Analysis I just now realized that Miko has access to exactly one form of healing. [Archive]

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-11, 02:00 PM

According to the comic you can learn new moves in afterlife. Does that means that you can atone for your sins as well in there?
I can't remember the exact quote offhand, but word from the author is that the stickverse afterlife doesn't really allow for training or development and slowly turns all inhabitants into carbon copies of their alignment template. (Roy apparently only learned of his potential access to green sword-magic feats.)

The point of which is probably to make the afterlife sufficiently disappointing that 'not allowing world to end' serves more of a clear function. Again, though, intelligent outsiders with a variety of forms exist, so I'm not sure this is entirely consistent with either D&D in general or the strip itself.

I suspect that Miko's afterlife has been left deliberately ambiguous to avoid provoking another forum flamewar, so it's unlikely we'll ever know for sure.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-11, 02:07 PM

According to the comic you can learn new moves in afterlife. Does that means that you can atone for your sins as well in there?

Not quite. You can learn things in the afterlife - Roy's mom learnt the name of her one-night stand, for example - but you can't gain XP, or feats, or in any other way develop your character sheet. Now, I'm not entirely certain what is involved in atoning for a Paladin, but IIRC it has to involve a bit of questing, which itself requires XP gains. So by that logic, you can't atone once dead.

GW

dps

2017-10-11, 10:17 PM

Most paladins have Lay On Hands and Spellcasting. She offered to use the former and probably can't use the latter because of the relevant ability score.

I'm sure most people already knew this; I just thought I'd bring it up anyway.

Plus, there's also potions.

Keltest

2017-10-11, 10:25 PM

Not quite. You can learn things in the afterlife - Roy's mom learnt the name of her one-night stand, for example - but you can't gain XP, or feats, or in any other way develop your character sheet. Now, I'm not entirely certain what is involved in atoning for a Paladin, but IIRC it has to involve a bit of questing, which itself requires XP gains. So by that logic, you can't atone once dead.

GW

It requires a cleric to cast an Atonement spell on you. That's actually all that's required, but the class description comes with the caveat that a cleric is unlikely to just give you an atonement spell for free. The spell itself also requires you to feel repentant to work.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-12, 12:43 AM

It requires a cleric to cast an Atonement spell on you. That's actually all that's required, but the class description comes with the caveat that a cleric is unlikely to just give you an atonement spell for free. The spell itself also requires you to feel repentant to work.
According to the author's cosmology, if Miko is in a good-aligned afterlife, then she'll eventually morph into a carbon copy of whatever the ideal personification of the plane's alignment is, which implies that 'repentance' is eventually more-or-less guaranteed.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 12:55 AM

Windstriker will "visit as often as he can". Miko is not in a good-aligned afterlife.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-12, 01:14 AM

Nope, that one is totally open-ended too. There are multiple good-aligned planes with multiple internal subdivisions, and Windstriker is quite possibly already in the service of some other paladin, which would limit his spare time.

I am not personally fond of this vision of how the D&D afterlife works- brainwashing your entire population to conform to uniform psychological standards would be considered profoundly evil in most contexts- but unless Miko is south of Mechanus then, yes, she will eventually relinquish all her emotional baggage and internal rationalisations... along with her name, memories, class levels, and anything else that might distinguish her from an ideal tabula-rasa version of <insert alignment here>. In fact, anyone and everyone will.

EDIT: Well, that, or wind up becoming an archon or solar or angel or deva or what-not. Again, not entirely self-consistent.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 01:32 AM

It's perfectly obvious that's not what Soon meant.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-12, 01:54 AM

Is it now? One could interpret it to mean that Miko must be in Celestia, or Windstriker wouldn't be able to visit her at all. I mean, it's not like paladin mounts have intrinsic plane-hopping abilities beside responding to their owners' summons.

My money was on Arcadia (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/b/b9/GreatWheel.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120212182059) before now, but I like this theory better. Thanks, alwaysbebatman!

factotum

2017-10-12, 03:44 AM

It's perfectly obvious that's not what Soon meant.

It's not obvious to me? In fact, why would a Good-aligned paladin mount be allowed to visit a non-Good afterlife anyway? If that were the case then I would expect Soon to say "Sorry, Windstriker won't be allowed to visit you". Also note that Soon and the others were there to shepherd Miko to her own afterlife, again, something it seems unlikely they'd be doing if she were heading for a Neutral or Evil plane.

Riftwolf

2017-10-12, 05:18 AM

I read it as she'd deviated too far from the Paladin standard without truly repenting (her last acts and motives were still 'the Gods have a plan for me' despite contrary evidence) to go to the Paladin afterlife (were there any paladins scaling the mountain? I remember a soldier or two), which is an LG subplane with higher standards than Celestia. There's nothing to confirm this, but I took it as Miko heading for a lesser plane squidged between LG and LN (So... Pleasant Cogs?). Windstriker could still visit without temporary negative levels (as if Miko had ended up in evil/chaotic afterlife).
Thinking about it, paladins may be on the same mountain as other LGs, they just get bumped a bit higher due to their intrinsic lawfully goodness.

Hamste

2017-10-12, 07:15 AM

In the line up on the south side of the mountain we did see two people with blue cloaks and two people with dyed blue hair (one of the people with cloaks had the hair as well) and all three wore white armor so they were probably paladins though we didn't see them climbing.

Riftwolf

2017-10-12, 08:05 AM

Looking at the heaven comics; it specifies its the afterlife for LG types, and the white and blue armour is Sapphire Guards motif. Regular soldiers have the grey armour and helmets. So paladins are going to the same plane as Roy did (although till recently they've been keeping a deathless vigil on Soons gate), but Miko isn't.

Keltest

2017-10-12, 08:08 AM

Kish

2017-10-12, 08:54 AM

It's not obvious to me?
alwaysbebatman's assertions are probably the most perfect illustration of what I said here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=11962341&postcount=26) that I've ever seen.

Of course, "It's perfectly obvious" here means only, "That clashes with what I've already decided and thus it is invalid."

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 09:52 AM

Hey, a lot of people want this to be a different book than it is, and that's fine.

But maybe re-read the actual page in question before weighing in?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0464.html

Soon's words: "Even now, we are fading to the Celestial Realm. We will usher you to your destination as well."

Soon and the other ghost paladins were headed to the celestial planes. Miko was headed someplace else.

When I say that it's obvious what is happening in this page, I mean the exact opposite of what Kish is saying:

The author's intent is VERY clear. To interpret the page in a different way, YOU must have your mind made up on another interpretation.

Keltest

2017-10-12, 09:56 AM

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 10:33 AM

Are you seriously asserting that when Soon says "your destination" (not the same as ours) that he is referring to the long line to get in shown here? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0486.html And that once a bureaucratic Deva reviews her case, maybe it will be the same destination after all?

If he had meant to imply that there are different words he could have said that would have actually implied that.

Not everybody gets in the line to begin with. And even if she were to be in the line, Soon seemed confident that the answer would be "no."

Rogar Demonblud

2017-10-12, 10:43 AM

Soon's words: "Even now, we are fading to the Celestial Realm. We will usher you to your destination as well."

Soon and the other ghost paladins were headed to the celestial planes. Miko was headed someplace else.

No. Soon and the others are going to the Celestial Realm, aka Celestia or the Seven Heavens if you're a grognard (or the mountain from Dante's Purgatorio if you're going to be really old school). Miko is going anywhere except that specific Outer Plane, but if the paladins are escorting her it's likely adjacent.

Keltest

2017-10-12, 10:52 AM

Are you seriously asserting that when Soon says "your destination" (not the same as ours) that he is referring to the long line to get in shown here? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0486.html And that once an archon reviews her case, maybe it will be the same destination after all?

If he had meant to imply that there are different words he could have said that would have actually implied that.

Soon is not the Bureaucratic Deva. More to the point, Miko's stated alignment is Lawful Good, so she is indeed going to that long line, regardless of where she ends up.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 11:18 AM

@Roger Demonblud: I had to read that a couple times to see what you were disagreeing with me on. Yes, "celestial planes" implies ALL of the upper planes, and I was wrong to imply that.

I thought at first that is what Soon meant, but re-reading Roy's visit to the mountain, the bureaucratic Deva refers to the specific LG plane as "the Celestial Realm" more than once. So, Soon is specifically talking about heading to the Mountain, (and Miko heading elsewhere.)

Now as to the argument that if they're escorting her it must be an adjacent plane: maybe. If so, does that mean Acadia?

I would argue "no." In fact, I would argue that if she had died before murdering Shojo, she likely would have been reviewed by a Deva and sent to Acadia, because anything good she had ever done was because doing good was the law, and never because it was good. Intentions matter.

It was her deluded violations of her own ideals of LAW that changed her posthumous destination as much or more than the harm she did. She opposed her rightful leader, and after killing him, opposed his successor, too, broke out of a jail she had been lawfully assigned to, and took counter-productive individual action rather than ascertaining and going with the plan of the team, when floating right there telling her to stop was the one authority even she couldn't question the legitimacy of.

If Soon's words imply that she was headed for a plane bordering Mt Celestia, the only possible one in my view is Concordant Opposition.

And that's a big "if"...

@Keltest: If Miko has to be delivered to the base of the mountain for judgment, then the author had Soon make a false statement without ever clarifying why he would have been mistaken or lying.

Keltest

2017-10-12, 11:23 AM

I had to read that a couple times to see what you were disagreeing with me on. Yes, "celestial planes" implies ALL of the upper planes, and I was wrong to imply that.

I thought at first that is what Soon meant, but re-reading Roy's visit to the mountain, the bureaucratic Deva refers to the specific LG plane as "the Celestial Realm" more than once. So, Soon is specifically talking about heading to the Mountain, (and Miko heading elsewhere.)

Now as to the argument that if they're escorting her it must be an adjacent plane: maybe. If so, does that mean Acadia?

I would argue "no." In fact, I would argue that if she had died before murdering Shojo, she likely would have been reviewed by a Deva and sent to Acadia, because anything good she had ever done was because doing good was the law, and never because it was good. Intentions matter.

It was her deluded violations of her own ideals of LAW that changed her posthumous destination as much or more than the harm she did. She opposed her rightful leader, and after killing him, his successor, broke out of a jail she had been lawfully assigned to, and took counter productive individual action rather than ascertaining and going with the plan of the team, when floating right there telling her to stop was the one authority even she couldn't question the legitimacy of.

If Soon's words imply that she was headed for a plane bordering Mt Celestia, the only possible one in my view is Concordant Opposition.

And that's a big "if"...

I'm fairly certain that you are reading more into Soon's statement than is actually there. Soon doesn't get to decide which afterlife Miko goes to, and unless he has been watching her for her whole life (unlikely) then his ability to decide "no, she isn't going to Celestia" is fairly limited as well. His statement is deliberately noncommittal because he doesn't know where Miko will end up, and he doesn't want to do something like, say, promise she will get into one afterlife when she goes to another instead.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 11:52 AM

So, if Soon has a good idea that Miko probably won't be going to Celestia, says so, but turns out to be mistaken, wouldn't that be a strange thing not to make explicit?

Even if Soon had said nothing it would be inexplicable to claim that Miko was headed to the Mountain. She received a judgment and warning from her own gods that she was on the wrong path when she murdered Shojo, and then explicitly rejected that warning.

It doesn't take a bureaucratic Deva or knowing every action she ever took to see from that sign alone that she probably wasn't headed to the same outer plane as the paladin ghosts.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-12, 11:57 AM

I would argue "no." In fact, I would argue that if she had died before murdering Shojo, she likely would have been reviewed by a Deva and sent to Acadia, because anything good she had ever done was because doing good was the law, and never because it was good...
One of the tenets of the paladin code is 'Be Good'. By this standard, there is literally no good deed she can perform that can't be written off as a technicality.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 12:01 PM

Right. Intentions matter. Some people subscribe to a code because it's a good code. Some people do good because that's the code they subscribed to.

How is it not clear which of those two is O-Chul and which is Miko?

Kish

2017-10-12, 12:05 PM

I wonder what the "other interpretation" I've made up my mind on is. It must be very baroque, as my method of supporting it is to point out whenever someone claims in either direction that Miko obviously went to X that no certain conclusion at all can be supported. How you convince yourself that your highly subjective interpretation of Soon's words is actually such perfect objectivity mystifies me.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-12, 12:20 PM

Right. Intentions matter. Some people subscribe to a code because it's a good code. Some people do good because that's the code they subscribed to...
My point is that you've created an unsatisfiable standard of evidence. For my own part, when I saw Miko risk heavy physical danger to rescue the helpless, offer healing, and pay for other people's comfort and damages, I take it as evidence that she actually values those outcomes. Because if I write those off as technicalities, then for consistency I'm going to have to write off everything every paladin everywhere ever does as 'the code says so'.

.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 12:52 PM

@kish: Is it not possible one could have their mind set on the position "this is not clear" when, in fact, it's pretty darn clear?

This is based on my opinion of Miko, sure. But also the twelve gods' opinion, Soon's opinion, Elan's opinion, Haley's opinion, Roy's opinion....

In the end it goes back to what Elan said to Roy. It could equally be the author addressing Miko's defenders in the fanbase: "She's mean to us, but you defend her. Does that mean you don't like us?"

The author used every trick in the book to make this character despicable. It's a mystery to me why Miko fans insist on fighting upstream.

@Lacuna Caster: And if we were to subscribe to this idea, that not every good action is done for the sake of good would you question O-Chul's motives in the same way?

I don't think it's as hard as you're making it out to be for the author to show a character's motivations. Except to those who willfully blind themselves to it.

Keltest

2017-10-12, 12:58 PM

Is it not possible one could have their mind set on the position "this is not clear" when, in fact, it's pretty darn clear?

This is based on my opinion of Miko, sure. But also the twelve gods' opinion, Soon's opinion, Elan's opinion, Haley's opinion, Roy's opinion....

In the end it goes back to what Elan said to Roy. It could equally be the author addressing Miko's defenders in the fanbase: "She's mean to us, but you defend her. Does that mean you don't like us?"

The author used every trick in the book to make this character despicable. It's a mystery to me why Miko fans insist on fighting upstream.

Conversely, the author used every trick in the book to make this character despicable. Its a mystery to me why Miko haters insist on attributing even more failings to her than are already present.

Miko, as a character, was made to be disliked. Miko, as a person, was not made to be Evil, or even Non-Good, and using the idea that Soon did not tell her which afterlife she was going to as proof that she died an evil person or something is straining my credulity.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 01:10 PM

@Keltest: I think the subtext of what Soon was getting at was clear. There was no need for the two of them to talk about the destination of her soul, except to imply that the destination was not likely to be what she was expecting.

And I question the term "Miko-hater". If you mean "finds the character despicable," sure. We already agreed that she is intended to be. But if you mean, "thinks she's a bad character," no way. Her story is a really effective tragic story of how good intentions combined with willful blindness can lead to destruction.

A happy ending on Mt Celestia with Windstriker does not make that story stronger.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-12, 01:14 PM

The author used every trick in the book to make this character despicable. It's a mystery to me why Miko fans insist on fighting upstream.

@Lacuna Caster: And if we were to subscribe to this idea, that not every good action is done for the sake of good would you question O-Chul's motives in the same way?
But what special faculty do you possess that allows you to peer into someone's head and discern their motives, as distinct from looking at their actual behaviour? Saying "I'm going to apply different standards of evidence to different paladins" is the very definition of allowing your theory to screen out awkward facts.

Miko was not actually originally intended as a blatantly despicable character. She was intended as light romantic comedy, with no more blatant flaws than... any of the main cast at the time. And then a certain wing of the audience reacted as if her behaviour were despicable, and... well, I suppose there's no obvious way to tell what went through the author's head afterward, but let's just say that "every trick in the book" includes some narrative tactics I'd consider underhanded.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 01:16 PM

Do you seriously believe that the author changed the story for Miko based on audience reaction? That he had not had this eventual end for her in mind all along?

And you still read this book?

Keltest

2017-10-12, 01:19 PM

Hamste

2017-10-12, 01:32 PM

But what special faculty do you possess that allows you to peer into someone's head and discern their motives, as distinct from looking at their actual behaviour? Saying "I'm going to apply different standards of evidence to different paladins" is the very definition of allowing your theory to screen out awkward facts.

Miko was not actually originally intended as a blatantly despicable character. She was intended as light romantic comedy, with no more blatant flaws than... any of the main cast at the time. And then a certain wing of the audience reacted as if her behaviour were despicable, and... well, I suppose there's no obvious way to tell what went through the author's head afterward, but let's just say that "every trick in the book" includes some narrative tactics I'd consider underhanded.

Not totally true, Rich said that she was supposed to be flirty but after writing her, he realized that he didn't want to go that way and the ending would have been the same even if he hadn't made that choice.

www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19169858&postcount=122

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 01:36 PM

@Keltest: True, the afterlife is not supposed to be anybody's preferred outcome. But if one IS going to die, the afterlife you were expecting might be considered the happier ending...

Also, she had already had numerous opportunities to change course and signs that she should have done so.

