The most dangerous question: What do you want?

[dancrilis]

I do wonder what changed about the SG, perhaps under Shojo. Miko would fit right in with that SG unit, but I couldn't see Hinjo, Lien, or O'Chul doing that.

There are two answers to this that I have seen.
1 (held by most people): O-Chul/Hinjo joined the order and all was right with the world.
2 (held by me and perhaps me alone): When the paladins fell after attacking Redcloak village they had to do determine why they fell for doing what was right, during this period of reflection they realised that a) goblins were evil people not worthless vermin and b) the Crimson Mantle was their true target ... and so they got a bit better (still fairly bad), then O-Chul/Hinjo joined and they slowly continues to improve to where before the invasion of Azure city, then Xykon killed the lot of them (some exceptions apply).

[hamishspence]

It seemed to me pretty unambiguous that

Spoiler

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Gin-Jun, their current leader as of HtPGHS, saw goblins as worthless vermin - and that his attitude had not changed at all between SoD and HtPGHS.

[Babale]

It seemed to me pretty unambiguous that

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Gin-Jun, their current leader as of HtPGHS, saw goblins as worthless vermin - and that his attitude had not changed at all between SoD and HtPGHS.

It's been a while since I read that story, but I think you're right.

[Peelee]

It seemed to me pretty unambiguous that

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Gin-Jun, their current leader as of HtPGHS, saw goblins as worthless vermin - and that his attitude had not changed at all between SoD and HtPGHS.

Indeed. The only change he made was bare surface methodology - "we used to punch people but some got suspended for it, so now we just move forward swinging our fists and if people happen to be in the way as we do it that's on them", as I've put it before.

[dancrilis]

It seemed to me pretty unambiguous that

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Gin-Jun, their current leader as of HtPGHS, saw goblins as worthless vermin - and that his attitude had not changed at all between SoD and HtPGHS.

Spoiler: HTPGHS

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Even he needed to make a case for killing non-evil goblins, and was fairly clear that they would kill hobgoblins that struck at them (although that seemed perhaps to be more a guildline than an absolute).

Effectively I see them as a group of amoral soldiers doing a job with little care about anything beyond that job, rather then immoral soldiers gleefully hacking down children - but again I may be alone in that view.

[understatement]

Because the Saphire Guard is (or at least was at the time) apparently full of Miko-like sanctimonious pricks who think they are justified in killing all of the goblins due to them pinging as "evil" to their detection ability (when they announce their arrival, they yell about how the Twelve Gods have judged the goblins and found them Evil). Further, I think they're worried that any survivors might do exactly what Redcloak did -- salvage the Crimson Mantle and ensure that the Plan continues.

So it is the Sapphire Guard's fault that Redcloak's village fell, yes?

FYI, they did not know the Mantle was the source of the power.

Spoiler: HTPGHS

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Even he needed to make a case for killing non-evil goblins, and was fairly clear that they would kill hobgoblins that struck at them (although that seemed perhaps to be more a guildline than an absolute).

Effectively I see them as a group of amoral soldiers doing a job with little care about anything beyond that job, rather then immoral soldiers gleefully hacking down children - but again I may be alone in that view.

Like we discussed before, at this magnitude of action it doesn't matter if he had a reason or not to kill civilians. It's still evil and malicious, but now there's some facade of reasoning. Doesn't make it better, and doesn't mean the SG improved in any way at all.

[Peelee]

Further, I think they're worried that any survivors might do exactly what Redcloak did -- salvage the Crimson Mantle and ensure that the Plan continues.

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

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They were quite explicitly not worried about any survivors doing what Redcloak did, since they didn't realize the Crimson Mantle was important at that time.

[Babale]

So it is the Sapphire Guard's fault that Redcloak's village fell, yes?

Yes, obviously? I mean, they killed everyone in the village, so yes, it's their fault. No one is disputing that.

FYI, they did not know the Mantle was the source of the power.

