OOTS #488 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

[Thormag]

Love it!
I knew Roy would face the "Belkar association" subject.
Genius!

[The Wanderer]

Heh. Roy might need to come up with some rather impressive explanations to get through this bit.

[Kioran]

Bwahaha! Some things come back to haunt you...

Nice reference by the way.

[Emperor Demonking]

He's not a palladin what's wrong with him adventuring with Belkar.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

OH God! I'm at work, and my co-workers almost heard me laughing at the "Scales" Joke!

[SteveMB]

Heck, if you like you can even bring Belkar up here for a moment (because you know that's as close as he's ever going to get) to extract the heart for you....

[Quikngruvn]

"Death's Li'l Helper." Bwahahaha!

I'm glad I work in a room by myself, so my co-workers didn't hear me laughing out loud.

[Kodra]

Haha. "Death's lil Helper".

I'm glad Roy's "most heinous act" was the abandonment of Elan. I'm glad that he remembers that as such and is clearly bothered by it.

Honestly, Roy puts a lot of stock into being Lawful Good. She speaks of him being judged as not as a rather painful punishment. I guess I always thought of Roy as Pragmatic Good (or as the Board Game suggests, Beliguered Good), so I'm surprised he cares so much about being judged as Lawful.

[Dunamin]

Oh man, poor Roy, nobody would stand up to such a thorough examination of their life.

[LiteYear]

"Death's Li'l Helper", heh. I wonder if that's going to come up soon.

[Green Bean]

Gasp! Such language from a deva!

[Fighteer]

I was hoping we'd see a strip like this - it's been due for a while now. It's every bit as funny as I thought it would be, although I should have seen the Belkar cliffhanger coming. "Death's Li'l Helper" - ROFL!

Spoiler

Show

I think Roy's best argument is that the world would have demonstrably been worse off had Belkar not been under his control, however slight. Throughout their association, he's done his best to mitigate the damage Belkar caused or might have caused, while redirecting his impulses towards the defeat of evil. Furthermore, unlike a Paladin, Roy is not oathbound never to associate with evil characters.

The main argument against Roy is that he could simply have killed or imprisoned Belkar and found someone more suitable for his group. More to the point, simply sending Roy on to the Celestial Realms would effectively end (pending resurrection, of course) his ability to restrain Belkar's psychopathic tendencies - the alternative being to have Roy persist as a ghost or similarly bound spirit.

A lot comes down to how heavily the deva weighs Roy's intentions/results vs. the letter of the law - a particularly Lawful Good conundrum.

[TroyXavier]

Always knew that association with Belkar would come back to haunt Roy. Great comic there.

[Yeril]

Poor Mrs. McNulty

[Bendal]

Yeah, Roy definitely has some fast talking to do about his association with Belkar. However, consider this; when he is raised, he's going to be associating with "Death's Lil' Helper" all over again, except now he knows it's considered a black mark in his Permanent Record.

What's he going to do about it?

[sun_tzu]

He's not a palladin what's wrong with him adventuring with Belkar.

What's wrong is that Belkar kills innocent people on a regular basis, Roy knew it, but Roy never put a permanent stop to it (by, say, putting him in jail where he belongs). One might argue Roy had good reasons for that, but still, it's definitely something to consider at such a judgement.
Roy's non-paladinhood is a non-factor. They're trying to determine what afterlife he's bound to end up in, not whether he should lose a paladinhood he doesn't have in the first place.

[Svethnika]

Lol uh oh. That would be hard to explain, I'd guess its a totally pragmatic association though

[Fascisticide]

HAHAHA! Even after Roy's dead, Belkar is still an pain in the ass to him!

[Ecalsneerg]

Good to see a bit of character development there.

Alos: "We didn't know Mrs McNutty was allergic to weasels!" Classic.

[DomaDoma]

Best use for Jack T. Chick I've seen yet!

[cheesecake]

Haha The Scales Are A Bitch To Calibrate1!!!!!!!11!111!!

[pendell]

Awesome, Giant. Not really *funny*, but much to ponder here.

I'm glad my religion's view of the afterlife emphasizes grace. I mean, great Scott, if Roy couldn't get in, who could?

I didn't know that in D&D verse you had to be perfectly lawful and good all the time to have a shot at entering the LG afterlife. I was always under the impression that one action -- e.g., giving in momentarily to the temptation to abandon Elan -- which he eventually snapped out of -- would make him true neutral.

For hundreds of strips Roy was an avatar of Lawful Good. And all that is instantly erased by two actions? 1) a *temporary* surrender to temptation, which he repented of and 2) having loyalty to a friend, taking responsibility for him and sticking him with an MoJ to prevent his wanton murder?

All right, so Roy is "usually lawful good", perhaps, rather than "always lawful good". I don't see how he could possibly fit into any other afterlife than the LG one.

Looking forward to the next strip.

I must say, Giant, the rest seems to have done you good. I imagine not writing an entire graphic novel at the same time probably helps.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[a1057soul]

Death's lil helper... Awesome Giant!

:-)
Dan

[Emmerson Grant]

Maybe Roy will move from Lawful Good to Usually Lawful Good.

Has it been established that Roy knows Belkar is Chaotic Evil?

[Rinion]

Great comic! Gotta love flashbacks. :D

[warmachine]

I don't think Roy should be worried about his association with Belkar. That relationship generally consisted of Roy keeping Belkar in line, thus sparing the world from his evil. That's a plus for the good side.

[Doran]

I enjoyed the little flashback to Elan saying "Are we there yet?" and the scowls of the guards

[Omicroncubed]

Hehe... awesome one. I also enjoyed the Elan flashback, along with deaths li'l helper

[ref]

There are three "Lawful Good" afterlives, that's why.

Awesome strip, btw!

PS: It still says updated three times a week without warning. Is it still so?

Edit: Fixed stupid typo.