OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread

[Liliet]

don't feed the troll, let's focus on the name of the new hot couple:

Sabsuvius?
VaSA?
Varbine?
SaVar?
S&V?

Sabius
Suduction and the Wizard
The Odd Couple
Varsivius and the Sabine Woman

"What Sex Is Sabine Now and Why?"
"So Many Questions"
"Ambiguous Gender Pair"

How about Sabine/Vaarsuvius?

I'm almost revolutionary, I know.

[gerryq]

From a practical standpoint, apart from the Draketeeth there's not a lot of difference between undoing Familicide and summoning a few thousand black dragons and scattering them around the countryside. The moral implications of that are by no means clear.

Ah, but isn't that the basis of Lawful Evil? I mean if you go around willy-nilly offering reparations to people who were wronged in the past, you'd have chaos! We always make sure legal recourse doesn't go too far back.

[sengmeng]

Because Miko was logical, just and totally not over-zealous in murdering anything that isn't a Paladin or striving to be a Paladin.

Duh. Miko's narrative purpose was to both show and tell us who it's okay to kill. Do you have any idea how grave of a sin it is to be a dragon whose scales aren't shiny? Everyone knows they're evil. They deserve to be exterminated, not because each one is a mass murderer; that's just a thing they do. They should be killed for what they ARE.

And please, Playgrounders, stop referring to the killing of goblins as genocide. Genocide is something that happens to PEOPLE.

[Kish]

How about, "Vaarsuvius Is Still Married* And In Love, Sabine Is Still Evil, And Not Every Vaguely Positive Interaction Has To Mean Romance"?

(I know, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.)

*Unless elves have really fast divorce courts. Which, considering they relate to everything else far more slowly than humans, I'm betting against.

[Scifne]

How about Sabine/Vaarsuvius?

I'm almost revolutionary, I know.

I'd love to see Sabine and Haley team up to take down Tarquin. V could help!

[gerryq]

V doesn't get to have a turning point less than fifty strips after something even you admit is an "indisputable horror" and something like three hundred strips before she realizes the horror of it. She doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Her actions should instead be read in the context of that act, as if she is still the person who would commit such an act, because she is.

If you don't believe the posters, ask the experts. One of the IFCC reckoned they had about a 50% chance of getting V in the end.

Not 100%.

Not 0%.

Seems about right to me (I don't think they'll get her, but I'm allowing for story which the IFCC cannot legitimately do - one Tarquin is enough.)

[sengmeng]

How about, "Vaarsuvius Is Still Married* And In Love, Sabine Is Still Evil, And Not Every Vaguely Positive Interaction Has To Mean Romance"?

(I know, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.)

*Unless elves have really fast divorce courts. Which, considering they relate to everything else far more slowly than humans, I'm betting against.

Uncontested divorces go really fast, though. No court appearances, no divvying up stuff, etc.

[Yoink]

So, finally got up-to-date.
My eyes hurt a little. Totally worth it.

Now I can unleash my fanboy squeals upon you all without fear of stumbling over spoilers! *Evil laughter*
But no seriously, that was pretty awesome. And Redcloak is still alive, too.
(Pretty sure I cackled out loud when Tsusiko (spl?) died.)

[jere7my]

But maybe once there was a humanoid lineage, they bred faster than the purebred dragons, so their percentage in the population vulnerable to Familicide increased.

That's a fair point. We don't know the balance of alignments in Vaarsuvius's victims, as she points out. But the black dragons themselves were probably mostly evil.

Ah, but isn't that the basis of Lawful Evil? I mean if you go around willy-nilly offering reparations to people who were wronged in the past, you'd have chaos! We always make sure legal recourse doesn't go too far back.

If the black dragons could be returned to life on Monster Island, where they wouldn't hurt anyone, I'd be all for it. But reparations generally don't involve other innocent sentients getting eaten. I don't see summoning a few thousand powerful evil creatures and releasing them into the wild being a good act in D&D terms, even if returning your victims to life generally would be.

[Dracon1us]

I'd love to see Sabine and Haley team up to take down Tarquin. V could help!

you are aware that as we speak the fanfiction sites are now producing a 8156 page graphic tome named "Kill Tarquin: the sexy avengers story" ?


Vaasabius & Sabius are both good...
maybe we should go with"Vasabi"

[Amphiox]

The point was to cause Varsuvius to commit a form of genocide. That is considered pure evil in the story if you like. It could have been a hippogriff as easily as a black dragon. (We generally consider genocide evil in real life too, unless the victim is a microorganism.)

Also, the dragon that was killed seemed reasonably evil, so I don't see how it would make your point. We weren't introduced to the others that were killed.

It is just the biggest example of a recurring theme in the narrative and a recurring topic of discussion on these threads.