They didn't know that the Mantle was an artifact that contained the special knowledge of the Plan, but they knew enough of the Plan to know that it involved the Snarl, and they knew that the goblin in the red cloak was the high priest of the dark one and in charge of the Plan. They just didn't realize that it was a single red cloak each time they killed a High Priest, as I understood it.

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

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They were quite explicitly not worried about any survivors doing what Redcloak did, since they didn't realize the Crimson Mantle was important at that time.

They didn't know about the artifact, but they knew about the Plan.

Eta: I'm basing this both on what the goblin in the red cloak says throughout the scene, as well as what the paladin who looks like a beardless Hinjo says when he sees the red cloaked goblin.

[understatement]

Yes, obviously? I mean, they killed everyone in the village, so yes, it's their fault. No one is disputing that.

• Was the Sapphire Guard justified in wiping out Redcloak's village, civilians and all? Absolutely not. But were they justified in attacking at all? I would argue yes, because the Crimson Mantle IS that dangerous. It's not like they attacked the goblins for no reason. Their cleric was essentially a self contained research facility that was looking into a weapon that could destroy the entire world, with the intent to use it. From AC's perspective, preventing this is necessary.
  
  We saw what happened, and the Paladins definitely failed to minimize civilian casualties (or to even try to do so), and that's bad. But part of the blame must fall on the goblins, who were researching doomsday weapons from a civilian village in the first place!

Just making sure.

They didn't know that the Mantle was an artifact that contained the special knowledge of the Plan, but they knew enough of the Plan to know that it involved the Snarl, and they knew that the goblin in the red cloak was the high priest of the dark one and in charge of the Plan. They just didn't realize that it was a single red cloak each time they killed a High Priest, as I understood it.



They didn't know about the artifact, but they knew about the Plan.

Eta: I'm basing this both on what the goblin in the red cloak says throughout the scene, as well as what the paladin who looks like a beardless Hinjo says when he sees the red cloaked goblin.

Yes, so once the Bearer dies, the Plan essentially dies with them.

[Babale]

Just making sure.



Yes, so once the Bearer dies, the Plan essentially dies with them.

I think the bit you take issue with is that I said that part of the blame falls on the Goblins -- but that was a misstatement, in the same way that it would be wrong to put the blame of the crusades on the Azurites when in fact it was the Saphire Guard acting in secret. By the same logic, the portion of the blame that falls on the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle doesn't fall on the goblin village as a whole, since they aren't aware of his doomsday plot. But yes, part of the blame IS on him. You can't work on a world shattering plan while surrounded by civilians without taking part of the blame when the Paladins show up to stop said doomsday plot and end up killing civilians.

Obviously that doesn't excuse what the Paladins did. They aren't showing regard for the sanctity of sentient life in accordance with the Good alignment. There's plenty of blame to go around.

[understatement]

I think the bit you take issue with is that I said that part of the blame falls on the Goblins -- but that was a misstatement, in the same way that it would be wrong to put the blame of the crusades on the Azurites when in fact it was the Saphire Guard acting in secret.

Agree.

By the same logic, the portion of the blame that falls on the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle doesn't fall on the goblin village as a whole, since they aren't aware of his doomsday plot. But yes, part of the blame IS on him. You can't work on a world shattering plan while surrounded by civilians without taking part of the blame when the Paladins show up to stop said doomsday plot and end up killing civilians.

Disagree. Absolutely nothing external forced the paladins to kill civilians.

OOTS is a world that contains many real-life parallels, but this is one such situation where it could be stretched. The Sapphire Guard is comprised of some of the most powerful AC paladins, as well as clerics and other spellcasters. It's trivial to sneak in, gather intel, disguise themselves, etc. It's trivial to cast divinations to figure out what really is the cause of the Plan. There is a huge power inequality between the armoured strike force on horses and the mostly-unarmed caught-by-surprise villagers who were only planning on attending church services.

Obviously that doesn't excuse what the Paladins did. They aren't showing regard for the sanctity of sentient life in accordance with the Good alignment. There's plenty of blame to go around.

What sticks down RC's craw is the fact that a) the gods sanctioned this, b) the Fallen paladins are just that: not able to summon horses or magic anymore, while his family remain dead, and c) none of the SG ever offered reparations or apologies even when the error was revealed.

