Roy's Dad-Big Ol Batcha' SOD Spoila's comin' your way!

[Impikmin]

WARNING: Serious spoilers here. I'm reading stuff out of the actual SOD book, so if you haven't read it, DO NOT READ THIS. This goes for you cheapo's who read the info from spoilers and don't buy the book too, trust me, I was one of them.

In the book, on page 79, Right-Eye asks Greenhilt to take out Xykon for him. He rejects him because "OK, there's more to it than just that. It's complicated... I have a son, Roy. He's almost 8 years old... So if this assassination thing you're so eager to set up goes south, my son is an orphan... Or worse, Xykon finds out about them and kills them... The risk isn't worth the reward."

So I basically highlighted the important factors of the discussion. Anyway, after this, he gets agitated and aggressive when Right-Eye tries to force him. I think this is because he's angry about someone trying to force him to leave his son. So there was his wife too, but still. I think Greenhilt is a good man, but not good enough. He always loved his son, but doesn't show it because he is so intertwined in lies and he can't bring himself to tell Roy that he really did love him, but he was just too bad of a father to show it.

What do you think? I think this topic has probably been done to death, and I'm probably just making this thread because I'm feeling so strong about this topic right now that I want to write it down. But hey, no one forced you to read this, and it's not doing anyone any harm:smallwink:

P.S. To all you smart-asses out there... (skip if you aren't one) The threads I'm bumping off the forum are already dead. I'm preventing thread necromancy as far as I'm concerned, and this thread will only be on the front page for a day at best. If you really this is "detracting from other thread", go to the 2nd page. If you are concerned about "wasting 15 minutes of my life" you need to take some elementary reading classes.

[ChopSticks28]

That's not what iI learned from their meeting. In fact, I think that scene only showed how stupid and annoying Roy's dad is; He has a chance of taking Xykon for the first time in his life, and he declines it "because he has famility now". 3-4 panels later you can see what his family really means to him.

If he really loved his family, he would have tried taking Xykon down to prevent them from having to kill him themselves (blood oath of vengeance, remember?)

To me it looks like he declined Right-Eye's offer just because he's a goblin, and he's too arrogant to be ordered by one. If him or a friend of his would have found some info about Xykon's location, he would have taken it immideately.

Besides Rich is constantly showing us that no, Roy's dad doesn't love him. There's no doubt about that.

[hanzo66]

He likely feels that it's more important to keep his family out of danger rather than gallivanting to slay a Lich (which he would probably know is not an easy foe). He made the Oath during a drunken haze and probably by now regrets it immensely.

And about Eugene loving Roy, there's a quote from Family Guy that sort of fits the situation...


Oh, of course I love you. I love you with all me heart....

I just don't like you. I don't like one thing about you.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I'm going to side with Impikmin on this one. Roy's dad is a jerk. A massive one, with little empathy for anyone he considers subordinate to him, including and especially his son. Doesn't mean he doesn't love his family, or that he's willing to run out on them and risk leaving them permanently for the sake of an old grudge. Belgarath the Sorcerer, who did that sort of thing serially, he is not.

As to the point about taking down Xykon to prevent his family from having to do it, remember, he doesn't really know how the Blood Oath of Vengeance works. He doesn't realize it'll get passed down until much later. I didn't really follow the continuity on when it came to him, but it was definitely sometime after Roy was already in college that he realized it. Eugene just thought he'd save his family the grief of his leaving them.

[Green Bean]

I think that Nerd-o-rama has a point there. If you read OtOoPCs, when Eugene's talking to Roy,


Suddenly, I had a family, and the vengeance thing didn't seem as important. 'Course, I didn't know then that these pesky oaths get handed down through the family.

Eugene wasn't trying to make his kids fight Xykon; he honestly didn't know it was hereditary.

[Hann]

Plus, it's not that he didn't like Roy, it's that he had parenting as a lower priority. Also, he liked Roy until he rejected the might of Wizardry for "sticking things with large chunks of metal".

[Ancalagon]

Roy's dad is an idiot. He did not want the Oath (we know how he got it), he did not want the familiy (we also know how he got that).

Once he got the chance to hunt Xykon, he knew he had no chance against him and used his lame excuse that he had a family (a family he did not want and he did not care a lot for. You can see it how much time he spent with his family).

