example of someone who actually IS just "strictly business". At least if you don't get drunk and lay one on him/her.

Lvl45DM!

2010-01-27, 07:31 PM

Actually the specific characters of Miko and Tsukiko i think work best for sympathetic women.
Miko is a hard ass fascist. Men are painted as this more than women and hated more ofter for it. Its just a fact of life that when people picture a dictator thoughts jump to men first, usually. So having it as a woman, softens the blow a tad makes her bearable for some (not me)

And Tsukiko is a goth chick. More guys like goth chicks then girls like goth guys.

WreckedElf

2010-01-28, 10:40 AM

Nilan8888

2010-01-28, 11:48 AM

hmm... I can agree that Miko and Tsukiko would probably get somewhat less sympathy if male... However given the amount of sympathy and "maybe they're not evil" threads Belkar and Redcloak get, I think that they'd still get plenty of sympathy requardless of gender. Though there would probably be a change in which people were offering the sympathy.

Well Tsukiko I've spoken to in that the gender difference is significant but not all-consuming. you could write that character as male and get mileage out of it.

Redcloak has some pretty persuasive motivations in getting to where he is. He's had a life where he's recieved a fair bit of being stomped on without reliable justification back in SoD.

Belkar is, first of all, funny and much of his evil acts get played for laughs. He has also done some suspicious things that could lead many people to believe that he's not exactly as cold-hearted and merciless as he portrays himself. strange as it may seem Belkar may actually care about certain people even if he'd never admit it.

Miko... ended up really being about Miko. She loved 'the greater good' but it was an abstract, geometric sort of love. In truth when you got down to the actual PEOPLE, the only things she cared about that weren't in service to her own self reflection and how 'good' she was, was herself and maybe her horse.

Whereas Belkar has never yet really betrayed the OOTS, and Redcloak betrayed Right-eye... Miko never really had anyone to betray personally because she never got that far to begin with. When she did become a traitor it was only to her leige lord, a traitor to the state: another abstract. She never had any emotional connection to anyone she ended up betraying to start. Even before the betrayal she was obnoxious and self-righteous to those around her. She was NOT, I believe, "all business" as was stated: she was far too invested in her own ego to be solely focused on the job, in the end using the concept of the greater good as a tool for self-aggrandizement. At the risk of mis-remembering the only time she even exhibited the barest hint of an emotionally positive kinship to someone was when someone (Roy) was apologizing to her. To even become her friend you had to acknowledge she was the better, more morally astute person.

Would such a character REALLY be sympathetic as a man? think about it: I think there'd be a major difference in the reaction.

WreckedElf

2010-01-28, 12:38 PM

Would such a character REALLY be sympathetic as a man? think about it: I think there'd be a major difference in the reaction.

I see your point there. And I guess I'd have to agree that in Miko's case a change in the character's gender would likely have changed the audience's reaction much more than with other characters... But I fear to say more unless I derail this thread and crash land it into the Miko morality mahem.

So how about more Tsukiko morality mahem! (that's on topic right? sorta maybe?)

So for all those who hope Tsukiko is not really evil, or at least will turn away from evil in the end. Does anyone think there's a chance she'll actually escape the villain's fate? I don't recall at the moment any times in the story so far where a "bad guy" character changed to the point of joining the good guy's team. So I'm not sure if that's a theme that will come into play later. But what do you suppose will happen if Tsukiko is forced to realize Xykon is merciless and doesn't care about her or anyone and that he's not 'nice on the inside'? I wouldn't expect a sudden reversal of her current beliefs, but do you think it'd cause her the rethink her views, or just push her over the deep end?

Daimbert

2010-01-28, 01:05 PM

Show me where the Giant says that, and I'll cede the point.
BoVD is in the strip, thus I can cite it until he specifically disallows it, whether you like it or not.

Although, considering that I do believe there have been hints that the strip does not follow the books exactly, that doesn't mean that using something from it would be a slam dunk counter-argument either.

Easy. Keep her butt in jail where it belonged.
She took the deal, fully intending to pervert it. Betraying allies for personal gain is textbook Evil, end of discussion.

There is no evidence that she took the deal intending to switch sides -- from the comic, she called out to switch after noting Xykon pretty much slaughter everyone around her -- and they certainly weren't ALLIES. She was no more than and probably less than a mercenary, and likely only did it to get the reduced sentence. So, while betraying allies for personal gain is textbook Evil, that's not actually what she did.

It's her fault for being in there in the first place. She wasn't locked up for her looks, you know.

It's called prison. Bad people are sent there.

This is kinda rich, considering that the OOTS was, in fact, sent to the SAME PRISON.

We don't know why she was placed there, but all indications seem to be that it was for necrophilia -- and likely raising the dead to get the source material. Whether or not that makes you evil is an open debate, but my personal opinion is that might meet the technical definition of evil but that, in general, it's not the total, unredeemable, unapologetic evil of Xykon but more of a stupid evil.

Which, in actuality, is what bugged me about that comic, as it turned someone who had the potential to be a classic evil ***** into just another misunderstood, naive, stupid little girl. Why can't we have an evil female character who just stays evil?

(Note that this opinion is helped by having watched the G.I. Joe movie before seeing the comic and noting what happens to Baroness at the end of the movie ...)

I wasn't aware the SRD was the lawful government of Azure City.

Breaking a law is not evil. It might be chaotic, but it is not evil.

So you create three zombies (or wights, judging by the red eyes, even better), and go so far as to outfit one with a spiked dire mace, with the express intent that they be pitted against a naked and unarmed prisoner purely for your amusement... and none of that counts as torture to you?

Kinky.

Um, why would that be any different than, say, someone who invents a nuclear bomb and doesn't care about how it gets used? I definitely thinks she enjoyed watching and maybe even participating in the torture of O'chul, but creating those undead isn't, in and of itself, torture any more than making a whip is.

None of that makes "Kill on sight" the appropriate response. She's not trying to capture Haley, any more than she tried to capture Isamu.

"Personally, I think you and Haley will both appreciate how wonderful and special the undead are after you walk a mile in their shoes." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0516.html)

But I suppose none of that's Evil to you? Maybe she should grow a moustache, so she can twirl the ends. :smallsigh:

Um, I think you're missing the point of the entire subthread: Tsukiko thinks that the living are evil and the undead are good. So she's converting people into being the better type of person, much like religions do. Again, she isn't out to just kill them, but MAKE THEM INTO THE IDEAL OF THE UNDEAD.

It's stupid, insane, illogical, irrational and naive. It's also wrong. But you can't judge it on the same basis as if she didn't think that.

Optimystik

2010-01-28, 02:02 PM

Although, considering that I do believe there have been hints that the strip does not follow the books exactly, that doesn't mean that using something from it would be a slam dunk counter-argument either.

I've never claimed that BoVD's inclusion blanketly covers every single concept within its pages. Yet the door remains open.

If Rich didn't want us even thinking about that book in his comic, he wouldn't have used it. He could easily have homebrewed any skeletal look-alike he wanted. But he didn't.

There is no evidence that she took the deal intending to switch sides -- from the comic, she called out to switch after noting Xykon pretty much slaughter everyone around her -- and they certainly weren't ALLIES. She was no more than and probably less than a mercenary, and likely only did it to get the reduced sentence. So, while betraying allies for personal gain is textbook Evil, that's not actually what she did.

I honestly don't care why she did it. She promised to help fight and turned her back on them. Whether fear of Xykon played a part in that decision or not is really not my concern.

This is kinda rich, considering that the OOTS was, in fact, sent to the SAME PRISON.

There's a difference between being held until your trial, and actually sentenced.
Guess which one Tsukiko was. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0420.html)

We don't know why she was placed there, but all indications seem to be that it was for necrophilia -- and likely raising the dead to get the source material. Whether or not that makes you evil is an open debate, but my personal opinion is that might meet the technical definition of evil but that, in general, it's not the total, unredeemable, unapologetic evil of Xykon but more of a stupid evil.

It really doesn't matter if it was Evil or not. She got put in jail because necromancy is evidently against the law in Azure City - it's as simple as that. If she didn't like it, she should have found somewhere else to live.

Which, in actuality, is what bugged me about that comic, as it turned someone who had the potential to be a classic evil ***** into just another misunderstood, naive, stupid little girl. Why can't we have an evil female character who just stays evil?

Sabine? Crystal?

Breaking a law is not evil. It might be chaotic, but it is not evil.

Animating undead is evil. Period. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm)
You can debate whether it should be, but that doesn't change the fact that it is.

And again, you get locked up for both Evil and illegal acts, in a paladin-controlled city. Don't like it? Move out.

(Or help the evil invading army conquer them.)

Um, why would that be any different than, say, someone who invents a nuclear bomb and doesn't care about how it gets used? I definitely thinks she enjoyed watching and maybe even participating in the torture of O'chul, but creating those undead isn't, in and of itself, torture any more than making a whip is.

Terrible analogy. She is not just making a whip. She is making a whip to the exacting specifications of the torturer who's about to use it.

This guy walks into your whip store. "Hey, can you make me a really brutal whip to beat this prisoner with?" Upon making it, he says, "that's good, but we need more barbs on the end. I really want this bastard to feel it." And you comply.

You have long since become an accessory to that beating; deny it all you will.

Um, I think you're missing the point of the entire subthread: Tsukiko thinks that the living are evil and the undead are good. So she's converting people into being the better type of person, much like religions do. Again, she isn't out to just kill them, but MAKE THEM INTO THE IDEAL OF THE UNDEAD.

That kind of requires killing them. You know, the whole "dead" part?

It's stupid, insane, illogical, irrational and naive. It's also wrong. But you can't judge it on the same basis as if she didn't think that.

You acknowledge that it's "insane, wrong and irrational," yet you want me to use similarly insane methods of judging it's morality?

Daimbert

2010-01-28, 02:24 PM

I've never claimed that BoVD's inclusion blanketly covers every single concept within its pages. Yet the door remains open.

If Rich didn't want us even thinking about that book in his comic, he wouldn't have used it. He could easily have homebrewed any skeletal look-alike he wanted. But he didn't.

You kinda missed the point, which was that you can't say "BoVD says it's evil" as if that proves anything. It might make it possible for that to be evil, but doesn't make it so. If that's not your argument, then that's fine; I'm just drawing that distinction that you might not be making.

I honestly don't care why she did it.

Then, just as a quick hint, arguing that she took the deal "fully intending to pervert it" is not an argument that works with that statement, since intentions are, indeed, about why she did it.

She promised to help fight and turned her back on them. Whether fear of Xykon played a part in that decision or not is really not my concern.

And if all you had was that she broke a promise, again that's CHAOTIC behaviour, not evil behaviour.

There's a difference between being held until your trial, and actually sentenced.
Guess which one Tsukiko was. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0420.html)

Yes, she was convicted. Of breaking the law. Breaking the law, in and of itself, is only CHAOTIC, not evil. It is not the case that only bad people are in prison, or in that prison.

It really doesn't matter if it was Evil or not. She got put in jail because necromancy is evidently against the law in Azure City - it's as simple as that. If she didn't like it, she should have found somewhere else to live.

You seem to have forgotten the point of this subthread: if that action wasn't Evil, then you cannot use it to prove that Tsukiko is evil, which is what's under discussion.

Sabine? Crystal?

Tsukiko's playing with the big boys. Those are all side villains.

Animating undead is evil. Period. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm)
You can debate whether it should be, but that doesn't change the fact that it is.

Um, using the SRD to reply to a point where YOU claimed that the SRD didn't make the laws in response to someone else claiming that the SRD doesn't really make it evil is a really, really bad response.

I'm not saying one way or the other. My comment is precisely about the point that breaking the law is not evil behaviour, and cannot be used in and of itself to prove that she is evil.

And again, you get locked up for both Evil and illegal acts, in a paladin-controlled city. Don't like it? Move out.

Actually, the city was not paladin-controlled -- Lord Shojo was not a paladin -- and there is no evidence that people in that city got locked up for being evil (or JUST for being evil).

Terrible analogy. She is not just making a whip. She is making a whip to the exacting specifications of the torturer who's about to use it.

This guy walks into your whip store. "Hey, can you make me a really brutal whip to beat this prisoner with?" Upon making it, he says, "that's good, but we need more barbs on the end. I really want this bastard to feel it." And you comply.

You have long since become an accessory to that beating; deny it all you will.

But does that make you evil under the alignment rules, or neutral? After all, you may not care one way or the other how it's used; you just make the whip according to their specifications and leave it up to them to decide how to use it. That's not evil under most definitions, let alone the D&D alignment rules.

That kind of requires killing them. You know, the whole "dead" part?

Yes, but as I said she isn't killing them JUST to kill them, but to improve their lives.

You acknowledge that it's "insane, wrong and irrational," yet you want me to use similarly insane methods of judging it's morality?

Well, first, an underlying problem in your entire reply is that you ignored where I said that she's probably technically evil but not the sort of out-and-out evil of Xykon.

Second, yes, since it seems difficult to me to detach what she's trying to do from the moral question. I suspect you see it differently.

Ancalagon

2010-01-28, 02:38 PM

It's stupid, insane, illogical, irrational and naive. It's also wrong. But you can't judge it on the same basis as if she didn't think that.

Very, very splippery slope. Really, re-read what you just said and assume someone had invoked Godwin's Law.
But even without that: thinking you know what's best and then forcing people against their will into that - even without the... uhm... killing and "using magic that is against all that is natural and good" parts - is bad to a degree where it becomes evil.
If it involes killing and "horrible magic" (creation of undead, level draining etc) we do not have to argue about it anymore.

How to value "intent and motive" is the old question if "chaotic evil" or "lawful evil" is more evil. My solution to that question is: both are "equally evil".

Kish

2010-01-28, 02:41 PM

Well, first, an underlying problem in your entire reply is that you ignored where I said that she's probably technically evil but not the sort of out-and-out evil of Xykon.
Few, if any, other characters in the comic are as evil as Xykon. Xykon defines the lowest boundary of the evil alignment, not the top boundary. One doesn't get to be classified as Neutral, or merely "technically evil" whatever that means, for being marginally less evil than Xykon.

Optimystik

2010-01-28, 03:00 PM

You kinda missed the point, which was that you can't say "BoVD says it's evil" as if that proves anything. It might make it possible for that to be evil, but doesn't make it so. If that's not your argument, then that's fine; I'm just drawing that distinction that you might not be making.

I can absolutely say BoVD makes it Evil. Here, I'll do it again - BoVD makes it Evil.

Then, just as a quick hint, arguing that she took the deal "fully intending to pervert it" is not an argument that works with that statement, since intentions are, indeed, about why she did it.

But even if she was fully intending to keep her promise and spontaneously decided to betray and slaughter her comrades, does that somehow make her less Evil?

You're quite plainly splitting hairs here.

And if all you had was that she broke a promise, again that's CHAOTIC behaviour, not evil behaviour.

Betrayal is evil - BoVD, again.
She did more than break a promise - she actively turned on her former allies, and even went so far as to tell Xykon where he could find the throne room. That is not just Chaotic, it is quite plainly Chaotic Evil.

Yes, she was convicted. Of breaking the law. Breaking the law, in and of itself, is only CHAOTIC, not evil. It is not the case that only bad people are in prison, or in that prison.

You seem to have forgotten the point of this subthread: if that action wasn't Evil, then you cannot use it to prove that Tsukiko is evil, which is what's under discussion.

I agree, breaking the law is Chaotic.
Animating dead, is Evil.

The problem with your argument, is that you're ignoring a simple fact - she had to do both to be convicted. She couldn't have broken the law - her "unnatural acts of wizardry" - without, you know, the wizardry part.

Tsukiko's playing with the big boys. Those are all side villains.

And Tsukiko isn't? :smallconfused:

Um, using the SRD to reply to a point where YOU claimed that the SRD didn't make the laws in response to someone else claiming that the SRD doesn't really make it evil is a really, really bad response.

Except that Trixie was just as wrong then as you are now. Animate Dead is Evil in the SRD, period.

I'm not saying one way or the other. My comment is precisely about the point that breaking the law is not evil behaviour, and cannot be used in and of itself to prove that she is evil.

We know why she was locked up, and it was for committing an evil act.

Actually, the city was not paladin-controlled -- Lord Shojo was not a paladin -- and there is no evidence that people in that city got locked up for being evil (or JUST for being evil).

Semantics. She could not have been one of Shojo's "special" prisoners, given that Hinjo knew her crimes - thus, she was not found guilty in isolation of the SG.

But does that make you evil under the alignment rules, or neutral? After all, you may not care one way or the other how it's used; you just make the whip according to their specifications and leave it up to them to decide how to use it. That's not evil under most definitions, let alone the D&D alignment rules.

To reiterate - making undead at all is Evil, despite how often you try to gloss that over.

Making them solely so that they can beat up unarmed prisoners compounds the problem, rather than mitigating it.

Yes, but as I said she isn't killing them JUST to kill them, but to improve their lives.

Being twisted does not make her reasoning right. Quite the opposite, in fact.

(Anyway, don't you need to still have a life in order for it to be bettered?)

Well, first, an underlying problem in your entire reply is that you ignored where I said that she's probably technically evil but not the sort of out-and-out evil of Xykon.

Um, news flash - nobody's as Evil as Xykon. That doesn't make him the only Evil character in the strip.

Second, yes, since it seems difficult to me to detach what she's trying to do from the moral question. I suspect you see it differently.

I don't think so, Tim.

Daimbert

2010-01-28, 03:30 PM

I can absolutely say BoVD makes it Evil. Here, I'll do it again - BoVD makes it Evil.

Which still proves nothing. Which is what I said you couldn't do -- say it as if it proved something. I suppose I can play to nitpickers and add "And be right that it proves something", but we really shouldn't need that, should we?

You really aren't making yourself look good here. Let me reiterate -- since you seem to be ignoring it -- that I do think that by alignment rules she has an evil alignment. I'm really just pointing out that the evil part isn't as clear and total as you seem to make it out to be, because a lot of your arguments -- even from an alignment level -- are just plain wrong.

But even if she was fully intending to keep her promise and spontaneously decided to betray and slaughter her comrades, does that somehow make her less Evil?

I would think so. Entering into an agreement with the express purpose of killing them all and betraying them to Xykon is a lot worse than taking an opportunity to change sides when it becomes clear that you're going to die if you don't. The latter can be done by someone with a Neutral alignment, but the former PROBABLY can't.

You're quite plainly splitting hairs here.

The interesting thing is that YOU were the one who made a big deal out of the premeditation, and now are dropping that that matters. I would appreciate it if you could remain consistent in your own arguments ...

Betrayal is evil - BoVD, again.

Which proves nothing, again.

She did more than break a promise - she actively turned on her former allies, and even went so far as to tell Xykon where he could find the throne room. That is not just Chaotic, it is quite plainly Chaotic Evil.

There is very good reason -- and I know, because I've GIVEN IT ALREADY -- to think that Tsukiko NEVER thought of the Azurites as ALLIES, and was only associated with them for her own convenience. And that BOTH SIDES understood that. Her association with them in the battle is more like that of a mercenary than any sort of ally that you can reasonably betray.

I agree, breaking the law is Chaotic.
Animating dead, is Evil.

Then stop talking as if her breaking the law makes her evil. Stick entirely to that line, that what she almost certainly did TO break the law is evil.

The problem with your argument, is that you're ignoring a simple fact - she had to do both to be convicted. She couldn't have broken the law - her "unnatural acts of wizardry" - without, you know, the wizardry part.

Actually, the problem with your reply here is that you are, in fact, misunderstanding my argument. My argument is that the fact that she was in prison is irrelevant to determining whether or not she is evil. Now, reasonable expectation is that it was for animating dead, and then that would be an evil action, but just being in prison isn't enough.

