What if Miko had detected Belkar

[Lord]

So I'm reminded suddenly of a particular running gag back from the early to mid comics of the strip. That being that Miko repeatedly tries to detect evil on Belkar and always gets blocked thanks to a handy lead sheet.

I think it may be interesting to think about just what might have happened at the various points where she tried if she had indeed ascertained that Belkar was evil. Somehow I don't think even Miko would be reckless and selfrighteous enough to try and murder a prisoner under her protection while all his friends were watching.

What do you think? What kind of effect do you think would it have on the Order and Miko's interactions?

[jedipilot24]

So I'm reminded suddenly of a particular running gag back from the early to mid comics of the strip. That being that Miko repeatedly tries to detect evil on Belkar and always gets blocked thanks to a handy lead sheet.

I think it may be interesting to think about just what might have happened at the various points where she tried if she had indeed ascertained that Belkar was evil. Somehow I don't think even Miko would be reckless and selfrighteous enough to try and murder a prisoner under her protection while all his friends were watching.

What do you think? What kind of effect do you think would it have on the Order and Miko's interactions?

I think that you underestimate Miko's self-righteousness and recklessness, especially since she was prepared to kill Roy over a false-positive. Thinking of that, now, I wonder how Belkar managed to avoid being detected as evil at the same time that Miko got the false reading of Roy, which she says occurred before the Order knew she was--which means that Belkar had no reason to hold up the lead sheet.

[Rogar Demonblud]

She didn't scan him. Just the group with Roy, Elan and Durkon. She even says so.

[Kish]

She would have demanded an explanation for why the rest of the Order associated with an evil halfling and why Durkon lied* about it.

If they could have come up with one that satisfied her (this sentence will prompt a multi-page battle or at least a lot of screaming), she would probably still have demanded Belkar be in chains for the trip back, and her opinion of Durkon's honesty would be lowered.

*"You'll see that not none o' us are evil." If the double negative was deliberate it was an act of intellectual dishonesty morally equivalent to a lie; if it wasn't then it was simply a lie. And Miko is unlikely to be impressed by wordplay.

[hroþila]

It's possible that, at that point, Durkon genuinely didn't know Belkar is Evil, if he did decide "not to dwell on it" and depending on how seriously he took the "kill Elan for XP" incident and how much of the stuff Belkar said or did he heard or saw. It might sound far-fetched perhaps, but I don't see why Durkon would have encouraged Miko to scan the whole party otherwise, and I doubt Belkar would have told him about the lead sheet beforehand.

[martianmister]

Do we actually know that she didn't detect him? It would be easy to do it in 251. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0251.html)

[hroþila]

Do we actually know that she didn't detect him? It would be easy to do it in 251. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0251.html)
281 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0281.html) may suggest she didn't, although in all probability she was scanning him just to make sure it wasn't another decoy. Since at that point she was already 100% sure he was Evil, whether or not she had already scanned him previously might be a moot point.

[Lacuna Caster]

I think that you underestimate Miko's self-righteousness and recklessness, especially since she was prepared to kill Roy over a false-positive.
Not quite (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0174.html).

Miko neglected to kill Belkar on the way back from Azure City, despite using smites on him during the fight and implying (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0203.html) that she was authorised to use lethal force on evil suspects at her own discretion. It seems unlikely that she would have killed Belkar had he been clapped in irons from the start, before all his peers had violated terms of parole.

Also in that scenario, Belkar would not have been running around at random during the Inn scene, thereby triggering those explosives during Roy's showdown with the assassins, thereby leading to the Inn's destruction, Haley's aphasia, Miko's high-handed lecture, Roy's petty tantrum, Miko clapping the Order in irons, and possibly the emotional fallout required for the first, second and third showdown in the throne room. (Or not- Miko and the Order could still have gotten on eachother's nerves and Belkar could still have escaped his cell. It's a bit of a crapshoot.)