[mjasghar]

A hard boiled egg

[C-Dude]

Also, @C-Dude: the village scene is of third-person ominiscent POV. The Giant has pretty firmly stated that "everything we saw happened." Also also, this is not the paladin military -- it's a specialized strike force that knew exactly what they were doing (and not in any positive sense).

It may be in third person (as is necessitated by the format of the media) but it is most certainly not omniscient. How and when information is disseminated to the reader is just as important as the information itself, and the way the scene is framed is designed explicitly to engender attachment to Wrong Eye.

It came right out of the video RPG handbook: meekish protagonist in idyllic village is attacked by monsters and dragged by destiny into worldwide conflict. It appears so often in fantasy media as an inciting incident because it works so effectively; it bonds the reader to the target character and encourages them to project on said character.

Without Wrong Eye's investiture to white cloak as a preface to the attack, to the audience it would appear no different than a typical war scene. Conversely, had the scene been preceded with the paladins discussing their crusade, or followed with one of them discussing the assault, it would have triggered resentment towards Wrong Eye as a character... even with the same dialogue.

As for the paladins knowing exactly what they were doing, I would argue they didn't. They didn't know the cloak was a source of power, and heretofore had no reason to suspect any goblin was innocent or a non-conspirator (or even anything more than a monster). That kind of ambiguity increases the amount of force in an attack, because the paladins had no guarantee 'taking out the leader' would stop the threat to reality. As for your suggestion that they should have gathered intelligence first, these paladins don't work like that... sneaking around to learn about an enemy is exploiting ignorance as a tactical advantage and is dishonorable (as shown by Miko against the giants). The paladins announced themselves, and then attacked. This is not out of character for them.

As for the children being attacked, I again reference my allusion to Fallout New Vegas and other fictions where children (and other innocuous individuals) are used as weapons. When one can't tell if a civilian or a child might be an insurgent (or a threat to reality, as again the paladins didn't know the cloak was the important part), again extra force is employed. Heck, Wrong Eye deploys that very strategy of insurgency to crush the Azure Resistance! He disguises a hobgoblin as a prisoner, gets the rebels to rescue him, and then uses the intelligence gathered to obliterate their forces.

Lastly, do you check if a spider is a baby before you squash it? To those paladins the goblins were not sentient creatures. That perception colored their actions, even if we as an audience know it to be a falsehood.

Which is why the scene is framed the way it is, why we aren't reminded why the paladins are attacking before they strike. The situation is designed to communicate to the reader Wrong Eye's motivation and his primary conflict: the perception that he and his are monsters when they're not.

Ironically, "We want equality" is as uphill a battle as this discussion, because most everyone in Stickworld has a very different framing of the situation than Wrong Eye does. Just as the audience is unwilling to widen their gaze and consider what they might not be seeing between strips, most Stickworlders know goblinoids only as dangerous raiders, in part due to The Dark One's crusade before his assassination, and have little inclination to ask "why are they like that?" or "are some of them NOT like that?". Wrong Eye is guilty of this too, assuming all humanoids are lumped into the same lap of luxury and privilege and never stopping to wonder "why did what happened to me happen?" or "are there any humans who aren't like the paladins?". If he'd done the former, he'd have burned the token of his hateful self-serving god and sought his own retribution like Right Eye did, and if he'd done the latter he would have looked into making some allies to actually change the goblin perception (such as the Greyskiers) instead of crutching on divine power like pre-familicide Vaarsuvius did with arcane.

[understatement]

It may be in third person (as is necessitated by the format of the media) but it is most certainly not omniscient. How and when information is disseminated to the reader is just as important as the information itself, and the way the scene is framed is designed explicitly to engender attachment to Wrong Eye.

The events of Start of Darkness are not a narrative being told by Redcloak, except for the crayon pages (which totally are).

Link to forum here.

I'm going to respectfully snip some of the quote because it's a bit hard for me to keep track of what's what.

