OOTS #1107 - The Discussion Thread

[Keltest]

Does that include Roy's grudge against Xykon?

(To be clear, I'm choking on "whatever the source of that grudge"--I can think of lots and lots of actions that merit a grudge that lasts for decades or centuries: rape, murdering someone's loved ones, murdering a random stranger and only remembering doing it because it was Laundry Day. Alas that the no-politics rule prevents me from mentioning the first real-world example that comes to mind.)

I think a distinction should be made between a grudge and a legitimately deserved judgment. If you go and throw a baby into a swamp and laugh as they drown, everybody who knows about it is going to treat you accordingly. They don't necessarily have grudges, they just know what kind of person you are and want nothing to do with you because of it. A grudge doesnt necessarily have to be rational or grounded in reality.

[Kish]

If part of the definition of "grudge" is "unjustified" then of course holding a grudge for a year or for a second is unjustified, but I am unconvinced that this modification of the language is justified or useful.

[The_Weirdo]

Let me precise my thought a bit further :
Good : disproportionnally small retribution expected (regret and genaral acts of kindness or even not at all)
Neutral : proportionnally consequent retribution expected (fixing what you broke)
Evil : disproportionnally big retribution retribution expected ("eye-for-an-eye", death, whatever)

"forced self exile" looks like an oxymoron : self-exile is a choice, if it was not it would be exile. I'm only pointing that out because you said translation was one of the two things you were LG about.


You mean the man she had sex with without telling him she was married who did not know he had a child? Hilgya is clearly wrong about Durkon. the world does not have to fit her delusion.

A proper compensation, you ask? Divorce, no pretense of controlling her life and child support from her Clan for the first two and Durkon for the last. Though she also would have to face justice for attempted murder and battle Durkon for custody of Kudzu.

On the self-exile thing... Well, she ran away, so she self-exiled. And she wouldn't if she had a choice, or, rather, if her clan left her with one that wouldn't be terrible for her.

On Durkon: she does seem to be wrong about him, but as of now there is at least no evidence as to whether or not she tried to contact him, so wrong is one thing and wrong without so much as an iota of evidence she was right is another.

Divorce isn't a "proper compensation" for an arranged marriage; "no pretense of controlling her life" isn't "proper compensation" for what her clan put her through. Even the most lenient legal systems would jail people for quite a bit for what amounts to human (or dwarven, as it is) trafficking. I would suggest the complete and utter obliteration (out of combat, of course) of her clan and of all it ever stood for for daring to impose on her freedom, but, while you'd call that "evil", you'd likely be hard-pressed to call, say, the jailing of the people responsible for the arranged marriage for quite a long while "evil" as well; as I said, human trafficking is a serious felony.

As for the attempted murder, even assuming Ivan is capable of grasping the concept, he should take it up with her clan. Maybe sue them for reckless endangerment of the mentally disabled...

They forced her. They put her in this situation. It's their fault and "child support" and "I vow not to control your life" are pittances.

[Keltest]

If part of the definition of "grudge" is "unjustified" then of course holding a grudge for a year or for a second is unjustified, but I am unconvinced that this modification of the language is justified or useful.

Unjustified is the wrong word. Disproportionate may be close, but still isn't exact. Holding a grudge implies a level of attention given to the subject of the grudge that is in part or wholly unrelated to the actual slight performed against them. It isn't a particularly rational thing, as opposed to mistrust of a baby killer, which is an entirely appropriate and warranted response.

[The_Weirdo]

Unjustified is the wrong word. Disproportionate may be close, but still isn't exact. Holding a grudge implies a level of attention given to the subject of the grudge that is in part or wholly unrelated to the actual slight performed against them. It isn't a particularly rational thing, as opposed to mistrust of a baby killer, which is an entirely appropriate and warranted response.

What if the person holding the grudge is a parent of the baby?

[Keltest]

What if the person holding the grudge is a parent of the baby?

Then the baby is probably going to have a miserable upbringing as their slightly deranged mother carries them into battle against vampires in spite of a multitude of reasons why that is a bad idea.

[The_Weirdo]

Then the baby is probably going to have a miserable upbringing as their slightly deranged mother carries them into battle against vampires in spite of a multitude of reasons why that is a bad idea.

Cute.

No, but I mean, really, is it a grudge if it's a personal (and grave) slight against oneself?