Then again, can't characters of a Neutral alignment do evil things sometimes without being Evil?

And Tsukiko isn't? :smallconfused:

Tsukiko is on Team Evil. Again, compare her to Baroness in G.I. Joe. Or, at least, that's where she could be heading.

Except that Trixie was just as wrong then as you are now. Animate Dead is Evil in the SRD, period.

So, if you agree to drop the "She's in jail!" argument, I won't talk about this at all. Agreed?

We know why she was locked up, and it was for committing an evil act.

Actually, we don't KNOW why she was locked up. We are -- both you and I -- SUPPOSING that it was for an evil act, meaning a specific evil act, since we both think that she raised a dead body and got funky with it.

So, if you concede that you conclude that based on that presupposition and not just on the fact that she was put in jail in a city run by paladins, I think you'll find that the things we have to talk about will narrow greatly.

Semantics. She could not have been one of Shojo's "special" prisoners, given that Hinjo knew her crimes - thus, she was not found guilty in isolation of the SG.

There is no evidence that the laws of AC ever state that having an evil alignment or doing any evil act are grounds to be put in prison. Lawful Evil characters might do quite well in AC. The link to the paladins that you try to make can only work to say anything in this debate -- it seems to me -- if you use it to claim that they would have made such laws. But since Shojo was in charge and not a paladin, that doesn't really seem to work. And the nobles seem fairly evil to me, so that works against it, too.

To reiterate - making undead at all is Evil, despite how often you try to gloss that over.

That wasn't your argument. Your argument was that she is Evil BECAUSE making that undead meant that she was complicit in torturing O'chul. My response is that that is a really, really bad argument.

Making them solely so that they can beat up unarmed prisoners compounds the problem, rather than mitigating it.

Or seems to be unrelated to it at all, as my argument attempted to show. Making a whip and not caring how it's used does not make you evil, even if you conform to the customers demands to make it more effective for doing evil things.

Being twisted does not make her reasoning right. Quite the opposite, in fact.

We do not disagree on this point. But, then again, being wrong is not the same thing as being evil.

(Anyway, don't you need to still have a life in order for it to be bettered?)

I doubt Tsukiko thinks so.

Um, news flash - nobody's as Evil as Xykon. That doesn't make him the only Evil character in the strip.

You again miss that I am saying that she's evil by the alignment rules. But she's not a "I like to do evil things" type of evil, or at least she seems to be heading away from that. Which makes me sad.

I don't think so, Tim.

Monumental non-answer, I think.

Very, very splippery slope. Really, re-read what you just said and assume someone had invoked Godwin's Law.
But even without that: thinking you know what's best and then forcing people against their will into that - even without the... uhm... killing and "using magic that is against all that is natural and good" parts - is bad to a degree where it becomes evil.
If it involes killing and "horrible magic" (creation of undead, level draining etc) we do not have to argue about it anymore.

How to value "intent and motive" is the old question if "chaotic evil" or "lawful evil" is more evil. My solution to that question is: both are "equally evil".

I do think that, even in D&D alignments, intent does matter. I don't think it takes Tsukiko out of being of Evil alignment. However, it DOES, to me, put her a different sort of evil character than someone who just wants a bunch of undead servants, and far from someone who likes the misery of the dead souls.

Few, if any, other characters in the comic are as evil as Xykon. Xykon defines the lowest boundary of the evil alignment, not the top boundary. One doesn't get to be classified as Neutral, or merely "technically evil" whatever that means, for being marginally less evil than Xykon.

[shrug] I don't consider her Neutral, really, as I said. "Technically evil" means "Of Evil alignment in D&D". But I do consider her to be a different sort of evil. Essentially, the sort of evil that can be cured by kindness is a good way of putting it; someone who can be shown that their presumptions are wrong and then can transition straight to Good because they're really "good at heart".

Xykon is just plain evil.
Redcloak is just too committed to the plan to really turn back now. He doesn't like being evil, per se, but has no qualms about doing it.
Tsukiko can be "turned". If you could convince her that she was wrong about humans and about undead, she'd stop what she was doing in horror.

I wish she'd just stayed bad.

Ancalagon

2010-01-28, 03:38 PM

I do think that, even in D&D alignments, intent does matter. I don't think it takes Tsukiko out of being of Evil alignment. However, it DOES, to me, put her a different sort of evil character than someone who just wants a bunch of undead servants, and far from someone who likes the misery of the dead souls.

Now you admit she is actually evil? "A different sort of evil" sounds like "she is evil" to me.

Also, intent does matter. I never said it would not.
Some say "evil with intent" (lawful evil) is more/is less evil than "evil without real and aimed intent" (chaotic evil). That is basically the line of your argument - the evil deed is "differently evil" because of "intent".

Actually, I think her specific intent (her lawful one; which does NOT say I think she is of lawful alignment!) is at least on the same level of evil as your example (quoted above).

Daimbert

2010-01-28, 03:44 PM

Now you admit she is actually evil? "A different sort of evil" sounds like "she is evil" to me.

Also, intent does matter. I never said it would not.
Some say "evil with intent" (lawful evil) is more/is less evil than "evil without real and aimed intent" (chaotic evil). That is basically the line of your argument - the evil deed is "differently evil" because of "intent".

Actually, I think her specific intent (her lawful one; which does NOT say I think she is of lawful alignment!) is at least on the same level of evil as your example (quoted above).

I said in my first reply that I thought she was technically evil -- and thus of evil alignment. I guess the best way to put it might be this: she's evil, but she's not bad.

Kish

2010-01-28, 03:51 PM

I said in my first reply that I thought she was technically evil -- and thus of evil alignment. I guess the best way to put it might be this: she's evil, but she's not bad.
That's not a good way to put it. It doesn't make any sense. :smalltongue: Look, you appear to be translating "Tsukiko isn't a yay-I'm-evil mental clone of Xykon, and she is deluded about the undead" into something that obliterates everything she's actually done in the comic. The character in the comic is treacherous (I hope I don't have to cite this) and sadistic (she mentioned torturing O-Chul for fun even if you ignore her gleeful participation in the betting game with the acid-breathing shark [which you shouldn't], remember?). She is tons of both evil and bad. To argue against the latter, all you've offered is repeated assertion and, finally, the observation that the single character Xykon wouldn't have said what she just said. No. She doesn't think exactly like Xykon. If you had posted after the first comic she appeared in, "I will be disappointed if we ever learn that the character Tsukiko doesn't think exactly like Xykon," I would have been able to tell you right then, "You're going to be disappointed."

There is no indication that she is "good at heart." What there is, is plenty of indication that she's deeply disturbed. She is unlikely to stop being deeply disturbed and thoroughly evil at any point in her run in the comic.

Ancalagon

2010-01-28, 03:56 PM

I said in my first reply that I thought she was technically evil -- and thus of evil alignment. I guess the best way to put it might be this: she's evil, but she's not bad.

I have a very, very important appeal to you: Please stop ignoring the important things in my posts. The things that actually address what you said, that argue against you.
I wrote it because I think they are valid points that actually carry some importance and you just... answer to the boring stuff, the obvious things, the things that do not contradict your position or that are "easy wins".

Please either address the others as well or I think you cannot do it. Ignoring someone else's good points and only reply to the bad ones is also quite rude, I think.

Optimystik

2010-01-28, 03:59 PM

I would appreciate it if you could remain consistent in your own arguments ...

It's hard to appear consistent when people accusing you of inconsistency don't bother reading your posts.

Here was my first statement on the subject of Tsukiko's imprisonment.

whether she was imprisoned on moral or legal grounds isn't really relevant. The PHB (and BoVD, LM etc.) are clear on the morality of the situation, and I doubt she had a permit to hit up the local graveyard either.

I've made that same point consistently throughout the thread.

"My arguments are wrong from an alignment level?" Did you read the Animate Dead spell yet? Go ahead, I'll wait.

B. Dandelion

2010-01-28, 04:01 PM

Optimystik

2010-01-28, 04:06 PM

Even when irredeemable, it is possible to be capable of love - Tiamat cares about her dragons, for instance, but she isn't likely to change alignment anytime soon.

And of course we have the... affectionate... Succubi near the beginning of BoED.

And Savage Species - Evil characters can have close friends, family and relationships, yet be complete bastards abroad, or in secret. Light Yagami in Death Note - megalomaniac, mass murderer, cares deeply for his sister and father.

Ancalagon

2010-01-28, 04:09 PM

I think the distinction is coming down to "evil" (regular evil) and "irredeemably evil" (the two sides of the Moral Event Horizon (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralEventHorizon), as the tropers would have it). Tsukiko's deeds are mostly evil, but she may still have a few positive traits. Xykon, however, does not.

Of course, by this standard, there really aren't many villains at ALL who're completely irredeemable. Even Nale and Sabine are at least capable of love.

But what KIND of Love... no, that love, given all other traits Nale showed, does not mean anything in regard to his possible redeemability.
Sabine is a freaking *incarnation of chaotic evil alignment*. Realtivism is taken a bit too far here, I think. Black Dragons are ok, but Demons simply are evil.

Your distinction is good, though. But I think Tsukiko is quite far on the evil path (further than Redcloak, in some ways) so I'd be very careful with considering her a candidate for redemption towards good. We do not know her specific past but she seems to like what evil she's doing a bit too much to assume she'd stray from that path for some reason.
All I see in regard to "possibilities" is to fall even further (disappointment from Xykon, for example).

hamishspence

2010-01-28, 04:18 PM

Since Planescape (and Planescape Torment, in particular) even "demons simply are evil" has its exceptions. Quite apart from WOTC's infamous succubus paladin.

This may be because demons aren't embodiments of evil, but are evil mortal souls transmuted by the Abyss into their present form, as presented in the Demonomicon of Iggwilv articles. The particular "sin" that their life was dominated by, may determine what the soul becomes, when it doesn't start off as a mane.

Thus, because there is still a mortal soul in there, this means that on very rare occasions, a demon may end up changing.

Also, demons with mortal ancestry:

(cambions in Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, which are the offspring of a fiend and a planetouched, usually a tiefling, but still fit the technical definition of demon by being extraplanar outsiders with the Evil and Chaotic subtypes, native to the Abyss)

are even more likely to be nonevil- according to that book, which states 10% are Neutral or Good.

Sabine actually refers to herself, not as "an incarnation of chaotic evil alignment" but as "an incarnation of illicit sex"

veti

2010-01-28, 04:20 PM

Um, using the SRD to reply to a point where YOU claimed that the SRD didn't make the laws in response to someone else claiming that the SRD doesn't really make it evil is a really, really bad response.

Ummm... that's got to be the most flawed single point in a whole thread packed with some of the dodgiest logic I've seen since the last election campaign.

The original point, which I assume you're not disputing, is that the SRD doesn't make the laws of Azure City. You can't turn to it to determine whether a particular act is or is not legal there. (You may be able to deduce that it's likely to be illegal, but that's as far as it goes.)

But the SRD does have some authority to say what's considered "evil" in a D&D campaign - at least, in any D&D campaign that uses the SRD as an authority, which certainly includes OOTS.

As you've said, breaking the laws of Azure City is not necessarily evil (else O-Chul would have Fallen when he agreed to lock up the Linear Guild without paperwork). But there are acts that are both illegal and evil. We don't know for sure whether raising undead per se (was formerly) illegal in Azure City, but it does seem likely. And we do know that it's evil, regardless of what the local penal code says.

My comment is precisely about the point that breaking the law is not evil behaviour, and cannot be used in and of itself to prove that she is evil.

No, the fact that Tsukiko broke the law is not in itself evidence that she's evil. The fact that she practises necromancy, however, is. We've assumed that that's what got her locked up, but that's just an assumption - it could have been old-fashioned murder, larceny, blackmail or, oh I don't know, tax evasion, or eating meatloaf on Friday, or something.

But does that make you evil under the alignment rules, or neutral? After all, you may not care one way or the other how it's used; you just make the whip according to their specifications and leave it up to them to decide how to use it. That's not evil under most definitions, let alone the D&D alignment rules.

That defence only stands up as long as the customer doesn't tell you what they're going to use the whip for. In the case described, the craftsman is participating in the torture, in the same way as a theatre nurse participates in surgery.

And we're losing sight of the fact that in this case she's not making a whip, she's making undead. Which is evil in itself, regardless of what they're going to be used for.

Nimrod's Son

2010-01-28, 04:51 PM

Yes, but as I said she isn't killing them JUST to kill them, but to improve their lives.
It seems to me more like she does it to improve their personalities. She doesn't say anything about giving anyone a better life.

And you don't really have the right to kill people just 'cause you don't like them. In fact, people tend to take a dim view of other people taking ANY kind of action to "improve their lives" when they themselves disagree with that assessment, so I'm not really sure what your point is here.

Ancalagon

2010-01-28, 05:02 PM

Since Planescape (and Planescape Torment, in particular) even "demons simply are evil" has its exceptions. Quite apart from WOTC's infamous succubus paladin.

Agreed. But given the evidence we saw so far I'd consider it quite safe to say that Sabine is not that exception.

hamishspence

2010-01-28, 05:09 PM

Yup.

Fiends in OoTS do seem to be portrayed with more subtlety than in some other sources. Randy, Jeff (bonus strip) Qaar, the IFCC, all seem to be more than just "evil incarnate"

They are evil, but have personality to them.

veti

2010-01-28, 05:23 PM

[shrug] I don't consider her Neutral, really, as I said. "Technically evil" means "Of Evil alignment in D&D". But I do consider her to be a different sort of evil. Essentially, the sort of evil that can be cured by kindness is a good way of putting it; someone who can be shown that their presumptions are wrong and then can transition straight to Good because they're really "good at heart".

This is building too much on too little evidence. Currently, Tsukiko is evil, by any definition we can come up with - yes? You're saying she's different because she is "redeemable".

Well, a theologian would tell you everyone is "redeemable". The big difference is, what would it take to redeem them?

The MitD may have been "redeemed" by a few decent conversations and games of Go. Therkla was redeemed by her love for Elan. It'd take a lot more than that to make Redcloak do a face-heel turn, but it's not out of the question - he does a lesser one here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0451.html). So the question is - what would it take to "redeem" Tsukiko, i.e. convince her that she's wrong about humans and undead?

Well, Xykon obviously betraying her might convince her that undead aren't necessarily any better than the living. But that's not the same as convincing her that humans deserve - anything. More likely she'd react by turning against everybody, herself becoming a junior version of Xykon. She'd need to be convinced both that undead aren't "good" and the living aren't "bad", by whatever twisted moral yardstick she's using.

And Giant only knows what it would take to do that. Something pretty seismic, I think. So I'd say she's about as evil as Redcloak.

TriForce

2010-01-28, 05:42 PM

I said in my first reply that I thought she was technically evil -- and thus of evil alignment. I guess the best way to put it might be this: she's evil, but she's not bad.

I think the biggest issue people (and i ) have with this is that you put that word "technically" there. She is evil, no questioning that, shes not technically evil, mostly evil, evilish, or evil-evilish. she is evil, and the fact that she is crazy only makes it worse.

I believe your main point is that she has reasons to act and think like she does, and that that makes her a different kind of evil then xykon, but i hate to tell you this, but there are not "kinds" of evil, the fact that she has reasons to be like this isnt unique, in fact every single evil charecter has their reasons (even if we dont know or understand them) its the fact that they decide to react on those reasons by doing evil acts, thats what defines evil

Xerxus

2010-01-28, 06:03 PM

Ancalagon

2010-01-28, 06:05 PM

Fiends in OoTS do seem to be portrayed with more subtlety than in some other sources. Randy, Jeff (bonus strip) Qaar, the IFCC, all seem to be more than just "evil incarnate"

They are evil, but have personality to them.

Ugghh... "evil incarnate" can mean a lot of things. It does not have to mean "Me Evil. Arggh!" ;)

hamishspence

2010-01-28, 06:06 PM

BoVD- even when Zombies/skeletons were Neutral, as in 3.0- creating them was considered Evil.

There is a separate "creating Evil creatures is an evil act" line as well.

Ugghh... "evil incarnate" can mean a lot of things. It does not have to mean "Me Evil. Arggh!" ;)

True- but I see a lot of people insist that fiends are literally "made of evil" and can have no redeeming features whatsoever- none of the possible Good traits, etc.

Such as "Evil beings can't value another being more than themselves- because the PHB says they regard others as targets to be manipulated"

Lvl45DM!

2010-01-28, 06:22 PM

I'm not sure, but does serving your undead servants heads for dinner qualify as evil? I don't think so, I mean it is just legitimate nourishment for such a creature. just like a newly dug-up corpse is a perfectly legitimate candidate for the "become a zombie, just like you always dreamed you would be one day"-procedure. I mean, it's not like the corpse has any opinion on the matter, does it? Truly, dead bodies are just a waste if we don't dig them up and animate them, in fact it's the only moral thing to do, since everyone knows that the undead are nice, caring folks! It's not like their only purpose is to kill, not at all! The fangs and all are just for selfdefense, they are just "yearning to throw off the reputation of their evil kin". I mean even though the sourcebooks may say that all (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/zombie.htm) zombies are evil, it doesn't mean that creating them is, right?
I get youre being Tsukikos advocate here...or at least i hope you are :smallbiggrin:
BUT
they arent just a corpse anymore. not only do they have souls which have floated up to the after life and can see whats going on downstairs, and therefore be horrified by what is happening, the loved ones who go to put flowers on their grave and see it ripped open and footprints that look suspiciously like Rogers arent going to be happy. Thats causing undue pain and suffering.
EVIL!

Now most everyone is redeemable, especially in fiction. What it takes t acheive it is usually extraordianart. Tsukiko is redeemable because she thinks what shes doing is right and cares about it. If she realizes its wrong she might change. On the other hand shes a few screws loose already so she might just jump off the slippery slope. We have no evidence either way and until she gets her very own "Mr. Stiffly" (not in the way you are thinking:smallyuk:) shes not going to change

Morithias

2010-01-28, 06:30 PM

I have one thing to say to all the people who are saying that "animating undead is an evil act no matter what"

(a) The Symbols of this Chapter are manifested in part by the Angels and in part by the Evil Spirits.

Do you want to know what book I got that out of? Chapter XIII of the "Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage." A.k.a an ACTUAL "SPELL BOOK" from the past.

What do these spells do?

"To cause a Dead Body to revive, and perform all the functions which a living person would do, and this during a space of Seven Years, by means of the Spirits."

Hell, then there's chapter XX.

"(a) The Symbols of this Chapter are manifested in part by the Angels, and in part also by the Evil Spirits."

What does chapter 20 do?

"To excite every Description of Hatred and Enmity, Discords, Quarrels, Contentions, Combats, Battles, Loss, and Damage."

Uh...yeah...starting wars, and such with magic. Clearly an act manifested by angels.

Now if you want a dnd 3.5 source.

I give you the "Dread Necromancer" class from heroes of horror. Now technically this class cannot be good. HOWEVER, it is not required to be evil. A Neutral Dread Necromancer, is a legit character. Put in perspective that the "Assassin" class from the DMG has to be evil. It's possible to have a neutral dread necromancer, but not an assassin.

Assassin who is paid to kill Osama Bin Laden: Evil
Dread Necromancer who turns his body into a zombie: Technically can be neutral aligned.

As far as I see it Tsukiko is simply the tv trope "All girls want bad boys" turned up to 11. I see her as a misguided goth teen, similar to what *Gasp* HALEY was at one point. Sure Tsukiko is a bit more extreme, but in theory if you use rules in the book of exalted deeds only 1 type of creature cannot be given redemption, and that is a creature with the evil subtype, which I highly doubt our necromancy friend has.