The alignment of the victim has no bearing on the morality of any particular act. Genocide is evil no matter who the victims are. That they were chaotic evil murderers themselves does not matter. Doing evil unto evil is still evil. The way that Tarquin killed Nale was evil, and the fact that Nale himself was evil doesn't change that fact. The way that vampire Durkon murdered Z when he was helpless was evil, and it doesn't matter that Z himself was evil.

[Dracon1us]

How about Sabine/Vaarsuvius?

I'm almost revolutionary, I know.

Sabine first because she's the man?

[Burner28]

Great comic, as usual.

[Sir_Leorik]

Just a juxtaposition that amuses me.

I'm aware of the irony, but there are times when firing indiscriminately, with extreme prejudice, at an enemy, is a good tactic. (If Tarquin's soldiers don't want to get fireballed, they shouldn't position themselves in "Fireball Formation". )

Before we get further into "Morally Justified" territory, can I just say how funny it was that the joke about some people over-templating everything in a game (ex: axiomatic half-dragon half-fiendish ... vampire minotaur) was applied to an inanimate object

Technically the Teevo is a Construct, though Constructs can't have the Half-Fiend Template applied to them.

No, we don't. The entire POINT of the black dragon slaying was to challenge the presumption that things are just evil. We DON'T KNOW within the universe of OotS how many dragons are good or evil.

This isn't D&D. In order to make the claim that most of them are evil you must provide evidence that they are, and there is no such evidence within OotS.

Even in D&D there are cases where "Evil" creatures do not adhere to the standard Alignments of their race. The Chromatic Dragons of Taladas, in "Dragonlance" are closer to Neutral than to Evil, and they deliberately refused to answer Takhisis' call to join her Dragon Armies. Dzi'izt Do'Urden may be considered a cliche today, but back in 1988 R.A. Salvatore was breaking new ground by making Wulfgar's Ranger sidekick a Dark Elf. Way back in the 1970's, Rob Kuntz's PC, Lord Robilar, had an Orc henchman named Slig, who was non-Evil. There's even a Beholder at the Rock of Bral who works as a wisecracking bartender, and in Sigil, the City of Doors, A'kin the "Friendly Fiend", an allegedly non-Evil Arcanoloth, runs a knick-knack shop where he serves as an information broker. Most of them are exceptions, but once Players are aware of the exceptions they will need to question whether they should be attacking Orcs or Goblins, just because they are Orcs or Goblins.

[Grey Watcher]

Sabine first because she's the man?

Either that or it's ladies first. Or just alphabetical. Or saving the best for last. Or....

[Sir_Leorik]

However, strictly mechanically speaking, there is no reason for the DC of a spell that would reverse Familicide to be significantly higher than the DC of Familicide itself. Vaarsuvius has always wanted more arcane power than anyone else ever had; now s/he would have an actual use for it, instead of just sitting on it like a...dragon...with a hoard.

Short of a very well worded Wish, Vaarsuvius would have to spend millions of gold pieces, of her own money in order to Resurrect her victims from the Familicide. And those victims would need to be willing to come back from the dead, which depends a great deal on which Clerics V hires to cast the Resurrection spells. Plus the Clerics (especially any Evil ones) will charge V through her metaphorical nose for repeated castings. But that could be one route for V to take, slowly, patiently, trying to identify whom she has murdered, Human, Dragon or Half-Dragon, and try to bring them back. Not only would she be undoing the harm she did to these people, she would learn patience, humility, and possibly to keep her temper in check. If she were to research some Epic spell, or cast Wish, to bring her victims back, she would have learned nothing at all about why she acted so rashly in Book Four. This goes not just for casting Familicide (which she did to make sure none of the ABD's kin would come looking for revenge, without considering the consequences of her actions) but when she abandoned the Azurite Fleet in the first place.

If V hadn't been so impatient, she could have gone with Durkon and Elan to meet Haley, Celia and Belkar in Greysky City. While the Azurite Fleet would still be miles from the Western Continent, and O-Chul would still be a prisoner, Team Evil would still be stuck in Azure City/Gobbotopia, the Draketooths (and many others) would still be alive, and the IFCC would have no pawn in the OotS. If V wants redemption, she needs to learn patience, humility, respect for the opinions of others, to anticipate the consequences of her actions, and to control her temper. Acknowledging she did something wrong is only the first step; V needs to undertake to become a different, better person. She can remain True Neutral, but she needs to correct the negative personality traits that led her to commit such a horrid act. Once she's sufficiently changed, and she tries to make amends to her victims, then she needs to go have a chat with the Elven clergy about what to do next. But I don't think it is impossible for her to acheive atonement and redemption; she feels remorse, she acknowledges that she committed a horrific act, and she's seen some of the consequences of that act. But she has a ways to go before she's done atoning. Trying to find a short-cut would be a sign that she's doing it wrong.