Kish

2017-10-12, 01:37 PM

Not totally true, Rich said that she was supposed to be flirty but after writing her, he realized that he didn't want to go that way and the ending would have been the same even if he hadn't made that choice.
That said, I think ignoring all the indications, including Rich saying so, that he meant her to be a Lawful Good antagonist in favor of saying she had to go to a bad afterlife because she's a villain...well, "does not make that story stronger" seems to me to translate directly to "does not uphold the sledgehammer-to-the-face she-was-pure-vileness-with-no-redeeming-features narrative I want to see," or to put it another way, to be identical to, "I hate nuance, therefore there is no nuance, and anyone who sees nuance lacks my understanding."

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 01:41 PM

@kish: Yeah, she's a Lawful Good antagonist at the start. Are we to ignore why she's an antagonist? It wasn't all just a wacky misunderstanding. It's possible to be LG with serious character flaws and blind spots. But to stay that way? Depends a lot on the circumstances, and the circumstances did not favor Miko.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-12, 01:43 PM

Not totally true, Rich said that she was supposed to be flirty but after writing her, he realized that he didn't want to go that way and the ending would have been the same even if he hadn't made that choice.

Do you seriously believe that the author changed the story for Miko based on audience reaction? That he had not had this eventual end for her in mind all along?
Well... this requires me to believe that the originally-intended fun-happy-flirty-Miko was still eventually going to attack the order during the trial scene, bump into Redcloak & Co., flip out, kill Shojo, and destroy the Azurite Gate, only... hundreds of strips later, in a way that apparently didn't depend on the particulars of her personality, interactions with the Order, Xykon's invasion of azure city, or dozens of other major events.

That's not quite impossible, but... nothing about it really screams 'master plan' to me. In the end, I'm not sure it really matters: I know exactly what kind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?6190-OOTS-282-The-Discussion-Thread&p=160370#post160370) of people were rooting for Miko to fail, and I don't think they deserved the satisfaction.

Kish

2017-10-12, 01:54 PM

Huh. Couple people in that thread I remember--not fondly.

Hamste

2017-10-12, 02:20 PM

Well... this requires me to believe that the originally-intended fun-happy-flirty-Miko was still eventually going to attack the order during the trial scene, bump into Redcloak & Co., flip out, kill Shojo, and destroy the Azurite Gate, only... hundreds of strips later, in a way that apparently didn't depend on the particulars of her personality, interactions with the Order, Xykon's invasion of azure city, or dozens of other major events.

That's not quite impossible, but... nothing about it really screams 'master plan' to me. In the end, I'm not sure it really matters: I know exactly what kind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?6190-OOTS-282-The-Discussion-Thread&p=160370#post160370) of people were rooting for Miko to fail, and I don't think they deserved the satisfaction.

I could see it. Even if she wasn't serious all the time, she would still have had a serious personality as that apparently was the original idea of the character. In the end she meets a threat the heroes were supposed to have defeated who didn't even remember who they were or their name, who had a lot of gold when captured and is now invading the city shortly after the order were captured. That alone should make the vast majority of people suspicious even if you were flirting with one of the people because it screams bribed inside man. Then you get there to report and find your ruler was actively breaking the laws, going behind the paladins' back and rigged a trial to get the guilty pardoned. Assuming she had similar problems with jumping to conclusions or assurance that the gods had a plan for her even though she was more flirty and then I could see her immediately attacking and falling. Destroying the gate is also similarly explainable as there is a logical reason for it.

Belkar still probably would have murdered people to try to get under to try to get her to fall and she would still have attacked him after he escaped (because he is a murderer) and he still would have got the mark. Was there any other important development from that?

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 02:26 PM

Ugh... so I gather I'm being lumped in with Skyler(or Beth, or etc.)-is-such-a-bitch "fans"? Wonderful.

Unlike Breaking Bad, Rick and Morty, the Ozarks, etc: OOTS is NOT about family. We hardly ever see a domestic unit.

Since it's not a family-centered story, Miko's gender is barely relevant. It leads to Roy's judgment being briefly clouded by his gonads, other than that it wouldn't effect the story in any way if Miko had been a male character instead.

(ETA, I forgot to say: point being, my views on the character wouldn't be any different if she had been a male character instead.)

I can understand wanting things to work out in a way that would annoy bad, misogynist fans. But they didn't.

Maybe consider the possibility that you've swung the pendulum a little too far in the other direction in reaction...?

Kish

2017-10-12, 03:36 PM

I could see it. Even if she wasn't serious all the time, she would still have had a serious personality as that apparently was the original idea of the character. In the end she meets a threat the heroes were supposed to have defeated who didn't even remember who they were or their name, who had a lot of gold when captured and is now invading the city shortly after the order were captured. That alone should make the vast majority of people suspicious even if you were flirting with one of the people because it screams bribed inside man. Then you get there to report and find your ruler was actively breaking the laws, going behind the paladins' back and rigged a trial to get the guilty pardoned. Assuming she had similar problems with jumping to conclusions or assurance that the gods had a plan for her even though she was more flirty and then I could see her immediately attacking and falling. Destroying the gate is also similarly explainable as there is a logical reason for it.

Belkar still probably would have murdered people to try to get under to try to get her to fall and she would still have attacked him after he escaped (because he is a murderer) and he still would have got the mark. Was there any other important development from that?
Rich apparently said in the comments of one of the books that her Fall and destruction of the Gate was originally planned to be much later in the story than it wound up happening. I'm not sure how that would have worked; the Azure City gate was doomed from the moment Redcloak and Xykon set out after it. Unless Rich was originally planning for Xykon/Redcloak not to do so until much later, their next target was supposed to be Girard's Gate, which...whoa, that would be quite a rewrite.

dps

2017-10-12, 03:51 PM

Even if Soon had said nothing it would be inexplicable to claim that Miko was headed to the Mountain. She received a judgment and warning from her own gods that she was on the wrong path when she murdered Shojo, and then explicitly rejected that warning.

Her gods judged her no longer worthy of being a Paladin, but you don't have to be a Paladin to still be LG. It is clear that Miko lost her status as a Paladin; it is not clear that she also changed alignment.

I don't take Soon's wording of "your destination" to rule out that she was headed to the same place as the Ghost Martyrs. He knew where he and the others were going; he didn't and couldn't know for sure where Miko was going, but was promising to escort her there, even if it was a different destination.

Hamste

2017-10-12, 03:53 PM

Rich apparently said in the comments of one of the books that her Fall and destruction of the Gate was originally planned to be much later in the story than it wound up happening. I'm not sure how that would have worked; the Azure City gate was doomed from the moment Redcloak and Xykon set out after it. Unless Rich was originally planning for Xykon/Redcloak not to do so until much later, their next target was supposed to be Girard's Gate, which...whoa, that would be quite a rewrite.

Which is weird seeing he specifically said the change in Miko's personality didn't change anything and the story wasn't cut short from fans disliking her. Most likely he changed stuff unrelated to Miko that caused the gate to be destroyed early than the original plan.

(Because I mentioned it, here is the link to them saying fans disliking her changing nothing
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14397598&postcount=38 )

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 04:09 PM

Her gods judged her no longer worthy of being a Paladin, but you don't have to be a Paladin to still be LG. It is clear that Miko lost her status as a Paladin; it is not clear that she also changed alignment.

I agree, I believe she absolutely does NOT change alignment at the same time as her fall. As I've said, her fall served as a warning sign from her gods that she was on the wrong path.

If she had taken that warning to heart, she wouldn't have unnecessarily destroyed Soon's gate while at the same time sabotaging Soon's ghost defeating Xykon and Redcloak.

Unwillingness to accept the judgment of her gods is what moved her actions from tragic mistakes that she was only partly responsible for (poor judgment, rashness) to willful blindness that she bears full responsibility for. There could have been no clearer sign.

Morty

2017-10-12, 04:36 PM

Good to see that, ten years after she kicked the bucket, Miko can still cause the exact same argument. If less intense than when she was alive.

Rogar Demonblud

2017-10-12, 04:45 PM

Has it really been that long? I thought it was more like eight.

B. Dandelion

2017-10-12, 08:00 PM

464 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0464.html) came out June 11, 2007 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?47226-OOTS-464-The-Discussion-Thread), so yes, ten years.

I joined in 2008 and discovered only in retrospect what an insanely controversial character she'd been. I was relieved to have missed out on most of the arguing, which was the stuff of legend.

Jasdoif

2017-10-12, 08:09 PM

There was no need for the two of them to talk about the destination of her soul, except to imply that the destination was not likely to be what she was expecting.I find the "there was no need except the one I can imagine" argument isn't particularly convincing on its own. Just to pull an alternative off the top of my head, I believe the one comic (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0464.html) is currently the strongest source of characterization for Soon, and Soon's personality may be a specific factor in Girard blaming Soon for Kraagor's death (rightly or wrongly), and perhaps even more responsible for the breakup of the Order of the Scribble than the subjective crayon comics would have us believe. Those specific reasons haven't been revealed, so if there did happen to be cause for showing a fragment of Soon's personality through his comment to Miko, there'd be no way for us to tell right now.

Additionally:
Also, as a general rule of thumb, no one should say the sentence, "There's no (or no other) possible narrative purpose for Rich to have done X!" until the story is completed. Because there's always a narrative purpose, you just haven't thought of what it is.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 09:43 PM

dps

2017-10-12, 10:07 PM

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, obviously it's far from definitive. It's just bizarre to me that so many people seem convinced Soon didn't mean that. I'm not sure how he could have hinted at it more obviously without coming across as needlessly cruel to the dying person.

FWIW, I'm not convinced that he didn't mean what you think he meant; I'm simply not convinced that he did mean what you think, either.

EDIT: Nor am I convinced that Soon knew for certain where Miko was headed anyway.

Kish

2017-10-12, 10:12 PM

Yes, that's a sleight-of-hand trick. One sentence asserts that other people are bafflingly overconvinced that Soon was saying Miko wasn't going to a lower plane, the next sentence is right back to asserting that he AS GOOD AS SAID SHE WAS!!!!!1111.

You've already declared failure to read that scene exactly the way you do as showing irrational thinking, alwaysbebatman; at least have the integrity to own it.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-12, 10:12 PM

@dps: I'm not going for "certain" so much as "likely," at this point....

@kish: *shrug*

Well, he doesn't come out and say it. But I do believe that the implication is very strong and very clear. I do find it strange just how many people seem to feel otherwise, but... an implication by its nature can't be definitive... it is what it is.

enderlord99

2017-10-13, 12:57 AM

This isn't supposed to be an alignment thread or an afterlife thread; it was quite clearly meant as a (low) wisdom-score thread.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-13, 01:00 AM

That was settled definitively in the first reply.

Drift happens.

Reboot

2017-10-13, 05:28 AM

This isn't supposed to be an alignment thread or an afterlife thread; it was quite clearly meant as a (low) wisdom-score thread.

I think it's proven the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom quite well :p

RatElemental

2017-10-13, 06:45 AM

Regarding the posthumous abilities thing, if the comic goes by raw at all then Miko would immediately lose all class levels and become a petitioner, only to regain said levels if she were raised. Also I always assumed followers of the various OoTS gods went to the plane of their deity, and only the generic alignment afterlives if they weren't particularly pious. Under that reading of things, I assumed Soon and (most if not all of) the other paladins were going to the twelve gods' plane, and Miko a generic Lawful and or good Afterlife.

Rogar Demonblud

2017-10-13, 10:01 AM

FWIW, I'm not convinced that he didn't mean what you think he meant; I'm simply not convinced that he did mean what you think, either.

EDIT: Nor am I convinced that Soon knew for certain where Miko was headed anyway.

He probably has a good idea. He's been floating in the throne room for decades and has had plenty of time to observe Miko in action, both in great things and lesser.

Kish

2017-10-13, 10:07 AM

Keltest

2017-10-13, 10:18 AM

factotum

2017-10-13, 10:20 AM

Regarding the posthumous abilities thing, if the comic goes by raw at all then Miko would immediately lose all class levels and become a petitioner, only to regain said levels if she were raised.

I think Roy's post-death experience clearly shows that isn't happening. He was perfectly able to help fight off the evil adventuring party who Plane Shifted in at one point, and he was also able to understand when his grandfather showed him how to do that anti-magic feat.

Crusher

2017-10-13, 02:33 PM

I think Roy's post-death experience clearly shows that isn't happening. He was perfectly able to help fight off the evil adventuring party who Plane Shifted in at one point, and he was also able to understand when his grandfather showed him how to do that anti-magic feat.

Yeah, they definitely don't lose abilities while there (unless that's part of the process as they move farther up the mountain) and can learn new things. However, something I haven't seen anyone note is that the newly gained information doesn't stay with the person if they're brought back to life with a few rare exceptions.

When Roy was raised, he didn't remember 99% of what happened after he died which would make it tough to gain XP or learn new feats or whatever. Roy managing to retain the inspiration for the new trick with his sword (not gaining the feat, just even having access to it once he got another feat) was probably fairly unusual.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 06:37 AM

I agree, I believe she absolutely does NOT change alignment at the same time as her fall. As I've said, her fall served as a warning sign from her gods that she was on the wrong path.
Yes, but... this kinda raises other questions about what the Gods aren't saying to their mortal followers.

(1) Why not send Sangwaan an urgent memo about the hobgoblin army, given events of the Godsmoot make it perfectly clear there are channels of communication between the Gods and their senior clerics?
(2) Why does the ethnic-cleansing nutcase running the Sapphire Guard in O-Chul's time not get a similar pyrotechnic display? Shouldn't Good deities be concerned about policies of indiscriminate collateral damage?

Don't get me wrong, I think killing Shojo was absolutely fall-worthy and would have been regardless of evidence, but... I'm not sure the Gods' opinions on the matter really count for much.

Since it's not a family-centered story, Miko's gender is barely relevant. It leads to Roy's judgment being briefly clouded by his gonads, other than that it wouldn't effect the story in any way if Miko had been a male character instead...
Oh, you, at least, have the excuse of several hundred extra pages of story during which Miko's character went steeply downhill to colour your opinion of her motives. There are totally legitimate reasons for having a dim opinion of someone who, e.g, tried to kill Hinjo in an irrational fit of pique.

But prior to the trial scene? Hell, no. Those people had no excuse.

factotum

2017-10-14, 06:56 AM

(1) Why not send Sangwaan an urgent memo about the hobgoblin army, given events of the Godsmoot make it perfectly clear there are channels of communication between the Gods and their senior clerics?

Firstly, I'm not entirely sure Sangwaan was a cleric. Secondly, even if she was, pretty much any question you want to ask about the plot will come back to "Why didn't the Gods do anything about that?", to which the answer seems to be "They have strictly limited ability to interact with events on the world below due to agreements between them". The Dark One has never appeared directly to Redcloak, for example--he got a massive infodump from the Scarlet Mantle when he first put it on, and the only other example of communication was the "Don't screw this up" that was passed along via Jirix when he was raised from the dead. If more direct means of communication were available, don't you think he'd have used them?

I don't think the Godsmoot shows anything about the ability of gods to communicate with their clerics, because in that case it was explicitly the Gods talking to each other--the clerics were just there to set up neutral ground where that conversation could take place, since Loki and Thor for a start wouldn't normally speak to each other much.

This does raise the question of why Hel and her high priest can apparently communicate directly, of course, but since he's actually a vampire spirit that was birthed in her halls (and thus technically an Outsider) then that might be why things are different there.

dps

2017-10-14, 07:01 AM

Don't get me wrong, I think killing Shojo was absolutely fall-worthy and would have been regardless of evidence, but... I'm not sure the Gods' opinions on the matter really count for much.

That's kind of like saying that if you get hauled into traffic court, the judge's opinion on what would be an appropriate fine doesn't count for much.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 07:37 AM

Oh, you, at least, have the excuse of several hundred extra pages of story during which Miko's character went steeply downhill to colour your opinion of her motives. There are totally legitimate reasons for having a dim opinion of someone who, e.g, tried to kill Hinjo in an irrational fit of pique.

But prior to the trial scene? Hell, no. Those people had no excuse.

Yeah, I completely disagree. Very early on it would have been conceivable from what we saw that she'd turn out to have a heart of gold hiding under the off-putting exterior, but it was never especially likely.

If course, it's not impossible for her to be relentlessly unkind and yet remain on the side of the angels. Eugene seems to manage it. But that's not the most dramatic option...

Just one example of a sign of where she was headed before she ever killed Shojo-- Belkar trying to provoke her to murder him. It's not just the fact that she would have done it if Shojo hadn't stopped her. But more the fact that Belkar saw that potential in her. As much as he hated her, he wouldn't have chosen that specific revenge except that he perceived that it would work. (He hated her, but sensed a kinship, I think. A similar lack of moral compass. They both chose a code in place of an intrinsic motivation: hers was the paladin code, his was "for the lols.")

I get the impression that some people don't want to see Miko for what she was from the start because some of the people arguing for that back then we're doing so for invalid reasons: ie, hateful misogyny. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Keltest

2017-10-14, 07:49 AM

Yeah, I completely disagree. Very early on it would have been conceivable from what we saw that she'd turn out to have a heart of gold hiding under the off-putting exterior, but it was never especially likely.

If course, it's not impossible for her to be relentlessly unkind and yet remain on the side of the angels. Eugene seems to manage it. But that's not the most dramatic option...

