Sauron and Cruella's child

[LordChaos13]

So I was archive binging and saw something strange:

Why does the green line MOVE in the graph here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0489.html) in 489
Shouldnt it be a constant? Why does it dip and move as time passes...unless :smalleek: Cruella and Sauron in a bed :yuk:

[Kish]

...Because the hypothetical child of Sauron and Cruella does different things at different times?

If it wasn't an obvious joke without much more to it than to establish that unrestrained Belkar would be record-settingly bad, the logical question would be "Why doesn't this hypothetical character's moral behavior vary more," not "Why does it vary at all."

[Grinner]

More surprisingly, the progeny of a giant eye set for conquest of a significant portion of the known lands of Middle-Earth and the mother of all puppy-kickers is only worth four and a half kilonazis.

[LordChaos13]

I dont know, managing to be more evil than 4.5 Thousand nazis all the time is hard work

[Snails]

"Junior ruined the last batch. I am going out to get more puppies. You better keep an eye on him, or you are going be Sorry On forever."

[Copperdragon]

So I was archive binging and saw something strange:

Why does the green line MOVE in the graph here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0489.html) in 489
Shouldnt it be a constant? Why does it dip and move as time passes...unless :smalleek: Cruella and Sauron in a bed :yuk:

Yes, If you create a baseline from an average, it should be constant. Rich studied art, not science.

This has bugged me everytime I saw it but it's a very slight "bugging", so I'd ignore it. Just imagine the measuring-device has some internal error that causes random deviations around any value. That'd produce that shaggy line, even from a constant value.

[jere7my]

Yes, If you create a baseline from an average, it should be constant. Rich studied art, not science.

No no, it's a simulation over time of how evil the hypothetical child would be at any given moment. Naturally it fluctuates. It's not an average of Sauron and Cruella; it's a timeline of what their kid would be like if they had one. This makes it no different from the Belkar projection on the same graph.

[MartianInvader]

The fluctuations probably account for global evil effects that influence everybody. Evil seasonality, fluctuations in the evil marketplace, that sort of thing. Let's face it, if suddenly anyone can buy a truckload of kittens to murder, the evil baseline has got to go up.

[Kish]

No no, it's a simulation over time of how evil the hypothetical child would be at any given moment. Naturally it fluctuates. It's not an average of Sauron and Cruella; it's a timeline of what their kid would be like if they had one. This makes it no different from the Belkar projection on the same graph.
Indeed, who said anything about an average?

[Lord Raziere]

yea its a baseline comparison in that the offspring would probably be going around trying to make a new One Ring out of dead puppies, literally, which at this level of evil is probably a good comparison to the level of evil Belkar does.

[Porthos]

No no, it's a simulation over time of how evil the hypothetical child would be at any given moment. Naturally it fluctuates. It's not an average of Sauron and Cruella; it's a timeline of what their kid would be like if they had one. This makes it no different from the Belkar projection on the same graph.

Exactly this. If it were a straight line, it'd be unscientific since it wouldn't be accounting for the natural ups and downs of mortal life.

[King of Nowhere]

I work with research, and i see baselines like that all the time. you have your signal, and then you have noise, because no measure is 100% accurate. that specific measure has an interval of confidence of roughly 500 kilonazis, which means that either the value is very difficult to measure accurately, or they have crappy instruments.

[Benthesquid]

I work with research, and i see baselines like that all the time. you have your signal, and then you have noise, because no measure is 100% accurate. that specific measure has an interval of confidence of roughly 500 kilonazis, which means that either the value is very difficult to measure accurately, or they have crappy instruments.

I'm not a sciency type schmott guy, but given that the chart only goes up to nine kilonazis, I'm curious as to how you got 500 kilonazis as a measurement for anything.

[Jormengand]

I'm not a sciency type schmott guy, but given that the chart only goes up to nine kilonazis, I'm curious as to how you got 500 kilonazis as a measurement for anything.

I think he just meant 500 Nazis, not 500 Kilonazis.

[Crusher]

Or 0.5 kilonazis.