[Kish]

Just in case I was unclear: I reject Keltest's attempt to add any and all pejoratives to the definition of "a grudge," and observe, as The_Weirdo just demonstrated (even while continuing to stretch for reasons Hilgya is on significantly firmer moral ground than she is), that it does nothing but obfuscate, as the question "is Hilgya's grudge inherently unjustified?" is not resolved but replaced with the question "is Hilgya's anger toward Durkon appropriately described with the pejorative term 'grudge'"?

[Keltest]

Cute.

No, but I mean, really, is it a grudge if it's a personal (and grave) slight against oneself?

Yes? Especially since Hilgya seems to have imagined the slight whole cloth. Her feelings were hurt, but beyond that the only thing he actually did to her was, well, the baby, and she doesnt seem to mind that so much, at least from what we've seen so far.

[jokem]

Why does Chaotic need to explain her actions at all. Chaotic Evil means she can do whatever she feels like doing and the heck with anyone else. She does not need to be fair, the idea that she needs to be fair would be a lawful one.

She need not think the rules she gets to ignore are ignorable by anyone else when they are to her advantage. She need not be consistent.

INSISTING that she needs to think some set of rules for how chaotics act applies to everyone would ITSELF be a lawful attitude. Fine for me /= fine for you is a key part of a chaotic ethos. There is no universal set of rules that everyone should follow if you are a chaotic /= there are no rules that that particular person should follow when dealing with me. Not even close.



What?! Chaotics can't have expectations?! Seriously?

Requiring someone else to live up to your expectations is Lawful. I can't see it any other way. Expectations that Casting a Silent Image will produce a figment appearing like you want is an expectation with no alignment associated with it at all.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Just in case I was unclear: I reject Keltest's attempt to add any and all pejoratives to the definition of "a grudge,"

grudge
/ɡrəj/
"a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment resulting from a past insult or injury."

I agree with Kish - nothing about justified or unjustified in there.

It also seems unmoored from any of the alignments. I can imagine lawful and chaotic and good and evil beings all holding grudges, for different reasons and in different circumstances, each springing from their own and thus resenting other's violations of them.

It also seems too mild a word for Hilgya, FWIW.

GW

[jokem]

Not necessarily, a grudge come from any action you think is harmful to you. That can be from someone failing you or from something completely different. If someone steals my sandwich I won't be pissed because he failed my expectations of common decency, I will be pissed because that was MY sandwich, goddammit!
I'll wait until she gets a deep and meaningful with Durkonbefore trying to pinpoint if she is more angry at him for his perceived hypocrisy, his words or his accidental failings as a parent and therefore how chaotic of her that was. Though I maintain that holding grudge for over a year is Evil behaviour before anything else whatever the source of the grudge.

<snip>

Let me be more precise. I thought it was obvious I was talking about Hilgya's grudge, not grudges in general. Certainly grudges can be held for a variety of reasons, both justified and not. The enmity between Demogorgon and Orcus (quickly looking over my shoulder to see if mentioning them in print causes them to appear) qualifies as a grudge, but hardly because one expects the other to live up to any code of conduct.

[jokem]

I think it's less family obligations as a wider category and more "He ran out on ME!" that so enraged her. So while Chaotic enough to assume he's following his own path for leaving her, she's still selfishly assuming it's all about her, rather than just not knowing about it.

Still, fundamentally this comes from her expectation Durkon would live up to family obligations, maybe not in the wider sense of what is expected in Dwarven Society, but in a personal fashion. I suppose this could be interpreted as a Chaotic Good attitude, in that it is not Good to run out on your family, but I don't see Hilgya as being of that alignment.

[jokem]

No, no, my bad, I didn't clarify: maybe the Sendings were stopped for some reason. Divine interference, for one.



Well... Maybe it's the hypocrisy? He DID tell her to return to an (as far as he knew and as far as Hilgya felt) abusive husband that was thrust upon her (that part is an absolute FACT, Ivan could be a saint, but he WAS thrust upon her) by societal norms.

Even Evil people can have valid reasons for being pissed off at someone, especially someone that waxed lyrical about obligation and then - to their understanding - ran off on them.

I would say Evil people have more reasons and are more likely to be pissed off at someone or anything, whether justified or not.

[The_Weirdo]

To be sure, it occurred to me that Hilgya's clan should partially (at least partially) answer for all of her victims while outside, not only for Ivan.