Also, betraying the side you're fighting for isn't necessarily an evil act, it's a chaotic one. If Redcloak betrayed Xykon and killed him would it be evil? I mean it certainly wouldn't make the guy good again, but I doubt it could be considered evil. Chaotic? Yeah, that's chaotic no matter how you cut it.

Although it's clear that if Tsukiko IS a cleric that she's not good aligned, because good clerics cannot cast spells with the evil descriptor. True Neutral aligned cleric of Wee Jas? Yeah, she could EASILY be that.

Optimystik

2010-01-28, 07:03 PM

I give you the "Dread Necromancer" class from heroes of horror. Now technically this class cannot be good. HOWEVER, it is not required to be evil. A Neutral Dread Necromancer, is a legit character. Put in perspective that the "Assassin" class from the DMG has to be evil. It's possible to have a neutral dread necromancer, but not an assassin.

Of course it's possible to be a neutral DN. They just have to restrict themselves to the non-evil spells. DNs can do other things besides raise undead.

Now, keep in mind that I don't necessarily agree that animating dead should be Evil. But the rules are the rules. I didn't make D&D; nobody sat down and asked me "hey, is it true there's absolutely no circumstances where filling this bloated meat puppet with necrotic unlife could be neutral?" If they had, I would have said "I can think of several, and many of them involve burning orphanages." But they didn't.

We work with the rules of the game we're given in these discussions. Animating dead is evil in D&D - thus, we treat it as such, until the comic contradicts this rule. Tsukiko has not done that, simply because she's a pretty rotten person even when she isn't out making meat puppets, sentient or otherwise.

veti

2010-01-28, 07:21 PM

Now, keep in mind that I don't necessarily agree that animating dead should be Evil. But the rules are the rules. I didn't make D&D; nobody sat down and asked me "hey, is it true there's absolutely no circumstances where filling this bloated meat puppet with necrotic unlife could be neutral?" If they had, I would have said "I can think of several, and many of them involve burning orphanages." But they didn't.

If you're going to bring "circumstances" into it, there's really very little that can't be justified given a sufficiently far-fetched scenario. Philosophers love to argue about this sort of thing:

Suppose you're on a footbridge over a railway track, beside a turn. A train is coming. Round the corner you can see a group of small children playing on the track - one of them is stuck and her friends are trying to help her. The train driver won't see them in time to stop. But there's an old man on the footbridge with you, and if you push him off onto the tracks, the driver will brake before the turn and stop in time to save the kids...

The act is still "evil". It's just that evil acts, in isolation, may sometimes be justifiable.

Morithias

2010-01-28, 07:45 PM

If you want to get technical about "what is evil"

Here is the definition of 'murder' as by the American Heritage Dictionary

"The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice."

Therefore a chaotic (unlawful) good barbarian killing off a settlement of goblins (who are ALWAYS evil according to the MM) is committing murder.

I now reference you to the Fiendish Codex 2. According to the chart of evil acts, murder is 5 to your record. To put that in perspective you only need 9 to be ruled not allowed into the heavens under the Pact.

That chaotic good barbarian is HALF-WAY TO THE ABYSS, and he's probably not even past 1st level. (Fighting a goblin settlement? That's very common first encounter.)

Oh, and creating undead? That's only a 1.

Act Corruption Value
Using an evil spell 1
Humiliating an underling 1
Engaging in intimidating torture1 1
Stealing from the needy 2
Desecrating a good church or temple 2
Betraying a friend or ally for personal gain 2
Causing gratuitous injury to a creature 3
Perverting justice for personal gain 3
Inflicting cruel or painful torture1 4
Infl icting excruciating torture1 5
Murder 5
Infl icting sadistic torture1 6
Cold-blooded murder 6
Murder for pleasure 7
Inflicting indescribable torture1 7

Here's the chart. I'm pretty sure if you were to scan through the whole thing there would be a few of the order who are pretty close to going to hell.

I mean let's see. Roy has "betraying a friend or ally" when he left Elan. He obviously has murder, after all raiding a dungeon and such has no legal structure, and therefore is unlawful. (if you try to argue that since there are no laws in the wild it's not unlawful, then you're basically saying anarchy is the ultimate system of law).

Hmm.. the real question here is if 2 of the same acts stack. If that was the case Roy should not have been put into heaven, but sent to Baator.

Edit: Humiliating an underling is common given the number of times he has done jokes and stuff at the expense of the order members. ok so i have 8 out of 9 so far, one more evil act and roy is carted to baator to be used for soul energy.

veti

2010-01-28, 07:55 PM

Kish

2010-01-28, 07:57 PM

goblins (who are ALWAYS evil according to the MM)
See, I don't know what "MM" stands for here. But by the information you've just provided, I know it's not the Monster Manual.

Morithias

2010-01-28, 08:00 PM

Not unless your dictionary also defines "goblin" as "a type of human", he isn't. We can also quibble about the definitions of "malice" and "lawful" if you really want (just because the character is chaotic, doesn't mean their actions are not "lawful" according to relevant local ordinances).

And then you're assuming that we'd defend the barbarian as justified. On past evidence, that's a question that would provoke a lot of argument on this board.

Goblins fall under Humanoid, subtype Goblinoid. So yes, they are technically human. Keep in mind that is the definition for a world where humans are the only sapient race.

Yes, I correct myself, it says usually neutral evil, not always. My mistake. But the point still stands, and it is still technically murder. And devils love technicalities.

Kish

2010-01-28, 08:05 PM

Goblins fall under Humanoid, subtype Goblinoid. So yes, they are technically human. Keep in mind that is the definition for a world where humans are the only sapient race.
Also a world without racial alignments. Your error about the frequency of goblin evil according to the Monster Manual aside, you can't pick and choose which bits are "strictly by D&D" and which bits are "translated as I see fit from the real world," especially when it leads to goofiness like, "Goblins are both a particle and a wavehumans and humanoid virii; when the point I wish to make is supported by them being humans, they're humans, and when the point I wish to make is supported by them being virii they're virii." Nor does taking the word "unlawful" from a dictionary and translating it into D&D as "anything a chaotic-aligned character does" work to make a case. None of the goblins who have been killed in the comic have been killed illegally, which, I'm pretty sure, you know perfectly well is what the American Heritage Dictionary means by "unlawful," not, "done by someone of the Chaotic alignment in a role-playing game." If one was to scan through the whole list and torture the English language in that fashion, certainly one could send absolutely anyone to hell. "I define 'murder for pleasure' to mean, 'having red hair.' Too bad for you, Haley."

Raging Gene Ray

2010-01-28, 08:06 PM

First, I'm going to say a few things. I don't think Tsukiko's necrophilia is necessarily Evil or even prevents her from being Good.

I don't think Creating Undead is Always Evil...there are mitigating factors (consent from the soul in the case of intelligent undead, and purely utilitarian uses, like using animated corpses for constructing builidings).

I don't even think betraying allies is always EVIL. Mitigating factors, exceptions to the rule, not enough information and all that.

If Tsukiko had just abandoned the battle and started her own little enclave of necrophiliac peace and love, I wouldn't call her Evil. But she didn't. She stayed behind and went out of her way to slaughter a bunch of Azurite soldiers and continued to oppress the human slaves.

Because of that, I consider her EVIL. And that makes me doubt she had any of the mitigating factors that would make creating undead acceptable.

veti

2010-01-28, 09:13 PM

I don't think Creating Undead is Always Evil...there are mitigating factors (consent from the soul in the case of intelligent undead, and purely utilitarian uses, like using animated corpses for constructing builidings).

Obviously this is subject to DM interpretation and house rules, but it's possible that something about the process of creating undead makes it inherently, necessarily evil. For instance: if the effect of creating an intelligent undead is to trap the soul in the body, where it remains permanently, totally, no-saving-throw Dominated for as long as the necromancy lasts, it's hard to come up with a scenario in which someone would knowingly consent to that. Much more likely that they're giving consent because they don't know what's involved.

And even if you can get the individual's consent, that doesn't necessarily mean the gods are OK with it.

Obviously that's not what happens with zombies (in OOTS, at least - other campaigns may differ). But note that when Xykon (SoD) animated Lirian, he gloated over humiliating her and tormenting her friends.If there is a strong social taboo against necromancy, then animating any dead is likely to be seen as degrading and offensive to the dead and to anyone who thinks they're related to them. It could be called "debasing innocent life", which is one of the hallmarks of Evil according to the SRD. Saying "I'm only doing it because I need workers to build this orphanage" doesn't make it any less evil.

The core rules may not go into this kind of mechanical detail - it's all open to DM interpretation. I'm just suggesting one possible way (not the only one, I'm sure) in which the "creating undead is always evil" core rule could be justified.

Optimystik

2010-01-28, 09:40 PM

If you're going to bring "circumstances" into it, there's really very little that can't be justified given a sufficiently far-fetched scenario. Philosophers love to argue about this sort of thing:

The act is still "evil". It's just that evil acts, in isolation, may sometimes be justifiable.

The problem is that in D&D, whether something is justifiable does not matter in the slightest. You can be the most justified necromancer in creation, you're still accumulating those corruption points, or taint, or what have you. And when you die, you neither pass Go nor collect $200 before arriving at a not-very-nice place.

I'd like to think circumstances matter in our world, but that's bordering on a discussion that's inappropriate here. D&D is what it is.

Rich's world may be different - Tsukiko may be able to animate dead just fine without pinging her alignment in the least - but until he pops in here to tell us this is so, we have to use the rules.

Lvl45DM!

2010-01-28, 10:58 PM

Of course its evil! its violating someone elses body, enforcing your control over what isnt yours!

Morithias

2010-01-28, 11:08 PM

Of course its evil! its violating someone elses body, enforcing your control over what isnt yours!

OH! You mean like the dominate person spell? Which I might point out doesn't have the evil descriptor.

deuxhero

2010-01-28, 11:23 PM

It would also give us insight into the Giant - I doubt he'd draw upon a sourcebook he hates for his webcomic.

He hates the Book of Bad Latin? I am genuinely curious as to when this was brought up.

ZakRenning

2010-01-29, 12:42 AM

So I would just like to say that I 100% agree with Optimystik on this entre thread.

So awhile ago someone said that Tsukiko was a real villain and that Sabine and Crystal were side villains... Umm Sabine has been in way more strips than Tsukiko by a long shot and has had a deeper impact on the story.

factotum

2010-01-29, 02:36 AM

Obviously this is subject to DM interpretation and house rules, but it's possible that something about the process of creating undead makes it inherently, necessarily evil. For instance: if the effect of creating an intelligent undead is to trap the soul in the body, where it remains permanently, totally, no-saving-throw Dominated for as long as the necromancy lasts, it's hard to come up with a scenario in which someone would knowingly consent to that.

According to Core, there is at least one way in which creating an undead from a corpse does exactly that: once you've done that, it is no longer possible to return the dead person to the living (even using a True Resurrection spell) until you've destroyed the undead. This implies that the soul is bound to the undead body somehow, because otherwise why would True Resurrection be unable to return the person to life?

Ozymandias9

2010-01-29, 02:49 AM

Xerxus

2010-01-29, 03:59 AM

Come on people! She's serving them human bodies, presumably the ones of the innocent civilians, as snacks! I understand that this somehow devolved into a discussion about the evil in the animation of undead but on the matter of whether she is evil or not, I would like for you to point out just ONE. GOOD. ACT. Of hers. It's the only premise under which she could be neutral.

And no, my earlier comment is not in her defense but rather a long string of sarcasms on the defense of her being neutral or otherwise. I considered writing "(sarcasm)" at the bottom but I thought it was clear enough that the arbuments did not hold up to scrutiny, and that the text was designed to display the fallacies in the argumentation. :smalltongue:

Ancalagon

2010-01-29, 05:26 AM

but on the matter of whether she is evil or not

I think the issue is not that some people here think Tsukiko might be good or neutral. Most of them seem to admit she's evil.
They just make rather strange points about the fact that she's "only a very little bit evil. She might be evil, but that little evil does not make her bad. Also LOOK AT HOW EVIL XYKON IS!"

I have the theory it's about this: They want to like Tsukiko and find her cool or something, but that's only possible if Tsukiko is "well, evil, but, hum, not REALLY evil. Only lightly evil. And redeemeble if someone was just kind to her. In fact, she's a nice, normal girl, just a bit angsty, as every teenager. Ok, she kills and stuff, but look it's all for a cause and she's not really evil. I like her, she's cool, like I want to be". That or something near it.
It also does not have to apply to anyone just as I wrote it but I think it's the general direction.

The fact that Tsukiko is very evil, deeply rotten and most of all plainly WRONG (necrophilia, of all things! Even without animating the dead - and killing for it - that's just a sign how WRONG and broken that girl is) does not go with the feeling to like her and find her and her actions cool.

Kish

2010-01-29, 05:42 AM

I have the theory it's about this: They want to like Tsukiko and find her cool or something, but that's only possible if Tsukiko is "well, evil, but, hum, not REALLY evil. Only lightly evil. And redeemeble if someone was just kind to her. In fact, she's a nice, normal girl, just a bit angsty, as every teenager. Ok, she kills and stuff, but look it's all for a cause and she's not really evil. I like her, she's cool, like I want to be". That or something near it.
It also does not have to
I don't think that's fair. As bizarre as I find Daimbert's argument that Tsukiko isn't thoroughly evil, he seems unhappy about considering her less evil than Xykon.

Ancalagon

2010-01-29, 06:08 AM

I thought he considered her to be less evil than Xykon and was not unhappy about it?

I think his whole intent-issue was "evil with a good intent (Tsukiko wants to make living being better) is less evil than evil without intent (Xykon just likes to see living things die)". Why should he be unhappy about Tsukiko being less "wrong" than Xykon if that was his point?
Or did I misunderstand/misremember something?

Xerxus

2010-01-29, 06:16 AM

I think the issue is not that some people here think Tsukiko might be good or neutral. Most of them seem to admit she's evil.
They just make rather strange points about the fact that she's "only a very little bit evil. She might be evil, but that little evil does not make her bad. Also LOOK AT HOW EVIL XYKON IS!"

I have the theory it's about this: They want to like Tsukiko and find her cool or something, but that's only possible if Tsukiko is "well, evil, but, hum, not REALLY evil. Only lightly evil. And redeemeble if someone was just kind to her. In fact, she's a nice, normal girl, just a bit angsty, as every teenager. Ok, she kills and stuff, but look it's all for a cause and she's not really evil. I like her, she's cool, like I want to be". That or something near it.
It also does not have to apply to anyone just as I wrote it but I think it's the general direction.

The fact that Tsukiko is very evil, deeply rotten and most of all plainly WRONG (necrophilia, of all things! Even without animating the dead - and killing for it - that's just a sign how WRONG and broken that girl is) does not go with the feeling to like her and find her and her actions cool.

I agree, I meant the people that consider her to be redeemable as well, it's all about the fact that she does nothing good. At all! Bad girl!

Daimbert

2010-01-29, 06:22 AM

That's not a good way to put it. It doesn't make any sense. :smalltongue:

The appearance of the contradiction is what's supposed to make the point [grin].

Look, you appear to be translating "Tsukiko isn't a yay-I'm-evil mental clone of Xykon, and she is deluded about the undead" into something that obliterates everything she's actually done in the comic.

Not at all. Well, kinda, but not in the sense you think. I think it weakens her character that the implication is that she'd be a really nice girl if she wasn't horribly delusional. In fairness, this was probably telegraphed from the beginning, but it still annoys me to see it happen. And, as I said, it might be worse because while this is a fairly minor one, it comes for me on the heels of a much worse example in G.I. Joe, the movie.

The character in the comic is treacherous (I hope I don't have to cite this)

The problem here is that she is treacherous -- to people she thinks either have betrayed her or will betray her. While that still counts as evil, it's hard to judge it the same when there's no trust to begin with. There's a major difference between gaining someone's trust to betray that knowing that they are trustworthy and entering into a compact of convenience with someone that you expect to betray you the first chance they get.

and sadistic (she mentioned torturing O-Chul for fun even if you ignore her gleeful participation in the betting game with the acid-breathing shark [which you shouldn't], remember?).

The problem here is that the real sadism gets cluttered up with the whole "just deserts" she has going; the paladins "didn't understand her" and punished her, and so seeing a paladin get punished himself gives that whole "Ha! Getting what he deserves!" motif, which weakens it.

She is tons of both evil and bad. To argue against the latter, all you've offered is repeated assertion and, finally, the observation that the single character Xykon wouldn't have said what she just said.

Well, I've been focusing on other points more, but do note that one of my comments is that, for example, she could go straight from Evil to Good just by curing her delusions. Do you disagree with that?

No. She doesn't think exactly like Xykon. If you had posted after the first comic she appeared in, "I will be disappointed if we ever learn that the character Tsukiko doesn't think exactly like Xykon," I would have been able to tell you right then, "You're going to be disappointed."

Yeah, but that's not really my point. I admit that I'm having trouble expressing it, but this might help: a comparison of Xykon, Redcloak and Tsukiko:

Xykon does evil because he knows it's evil and evil is fun for him.
Redcloak does evil because he knows it's evil but he feels that doing evil is worth it to accomplish The Plan.
Tsukiko, it seems, does evil because she THINKS IT GOOD. She's not really aware of what's evil and what isn't, but look at her speech: all humans are evil, and so all undead must be good, and so she has to do what she can to help out and work with the undead. Convince her that humans are good, and she probably reacts with horror to what she's done.

There is no indication that she is "good at heart." What there is, is plenty of indication that she's deeply disturbed. She is unlikely to stop being deeply disturbed and thoroughly evil at any point in her run in the comic.

I call a version of Chekov: since the comic flat-out highlights this reasoning as well as her arcane/divine spellcasting nature, both of those will play a role in the comic at some point.

I have a very, very important appeal to you: Please stop ignoring the important things in my posts. The things that actually address what you said, that argue against you.
I wrote it because I think they are valid points that actually carry some importance and you just... answer to the boring stuff, the obvious things, the things that do not contradict your position or that are "easy wins".

Please either address the others as well or I think you cannot do it. Ignoring someone else's good points and only reply to the bad ones is also quite rude, I think.

Um, the problem is that what I was trying to convey is, in fact, that I was AGREEING with the good points. She has an evil alignment. So why in the world would I reply to points that try to establish that when I've said repeatedly that she does have an evil alignment by D&D? That's what I was trying to point out: we do not disagree on that point. My distaste is about something different, mainly is that, to paraphrase Austin Powers, she's evil light, not quite evil enough.

I really do not want to get into vigorous agreement ...

It's hard to appear consistent when people accusing you of inconsistency don't bother reading your posts.

Here was my first statement on the subject of Tsukiko's imprisonment

whether she was imprisoned on moral or legal grounds isn't really relevant. The PHB (and BoVD, LM etc.) are clear on the morality of the situation, and I doubt she had a permit to hit up the local graveyard either.
I've made that same point consistently throughout the thread.

Your quote doesn't help you, as it just shows that sometimes you claim that the law doesn't matter, and sometimes your arguments can ONLY mean that if she was put in prison she must be Evil. I'm arguing against the arguments against the latter. If that isn't what you intend, I allow for that but do ask that you make the attempt to ensure that your arguments don't fall into that.

As for which arguments, well, it should be clear that any argument that I reply to with "Breaking the law is Chaotic, not evil" is a candidate.