[Chronos]

{{scrubbed}}

[LordChaos13]

{{scrubbed}}

[137beth]

I think a nazi is an average of all nazis including Hitler and the SS and such.
I wonder if they count the actually good people? The ones who defected or tried too, or were too caught up in the propaganda to realize they were gassing people

I think the standard for kilonazis is a set of 1000 hypothetical offsprings between Hitler and low-ranking nazis:smalltongue:

[Sir_Leorik]

More surprisingly, the progeny of a giant eye set for conquest of a significant portion of the known lands of Middle-Earth and the mother of all puppy-kickers is only worth four and a half kilonazis.

Sauron wasn't a "Giant Eye" yet during his fling with Ms. DeVille; he had not yet been burned by the radiance of the Silmaril he stole, nor had he poured so much of his might into the forging of The One Ring. No, this was a younger, more virile Sauron, fresh from betraying Morgoth. But Cruella, while only in her mid-20's, had a soul as shriveled and wretched as she did in later years during her puppy-snatching days. Shelob and Czernobog, who were dating, set Sauron and Cruella up on a blind date, and they went out twice, before Sauron and Shelob had their falling out. As is typical when your group of friends break up, Czernobog supported Sauron, and Cruella stuck with Shelob. Thus, their offspring is only "hypothetical", since such a terrible monster was never conceived. :smallbiggrin:

[rbetieh]

Also note that the units are kilonazis, not kilohitlers. So Belkar or the hypothetical kid are as evil as a few thousand average Nazis, most of whom, while bad, weren't nearly as bad as the top ones.

These are literary Nazis, not real Nazis. So the only Nazis that count would be the bad guys in the movies....think of them more like Rocketeer Nazis if that helps. They are all bad, they all want to kill you and end democracy, just cuz.

[Copperdragon]

Also note that the units are kilonazis, not kilohitlers. So Belkar or the hypothetical kid are as evil as a few thousand average Nazis, most of whom, while bad, weren't nearly as bad as the top ones.

We're in forbidden territory here. But let me just say this: I'm fairly certain that some of the "troop" types were just as bad as the top tiers.

I'm also fairly certain we're speaking pop-culture nazis who are showing up as villains in ficticious work here, which simply are all evil mooks and the perfect setup as enemies for any franchise and setting. This is not a discussion about real nazis and how to assign blame and guilt to people who "just were part of it".

I think we all agree that "pop culture enemy nazis" are all pretty evil.

[King of Nowhere]

Also note that the units are kilonazis, not kilohitlers. So Belkar or the hypothetical kid are as evil as a few thousand average Nazis, most of whom, while bad, weren't nearly as bad as the top ones.

I think the nazi unit of measure (Nz) is defined as the evilness of the standard nazi sample conserved in the royal archives: they made this nazi with platinum to make sure it would be stable over time, and then use it to calibrate the instruments.
Scientists are trying to improve the accuracy by defining the Nz as a function of the wavelengt of the kripton discharge at the triple point of notrigen or the speed of light, but celestia don't have the technology necessary for that yet.

[oppyu]

I'm trying to think of a topic more alarming to the forum staff than 'just how Evil was the Nazi movement', but nothing's coming up. It's the Giant's fault really; he should have known that every single word he writes in the comic will eventually be debated at varying length.

[allenw]

Sauron wasn't a "Giant Eye" yet during his fling with Ms. DeVille; he had not yet been burned by the radiance of the Silmaril he stole, nor had he poured so much of his might into the forging of The One Ring.

Geek powers, activate!

Sauron didn't steal any Silmarils; that was Morgoth's gig. Sauron lost his pretty-boy looks in the Fall of Numenor.

[LordChaos13]

Didnt he have a corporeal non-eye form in the books he just spent his time in strategy sessions in Mordor?

[Keltest]

Didnt he have a corporeal non-eye form in the books he just spent his time in strategy sessions in Mordor?

Gollum claims he did, although how much truth in that is up for serious debate. After all, what would he know about that stuff?

[Marlowe]

I'm trying to think of a topic more alarming to the forum staff than 'just how Evil was the Nazi movement', but nothing's coming up. It's the Giant's fault really; he should have known that every single word he writes in the comic will eventually be debated at varying length.

Alarmingly, at the time the original comic was posted we did have some people attempting to postulate the strength of a "kilonazi" by dividing "Damage done by the Third Reich by the manpower of the Wehrmacht".