As for the paladins knowing exactly what they were doing, I would argue they didn't. They didn't know the cloak was a source of power, and heretofore had no reason to suspect any goblin was innocent or a non-conspirator (or even anything more than a monster). That kind of ambiguity increases the amount of force in an attack, because the paladins had no guarantee 'taking out the leader' would stop the threat to reality. As for your suggestion that they should have gathered intelligence first, these paladins don't work like that... sneaking around to learn about an enemy is exploiting ignorance as a tactical advantage and is dishonorable (as shown by Miko against the giants). The paladins announced themselves, and then attacked. This is not out of character for them.

I agree that it is 100% in character for the SG to do this. Isn't that the root of the problem, then? That the divinely-sanctioned Sapphire Guard didn't think of goblins as people, and didn't bother to do their research on an important mission before moving in to kill?

As for the children being attacked, I again reference my allusion to Fallout New Vegas and other fictions where children (and other innocuous individuals) are used as weapons. When one can't tell if a civilian or a child might be an insurgent (or a threat to reality, as again the paladins didn't know the cloak was the important part), again extra force is employed. Heck, Wrong Eye deploys that very strategy of insurgency to crush the Azure Resistance! He disguises a hobgoblin as a prisoner, gets the rebels to rescue him, and then uses the intelligence gathered to obliterate their forces.

Lastly, do you check if a spider is a baby before you squash it? To those paladins the goblins were not sentient creatures. That perception colored their actions, even if we as an audience know it to be a falsehood.

I have only heard of the Fallout games, but I really don't think these situations are comparable. People in D&D are practically superhuman. Kids don't gain class levels (unless you're Xykon, and even then it's a rarity); the paladins can Detect Evil at will, the only real threat to the SG had been the Bearer (and maybe Redcloak's brother and uncle). Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a resurrection spell.

The Sapphire Guard knew that one person was the Bearer. Their lack of intel was that they didn't know the power came from a legit piece of cloth.

Not sure what Redcloak and the Resistance have to do with this. Yeah, he's Evil...I don't think anyone said otherwise?

Ironically, "We want equality" is as uphill a battle as this discussion, because most everyone in Stickworld has a very different framing of the situation than Wrong Eye does. Just as the audience is unwilling to widen their gaze and consider what they might not be seeing between strips, most Stickworlders know goblinoids only as dangerous raiders, in part due to The Dark One's crusade before his assassination, and have little inclination to ask "why are they like that?" or "are some of them NOT like that?". Wrong Eye is guilty of this too, assuming all humanoids are lumped into the same lap of luxury and privilege and never stopping to wonder "why did what happened to me happen?" or "are there any humans who aren't like the paladins?". If he'd done the former, he'd have burned the token of his hateful self-serving god and sought his own retribution like Right Eye did, and if he'd done the latter he would have looked into making some allies to actually change the goblin perception (such as the Greyskiers) instead of crutching on divine power like pre-familicide Vaarsuvius did with arcane.

I don't disagree here.

[hamishspence]

To those paladins the goblins were not sentient creatures. That perception colored their actions, even if we as an audience know it to be a falsehood.

If they genuinely believed that goblins weren't sentient - were of animal intelligence - then they wouldn't have even bothered making announcements at them, and telling them to "prepare themselves".

[Worldsong]

It may be in third person (as is necessitated by the format of the media) but it is most certainly not omniscient. How and when information is disseminated to the reader is just as important as the information itself, and the way the scene is framed is designed explicitly to engender attachment to Wrong Eye.

It came right out of the video RPG handbook: meekish protagonist in idyllic village is attacked by monsters and dragged by destiny into worldwide conflict. It appears so often in fantasy media as an inciting incident because it works so effectively; it bonds the reader to the target character and encourages them to project on said character.

The fact that we know that everything displayed in this scenario is objectively true means that Wrong Eye deserves our sympathy, because as you said what we see here is a protagonist living a peaceful life before the monsters come in and slaughter everything. The fact that the protagonist is a goblin and the monsters are paladins doesn't change anything.