Just one example of a sign of where she was headed before she ever killed Shojo-- Belkar trying to provoke her to murder him. It's not just the fact that she would have done it if Shojo hadn't stopped her. But more the fact that Belkar saw that potential in her. As much as he hated her, he wouldn't have chosen that specific revenge except that he perceived that it would work.

I get the impression that some people don't want to see Miko for what she was from the start because some of the people arguing for that back then we're doing so for invalid reasons: ie, hateful misogyny. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Belkar's plan to get Miko to Fall has some serious flaws in it. Besides the lack of resurrection capabilities, he also neglected to take into account that he's an evil murderer who escaped justice, continually assaulted her and made it clear he intended to fight to his death.

Furthermore, I think Miko's less attractive qualities were told, not shown, until the Inn Scene, and even then she had a point that the Order was largely responsible for the destruction. If you've ever played a real game of D&D, I'm sure the NPCs in your game felt the same way about your PCs.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 08:07 AM

Keltest

2017-10-14, 08:19 AM

How do you figure? His plan was to provoke her to the point that she kills him when she could and should have taken him prisoner. A plan that would have worked except for Shojo. He was clearly prepared to die for the lols.

A paladin is not required to spare the lives of her enemies, especially not when they've shown that prison cant hold them. The only reason she had to imprison Belkar again instead of execute him is because Shojo told her to back off, and obeying legitimate authority is part of the paladin code.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 09:08 AM

Keltest

2017-10-14, 09:11 AM

I prefer to think the halfling knew something we don't than vice versa, so that the plot remains coherent.

Perhaps murdering Belkar would have been an acceptable execution in the countryside but a violation of law in the city, where executions can't legally be effected without a trial? And Belkar would have known that via his life of crime before joining the Order?

Maybe. It seems clear that the author preferred to only hint at what Belkar was trying to accomplish by provoking Miko and not lay it out explicitly.

Youre attributing hidden knowledge to Belkar? Take some time to consider what we know of him, and then you may want to reconsider your stance.

Also, Belkar was pretty explicit at what he wanted to accomplish with Miko. V points out that his plan is greatly flawed, as is consistent for Belkar.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 09:17 AM

Keltest

2017-10-14, 09:21 AM

I had forgotten about Vaarsuvius's "your plan was dumb" speech. (Thank you!) But if the author believed that the Miko-falling part of the plan was flawed, too, wouldn't he have had Vaarsuvius criticize that part as well?

No? Theres only so much time on panel for words. He chose the most obvious flaw of "Belkar would be dead" to that plan to talk about. That doesn't mean there aren't other flaws to it, just that V chose to talk about the most obvious one.

Also, V has in the past expressed a general lack of interest in understanding any magic that isn't arcane, to the point of calling a cleric's magic "not real". V would hardly be an expert on the mechanics of a paladin, a largely martial class.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 10:16 AM

That idea opens another can of worms, much larger than anything in this thread so far. If Soon knew Miko well enough to guess her afterlife destination (for good or ill) based on observing her over decades, why didn't he warn Shojo "she's a lot more unstable and dangerous than you realize"?
Well, sure, yes. But I'd consider that a minor facet of the larger 'why are higher powers behaving like idiots' problem.

I don't think the Godsmoot shows anything about the ability of gods to communicate with their clerics, because in that case it was explicitly the Gods talking to each other--the clerics were just there to set up neutral ground where that conversation could take place...
Which would presumably require telling said clerics that they wanted neutral ground to be set up in the first place. (And also raises the question of why they don't order said clerics to chase after Xykon, but I digress.) So yes, from my perspective I'm afraid that having the Gods orchestrate that meeting does make vast segments of the plot completely baffling.

That's kind of like saying that if you get hauled into traffic court, the judge's opinion on what would be an appropriate fine doesn't count for much.
When the judge appears to be asleep on the bench most of the time and hands out wildly varying fines for similar or worse offences, then... yes, I think it does call their competence into question.

.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 10:31 AM

Yeah, I completely disagree. Very early on it would have been conceivable from what we saw that she'd turn out to have a heart of gold hiding under the off-putting exterior, but it was never especially likely...
Okay, ABB, how about this- you tell me what action Miko would have to take in order to convince you that she had a heart of gold lurking under her abrasive surface. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Just bear in mind you'll need to pass a higher bar than, e.g, "risks life pulling people out of burning building, then eschews personal reward from head of state to pay damages to those affected", because... that apparently wasn't good enough for you. Let's just establish what your standards are here.

.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 10:48 AM

Keltest

2017-10-14, 10:51 AM

Showing kindness towards any being. Even Belkar's done that.

Good Is Not Nice.

Furthermore, theres a bonus scene in... W&XP? I think? either that or Paladin Blues, where Miko tries to approach some fellow paladins about dining together, and she is pretty thoroughly rebuked. Miko has little reason to be kind to anybody.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 10:56 AM

Keltest

2017-10-14, 11:00 AM

Right. I've acknowledged she was Good (by D&D rules) at that time.

It's not a surprise when nasty turns evil. And she gave people plenty of reason to socially shun her. Maybe everything could have changed for her if somebody tried to reach out to her. But who's to say people didn't, just to be rebuked?

She doesn't necessarily become evil. She Falls, but that is not remotely the same thing.

Furthermore, there was plenty of reason to be surprised when the attacks Shojo. Miko was shown to be prone to violence, but up until that point the targets of her wrath had given her good reason to come into conflict with them.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 11:01 AM

Showing kindness towards any being...
Ah, but that's just asking her not to have an abrasive exterior. So again, I ask you- what action could Miko take that would convince you she had a heart of gold beneath her abrasive exterior?

goodpeople25

2017-10-14, 11:05 AM

A paladin is not required to spare the lives of her enemies, especially not when they've shown that prison cant hold them. The only reason she had to imprison Belkar again instead of execute him is because Shojo told her to back off, and obeying legitimate authority is part of the paladin code.
While I don't think she absolutely (or maybe even probably) would have fallen. Are you saying this in an inherent fall capacity or that Miko absolutely had no possible obligations or reasons to spare Belkar? Also his escape involved what could be described as an error on the city's part. (and possibly more specific than that)

Kish

2017-10-14, 11:08 AM

In War and XPs, Miko approaches two paladins about dining with her. Their initial reaction is surprised, but not negative. Then she freaks out because the place where they were planning on going is rumored to have had gambling present, and goes on a rant about how she should have expected this from those lower in rank than her, until they make up an excuse to get out of eating with her. So yeah.

I tend to agree with Lacuna Caster that there are quite a few vestiges of "It's like I'm watching my life, but from the outside" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html) Miko still in No Cure for the Paladin Blues, but the bonus strips are all in line with the later "actually, she's completely horrible" Miko who wrote the foreword to Start of Darkness.

That said, "I believe she'd Fall for killing a monstrously evil serial killer who happens to be a halfling and a protagonist" smacks of...shall we say double-standards (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0011.html)*, or should we say race-based morality?

*Yes, it's an early strip, but Rich said that the only thing he'd change about it is to make it clearer before Vaarsuvius put them to sleep that those goblins were armed combatants; well, Belkar was certainly an armed combatant.

Keltest

2017-10-14, 11:10 AM

While I don't think she absolutely (or maybe even probably) would have fallen. Are you saying this in an inherent fall capacity or that Miko absolutely had no possible obligations or reasons to spare Belkar? Also his escape involved what could be described as an error on the city's part. (and possibly more specific than that)

The latter. Paladins are required to obey legitimate authority, which makes broad sweeping statements about the legitimacy of execution very complicated. I don't think they would generally fall if they killed rather than captured an opponent in battle, even if capture is feasible, but there are some circumstances, usually involving a pattern of behavior, where it becomes more likely.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 11:15 AM

Ah, but that's just asking her not to have an abrasive exterior. So again, I ask you- what action could Miko take that would convince you she had a heart of gold beneath her abrasive exterior?

Right, whether the abrasiveness is only the exterior, or reflective of the person within, you might never know... in real life. But in a story, the storyteller will give you clues as to the character's interior life. It will peek through in some way. An unexpected kindness. That's what stories are.

Miko might have been a different character from the beginning, we didn't know, and anybody who expressed certainty from the start was jumping the gun

But she wasn't a different character. And every page she appeared in made that seemingly-possible alternative less likely-seeming.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 11:17 AM

In War and XPs, Miko approaches two paladins about dining with her. Their initial reaction is surprised, but not negative. Then she freaks out because the place where they were planning on going is rumored to have had gambling present, and goes on a rant about how she should have expected this from those lower in rank than her, until they make up an excuse to get out of eating with her. So yeah.

I tend to agree with Lacuna Caster that there are quite a few vestiges of "It's like I'm watching my life, but from the outside" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html) Miko still in No Cure for the Paladin Blues, but the bonus strips are all in line with the later "actually, she's completely horrible" Miko who wrote the foreword to Start of Darkness.
The interesting thing is that Miko had apparently prepared a complete meal for everyone back in her room, which is at least at least going a little out of her way for the sake of hospitality, and knew the names and family-situations of both the other paladins, which suggests that she was taking an active interest in her subordinates. Sure, she lacks tact, but she was trying. (And to be honest, making up bull**** excuses to their superior didn't exactly endear the other paladins to me. It's one of those pervasive 'social graces' that I actively despise.)

I find that very much in-keeping with her bittersweet early incarnation, whereas the plum-sauce strip and SoD intro versions are just... insane.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 11:20 AM

Right, whether the abrasiveness is only the exterior, or reflective of the person within, you might never know... in real life. But in a story, the storyteller will give you clues as to the character's interior life. It will peek through in some way...
I agree. For example, it might peak through by going into a burning building and rescuing the helpless.

goodpeople25

2017-10-14, 11:30 AM

The latter. Paladins are required to obey legitimate authority, which makes broad sweeping statements about the legitimacy of execution very complicated. I don't think they would generally fall if they killed rather than captured an opponent in battle, even if capture is feasible, but there are some circumstances, usually involving a pattern of behavior, where it becomes more likely.
The latter? Okay I guess I'll just disagree then, though I'm a bit confused, For the latter I'm not really talking about falling I'm talking about how it seems like you were saying Miko had no possible obligations or reasons to take Belkar alive. (Similar for the former I was asking if your line of thinking were fall and paladin code related)

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 11:31 AM

I agree. For example, it might peak through by going into a burning building and rescuing the helpless.

She follows the paladin code out of kindness, now?

Kish

2017-10-14, 11:40 AM

The latter? Okay I guess I'll just disagree then, though I'm a bit confused, For the latter I'm not really talking about falling I'm talking about how it seems like you were saying Miko had no possible obligations or reasons to take Belkar alive. (Similar for the former I was asking if your reasons were fall and paladin code related)
At this point, I'm baffled by what you're saying, since you've decoupled it from falling.

Clearly a hypothetical person could have a reason to take Belkar alive, in the absence of orders to do so. They could be a pacifist like Celia. They could have a fondness for eating living halflings, but only ones who are alive at the time of being eaten. Equally clearly, neither of these has anything to do with Miko. Also clearly, when she received orders to take Belkar alive Miko did so (that was a situation in which she had an obligation and reason to do so). So what are you getting at here?

Also his escape involved what could be described as an error on the city's part. (and possibly more specific than that) This appears to be saying that Belkar should have gotten some kind of moral credit for the fact that he wasn't imprisoned beyond his ability to escape (murdering his guard along the way). If that's actually what you're saying, I find it comparably grotesque to Lacuna's suggestion that the paladins Miko started browbeating for not freaking out about gambling occupied some moral low ground with respect to her because they made up an excuse rather than obeying her anyway.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-14, 11:44 AM

a fondness for eating living halflings, but only ones who are alive at the time of being eaten.

As opposed to eating dead halflings who are resurrected immediately after eating them. That takes being a picky eater to a whole new level

:smalltongue:

GW

Keltest

2017-10-14, 11:59 AM

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 12:02 PM

I find it comparably grotesque to Lacuna's suggestion that the paladins Miko started browbeating for not freaking out about gambling occupied some moral low ground with respect to her because they made up an excuse rather than obeying her anyway.
I am reasonably sure the more paladin-like solution here would be to point-blank say "we don't want to spend time with you, because you're not very enjoyable company". Which would, you know, bring the actual problem to light and perhaps prompt Miko to consider the futility of her approach. (Her 'brow-beating' consisted of two sentences, for heaven's sake.)

The other odd thing is the cultural anachronism on display here- the other paladins are organisational juniors living within a feudal society, so... Miko saying they're 'beneath her station' is a perfectly accurate statement of fact. Not, perhaps, a very sensitive statement, but certainly nothing that pre-20th-century subordinates would have any right to get uppity about.

.

Jasdoif

2017-10-14, 12:30 PM

I am reasonably sure the more paladin-like solution here would be to point-blank say "we don't want to spend time with you, because you're not very enjoyable company". Which would, you know, bring the actual problem to light and perhaps prompt Miko to consider the futility of her approach. (Her 'brow-beating' consisted of two sentences, for heaven's sake.)

The other odd thing is the cultural anachronism on display here- the other paladins are organisational juniors living within a feudal society, so... Miko saying they're 'beneath her station' is a perfectly accurate statement of fact. Not, perhaps, a very sensitive statement, but certainly nothing that pre-20th-century subordinates would have any right to get uppity about.That's an interesting juxtaposition of "they should've criticized their superior!" and "they're in a society where criticizing your superiors is almost doomed to failure!" you've got there.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 12:37 PM

That's an interesting juxtaposition of "they should've criticized their superior!" and "they're in a society where criticizing your superiors is almost doomed to failure!" you've got there.
It's not my juxtaposition, Jasdoif. They seem to feel simultaneously upset that their superior treats them like an inferior without actually being willing to talk back to said superior. It's cowardice masquerading as courtesy.

What dreadful fate awaits them if they're honest? It's not like Miko actually forces them to sit down and eat- so what's she going do, order them to like her?

Jasdoif

2017-10-14, 01:04 PM

What dreadful fate awaits them if they're honest? It's not like Miko actually forces them to sit down and eat- so what's she going do, order them to like her?Get them expelled? Find them the worst assignments? I don't know what Miko would do, if anything...and presumably neither do they, what with Miko being sent off on months-long foreign assignments (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0265.html)...and being that she's the highest ranked paladin in the Sapphire Guard (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0406.html), that implies their mutual superior Shojo deals with Miko's personality by distance.

More importantly, I imagine they're all paladins to fight evil, and Miko is not evil; So why would they really want to start a fight with her, particularly in a scenario they don't have a real chance of winning? Miko did just attribute their "lax attitude" to their "station", afterall; she's unlikely to be moved by their protest.

factotum

2017-10-14, 01:28 PM

I am reasonably sure the more paladin-like solution here would be to point-blank say "we don't want to spend time with you, because you're not very enjoyable company"..

I'm pretty sure that it doesn't say anywhere in the Paladin Code that you have to tell the truth at all times, no matter how hurtful it is to the person hearing it. Intent matters, too: if you're telling a lie in order to trick someone or for personal gain then that would probably be a no-no, but a lie to let someone down gently doesn't seem such a problem.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 01:36 PM

Yeah, but I don't exactly have a high opinion of Shojo's tactics there either. (To begin with, if Miko's personality was that much of a problem, why promote her in the first place? It seems to defeat the purpose, given high-up lieutenants are supposed to help run the organisation.)

Look, I can't prove that Miko wouldn't explode and call them names and seek petty retribution for... voicing an honest and fair opinion, which is exactly what her fellow paladins are supposed to do... but I think it could be done with respect and tact, and I don't think short-term evasions were actually doing anything to make their lives easier in the long run. It's certainly not showing any particular consideration for Miko, who winds up snubbed either way, and probably knows it at some level. It's not about 'starting a fight'- it's about recognising that real solutions are based on hard truths, and there's no viable way to escape that.

Jasdoif

2017-10-14, 02:05 PM

goodpeople25

2017-10-14, 02:18 PM

Okay I'm just going to say this, I think it's possible, just possible that killing Belkar in the circumstances given might be conisdered at least iffy and not desirable to the legitimate authority of Azure city.

The escaping Jail thing was a reply (but not a rebuttal) to the idea that they couldn't hold him in the future because they couldn't hold him this time, it in no way lessens that he escaped. It isn't dealing with the morality either way.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 02:31 PM

EDIT: Killing Belkar would be somewhat debatable on legal grounds, but that's not the real problem- the problem is Miko was apparently willing to kill five other people to get to Belkar in the throne room. Honestly, people.

@Jasdoif: You're going to have to explain that to me in more depth. As I understand it, the core of feudalism is a hierarchical chain of command combined with hereditary laws of succession. The paladins are certainly obliged to follow Miko's orders, but... she's not actually ordering them to do anything. They also swore oaths to speak truth, show courage, protect the innocent, and so on. What part of this requires that they conceal their opinions about a superior, to said superior? Who will probably dislike them anyway when you give such a transparent excuse? Are you expecting some kind of O-Ren Ishii scenario?

