Eugene Greenhilt

[Ancalagon]

Are *still* people around who think Eugene Greenhilt is not a moronic bastard?

[Porthos]

Are *still* people around who think Eugene Greenhilt is not a moronic bastard?

Yes. (10 char)

[Threeshades]

A bastard maybe, but no moronic.

[hendrake]

I like him.

[Skyserpent]

Most likely.


He's intelligent but ignorant. Doesn't make him moronic, but he might well be a bastard.

[Ancalagon]

As time passes, I find him as annoying as Miko was. A cool plot. But still a very annoying character.

[NerfTW]

In retrospect, jumping onto a flying zombie dragon to fight a high level lich with no way of getting back down was pretty stupid.

[Ridureyu]

Guilt Trips: The best gifts a parent can give.

[Porthos]

To put it more succinetly, every quality that people dislike in Eugene (arrogance, intolerance, deception, sarcastic wit, inability to get along with family members, etc) Roy also has in abundance. And if you don't beleive me, just look at the Roy/Elan relationship.

The real reason Eugene and Roy don't get along is that they are just too similar. Well that and the fact that Eugene embraces his faults more than Roy does. :smallwink:

[....]

He is a bastard.

But so far he's been right about Roy sucking for not being a wizard.

I mean, a wizard of the same level as Roy who jumped onto the zombie to fight Xykon probably wouldn't have made it either, but at least he would have had Feather Fall, or hell, even Teleport to get out of there.

(Although a wizard might not have been able to soak a Meteor Swarm to the face...)

[Ancalagon]

In retrospect, jumping onto a flying zombie dragon to fight a high level lich with no way of getting back down was pretty stupid.

That is not the point.

Eugene Greenhilt is a bastard who did NOTHING for years. That still is not the point, but it is much closer to it.

[Ancalagon]

He is a bastard.

But so far he's been right about Roy sucking for not being a wizard.

I mean, a wizard of the same level as Roy who jumped onto the zombie to fight Xykon probably wouldn't have made it either, but at least he would have had Feather Fall, or hell, even Teleport to get out of there.

(Although a wizard might not have been able to soak a Meteor Swarm to the face...)

A wizard would have been smashed by Xykon. If you read Start of Darkness you have seen what Xykon does with Epic!-Level-Wizards. Let alone level 14 ones as Roy is. A level 14 fighter with a +5 sword has even better chances to take out Xykon (even if they are very small) as a level 14 wizard had.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

You can't have it BOTH ways, even if your alignment is TN.

A wizard of Roy's level would have been SHREDDED by Xykon's Meteor Swarm.
A Fighter WITHOUT a ring of Feather Fall in his pocket would have fallen to his death.

Roy finally started working WITH his team, and solved several problems, but his personality jumped (literally!) to the forefront when he decided to take Xykon down by himself. But! Sometimes it is the heroics of one person that DOES save the day.

Just not that day!

Half-Time People! Time for a pep-talk, a dust off, and go back out there and leave it ALL on the field!

[Porthos]

That is not the point.

Eugene Greenhilt is a bastard who did NOTHING for years.

SoD Spoilers

Actually, Eugene dedicated a good portion of his life looking for Xykon. But once he got a family, he decided it was more important to spend time with them, rather than risking his neck and leaving them without a dad.

You can say a lot of things about Eugene Greenhilt, but he definitely put his family ahead of his own vengance while he was living.

See pages 76-79 of SoD for specific details

[Ancalagon]

I think we interpret the pages differently.

We know Eugene is a liar. ("Where have you been?" "Hrm, on the elemental plane of water")

He used what you just quoted as excuse so he didn't have to go after an epic sorcerer. That is all. He lies and lies all over again. He thought he could cheat the oath by just getting into the afterlife and ignore it. He did not go after Xykon because he was afraid and because he thought he could swindle his way out of it.

Also, look at him how he reacts in the newest strip, he going to sent his 16 years old daughter (level 3) after Xykon! He does not react to anything that tells him she has no chance.
He is a liar (he goes to the pub instead to his sons football game and lies about it later) who does not realise how rotten he is.

[TheElfLord]

There is nothing that says he expects Julia to hunt down the Litch today. Remember in SoD he tries to have the oath passed on to her in the first place because she's a wizard. Thats what the brightside is. When he first told Roy about the Oath, it was so Roy could tell Julia when she was old enough. So for all we know, Eugene is just happy the wizard child inheretied the oath, and will wait for here to beef up in levels and go fulfill it.