"My arguments are wrong from an alignment level?" Did you read the Animate Dead spell yet? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Seeing as you had my post to make the initial quote, surely you could provide the precise context where I said that? Because I don't recall saying that, didn't mean to say that, and indeed did in the post you are replying to say this:

You again miss that I am saying that she's evil by the alignment rules. But she's not a "I like to do evil things" type of evil, or at least she seems to be heading away from that. Which makes me sad.

So, no, your arguments AREN'T wrong from an alignment level -- except for those that rely on her taking Chaotic actions and calling those evil (like betraying her promise to AC and breaking the law).

Ah, wait, found the direct paragraph:

You really aren't making yourself look good here. Let me reiterate -- since you seem to be ignoring it -- that I do think that by alignment rules she has an evil alignment. I'm really just pointing out that the evil part isn't as clear and total as you seem to make it out to be, because a lot of your arguments -- even from an alignment level -- are just plain wrong.

Again, meaning that arguing for Chaotic actions doesn't make for evil.

Ummm... that's got to be the most flawed single point in a whole thread packed with some of the dodgiest logic I've seen since the last election campaign.

The original point, which I assume you're not disputing, is that the SRD doesn't make the laws of Azure City. You can't turn to it to determine whether a particular act is or is not legal there. (You may be able to deduce that it's likely to be illegal, but that's as far as it goes.)

But the SRD does have some authority to say what's considered "evil" in a D&D campaign - at least, in any D&D campaign that uses the SRD as an authority, which certainly includes OOTS.

As you've said, breaking the laws of Azure City is not necessarily evil (else O-Chul would have Fallen when he agreed to lock up the Linear Guild without paperwork). But there are acts that are both illegal and evil. We don't know for sure whether raising undead per se (was formerly) illegal in Azure City, but it does seem likely. And we do know that it's evil, regardless of what the local penal code says.

Well, that's not what I'm really trying to argue. From how I understand it, Trixie tried to show that the SRD didn't REALLY call animate dead -- or whatever it was they talked about there -- evil. Optimystik's reply was that the SRD didn't determine the laws of AC. NOT that the SRD really did consider it evil, but that the SRD didn't determine the laws of AC. To which I quite reasonably replied that breaking the law is not necessarily evil, as simple breaking the law is Chaotic, not evil. Note that only at the END did Optimystik return to arguing that the SRD really DOES consider it evil, and that's what my paragraph was meant to show: that Optimystik didn't RELY on "But the SRD really does call it evil" to make his point, but appealed to the laws of AC instead.

I'm not challenging the SRD definition so ...

That defence only stands up as long as the customer doesn't tell you what they're going to use the whip for. In the case described, the craftsman is participating in the torture, in the same way as a theatre nurse participates in surgery.

I disagree. If your a shop owner and you literally do not care what purpose the customer puts it to, and don't care about whether that purpose is Good or Evil, then that seems far more Neutral than Evil. Again, they aren't trying to do Evil or focusing on Evil, they're just saying "I just make the things; you decide how you use it". That's not participating in torture in any meaningful way.

Ancalagon

2010-01-29, 06:29 AM

Um, the problem is that what I was trying to convey is, in fact, that I was AGREEING with the good points. She has an evil alignment. So why in the world would I reply to points that try to establish that when I've said repeatedly that she does have an evil alignment by D&D? That's what I was trying to point out: we do not disagree on that point. My distaste is about something different, mainly is that, to paraphrase Austin Powers, she's evil light, not quite evil enough.

I really do not want to get into vigorous agreement ...

That's not really what I meant. We agree she's evil, but in my paragraph I meant the other things you did not address.

Kish

2010-01-29, 06:54 AM

Not at all. Well, kinda, but not in the sense you think. I think it weakens her character that the implication is that she'd be a really nice girl if she wasn't horribly delusional.

I don't see it. She starts out being cold to the creature in the darkness in strip #700. Rather, there's an implication that she would be, while rather nasty, petty, and selfish, within tolerances for a Neutral alignment without the necrophilia and insanity. And, yes, that was telegraphed from the beginning--just like the implication that Redcloak would never have become evil without being viewed as a practice dummy by everyone defined as "good" in his world.

The problem here is that the real sadism gets cluttered up with the whole "just deserts" she has going; the paladins "didn't understand her" and punished her, and so seeing a paladin get punished himself gives that whole "Ha! Getting what he deserves!" motif, which weakens it.

Even Redcloak, whose reasons for hating the Sapphire Guard are a lot more valid, has a reason to torture O-Chul that isn't simply that he enjoys it.

Well, I've been focusing on other points more, but do note that one of my comments is that, for example, she could go straight from Evil to Good just by curing her delusions. Do you disagree with that?

Yes, I disagree with that. How much she even believes that energy draining and blood drinking can be called "natural defenses against predation," and how much she's just being glib with the creature in the darkness, is questionable. In any case she's never shown any sign of good tendencies. If she suddenly understood exactly how evil the undead really are, she might feel betrayed by Xykon, but she's more likely to form a fifth column, or simply go as far away as she can from everyone involved in the main plot and set up somewhere else as an evil-but-not-undead-obsessed Mystic Theurge, than to do anything to help the Order or the Sapphire Guard. If everything that motivates her to be evil went away, she'd still be no better than neutral, and dark side of neutral at that.

I call a version of Chekov: since the comic flat-out highlights this reasoning as well as her arcane/divine spellcasting nature, both of those will play a role in the comic at some point.

Whereas I think you're holding up a poker and insisting it will be fired at some point. Strip #700 shows that Tsukiko is barking mad. We knew that. Barking mad she'll stay, probably until she dies.

Well, that's not what I'm really trying to argue. From how I understand it, Trixie tried to show that the SRD didn't REALLY call animate dead -- or whatever it was they talked about there -- evil.
Scrolling up should show you that this isn't the case. Trixie said the SRD didn't say that Animate Dead is illegal. Optimystik replied that the SRD doesn't determine the laws of Azure City because what Trixie had said was about laws. The SRD does also say that Animate Dead is evil, but since no one, probably not even Trixie, has ever directly questioned that, I'd suggest you quit trying to get Optimystik to say that he was wrong to reply to what Trixie said about the laws by saying something about the laws...unless you want to be frustrated. :smallconfused:

Optimystik

2010-01-29, 07:49 AM

According to Core, there is at least one way in which creating an undead from a corpse does exactly that: once you've done that, it is no longer possible to return the dead person to the living (even using a True Resurrection spell) until you've destroyed the undead. This implies that the soul is bound to the undead body somehow, because otherwise why would True Resurrection be unable to return the person to life?

My theory (which I presented in a previous thread) was that, while the body is animated, the soul feels a sort of "call" from it, and is thus unable to answer the call of True Resurrection, even if that spell would otherwise be able to fashion a new body for it to inhabit.

There's also the issue of True Resurrection itself - it creates your new body by sifting fragments and memories from the substance of your home plane - but if your undead body is traipsing around somewhere, those fragments are already in use, and the negative energy empowering them blocks the spell from its work.

This is all speculation of course, but the theory(ies) seems sound.

While there are certainly elements that come from the book, I wouldn't presume the door "open." "Closed" would probably be a bit too extreme as well. The pattern of the comic seems (to me) to be closer to "There are in fact doors, which the Giant may use as he finds convenient."

Right, and until he specifies which ones are closed, I can use any and all of those doors in my arguments.

It's quite easy for him to post and say - "I used chapters X, Y and Z from BoVD and nothing else" or even "I lifted the one monster out of the book to make a joke, and really don't think anything else there applies to OotS." He can even just say "The PHB/MM's view of morality, limited as it is, is all my comic really needs." When you find him saying something like that, please link me to it.

Though I will note that by the MM, Familicide wouldn't be evil at all - but he calls it evil - so he's clearly relying on a little bit more than core for his moral judgments in OotS. Similarly, Roy's rant in Origin fits much better with BoED than with the PHB.

I disagree. If your a shop owner and you literally do not care what purpose the customer puts it to, and don't care about whether that purpose is Good or Evil, then that seems far more Neutral than Evil. Again, they aren't trying to do Evil or focusing on Evil, they're just saying "I just make the things; you decide how you use it". That's not participating in torture in any meaningful way.

Not caring is only a valid moral (and legal) defense if you also don't know.

You own a gun store. Someone comes in to buy a gun, and quite loudly states: "This one's perfect! Now I can finally shoot that [boop]ing police officer I hate so much."

Now you can claim that you don't care all you want, but by selling that man the gun after he says something like that, you have become an accomplice. If that police officer later turns up with a gunshot wound - or DEAD - you are just as responsible as if you'd pulled the trigger yourself.

There is such a thing as Evil by inaction - BoVD again.

Kish

2010-01-29, 07:54 AM

Though I will note that by the MM, Familicide wouldn't be evil at all
Not, however, by the Player's Handbook. (Judging by races rather than individuals=Lawful Evil.)

Daimbert

2010-01-29, 07:59 AM

I don't see it. She starts out being cold to the creature in the darkness in strip #700. Rather, there's an implication that she would be, while rather nasty, petty, and selfish, within tolerances for a Neutral alignment without the necrophilia and insanity. And, yes, that was telegraphed from the beginning--just like the implication that Redcloak would never have become evil without being viewed as a practice dummy by everyone defined as "good" in his world.

Well, Tsukiko was busy and MitD is annoying. However, when he inadvertently helps her, she immediately says that she'll help him out. But it's far more than just that; her entire purpose and worldview is built around "living bad/undead good". If one person simply proved to her that the living could be good, then she'd act as kindly towards them as she currently does to the undead. And I don't think anyone can suggest that she treats the undead badly. She's unlikely to ever betray them, and even did give the one the shoes that he was asking for. About the worst you can say about her is that she doesn't like to tolerate stupidity (well, other than her insane view of the world), which she would share with Redcloak and Roy.

Even Redcloak, whose reasons for hating the Sapphire Guard are a lot more valid, has a reason to torture O-Chul that isn't simply that he enjoys it.

I don't disagree. But that wasn't the point. The point was that you can't assign "sadistic" to her because she enjoys watching people who made her suffer suffer. I never -- and wouldn't -- call Redcloak sadistic either.

Yes, I disagree with that. How much she even believes that energy draining and blood drinking can be called "natural defenses against predation," and how much she's just being glib with the creature in the darkness, is questionable. In any case she's never shown any sign of good tendencies. If she suddenly understood exactly how evil the undead really are, she might feel betrayed by Xykon, but she's more likely to form a fifth column, or simply go as far away as she can from everyone involved in the main plot and set up somewhere else as an evil-but-not-undead-obsessed Mystic Theurge, than to do anything to help the Order or the Sapphire Guard. If everything that motivates her to be evil went away, she'd still be no better than neutral, and dark side of neutral at that.

Her entire speech is about nothing other than love and good and about how she's helping an oppressed group. She's wrong, but that doesn't really matter.

Redcloak has similar traits, but he's well-aware that he's doing evil to get that. There's no indication that she thinks her actions particularly evil.

Whereas I think you're holding up a poker and insisting it will be fired at some point. Strip #700 shows that Tsukiko is barking mad. We knew that. Barking mad she'll stay, probably until she dies.

I doubt it. Her "barking mad" backstory reveals a hidden nature that there's no reason to introduce unless it plays a part in the story.

Scrolling up should show you that this isn't the case. Trixie said the SRD didn't say that Animate Dead is illegal. Optimystik replied that the SRD doesn't determine the laws of Azure City because what Trixie had said was about laws. The SRD does also say that Animate Dead is evil, but since no one, probably not even Trixie, has ever directly questioned that, I'd suggest you quit trying to get Optimystik to say that he was wrong to reply to what Trixie said about the laws by saying something about the laws...unless you want to be frustrated. :smallconfused:

I stand corrected. But in my defense, in that same post:

Really:

Quote:
Necromancy

Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force. Spells involving undead creatures make up a large part of this school.

See anything about evil?

Quote:
Animate Dead
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Clr 3, Death 3, Sor/Wiz 4

It doesn't even belong to Evil domain. Yes, it has evil subtype, but it does virtually nothing, except making it vulnerable to good subtype spells. It doesn't even give Taint if you use this variant. It is as evil as Protection from Good is.

Okay, okay, not quite in that part of the post, for which I do apologize, but a lot of the points still remain. I'm willing to consider it a misunderstanding if Optimystik will.

That's not really what I meant. We agree she's evil, but in my paragraph I meant the other things you did not address.

Please highlight them then, and pull them out of the context of proving Tsukiko evil.

I thought he considered her to be less evil than Xykon and was not unhappy about it?

I think his whole intent-issue was "evil with a good intent (Tsukiko wants to make living being better) is less evil than evil without intent (Xykon just likes to see living things die)". Why should he be unhappy about Tsukiko being less "wrong" than Xykon if that was his point?
Or did I misunderstand/misremember something?

I do think that evil with good intent is indeed less evil than evil with evil intent. I also think her delusions and the nature of them make her less evil for evil and more misguided evil. And I dislike that, because I would have loved to have her be a villainess who may be misguided about certain things -- like Xykon -- but who still would be evil even without the past and the delusions and the association with Team Evil. In short, I find her less the villainess than she could be. It would have been nice if she'd be an example of villainy BETWEEN Xykon's and Redcloak's, for example. Instead, she's less evil than Redcloak.

So awhile ago someone said that Tsukiko was a real villain and that Sabine and Crystal were side villains... Umm Sabine has been in way more strips than Tsukiko by a long shot and has had a deeper impact on the story.

Sabine is a major part of a team that is basically an aside to the main confrontation -- between Team Evil and the OotS. Tsukiko is a part -- and likely to remain a part -- of Team Evil. Thus, she's part of the main loop and is likely to only get more integral to the story. Sabine is not and will not.

Not caring is only a valid moral (and legal) defense if you also don't know.

You own a gun store. Someone comes in to buy a gun, and quite loudly states: "This one's perfect! Now I can finally shoot that [boop]ing police officer I hate so much."

Now you can claim that you don't care all you want, but by selling that man the gun after he says something like that, you have become an accomplice. If that police officer later turns up with a gunshot wound - or DEAD - you are just as responsible as if you'd pulled the trigger yourself.

There is such a thing as Evil by inaction - BoVD again.

First, again, no one cares about what BoVD says, and Evil by inaction doesn't even have to apply here, so please stop trying to use that as if it proves your point.

Second, about the only thing you can claim would be Evil about that is about not reporting it to the police, and even that's probably more Chaotic. The fact of the matter is that selling a gun to someone and not caring about what they do with it -- EVEN IF YOU KNOW THAT THAT WILL BE EVIL -- is not in and of itself evil behaviour. You would, again, only be considered an accomplice for not TELLING the police, whether or not you sold him the gun. And you wouldn't be the sort of accomplice that would count as participating in the murder.

Neutral characters are not required to stop ANY evil, let alone all evil. A thoroughly neutral character can do what you're saying and remain evil. You may want to argue that that is because they do some evil and some good, to which my reply is "po-TAY-toe"/"po-TAH-toe"; it's the same thing, basically, in that doing this does not make one evil.

Optimystik

2010-01-29, 08:13 AM

First, again, no one cares about what BoVD says, and Evil by inaction doesn't even have to apply here, so please stop trying to use that as if it proves your point.

a) "No one?" You don't speak for this forum. Certainly not for me.
b) As long as we're both talking about the same game - Dungeons & Dragons, right? - then it very much applies here.

Second, about the only thing you can claim would be Evil about that is about not reporting it to the police, and even that's probably more Chaotic. The fact of the matter is that selling a gun to someone and not caring about what they do with it -- EVEN IF YOU KNOW THAT THAT WILL BE EVIL -- is not in and of itself evil behaviour. You would, again, only be considered an accomplice for not TELLING the police, whether or not you sold him the gun. And you wouldn't be the sort of accomplice that would count as participating in the murder.

Giving someone a weapon - whether a whip, a gun, or a wight with a dire mace - when you are fully aware they are going to use it to harm an innocent man is Evil. If you don't agree with that, we have nothing more to discuss.

Ancalagon

2010-01-29, 08:21 AM

Please highlight them then, and pull them out of the context of proving Tsukiko evil.

You do not have to proof Tsukiko evil. Everyone agrees to that and who does not agree to that has an, in my opinion, unsupportable opinion anyway. Proofing Tsukiko to be evil is like proofing there's water in the ocean.

We argued about the scale of her evil and you seemed to try to bring "intent" etc to bear - just that my interpretation of the said things were different.

Also, I won't re-post anything. It was right there and you had your chance to answer to them right in that discussion. If you did chose not to do that why should it be my part to search it all out again? I will just consider you to "lose" that part of the discussion (as if it was about that).

Now the discussion is even ten posts further down the road so picking up that from back then seems to make things needlessly complicated.

Daimbert

2010-01-29, 08:36 AM

a) "No one?" You don't speak for this forum. Certainly not for me.

It's just logic: you cannot quote from the BoVD to PROVE ANYTHING. And that's all you do. Even here, you simply assert that it is evil and claim that if I don't just blindly agree with you that there is nothing to discuss, even though I think I have rather clearly stated and shown that a Neutral alignment could, in fact, do that.

b) As long as we're both talking about the same game - Dungeons & Dragons, right? - then it very much applies here.

We have no idea to what extent anything -- even D&D Core -- applies to the webcomic, especially in the idea of morals and consequences. It doesn't prove anything to say that BoVD calls it evil, since there's no reason to claim from that that Rich thinks it does from that and EVEN IF THAT WERE TRUE there's no reason for us, in general, to think that BoVD is right.

Giving someone a weapon - whether a whip, a gun, or a wight with a dire mace - when you are fully aware they are going to use it to harm an innocent man is Evil. If you don't agree with that, we have nothing more to discuss.

Why in the world should I have to agree with something that you just flat-out asserted or else there's nothing to discuss? The fact is that even if you know, if you simply do not care what it is used for you are not Evil, and it is debatable that that is even an Evil act. It is entirely Neutral. It is not Good, but in D&D there is the third option of Neutral, and I insist that that is what it is, since the shopkeeper is not promoting evil or hurting innocents just for their own gain and cares not one bit if they make their money hurting innocents or helping innocents. For the gun example, they would be just as willing to sell that gun TO a cop as to the person who wants to kill them. Good and Evil are IMMATERIAL to them. That seems to be Neutral by definition. Can you disagree with anything that looks like a reasonable argument? Especially after in the post you replied to I did concede that I had misunderstood one of your points?

You do not have to proof Tsukiko evil. Everyone agrees to that and who does not agree to that has an, in my opinion, unsupportable opinion anyway. Proofing Tsukiko to be evil is like proofing there's water in the ocean.

We argued about the scale of her evil and you seemed to try to bring "intent" etc to bear - just that my interpretation of the said things were different.

Also, I won't re-post anything. It was right there and you had your chance to answer to them right in that discussion. If you did chose not to do that why should it be my part to search it all out again? I will just consider you to "lose" that part of the discussion (as if it was about that).

Now the discussion is even ten posts further down the road so picking up that from back then seems to make things needlessly complicated.

I find it interesting that you were so annoyed about my avoiding your "good points" and then when I point out that to me they seemed to be addressing "Tsukiko is evil" which there was no disagreement between us on and then asked you to highlight what arguments you thought were outside of that, you decline and attempt to declare victory because you can't be bothered to even PARAPHRASE those points that you thought that I unfairly ignored and that I thought I FAIRLY ignored. I can do that, too, by claiming that if you are unwilling to even paraphrase them and highlight them so that I CAN see what you want me to reply to that they can't be very good points, and so you "lose" on them. But I'd rather try to address them, but I honestly have no clue what it was that you wanted me to address that I didn't.