Kish

2017-10-14, 02:35 PM

I note a particular implication here. Under most circumstances, I would think the obvious response to complaining about the paladins Miko invited to dinner and then berated being "unpaladin-like" would be to suggest that the paladin-like thing for Miko to do would be to think about why her fellow paladins would consistently avoid spending time with her, specifically in terms of "what do I need to change about myself" rather than "what's wrong with them"--since surely, no one who was parsing the actions of some paladins at such a demanding level would suggest that the highest ranking paladin of the Sapphire Guard has the right to expect others caretake her emotional state while she tramples casually on theirs. But if being really rude is not only appropriate but mandatory for a paladin, then, and only then, it makes sense to parse her sudden gratuitous declaration that she should expect such laxness from those beneath her station at the level of "is it factually true that they're beneath her station? Yes? Then she's blameless." This whole line of argument is still grotesque, but it is at least consistent in its insane logic.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-14, 02:46 PM

I'm not saying that Miko is blameless here by a long shot. And I'm not saying that rudeness is mandatory for a paladin per se. I just think that self-serving lies are a fairly un-paladin-like thing to engage in, do nothing to solve the problem, and certainly have nothing to do with sparing anyone's feelings.

.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-14, 02:58 PM

EDIT: Killing Belkar would be somewhat debatable on legal grounds, but that's not the real problem- the problem is Miko was apparently willing to kill five other people to get to Belkar in the throne room. Honestly, people.

True, of the two things, that's obviously worse. But, in fairness, this started with people arguing against my original assertion that Belkar was right to believe he would be able to cause Miko's fall. So it makes sense that that is where the focus is.

I remain unconvinced that if that part of Belkar's plan would have failed, nobody would have pointed and laughed, as Vaarsuvius did the Raise Dead part of the scheme.

But I'll acknowledge that it doesn't actually matter that much, as the real point of the scene was to completely convince Miko that the Order were somehow secretly evil.

Jasdoif

2017-10-14, 04:15 PM

You're going to have to explain that to me in more depth. As I understand it, the core of feudalism is a hierarchical chain of command combined with hereditary laws of succession.Feudalism as a concept is centered around the fief; basically the lord telling the vassal "I have these rights to this property, and I'll let you exercise them in exchange for fulfilling these ongoing obligations to me".

It forms a network, where rights can be assigned to a "subvassal", ultimately stemming from the ultimate authority; generally a monarch. So violating an obligation to your lord is an affront up the entire chain...And insulting a monarch is, to put it mildly, discouraged.

The paladins are certainly obliged to follow Miko's orders, but... she's not actually ordering them to do anything.I'm having a hard time seeing how "However, as your superior officer, I insist that we eat--" would not constitute an order.

Keltest

2017-10-14, 07:51 PM

EDIT: Killing Belkar would be somewhat debatable on legal grounds, but that's not the real problem- the problem is Miko was apparently willing to kill five other people to get to Belkar in the throne room. Honestly, people.

Miko actually says "defeat" not "kill" the order, and she marks her fight with them as distinct from her intended execution of Belkar. While its not impossible that she meant she would kill them all, I don't think its a particularly safe assumption that she did.

Feudalism as a concept is centered around the fief; basically the lord telling the vassal "I have these rights to this property, and I'll let you exercise them in exchange for fulfilling these ongoing obligations to me".

It forms a network, where rights can be assigned to a "subvassal", ultimately stemming from the ultimate authority; generally a monarch. So violating an obligation to your lord is an affront up the entire chain...And insulting a monarch is, to put it mildly, discouraged.

I'm having a hard time seeing how "However, as your superior officer, I insist that we eat--" would not constitute an order.

Theres a couple problems with this.

The first is that the Sapphire Guard is a secret order independent from the main society of Azure City, and do not seem to hold any additional rights granted to them because of that. A paladin is not equivalent to a noble or other landowner type (and frankly, they would probably be offended if you compared them to the nobles). Hinjo goes so far as to mention that even when Shojo tries to give them bonuses as part of their station, they cant exercise them because they need to keep their order secret.

The second is the assumption that Miko, by virtue of being higher ranked, can order other members around on non-guard business (like, say, dining with her). If theyre off duty, or otherwise not actively on mission, its quite possible that Miko has no authority over them at all.

lunaticfringe

2017-10-14, 10:00 PM

Miko actually says "defeat" not "kill" the order, and she marks her fight with them as distinct from her intended execution of Belkar. While its not impossible that she meant she would kill them all, I don't think its a particularly safe assumption that she did.

Make peace with your Northern gods... Because I'm totally just gonna knock you out and when you wake up we can get cake.

I dunno. I feel safe assuming, but you do you.

RatElemental

2017-10-14, 11:56 PM

I think, if Miko killing Belkar had any chance of making her fall at all, it would be because at the point she would be killing him he was lying helpless on the floor, clearly defeated and able to be taken back into custody by the lawful government in charge of the city he was in the limits of.

She would be falling for a chaotic action, not an evil one.

ETA: I still think the prospect of her falling for it is questionable at best.
ETA2: Also this is all assuming no outside interference as she killed Belkar, not her killing the rest of the order to do it.

factotum

2017-10-15, 01:21 AM

Hinjo goes so far as to mention that even when Shojo tries to give them bonuses as part of their station, they cant exercise them because they need to keep their order secret.

And yet they can apparently wander around the streets of Azure City wearing an obvious uniform, and nobody ever asks questions about that?

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-15, 05:08 AM

And yet they can apparently wander around the streets of Azure City wearing an obvious uniform, and nobody ever asks questions about that?
The parameters are a bit vague, but I gather that while the guard itself is known to the public, their core responsibilities viz-a-viz world-eating cthulhoid entities are kept under wraps. (Then again, Miko didn't seem bothered to conceal information about Dorukan's Gate undermining the fabric of reality, so take it with a grain of salt.)

The second is the assumption that Miko, by virtue of being higher ranked, can order other members around on non-guard business (like, say, dining with her). If theyre off duty, or otherwise not actively on mission, its quite possible that Miko has no authority over them at all.
That's very possible, but my point is that in a hypothetical scenario where junior paladins live in terror of reprimand for questioning superiors, then... said juniors are very unlikely to react to a superior's rant with personal indignation or feeble excuses (nor is a superior likely to accept them.) If Miko is the equivalent to, say, sergeant hartman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQAXX08A-s), and somehow felt the urge to invite them for christmas dinner, you can be damn sure the privates would know their place.

If the guard isn't run along those lines, then... Miko's arguably being an ass, but... there's also nothing to stop the other two from saying as much. You know, politely.

On Belkar and the trial scene: I think there's a post where Rich explicitly says she's on the verge of a complete psychotic break here, and actively wants to kill good/neutral characters. So, canonically, yes, 'kill em all' was her plan.

factotum

2017-10-15, 10:16 AM

The parameters are a bit vague, but I gather that while the guard itself is known to the public, their core responsibilities viz-a-viz world-eating cthulhoid entities are kept under wraps.

So why can't they spend these tokens Shojo gives them, if they're members of a known and legal organisation? They don't need to reveal the protecting the world from the Snarl bit in order to get a free meal.

Kish

2017-10-15, 10:20 AM

This is seriously overparsing a one-line joke.

If we must treat the line in question as meaning anything more than "Rich felt like making a joke about secret government organizations and coupons," I'd suggest parsing it as "one of the ways Shojo acts senile is that he pretends to have forgotten that the Sapphire Guard is supposed to be secret, handing out coupons with Sapphire Guard prominently written on them."

Keltest

2017-10-15, 10:40 AM

Jasdoif

2017-10-15, 10:47 AM

I swear I remember Rich making a post at one point that said something to the effect of "Azure City is aware of the existence of a bunch of paladins in general, but don't know the extent of their organization or their goals." but I cant seem to find it. Does anyone else remember something like that?Do you mean the one that says the Sapphire Guard is a secret subset of the paladins and clergy of the Twelve Gods, so Azure City's populace being aware that Azure City has paladins and clergy of the Twelve Gods doesn't mean they know the Sapphire Guard exists?

Keltest

2017-10-15, 10:57 AM

Do you mean the one that says the Sapphire Guard is a secret subset of the paladins and clergy of the Twelve Gods, so Azure City's populace being aware that Azure City has paladins and clergy of the Twelve Gods doesn't mean they know the Sapphire Guard exists?

Yes. And I need more letters to be a smart alec

137beth

2017-10-17, 01:56 PM

I’m still confused about why the OP thinks Miko lacks the necessary Wisdom score to cast CLW.

Kish

2017-10-17, 02:05 PM

While the OP appears to have run away from the thread screaming, I would guess it was meant to be a negative assessment of Miko.

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-17, 02:08 PM

Easy. Saw examples of lay on hands. Didn't see examples of CLW. Decided to take that as evidence of lower wisdom.

There's some logic to that, I suppose: EQ is a component of Wisdom, and she shows poor EQ on more than one occasion.

But evidently she does have high enough wisdom to cast CLW after all.

enderlord99

2017-10-17, 02:29 PM

I’m still confused about why the OP thinks Miko lacks the necessary Wisdom score to cast CLW.

She thinks Law and Good are the exact same thing, despite living in a world where that is objectively false in a way that can be conclusively verified. She assumes, upon losing her paladin powers, that she is still holier than those who retained their powers... purely because she was granted a higher rank (when she still had those powers) by someone, even after she executed that same someone for being a servant of Evil, which he actually wasn't. Upon breaking out of prison and seeing an army of hobgoblins invading the city, she ignores the battle, the city, and the populace in order to break the magic gemstone she was assigned to prevent the destruction of, because she couldn't think of any other reason the gods would let her escape (like, you know, killing hobgoblins; seriously, she might have been able to turn the tide of battle, at least partway.)

Do any of those behaviors sound like someone with a wisdom score at or above the upper half of average?

Jasdoif

2017-10-17, 04:41 PM

She thinks Law and Good are the exact same thingWhat makes you say that?

enderlord99

2017-10-17, 04:46 PM

What makes you say that?

She interpreted Shojo saying "I'm not Lawful" (upon overhearing it) as meaning "I am Evil." Didn't she? I could be wrong about that one, but with all the others...

dps

2017-10-17, 04:55 PM

She interpreted Shojo saying "I'm not Lawful" (upon overhearing it) as meaning "I am Evil." Didn't she? I could be wrong about that one, but with all the others...

He had told Roy earlier that he was Chaotic, but I don't think he ever said he wasn't Lawful during the conversation that Miko and Hinjo overheard. He did say that he had been working behind the Paladins' backs and had been lying to them, which is Chaotic behavior, but not proof that he was Chaotic.

Any anyway, even if she did confuse Lawful with Good, non-Good doesn't automatically mean Evil; there's neutral, after all.

Jasdoif

2017-10-17, 05:04 PM

She interpreted Shojo saying "I'm not Lawful" (upon overhearing it) as meaning "I am Evil." Didn't she?I'm pretty sure that (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0405.html) was more about "I'm deliberately deceiving the forces meant to preserve Good in Azure City", rather than anything directly to do with Law vs Chaos.

I could be wrong about that one, but with all the others...Even with the spin, your described scenarios would take a lot of willpower for Miko to go through with; that'd easily fit with above-average Wisdom.

woweedd

2017-10-17, 06:17 PM

I'm pretty sure that (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0405.html) was more about "I'm deliberately deceiving the forces meant to preserve Good in Azure City", rather than anything directly to do with Law vs Chaos.

Even with the spin, your described scenarios would take a lot of willpower for Miko to go through with; that'd easily fit with above-average Wisdom.

Granted, that willpower is the willpower to keep on consistently making wrong decisions, in the face of overwhelming evidence she's wrong, including the Gods to which she has devoted her life personally showing up in the sky and basically declaring that she screwed up in the most unambiguous way possible. In my opinion, a High-Wisdom character is one who, when given a decision, can pick the right one based on their gut but, if they have low Intelligence, can't really explain why they picked it and, when presented when a problem without an obvious solution, collapses. They know the right decision, but they can't come up with a solution on their own. See: Forrest Gump, my favorite example of a Low-Intelligence, High-Wisdom character in action. Miko has overwhelming evidence she made the wrong decision, and she goes on with it anyway. That is Low Wisdom.

Jasdoif

2017-10-17, 07:18 PM

Miko has overwhelming evidence she made the wrong decision, and she goes on with it anyway. That is Low Wisdom.I don't think that's quite accurate....She repeatedly decided the framework she made the decision in was itself faulty, found a new perspective to look at her situation with, and took a new course of action based on that. That those courses of action reflected her self-image is...not out of line for using willpower to hold her self-image together in spite of the obvious damage to it.

Though frankly, D&D tying "willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#wisdomWis)" all to Wisdom makes the mental ability score thing an even bigger mess when there's a conflict between "what you see happening" and "what you want to see happen"....

Hamste

2017-10-18, 11:07 AM

Upon breaking out of prison and seeing an army of hobgoblins invading the city, she ignores the battle, the city, and the populace in order to break the magic gemstone she was assigned to prevent the destruction of, because she couldn't think of any other reason the gods would let her escape (like, you know, killing hobgoblins; seriously, she might have been able to turn the tide of battle, at least partway.)

Do any of those behaviors sound like someone with a wisdom score at or above the upper half of average?

Upon breaking out, she immediately heard an extremely powerful Lich in the throne room and went to go protect the thing she vowed to protect over trying to get vengeance.

When she gets there she sees two high level spells casters one of whom killed 5 of the ghosts in a single attack. What is more, while they are covered in wounds if they could kill all those paladins and so many ghosts she probably couldn't handle them particularly while fallen (she knew with her paladin abilities she could take out Redcloak 1v1 but lost to a single spell from Xykon). She also sees that O-Chul was about to sunder the gem when paralyzed. We also know it is acknowledged by him and the spell caster that the gem's destruction is a valid solution that a normal person with the same info as Miko would do if they think it will be lost (and those people probably had above average wisdom).

This action seems to be the actions of someone with decent to above average wisdom. She makes logical sense and her decisions work but are not the optimal solution so if I had to guess, she probably has decent wisdom and neutral intelligence.

dps

2017-10-18, 11:32 PM

Upon breaking out, she immediately heard an extremely powerful Lich in the throne room and went to go protect the thing she vowed to protect over trying to get vengeance.

When she gets there she sees two high level spells casters one of whom killed 5 of the ghosts in a single attack. What is more, while they are covered in wounds if they could kill all those paladins and so many ghosts she probably couldn't handle them particularly while fallen (she knew with her paladin abilities she could take out Redcloak 1v1 but lost to a single spell from Xykon). She also sees that O-Chul was about to sunder the gem when paralyzed. We also know it is acknowledged by him and the spell caster that the gem's destruction is a valid solution that a normal person with the same info as Miko would do if they think it will be lost (and those people probably had above average wisdom).

This action seems to be the actions of someone with decent to above average wisdom. She makes logical sense and her decisions work but are not the optimal solution so if I had to guess, she probably has decent wisdom and neutral intelligence.

Beyond that, most of the Paladins were assigned to defend the throne room. Assuming that was a standing plan (which seems relatively likely), then she knew that was her assigned station (ignoring that she wasn't a Paladin anymore).

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-19, 08:13 AM

So why can't they spend these tokens Shojo gives them, if they're members of a known and legal organisation? They don't need to reveal the protecting the world from the Snarl bit in order to get a free meal.
I have no idea. Early-strip Miko doesn't conceal the name of her organisation from either the order or the ogre bandits, so it can't be all that closely-guarded.

She thinks Law and Good are the exact same thing, despite living in a world where that is objectively false in a way that can be conclusively verified. She assumes, upon losing her paladin powers, that she is still holier than those who retained their powers... purely because she was granted a higher rank (when she still had those powers) by someone, even after she executed that same someone for being a servant of Evil, which he actually wasn't. Upon breaking out of prison and seeing an army of hobgoblins invading the city, she ignores the battle, the city, and the populace in order to break the magic gemstone she was assigned to prevent the destruction of, because she couldn't think of any other reason the gods would let her escape (like, you know, killing hobgoblins; seriously, she might have been able to turn the tide of battle, at least partway.)
It's not obvious to me that someone screaming 'the laws have no meaning!' immediately before they bypass due process is especially conflating Law with their understanding of the Good.

(I have always wondered why the Deva audit process is needed for entry to the afterlife in 99.9% of cases, though. I mean, the premise of the alignment system is that the universe constantly monitors your activities 24/7 and pronounces upon their ethical and moral worthiness as a kind of automatic background process- by the time you're dead, can't you just pass through some kind of scanner?)

There's some logic to that, I suppose: EQ is a component of Wisdom, and she shows poor EQ on more than one occasion.
I would've said EQ (such as it is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence#Criticisms_of_theoretical_f oundation)) was a component of Charisma, but her canonically high score in that department is equally hard to explain. (You can dodge this by saying that charisma is 'force of personality', but in the absence of persuasive ability that's hard to separate from willpower, which is supposed to be subsumed under Wisdom.)

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-19, 08:23 AM

(I have always wondered why the Deva audit process is needed for entry to the afterlife in 99.9% of cases, though. I mean, the premise of the alignment system is that the universe constantly monitors your activities 24/7 and pronounces upon their ethical and moral worthiness as a kind of automatic background process- by the time you're dead, can't you just pass through some kind of scanner?)