[Ancalagon]

Btw, for people who claim he cared for his family: Please do not confuse something... Eugene cared for his hot wife!

You can re-read his priorities on his gravestone.

[Dunamin]

To put it more succinetly, every quality that people dislike in Eugene (arrogance, intolerance, deception, sarcastic wit, inability to get along with family members, etc) Roy also has in abundance. And if you don't beleive me, just look at the Roy/Elan relationship.

The real reason Eugene and Roy don't get along is that they are just too similar. Well that and the fact that Eugene embraces his faults more than Roy does. :smallwink:
I agree overall, except for the point about deception.

While Roy shares several qualities with his father, including the awesome mastery of sarcastic humour, he seems to generally be a fairly honest guy, as is evident here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0294.html) and here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0250.html), for instance.

[Ancalagon]

Maybe Roy has a few features of his father, but his father plays in a different league.

There just is no comparision between Roys bickering about Elan and Eugne's absolute lack of sense for reality.

[Peanut Gallery]

I love that man. He embodies all my frustration at stupid people doing stupid things when they should know better.

[Sky_Schemer]

You can say a lot of things about Eugene Greenhilt, but he definitely put his family ahead of his own vengance while he was living.

Too bad he was a terrible father, eh?

[malakim2099]

Too bad he was a terrible father, eh?

QFT.

Most of Roy's character flaws can be traced directly back to Eugene, really. And really, Roy had no idea that Xykon was like, 6 levels or so greater than him, not counting the lichdom. All he knew was that he beat Xykon before, and fairly easily (thanks to the DM liking the dramatic).

Hopefully when he gets back, he'll know better this time.

[Porthos]

I agree overall, except for the point about deception.

While Roy shares several qualities with his father, including the awesome mastery of sarcastic humour, he seems to generally be a fairly honest guy, as is evident here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0294.html) and here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0250.html), for instance.

I was referring to this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0139.html) and this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0264.html). Plus the whole bit about agreeing with Lord Shojo about keeping the exact nature of what the OotS were doing in regards to the Gates a secret. :smallsmile:

So while Roy may have learned not to be as duplicitous as his father as the strip as gone on, I feel he still has it in him from time to time. :smallsmile:

[Porthos]

Too bad he was a terrible father, eh?

I never said he was any good at showing is affection for his family. :smalltongue:

Was he a "passable" father? Yep. Doesn't mean he didn't care. Besides, people who have read SoD can see a whole new twist on the Roy/Eugene dynamic.

It's fairly obvious to me that a lot of the trouble that Eugene has with Roy is due to the issues that Eugene had with his father. So when Eugene sees his own son emulating his father (who he did not get along with at all), it's a tremendous blow to him.

Therefore he starts engaging in Transference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transference) when it comes to dealing with Roy.

If Eugene had only come to terms with his Old Man, then a lot of his current problems could have been avoided. :smallbiggrin:

[yoshi927]

I love that man. He embodies all my frustration at stupid people doing stupid things when they should know better.Same with me. :smallbiggrin:

[Charles Phipps]

Papa Greenhilt has many similarities to his son but so does Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker. The fact remains that Luke Skywalker, whininess aside, isn't a thorough waste of a human being while Eugene Greenhilt is. The irony, is, that he seems to be an archetype of a man that was a great magician (arguably) but a complete waste of a human being....

At least towards his family.

[BRC]

The way I see it, the entire greenhilt family is fairly assertive, and dosn't like it when things don't go their way. Eugene has always been disapointed that roy became a fighter instead of a wizard, I have a feeling that Eugene knows that even if roy had been a wizard, at those levels he still would have lost.
So Roy loses, and Eugene, still harboring resentment that his son learned to swing a big peice of metal around instead of learning how to bend reality with his will, chides him for it.
Imagine the following scenario, Eugene greenhilt is a fighter, his son roy rebels and becomes a wizard. Fast forwards to on the wall, sanjwen has just revealed Xykon and Wizardroy throws a spell at him, Xykon brushes it off with spell resistance (which it wouldn't surprise me if he had) and blasts wizardroy with somthing, lets say finger of death. Wizardroy, not having much HP, dies.