Optimystik

2010-01-29, 08:50 AM

It's just logic: you cannot quote from the BoVD to PROVE ANYTHING. And that's all you do. Even here, you simply assert that it is evil and claim that if I don't just blindly agree with you that there is nothing to discuss, even though I think I have rather clearly stated and shown that a Neutral alignment could, in fact, do that.

You keep asserting I can't quote from BoVD, but that doesn't seem to be stopping me any. :smallconfused:

There's nothing "blind" about following the rules of the game. You might disagree with them, and you're free to play any other game you like, but unfortunately for you, THIS comic is about D&D 3.5. The Giant says as much in the very first comic.

Now, you can claim that someone is acting Neutral by purposely arming a torturer to harm an innocent, unarmed man - but in the context of D&D, you're quite simply wrong.

At least, I hope you're just speaking in the context of D&D - if you see nothing wrong with that in real life, then I'll be genuinely worried.

hamishspence

2010-01-29, 08:52 AM

It's just logic: you cannot quote from the BoVD to PROVE ANYTHING. And that's all you do. Even here, you simply assert that it is evil and claim that if I don't just blindly agree with you that there is nothing to discuss, even though I think I have rather clearly stated and shown that a Neutral alignment could, in fact, do that.

A person of any alignment, can do anything- its just that doing some things, will shift their alignment if done too often.

Sure, a Neutral guy could sell a person a weapon even after they have stated they are planning on murdering someone with it- but by doing so, they are showing a lack of "respect for life" - and if they do this on a regular basis, they may change alignment to evil.

Participation counts- and knowingly aiding people to commit evil acts, is a form of participation, even if at a distance.

Now if the shopkeeper was to refuse to sell him anything "The managment reserves the right to refuse service to anybody" but says nothing about the incident to anyone, it becomes a little more blurry.

Optimystik

2010-01-29, 09:06 AM

Precisely hamish - the only way this could be Neutral, is if the shopkeeper both refused the sale, and kept it to himself without reporting it.

Similarly, if Tsukiko refused Xykon's request, but continued doing nothing to help O-Chul, that would also be Neutral.

But once she actively participates in the process, she's at fault - full stop.

Daimbert

2010-01-29, 09:11 AM

You keep asserting I can't quote from BoVD, but that doesn't seem to be stopping me any. :smallconfused:

You still seem to be having trouble with understanding my comment that it doesn't prove anything. You can toss it out all you want, but it doesn't make your points true or even points that we have to accept.

There's nothing "blind" about following the rules of the game. You might disagree with them, and you're free to play any other game you like, but unfortunately for you, THIS comic is about D&D 3.5. The Giant says as much in the very first comic.

He's also, I believe, stated that he isn't limited to it either. And since BoVD is not Core, he isn't even required to follow on with that. And let's not get started on house ruling.

Now, you can claim that someone is acting Neutral by purposely arming a torturer to harm an innocent, unarmed man - but in the context of D&D, you're quite simply wrong.

And your reasoning for that is ... ? You stated it and then talking about "Evil by inaction" in BoVD, but that doesn't have to hold and BoVD isn't Core and so doesn't have to be what we follow anyway. And it could be wrong.

Again, you seem to be over-extending your point. If someone is asked by someone to do something, I don't see how even in D&D if they say "I'll do it because of X (where X is something that isn't 'Because it will hurt people') and I don't really care what you use this for" that that is something that is Evil and not Neutral. Can you please make an attempt to actually form an ARGUMENT for this?

At least, I hope you're just speaking in the context of D&D - if you see nothing wrong with that in real life, then I'll be genuinely worried.

What do you mean by "Nothing wrong with that"? I don't think a person who did that would be Good. I would consider them Neutral. I'm not sure what there is to worry about.

A person of any alignment, can do anything- its just that doing some things, will shift their alignment if done too often.

Sure, a Neutral guy could sell a person a weapon even after they have stated they are planning on murdering someone with it- but by doing so, they are showing a lack of "respect for life" - and if they do this on a regular basis, they may change alignment to evil.

Participation counts- and knowingly aiding people to commit evil acts, is a form of participation, even if at a distance.

Now if the shopkeeper was to refuse to sell him anything "The managment reserves the right to refuse service to anybody" but says nothing about the incident to anyone, it becomes a little more blurry.

If you're selling things that can kill, then if you want to take the interpretation that you're taking they'd ALREADY show that lack of "respect for life". But that's absurd. It's only the purpose -- and knowledge of the purpose -- that you can be talking about here. But that translates to "You sell or make it for them knowing that they will use it to do Evil". Which I counter with "And you don't care; Good or Evil are immaterial to you". That's Neutral.

Think about it this way. Imagine the True Balance Neutral, who makes things for Good people and then makes certain tha there are also similar things for Evil. So they stock part of their store with healing whips and part of their store with the most brutal whips you can have. Could selling one of those brutal ones POSSIBLY be Evil, when the Neutral is DELIBERATELY saying "Yep, at times I want to help Evil along"? And the case I'm talking about isn't even that. It's the guy who's saying "I really don't care if Evil gains or Good gains; I'm just a guy who owns a shop that sells stuff."

Kish

2010-01-29, 09:19 AM

Think about it this way. Imagine the True Balance Neutral,

A profoundly stupid concept, which they dropped in 3ed for very good reason.

So they stock part of their store with healing whips and part of their store with the most brutal whips you can have. Could selling one of those brutal ones POSSIBLY be Evil, when the Neutral is DELIBERATELY saying "Yep, at times I want to help Evil along"?

I suggest a slight amendment.

Could selling one of those brutal ones POSSIBLY be Evil, when the obsessive-compulsive and quite evil lunatic who thinks s/he is Neutral is DELIBERATELY saying "Yep, at times I want to help Evil along"?

TriForce

2010-01-29, 09:24 AM

So daimbert, would you be so kind as to give a reaction to my responce to one of your earlyer posts? (about 1 page back)? id like to know what you have to say about it.

also, you seem to have a different definition for evil the most of us ( judging by the amount of people disagreeing with you) even when you report it to the police, selling someone a gun while knowing they will use it for something evil is evil too, not selling it and not reporting it is neutral, and not selling it and reporting it is good. at least, thats how DnD works, and we have had plenty of proof that also means that that is how Oots works

TriForce

2010-01-29, 09:56 AM

Think about it this way. Imagine the True Balance Neutral, who makes things for Good people and then makes certain tha there are also similar things for Evil. So they stock part of their store with healing whips and part of their store with the most brutal whips you can have. Could selling one of those brutal ones POSSIBLY be Evil, when the Neutral is DELIBERATELY saying "Yep, at times I want to help Evil along"? And the case I'm talking about isn't even that. It's the guy who's saying "I really don't care if Evil gains or Good gains; I'm just a guy who owns a shop that sells stuff."

ill give you a comparison according to the player handbook, to put stuff in perspective

Neutral "undecided"

A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesnt feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs evil or law vs chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather then a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better then evil - after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers then evil ones. Still, she's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Mialee, a wizard who devotes herself to her art and is bored by the semantics of moral debate, is neutral.
Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. they see good, evil, law and order as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run

thats the "true" neutral alignment, its not really applyable to your shopkeeper since the one variant prefers good over evil, but doesnt go out and fight it, and the other one tries to advocate neutrality, and helping a evil character is very far from that.

now lets compare it to lawful evil

Lawful Evil "Dominator"

A lawful evil villain methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard to whom it hurts. He cares about tradition, loyalty and order, but not about freedom, dignety, or life. he playes by the rules but without mercy or compassion. he is comfortable in a hierarchy and would like to rule, but is willing to serve. he condemns others not according to their actions, but according to race, religion, homeland or social rank. He is loath to break laws or promises. This reluctance comes partly from his nature and partly becose he depends on order to protect himself from those that would oppose him on moral grounds (there is more but that only applys to a select few of the lawful evil bunch)

now you and i might disagree, but the lack of compassion for life, the sticking to order (a customer comes in and i will help him regardless of the intend) sounds a lot more like the shopkeeper then the true neutral alignment

Daimbert

2010-01-29, 10:09 AM

ill give you a comparison according to the player handbook, to put stuff in perspective

Let me highlight one part of it, which might reflect the entire problem:

Such a character thinks of good as better then evil - after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers then evil ones. Still, she's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.

To me, refusing to sell to the person who will use it to do Evil things or telling the police about it is, in fact, upholding Good. Which the Neural person has no commitment to doing. In short, you are asking that the Neutral person do Good or else they are Evil, and that seems unacceptable.

thats the "true" neutral alignment, its not really applyable to your shopkeeper since the one variant prefers good over evil, but doesnt go out and fight it, and the other one tries to advocate neutrality, and helping a evil character is very far from that.

But having a shop that caters to both sides does, in fact, seem to cater to the last one. And you can't do that if you refuse to sell to Evil characters on principles you don't share.

And I've already talked about how asking them to refuse to sell to the Evil person seems to be asking them to go out and fight evil.

So daimbert, would you be so kind as to give a reaction to my responce to one of your earlyer posts? (about 1 page back)? id like to know what you have to say about it.

I re-read it, and I agree that she is indeed evil -- and have for a while now -- but I disagree that there are not degrees of evil. While the intention does not make one "not evil", one can be less evil. I certainly think of Redcloak as less evil than Xykon, because Redcloak's evil is limited to achieving his great end. It doesn't make Redcloak not evil, but he's certainly someone that I'd prefer to have around than Xykon. Tsukiko's is even LESS evil than that, because she's evil only because of her skewed worldview where bad is good to her, and good is bad to her. We can go through all of the character tropes of evil characters on TV Tropes and rank them from most to least evil, which doesn't make any of them them not evil. But there are degrees.

If you think that the person who indiscriminantly slaughters people for the fun of it is NOT more evil than the person who only kills to further their noble-seeming purpose -- even if they'll kill ANYONE to do that -- then I think you don't have a nuanced enough version of evil. But, yes, both of those are evil.

Kish, I think I've answered you with this reply, but let me know if I haven't.

Ancalagon

2010-01-29, 10:13 AM

"who makes things for Good people and then makes certain tha there are also similar things for Evil"

"I really don't care if Evil gains or Good gains; I'm just a guy who owns a shop that sells stuff."

Making/selling good things and not caring about the good that can be done with it is neutral.
Making/selling evil things and not caring what evil is done with them sounds fairly evil to me.

Then having a shop and selling those things (also those evil things!) and only caring about yourself and the coin actually sounds evil to me. It's surely very, very dark-grey borderline neutral. And very-dark-grey-borderline neutral-to-evil is so borderline that I consider it already evil. So its either "clear evil" or "probably or nearly evil" in the best case!

Example: Compare selling candy (candy is definitly good!) and not caring if people enjoy them and selling drugs (eeeevil) and not caring what happens.
Both is selling, but someone who does it is surely more evil than neutral.
Just imagine this: A guy selling drugs get picked up by the local authorities. The judge says "You sold drugs and go to jail for 10 years". Then the guy answers: "But wait, before I sold those drugs, I passed an orphanage and sold them a big box of candy!"
Can you imagine the judge saying "Oh, that was quite good and nice from you. I cut your sentence by 2 years, you only have to go to jail for 8 years because you sold both good and evil and did not care unless you had cash in your pocket"? Not really, no? ;)

Optimystik

2010-01-29, 10:40 AM

To me, refusing to sell to the person who will use it to do Evil things or telling the police about it is, in fact, upholding Good.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. How can remaining uninvolved in the slightest be Good? You are not helping this nefarious character further his schemes, but neither are you impeding him from getting what he wants down the street, or even trying to warn his proposed victim of his intentions. Apathy is textbook Neutral.

By your logic, I can uphold good simply by sitting on my ass and doing nothing. Ridiculous.

Ancalagon

2010-01-29, 10:46 AM

By your logic, I can uphold good simply by sitting on my ass and doing nothing. Ridiculous.

Actually, I find that awesome. Reading webcomics and discussing stuff on the net with people who are wrong makes me a very good person!
I'm not getting why people get out there do actual charity work or spend some of their hard-earned money if they could achieve the same by spending their life playing computer games and watching DVDs without caring about anything in the world outside. ;)

Optimystik

2010-01-29, 11:11 AM

Actually, I find that awesome. Reading webcomics and discussing stuff on the net with people who are wrong makes me a very good person!
I'm not getting why people get out there do actual charity work or spend some of their hard-earned money if they could achieve the same by spending their life playing computer games and watching DVDs without caring about anything in the world outside. ;)

Or you could care, just not enough to actually do anything. That still counts as Good though. Right?

:smallsigh:

Ancalagon

2010-01-29, 11:17 AM

Or you could care, just not enough to actually do anything. That still counts as Good though. Right?

:smallsigh:

I don't know why you sighed. I supported your claim with a rather flat but obvious example.

Next time I'll add an explanation.

To address your point: Unless that caring does not have an real consequence, it does not matter. Even if you don't DO anything but have a bad conscience about it, it counts a little towards good. A little. If there is not even that, than the slight caring is too slight.

Daimbert

2010-01-29, 11:38 AM

Wrong, wrong, wrong. How can remaining uninvolved in the slightest be Good? You are not helping this nefarious character further his schemes, but neither are you impeding him from getting what he wants down the street, or even trying to warn his proposed victim of his intentions. Apathy is textbook Neutral.

By your logic, I can uphold good simply by sitting on my ass and doing nothing. Ridiculous.

Um, if you are refusing to sell something to the evil person, that's doing something. It's not enough to stop them completely, perhaps, but it is in fact opposing them. And certainly telling the police about it is doing something.

The fact of the matter is, taking a stand to even limit an Evil person from doing something Evil is, in fact, doing something against them and is, in fact, Good. It is certainly not apathetic. Selling it to him and NOT CARING about whether it will be used for Good or Evil, even if you KNOW that it will be used for Evil is, in fact, apathetic, because of that whole, you know, not caring thing.

Making/selling good things and not caring about the good that can be done with it is neutral.
Making/selling evil things and not caring what evil is done with them sounds fairly evil to me.

But the examples we are using are of things that COULD be used for either evil or good, and the shopkeeper not caring about which. For example, guns can be used to stop crime and evil, or to kill innocent people. Whips can be used as adventurer weapons or to torture someone.

Now, the only case to talk about is the whip case, where someone asks you to make it a certain way so that it better suits their purpose, which is torture. I don't see it as being inherently evil to do that, as long as the intent is "I just give customers what they want. If they want me to optimize it for happy fun play, I do that. If they want me to optimize it for torture, I do that. What they do with it is their own business, and none of mine." This sort of person is not a likeable person, but I have a hard time calling them Evil in any system that has a Neutral alignment.

Then having a shop and selling those things (also those evil things!) and only caring about yourself and the coin actually sounds evil to me. It's surely very, very dark-grey borderline neutral. And very-dark-grey-borderline neutral-to-evil is so borderline that I consider it already evil. So its either "clear evil" or "probably or nearly evil" in the best case!

Again, though, we are not talking about someone who only sells evil things. We are talking about someone who sells THINGS that can be used for either evil or good, and happens to sell them at times to people who only use them for evil.

Example: Compare selling candy (candy is definitly good!) and not caring if people enjoy them and selling drugs (eeeevil) and not caring what happens.
Both is selling, but someone who does it is surely more evil than neutral.
Just imagine this: A guy selling drugs get picked up by the local authorities. The judge says "You sold drugs and go to jail for 10 years". Then the guy answers: "But wait, before I sold those drugs, I passed an orphanage and sold them a big box of candy!"
Can you imagine the judge saying "Oh, that was quite good and nice from you. I cut your sentence by 2 years, you only have to go to jail for 8 years because you sold both good and evil and did not care unless you had cash in your pocket"? Not really, no? ;)

Well, neutrality is not a redeeming factor; you don't get kudos for not caring what happens with the things you sell. However, it isn't a complicating one either; you don't get a HARSHER sentence for selling it without caring than you would if you said "Yeah, I sell it because I want to see people be miserable and addicted."

Optimystik

2010-01-29, 11:56 AM

The fact of the matter is, taking a stand to even limit an Evil person from doing something Evil is, in fact, doing something against them and is, in fact, Good. It is certainly not apathetic. Selling it to him and NOT CARING about whether it will be used for Good or Evil, even if you KNOW that it will be used for Evil is, in fact, apathetic, because of that whole, you know, not caring thing.

If you had no idea of his intentions, then I would agree with you. But if he looks you in the eye in your store, says "I'm buying this gun so I can shoot an innocent man." And you simply respond "Cash or credit?" then you have ceased to be Neutral. You are now a participant in his behavior, because you have facilitated it, and thus furthered his ill objective.

Similarly, Xykon looks at Tsukiko and says "Hey, I need a new way to torture this paladin." So she whips up some meat puppets and outfit them with spiky weaponry, knowing full well the use to which they will be put. That's Evil. End of story.

Nilan8888

2010-01-29, 12:01 PM

Maybe we'd get a little mileage out of considering what Tsukiko is NOT.

At minimum, I figure, she's True Neutral. She certainly isn't good or lawful.

I don't see her turning on her own people as evil at all. It wasn't necessarily Chaotic: it was just not lawful. She agreed to fight against Xykon but it wasn't like her heart was really in it on the battlefield or anything, or as if she was doing this as a personal favor to anybody. She didn't betray any actual PERSON, just impersonal concepts like her country and king. And she had no particular love for either of those.

The question is do we have reason to believe she's killing unarmed people? Innocent people? Well look, at the very least she's standing by and not speaking upwhile Azure city citizens are imprisoned. It doesn't look as if she's ignorant about what's been going on, here. And she knows that what's being done to these people is against thier will. Tons of these people who had no bearing on either her imprisonment or the laws that put her there.

She's classified that simply all living people suck. Redcloak did a similar thing with all humans: although the difference here would be Redcloak's been at least a little more specific with his hatreds and doing a little more legwork.

So at best to even ACHIEVE TN status, she'd have to be pretty naiive and looking the other way 24/7. Even if we figured rasing people as undead wasn't necessarily evil -- largely by taking her POV -- allowing innocent people to be treated like this consistently without coment is pretty much evil. By doing nothing about it, she is still making a choice every day she continues to live with Xykon in Azure City.

My own thoughts? She's probably at least Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil is a distinct possibility.

The MitD may have been "redeemed" by a few decent conversations and games of Go. Therkla was redeemed by her love for Elan. It'd take a lot more than that to make Redcloak do a face-heel turn, but it's not out of the question - he does a lesser one here. So the question is - what would it take to "redeem" Tsukiko, i.e. convince her that she's wrong about humans and undead?

I disagree, first of all because I'm not sure we can really say MitD was 'evil' and in need of redeeming to begin with. He was in need of a good dose of reality, but that's not the same thing. MitD most definately IS naiive, has low self-esteem, and probably it probably isn't occurring to him that a lot of people are suffering.

Therkla was certainly in need of some form of redeeming, but I don't think it's a given to say she was, even at the beginning, Evil. Given her background there's a strong case to be made that she was Lawful Neutral.

hamishspence

2010-01-29, 12:04 PM

One of the pieces of advice in The Prince is

"Never tell people of your nefarious intentions- there is no point in answering the question "What do you plan to do with this" with "I plan on murdering people with it"- since you can satisfy your desire once you have the weapon in your hands."

On Therkla, the commentaries in DStP, strongly imply she has strong Neutral personality traits- even if she might possibly be Evil by Actions:

In many ways, I see Therkla as a sort of spokesperson for Neutrality. Not only the sort of Neutrality that looks out for their own interests above all else, but the sort that sees a need for balance. Therkla isn't actively involved in keeping that balance, but it is her instinct to seek it. When the feces hits the fan, her solution is for the Evil people to go over here, and the Good people to go over there, and everyone just chill. She can't understand each side's need to defeat the other. In her world, everyone would just respect each other's alignment preference and that would be that. Of course, it's no surprise that it doesn't work out. Her death is a direct result of her unwillingness to subscribe to the with-us-or-against-us mentality of Kubota and, to a lesser extent, Elan.