Without Wrong Eye's investiture to white cloak as a preface to the attack, to the audience it would appear no different than a typical war scene. Conversely, had the scene been preceded with the paladins discussing their crusade, or followed with one of them discussing the assault, it would have triggered resentment towards Wrong Eye as a character... even with the same dialogue.

Actually from how the paladins of the old Sapphire Guard have been portrayed focusing on them would just have reinforced that we should loathe them because those guys were corrupt and immoral. I haven't read Start of Darkness myself but supposedly one of the paladins was happy to try out their Cleave attack on some helpless victims. Putting the spotlight on them wouldn't remove the fact that they were the bad guys here.

As for the paladins knowing exactly what they were doing, I would argue they didn't. They didn't know the cloak was a source of power, and heretofore had no reason to suspect any goblin was innocent or a non-conspirator (or even anything more than a monster). That kind of ambiguity increases the amount of force in an attack, because the paladins had no guarantee 'taking out the leader' would stop the threat to reality. As for your suggestion that they should have gathered intelligence first, these paladins don't work like that... sneaking around to learn about an enemy is exploiting ignorance as a tactical advantage and is dishonorable (as shown by Miko against the giants). The paladins announced themselves, and then attacked. This is not out of character for them.

Refusing to put some effort into gathering intel because sneaking is dishonourable is Lawful Stupid. Deciding to wipe out an entire village because you can't be arsed to gather the intel necessary to figure out who exactly is guilty and who isn't is Lawful Evil.

As for the children being attacked, I again reference my allusion to Fallout New Vegas and other fictions where children (and other innocuous individuals) are used as weapons. When one can't tell if a civilian or a child might be an insurgent (or a threat to reality, as again the paladins didn't know the cloak was the important part), again extra force is employed. Heck, Wrong Eye deploys that very strategy of insurgency to crush the Azure Resistance! He disguises a hobgoblin as a prisoner, gets the rebels to rescue him, and then uses the intelligence gathered to obliterate their forces.

Pretty sure The Giant has stated that he really, really, really does NOT expect people to assume that the goblin children are dangerous and deserving of being cut down when he hasn't shown them being dangerous on screen. In fact children, regardless of race, should be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty with even more certainty than adults.

The fact that there's an example in Fallout New Vegas of someone using children as cannon fodder doesn't matter because that's a different group, different setting, different scenario. If the paladins are fine with cutting down the children just on the off chance that they might be dangerous that is, once again, Evil.

And yes that means they have to risk being stabbed once or twice by a goblin child or whatever. They're paladins with class levels, they're not going to keel over even if one of the children miraculously scored a critical hit. And that is besides the fact that the odds of a child coming up and stabbing you are extremely low because children are by default not combatants.

Lastly, do you check if a spider is a baby before you squash it? To those paladins the goblins were not sentient creatures. That perception colored their actions, even if we as an audience know it to be a falsehood.

Racism/discrimination is also considered Evil. Goblins talk and have civilization, they build villages and communities. Aside from the fact that Hamishspence has already pointed out that the Paladins gave the goblins a warning the village showed enough signs of sapience that any paladin who looks at them and genuinely thinks them on the same level of spiders is either so stupid as to require constant supervision or, once again, Evil.

Which is why the scene is framed the way it is, why we aren't reminded why the paladins are attacking before they strike. The situation is designed to communicate to the reader Wrong Eye's motivation and his primary conflict: the perception that he and his are monsters when they're not.

Yes, instead the paladins are the monsters because we seem them committing atrocities.

Ironically, "We want equality" is as uphill a battle as this discussion, because most everyone in Stickworld has a very different framing of the situation than Wrong Eye does. Just as the audience is unwilling to widen their gaze and consider what they might not be seeing between strips, most Stickworlders know goblinoids only as dangerous raiders, in part due to The Dark One's crusade before his assassination, and have little inclination to ask "why are they like that?" or "are some of them NOT like that?". Wrong Eye is guilty of this too, assuming all humanoids are lumped into the same lap of luxury and privilege and never stopping to wonder "why did what happened to me happen?" or "are there any humans who aren't like the paladins?". If he'd done the former, he'd have burned the token of his hateful self-serving god and sought his own retribution like Right Eye did, and if he'd done the latter he would have looked into making some allies to actually change the goblin perception (such as the Greyskiers) instead of crutching on divine power like pre-familicide Vaarsuvius did with arcane.