Because she is an embodiment of law, and therefore finds it that both she and the people audited prefer that the the law is being visibly followed? Same reason why they had to remove the escalators from the initial mountain climb. These are the people who truly believe in their heart that rules must be followed. And when they get to heaven, the first thing they discover is that 1) Rules do indeed exist and 2) they are in fact being followed.

I doubt we will see the other locations (except maybe Belkar's), but I picture the Chaotic Good "audit" as a guy smoking his drug of choice, chilling out in the sun and literally just waving everyone that ends there through with a "Hey man, you look fine to me, come on in".

GW

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-19, 08:36 AM

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-19, 08:42 AM

Yeah... but... in the context of D&D, we're talking about Law in a sense closer to The Law of Gravity than The Queensbury Rules- it's just how the universe operates. It would be, in our world, a little like doing headcount to establish that you have an appropriate ratio of protons to neutrons, or that you didn't violate mass-energy conservation.

No, it's not like that. By word of author, you end up in the plain of your self-declared alignment. So Nale ended up in the Legal Evil one, even though he probably didn't belong there. Then there is a verification process, and what that will look like depends on the characteristics of the plane. So in the Legal Good, a friendly deva looks through your case and checks if your alignment actually matches what you say it should be. In the lower planes, you end up in the inbox of a devil(/demon/daevil; I don't remember whose inbox it actually was), who eventually takes time from his personal plotting to do the same.

Yes, the actual determination of where you belong might be as easy as casting a spell, but that is not what the dead person expects. The afterlives are tailored to fit the expectations of the individuals, to more efficiently integrate them into the plane and deliver their energy to the gods. There is no point in upsetting them by making things too automatic.

Grey Wolf

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-19, 08:52 AM

Kish

2017-10-19, 08:52 AM

Yeeeaah...in the context of D&D, the Lawful alignment most definitely does not mean anything comparable to "acknowledges the law of gravity."

Keltest

2017-10-19, 09:11 AM

So... you're saying that the audit process of the LG afterlife is essentially window-dressing to make bureacratically-minded individuals feel at home? I guess I could see that happening, but I'm betting the Deva knows exactly what verdict they're delivering in advance.

I very much doubt that the lower planes are particularly concerned about their, ah... raw materials' feelings, though. Isn't the 'aeons of torture' bit likely to be upsetting either way?

Probably, if that were actually the way the lower planes worked. But they aren't deliberately torture, theyre just filled with ambitious people who have no qualms about stepping all over you to get what they want. If youre big enough to do or otherwise avoid the stepping, theyre fairly nice places to be for the people who go there.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-19, 09:14 AM

@Kish: I'm clearly not saying Lawful == 'acknowledges existence of gravity'. I'm referring to how, in D&D, certain actions intrinsically bump up your 'Law score' by a certain amount, and it's not a subjective or personal thing. Whether and how far you detect as Chaotic doesn't depend on who casts the spell, and it doesn't depend on whether you want it be Lawful or not. It is or it ain't.

I'm totally aware that how that works in practice is a big hand-wave and would actually require immensely complex (https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-6/page-112-2/) judgements of motive, intent, consequence and expectation that we can probably only grasp by approximation, but... if you accept the premise that the universe somehow does this anyhow, then individual judgments on the topic are somewhat superfluous.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-19, 09:16 AM

Probably, if that were actually the way the lower planes worked. But they aren't deliberately torture, theyre just filled with ambitious people who have no qualms about stepping all over you to get what they want. If youre big enough to do or otherwise avoid the stepping, theyre fairly nice places to be for the people who go there.

I'd described them as "fulfilling" for the people who get on top, more than "nice", but that's just a nitpick. I picture them as a constant struggle for supremacy, where the middling ones do probably get strong-armed into this or that cause, and the losers do get tortured by the local devil equivalent to power the gods and the plane.

if you accept the premise that the universe somehow does this anyhow, then individual judgments on the topic are somewhat superfluous.
But the universe doesn't do that. It sends you to the plane you superficially believe yourself to belong to, and then and only then, does a planar agent determine if you were right about that. The universe is far more uncaring than you are picturing.

Grey Wolf

Kish

2017-10-19, 09:25 AM

I would point out that "if you accept the premise that the universe somehow does this anyhow, then individual judgments on the topic are somewhat superfluous" amounts to "if we start with the premise that evaluations such as the one depicted for Roy are pointless, meaningless, and unnecessary, then evaluations such as the one depicted for Roy are pointless, meaningless, and unnecessary." That would seem to be a good reason not to assume that premise. Why is that not what it's being presented as?

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-19, 09:44 AM

@Kish: That seems to be an argument that the story's events and logic are supposed to be self-justifying just by being there. No?

But the universe doesn't do that. It sends you to the plane you superficially believe yourself to belong to...
No, even in OOTS, all individuals do still have intrinsic alignments as an intrinsic side-effect of how the universe works. That's built into D&D from it's inception, there's no getting around it. How good or evil or lawful or chaotic they are is a physical property you can measure, like temperature or electricity.

So... unless you have specific and separate criteria for afterlife admission- such as the Dwarven afterlife or perhaps the Dark One's plane- you would save a great deal of time by just measuring the side-effect.

I can totally understand finding that notion absurd, but then you have to abandon the notion that the universe has objective, built-in standards of ethics and morality.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-19, 10:00 AM

No, even in OOTS, all individuals do still have intrinsic alignments as an intrinsic side-effect of how the universe works. That's built into D&D from it's inception, there's no getting around it. How good or evil or lawful or chaotic they are is a physical property you can measure, like temperature or electricity.

So... unless you have specific and separate criteria for afterlife admission- such as the Dwarven afterlife or perhaps the Dark One's plane- you would save a great deal of time by just measuring the side-effect.

I can totally understand finding that notion absurd, but then you have to abandon the notion that the universe has objective, built-in standards of ethics and morality.

No-one is disputing this. What we are disputing is your assumption (which literally contradicts what Rich has told us about how going to the afterlife works) that "the Universe" automatically places you in the right afterlife. The Universe does no such thing. Because the Universe doesn't care. So the planar agents have to make sure they aren't letting in someone that would not fit in to the place.

This is what the story tells us happens. The author has then gone on to clarify that the souls are sent to their self-professed alignment. You telling me how you think it should work doesn't change anything.

ETA:
Let me put it another way.There are two measurable alignments to every soul, "property you can measure":
1) Actual alignment. This can be measured via a magic spell, but can be occluded in many ways, some magical, some mundane
2) Self-professed alignment. This can be measured by asking, but can be occluded in many ways, some magical, some mundane

You are insisting that the Universe must care about the first and ignore the second, but you do not have a reason why it should be so. The story and the author tells us that "the universe" cares about the second, and not the first when it comes to souls departing their bodies.

Grey Wolf

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-19, 10:04 AM

Non-one is disputing this. What we are disputing is your assumption (which literally contradicts what Rich has told us about how going to the afterlife works) that "the Universe" automatically places you in the right afterlife...
I honestly don't understand why this is so contentious, but that's, uh, not what I said:

...by the time you're dead, can't you just pass through some kind of scanner?)

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-19, 10:05 AM

I honestly don't understand why this is so contentious, but that's, uh, not what I said:

To which the answer is "clearly not".

Also, see my edit above.

Grey Wolf

factotum

2017-10-19, 10:26 AM

I'm referring to how, in D&D, certain actions intrinsically bump up your 'Law score' by a certain amount, and it's not a subjective or personal thing.

Actually, it is both subjective *and* personal--it's just that the subjectivity and the personal bias comes from the DM running the game, not the players themselves. If you do something that your DM considers to be an alignment-shifting act then they're the ones who will turn to you and say, "Oh, by the way, remember you were Lawful Good? Totes Neutral Good now because of what you did to that thief."

The difference between that and OotS is that the world presented in the strip does not have an over-arching DM, so indeed, there isn't anyone to turn round and say that you've just changed alignment.

Lacuna Caster

2017-10-19, 10:28 AM

ETA:
Let me put it another way.There are two measurable alignments to every soul, "property you can measure":
1) Actual alignment. This can be measured via a magic spell, but can be occluded in many ways, some magical, some mundane
2) Self-professed alignment. This can be measured by asking, but can be occluded in many ways, some magical, some mundane...
But the afterlife clearly doesn't care about the alignment that a person thinks they have. The ostensible purpose of the audit process is to look objectively at their prior history of moral/ethical behaviour and evaluate their actual alignment on that basis. But you can evaluate their actual alignment with two spells!

Sure, hiding your alignment is certainly possible, but if we're imagining that petitioners have reasonable access to those kinds of class features, what's to stop them pulling out Charm Person or +20 bluff checks, and jinxing the audit process? The tiny minority of individuals with the wherewithal to do that could probably be set aside for separate screening.

Alternatively, one could imagine the way that the alignment system works is precisely because an immense celestial bureaucracy monitors your every word, thought and deed and evaluates your performance down to the nearest millinazi... but in that case, the auditors running the show would already know what you are when you die. Same difference.

.

Kish

2017-10-19, 10:32 AM

Going back to what started the contention in question:
I mean, the premise of the alignment system is that the universe constantly monitors your activities 24/7 and pronounces upon their ethical and moral worthiness as a kind of automatic background process-
It is apparent that that is not, in fact, the case in OotS. A paladin can act like a borderline fascist and tell someone who asks him for moral counseling, "It is important to remember simply that hobgoblins are usually Evil, and those who may not be so technically still worship an Evil God, or defend an Evil social order, or grow food for Evil warriors, or give birth to Evil children. It is enough for is to destroy their Evil society, and let any who survive reflect on the path of wickedness. Never hesitate to punish Evil, or support for Evil, or tolerance for Evil," and still not Fall, even though at that point he's only Lawful Good in his own mind and is flaunting his "I'm really Lawful Evil!" flag every time he opens his mouth, until he acts in a way that draws TheUniverse's negative attention.

You can say you don't like that. You can even say that makes OotS "not D&D." But flatly denying that it's the case in OotS seems an approach guaranteed to result in contention--of the "uh, why you say this obviously wrong thing?" variety. Based on what's shown in the comic, it seems pretty clear that if Gin-Jun had been struck by lightning and killed just after Miko asked her question, he would have been sent to Celestia, where a deva would have reviewed his actions, both direct and indirect, and told him that he was going to the Nine Hells. Pontificating about how that goes against the very premise of D&D and can't be the case serves no purpose.

Jaxzan Proditor

2017-10-19, 10:33 AM

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-19, 10:43 AM

Well, one reason why you might need auditors is because determining alignments isn’t enough to determine the correct plane someone should end up on. There are, after all, more planes than alignments, so you need someone to figure out if you end up in either Celestia, Arcadia, or Bytopia.

That might be the case, but the point remains that the Deva told Roy there was a very real possibility he might be shunted to the Neutral Good afterlife for his Chaotic actions in pursue of a Legal obligations, or to the True Neutral one if Roy hadn't gone back to rescue Elan after Roy abandoned him to the bandits, so it is not just picking which subset of the plane you best fit to.

GW

Fyraltari

2017-10-19, 03:20 PM

Itmight also be that the deva had already made her mind but wanted to both explain the decision to Roy and see how conscious of his own failings via an audit, and she only did that because she is a being of pure law and GOOD who would decide to sacrifice part of her time so that the souls in her care would understand in depth the decision made and not feel opressed by an arbitrary system. We have not seen what Nale judgment looked like but it entirely possible that it was a 2-seconds "You go there, you go there and you go there" processing.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-19, 04:21 PM

Itmight also be that the deva had already made her mind

That would require her to lie repeatedly about the purpose of the review, which seems quite unlikely for a deva.

GW

Kish

2017-10-19, 05:20 PM

She did lie. He asked if the blood oath wouldn't bind him to the mortal plane, and she said, "If we examine your life and find you worthy of entering the Celestial Realms, when you are raised and subsequently killed--and clear up this Blood Oath nonsense--you'll be ready to ascend." She didn't mention "oh, actually, you can ascend right now despite the Blood Oath" until his review was over. At best, she evaded and stonewalled his question.

So I think if she saw some moral benefit in so doing, she wouldn't hesitate to lie, or at least parse words as finely at Obi-Wan Kenobi ever did. Not that I can see much benefit in hiding the fact that she knew at the beginning of the interview what the result would be if that was the case, and she's quite the actor if her shock at his association with Belkar was entirely faked.

Fyraltari

2017-10-19, 05:29 PM

I don't think using socratic irony makes you lose browny points with the forces of Law and good.

Nothing in her attitude makes it look like Roy's questionnable choice of business partners was new to her to my eyes. She just strongly disapprove of it.

dps

2017-10-19, 06:13 PM

@Kish: That seems to be an argument that the story's events and logic are supposed to be self-justifying just by being there. No?

I wouldn't say that (and I can't answer for Kish in any event), but I would say that the story's events and logic are supposed to be internally consistent, and that we should take what is shown at face value unless we have good reason not to. And clearly, taking what is shown at face value, the recently deceased are judged as to which afterlife they go to, at least for those who are at least nominally LG.

Maybe that's not consistent with standard DnD rules, but the comic moved beyond strict adherence to DnD rules a long time ago.

hroþila

2017-10-19, 06:30 PM

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-10-19, 06:52 PM

Maybe she said that before a look at Roy's dossier revealed he had died trying to fulfill his oath.

That's what I assumed - that she took Roy at his word that his situation was identical to that of his father, and that he too was going to be stuck on the cloud. Then it turned out Roy was wrong, and that extenuating circumstances applied and made the blood oath not stop him from entering heaven (although I suspect that he'd only be able to go up so far before the blood oath was resolved - i.e. his soul is still attached to the living world)

Grey Wolf

Witty Username

2017-10-19, 11:51 PM

Showing kindness towards any being. Even Belkar's done that.

ETA: I take that back: she did show genuine feeling for Windstriker at the end. Another commanality between her and Belkar, actually. Able to forge a connection with a companion animal, but not with fellow sapient beings.

wow, I guess Lord Shojo's liver will thank me for that! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0373.html)

not necessarily kindness but definitive empathy, that and this page seems to cover the full Miko package looking back on it.

disclaimer::smallamused: I am having fun.

Meijin

2017-10-28, 04:20 PM

I think where she ends up is meant to be a bit ambiguous from the text. From my interpretation of her actions/how I would rule it, just before death she committed a major act to violate her LG code and explicitly died without atonement, either from a spell or even from just feeling at all sorry or realizing she may have been wrong. To me, that's a perfect candidate for an evil-aligned afterlife.

Kish

2017-10-28, 09:44 PM

I would think a perfect candidate for an evil-aligned afterlife would be someone who wrote down Something Evil on their character sheet, personally.

factotum

2017-10-29, 01:40 AM

she committed a major act to violate her LG code and explicitly died without atonement

There is no "LG code" to violate--even LG people have free will. Miko violated the *Paladin* code, which is far stricter and easier to break than the requirements to be LG. Yes, killing a defenceless old man is unquestionably an Evil act (even if done for the best of reasons), but does one Evil act--even a really, really bad one--counteract a lifetime of doing Good? And Miko had to have been doing Good all her life, because Paladins can't really do anything else without Falling. You kind of think if she'd Fallen at some point before she wouldn't have been so obsessed with thinking she was the chosen of the Twelve Gods.

hamishspence

2017-10-29, 05:35 AM

There is no "LG code" to violate--even LG people have free will. Miko violated the *Paladin* code, which is far stricter and easier to break than the requirements to be LG. Yes, killing a defenceless old man is unquestionably an Evil act (even if done for the best of reasons), but does one Evil act--even a really, really bad one--counteract a lifetime of doing Good?
The DMG does suggest that one Good act (full repentance) can counteract a lifetime of doing Evil - in its "exceptions" bit under alignment change.

So why not one Evil act countering a lifetime of "doing Good"? Especially if her attitude was wrong all the way through? Not necessarily enough to give her an "evil-aligned afterlife" - but maybe a "neutral-aligned afterlife"?

A paladin can act like a borderline fascist and tell someone who asks him for moral counseling, "It is important to remember simply that hobgoblins are usually Evil, and those who may not be so technically still worship an Evil God, or defend an Evil social order, or grow food for Evil warriors, or give birth to Evil children. It is enough for is to destroy their Evil society, and let any who survive reflect on the path of wickedness. Never hesitate to punish Evil, or support for Evil, or tolerance for Evil," and still not Fall, even though at that point he's only Lawful Good in his own mind and is flaunting his "I'm really Lawful Evil!" flag every time he opens his mouth, until he acts in a way that draws TheUniverse's negative attention.

You can say you don't like that. You can even say that makes OotS "not D&D." But flatly denying that it's the case in OotS seems an approach guaranteed to result in contention--of the "uh, why you say this obviously wrong thing?" variety. Based on what's shown in the comic, it seems pretty clear that if Gin-Jun had been struck by lightning and killed just after Miko asked her question, he would have been sent to Celestia, where a deva would have reviewed his actions, both direct and indirect, and told him that he was going to the Nine Hells.

Using this principle - and, in this case, taking into account that Miko has already committed her Fall-Worthy act - then if she's held to a similar standard that it's suggested Gin-Jun be held to - then it does seem like she wouldn't get into the Good afterlives at least. She might possibly be a little better than Gin-Jun (though her POV in Start of Darkness foreword section suggests not much better) - but it sounds like that's not enough to get her to any of the Upper Planes at least.