Ancalagon

2010-01-29, 12:41 PM

Well, neutrality is not a redeeming factor;

I did not talk about neutrality.

Kish

2010-01-29, 12:41 PM

Now, the only case to talk about is the whip case, where someone asks you to make it a certain way so that it better suits their purpose, which is torture. I don't see it as being inherently evil to do that, as long as the intent is "I just give customers what they want. If they want me to optimize it for happy fun play, I do that. If they want me to optimize it for torture, I do that. What they do with it is their own business, and none of mine." This sort of person is not a likeable person, but I have a hard time calling them Evil in any system that has a Neutral alignment.
Then we seem to be, again, at, "Tsukiko isn't as evil as Xykon," and the fundamental difference being whether she would need to be to be evil. If you ever thought Tsukiko was Xykon-level evil, yes, you were in for disappointment.

Daimbert

2010-01-29, 12:53 PM

Then we seem to be, again, at, "Tsukiko isn't as evil as Xykon," and the fundamental difference being whether she would need to be to be evil. If you ever thought Tsukiko was Xykon-level evil, yes, you were in for disappointment.

I was hoping that she'd end up on the evil scale below Xykon but above Redcloak. In my opinion, she's below Redcloak, which disappoints me.

I did not talk about neutrality.

You were talking about how expressing the sentiments would not get the person a lighter sentence based on their intentions. Now, the sentiments I am talking about _I_ consider Neutral, and so my reply was, in fact, that they could still be considered Neutral even if your claim was true.

If you had no idea of his intentions, then I would agree with you. But if he looks you in the eye in your store, says "I'm buying this gun so I can shoot an innocent man." And you simply respond "Cash or credit?" then you have ceased to be Neutral. You are now a participant in his behavior, because you have facilitated it, and thus furthered his ill objective.

Similarly, Xykon looks at Tsukiko and says "Hey, I need a new way to torture this paladin." So she whips up some meat puppets and outfit them with spiky weaponry, knowing full well the use to which they will be put. That's Evil. End of story.

But if you deliberately set out to impede him from doing so -- by "not fascilitating it" -- how is that not Good, a principle that the Neutral person has no reason to follow?

I have outlined many reasons why the sentiment I'm expressing is Neutral. You seem to disagree, but aren't actually addressing what I'm saying, such as my reply that the person who replies "Cash or credit?" is, in effect, really say "I don't care what you use it for". And that impeding the Evil person BECAUSE they are going to do something Evil with the thing is not Neutral, but is Good, because that they are going to do Evil MATTERS to you. The Apathetic Neutral person doesn't care what you do, Good or Evil (as long as it doesn't impact them).

In Tsukiko's case, she's doing it because the "man" she has a crush on wants her to do it. Again, it doesn't mean that she's responsible for torturing O'chul.

Seriously, I think that most of the debate here comes from the fact that most of the people who disagree with me are considering Good and Evil as binary opposites, with nothing in between. I find it hard to reconcile any reasonable notion of Neutral behaviour that doesn't allow a Neutral character to say "Do whatever you want with it; I don't care if you're Good or Evil, and I serve my customers equally no matter what they want to use my products for."

Kish

2010-01-29, 01:01 PM

Seriously, I think that most of the debate here comes from the fact that most of the people who disagree with me are considering Good and Evil as binary opposites, with nothing in between.
No, the scale still exists. The Neutral range just doesn't cover as much Evil territory as you're arguing it does, whether because it's narrower, or because it's closer to Good than you're arguing it is.

I find it hard to reconcile any reasonable notion of Neutral behaviour that doesn't allow a Neutral character to say "Do whatever you want with it; I don't care if you're Good or Evil, and I serve my customers equally no matter what they want to use my products for."

And I find it hard to reconcile any reasonable notion of Evil behavior that calls it Neutral if you create an instrument of torture and laugh with your client as he tells you what he's planning to use it for. "Completely selfish, willing to do anything to anyone for your own profit" is no definition of Neutral.

B. Dandelion

2010-01-29, 01:02 PM

"Not caring" about your fellow human beings to the point that you won't lift a finger to stop an evil person along the road to hurting innocents sounds more like "misanthropy" than "neutrality," to me.

hamishspence

2010-01-29, 01:04 PM

TriForce

2010-01-29, 04:17 PM

Seriously, I think that most of the debate here comes from the fact that most of the people who disagree with me are considering Good and Evil as binary opposites, with nothing in between. I find it hard to reconcile any reasonable notion of Neutral behaviour that doesn't allow a Neutral character to say "Do whatever you want with it; I don't care if you're Good or Evil, and I serve my customers equally no matter what they want to use my products for."

not really, most of the discussion here comes down to what we consider to be neutral. for instance, you say that not caring is the same as neutrality, and that delaying a evil act by inaction is good, we say that not caring is (in the right circumstance) evil and that delaying by inaction is neutral. the point that were making is, that there is no difference in what a evil shopkeeper would do and what a neutral shopkeeper would do in your example, both would sell him the gun and not think twice about it, while in our example a good shopkeeper would not sell it and report it to the police, while a neutral one would simply not sell it

Ozymandias9

2010-01-30, 02:26 AM

Right, and until he specifies which ones are closed, I can use any and all of those doors in my arguments.

It's quite easy for him to post and say - "I used chapters X, Y and Z from BoVD and nothing else" or even "I lifted the one monster out of the book to make a joke, and really don't think anything else there applies to OotS." He can even just say "The PHB/MM's view of morality, limited as it is, is all my comic really needs." When you find him saying something like that, please link me to it.

Though I will note that by the MM, Familicide wouldn't be evil at all - but he calls it evil - so he's clearly relying on a little bit more than core for his moral judgments in OotS. Similarly, Roy's rant in Origin fits much better with BoED than with the PHB.

Yes, I agree, the morality discussion in the plot is clearly not limited to the core presentation (Does core's treatment even count as a presentation?). But it doesn't seem to me to be particularly defensible to base a position on a might. We haven't seen anything that indicates BoED/BoVD is in force in anything more than an item by item basis. We can note similar status for several sources.

Essentially, my issue is with your level of abstraction. You can make a strong argument for certain elements of source books being in force. But no one's made a strong argument for any of them being in force on more than an element by element basis. Thus, an argument that hinges on an element of a sourcebook being in play is going to stand on weak foundation unless a decent argument can be made for that specific element (or, theoretically, the whole or a cohesive part of that source where the element appears).

Regardless, while this conversation is interesting, we've had it before. But it is fun to remissness.

And I find it hard to reconcile any reasonable notion of Evil behavior that calls it Neutral if you create an instrument of torture and laugh with your client as he tells you what he's planning to use it for. "Completely selfish, willing to do anything to anyone for your own profit" is no definition of Neutral.

And if the person's motivation isn't profit? It would be just as easy to cast the same person in the light of someone desiring to be a nonentity, which is pretty squarely neutral.

Or what if the person lived in Greysky city? If their primary goal is not to piss anyone deadly off, what then?

More generally, of you include foreseeable resultant actions or trends in the scale from selflessness to selfishness, it becomes harder to provide for the idea of self-interested as a middle ground. And if you're using selfishness as the example of evil, self-interested is usually where neutrality is placed (with the distinction being that selfishness actively harms others). This is why most of D&D morality (both core and more expansive treatments) has tended around Deontological rather than Consequential ethics.

Lawless III

2010-01-30, 03:29 AM

"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.

Being good or evil can be a conscious choice. For most people, though, being good or evil is an attitude that one recognizes but does not choose. Being neutral on the good-evil axis usually represents a lack of commitment one way or the other, but for some it represents a positive commitment to a balanced view. While acknowledging that good and evil are objective states, not just opinions, these folk maintain that a balance between the two is the proper place for people, or at least for them."-PHb 3.5

Just so we have an at hand, by-the-book definition of neutrality on the Good V. Evil axis. Now let round 3 commence!

Kish

2010-01-30, 06:09 AM

And if the person's motivation isn't profit? It would be just as easy to cast the same person in the light of someone desiring to be a nonentity, which is pretty squarely neutral.
What would it have to do with Tsukiko? I mean, considering that she manifestly enjoyed O-Chul's suffering herself, the example of the merchant who sells to the torturer was already far kinder than she deserved. You're pushing what was already quite a shaky example away from relevancy, not toward it.

(I had quite a long rant written about passive voice and the concept of total selfishness as Neutral and the requirement to be randomly malicious to be Evil, but I deleted it for following you further off-topic for this thread.)

hamishspence

2010-01-30, 07:08 AM

Maybe you could put up a thread in the Roleplaying games section?

Based around "at what point does rational self-interest (Good to Neutral) cross into selfishness (Evil)?"

Possibly with a leavening of "can a person be evil without being spiteful/malicious/sadistic?"- Given that the more extreme Well Intentioned Extremists, like Ozymandias from Watchmen, often border on this.

Its a shame to waste an alignment thread-starter :smallamused:.

Ozymandias9

2010-01-30, 07:22 AM

What would it have to do with Tsukiko? I mean, considering that she manifestly enjoyed O-Chul's suffering herself, the example of the merchant who sells to the torturer was already far kinder than she deserved. You're pushing what was already quite a shaky example away from relevancy, not toward it.

(I had quite a long rant written about passive voice and the concept of total selfishness as Neutral and the requirement to be randomly malicious to be Evil, but I deleted it for following you further off-topic for this thread.)

The thread seemed to have reached an abstracted morality topic before I got here, but if you're concerned about it, the connection to the initial topic is thus:
Someone brought up a collection of Tsukiko's acts in the context of being an enabler rather than an active perpetrator of evil. It's not a horribly strong argument, but an interesting one at least. As this argument progressed, it did so not through refutation or support of her actions falling into one category or another, but by examination of the premise that enabling and/or not opposing evil would qualify as neutrality.

An example was given involving selfish motivations and a gun sale. I gave counterexamples of neutral motivations that provide the same Consequential outcome (i.e. the innocent person dies). These fall fairly clearly under most definitions of neutrality given in D&D. The point of this was to demonstrate the fact that the alignment system is primarily Deontological: that is, that it judges the justness of isolated acts rather than their consequences. Thus the example gun sale would be, in the strictest Deontological sense, no different than any other gun sale.

To bring this full circle, this means that Tsukiko's actions while in Xykon's service would have to be judged on their own merits, not on what Xykon does with the increased resources. Thus, we eliminate the idea that Tsukiko's actions become any more or less evil merely because of whom she is serving.

This is, of course, assuming that one accepts my premise that Deontological Morality is the operational standard of D&D.

Aside on the passive voice:
The passive voice is not a grammatical error.
In fact, despite what your English teacher told you, it can be a very effective rhetorical tool if you use it to specific ends.
In this case, the purpose is a rather common one: it creates distance. You'll also see it used often to emphasize object over subject and to de-emphasize an abstract or unknown subject.

If you want to look for actual errors in my prior post, you can start with the fact that I said "of" instead of "if" and that I didn't put quotations around "self-interested" when I used it outside it's literal context by conflating it with a location on a aforementioned figurative scale.

Kish

2010-01-30, 07:30 AM

The passive voice is not a gramatical error.

No, it's not a grammatical error, but by stating that "something happens" without an actor, it often claims authority the speaker doesn't have. As with, for example, "self-interested is usually where neutrality is placed."

Beyond that, if you want to talk about something other than Tsukiko in this thread, you'll have to do it without me; and if anything you've said about Tsukiko is supposed to show that working for Xykon doesn't reflect badly on her, I'm afraid you're going to have to go over it again.

Ozymandias9

2010-01-30, 07:52 AM

No, it's not a grammatical error, but by stating that "something happens" without an actor, it often claims authority the speaker doesn't have. As with, for example, "self-interested is usually where neutrality is placed."

Beyond that, if you want to talk about something other than Tsukiko in this thread, you'll have to do it without me.

Read more closely: there was a conditional clause.

And if you're using selfishness as the example of evil, self-interested is usually where neutrality is placed [...].

You disagree that if someone posits "selfishness" as evil, "self-interested" is usually where they place neutrality? If that is so, what do you see people positing a position for a neutral person?

This isn't a nebulous conversation divorced from the topic at hand: the basis of the argument that Tsukiko is not morally responsible for, say, O'Chul's torture is (as I understand it), that she is merely acting as a provider of a good to someone who happens to be torturing someone with that good. It was posited that the selfish motivation to sell for profit would be evil. What would be the neutral motivation? The neutral action?

Kish

2010-01-30, 07:58 AM

The basis of the argument for Tsukiko not being morally responsible for, say, O'Chul's torture is (as I understand it), that she is merely acting as a provider of a good to someone who happens to be torturing someone with that good.

That's not a good argument, given that we see Tsukiko not only creating the undead warrior but participating in the betting over the acid-breathing shark battle, and even commenting that "we all" torture the paladin for fun later.

It was posited that the selfish motivation to sell for profit would be evil?
Without an actor I don't care. I'm not going to engage with someone whose entire existence is theoretical.

If that's meant to be a paraphrase of something I said, you're not close enough, nor am I aware of anyone in this thread positing that simply "selling for profit" is evil.

Edited in response to your edit:

Read more closely: there was a conditional clause.

...followed by a passive-voice claim of authority. Who does this "placing" of neutrality as self-interested? If it just "is done," then that's the concern of whoever does it, and if s/he wants to engage with me, s/he can come here and do so. If you wish to assert that neutrality=self-interest, do so.

Optimystik

2010-01-30, 12:12 PM

Yes, I agree, the morality discussion in the plot is clearly not limited to the core presentation (Does core's treatment even count as a presentation?). But it doesn't seem to me to be particularly defensible to base a position on a might. We haven't seen anything that indicates BoED/BoVD is in force in anything more than an item by item basis. We can note similar status for several sources.

There's definitely more to suggest expanded morality is in the strip than the presence of one monster.

Haley considers Soul Bind to be Evil - it is not an Evil spell in core, so the only source we have for its morality is BoVD.
In the same strip, they consider killing prisoners to be wrong - that one's BoED.
Origin has Roy's speech about not killing orcs just because the town is afraid of them, despite their "usually evil" moniker - BoED.
The fiends estimate V's moral decline - not because of taking the splice, but because of "that stunt with the dragons" - mass-murdering an Always Evil race is Evil, is BoVD again.

The fact that I don't enumerate these (and other) instances every single time these topics roll around is because I like to assume that I'm not the only one reading the strip. Therefore I limit my reply to "BoVD is in the strip, I can talk about it." I suppose I could make a template to copy and paste, if that would help my point come across better.

And if the person's motivation isn't profit? It would be just as easy to cast the same person in the light of someone desiring to be a nonentity, which is pretty squarely neutral.

If the person's motivation isn't profit, then they wouldn't sell the weapon, which we already said would be neutral. It's DAIMBERT claiming that you can sell the thing after knowing the nefarious use to which it will be put, and still be Neutral - which is flatly ridiculous.

Tricksy Hobbits

2010-01-30, 08:56 PM

lio45

2010-01-30, 09:32 PM

If the person's motivation isn't profit, then they wouldn't sell the weapon, which we already said would be neutral. It's DAIMBERT claiming that you can sell the thing after knowing the nefarious use to which it will be put, and still be Neutral - which is flatly ridiculous.

The person's motivation is "feeding his family", a.k.a. "profit". Same thing.

Someone could still sell that weapon and not be evil. It's not ridiculous. You're earning a living by selling items, and those items ALREADY happen to be things that can be used to hurt others. Most people don't tell you what they'll do with the weapons they buy anyway, or could lie to you about it. Where do you stop? Someone Good would have to make a background check on everyone wanting to buy a weapon before they sell one, while selling the things and not taking responsibility for the use done after that would be the Neutral behavior here.

Someone Evil would, for example, be glad to hear the weapon is going to be put to such Evil use. Someone Neutral hasn't got any particular reason to go out of his way to "stop Evil", by definition, so he would not refuse to do his job by not serving a willing customer among other customers.

Optimystik

2010-01-30, 09:39 PM

Someone could still sell that weapon and not be evil. It's not ridiculous. You're earning a living by selling items, and those items ALREADY happen to be things that can be used to hurt others. Most people don't tell you what they'll do with the weapons they buy anyway, or could lie to you about it. Where do you stop?

A very good place for a Neutral person to stop would be when the person they're selling to flat out tells them they're going to put the item to Evil purposes.

Knowingly assisting Evil = Evil, not Neutral.

lio45

2010-01-30, 09:43 PM

Impeding the person can be done for entirely selfish reasons- because they know, that anyone dumb enough to say out loud that they plan to commit murder, is going to have a high probability of getting caught.

And once caught, there is a good chance that how they got the weapon, will come out.

Thus, for the self-centred reason of not wanting to be charged as an accessory to murder, the neutral character will refuse to sell.

The scale works like this:

Helping an evil act- Evil
Not helping an evil act- Neutral
Actively trying to prevent an Evil act- Good

(even then, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the time, most Neutral people are likely to try and prevent evil acts, wherever doing so would pose little or no risk or inconvenience)

IMHO, Neutral would range from "look, you shouldn't have told me that, now I can't really sell the weapon to you in good conscience anymore, so you should just leave" to "uh, I really don't want to hear about that, none of my business... see that price tag? That's what it costs, and my responsibility stops there. You do what you want with it. I'm just selling my wares" (knowing fully well that the guy will be able to easily buy the weapon he wants somewhere else anyway).

Alignment being a quantified scale with only three distinct values (an extremely limited numbers when you look at the variety and complexity of possible attitudes and behaviors out there), so some behaviors are obviously hard to put into a single compartment.

I would say that in the range above, the first answer would be Neutral-goodish and the second, Neutral-evilish, with both being Neutral.

I would certainly expect an Evil weapon seller to actively do Evil stuff himself, not merely sell his things to adult and responsible customers.

lio45

2010-01-30, 09:50 PM

A very good place for a Neutral person to stop would be when the person they're selling to flat out tells them they're going to put the item to Evil purposes.

Knowingly assisting Evil = Evil, not Neutral.

See other post, which I typed before seeing your reply. Basically, I think everyone in this thread more or less agrees... there's a fine line between Neutral-evilish and Evil-neutralish.

Besides, you're not assisting Evil that much, as the guy could just walk into ANY other store and get a weapon anyway.

A Good character would make sure to try and have him arrested, we agree.

But to have him go away, whether or not you sell him anything, does not in any way help stop the murder he's going to commit (according to what you now know). In one case, you're Neutral, in the other, you're Evil. Right?

But then, can you let him walk out and still be Neutral? You say yes, let there be murder, as long as the actual murder weapon hasn't got your shop's sticker on it. That's just a weird place to draw the line...

Tricksy Hobbits

2010-01-30, 10:04 PM

Actually, there is no neutral way to settle the shopkeeper thing, because not turning him in assists evil, in that it allows it to happen, and trying to stop it is good.

Daimbert

2010-01-31, 06:34 AM

There's definitely more to suggest expanded morality is in the strip than the presence of one monster.

Haley considers Soul Bind to be Evil - it is not an Evil spell in core, so the only source we have for its morality is BoVD.
In the same strip, they consider killing prisoners to be wrong - that one's BoED.
Origin has Roy's speech about not killing orcs just because the town is afraid of them, despite their "usually evil" moniker - BoED.
The fiends estimate V's moral decline - not because of taking the splice, but because of "that stunt with the dragons" - mass-murdering an Always Evil race is Evil, is BoVD again.