They did create the villain, after all, and they didn't do it out of, say, an attempt to do good; they did it while attempting to marry off someone they had no right to marry off.

Basically, it would work like the guy that sprayed Harvey Dent with acid and made him into Two-face. There is a root cause and the intent very much was to cause harm (actively to Dent in his case, passively in a sense of "not caring whose freedom you infringe upon" to Hilgya in hers).

On another point:

I would say Evil people have more reasons and are more likely to be pissed off at someone or anything, whether justified or not.

Oh, very much agreed. But even Evil people sometimes do hold justified grudges...

[Keltest]

To be sure, it occurred to me that Hilgya's clan should partially (at least partially) answer for all of her victims while outside, not only for Ivan.

They did create the villain, after all, and they didn't do it out of, say, an attempt to do good; they did it while attempting to marry off someone they had no right to marry off.

Basically, it would work like the guy that sprayed Harvey Dent with acid and made him into Two-face. There is a root cause and the intent very much was to cause harm (actively to Dent in his case, passively in a sense of "not caring whose freedom you infringe upon" to Hilgya in hers).

Trauma doesnt remove agency. Hilgya is, as far as we can tell, still of as sound a mind and body as she started with, and therefore is responsible for her actions.

[The_Weirdo]

Trauma doesnt remove agency. Hilgya is, as far as we can tell, still of as sound a mind and body as she started with, and therefore is responsible for her actions.

Not trauma in her case, though: had they left her alone, she might have been just a cleric of Loki or even an unscrupulous tradeswoman or something in the dwarven lands, in all likelihood someone much less harmful, not someone with a HUGE (and very justified) chip on her shoulder exiled to foreign lands because she didn't want to stay married to Ivan Moronforge.

[Keltest]

Not trauma in her case, though: had they left her alone, she might have been just a cleric of Loki or even an unscrupulous tradeswoman or something in the dwarven lands, in all likelihood someone much less harmful, not someone with a HUGE (and very justified) chip on her shoulder exiled to foreign lands because she didn't want to stay married to Ivan Moronforge.

Hilgya has agency and is responsible for the choices she makes. Nobody else made those choices for her.

[The_Weirdo]

Hilgya has agency and is responsible for the choices she makes. Nobody else made those choices for her.

Guy With Crossbow seems to have.

[Keltest]

Guy With Crossbow seems to have.

Changing the consequences for certain choices does not remove the responsibility of the chooser, and it certainly does not then absolve them of responsibility for later choices that don't have their consequences impacted by Guy with Crossbow.

[The_Weirdo]

Changing the consequences for certain choices does not remove the responsibility of the chooser, and it certainly does not then absolve them of responsibility for later choices that don't have their consequences impacted by Guy with Crossbow.

Are you really arguing that "Marry this mentally-disabled turnip or die" isn't the removal of a choice?

Setting aside that for a moment, tell me: would Hilgya likely be outside the dwarven lands, furious at anything and everything for being an outcast unfairly, had her clan not pawned her off to Moron?

[georgie_leech]

Are you really arguing that "Marry this mentally-disabled turnip or die" isn't the removal of a choice?

Setting aside that for a moment, tell me: would Hilgya likely be outside the dwarven lands, furious at anything and everything for being an outcast unfairly, had her clan not pawned her off to Moron?

Really this all Zeus fault for dying to the Snarl.
Deciding that responsibility for Hilgya's choices rests with her clan is an arbitrary choice. If you're arguing that the responsibility for a choice rests with past actors that enabled the situation in the first place, it's inconsistent to not also hold those actors to the same standard. This leads to everything being caused by the initial conditions of the universe, which robs responsibility of any practical meaning.

That is, if you're going to argue responsibility means anything, you need to decide an arbitrary cutoff point where you can't pass the proverbial buck any further. Or, you can say that while someone is making a choice under duress (and that those causing said duress should be held responsible for that as well), they are still responsible for their choices.

[The_Weirdo]

Or, you can say that while someone is making a choice under duress (and that those causing said duress should be held responsible for that as well), they are still responsible for their choices.

Which is actually what I am saying. Hilgya should be punished for any and all victims she made while on the outside (that excludes Ivan Moronforge), but so should her clan because her clan imposed the duress which led her to that sorry situation in the first place.