If you've spotted that "The Wehrmacht" as an organization excluded the SS, the Gestapo, and the Nazi leadership itself, that was only the most trivial thing wrong.

[Copperdragon]

Didnt he have a corporeal non-eye form in the books he just spent his time in strategy sessions in Mordor?

Simple answer: No, he lost his body to the fall of Númenor.

Complex answer: It is very hard to gain insight into the question what form Sauron has in the Third Age or if he has/can form a body at all. The sources are unclear and at times differ from each other (partly he looks like an Evil Overlord, probably like you see in the LotR-movie, the again it is stated he does not have a body at all) and I think, after reading a whole lot on this, it is safe to assume he does not have a physical body anymore and everything else is just some sort of manifestation of his power. But it's no actual body and he also does not appear as "creature" acting in any bodily form like he did in ages past. I like how the Hobbit Movie approaches it, it seems to reach a compromise between "no body" and "something that appears as body but is clearly none".

I also find it safe to assume the Valar had a very direct hand in making sure that the body/Sauron's ability to have a body got destroyed when they were sinking the land. As in "this is the price this is going to cost you, personally".

[Jay R]

The graph has peaks and valleys because life contains milestones, and the opportunities to commit evil acts can temporarily increase (or decrease).

Ask Belkar. There's a difference between what you can do at the high-school prom and what you can do at the after-party.

[LordChaos13]

...What kind of prom afterparty can cause a rise of 500 Nazis worth of evil? :smalleek:

I want to go to it :smallbiggrin:

[Keltest]

...What kind of prom afterparty can cause a rise of 500 Nazis worth of evil? :smalleek:

I want to go to it :smallbiggrin:

The one where you get to stab everyone compared to the prom where you cant stab anyone.

[LordChaos13]

...You need to go to better proms :smallamused:

[Rogar Demonblud]

Mine could've been used to film a video for Ballroom Blitz. Not sure I want to see anything more extreme than that.

[Jay R]

...What kind of prom afterparty can cause a rise of 500 Nazis worth of evil? :smalleek:

I want to go to it :smallbiggrin:

Wouldn't be as much fun as you think.

It's not the kind of afterparty where you could cause a rise of 500 Nazis worth of evil. It's one where the hypothetical offspring of Cruella de Ville and Sauron could do so.

[And as I said, ask Belkar. I recommend starting here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0340.html).]

[Clistenes]

Didnt he have a corporeal non-eye form in the books he just spent his time in strategy sessions in Mordor?

According to the Silmarillion and other works of Tolkien (Unfinished Tales) and to some letters he wrote, Sauron lost the ability to shapeshift after the Fall of Numenor (his body was destroyed there, and he had to reform in the Middle Earth), getting stuck in a single shape, the one he had when he fought Elendil, Isildur and Gil-galad.

Sauron (most probably) reformed his body again some time after being cut by Isildur, and had a physical form. He was seen in Dol Guldur and people thought that he was a Nazgul due to his aura of evil and to the fact that he concealed his visage at all times.

The Eye thing was a reference to Sauron's mind and will and power, not a flaming thing floating above his tower, like in the books.

[rbetieh]

...What kind of prom afterparty can cause a rise of 500 Nazis worth of evil? :smalleek:

I want to go to it :smallbiggrin:

This sounds like an episode of Dan Vs.

[Keltest]

According to the Silmarillion and other works of Tolkien (Unfinished Tales) and to some letters he wrote, Sauron lost the ability to shapeshift after the Fall of Numenor (his body was destroyed there, and he had to reform in the Middle Earth), getting stuck in a single shape, the one he had when he fought Elendil, Isildur and Gil-galad.

Sauron (most probably) reformed his body again some time after being cut by Isildur, and had a physical form. He was seen in Dol Guldur and people thought that he was a Nazgul due to his aura of evil and to the fact that he concealed his visage at all times.

The Eye thing was a reference to Sauron's mind and will and power, not a flaming thing floating above his tower, like in the books.

First, I assume you mean the movies.

Secondly, the Eye was a literal plot device in the books as well, however it is more explicitly stated to be a lost Palantir (specifically the one from Minas Morgul), rather than a power inherent to Sauron, or a literal mostly-all-seeing eye. It was also (like the movies) the symbol for the Mordor Orcs, as opposed to the ones under Saruman's command, who used the White Hand.

