Apparently everyone liked it (407)

[sunbeam]

I just looked at the enworld website. Apparently everyone, everywhere, likes this strip.

I didn't like it one bit.

I guess Shojo gets a medal from the 12 gods when he hits the afterlife. Why are they keeping the Sapphire Guard around? If their morality is obsolete, depower them. They'll get the message.

Someone noticed on the enworld site 4 of the 12 gods are facing counterclockwise, maybe the vote wasn't unanimous? Also I'm wondering if Miko might be Shojo's daughter.

[Lord Zentei]

I just looked at the enworld website. Apparently everyone, everywhere, likes this strip.

I didn't like it one bit.

I guess Shojo gets a medal from the 12 gods when he hits the afterlife. Why are they keeping the Sapphire Guard around? If their morality is obsolete, depower them. They'll get the message.

Someone noticed on the enworld site 4 of the 12 gods are facing counterclockwise, maybe the vote wasn't unanimous? Also I'm wondering if Miko might be Shojo's daughter.

Miko is not Shojo's daughter. She stated way back that she was orphaned at a young age. That may in fact be the as-yet unexplored backstory explaining why she seeks to smite evil so uncompromisingly.

And no, I don't agree that the Saphire Guard's moral code is obsolete just because they are oath-bound not to interfere in the other gates and because Miko has (had?) a stick up her butt.

[Renegade Paladin]

Hey Zentei, thought you'd given up on us. Welcome back.

Anyway, simply causing the entire order to fall for no immediately apparent reason is no way to get them to "figure it out;" without an explanation, they'll have no idea what happened.

[Erk]

They didn't punish Miko for having morals and honour, they punished her for passing fatal judgement with no attempt to discover truth, for not trusting the powers they had given her, and for killing someone who was standing between the forces of evil and an incredibly powerful god-killing Snarl. If you can't Fall for chopping an unarmed, non-combatant, good-aligned old man in half, deliberately, while another paladin tries to stop you because (1) he needs a trial, and (2) there is a dark army at the gates and now is not the time, what the hell can you fall for, ever? I am amazed people are still debating this.

If that is not enough, they are gods and Miko was their servant. There is a decent chance they can actually detect her thoughts/intentions, in which case they may even know if her motivations were pure. Perhaps they weren't.

[Igan]

I'd say the paladin's morals aren't quite suited to the task of guarding the gate, but they're still furthering the work of the 12 gods.

Miko, however, broke her paladin code, big-time, and that's why she fell. Everyone's elated either the manner in which the gods' disapproval was delivered, or the story possibilities that opened up, or that that self-righteous bitch Fell in a way even she couldn't twist around.
I wouldn't venture to say if the 12 gods would approve or disapprove of Shojo's duplicity, but he did seem to be dedicated to his task of preserving the gates, and viewed the continued existence of the world as more important than some moral reservations his paladins had. That's getting kind've ends-justify-the-means, but he wasn't taking it too far...
...Got overly analytical there. Anyway.
Miko fell from grace not because she and the paladins are obsolete, but because she let her own anger become her idea of justice and murdered somebody despite repeated opportunities to sort out truth from fiction--because she thought she knew the truth.

[kamikasei]

I guess Shojo gets a medal from the 12 gods when he hits the afterlife. Why are they keeping the Sapphire Guard around? If their morality is obsolete, depower them. They'll get the message.

The Sapphire Guard was a paladinic order, empowered by the twelve gods, with a code of conduct that mandated noninterference with the gates. The gods themselves are not bound by this code, therefore there is no reason why they cannot simultaneously endorse the Guard and Shojo. There's nothing to indicate that the Guard's "morality is obsolete", just that the world would be screwed if it only contained paladins of the Guard.

Shojo wasn't a paladin of the Guard, so any actions he may have taken contrary to its code weren't something for the twelve to worry about. And Miko's fall doesn't indicate special approval by the twelve of Shojo or his actions, just that her action in killing him was evil, unlawful, in violation of her paladin code, or any combination of the three.

What were you expecting to happen? The twelve manifest and declaim from the skies, "Yes! Well done thou good and faithful samurai! Shojo was dishonest and manipulative, therefore summarily executing him on presumption of high treason was a perfectly sensible and just act!"?

[clarkvalentine]

Why are they keeping the Sapphire Guard around? If their morality is obsolete, depower them. They'll get the message.

The law and morality of the Sapphire Guard makes them very good at being warriors and defenders of the realm - but Shojo realized it's just not so good for ruling the place.


The right tool for the right job, and all that.

[pendell]

Quite true. Notice the spotlight on Shojo just up until the moment he died? Bet that WAS divine approval. The 12 approved of the way he ran the city.

Which wasn't the way a paladin would run the city. But he's not a paladin, or even lawful. But he was good. Doing the best he can with the cards he was dealt ... but you try running ANY intelligence operation, or even an undercover police operation, without dealing in lies and treachery at some point. Sadly, it comes with the territory.

Which doesn't mean that the morals of the paladins are obsolete, or inappropriate. It just means that they weren't the right tool for the right job at that time. Presumably that is why ... from it's inception ... the city rulers were hereditary and NOT merely the commander of the paladins.

Betcha Soon believed in honor. But he also knew that paladins are bound to always act within the letter of the law, even when that conflicts with the spirit of the law. He knew that sometimes you need someone who will keep the spirit of the law even if that requires breaking it's letter. And that, perhaps, is precisely why the Lawful Good paladins were submitted to a neutral/chaotic good ruler in the first place.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Edgehopper]

Another note--it seems very unlikely that all 12 gods are lawful, though they may all be good. Shojo's acts most likely have fallen under the Chaotic Good heading (breaking an oath and lying to save the world while protecting his city.) If the pantheon were split 4-4-4 between LG, NG and CG, a majority would approve Shojo's actions, while still being able to approve of the paladins' command and oath. Lying is not an objectively evil activity, and neither is breaking an oath, while both do tend to be objectively chaotic.

[chibibar]

Shojo is not a Paladin. Shojo doesn't have any divine power granted by the 12 gods and thus nothing to take away. Luckily regular people can do their stuff and suffer by mortal laws and usually don't have divine intervention unless you ask for it (like Clerics)

[taigen]

Also the paladins are not empowered by the 12 gods because of their promise to not interfere with the gates. That was just an oath taken by one paladin that the others feel duty bound to follow. They are empowered because of the way they live their lives to paladin ideals, so just because the order is kinda lacking a clue at the moment doesn't necessitate them to fall (excepct the psychotic great sunder the throne on the way to cutting three quarters through the old man who rescured you from a life on the streets and treated you like his own daughter for most of your life sort of paladins).

-Taigen

[kamikasei]

(excepct the psychotic great sunder the throne on the way to cutting three quarters through the old man who rescured you from a life on the streets and treated you like his own daughter for most of your life sort of paladins).

Yup, gotta love those mean streets of the... um... dojo.

And... "treated [her] like his own daughter"?

[Green Bean]

The gods didn't make the whole order fall because none of them committed an evil act. Besides, they are necessary. The paladins guard the Gate, and believe it or not, paladins are good at guarding things because it means you can't possibly get an evil person near the Gate, and paladins are less likely to turn traitor, what with the instant feedback.