I'm pretty sure the idea was that the Dark One started his crusade because the discrimination against goblinoids was already in place. Granted the crusades might have made it worse (because obviously when the oppressed rise up and actually manage to win in a straight up war the message is that they're not oppressed hard enough) but the problem goes deeper than that.

And yes Wrong Eye is also guilty of discrimination, but the point is that this is a bad trait which requires fixing. However that at worst puts him on equal level with the people who consider all goblinoids bad, and personally I'd still consider him ahead in the game because at least he got his entire village burned down and his loved ones killed before he started thinking that (or at least acting on it).

The point here is that yes we can think of reasons why the paladins did what they did and yes those reasons can make sense... but they make sense in the way that people are flawed and in the case of the old Sapphire Guard their flaws are that they're horrible, horrible people who'll commit atrocities for convenience and because they simply don't care. At the end of the day they're still monstrous and everyone who participated in those raids deserved to die. Not just lose their paladin powers, actually get killed and prevented from resurrecting.

And yes I'm aware that doesn't justify attacking Azure City or blaming the reformed Sapphire Guard. But that's not the point here.

Also the information we've been given so far states that the Dark One isn't self-serving given that his grand plan is to blackmail the gods to get concessions which help the mortal goblinoids. Yes I'm aware that people have been going around giving arguments why the Dark One might secretly not give a damn about goblinoids and just be furthering his own goals, but until that's actually shown in the comic that's speculation and personally I consider it a bit too convenient an argument for why the god of the oppressed goblinoids is a bad guy who has to be treated as such.

[Jason]

Also the information we've been given so far states that the Dark One isn't self-serving given that his grand plan is to blackmail the gods to get concessions which help the mortal goblinoids. Yes I'm aware that people have been going around giving arguments why the Dark One might secretly not give a damn about goblinoids and just be furthering his own goals, but until that's actually shown in the comic that's speculation and personally I consider it a bit too convenient an argument for why the god of the oppressed goblinoids is a bad guy who has to be treated as such.

First of all, all of the information we have received about how the Dark One is really a caring and good god who wants the best for his fellow goblinoids is from his own priests. You can hardly expect them to have an unbiased perspective. Oona the bugbear seems to think the Dark One doesn't care about anyone who isn't green or orange.

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Right-Eye decides to abandon the Dark One's Plan in Start of Darkness, and the new hobgoblin Supreme Leader in How the Paladin Got His Scar, who is a cleric of the Dark One, is perfectly happy to let the humans alone and build the infrastructure of his city instead.

Second, we know that The Dark One is a bad guy because he's an evil deity created after his followers slaughtered a million souls in his name in the course of one year, after he had already fought a bloody war of conquest (even if you accept the justification that the goblins were oppressed, he was still attempting to take lands that belonged to other races by force). And no doubt plenty of human, dwarvish, and elvish children were included in the casualty lists for both the war and the massacre that followed his death. Evil and Good are easily-testable qualities in this world, and The Dark One and most of his followers definitely test as Evil. That is a major difference from how things work in the real world.

The Sapphire Guard were callous in their deeds, and their then-leader in How the Paladin Got His Scar is shown to be an obnoxious racist, but when they massacred Redcloak's village under a different leader they actually were protecting the world from the cult of an Evil god that intends to threaten all the other gods and the very fabric of existence, and chances are that all the adults in the village really did test as Evil. The statement by the paladins of why they were attacking the village ("the Twelve Gods are telling us that your hearts are evil and that your religious leader here is threatening to destroy the world") was not hyperbole. Every goblin in that village was either already a member of an evil, world-threatening cult or was a potential recruit. The Twelve Gods did not cause any of those paladins to fall that we know of, because despite being needlessly cruel about it in they end they were doing the job the Twelve Gods asked them to do. In fact it could be argued that they were not thorough enough in carrying out their duty, since Redcloak escaped and went on to threaten the other gods and ultimately the world with destruction.