Fast forward to the afterlife
Eugene: Well the good news is that the blood oath passes to julia (Who has enlisted in wizard college)
Roy: She's thirteen and a third level fighter! He's got a hundred years and at least ten levels on her, what does she have to fight him that I don't.
Eugene: D10 hit die.


not quite as witty, but thats why the giant makes the comic, not me. But thats my theory on what would have happened had the situations been reversed.

[Chronos]

I love that man. He embodies all my frustration at stupid people doing stupid things when they should know better.Funny, he's a target of all my frustration at stupid people doing stupid things when they should know better. The stupidest things Roy has done in this quest against Xykon have been at least as smart as the smartest things Eugene has done. Jumping onto the dragon to fight Xykon in melee range had a much higher chance of success than, say, trying to polymorph him. Sure, it also had a pretty high chance of getting Roy killed, but he was willing to accept that risk to save the world. That makes Roy brave, not stupid. Eugene, however, has been only slightly smarter than Lirian about this whole thing, and that's not setting the bar very high. And the fact that he's so arrogant about his intelligence just makes his stupidity even more obnoxious.

[Balathustrius]

To put it more succinetly, every quality that people dislike in Eugene (arrogance, intolerance, deception, sarcastic wit, inability to get along with family members, etc) Roy also has in abundance. And if you don't beleive me, just look at the Roy/Elan relationship.

The real reason Eugene and Roy don't get along is that they are just too similar. Well that and the fact that Eugene embraces his faults more than Roy does. :smallwink:

Very insightful. I think you struck the nail...

I like both Roy and Eugene.

[Dervag]

A bastard maybe, but no moronic.If he were a moron he couldn't be a wizard, and I assume his parents were married though I can't prove it.

However, he is a short-sighted obsessive little jerk, which I suppose amounts to the same thing.


To put it more succinetly, every quality that people dislike in Eugene (arrogance, intolerance, deception, sarcastic wit, inability to get along with family members, etc) Roy also has in abundance. And if you don't beleive me, just look at the Roy/Elan relationship.You can make a pretty good case for some of that, but I think Roy isn't as arrogant, intolerant, or deceptive as Eugene by a long shot. If Roy were truly intolerant he wouldn't be able to stand traveling with Elan or Belkar, both of whom are profoundly irritating people who make a lot of trouble for their friends. And I'm not aware of any case where he committed a deception on the scale of some of the ones Eugene has pulled off.

[EvilJames]

Point of fact my grandfather was in all likleyhood (at least from stories from my dad and uncles) only a "passable" father, but that doesn't mean he didn't love his family with all his heart. He just had issues that prevented him from adaquetly expressing it to his family.

Eugene is very much like my grandfather, Deep down he's always been proud of his son, he just lacks the ability to express it.

[Ancalagon]

Well, apart we did not see ANY sign it is that way until now. :)

All we saw is that Eugene stopped liking Roy when he did not go for Wizard. Does he still like him and just cannot express it? Does he even love his family?
Everything we saw and see (his relationship with Roy, how he met and later talked about the mother (see current comic!) implies your theory has a problem with reality.

In the whole comic, SoD and OoPCs I could not spot a single panel that would imply that
a) Eugene actually likes Roy (just cannot express it),
b) Eugene actually *loves* his family (apart from loving his wife's body), or
c) he likes Julia for other reasons than that she is going to become a wizard.

[EvilJames]

Well, apart we did not see ANY sign it is that way until now. :)

All we saw is that Eugene stopped liking Roy when he did not go for Wizard. Does he still like him and just cannot express it? Does he even love his family?
Everything we saw and see (his relationship with Roy, how he met and later talked about the mother (see current comic!) implies your theory has a problem with reality.

In the whole comic, SoD and OoPCs I could not spot a single panel that would imply that
a) Eugene actually likes Roy (just cannot express it),
b) Eugene actually *loves* his family (apart from loving his wife's body), or
c) he likes Julia for other reasons than that she is going to become a wizard.

Actually we've seen nothing to show that Eugene has ever stopped liking or loving Roy as his son, all we've seen is that Eugene dissaprves of his son's career choice and that's not the same as not liking someone. People disapprove of things the people they like do all the time.

I haven't read SoD yet bu I do have OoPC's and the initial meeting of the two in that book leads me to believe that he at least likes his son. In addition when he tells of the reason he stopped looking for Xykon it's because his family became more important to him. So far nothing that's happened indicates any real change in his basic feelings towards his family just his approval of his son's choices in life.
so far my theory seems fairly well grounded in the reality of the comic. People are complicated, and Eugene is certainly a person.