Kish

2017-10-29, 07:52 AM

If we're bringing in the Start of Darkness foreword, there are issues of consistency, too.

i.e.: I can't see that version of Miko hesitating for a second to slaughter Belkar in the throne room, the Order for defending him, Shojo for telling her not to, Hinjo for making jokes with criminals, Durkon for suggesting she should listen to him explaining why her target wasn't evil, the Wooden Inn staff for not knowing who removed the mattress tag...

Or maybe, prequel forewords aside, in the actual comic, Redcloak's knowledge of the Order is limited to approximately "the fighter had some kind of...revenge storyline?" rather than "they have a book dedicated to how they're the protagonists," and Miko did not spend her paladin career as a complete psychopath.

In terms of the morals he expresses, Gin-Jun was far worse than In-Comic Miko (was, in fact, a great deal like Foreword-Writing Miko, differing only in needing to be legally compelled before he tried to enforce his brand of Good with his own sword rather than by giving orders to other people and standing back). He seems to have evaded Falling as long as he did entirely because Rich doesn't treat speaking as an "act" which can be an "evil act," even if that speaking consists of responding to a request for moral guidance by making a case for the philosophy of fascism, or making a sincere effort to compel an angel to destroy a hobgoblin settlement.

dps

2017-10-29, 08:29 AM

The DMG does suggest that one Good act (full repentance) can counteract a lifetime of doing Evil - in its "exceptions" bit under alignment change.

So why not one Evil act countering a lifetime of "doing Good"? Especially if her attitude was wrong all the way through? Not necessarily enough to give her an "evil-aligned afterlife" - but maybe a "neutral-aligned afterlife"?

Sigh.

Because, as you pointed out, full repentance is in the "exceptions" bit. You do know the meaning of the word "exception", right?

hamishspence

2017-10-29, 09:05 AM

Because, as you pointed out, full repentance is in the "exceptions" bit. You do know the meaning of the word "exception", right?

Atypical, unusual, not the norm. But Miko's not exactly a normal being - so her changing alignment instantly from Good to Neutral, is not that implausible - especially in the context of references to Miko:

"pushing at the boundaries of her alignment and what it means to be a paladin"

If we're bringing in the Start of Darkness foreword, there are issues of consistency, too.

i.e.: I can't see that version of Miko hesitating for a second to slaughter Belkar in the throne room, the Order for defending him, Shojo for telling her not to, Hinjo for making jokes with criminals, Durkon for suggesting she should listen to him explaining why her target wasn't evil, the Wooden Inn staff for not knowing who removed the mattress tag...

Or maybe, prequel forewords aside, in the actual comic, Redcloak's knowledge of the Order is limited to approximately "the fighter had some kind of...revenge storyline?" rather than "they have a book dedicated to how they're the protagonists," and Miko did not spend her paladin career as a complete psychopath.

In terms of the morals he expresses, Gin-Jun was far worse than In-Comic Miko (was, in fact, a great deal like Foreword-Writing Miko, differing only in needing to be legally compelled before he tried to enforce his brand of Good with his own sword rather than by giving orders to other people and standing back).

I can agree with the idea that "Foreword Miko" represents her close to the end of her career as a paladin, rather than at the beginning of it, at least.

runeghost

2017-10-29, 09:29 AM

I can't remember the exact quote offhand, but word from the author is that the stickverse afterlife doesn't really allow for training or development and slowly turns all inhabitants into carbon copies of their alignment template. (Roy apparently only learned of his potential access to green sword-magic feats.)

The point of which is probably to make the afterlife sufficiently disappointing that 'not allowing world to end' serves more of a clear function. Again, though, intelligent outsiders with a variety of forms exist, so I'm not sure this is entirely consistent with either D&D in general or the strip itself.

I can't find the exact quote from the Giant either, but IIRC, it wasn't "that is how it works" but "for the sake of argument, go ahead and pretend that is how it works".

Kish

2017-10-29, 09:38 AM

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?434019-After-vs-Life/page2&p=19683417#post19683417) is the quote and the thread.

hamishspence

2017-10-29, 09:41 AM

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?434019-After-vs-Life/page2&p=19683417#post19683417) is the quote and the thread.

It does stress that Windstriker can visit Miko "as much as he is able" without her afterlife plane being the same as his home plane, at least:

Windstriker is not a dead soul, he is a living Celestial creature; he is not bound by the same rules. He needs a pass because he is in the service of the Twelve Gods and will likely be assigned to another paladin at some point, from whom he must get permission before going on a trip. If he were unemployed, he would be free to go to whatever plane he could find a way to travel to.

Kish

2017-10-29, 10:09 AM

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-29, 04:05 PM

Interesting! Two points I want to make about that:

1) That completely disproves my interpretation that Soon strongly implied that they'd be escorting Miko somewhere other than the Celestial Realm. If nothing else, Miko certainly still believed she was LG at the time of her death. So she had to have gone to the base of the mountain to start with regardless of her eventual disposition. Mea culpa.

2) That also seems to disprove that other poster's belief that in D&D the universe always tracks from moment to moment an official alignment for every free-willed being with a soul.

However: there was a reason for that argument, and if it IS wrong, we should grapple with the implications, and alternate explanations for how spells and effects such as Detect Evil work if every soul does NOT, in fact, have true alignment as an inherent trait.

The explanation that pops into my mind immediately is the uncertainty principle. Like in quantum mechanics, the exact alignment is undetermined until an observer with the discernment to perceive such a thing observes a soul and judges its current alignment.

How bizarre. But that's the only explanation I can think of that fits what we currently know.

factotum

2017-10-29, 05:41 PM

However: there was a reason for that argument, and if it IS wrong, we should grapple with the implications, and alternate explanations for how spells and effects such as Detect Evil work if every soul does NOT, in fact, have true alignment as an inherent trait.

The thing is, people have to have something intrinsic that makes them "Evil" or "Good", or else how would just being worn by Xykon for a few decades make his crown ping as Evil to a Detect Evil?

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-29, 06:36 PM

It's not useful to start with an assertion that is definitively contradicted by the text or by WOG.

The souls of free-willed beings do NOT have "Evil" as a persistent, inherent trait. (Or if they do, the afterlife system completely ignores this for some reason.) The true alignment of a free-willed being is determined by and the consequence of the judgment of an Outsider of one's nominal alignment after death. That is Word of Giant.

So how can an object like Xykon's Crown be imbued with Evil? There are lots of possibilities. It could be because he is undead and animated by negative energy. It could be because of the evil magic he's used in proximity of the crown for years.

Kish

2017-10-29, 08:27 PM

alwaysbebatman

2017-10-29, 09:30 PM

It could--the way I'm inclined to take it--be that while he'll still need to be reviewed when his soul finally arrives at the Abyss, the case that he's Chaotic Evil is overwhelmingly strong.

Pretty much exactly like it would work for a form of "it's because he's so evil" that doesn't involve the review process.

How would that infect his crown?

Or do you mean that although most sentient beings don't have an actual aura of evil that could do that, some especially evil beings like Xykon do?

hamishspence

2017-10-30, 02:12 AM

How would that infect his crown?

Book of Vile Darkness does suggest (pages 35-36) that exceptionally evil events can create a "tainting aura" that can contaminate objects involved in those events, causing those objects to ping on Detect Evil.

Xykon doing something exceptionally evil while wearing the crown, would explain why it detects as Evil, without being magical. It causing the wearer to detect as evil as well, is a bit homebrewey - would suggest that the spell is not quite as discriminating as it ought to be - but that could be because Miko is only scanning Roy for 2 rounds, not 3:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectEvil.htm

allowing it to be "There is one evil aura in the area (of Roy and the ground near him)" - but not narrowing it down to the crown on his head.

Doug Lampert

2017-11-02, 01:41 PM

Book of Vile Darkness does suggest (pages 35-36) that exceptionally evil events can create a "tainting aura" that can contaminate objects involved in those events, causing those objects to ping on Detect Evil.

Xykon doing something exceptionally evil while wearing the crown, would explain why it detects as Evil, without being magical. It causing the wearer to detect as evil as well, is a bit homebrewey - would suggest that the spell is not quite as discriminating as it ought to be - but that could be because Miko is only scanning Roy for 2 rounds, not 3:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectEvil.htm

allowing it to be "There is one evil aura in the area (of Roy and the ground near him)" - but not narrowing it down to the crown on his head.

Even at three rounds, all it gives is number, location, and power of auras (not creatures, you detect auras).

The detect Evil spell NEVER detects a creature's alignment, it always and only detects auras, and aura isn't a game term, so we fall back on the dictionary, which has it as:

Aura (noun): the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place.
"the ceremony retains an aura of mystery"
synonyms: atmosphere, ambience, air, quality, character, mood, feeling, feel, flavor, tone, tenor; More
a supposed emanation surrounding the body of a living creature, viewed by mystics, spiritualists, and some practitioners of complementary medicine as the essence of the individual, and allegedly discernible by people with special sensibilities.
any invisible emanation, especially a scent or odor.
"there was a faint aura of disinfectant"

Which doesn't sound to me AT ALL like it is precisely identifiable as to whether an aura comes from you, a spell cast on you, or an object you are carrying, or just the place you are standing.

The spell doesn't ever say in any way that it ever gives you a creature's alignment. At all. It always discusses the aura.

Even if it did give you the creature's location, so does blindsense, and it just gets within a 5' square. We have no evidence that aura sense is any more precise than this.

hamishspence

2017-11-02, 01:46 PM

The spell doesn't ever say in any way that it ever gives you a creature's alignment. At all. It always discusses the aura.

Even if it did give you the creature's location, so does blindsense, and it just gets within a 5' square. We have no evidence that aura sense is any more precise than this.

People are probably operating on the assumption that it worked the way Detect Magic worked - especially in the novels:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectMagic.htm

if you cast Detect Magic - the target's items will glow, in a way that can be separated from the target themselves.

It works that way in OOTS too - with it being possible to tell, for example, that Roy's belt, sword, and armor specifically when on him, glows, but his head doesn't, when the spell is cast in-strip.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0693.html

Pink line surrounds bits that are magic.

Psyren

2017-11-07, 01:34 AM

Nope, that one is totally open-ended too. There are multiple good-aligned planes with multiple internal subdivisions, and Windstriker is quite possibly already in the service of some other paladin, which would limit his spare time.

Not "totally" open-ended. We can rule out the LG one.

(Arguably, we can rule out all the good ones, because she failed to achieve "redemption" rather than mere reinstatement.)

Keltest

2017-11-07, 07:52 AM

Not "totally" open-ended. We can rule out the LG one.

(Arguably, we can rule out all the good ones, because she failed to achieve "redemption" rather than mere reinstatement.)

We can? Why's that?

littlebum2002

2017-11-07, 08:02 AM

We can? Why's that?

He's making the common misunderstanding that, if you fall as a Paladin, you are no longer of the Good alignment.

hamishspence

2017-11-07, 08:09 AM

it's not just that Miko fell, it's that Miko committed a spectacularly evil deed (murder, of someone not guilty of what she murdered him for) and didn't repent it.

Roy's Deva states that she would have "thrown his file into the True Neutral bin" over his abandoning of Elan, (which is seen as somewhat less evil than killing Shojo was) had he not demonstrated that he'd repented and "learned his lesson".

Keltest

2017-11-07, 08:11 AM

hamishspence

2017-11-07, 08:25 AM

What she believed she was doing, doesn't matter all that much. Shojo isn't her only victim, either - Hinjo got massively cut up by her when trying to talk her into surrendering, too.

Plus, in War & XPs, we have that line from The Giant about how Miko

"pushed and pushed at the boundaries of her alignment and what it means to be a paladin, until finally she broke through"

In that context - the hypothesis that Miko was in fact Nongood at death, and judged nongood by her assessors in the afterlife, is not all that farfetched.

Keltest

2017-11-07, 08:32 AM

hamishspence

2017-11-07, 08:39 AM

While it's possible that Psyren jumped the gun a little when it comes to Miko's alignment/afterlife destination:

Not "totally" open-ended. We can rule out the LG one.

even those defending Miko as "Javert-analogue", and insisting that Javert was not a Villain, and not Evil,

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?305273-I-m-finding-it-hard-to-care-anymore-about-these-characters&p=16111241&highlight=Javert#post16111241

couldn't convincingly make the case that he was any better than LN. And Miko is behind him on the "path to redemption" - having not accepted any wrong in her actions.

Quebbster

2017-11-07, 08:51 AM

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-07, 08:59 AM

Appointing yourself judge, jury and executioner doesn't seem like Lawful behaviour.

Errr... it is. As long as you are consistent, it is.

GW

Fyraltari

2017-11-07, 02:38 PM

I'd be more willing to accept Miko no longer being Lawful than her no longer being Good. Appointing yourself judge, jury and executioner doesn't seem like Lawful behaviour. Neutral good with Lawful tendencies, I could see.

Strikes me more as Lawful Evil if you appoint yourself, and Lawful Neutralif it is part of a system (like Judge Dredd).

alwaysbebatman

2017-11-07, 04:07 PM

Keltest

2017-11-07, 04:29 PM

Looking to yourself, rather than to the law or to your lawfully-selected superior, to determine the correct course of action is not less good, it is less lawful. LEs still believe in the importance of a hierarchy, they just devote themselves to a hierarchy which is malevolent.

Its not even less lawful, necessarily. If you are the one making the laws, youre inherently relying on your own judgment because the law answers to you, for example.

hamishspence

2017-11-07, 04:39 PM

The Giant on Law:

To think that Lawful always means "obeying the written law" is a gross misunderstanding of the D&D definition of the term.

For example, think of formal duels—the "pistols at dawn" kind. Such events are undoubtedly Lawful affairs—they have strict codes, elaborate rules, and concern themselves mostly with symbolic honor. All hallmarks of Lawful behavior when contrasted with, say, a drunken brawl. However, at the time Aaron Burr shot Hamilton, they were illegal in the United States. People who participated in such duels were abiding by a formal code of ethics and behavior that was in opposition to democratically passed law. Lawful behavior can be made illegal in a given jurisdiction, but that doesn't spontaneously change the nature of the act in a cosmological sense.

I've used this example before, but if a paladin walks into the orc's swamp to do battle, he is not suddenly bound to obey the Orc King's laws or lose his paladinhood. It is entirely possible to have a code that you believe supersedes the written law wherever you are and still be considered Lawful.

I've often said that a lot of confusion would have been avoided if they had simply called it Ordered instead of Lawful. "Ordered Good" leaves a lot less room for misinterpretation.

And on how some laws may be "higher" than others:

The actual laws in place are at best tangential to whether an action is lawful or chaotic. If Hinjo, for example, were to decree that paladins are allowed to take whatever they want from the AC refugees, actually doing so would still be a chaotic act, even if it were technically legal.

It would be Chaotic, because all those paladins have separately sworn oaths to the gods to protect the innocent. They would be breaking a Lawful vow because a mortal law said it was OK. That's Chaotic, or at least not Lawful. Hinjo cannot absolve the paladins of their word given freely with the stroke of a pen.

And on Miko-esque vigilantism:

the answer to your broader question is usually, "No, in a civilized society, you can't lawfully kill someone for a crime you can't prove." You can do it, and possibly still be Lawful, but doing so is not going to be a Lawful act. Yes, that sometimes means that villains get away with things, but the alternative is anarchy, with people just randomly killing other people for made-up crimes. In most Lawful societies, the job of meting out justice does not lay with the citizenry, but with the police (or the knights, or whatever). If you're Lawful, you take your case to the authorities and try to convince them to arrest the villain. Or, you realize that one Chaotic act won't change your whole alignment and kill them anyway. And then maybe you turn yourself in for murder.

Psyren

2017-11-07, 05:53 PM

We can? Why's that?

He's making the common misunderstanding that, if you fall as a Paladin, you are no longer of the Good alignment.

No - we can rule out her destination as being the LG one because Soon explicitly said she's going to a different place than the rest of the dead paladins (and different even than her own mount.)

Note that I'm not saying she's going to Hell either. She could very well be getting shipped off to LN, in recognition for her tireless (if misguided) lifelong battle against evil forces, even if she applied that term more broadly than most sane people would.

Keltest

2017-11-07, 05:57 PM

No - we can rule out her destination as being the LG one because Soon explicitly said she's going to a different place than the rest of the paladins (and different even than her own mount.)

As I said earlier in the thread to this exact claim, I think you are reading far more into Soon's statement than is actually there. They are escorting her to the same cloud plane Roy was judged on, because she declared herself to be (striving to be) Lawful Good, which means they get first crack at her review.

Psyren

2017-11-07, 08:23 PM

As I said earlier in the thread to this exact claim, I think you are reading far more into Soon's statement than is actually there. They are escorting her to the same cloud plane Roy was judged on, because she declared herself to be (striving to be) Lawful Good, which means they get first crack at her review.

And I think you're not reading enough. That effectively WAS her review, by the founder of her entire order no less. Roy has no such reporting structure. The fact that Soon is capable of ushering her soul anywhere is proof enough of that.