Anyway, presumably he had or would soon be capable of having enough of a physical body to use the Ring again, otherwise it would not have abandoned Gollum.

[DeliaP]

Secondly, the Eye was a literal plot device in the books as well, however it is more explicitly stated to be a lost Palantir (specifically the one from Minas Morgul), rather than a power inherent to Sauron, or a literal mostly-all-seeing eye. It was also (like the movies) the symbol for the Mordor Orcs, as opposed to the ones under Saruman's command, who used the White Hand.

Where is it explicitly stated that the Eye of Sauron is just Sauron looking through the Minas Ithil palantir? I'm thinking, for example, of when Frodo puts the ring on at Amon Hen, when he looks at Barad dur he immediately feels (and draws the attention of) the Eye. The description of that passage doesn't read like a palantir to me.

[CN the Logos]

According to Gollum, "[Sauron] only has four fingers on the Black Hand, but they are enough," implying that during his imprisonment in Barad-dûr Gollum: 1. saw Sauron in person, and 2. was personally tortured by him in a physical form that could do so. There are other lines throughout the books about him having "taken shape again, " but that was the one that jumped out at me the most. Theoretically Gollum could be lying, but there's no reason for him to lie about that detail, and with all the other references to him being embodied at that point, I think it's safe to assume he was physical again at that point.

The real (somewhat relevant to the topic) question I have is; at the time the Giant wrote that strip, had he read Tolkien's notes concerning Sauron's motivations? And if not, how would the knowledge that Sauron was basically trying to make the world less chaotic to assuage his severe OCD affect his hypothetic child's evil in kilonazis? :smallconfused:

[Kish]

And if not, how would the knowledge that Sauron was basically trying to make the world less chaotic to assuage his severe OCD affect his hypothetic child's evil in kilonazis? :smallconfused:
Probably about as much as Tarquin's Lawfulness mitigates his evil.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm trying to think of a topic more alarming to the forum staff than 'just how Evil was the Nazi movement', but nothing's coming up. It's the Giant's fault really; he should have known that every single word he writes in the comic will eventually be debated at varying length.

Great Modthulhu: So am I.

Tread lightly, people.

[CN the Logos]

Probably about as much as Tarquin's Lawfulness mitigates his evil.

Tarquin eats sapient beings after having them vivisected to get their meat while they're still alive. Sauron, by contrast, actually doesn't do much in terms of over the top Evil as defined by D&D. He regularly tortures enemy agents and people who might know where his Soul Jar is. The Nazgul probably don't appreciate his taste in jewelry. He tricks the Númenorean nobility into setting up a religion involving human sacrifice as a pretense to eliminate his political enemies in that nation. He demands his mortal subjects worship him as a god, which, considering that he's an angel that witnessed the creation of the universe first hand, is almost kind of sort of reasonable. And he wages war against Gondor and friends without much if any provocation, however, given what we know of his motivations he probably considers this humanitarian work on his part.

He's evil, yeah, especially by the Third Age when having been beaten, killed, and coming back wrong multiple times has done a number on his sanity. But he never actually engages in the sort of crazy "evil dark overlord of doom and darkness" behavior usually associated with the Evil Overlord trope.

[Porthos]

The Nazgul probably don't appreciate his taste in jewelry.

That's... an incredible understatement, wouldn't you say?

[CN the Logos]

That's... an incredible understatement, wouldn't you say?

Well, yes. That was sort of the joke. :smalltongue:

[Jaxzan Proditor]

He tricks the Númenorean nobility into setting up a religion involving human sacrifice as a pretense to eliminate his political enemies in that nation.

Keep in mind that as part of this he convinces the the King of Númenor to declare war against the Valar, who react by destroying his armada and Númenor, therefore killing every Númenorian accept the few people that could be squeezed onto seven boats. This could be anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of people, since we are never given a population count.

[Kish]

I am not going to get into the relative evil of Tarquin's acts vs. Sauron's.

I am just saying: We have a clear and unambiguous illustration of exactly how much being obsessed with order makes someone less evil than if they committed the same acts for a reason other than obsession with order.

[CN the Logos]

Keep in mind that as part of this he convinces the the King of Númenor to declare war against the Valar, who react by destroying his armada and Númenor, therefore killing every Númenorian accept the few people that could be squeezed onto seven boats. This could be anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of people, since we are never given a population count.