[Kish]

That is, if you're going to argue responsibility means anything, you need to decide an arbitrary cutoff point where you can't pass the proverbial buck any further. Or, you can say that while someone is making a choice under duress (and that those causing said duress should be held responsible for that as well), they are still responsible for their choices.

Absolutely! This is smart.

The preceding "Hilgya was responsible for nothing ever" vs. "Being married rather than shot was a choice she was responsible for", on the other hand...a plague on both your houses.

[The_Weirdo]

Absolutely! This is smart.

The preceding "Hilgya was responsible for nothing ever" vs. "Being married rather than shot was a choice she was responsible for", on the other hand...a plague on both your houses.

Again, I did say the clan was PARTIALLY responsible for what evil Hilgya did while on the outside.

[georgie_leech]

Which is actually what I am saying. Hilgya should be punished for any and all victims she made while on the outside (that excludes Ivan Moronforge), but so should her clan because her clan imposed the duress which led her to that sorry situation in the first place.

Actually, I'm arguing that the clan holds responsibility for marrying Hilgya off at crossbow, not for anything further. Otherwise, should Roy be responsible for Hilgya's choice to bring the baby? After all, if he hadn't brought Durkon to the dungeon, Kudzu would not have been conceived. Which seems untennable. In what way can you say the clan is responsible for Hilgya's actions but Roy isn't?

[The_Weirdo]

Actually, I'm arguing that the clan holds responsibility for marrying Hilgya off at crossbow, not for anything further. Otherwise, should Roy be responsible for Hilgya's choice to bring the baby? After all, if he hadn't brought Durkon to the dungeon, Kudzu would not have been conceived. Which seems untennable. In what way can you say the clan is responsible for Hilgya's actions but Roy isn't?

There was no duress involved in Roy bringing Durkon to the dungeon. Duress lies at the crux of the issue.

[KorvinStarmast]

Then the baby is probably going to have a miserable upbringing as their slightly deranged mother carries them into battle against vampires in spite of a multitude of reasons why that is a bad idea.

Also can be written as *Then the baby is probably going to have an exciting albeit dangerous upbringing as their slightly deranged mother carries them into battle against vampires and other high adventure*

Glass half empty, or glass half full?

Requiring someone else to live up to your expectations is Lawful.

Did you just make this up? It's standard parenting behavior, but it doesn't necessarily make it lawful.

That is, if you're going to argue responsibility means anything, you need to decide an arbitrary cutoff point where you can't pass the proverbial buck any further. Or, you can say that while someone is making a choice under duress (and that those causing said duress should be held responsible for that as well), they are still responsible for their choices.

FWIW, at the Hanoi Hilton, a number of collaborators were held responsible for breaking faith with the other POWs even though they (and all of the others) were frequently under severe duress.

[Kantaki]

Requiring someone else to live up to your expectations is Lawful. I can't see it any other way.

Nah. I'm pretty sure finding out the hero you idealized is, or turned into, the head enforcer of the Evil Empire would tick off Lawful and Chaotic (Good) folks pretty equally.

Unless you seriously think some Chaotic Good rogue would be fine with finding out that... lets say Robin Hood and his Merry Men work for Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Are you really arguing that "Marry this mentally-disabled turnip or die" isn't the removal of a choice?

No, it isn't a removal of choice. It mightn't leave our favourite crazy Cleric of Loki with any good options, but even a choice between death by beheading and death by hanging is still a choice.

Also that comparison is a insult.
To the turnips.

Setting aside that for a moment, tell me: would Hilgya likely be outside the dwarven lands, furious at anything and everything for being an outcast unfairly, had her clan not pawned her off to Moron?

Considering how little we actually know about her?
Maybe, maybe not.
It's possible Hilgya would live a unhappy life in the Dwarven Lands.
More likely she would've found another grudge to run away over.

Because lets be honest, what we've seen of Hilgya and what we've seen of the Dwarven Lands fits so badly comparing them a square peg and the eye of a needle would be a mayor understatement.

[Doug Lampert]

Requiring someone else to live up to your expectations is Lawful. I can't see it any other way. Expectations that Casting a Silent Image will produce a figment appearing like you want is an expectation with no alignment associated with it at all.

And yet CE tyrants consistently kill people for not doing what the CE tyrant wants them to. Requiring someone else to do what you want is neither lawful nor chaotic, the ethical axis is about whether YOU have a hard code of conduct, nothing about what you want or expect of others.