He knew about the Oath but we he thought he could just "sit it out". He thought he would be able to enter the afterlife and just do not care about it. And what happens when he realised he cannot enter the afterlife? He sends his children to fix it without a second thought (the only second thoughs he spends is about "Roy as figher won't be able to take out a sorcerer anyway").

So: Eugene Greenhilt was and still is an utter, egoistic bastard and nothing we saw until now (in Origin of PCs, Start of Darkness or the online comic) shows something different. His align may be good, be he still is that narrowminded, intelligent but surely unwise mean bastard.

Wis surely is his dumbstat.

[Gundato]

Wow, Miko dies and all the hatred goes to Hinjo and Eugene.

1. Papa Greenhilt is far from an "idiot". He was a high level wizard, his INT is probably 18 or higher. Now, you might argue that he doesn't have much common sense (WIS), but I would argue that he is just not interested in certain things.
2. Yeah, Eugene really hates his family. That is why he didn't want to risk the wrath of a Lich (judging by his tombstone, his own death probably wasn't too much of a worry). And, another SoD factoid: Remember when Eugene was telling Roy about Xykon? How he allowed Roy to continue believing the lie about his mother not being a tavern skank? Why would he do that if he was so uncaring and hate-filled? Maybe, just maybe, they don't have a "Leave it to Beaver" relationship but still care about each other.
3. So basically he doesn't want to spend eternity doing absolutely nothing? And it is not like it isn't a standard issue cliche for the son to take up the father's quest.

Personally, everything we have seen of Eugene suggests one simple bit of information about him:
He cares about Roy, he just has a different way of showing it.

Roy and Julia argued non-stop, but do you think they hate each other?

[Kish]

Plus, it's not that he didn't like Roy, it's that he had parenting as a lower priority. Also, he liked Roy until he rejected the might of Wizardry for "sticking things with large chunks of metal".
For a definition of "like" that leaves out pretending any interest in Roy's sports abilities, of course...

[Jasdoif]

Eugene has good intentions. However, he also puts an emphasis on his own wants, and he lacks the social proficiency to handle adversity to them gracefully. Those good intentions go out the door whenever someone expresses disagreement with his wants.

And Roy's choice of class is a constant expression of disagreement.

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd agree with the theory about having low charisma and wisdom eg: the scene in SoD where Right-Eye has a lot of trouble getting him to say the password in the tavern. Also, I would say that the fact that he apparently vowed never to speak to Roy again after Roy became a fighter (until he needed him to sort out the blood-oath) suggests that he doesn't really care about Roy (if he did, he would have been okay with Roy becoming a fighter I know his been refered to as Lawful Good, but I'd say that Selfish Neutral is more appropriate due to how much he lies (which isn't a Lawful personality trait) as well as the fact that we've never seen him do anything that would class as good in SoD or the online comics, as well as the fact that everything he does seems to be for his own benefit.

[Green Bean]

I fail to see how wanting his son to become a wizard and thinking that there are more important things than sports make him a bad father. Let's say your kid is a smart cookie, lots of potential and such. He could easily become a doctor, like his old man, and a very good one at that. Instead, he decides to wait tables for a living. Obviously, it's not a perfect metaphor, but that's pretty much how Eugene sees it. He loves his son, he's just disappointed that his son's decided to stick bits of pointy metal in things for a living. Unfortunately, that translates into verbal jerkwadery.

[Tempest Fennac]

That is a good point (admittedly, I wasn't so much critercising Eugene for wanting Roy to become a Wizard: it was his attitude when Roy didn't want to become one which was the problem). It's the same for the context of his comment about sport: the blood oath would class as being more important then sports, but Eugene had pretty much given up on it due to either genuinly caring about his family or deciding that he wouldn't be able to beat lytch Xykon. Either way, it's obvious that he didn't class it as being that important.

[Ancalagon]

Wow, Miko dies and all the hatred goes to Hinjo and Eugene.

1. Papa Greenhilt is far from an "idiot". He was a high level wizard, his INT is probably 18 or higher. Now, you might argue that he doesn't have much common sense (WIS), but I would argue that he is just not interested in certain things.
As can be observed in RL very well: Stupidity and Idiotism has nothing to do with Intelligence. Just take a look at politics. A lot of bright people around who behave like idiots.