Keltest

2017-11-07, 09:29 PM

And I think you're not reading enough. That effectively WAS her review, by the founder of her entire order no less. Roy has no such reporting structure. The fact that Soon is capable of ushering her soul anywhere is proof enough of that.

Soon is not a Deva. That was not her review. And finally, ushering just means guiding, it doesn't mean he is deciding where she goes.

Psyren

2017-11-07, 09:45 PM

Soon is not a Deva.

And? He clearly has far more information about her than someone who came into existence in the last few rounds should have. He is in a position to judge. "You have done none of this."

That was not her review. And finally, ushering just means guiding, it doesn't mean he is deciding where she goes.

You're going through several contortions to justify that "your destination as well" really meant "still the Celestial Realm, but with an unnamed pit-stop first." And ignoring literally everything he said about her "misdeeds" and "the gods turning away." It's a bit boggling to be honest.

Keltest

2017-11-07, 09:54 PM

And? He clearly has far more information about her than someone who came into existence in the last few rounds should have. He is in a position to judge. "You have done none of this."

You're going through several contortions to justify that "your destination as well" really meant "still the Celestial Realm, but with an unnamed pit-stop first." And ignoring literally everything he said about her "misdeeds" and "the gods turning away." It's a bit boggling to be honest.

Whats mind boggling is the idea that the metaphysical forces of Law and Good would just shrug and say "yeah, this guy probably has it handled."

Roy tried to deviate from the procedure a tiny bit, and was shot down so hard. Why would Soon be allowed to act as her judge?

Psyren

2017-11-07, 10:08 PM

Roy tried to deviate from the procedure a tiny bit, and was shot down so hard. Why would Soon be allowed to act as her judge?

I don't know. Why was he allowed to found an entire religious order in the first place? What I do know is that he very clearly judged her there.

"Does that mean I get to be a Paladin again?"
"No."
*cue lecture on redemption.*

Or if it makes you feel better, he was the mouthpiece of the judgment made higher above him, rather than the actual judge. Still doesn't change his status as an authoritative source either way.

Keltest

2017-11-07, 10:19 PM

I don't know. Why was he allowed to found an entire religious order in the first place? What I do know is that he very clearly judged her there.

"Does that mean I get to be a Paladin again?"
"No."
*cue lecture on redemption.*

Or if it makes you feel better, he was the mouthpiece of the judgment made higher above him, rather than the actual judge. Still doesn't change his status as an authoritative source either way.

An authority on being a paladin? sure. An authority on where Miko's life journey has taken her? yeah, no.

dps

2017-11-07, 10:32 PM

I don't know. Why was he allowed to found an entire religious order in the first place? What I do know is that he very clearly judged her there.

[B]"Does that mean I get to be a Paladin again?"[ /b]
"No."
*cue lecture on redemption.*

Exactly. He was responding the her specific question about being a Paladin again, not a question about her alignment. To repeat a point made before, no one is questioning that she fell from Paladin status. The question is, did her alignment also change? We don't know the answer to that one. Is it possible? Yes. Can we say for certain that it did? Absolutely not.

Psyren

2017-11-07, 11:17 PM

An authority on being a paladin? sure. An authority on where Miko's life journey has taken her? yeah, no.

Believe what you want; I have no reason not to treat Ghost-Soon's voice as authoritative.

Exactly. He was responding the her specific question about being a Paladin again, not a question about her alignment. To repeat a point made before, no one is questioning that she fell from Paladin status. The question is, did her alignment also change? We don't know the answer to that one. Is it possible? Yes. Can we say for certain that it did? Absolutely not.

Sending her somewhere other than the afterlife all the other paladins are going to while still having the same alignment they do seems needlessly convoluted.

alwaysbebatman

2017-11-08, 02:27 AM

I was making the same case earlier. It does seem like the clear implication of Soon's words.

But WoG contradicts the interpretation:

Originally Posted by The Giant
The deva only got "first look" because Lawful Good was the alignment Roy declared himself to be. It was his goal, and the review was to see if he had really met that goal. If he didn't, that would mean he actually had some other alignment,

Every soul goes to the afterlife that they THINK they deserve. And get tossed again if they were mistaken. Miko definitely went to the base of the mountain for judgment first.

(And promptly got tossed distinctly further South AND East, in my opinion. But I don't care to debate that opinion any further.)

factotum

2017-11-08, 10:17 AM

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-08, 10:21 AM

It's worth noting that Soon died years ago and was presumably judged at that point--he hasn't done anything post-mortem to change his destination so he probably gets a free pass up the Mountain. Miko, having only just died (in fact, she was still alive when Soon was talking to her) doesn't get that.

Has he, though? His soul was trapped into the throne room, not unlike the soul-trapping effect of a vampire, except for its purpose. It is not impossible that he had never been to the judgement prior to the destruction of the jewel. By definition, ghosts haven't moved on, and the ghost paladins are just positive energy ghosts.

GW

hamishspence

2017-11-08, 10:57 AM

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-08, 11:13 AM

Soon specifically says that it's their oath that binds them.

Just like Eugene's Oath bound him.

Which means that, a bit like Eugene and Roy - they might have gotten to the first stage of the review (and, unlike Eugene, brought it up at the start) and the deva might have said, like a deva did to Roy

"Let's review you now, so that should your oath is fulfilled, you'll be free to ascend- get all the bureaucratic stuff out of the way".

Fair enough. So, depending on the nature of the oath and the magical enchantment that creates the martyr paladins, there are 3 possibilities:

1) They are "soul-bound" to the throne room, their souls never made it to the afterlife at all
2) They are "oath-bound" to the throne room, so they got their interview, but weren't allowed into heaven until their oath was discharged, so they went back to the throne room after the interview
3) They are not bound to the throne room, so they went through the interview, made it in, and they get booted out if and when the throne room needs defending.

Of the three, I find 3 the least plausible, precisely because we are told that once up the mountain, there is a strong incentive to make you forget and ignore what goes on in the material plane. It also takes a while to both go up and down the mountain, which doesn't really work when you are needed as an emergency defence force.

But I still think my own possibility, the first one, is the correct one, based on what we saw happening to the paladins that died to Xykon's bouncy ball: they immediately joined the martyr army. They did not go up to heaven, pass the interview and sent back. Now, it could have been that there was specifically a subclause in the magic for paladins killed in the attack to the throne room that was a short-cut to the usual process... but I find it more parsimonious that that's how it works for all of them: if you are a Azure City paladin and you die, your soul doesn't go to the LG plane, you go to the throne room and defend it.

Grey Wolf

hroþila

2017-11-08, 11:59 AM

When Shojo dismissed Eugene, he mentioned "certain forces" were uncomfortable with his presence, implying the ghost-martyrs (or at least Soon) were somehow present even when not manifesting themselves. It may not be strong evidence on its own because, conceivably, any such ghost could be seeing Eugene from the afterlife and taking issue with him, but that doesn't sound particularly likely to me. All in all, I'd go with (1).

KorvinStarmast

2017-11-08, 12:01 PM

I just realized that that thread has the answer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17213673&postcount=25) to the earlier argument over whether anyone would ever get near an afterlife that didn't fit their Official Universe-Determined Constantly-Tracked Alignment.
Originally Posted by The Giant
The deva only got "first look" because Lawful Good was the alignment Roy declared himself to be. It was his goal, and the review was to see if he had really met that goal. If he didn't, that would mean he actually had some other alignment, This is a very Gygaxian look at alignment (per the DMG for 1e) regarding the delta between professed alignment (what one may write on a character sheet, or claim in discussion or self evaluation) and demonstrated alignment (which is where the DM/cosmos makes a ruling on whether or not one was, or was not, adhering to one's alignment {with attendant penalties/bonuses as described in AD&D 1e DMG, pages 23-25).

Graphing Alignment:
It is of importance to keep track of player character behavior with respect to their professed alignment. Actions do speak far more eloquently than professions, and each activity of a player character should reflect his or her alignment.
If a professed lawful evil character is consistently seeking to be helpful and is respecting the lesser creatures, he or she is certainly tending towards good, while if he or she ignores regulations and consistent behavior the trend is towards chaotic alignment {snip} Such drift should be noted by you, and when it takes the individual into a new alignment area, you should then inform the player that his or her character has changed alignment (see CHANGING ALIGNMENT). It is quite possible for a character to drift around in an alignment area, making only small shifts due to behavior. However, any major action which is out of alignment character will cause a major shift to the alignment which is directly in line with the action, i.e., if a lawful evil character defies the law in order to aid the cause (express or implied) of chaotic good, he or she will be either lawful neutral or chaotic neutral, depending on the factors involved in the action. What Rich offered was that this adjustment is made when the character arrives in the afterlife in most cases (though Miko's loss of Paladin powers while still alive offers the case that in the extreme violation the deities will act, as The Twelve did). Interesting to see the momentum that this ancient concept carried forward.

Fyraltari

2017-11-08, 12:36 PM

This is a very Gygaxian look at alignment (per the DMG for 1e) regarding the delta between professed alignment (what one may write on a character sheet, or claim in discussion or self evaluation) and demonstrated alignment (which is where the DM/cosmos makes a ruling on whether or not one was, or was not, adhering to one's alignment {with attendant penalties/bonuses as described in AD&D 1e DMG, pages 23-25).
What Rich offered was that this adjustment is made when the character arrives in the afterlife in most cases (though Miko's loss of Paladin powers while still alive offers the case that in the extreme violation the deities will act, as The Twelve did). Interesting to see the momentum that this ancient concept carried forward.

I think it is more that since there is no GM figure to tell the individualhe has shifted alignment, said individual may not notice the (gradual) shift and/or delude themselves about their failings.

alwaysbebatman

2017-11-08, 12:56 PM

What Rich offered was that this adjustment is made when the character arrives in the afterlife in most cases (though Miko's loss of Paladin powers while still alive offers the case that in the extreme violation the deities will act, as The Twelve did). Interesting to see the momentum that this ancient concept carried forward.

Don't forget, that was the fall from Paladin-hood, not the alignment change itself. You MAY believe that she changed alignment at the same time, but it's not necessarily so.

Personally, I would say the alignment change happened immediately after, when she failed to acknowledge the authority of the highest possible authority in her system, (moving her right,) and failed to honestly question herself whether her actions had genuinely been benevolent when given good reason to, (moving her down).

hamishspence

2017-11-08, 01:28 PM

I figured that the throne room being under attack, short-circuited the usual process - and that, in time of peace, a paladin would at least get a basic review before returning to the throne room.

Psyren

2017-11-08, 01:35 PM

I figured that the throne room being under attack, short-circuited the usual process - and that, in time of peace, a paladin would at least get a basic review before returning to the throne room.

Yep - the fact that Paladins who die in that room are bound there normally, provides a plausible reason for Soon to be involved in her "processing."

Keltest

2017-11-08, 01:44 PM

Yep - the fact that Paladins who die in that room are bound there normally, provides a plausible reason for Soon to be involved in her "processing."

Besides the fact that he is also a paladin, there isn't any reason for him to be involved. He isn't a physical (or spiritual) manifestation of the forces of law and good. As far as we have seen, he has no affiliation with the actual beings of pure law and good, and indeed Lawful Good ghosts are decidedly NOT counted among the ranks of such beings.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-08, 01:47 PM

Yep - the fact that Paladins who die in that room are bound there normally, provides a plausible reason for Soon to be involved in her "processing."

She's not a paladin. There is no reason for Soon to be involved anywhere in the process. The idea he gets to take over the role of a Deva when it comes to fellow Paladins is already a massive stretch. Further suggesting he'd take over deva duties for Miko is simply unsupported.

GW

Psyren

2017-11-08, 02:32 PM

She's not a paladin. There is no reason for Soon to be involved anywhere in the process.

If the process is "can I be a paladin again" or "can I go where the other paladins are going" then he absolutely would. So we can agree to disagree.

And again, the point you and Keltest still haven't addressed is that Soon may have had no part in judging her at all, but merely was relaying what a higher being (even the 12 themselves) told him about her status. But speaking on behalf of authority means your pronouncements are themselves authoritative, so it doesn't change my point at all.

In other words, whether he knows where she is going because he decided himself, or he knows where she is going because the people who decided it told him, he still knows where she is going. Capisce?

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-08, 02:39 PM

If the process is "can I be a paladin again" or "can I go where the other paladins are going" then he absolutely would. So we can agree to disagree.

And again, the point you and Keltest still haven't addressed is that Soon may have had no part in judging her at all, but merely was relaying what a higher being (even the 12 themselves) told him about her status. But speaking on behalf of authority means your pronouncements are themselves authoritative, so it doesn't change my point at all.

In other words, whether he knows where she is going because he decided himself, or he knows where she is going because the people who decided it told him, he still knows where she is going. Capisce?

Yes, of course he knows where she is going: to the LG plane, to be judged, just like everyone else that believes themselves to be LG. What that has to do with your argument that it is Soon that gets to perform the judgment is the part that fails to make any sense.

GW

Psyren

2017-11-08, 02:43 PM

Yes, of course he knows where she is going: to the LG plane, to be judged, just like everyone else that believes themselves to be LG.

If this is true, how do you explain "We will usher you to your destination as well?" Why wouldn't he just say "We're all headed to the LG plane to be judged?" That's the part of your assertion that fails to make any sense.

What's more - if her ending up in Celestia was still a question, why would Windstriker not being with her (instead needing to "visit") be a foregone conclusion?

Fyraltari

2017-11-08, 02:46 PM

If the process is "can I be a paladin again" or "can I go where the other paladins are going" then he absolutely would. So we can agree to disagree.

And again, the point you and Keltest still haven't addressed is that Soon may have had no part in judging her at all, but merely was relaying what a higher being (even the 12 themselves) told him about her status. But speaking on behalf of authority means your pronouncements are themselves authoritative, so it doesn't change my point at all.

In other words, whether he knows where she is going because he decided himself, or he knows where she is going because the people who decided it told him, he still knows where she is going. Capisce?

But that would mean that the judgment already took place. And she was not dead yet.

Psyren

2017-11-08, 02:52 PM

But that would mean that the judgment already took place. And she was not dead yet.

She was moments from dying. Not much you can do at that point to atone, so for expediency (since he wasn't going to see her again) and for narrative purposes (our benefit as the audience, which is a thing in their world) he gave her an on-the-spot debrief.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-08, 02:54 PM

If this is true, how do you explain "We will usher you to your destination as well?" Why wouldn't he just say "We're all headed to the LG plane to be judged?" That's the part of your assertion that fails to make any sense.
There is a queue for southeners dead in the battle, and another for northeners dead in the battle. Not much of a stretch to assume that there is a third queue for ghosts, especially since, if anything, they need a considerably more different handling than living beings that just died.

What's more - if her ending up in Celestia was still a question, why would Windstriker not being with her (instead needing to "visit") be a foregone conclusion?

Because he is a Paladin's mount and therefore has a job to do in the material plane. And when not, being a horse, he doesn't live up a mountain, but in a field somewhere. Same way that when Lien dies she can't expect her shark to just hang out with her.

GW

Psyren

2017-11-08, 03:03 PM

There is a queue for southeners dead in the battle, and another for northeners dead in the battle. Not much of a stretch to assume that there is a third queue for ghosts, especially since, if anything, they need a considerably more different handling than living beings that just died.

Except that's wrong, because the paladins are in the same South queue as the soldiers. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0486.html) Panel 5, note the eyepatch guy at the front, who was attacking Xykon as a ghost (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0459.html) before that.

So we've debunked both the cloud and the specific queue as being her destination, since the other paladins went to both. What else you got?

Because he is a Paladin's mount and therefore has a job to do in the material plane. And when not, being a horse, he doesn't live up a mountain, but in a field somewhere. Same way that when Lien dies she can't expect her shark to just hang out with her.

GW

When Argent gets sent back, he shows up on the same cloud as the gods. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0453.html) Not a "field", jungle, or whatever else. No reason to believe Windstriker would be any different.

Fyraltari

2017-11-08, 03:20 PM

She was moments from dying. Not much you can do at that point to atone, so for expediency (since he wasn't going to see her again) and for narrative purposes (our benefit as the audience, which is a thing in their world) he gave her an on-the-spot debrief.
You can still truly regret the wrongs you have done, some might consider that good enough for a redemption (in fact some do in the real world but we are not supposed to discuss real-world religions here so I won't dwell on that).
If her judgment was already made :
1) bloody hell that was quick.
2) When did Soon get the news ? He was in the middle of a fight scene.
3) Why did not Roy get the same treatment.

Of course this was for the reader's benefit. The Giant used one of the most unquestionnably good characters he had as his mouthpiece to tell the reader why Miko hazd not atoned for her deeds. He did not use it to give us a definitive answer on the morality of Miko because that is a terribly complex thing with no right answer that would satisfy 90% of his readership (as opposed to "Roy gets to go to LG heaven"). Soon uses vague terminology ("your destination", "as soon as he is able") deliberately so that it remains an open-ended conclusion (well as open-ended as "dead and left to rot" can be) to the arc of a polarizing character. Or at least that is how I read it.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-08, 03:21 PM

Except that's wrong, because the paladins are in the same South queue as the soldiers. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0486.html) Panel 5, note the eyepatch guy at the front, who was attacking Xykon as a ghost (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0459.html) before that.