I think you have to be VERY careful with these presumptions here because:

1) In the scene in Origin, the PALADIN of the party explicitly states that killing the orcs would not have caused him to fall, because they were an always Evil race. He's very ticked off about it, because he could have killed them without penalty, gotten the same XP, and not had to stick around for two weeks and listen to the crappy music. So it doesn't seem like it is actually evil in the OotS universe. Add in that that scene is used seemingly to establish that Roy doesn't share the typical player mindset, and this doesn't seem like an example at all.

2) Again, the Sapphire Guard made it one of their mandates to indiscriminantly slaughter the goblins, thus mass-murdering an Always Evil race. Not one of them ever fell for doing so. Thus, again, it seems that that isn't evil.

You might have Soul Bind, but those are two prime contradictions to the idea that BoVD applies in the OotS universe.

That's not a good argument, given that we see Tsukiko not only creating the undead warrior but participating in the betting over the acid-breathing shark battle, and even commenting that "we all" torture the paladin for fun later.

Tsukiko is certainly not in the "Neutral shopkeeper" case, but she does have extra motivation: she is participating in the torture of one of the people who "oppressed" her (ugh) and who helps torture and kill her friends (turning and returning her undead friends).

not really, most of the discussion here comes down to what we consider to be neutral. for instance, you say that not caring is the same as neutrality, and that delaying a evil act by inaction is good, we say that not caring is (in the right circumstance) evil and that delaying by inaction is neutral. the point that were making is, that there is no difference in what a evil shopkeeper would do and what a neutral shopkeeper would do in your example, both would sell him the gun and not think twice about it, while in our example a good shopkeeper would not sell it and report it to the police, while a neutral one would simply not sell it

You're being too consequentialist about it, because the main difference here would be intentions. It would be evil to tailor your duties so that your products are generally more useful to evil people, as that would show a preference for evil. But if you treat both good and evil the same way, and provide precisely as much help for good uses and bad uses, then it comes down to you really not caring or judging which of those is more acceptable.

A shopkeeper who happened to be evil could act neutrally in their shopkeeping and evil everywhere else. But if they were an evil shopkeeper because of their shopkeeping, they'd do other things, like cheat their customers or go in for products that have primarily evil applications.

The scale works like this:

Helping an evil act- Evil
Not helping an evil act- Neutral
Actively trying to prevent an Evil act- Good

The problem with the scale is that your "Neutral" act requires the neutral character to do two things that neutral characters are in no way required to do:

1) Make a judgement on the appropriateness of the use of the item on the basis of the distinction between Good and Evil. They only choose not to sell it to the person because they will use it for Evil, but Neutral characters are in no way required to consider Evil uses in any way bad or inferior to Good uses. One of the paradigmatic neutral uses is to simply ignore that.

2) Take a stand based on the principle that they need to stop people from doing Evil things. Again, Neutral characters have no obligation to HAVE that principle, let alone take a stand on it by refusing to sell to those who have Evil plans for the things.

If there's a law, then they may or may not choose to follow the law. That's the Lawful/Chaotic end of the scale. But no Neutral character can ever have any requirement to oppose Evil, or else we defeat the purpose of having the classification in the first place.

Kish

2010-01-31, 07:04 AM

Originally Posted by Kish
The scale works like this:

Helping an evil act- Evil
Not helping an evil act- Neutral
Actively trying to prevent an Evil act- Good

Y'might want to fix that attribution. I'm not hamishspence.

1) Make a judgement on the appropriateness of the use of the item on the basis of the distinction between Good and Evil. They only choose not to sell it to the person because they will use it for Evil, but Neutral characters are in no way required to consider Evil uses in any way bad or inferior to Good uses.
Yeaahh, no.

The fact that you're using the abstract terminology of the ridiculous "True Neutral as balance-worshiper" philosophy muddies the issue. Let's say what it actually is here:

A Neutral character is not required to see anything wrong with torture. That's what you're saying, and that's what's wrong. If one doesn't see anything wrong with torture, that one is evil. Not neutral. A neutral character will do the right thing less often than a good character will, whether out of concern for his/her own skin, prejudice, simple unwillingness to get involved...But a neutral character can perfectly well make the exact same moral judgments as a good character, on an abstract level, and only show as neutral rather than good when it comes to translating those beliefs into action; and a character who judges torture as not being morally inferior to helping someone is neither good, nor neutral, nor at all ambiguous (nor sane).

And "Lawful" has everything to do with order and very little to do with following the law, as such.

Daimbert

2010-01-31, 07:30 AM

Y'might want to fix that attribution. I'm not hamishspence.

Oops. I'll change it.

Yeaahh, no.

The fact that you're using the abstract terminology of the ridiculous "True Neutral as balance-worshiper" philosophy muddies the issue.

Note that in the quote from the 3.5e book (I think) that was posted here, that "ridiculous notion" was included. Also note that I'm not -- and never did -- say that that was the ONLY way to be Neutral. And, to top it all off, my comment doesn't only apply to that since my idea has mainly been about the Neutral person simply not caring about how the item was used. The "True Balance" idea was just to show a type of Neutrality that CERTAINLY would be allowed to do that BECAUSE of being Neutral.

Let's say what it actually is here:

A Neutral character is not required to see anything wrong with torture. That's what you're saying, and that's what's wrong. If one doesn't see anything wrong with torture, that one is evil. Not neutral. A neutral character will do the right thing less often than a good character will, whether out of concern for his/her own skin, prejudice, simple unwillingness to get involved...But a neutral character can perfectly well make the exact same moral judgments as a good character, on an abstract level, and only show as neutral rather than good when it comes to translating those beliefs into action; and a character who judges torture as not being morally inferior to helping someone is neither good, nor neutral, nor at all ambiguous (nor sane).

Neutral characters can be Good leaning, and CAN make those judgements and be Neutral. What I'm saying is that they are not REQUIRED to make those judgements, at least at the level you are requiring them to make them. A Neutral person almost certainly will think that they, personally, wold rather be helped than tortured, and accept that most people would rather be helped than tortured. However, they are under no obligation to accept that someone torturing someone is a worse use for their product than someone using it to help someone. They can, in fact, say that it really doesn't matter, and that what people do to each other is not their concern. They can, in fact, shrug and say "I don't care what you do with it." You are forcing them to take a stand and say "I find your use of this on someone else for Evil purposes to be unacceptable" and then ACT on that. Again, they don't have to make that judgement -- they can not care what people do to each other -- and have no reason to actually act on that by refusing to sell it to the person. And that last part is, in fact, even under YOUR definition.

Ultimately, you are demanding that Neutral people do things that they are not required to do. This does not mean that they CAN'T do them and still be Neutral, but it is not required.

And "Lawful" has everything to do with order and very little to do with following the law, as such.

Lawful characters follow legitimate laws as far as they can, which was my point about them following the law and using that as their reason to not sell the item.

Optimystik

2010-01-31, 12:57 PM

You might have Soul Bind, but those are two prime contradictions to the idea that BoVD applies in the OotS universe.

Actually, I'm glad you brought the paladins up - they reinforce my stance, rather than opposing it.

Consider how Rich is portraying those paladins - in a very un-paladinlike fashion. Are we the readers expected to sympathize with the racist in Origin, who wants Durkon to be quietly and indirectly killed so that he doesn't lose his class features doing it himself? Are we the readers supposed to be rooting for the Sapphire Guard, while one of them has a katana sticking through Redcloak's sister?

On the contrary, their attitudes are still meant to be seen as wrong by the audience - BoVD morality, again - the only difference is that Rich has waived the mechanical penalty to those paladins for their bad behavior. He is not intending for us to say "it's fine for those paladins to behave in this way in Rich's comic." He is instead saying "Paladins lose their class features for other reasons besides typical morality." He is intending for us, quite rightly, to say "wow, these guys are bastards, paladins or not."

And the primary D&D standard in which those guys would be considered bastards - is that contained within both BoED and BoVD.

In short, he has changed the requirements for remaining a paladin - not the standards of moral behavior. In OotS, paladin power depends on the sufferance of their deities, rather than overarching concepts of Good and Law. It does not mean that either group of paladin was not being Evil.

You're doing what many people reading this strip do - they say "they didn't fall, so what they've done must be all right!" - except, if it were really all right, Rich would not have painted them the way he has.

hamishspence

2010-01-31, 04:31 PM

BoED- a person who avoids ever committing an evil act, but doesn't commit Good acts either, is Neutral.

Being Neutral can be a lot about avoiding doing evil- such as aiding an abetting murder, which is still evil, even if arguably not as evil as committing it yourself.

In the same way, an Evil person might be fanatically opposed to committing Evil acts, except, against a subsection of the population he considers "fair game"

It might be violent criminals
It might be people of a particular race or species
It might be "those with power who abuse it"
It might be "the enemy group"

So, the assumption that an Evil person would want to see Evil acts committed against others, may be flawed.

There is a great deal of variety in alignment- but especially in Evil- given that you can have Evil guys who behave very morally to nearly everyone- but reserves immoral behaviour for some small subset of the population.

Not everyone with an Evil alignment likes committing evil acts, either- some may hate doing so, but believe that the acts "needed to be done" or their victims "deserved it".

lio45

2010-01-31, 10:04 PM

You are forcing them to take a stand and say "I find your use of this on someone else for Evil purposes to be unacceptable" and then ACT on that. Again, they don't have to make that judgement -- they can not care what people do to each other -- and have no reason to actually act on that by refusing to sell it to the person.

As Tricksy Hobbits said in his post, one could point out that letting the guy walk away without lifting a finger is almost exactly as bad: the shopkeeper knows he's going to commit murder, yet does absolutely nothing to stop that murder.

Optimistik already all but said that letting a murder happen while fully knowing you could do something to stop it is something that would qualify as Neutral behavior (refusing to sell the weapon + letting the guy walk away scenario).

In that case, I don't see why you wouldn't be the one supplying that weapon instead of your competitor. What matters (IMHO) is the fact that in both cases, you're going to let a murder happen because you think it's none of your business. Morally, it's basically the same thing (it's not like weapons aren't always readily available in that kind of universe). If one's Neutral, the other is too. You could argue that they're both Evil, but you would then have to include everyone who isn't going to go out of his/her way to stop Evil into the Evil group, so you'll end up with Good and Evil only. Neutral exists for a reason, and that is it.

Optimystik

2010-01-31, 11:24 PM

Optimistik already all but said that letting a murder happen while fully knowing you could do something to stop it is something that would qualify as Neutral behavior (refusing to sell the weapon + letting the guy walk away scenario).

I assume that by "all but said" you meant "didn't say at all."

And "letting it happen" would only apply if you knew somewhere else he could easily acquire his weapon. How many necromancers does Xykon know again? Besides himself, that is.

Tricksy Hobbits

2010-01-31, 11:51 PM

And "letting it happen" would only apply if you knew somewhere else he could easily acquire his weapon. How many necromancers does Xykon know again? Besides himself, that is.

From the comic where redcloak is giving Xykon the report on the army (#300, I think) we know that Xykon wasn't the only one who was zombifying the undead legions so Xkyon could get whoever did it for him then to do it

Optimystik

2010-01-31, 11:58 PM

From the comic where redcloak is giving Xykon the report on the army (#300, I think) we know that Xykon wasn't the only one who was zombifying the undead legions so Xkyon could get whoever did it for him then to do it

Except Redcloak didn't want them torturing the paladin anymore, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0543.html) remember?

Tsukiko got a pass because she's not under his command - not so the other goblin clerics, even assuming any of them were high enough to raise wights.

lio45

2010-02-01, 12:15 AM

I assume that by "all but said" you meant "didn't say at all."

No, by "all but said" I actually meant "all but said".

Precisely hamish - the only way this could be Neutral, is if the shopkeeper both refused the sale, and kept it to himself without reporting it.

Similarly, if Tsukiko refused Xykon's request, but continued doing nothing to help O-Chul, that would also be Neutral.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. How can remaining uninvolved in the slightest be Good? You are not helping this nefarious character further his schemes, but neither are you impeding him from getting what he wants down the street, or even trying to warn his proposed victim of his intentions. Apathy is textbook Neutral.

If the person's motivation isn't profit, then they wouldn't sell the weapon, which we already said would be neutral.

So, yes,

Optimystik already all but said that letting a murder happen while fully knowing you could do something to stop it is something that would qualify as Neutral behavior (refusing to sell the weapon + letting the guy walk away scenario).

I still say that letting a murder happen because you think it's none of your business is the Neutral way, whether or not the sale of a readily available item at list price takes place.

And "letting it happen" would only apply if you knew somewhere else he could easily acquire his weapon. How many necromancers does Xykon know again? Besides himself, that is.

It's a D&D setting. Weapon shops are plentiful. (In our example.)
If that's not Neutral behavior, then there's only Good and non-Good (a.k.a. Evil) in the world.

Xykon doesn't need Tsukiko's help at all to be able to torture that paladin, and we all know it.

Optimystik

2010-02-01, 12:32 AM

No, by "all but said" I actually meant "all but said".

***
So, yes,

Optimystik already all but said that letting a murder happen while fully knowing you could do something to stop it is something that would qualify as Neutral behavior (refusing to sell the weapon + letting the guy walk away scenario).

You're making quite the logical leap here. How is "not selling the weapon" equal to "letting the murder happen?"

It's a D&D setting. Weapon shops are plentiful. (In our example.)

It's astounding how well you can quote my posts without actually reading them. My shop example was not a D&D setting at all.

Let me join in on the Optimystik quoting, by refreshing your memory:

You own a gun store. Someone comes in to buy a gun, and quite loudly states: "This one's perfect! Now I can finally shoot that ing [B]police officer I hate so much."

Now you can claim that you don't care all you want, but by selling that man the gun after he says something like that, you have become an accomplice. If that police officer later turns up with a gunshot wound - or DEAD - you are just as responsible as if you'd pulled the trigger yourself.

I suppose your "D&D setting" has plenty of gun stores and police officers, but that doesn't mean I was referring to it. So kindly leave my name out of your leaps.

Xykon doesn't need Tsukiko's help at all to be able to torture that paladin, and we all know it.

And that somehow makes her assistance Neutral?

Captainocaptain

2010-02-01, 12:41 AM

Ok, just wondering. I read over the animate dead spells and other necromancy spells. Now I dont own BoVD or anything, so I'm not sure about what that says on the matter. But anyway, I am just wondering, based solely on Core DnD rules, is animating dead actually EVIL? I know the spell has an [evil] descriptor, but nowhere does it say that the caster must be evil. I mean, protection from good also is [evil], but that doesn't mean a neutral, or even a good cleric can not cast that. (If I'm wrong about the good, well, neutral at least). So my question is: Is it alignment definition evil to animate dead? (for argument's sake lets say that the caster for some reason wants a non-construct companion, not an undead minion). Also, since speak with dead temporarily animates a corpse to answer a question, does that not mean that casting speak with dead is evil? And lastly, just out of curiosity, what happens to the corpse's soul if it is animated, does it leave the body upon death, or is the soul trapped, because that would make the higher level soul-trapping spells that prevent Raising kinda suck-ish, since you could just animate their corpse and not only trap their soul but also get an undead minion?
So, main question: Is animating a corpse an Evil act or just an evil spell?

Optimystik

2010-02-01, 12:56 AM

You're not required to be Evil to cast them. Repeated use just makes you that way.

Using core only, Good clerics still cannot cast [Evil] spells. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/Classes/cleric.htm)

Alex Warlorn

2010-02-01, 01:22 AM

Not since The Joker and Harley Quinn has there been so twisted a perversion of endearment, and yet make so fitting a duet.

Tricksy Hobbits

2010-02-01, 12:21 PM

Using core only, Good clerics still cannot cast [Evil] spells. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/Classes/cleric.htm)

But few think her good, if she were neutral she could cast [evil] and [good] spells.

Optimystik

2010-02-01, 12:58 PM

But few think her good, if she were neutral she could cast [evil] and [good] spells.

I know, I was just pointing out that the descriptors were more than just flavor text.

Tyndmyr

2010-02-01, 01:11 PM

Tsukiko, the good, misunderstood soul, that will prove to be correct in the end, and finally redeem Xykon.

Yeah, Im holding out for the long shot.

Asta Kask

2010-02-01, 01:12 PM

I know, I was just pointing out that the descriptors were more than just flavor text.

As a side note, I think Good priests should definitely be able to cast Evil spells. How else to tempt them to the Dark Side?

Optimystik

2010-02-02, 07:28 AM

As a side note, I think Good priests should definitely be able to cast Evil spells. How else to tempt them to the Dark Side?

It's a little difficult for them to do so, given that they have to ask their deities for such spells.

Requesting Animate Dead from Lathander probably won't go over very well. :smalltongue:

TriForce

2010-02-02, 07:44 AM

But few think her good, if she were neutral she could cast [evil] and [good] spells.

actually, if i remember correctly, it depends on what kind of turning hte cleric can do.. neutral clerics need to decide if they turn or rebuke undead, they cannot do both. this choice also decides if they can channel their energy to spontaniously convert to cure or inflict spells. similairly, they need to choose a alignment (or 2 if they are true neutral) in the good/evil, law/chaos that they want to oppose spellwise. so you cant cast protection from good and protection from evil.

Tricksy Hobbits

2010-02-02, 10:05 AM

^ Oops, it's been awhile since I looked at the cleric rules. But still she could be neutral and chose to go with the evil spells and unholy stuff to help her beloved corpses (even though she's probably evil).

Sethis

2010-02-02, 11:35 AM

People, people, lets calm down here.

You're both right.

She's Neutral Evil.

Besides, the Lichloved feat is a vile feat, you have to be Evil to take it.

Tricksy Hobbits

2010-02-02, 12:06 PM

Besides, the Lichloved feat is a vile feat, you have to be Evil to take it.

Well, that might be irrelevant as there's still debate on wheter OotS even uses the BoVD. And as soon as the good/evil debate gets wrapped up, someone will argue about law/chaos. :smallsigh:

Optimystik

2010-02-02, 12:09 PM

Just as Miko can be a samurai without actually taking levels in Samurai, Tsukiko can bone bones without actually reaping the benefits of Lichloved.

Not that she doesn't have it, but it's not conclusive proof that she does, either.

Kish

2010-02-02, 03:48 PM

actually, if i remember correctly, it depends on what kind of turning hte cleric can do..
A neutral cleric who channels negative energy is not prevented from preparing Cure Wounds spells. S/he just can't cast them spontaneously.

lio45

2010-02-02, 10:23 PM

You're making quite the logical leap here. How is "not selling the weapon" equal to "letting the murder happen?"

Let's be logical. If after the guy lets you in on his intentions, you keep to yourself without reporting that the guy is about to commit a murder, you're letting that murder happen. You're not lifting a finger to prevent him from doing what he told you he'd do.

...the only way this could be Neutral, is if the shopkeeper both refused the sale, and kept it to himself without reporting it.

It's astounding how well you can quote my posts without actually reading them. My shop example was not a D&D setting at all.

Let me join in on the Optimystik quoting, by refreshing your memory:

[...]

I suppose your "D&D setting" has plenty of gun stores and police officers, but that doesn't mean I was referring to it. So kindly leave my name out of your leaps.

I didn't think for a second that you could have tried to make a point on Good/Neutral/Evil using any conclusions from a hypothetical real world situation, of all things.

In our world, anyone behaving Neutrally --based on the definition you yourself used, apathy being textbook Neutral-- would be (rightly) regarded as a completely heartless bastard and would actually face criminal charges for his behavior.

