Sigh, how Redcloak has grown (potential SoD spoiler)

[elliott20]

I'm not sure if this thread is already out there, but I would just like applaud the Giant for writing such an awesome compelling character as redcloak. His actions in 547 and his thought process really shows a consistency in his character but also reflects his own growth during the battle of Azure City.

A lot of this is probably just speculation on my behalf, so bear with me if I seem off.


In SoD, Redcloak has shown himself to value loyality and friendship greatly. even though he later on betrays that himself, you can tell he definitely feels a repressed guilt about it, and as such acquires this laser focus about his objective. (Otherwise, how else could he justify himself?)

However, prior to the battle of Azure City, this aspect on loyality and friendship was downplayed mostly because he didn't have anyone to show this too.

During the battle though, you can see his character's growth and becoming more in tune with his role as a leader and his duty not just to his own kind, but to all goblinkinds. Clearly, while his core value has not dramatically changed, it has been tweaked and deepened. That is, he understands (though doesn't necessarily shows) compassion for his own kin.

This became the center piece for his interrogation in 547, where he believes that a paladin, by virtue of threatening his own, should logically be willing to bend over backwards and do whatever it is he must do to save his people, even if it means giving up information that he doesn't actually have. And to him, O-Chul's reluctance to play along is even more despicable than anything he himself could actually do. this, of course, is probably a reflection of Redcloak's own guilt as he also betrayed his own in SoD. Perhaps it is true, we hate in others what we see in ourselves.

[Charles Phipps]

Actually, isn't it the exact opposite? Redcloak, whose done UNSPEAKABLE things to his own people (I dont even need to do SOD---look at how he treats Hobgoblins) in the name of his cause can't understand how Paladins have that same endurance?

[wodan46]

Redcloak started out as good before the story started, then in a state of quiet evil as he felt he could not renege on the plan even after it put him with Xykon, then more openly evil in his interactions with hobgoblins as well as more outspoken overall, before he had an epiphany during the azure city siege and became more or less good again.

Its worth noting that the Expression Redcloak makes in Panel 7 of page 547 is one he has made twice before in the entirety of the comic, once at a paladin who attacked his kid brother, and once at himself when he realized what he'd become in pursuit of the goal.

[Helanna]

I think RC is losing his grip on things (and possibly sanity). In the beginning of the comic, before I read SoD, I really liked RC. I couldn't figure out why he was with Xykon.

Now, after reading SoD, and after the recent events in the comic, I still really like Redcloak, but I think that he is feeling guilty, and it's beginning to eat at him. Post-traumatic stress disorder, anyone? Or at least stress - he's sacrificed everything he has ever had or cared about for this Plan - and it's at a standstill. I'd be reluctant to believe a paladin claiming, against (a twisted) logic, that he didn't know anything.


Umm . . . I think that made sense . . . I'm a little sleep-deprived at the moment.

[Alex Warlorn]

I said it before and I'll keep on saying, Redcloak letting go of his prejudice towards hobgoblins only made him MORE bloodthirsty. Made him more ruthless. He's said before he just wanted an even playing field and was willing to accept goblins to implode in on themselves if they were given that fair chance. Now he's openly admitting to wanting to see human civilization crushed.

I wonder how he feels towards Gnomes, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings. If he feels anything at all. After all, it was their forces that wiped out the dark one's army (which the Dark One made a big mistake by raising in the first place, he'd have done a lot better if he had just focused on getting the goblins organized under one banner without a military build up).

[Remirach]

Its worth noting that the Expression Redcloak makes in Panel 7 of page 547 is one he has made twice before in the entirety of the comic, once at a paladin who attacked his kid brother, and once at himself when he realized what he'd become in pursuit of the goal.
I noticed that too! I wonder if it was meant as anything significant... since Redcloak was two very different people when he made the expression in SoD, is he as different now as he was the last time he made the expression?

[David Argall]

It is hard to predict the future here, and even more so on the individual level. However, there is a pretty good chance that you could come back in a hundred years and not notice that the hobgoblin invasion ever happened.

The leading noble house might be House Koto instead of House Kubota and other names may well be different, but it is very easy for people to fall into old habits. Everybody is used to bowing to nobles and wearing blue, and nobles employing ninjas and... So the returning nobles may all be executed or whatever, but a few years later there will be new nobles and they will acting just about the same as the old ones.

[Alex Warlorn]

Well, since it's been 200 years as the United States have yet to have a president crown himself king in spite of countless doom sayers predicting such a thing to happen eight years ago: old habits do die hard, but nothing in the cosmos made by mortal hands including mortal culture has ever stayed the same for long.