2. Yeah, Eugene really hates his family. That is why he didn't want to risk the wrath of a Lich (judging by his tombstone, his own death probably wasn't too much of a worry). And, another SoD factoid: Remember when Eugene was telling Roy about Xykon? How he allowed Roy to continue believing the lie about his mother not being a tavern skank? Why would he do that if he was so uncaring and hate-filled? Maybe, just maybe, they don't have a "Leave it to Beaver" relationship but still care about each other.
There is a difference between "hating" and "not caring about". I argue about "not caring", you argue about "hating". And thus all your words fail, since they do not point at the correct target.



3. So basically he doesn't want to spend eternity doing absolutely nothing? And it is not like it isn't a standard issue cliche for the son to take up the father's quest.
This point does not even make sense. :)
I mean, what has "standard-plot-telling" to do with the reasons why Eugene does stuff or does not do stuff?



He cares about Roy, he just has a different way of showing it.
Yes? He does? He does not show it at all and states several times explicitly that he does NOT care about what Roy does because Roy a) does the wrong things and b) is as fighter useless anyway.



Roy and Julia argued non-stop, but do you think they hate each other?
What does that have to do with Eugene-Roy? Nothing. Noone said Roy and Julia do not like each other (and you start with "hate". You miss the point again). Roy and Julia like each other.



I fail to see how wanting his son to become a wizard and thinking that there are more important things than sports make him a bad father.
Hrm...
a) it is not about sports vs. Wizards.
b) Not-caring what your son does makes him a bad father (we have lots of examples for that),
c) telling your son he sucks and what he does sucks makes him a bad father,
d) telling lies to him makes him a bad father,
e) using the son makes him a bad father,
f) telling Roy "I tell you this so you can tell Julia when she is old enough to deal with Xykon since you are not able to do it anyway" makes him a bad father,
g) ... (feel free to continue)

[Green Bean]

Hrm...
a) it is not about sports vs. Wizards.

It's all about Roy being a wizard. Does Julia have any problems with Eugene? Not as far as I can tell. There doesn't seem to be any bad blood between those two. It's almost as if not becoming a wizard is the biggest reason why Roy and Eugene are jerks to each other.


b) Not-caring what your son does makes him a bad father (we have lots of examples for that),

Really? He cared about him enough not to leave him an orphan.


c) telling your son he sucks and what he does sucks makes him a bad father,

The odd thing is is that the majority of Eugene's snarky comments are about Roy's class, not Roy himself.


d) telling lies to him makes him a bad father,
I agree! When parents their kids, "Don't make that face, it'll stick like that," they're being bad parents.


e) using the son makes him a bad father,

As I recall, Eugene told Roy not to go after Xykon.


f) telling Roy "I tell you this so you can tell Julia when she is old enough to deal with Xykon since you are not able to do it anyway" makes him a bad father,

Wait, I thought he was a bad father for making Roy go?

[Ancalagon]

It's all about Roy being a wizard.
Thank you stating the obvious. :)


Does Julia have any problems with Eugene? Not as far as I can tell. There doesn't seem to be any bad blood between those two. It's almost as if not becoming a wizard is the biggest reason why Roy and Eugene are jerks to each other.
Hrm... Who talked about Eugene and Julia here? I remember you just started that. I cannot see the connection why "Eugene-Julia" should have anything to do with the current "Eugene-Roy" discussion. Eugene likes Julia, because she is what he considers "useful" while Roy is a "useless" son.


Really? He cared about him enough not to leave him an orphan.
Wow. Impressive. Really. That is what you call "caring"?


The odd thing is is that the majority of Eugene's snarky comments are about Roy's class, not Roy himself.
Does this make a difference? No, it does not. Eugene has no respect at all for Roy or what he is. Really, no difference at all.


As I recall, Eugene told Roy not to go after Xykon.
Do you also recall why he did that? Because "Roy, you as a fighter, you suck. You do not stand a chance. You are a looser. If you had become mage, as I wanted, you would not have been a looser. But now you are.
Cool. His dad really cares for Roy, doesn't he?[/QUOTE]


Wait, I thought he was a bad father for making Roy go?
He was a bad father all the way from "forgetting to watch the sons football game" and "Sorry, no time, have to do more important magic" over "hey, as Fighter, you are going to be useless" and "hey, as Fighter, you ARE useless" up until "hey, gosh, thanks son for defeating Xykon for me" in the current comic.

Eugene is a jerk.
An idiot (do not mind the fact he can read complicated books, figure out elaborated puzzles and is a good chess-player (int 18)).
A horrible father.