[Forikroder]

Short of a very well worded Wish, Vaarsuvius would have to spend millions of gold pieces, of her own money in order to Resurrect her victims from the Familicide. And those victims would need to be willing to come back from the dead, which depends a great deal on which Clerics V hires to cast the Resurrection spells. Plus the Clerics (especially any Evil ones) will charge V through her metaphorical nose for repeated castings. But that could be one route for V to take, slowly, patiently, trying to identify whom she has murdered, Human, Dragon or Half-Dragon, and try to bring them back. Not only would she be undoing the harm she did to these people, she would learn patience, humility, and possibly to keep her temper in check. If she were to research some Epic spell, or cast Wish, to bring her victims back, she would have learned nothing at all about why she acted so rashly in Book Four. This goes not just for casting Familicide (which she did to make sure none of the ABD's kin would come looking for revenge, without considering the consequences of her actions) but when she abandoned the Azurite Fleet in the first place.

If V hadn't been so impatient, she could have gone with Durkon and Elan to meet Haley, Celia and Belkar in Greysky City. While the Azurite Fleet would still be miles from the Western Continent, and O-Chul would still be a prisoner, Team Evil would still be stuck in Azure City/Gobbotopia, the Draketooths (and many others) would still be alive, and the IFCC would have no pawn in the OotS. If V wants redemption, she needs to learn patience, humility, respect for the opinions of others, to anticipate the consequences of her actions, and to control her temper. Acknowledging she did something wrong is only the first step; V needs to undertake to become a different, better person. She can remain True Neutral, but she needs to correct the negative personality traits that led her to commit such a horrid act. Once she's sufficiently changed, and she tries to make amends to her victims, then she needs to go have a chat with the Elven clergy about what to do next. But I don't think it is impossible for her to acheive atonement and redemption; she feels remorse, she acknowledges that she committed a horrific act, and she's seen some of the consequences of that act. But she has a ways to go before she's done atoning. Trying to find a short-cut would be a sign that she's doing it wrong.

id say V has learned to think her actions through more

wether hes learned to be more patient is hard to say (thats not something thats easy to really show either) but hes definently learned that its important to think twice cast once

besides i dont think patience was really her problem, his problem was he considered Arcane power to be the only power capable of truly solving important problems thats why she left the fleet, to try to enter a scenario where he can focus said power without distractions not because she was impatient

[Sir_Leorik]

I don't know why people are disputing that killing hundreds/thousands of indiscriminately sentient creatures - no matter if they're "Evil", mass murderers or just unpleasant persons - is an EVIL act, no matter what. I can't see any common ground in the V-familicide discussion if both sides can't agree on that.

The dispute is not over whether V is a mass murderer. The dispute is over where V's character arc is leading to, with a certain Forum Poster commenting that if V's character arc leads to redemption that something is wrong.

When Darth V cast Familicide, she committed a horrible atrocity. The question now is whether Vaarsuvius will get to have a "Toss the Emperor into the reactor core of the Death Star" moment, like Darth Vader did. At that moment, when Vader saved Luke from Palpatine's Force Lightning, at the cost of his own life, he earned redemption. How do we know this? Because his Force Spirit shows up at the end of Return of the Jedi wearing Jedi Robes, without any of the scars he obtained on Mustafar, or any missing limbs. No one is going to argue that Darth Vader was a villain, but he repented his evil deeds, and found a way to atone for a lifetime of evil and earn redemption with a single action, at the cost of his life. His repentance was fully accepted, and he had a body count much higher than Darth V's.

[Sir_Leorik]

id say V has learned to think her actions through more

wether hes learned to be more patient is hard to say (thats not something thats easy to really show either) but hes definently learned that its important to think twice cast once

besides i dont think patience was really her problem, his problem was he considered Arcane power to be the only power capable of truly solving important problems thats why she left the fleet, to try to enter a scenario where he can focus said power without distractions not because she was impatient

V left the fleet because she was too impatient to deal with other people's problems, didn't see those people's problems as any concern of hers, was arrogant enough to feel that her Arcane might could solve all the worlds' problems, was self-conscious of her failure in Azure City, and she was looking for short-cuts to solve her problems. Taking more short-cuts is not going to help her atone for her sins.