So we've debunked both the cloud and the specific queue as being her destination, since the other paladins went to both. What else you got?
That it makes option 2 more plausible. But it does not make your "Soon is taking over Deva duties" any less implausible.

When Argent gets sent back, he shows up on the same cloud as the gods. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0453.html) Not a "field", jungle, or whatever else. No reason to believe Windstriker would be any different.

Which is not the mountain, thus proving my point.

GW

Psyren

2017-11-08, 03:25 PM

You can still truly regret the wrongs you have done, some might consider that good enough for a redemption (in fact some do in the real world but we are not supposed to discuss real-world religions here so I won't dwell on that).
If her judgment was already made :
1) bloody hell that was quick.
2) When did Soon get the news ? He was in the middle of a fight scene.
3) Why did not Roy get the same treatment.

Of course this was for the reader's benefit. The Giant used one of the most unquestionnably good characters he had as his mouthpiece to tell the reader why Miko hazd not atoned for her deeds. He did not use it to give us a definitive answer on the morality of Miko because that is a terribly complex thing with no right answer that would satisfy 90% of his readership (as opposed to "Roy gets to go to LG heaven"). Soon uses vague terminology ("your destination", "as soon as he is able") deliberately so that it remains an open-ended conclusion (well as open-ended as "dead and left to rot" can be) to the arc of a polarizing character. Or at least that is how I read it.

I can't speak for the Giant, but "satisfying the people who think Miko deserves to be in Celestia" would be pretty low on my personal priority list.

That it makes option 2 more plausible. But it does not make your "Soon is taking over Deva duties" any less implausible.

Then go with "he was a mouthpiece/messenger for the true judge" if that makes you feel better about it. Doesn't change the fact that he had the correct answer, as I've stated repeatedly.

Which is not the mountain, thus proving my point.

But you can go freely from mountain to cloud as Roy proved, so she would actually be able to visit him if "mountain" were an option for her. Therefore, it's not.

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-08, 03:32 PM

Then go with "he was a mouthpiece/messenger for the true judge" if that makes you feel better about it. Doesn't change the fact that he had the correct answer, as I've stated repeatedly.
No. There is a very long distance between "a person knows you have to go to the plane of the alignment you profess for judgment" and "Soon was a mouthpiece/messenger for the true judge". If you are robbed and I give you a lift to the police station, that doesn't make me a police officer, or a police spokesperson.

But you can go freely from mountain to cloud as Roy proved, so she would actually be able to visit him if "mountain" were an option for her. Therefore, it's not.

You are making the assumption that the cloud where the gods hang out is the same as the one where Roy's dad hangs out. I see no reason to make that assumption.

GW

The Aboleth

2017-11-08, 03:47 PM

Fyraltari

2017-11-08, 04:01 PM

I've read almost all of this thread, and I still don't understand the current debate that is happening. Yes, Soon seemed to think Miko's final destination would be elsewhere...but he could be wrong. Pretty sure there is a quote from The Giant somewhere that stated, in essence, "Just because a character says or thinks something doesn't make it a fact." Soon might think Miko is going elsewhere, but I can totally imagine a scenario in which he takes her wherever "elsewhere" is and the outsider judge says, "Sorry, wrong plane. You need to take her spirit back to the LG department for her initial processing."

While that is true in general, there are moments in particular where a characters speaks the author's thoughtsif you see what I mean. Celia here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0282.html) clearly speaks for The Giant. Miko's death scene being the conclusion of her arc, the final point where we see her and having her seeking the approbation of a role-model whose only characterisation so far is Lawful Good, is very likely to be one such moment.

I can't speak for the Giant, but "satisfying the people who think Miko deserves to be in Celestia" would be pretty low on my personal priority list.
Good because this is not what I said had happened, "satisfying the people who think Miko deserves to be in Celestia" would be showing Miko hanging out with Greenhilt Granddad. This more along the line of "refusing to claim the moral high ground that woukd allow you to condemn misguided attempts to do good and results in evil". Miko was important to the story as a paladin and she failed at being a paladin therefore her Fall was important to the story. And guess what ? Being a paladin comes with a few convienent sine qua non conditions. Her being Good was not important and has no clearboundaries (show me to people and I'll show you two different moral compassses) therefore there are no reason for the author to weigh on this issue.

Also you are ignoring 90% of what I have written and put words in my mouth (in quote no less). Classy.

Psyren

2017-11-08, 04:54 PM

No. There is a very long distance between "a person knows you have to go to the plane of the alignment you profess for judgment" and "Soon was a mouthpiece/messenger for the true judge". If you are robbed and I give you a lift to the police station, that doesn't make me a police officer, or a police spokesperson.

You're still not answering "if she was going to the judgement place, why is he saying her destination is different from the rest of them?" It. Makes. No. Sense.

You are making the assumption that the cloud where the gods hang out is the same as the one where Roy's dad hangs out. I see no reason to make that assumption.

And I see no reason to assume Soon meant that Windstriker goes to hang out on imaginary fields nobody mentioned before or since, but will be able to drop in on Miko in heaven (where she's surely headed.)

Good because this is not what I said had happened, "satisfying the people who think Miko deserves to be in Celestia" would be showing Miko hanging out with Greenhilt Granddad. This more along the line of "refusing to claim the moral high ground that woukd allow you to condemn misguided attempts to do good and results in evil". Miko was important to the story as a paladin and she failed at being a paladin therefore her Fall was important to the story. And guess what ? Being a paladin comes with a few convienent sine qua non conditions. Her being Good was not important and has no clearboundaries (show me to people and I'll show you two different moral compassses) therefore there are no reason for the author to weigh on this issue.

Mentioning her destination at all was "weighing in."

Grey_Wolf_c

2017-11-08, 05:13 PM

You're still not answering "if she was going to the judgement place, why is he saying her destination is different from the rest of them?" It. Makes. No. Sense.
We know for a fact - because Rich said as much - that she has to be judged by a deva. Therefore, Soon is taking her to LG. If you chose to make a big deal of the "different place", then the only logical conclusion is that the martyrs are NOT going to the same place. I chose to NOT make a big deal of the phrasing - I assume paladin martyrs get a different area of the mountain for themselves (the "Celestial Realm"), and don't sweat the details. It is only you that make a massive deal out of this.

And I see no reason to assume Soon meant that Windstriker goes to hang out on imaginary fields nobody mentioned before or since, but will be able to drop in on Miko in heaven (where she's surely headed.)

Again, Windstriker will mostly be doing his job and won't be free to go visit anyone. And when he is not serving a Paladin, he hangs out with the gods, as you pointed out. Yes, if he does have some free time, he can make an effort to visit Miko, but clearly paladin mounts don't get a lot of free time. None of this seems particularly difficult to extrapolate.

Grey Wolf

Psyren

2017-11-08, 05:29 PM

We know for a fact - because Rich said as much - that she has to be judged by a deva. Therefore, Soon is taking her to LG. If you chose to make a big deal of the "different place", then the only logical conclusion is that the martyrs are NOT going to the same place. I chose to NOT make a big deal of the phrasing - I assume paladin martyrs get a different area of the mountain for themselves (the "Celestial Realm"), and don't sweat the details. It is only you that make a massive deal out of this.

I'm not making a "massive deal" out of anything, it's simple (and civil) disagreement.

Also, Rich's quote was specifically about Roy, I didn't see him mention Miko anywhere in there. Nor did it preclude her already being judged, and that judgment being delivered by Soon.

Again, Windstriker will mostly be doing his job and won't be free to go visit anyone. And when he is not serving a Paladin, he hangs out with the gods, as you pointed out. Yes, if he does have some free time, he can make an effort to visit Miko, but clearly paladin mounts don't get a lot of free time. None of this seems particularly difficult to extrapolate.

It's just as facile for the statement to mean she's not going to Celestia at all. It's even compatible with your "Windstriker goes back to work" theory.

Fyraltari

2017-11-08, 06:10 PM

Mentioning her destination at all was "weighing in."

How ? He did not say what the destination was.

The Aboleth

2017-11-08, 07:21 PM

You're still not answering "if she was going to the judgement place, why is he saying her destination is different from the rest of them?" It. Makes. No. Sense.

One way it makes sense is if you suppose Soon has already been judged/processed. He's been dead a long time, so it's conceivable that he was already judged long ago and that his destination (up the mountain) is different from Miko's (in the cloud area to be processed by a diva).

Psyren

2017-11-08, 07:56 PM

How ? He did not say what the destination was.

Indeed, but the use of "yours as well" implies it was not the same as theirs.

One way it makes sense is if you suppose Soon has already been judged/processed. He's been dead a long time, so it's conceivable that he was already judged long ago and that his destination (up the mountain) is different from Miko's (in the cloud area to be processed by a diva).

That would be fine except he's taking all the paladin ghosts who just died with him. "We are fading," not "I am fading". So unless they all secretly died long ago too, and the ones who died just now only coincidentally look like them, this doesn't work.

Keltest

2017-11-08, 09:08 PM

Indeed, but the use of "yours as well" implies it was not the same as theirs.

It could mean anything from a noncommittal claim for something he isn't in a position to decide to an offer to escort her to any and every trial she goes to until she finds her correct alignment plane, so that she wont be alone for it.

The point is, we don't know. What it certainly isn't, is a definitive statement of where exactly her destination is.

Furthermore, remember that that was written at the end of a book, before Rich had even started work on the actual judgment process. It was almost certainly deliberately vague so as to not lock himself into something he wasn't quite ready to write about yet.

Kish

2017-11-08, 09:20 PM

Indeed, but the use of "yours as well" implies it was not the same as theirs.
Aside from agreeing with Keltest that implying* is not the same as saying he knows, it's entirely possible** that her destination was both Celestia and different from theirs because paladins in good standing start significantly higher up the mountain than even Roy ever saw when he got there.

*This isn't implying that Soon was being deceptive; this is implying that if pinned down and forced to guess he might have said something like, "WAG, you're going to Arcadia. But I'm notoriously bad at guessing people's afterlife destinations."
**I mean, based on what Rich has said about what it means to follow a code well enough to be Lawful I don't think it's possible that Miko was still Lawful after she started following her whims and handwaving "this is surely what the Twelve Gods want" as a justification and thus not possible that she went to a Lawful afterlife, but that's unrelated to anything Soon said, and Rich has, in my opinion, made it very clear that he doesn't want to indicate anything concrete, positive or negative, about Miko's afterlife destination.

KorvinStarmast

2017-11-08, 09:33 PM

**I mean, based on what Rich has said about what it means to follow a code well enough to be Lawful I don't think it's possible that Miko was still Lawful after she started following her whims and handwaving "this is surely what the Twelve Gods want" as a justification and thus not possible that she went to a Lawful afterlife, but that's unrelated to anything Soon said, and Rich has, in my opinion, made it very clear that he doesn't want to indicate anything concrete, positive or negative, about Miko's afterlife destination. As I read it, the Twelve Gods removing her Paladin blessings were a clear indication that her alignment had changed and thus they removed her "Paladin"-ness, hence the change in color of costume. She's still Miko, and she's still driven (internal motivation) but her professed versus actual alignment (and much else) are a mismatch. The follow up discussion with Soon and "can her steed visit her" seem to point toward her alignment already having changed, and it takes being cut in half to clue up and begin to get the message. All that considered, I appreciate that Rich is happy to let us all guess at her afterlife destination. There was no need to go any further with that, story wise, after her "I can live with that" last line.

Psyren

2017-11-08, 09:36 PM

The point is, we don't know.

Very well, that's fine. You read it your way and I'll read it mine, until such time as Rich clarifies.

Aside from agreeing with Keltest that implying* is not the same as saying he knows, it's entirely possible** that her destination was both Celestia and different from theirs because paladins in good standing start significantly higher up the mountain than even Roy ever saw when he got there.

Nah - bandana-paladin was climbing right alongside Roy, and he died in the throne room.

The Aboleth

2017-11-08, 09:41 PM

That would be fine except he's taking all the paladin ghosts who just died with him. "We are fading," not "I am fading". So unless they all secretly died long ago too, and the ones who died just now only coincidentally look like them, this doesn't work.

Yes, but again Soon could just be wrong about who is going where. Maybe he's already "in" and assumes the other recently killed martyrs will be rubber-stamped to Celestia while Miko will not.

Honestly, there are about 100 different ways you could make Soon's statement work without "breaking" the narrative. Pick whatever works best for you and roll with that, because The Giant is unlikely to depict in-comic where Miko ended up.

georgie_leech

2017-11-08, 10:50 PM

Yes, but again Soon could just be wrong about who is going where. Maybe he's already "in" and assumes the other recently killed martyrs will be rubber-stamped to Celestia while Miko will not.

Honestly, there are about 100 different ways you could make Soon's statement work without "breaking" the narrative. Pick whatever works best for you and roll with that, because The Giant is unlikely to depict in-comic where Miko ended up.

Last I checked, being not-LG means you can't be a Paladin, no? I don't say this to imply that Miko must have been non-LG, but that the Ghost Martyrs were verrified LG. That seems like a place for rubber stamping alright.

Keltest

2017-11-08, 10:57 PM

Last I checked, being not-LG means you can't be a Paladin, no? I don't say this to imply that Miko must have been non-LG, but that the Ghost Martyrs were verrified LG. That seems like a place for rubber stamping alright.

That's correct, paladins need to be lawful good. However, there are a couple flavors of Lawful Good afterlives, so presumably they would still need to be judged.

Psyren

2017-11-08, 11:04 PM

That's correct, paladins need to be lawful good. However, there are a couple flavors of Lawful Good afterlives, so presumably they would still need to be judged.

We don't know that Lg and lG exist in OotS though. It could just be the big 9 if that.

But sure, having her go to Arcadia would fit Soon's statement too. I never said she was getting shipped off to Hell.

The Aboleth

2017-11-08, 11:04 PM

Last I checked, being not-LG means you can't be a Paladin, no? I don't say this to imply that Miko must have been non-LG, but that the Ghost Martyrs were verrified LG. That seems like a place for rubber stamping alright.

Yeah, seems being the operative word. You, me, and Soon might all agree that the Martyr-Ghosts are instantly going to the Mountain without needing to be processed, but maybe that's not the case. If it's not, Soon's statement concerning him and the Martyrs going somewhere else than Miko would still be reasonable based on what he assumes, but might not be what actually occurs. Short of seeing it in a comic, we won't ever know for sure.

Kish

2017-11-08, 11:20 PM

Last I checked, being not-LG means you can't be a Paladin, no?
No.

Not "will go to Celestia if you die as long as you weren't actually Fallen first," anyway.

Or Gin-Jun and the murderous racist leader of Roy's first adventuring party would both go straight to Celestia if they died without Falling and there is no justice in the world.

It appears that Rich lets paladins stay unFallen until they do something big (and not merely speech, however horrible that speech) to call their alignment into question, rather than either constantly tracking it and having them Fall immediately when their viewpoint is incompatible with Lawful Good, or having them Fall for saying anything, even if what they're saying is "yay genocide" or "his accent is annoying, try to get him killed."

georgie_leech

2017-11-08, 11:23 PM

Yeah, seems being the operative word. You, me, and Soon might all agree that the Martyr-Ghosts are instantly going to the Mountain without needing to be processed, but maybe that's not the case. If it's not, Soon's statement concerning him and the Martyrs going somewhere else than Miko would still be reasonable based on what he assumes, but might not be what actually occurs. Short of seeing it in a comic, we won't ever know for sure.

What I mean is, we (and Soon) have significant evidence for the alignment of the Ghost Martyrs, but significantly less clear evidence for Miko's. So Soon would have reason to be less certain of Miko's eventual destination. So it wouldn't be strange for someone who was apparently so dedicated to Honour that he followed his Oaths after death, to not give Miko assurances that he couldn't promise were true. Miko might or might not get into the LG afterlife, but there is significantly more evidence for the "we" that were fading in that scene.

Psyren

2017-11-08, 11:35 PM

No.

Not "will go to Celestia if you die as long as you weren't actually Fallen first," anyway.

Or Gin-Jun and the murderous racist leader of Roy's first adventuring party would both go straight to Celestia if they died without Falling and there is no justice in the world.

It appears that Rich lets paladins stay unFallen until they do something big (and not merely speech, however horrible that speech) to call their alignment into question, rather than either constantly tracking it and having them Fall immediately when their viewpoint is incompatible with Lawful Good, or having them Fall for saying anything, even if what they're saying is "yay genocide" or "his accent is annoying, try to get him killed."

Didn't Rich say a bunch of those paladins fell afterwards, just off-camera?

The Aboleth

2017-11-08, 11:39 PM

What I mean is, we (and Soon) have significant evidence for the alignment of the Ghost Martyrs, but significantly less clear evidence for Miko's. So Soon would have reason to be less certain of Miko's eventual destination. So it wouldn't be strange for someone who was apparently so dedicated to Honour that he followed his Oaths after death, to not give Miko assurances that he couldn't promise were true. Miko might or might not get into the LG afterlife, but there is significantly more evidence for the "we" that were fading in that scene.

Ah, I see. I feel like you and I are essentially on the same page, just wording it differently. The misunderstanding is likely on my end, so my apologies if I came off the wrong way.