This is true, although IIRC he didn't think the Valar would sink the whole continent. Otherwise he'd have gotten out of the way himself.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

This is true, although IIRC he didn't think the Valar would sink the whole continent. Otherwise he'd have gotten out of the way himself.

Yes. It depends on whether evil is measured by intentions or by results. Of course, even just destroying the armada amounted in many deaths, so if we measure by intentions he was only less evil by a small factor.

[Keltest]

Yes. It depends on whether evil is measured by intentions or by results. Of course, even just destroying the armada amounted in many deaths, so if we measure by intentions he was only less evil by a small factor.

Most people I know use both, with emphasis on Intent. IE a reactor going critical because of an unknown error wouldn't be an evil deed, simply a tragedy, because it was not the intent of anyone to blow it up. But if someone sabotaged it, then it is an evil deed, because it was deliberate, and the consequences were obvious.

[SiuiS]

More surprisingly, the progeny of a giant eye set for conquest of a significant portion of the known lands of Middle-Earth and the mother of all puppy-kickers is only worth four and a half kilonazis.

Until puberty when we see that big spike.

[LordChaos13]

You never had a younger sibling did you?

[Rodin]

The real (somewhat relevant to the topic) question I have is; at the time the Giant wrote that strip, had he read Tolkien's notes concerning Sauron's motivations? And if not, how would the knowledge that Sauron was basically trying to make the world less chaotic to assuage his severe OCD affect his hypothetic child's evil in kilonazis? :smallconfused:

The meta-answer here is that it wouldn't matter. All most people know of Sauron is that he was super evil and trying to take over the world. Even people who have read Lord of the Rings probably don't know more than that unless they read the Appendices/The Silmarillion. I have both read the books as a kid (so about 20 years ago) and seen the movies and did not know much about Sauron's motivations.

Since the majority of people associate Sauron with pure Evil, the joke used Sauron as an example. If Rich knew all about Sauron and personally classed him as True Neutral, he would still use him because he's what makes the joke work.

[LordChaos13]

Wasnt he Lawful neutral. Yknow with the whole "MAI OCD! Less chaos in teh cosmos!" thing

[dps]

I think a nazi is an average of all nazis including Hitler and the SS and such.
I wonder if they count the actually good people? The ones who defected or tried too, or were too caught up in the propaganda to realize they were gassing people

Don't mix up Germans as a whole with Nazis.

[LordChaos13]

{{scrubbed}}

[RNGgod]

Can we please drop the "which Nazis were good and which were evil" argument? Like, immediately?

[HeeJay]

I think the standard for kilonazis is a set of 1000 hypothetical offsprings between Hitler and low-ranking nazis:smalltongue:

The fan fiction practically writes itself. :eek:

Now excuse me, I need to go soak my brain in acid...

[King of Nowhere]

Furthermore, I think the Nz as unit of measure has nothing to do with actual nazis. Think about real world measures: we use the Newton to measure strenght, but one Newton is not the strenght of sir Isac Newton (would have been pretty bad for him if it was), it is just a name. The Watt has nothing to do with the actual power that James Watt could generate.
In the same way, there's a good chance the Nazi unit of evilness has nothing to do with actual nazis and just took the name from a movement that became practically synonimous of large scale evilness. Probably it has some standard scientific definition striving for maximum accuracy and reproducibility like "the amount of evil that radiates from one square meter of the lower planes in one second at standard temperature and pressure"

[Asta Kask]

According to Gollum, "[Sauron] only has four fingers on the Black Hand, but they are enough," implying that during his imprisonment in Barad-dûr Gollum: 1. saw Sauron in person, and 2. was personally tortured by him in a physical form that could do so. There are other lines throughout the books about him having "taken shape again, " but that was the one that jumped out at me the most. Theoretically Gollum could be lying, but there's no reason for him to lie about that detail, and with all the other references to him being embodied at that point, I think it's safe to assume he was physical again at that point.

Or Gollum is retelling Barad-Dûr kitchen gossip.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: Closed for review.


Reopened. Please remember: Avoid talking Nazis, especially once you stray from "People Indiana Jones fights" and into moral discussions