[Forikroder]

I don't know why people are disputing that killing hundreds/thousands of indiscriminately sentient creatures - no matter if they're "Evil", mass murderers or just unpleasant persons - is an EVIL act, no matter what. I can't see any common ground in the V-familicide discussion if both sides can't agree on that.

based on our world principles and using morals we learned living in our world? definently

but V doesnt live on earth, V didnt grow up being taught the morals we have

so while to us it is unquestionably an evil act, to the OoTS verse it comes much closer to a grey area

V left the fleet because she was too impatient to deal with other people's problems, didn't see those people's problems as any concern of hers, was arrogant enough to feel that her Arcane might could solve all the worlds' problems, was self-conscious of her failure in Azure City, and she was looking for short-cuts to solve her problems. Taking more short-cuts is not going to help her atone for her sins.

i dont think the word patience means what you think it means, V WASNT dealing with other people problems unless that problem was enough to get him XP or could be dealt with quickly like Kabuto

V left the fleet to remove all distractions so he could focus 100% on his arcane researchs not because his patience was at the limit

[Diadem]

The point was to cause Varsuvius to commit a form of genocide.

Why do people keep calling it genocide? Killing the family of someone who wronged you is evil, but it has absolutely nothing to do with genocide.

[Forikroder]

Diligence isn't the same thing as patience. Vaarsuvius is extremely diligent about magic, hammering away at the Finding Haley problem relentlessly. But he's still, ultimately, looking for a shortcut via arcane magic. Rather than, say, getting back to Azure City (or as close as they dare) and try and find signs that Haley may or may not have left, he toils away, looking for something that will let him find Haley with nothing more than a few minutes of casting time. His myopic focus on arcane magic as the best solution to everything ever blinds him to the fact that just researching the right spell isn't necessarily the most efficient solution, but that's not... exactly the same thing simple impatience. I think.

taht makes no sense at all its like saying Roy was impatient because he had Shojo teleport him to Cliffport and back (well mostly back)

someone is not "impatient" for using the assets at there command to enact the most effecient way of solving a problem, Hinjo evens aid himself that it would be foolhardy to return to Azure city, i mean who would be stupid enough to hang out in enemy territory for such an extended amount of time?

[Sir_Leorik]

How about, "Vaarsuvius Is Still Married* And In Love, Sabine Is Still Evil, And Not Every Vaguely Positive Interaction Has To Mean Romance"?

(I know, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.)

Then it definitely sounds like something Vaarsuvius would say.

[Shale]

Why do people keep calling it genocide? Killing the family of someone who wronged you is evil, but it has absolutely nothing to do with genocide.

When you kill 1/4 of an entire species, that's genocide. Familicide's definition of "family" is so broad as to defy the dictionary.

[Forikroder]

When you kill 1/4 of an entire species, that's genocide. Familicide's definition of "family" is so broad as to defy the dictionary.

gueestimate. learn what it is.

[Dalek Kommander]

When you kill 1/4 of an entire species, that's genocide. Familicide's definition of "family" is so broad as to defy the dictionary.

Familiacide's definition of family isn't wrong per se, it's just that the rareness and long lifespans of black dragons means that the entire species is only a few families.

[Yoink]

So, out of the three unholy beings of the IFCC, yellow voice is obviously Lee, Lawful Evil, who provided Jephton the Unholy to the soul splice deal.
Out of the other two, which is Nero and which is Cedrik?

I'm leaning towards Cedrik/Chaotic being purple voice, but who knows.
Is this ever revealed anywhere? The 'Fiends spend too much time finishing each other's sentences to get a good grasp on their full alignments.

[Sir_Leorik]

So, out of the three unholy beings of the IFCC, yellow voice is obviously Lee, Lawful Evil, who provided Jephton the Unholy to the soul splice deal.
Out of the other two, which is Nero and which is Cedrik?

I'm leaning towards Cedrik/Chaotic being purple voice, but who knows.
Is this ever revealed anywhere? The 'Fiends spend too much time finishing each other's sentences to get a good grasp on their full alignments.

Lee = Lawful Evil = Devil = Yellow

Nero= Neutral Evil = Daemon aka Yugoloth = Purple

Cedrik = Chaotic Evil = Demon = Orange

[Shale]

Familiacide's definition of family isn't wrong per se, it's just that the rareness and long lifespans of black dragons means that the entire species is only a few families.

If cast on a modern-day human, it would wipe out all homo sapiens everywhere (since the whole race shares a common ancestor, some 5,000-10,000 years back, and the first step of the spell doesn't require a common living ancestor). I don't consider myself to be part of a family that contains literally every other person alive.

[Yoink]

Lee = Lawful Evil = Devil = Yellow

Nero= Neutral Evil = Daemon aka Yugoloth = Purple

Cedrik = Chaotic Evil = Demon = Orange

Ah, alright.
How exactly do you know that? I'm not the most knowledgeable person about the setting's influences, so I'm still curious. (Or maybe I just missed a glaringly obvious reveal in the comic somewhere. That could be it!)