So analogies drawing on the reality of our world are quite useless to establish or prove anything in the context of the comic.
Now if your analogy were in a D&D setting, then yes I say a Neutral shopkeeper has no problem selling the weapon. In real life, that guy will deserve all the jail time he'll get.

[The core difference comes, as Roy philosophically said in a comic a few months ago, from the fact that the existence of the afterlife and Resurrection spells make everything completely different re: morals, behavior, etc. in that setting vs our real world.]

And that somehow makes her assistance Neutral?

Of course not. Tsukiko is totally Evil, no doubt about it. She works with Team Evil and likes it... what more do you need??? I disagreed with you only regarding the weapon seller example. And before you say anything: yes, I know.

Optimystik

2010-02-03, 01:10 AM

Let's be logical. If after the guy lets you in on his intentions, you keep to yourself without reporting that the guy is about to commit a murder, you're letting that murder happen. You're not lifting a finger to prevent him from doing what he told you he'd do.

You are still assuming that he will absolutely succeed unless you actively take steps to stop him. This is not a given.

If you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will succeed if you don't stop him, then I agree that letting him go unchallenged is enabling him - just as you would know that he will succeed if you give him what he needs. But if that doubt exists, a neutral person has plenty of leeway to not get involved at all, so long as he does nothing to further the miscreant's aspirations (e.g. suggesting an establishment where he CAN procure the item.)

Milandros

2010-02-03, 07:48 AM

First, I'm going to say a few things. I don't think Tsukiko's necrophilia is necessarily Evil or even prevents her from being Good.

I don't think Creating Undead is Always Evil...there are mitigating factors (consent from the soul in the case of intelligent undead, and purely utilitarian uses, like using animated corpses for constructing builidings).

Whilst I don't disagree with the rest of your post, this point I think is often forgotten - animated dead are not created out of thin air. They're not like animated tables, either. These are the corpses of once-living people. For example, if I dug up your mother's corpse, attached wires to it and used it as a big puppet to dance for my amusement, had sex with it regularly and often had it wander past your house doing my work - even without the "munching on one of your childrens' heads" bit - wouldn't that be wrong? Very wrong? Especially if that disturbed her eternal rest as well?

Tyndmyr

2010-02-03, 09:38 AM

Actually, there is no neutral way to settle the shopkeeper thing, because not turning him in assists evil, in that it allows it to happen, and trying to stop it is good.

The shopkeeper sells him what he wants with apathy for anything but making money: Neutral.

The shopkeeper works to prevent the murder in some way: Good.

The shopkeeper grins and says, "For murdering someone properly, you'll want to poison that blade" and shows him the stuff stashed in the back room: Evil.

TriForce

2010-02-03, 09:52 AM

A neutral cleric who channels negative energy is not prevented from preparing Cure Wounds spells. S/he just can't cast them spontaneously.

right... isnt that exactly what i said?

also, look at it this way:

*Here, ill sell you the gun, i dont care you kill a cop with it*

*No, i wont sell you the gun, your gonna bring my shop in trouble if they find out its my gun that killed a cop*

*no, i wont let you kill a cop, especially not with a gun i sell you, get out of my shop

evil - neutral - good
i really dont see how people can consider that amount of uncaring neutral, its almost like standing next to a guy beating his wife, who asks if he can borrow your screwdriver so he can "kill the bitch" and you giving it to him

Optimystik

2010-02-03, 09:59 AM

i really dont see how people can consider that amount of uncaring neutral, its almost like standing next to a guy beating his wife, who asks if he can borrow your screwdriver so he can "kill the bitch" and you giving it to him

Daimbert would say it's fine, so long as he pays you for the screwdriver. :smallamused:

But this is a topic that we should probably steer clear of.

WreckedElf

2010-02-03, 11:31 AM

Its seems there is a lot of context missing from this shopkeeper-delimma. Does the shopkeeper know for certain that the customer is really going to try to kill, can the customer really accomplish the task, will the sold weapon really be the determining factor in weither or not the crime happens? Can the shopkeeper actually stop him? Does the shopkeep face any risk for refusing the sale? Does he even have the legal right to do so? Would reporting the situation actually help, or just put him at risk of being targeted next?

What if the customer is a powerful respected citizen (or maybe a member of a dangerous criminal organization) and the shopkeeper is a lowly looked down upon citizen of modest means and has no friends in high places. The threat may or may not be explicitly stated, but their could be risk involved in trying to stop the crime (be that risk real or percieved). And the shopkeepers ability to stop the crime may not be assured.

In this case even a good person may sell the weapon believing there is nothing he can do without bringing death on himself and his family. Good doesn't automatically mean brave, wise, nor eager martyr. Though no doubt the more Good someone is, the more they would want to prevent the problem if they thought they could, but doesn't mean they'd have the guts to blindly risk everything in trying.

A neutral person in the same situation would be more inclined to just refuse to take responsibility for other peoples actions. Sure he might be inclined to stop the situation if it was well within his means, but the more complicating factors involved means the more he'll dismiss his obligation to "fight for good" since in his mind that's not his job as a shopkeeper, as far as he's concerned the situation is out of his hands. Neutral, as I tend to understand it, implies an increased willingness to make compromises to avoid the sacrifices required in fighting for good (taken too far of course could lead to evil). Or the shopkeeper may have just taken a "non-interference" policy towards local affairs, expecially if he thinks that's the only way to survive. I imagine cynicism is a common reason for neutrality: "if it's a crap-world that can't be changed, why stick your neck out for it?" Add in the possibility of a character following the "balance worship" version of neutral (a D&D cannon version) and the above compromises seem all that much easier to call neutral.

An evil person in that situation would probably be either happy to help (hoping to gain favor), or simply be unphased by the situation at all.

They way I see it. Good recognizes Good and Evil, and feels Good should spread, and Evil should diminish. Neutral blurs the line between Good and Evil and reduces the obligation to push the scales one way. Evil embraces the Dark side either directly because they like it and they don't care about Good, or because they've muddled the idea of Good and Evil so much that they're ability to tell them apart has warped to such degree that they do all sorts of evil while still justifying themselves as if good. Something like animating wights and treating them like children, joinging Team Evil, betraying your homeland, killing and gladly aiding in torture, falling in love with a sociopathic lich named Xykon, and all the while claiming that there's nothing wrong with all that at all.

So on that note. Are there any predictions on how the Tsukiko\Xykon situation will play out? I wouldn't be too surprised if Tsukiko becomes an undead before the end. Maybe even tried to becom a lich to get closer to Xykon? Or he eventually kills and reanimates her?

lio45

2010-02-03, 11:59 AM

*No, i wont sell you the gun, your gonna bring my shop in trouble if they find out its my gun that killed a cop*

Uh, no.

In what kind of twisted world would the manufacturer or seller of a weapon be responsible for any bad thing done using it after purchase? That's completely ridiculous.

The shop won't be in trouble. The gun is on a shelf, there's a price tag on it, you buy it and walk out, shop responsibility stops right there.

i really dont see how people can consider that amount of uncaring neutral, its almost like standing next to a guy beating his wife, who asks if he can borrow your screwdriver so he can "kill the bitch" and you giving it to him

The proper analogy would be someone operating a screwdriver shop and not caring about what people do with the screwdrivers after the sale takes place.

Lending a screwdriver to a guy beating his wife when you have the only screwdriver around DOES actively help him do bad stuff.

lio45

2010-02-03, 12:03 PM

You are still assuming that he will absolutely succeed unless you actively take steps to stop him. This is not a given.

If you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will succeed if you don't stop him, then I agree that letting him go unchallenged is enabling him - just as you would know that he will succeed if you give him what he needs. But if that doubt exists, a neutral person has plenty of leeway to not get involved at all, so long as he does nothing to further the miscreant's aspirations (e.g. suggesting an establishment where he CAN procure the item.)

Not exactly. Selling him a weapon doesn't mean he'll succeed. He could get caught, the victim could prove harder to kill than expected, or better armed, etc.

The only difference between the two scenarios is that he buys the weapon at your place instead of buying the exact same weapon at your competitor's store on the other side of the street.

Everything else is the same, so the murderer's chances of success are identical.

(Note that I've always been under the assumption that it's a setting in which a weapon is something that anyone can easily buy. If you state the contrary, it does change things a bit.)

hamishspence

2010-02-03, 12:34 PM

The difference being the the shopkeeper has (thanks to the unguarded comment) become aware of the intent to murder before the sale takes place.

Optimystik

2010-02-03, 01:02 PM

(Note that I've always been under the assumption that it's a setting in which a weapon is something that anyone can easily buy. If you state the contrary, it does change things a bit.)

In such a setting, then I agree - a neutral shopkeeper would be required to do more than simply deny the sale.

But that was never my assumption, because it is not a useful parallel to Team Evil. There are no "gun stores on every corner" here - rather, there are only three beings in Team Evil powerful enough to create a challenging undead for O-Chul: Redcloak, Tsukiko, and Xykon himself.

TriForce

2010-02-03, 04:44 PM

Uh, no.

In what kind of twisted world would the manufacturer or seller of a weapon be responsible for any bad thing done using it after purchase? That's completely ridiculous.

The shop won't be in trouble. The gun is on a shelf, there's a price tag on it, you buy it and walk out, shop responsibility stops right there.

since i was talking about a persons attitude and not legal issues, your point is not relevant whatsoever

The proper analogy would be someone operating a screwdriver shop and not caring about what people do with the screwdrivers after the sale takes place.

Lending a screwdriver to a guy beating his wife when you have the only screwdriver around DOES actively help him do bad stuff.

exept that if you operate a screwdriver shop, you expect people to use them on screws (and before you make a remark about guns, guns are not ment to be used on cops) and again, i was talking about a persons ATITUDE of not caring. specifics aside, NOT CARING ABOUT WHAT HORRORS YOU MIGHT HAVE A HAND IN IS EVIL. wich is my origional point in the first place. its neutral not to sell him the gun becouse:
1: regardless of what you say, if cops know a guy bought the gun that shot their colleage at a certain shop, that shop will get more attention then the shopkeeper likes
2: when someone kills a cop, the shop suffers becouse the crime will rise
3: knowing, and i mean KNOWING for sure that you sold the guy a weapon that killed a good guy, only a evil person would not care or feel guilty about that

Tricksy Hobbits

2010-02-03, 05:02 PM

In such a setting, then I agree - a neutral shopkeeper would be required to do more than simply deny the sale.

But that was never my assumption, because it is not a useful parallel to Team Evil. There are no "gun stores on every corner" here - rather, there are only three beings in Team Evil powerful enough to create a challenging undead for O-Chul: Redcloak, Tsukiko, and Xykon himself.

Well, we don't even know Tsukiko knew the spandex zombies would be used on the paladin, from the comic it looks like they're intended for fighting each other and if creating undead to fight each other for amusement is wrong, then all the heroes who don't think anything about slaughtering hordes of zombies are also evil.

Edit: Oh, never mind below post proved this wrong (have't read through the archives in a bit).

hamishspence

2010-02-03, 05:04 PM

Well, we don't even know Tsukiko knew the spandex zombies would be used on the paladin

Xykon asks Tsukiko to create undead gladiators for fighting O-chul:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0543.html

lio45

2010-02-03, 10:47 PM

since i was talking about a persons attitude and not legal issues, your point is not relevant whatsoever

Sorry, but I'm quite sure you *were* talking about legal issues. That was your argument for refusing to sell the gun:

"your gonna bring my shop in trouble if they find out its my gun that killed a cop"

exept that if you operate a screwdriver shop, you expect people to use them on screws (and before you make a remark about guns, guns are not ment to be used on cops) and again, i was talking about a persons ATITUDE of not caring. specifics aside, NOT CARING ABOUT WHAT HORRORS YOU MIGHT HAVE A HAND IN IS EVIL. wich is my origional point in the first place.

"Not caring" is supposed to be Neutral. That's precisely the point.

If you cared to make sure you do only things that help Good and never things that help Evil, you'd be Good, not Neutral.

So, roughly,

Caring about not having a hand in any horrors, and trying to prevent them = Good

Not caring about what horrors you have a hand in = Neutral

Actively doing horrors yourself = Evil

its neutral not to sell him the gun becouse:
1: regardless of what you say, if cops know a guy bought the gun that shot their colleage at a certain shop, that shop will get more attention then the shopkeeper likes
2: when someone kills a cop, the shop suffers becouse the crime will rise
3: knowing, and i mean KNOWING for sure that you sold the guy a weapon that killed a good guy, only a evil person would not care or feel guilty about that

#1: not really. Statistically, cop killers should get their guns pretty equally from all available shops. Your shop shouldn't be singled out in the cops' statistics unless there's a problem.

#2: anything bad that might happen is likely to happen even if you didn't sell the guy a gun, as you're letting the guy walk out, and other places sell guns

#3: as discussed with Opti already, you don't know for sure the murder will work. The guy wants a gun, guns are available, the guy is adult, and you happen to sell guns for a living. It's not like you're doing anything actively yourself in that murder. The guy is getting an off-the-shelf item.

lio45

2010-02-03, 10:51 PM

In such a setting, then I agree - a neutral shopkeeper would be required to do more than simply deny the sale.

But would he not then act Good? What would be the difference between a Neutral shopkeeper and a Good shopkeeper if the Neutral one does more than simply deny the sale?

But that was never my assumption, because it is not a useful parallel to Team Evil. There are no "gun stores on every corner" here - rather, there are only three beings in Team Evil powerful enough to create a challenging undead for O-Chul: Redcloak, Tsukiko, and Xykon himself.

This is right. The shopkeeper has never been an useful parallel to Team Evil. I joined the discussion only for the shopkeeper part, because I disagreed, but the rest, I agree with most of you about Tsukiko and have nothing to add except maybe that my personal opinion is that creating those gladiators isn't such a big offense (the logic being that Xykon would have tortured the paladin horribly ANYWAY) compared to other things she did.

TriForce

2010-02-04, 09:30 AM

Sorry, but I'm quite sure you *were* talking about legal issues. That was your argument for refusing to sell the gun:

"Not caring" is supposed to be Neutral. That's precisely the point.

If you cared to make sure you do only things that help Good and never things that help Evil, you'd be Good, not Neutral.

So, roughly,

Caring about not having a hand in any horrors, and trying to prevent them = Good

Not caring about what horrors you have a hand in = Neutral

Actively doing horrors yourself = Evil

#1: not really. Statistically, cop killers should get their guns pretty equally from all available shops. Your shop shouldn't be singled out in the cops' statistics unless there's a problem.

#2: anything bad that might happen is likely to happen even if you didn't sell the guy a gun, as you're letting the guy walk out, and other places sell guns

#3: as discussed with Opti already, you don't know for sure the murder will work. The guy wants a gun, guns are available, the guy is adult, and you happen to sell guns for a living. It's not like you're doing anything actively yourself in that murder. The guy is getting an off-the-shelf item.

ill repost something that i made in my earlyer post, a comparison of 2 alignments according to PHB.

Neutral "undecided"

A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesnt feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs evil or law vs chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather then a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better then evil - after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers then evil ones. Still, she's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Mialee, a wizard who devotes herself to her art and is bored by the semantics of moral debate, is neutral.
Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. they see good, evil, law and order as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run

as you can see, neutral people dont really want to go out and activly fight evil, but they dont like it as much as good either. they still have a inner consience (and listen to it) but they are not dedicated enough to activly fight evil everywhere it pops up. as per the example of the shopkeeper, he KNOWS the guy will use the gun to kill a cop. and in that case, i very much doubt he would want to be part of something like that, even indirectly.

now for evil

[Lawful Evil "Dominator"

A lawful evil villain methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard to whom it hurts. He cares about tradition, loyalty and order, but not about freedom, dignety, or life. he playes by the rules but without mercy or compassion. he is comfortable in a hierarchy and would like to rule, but is willing to serve. he condemns others not according to their actions, but according to race, religion, homeland or social rank. He is loath to break laws or promises. This reluctance comes partly from his nature and partly becose he depends on order to protect himself from those that would oppose him on moral grounds (there is more but that only applys to a select few of the lawful evil bunch)
now, this example just about screams "I DO NOT CARE" as long as his hands are clean law-wise, this guy will do anything and everything he can get away with.

now can you honestly say that the neutral alignment sounds more like not caring? it literally stands there in the lawful evil one

Optimystik

2010-02-04, 09:40 AM

But would he not then act Good? What would be the difference between a Neutral shopkeeper and a Good shopkeeper if the Neutral one does more than simply deny the sale?

A Neutral shopkeeper in that scenario would warn only other shopkeepers that he was friends with/close to, and not be especially concerned about going to the authorities or putting up general notices.

Whereas a Good one would go to greater lengths to try and see the would-be killer incarcerated.

Scarlet Knight

2010-02-04, 10:47 AM

Someone had written in another thread :

Good - selfless :smallsmile:

Neutral - self centered :smallsigh:

Evil - selfish :smallamused:

I think it's a good rule of thumb. The shopkeeper may sell the weapon because it's profitable, or because he fears the buyer, or he may not if he fears aiding and abetting a crime may hurt him in the long run. The action becomes secondary to the reason for action.

Asta Kask

2010-02-04, 11:12 AM

Isn't notifying the authorities a Lawful thing to do? A CG shopkeeper would deal out some vigilante justice.

Nimrod's Son

2010-02-04, 11:21 AM

Sooner or later I will remember that this thread is about the ethics of shopkeeping and not about Tsukiko and Xykon, and I will stop clicking on it. Hopefully.

hamishspence

2010-02-04, 11:34 AM

Yes- it is a bit prone to going off topic.

The base topic was, I think, about helping others to commit evil acts- what is the point at which a person can be deemed to be "knowingly aiding evil"?

And do Tsukiko's actions generally qualify?

Optimystik

2010-02-04, 01:40 PM

Well, if you want to get technical, the original topic was "Tsukiko is a wizard and Xykon hates all wizards, how are they getting along?" It was a throwaway comment that Tsukiko wasn't all that bad a person that led to all these pages of alignment discussion.

hamishspence

2010-02-04, 02:02 PM

Good point- still, the question of why Xykon hasn't killed her for being a wizard was answered pretty early (Xykon only gets angry at wizards that look down on him).

Ozymandias9

2010-02-04, 03:17 PM

...followed by a passive-voice claim of authority. Who does this "placing" of neutrality as self-interested? If it just "is done," then that's the concern of whoever does it, and if s/he wants to engage with me, s/he can come here and do so. If you wish to assert that neutrality=self-interest, do so.

It wasn't meant to claim authority, it was meant to claim distance (a wholly appropriate use of the passive voice). I wasn't representing my own view (I tend to use a more rigid Deontological formulation of the alignment system when its worth using at all), merely one I have found to be commonplace in such discussions. If you want examples, its been suggested (in whole or in part) twice in this thread.

What I was saying is that, in my experience, that is usually what someone suggests when positing selfishness as evil (which is what had been done earlier in the thread). As such, I used it to flesh out the impartial argument made prior. It's not an argument that I endorse, but there was a line of reasoning that had been started then abandoned. So I played devil's advocate, since the people rationally discussing the topic seemed content to merely reject the premise.

My underlying point was that even if you accept that premise, the argument falls apart: in order to have Tsukiko's actions excused thus, OotS would have to be operating under a consequential or teleological ethical system-- which runs contrary to every published D&D source's treatment of the alignment system. Without this, the act of raising undead to help with torture is evil because she's raising undead.
If we do choose to accept the consequential system anyways, she is still defiling a corpse to gain favor with her boss (personal gain). Thus she's still committing an evil act under such a system.
Thus, even if you do accept the system under which Tsukiko's actions are argued not to be evil, the act still comes out evil under that system. The argument is fails at self-consistency.