If the paladins had performed a precision strike and taken out only the cult leader and immediate priesthood, what would have happened next? Exactly what did happen - some other goblin in the village would have taken up the cloak and then proceed to threaten the world again.

The massacre of Redcloak's village is by definition a special case because the Dark One's high priest lived there. You can't take it as the way the Sapphire Guard treated all other goblin villages and all other goblins in all other circumstances.

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There is some evidence in How the Paladin Got His Scar that the later incarnation of the Guard found there probably would have treated all other goblin villages the same way, but that is under a different leader than the one who lead the attack on Redcloak's village, and he gets his comeuppance in the course of that story, with all of his paladins being unwilling to follow him anymore once O-Chul demonstrates his racism.

[dancrilis]

The Twelve Gods did not cause any of those paladins to fall that we know of, because despite being needlessly cruel about it in they end they were doing the job the Twelve Gods asked them to do.

I hold that some of them did (very likely) fall.

Oooo! Oooo! I know this one!

The events of Start of Darkness are not a narrative being told by Redcloak, except for the crayon pages (which totally are). You are right, your friend is wrong. Everything you see happened.

However, everything that happened is not necessarily seen.

Suffice to say that the Twelve Gods are not beholden to put on the same visual display they did for Miko for every paladin who transgresses, and that all transgressions are not created equal. It is possible that some of the paladins who participated in the attack crossed the line. It is also possible that most did not. A paladin who slips up in the execution of their god-given orders does not warrant the same level of personal attention by the gods as one who executes the legal ruler of their nation on a glorified hunch. Think of Miko's Fall as being the equivalent of the CEO of your multinational company showing up in your cubicle to fire you, because you screwed up THAT much.

Of course, while Redcloak is not narrating the scene, it is shown mostly from his perspective; we don't see how many Detect Evils were used before the attack started, and we don't see how many paladins afterwards try to heal their wounds and can't, because these things are not important to Redcloak's story. Whether or not some of the paladins Fell does not bring Redcloak's family back to life. Indeed, if we transplant the scene to real life, he would think it cold comfort that some of the police officers who gunned down his family had to turn in their badge afterward (but were otherwise given no punishment by their bosses at City Hall).

Dramatically, showing no-name paladins Falling at that point in the story would confuse the narrative by making it unclear whether or not Redcloak had already earned a form of retribution against them. To be clear, he had not: Whether or not some of them lost a few class abilities does not change the fact that Redcloak suffered an injustice at their hands, one that shaped his entire adult life. That was the point of the scene. Showing them Fall or not simply was not important to Redcloak's story, so it was omitted.

Further, it would have cheapened Miko's fall to show the same thing over and over--and Miko, as a major character in the series, deserved the emotional weight that her Fall carried (or at least that I hope it carried).

I hope that clears this issue up. I hope in vain, largely, but there you have it.

(Oh, and I leave it up to the readers to form their own opinions on which paladins may have Fallen and which didn't.)

[Jason]

It seemed to me pretty unambiguous that

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Gin-Jun, their current leader as of HtPGHS, saw goblins as worthless vermin - and that his attitude had not changed at all between SoD and HtPGHS.

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Gin-Jun was not the leader of the Sapphire Guard at the time of their attack on RedCloak's village in SoD. He was present at the attack but was explicitly not the leader at the time. Also he apparently did not fall from paladinhood as a result of his actions during the attack.

[Peelee]

Spoiler

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Gin-Jun was not the leader of the Sapphire Guard at the time of their attack on RedCloak's village in SoD. He was present at the attack but was explicitly not the leader at the time. Also he apparently did not fall from paladinhood as a result of his actions during the attack.

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Nobody said he was the leader during SoD, though. hamish said Gin-Jun was the leader during HtPGHS.

[Jason]

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Nobody said he was the leader during SoD, though. hamish said Gin-Jun was the leader during HtPGHS.

Yep, I got that no one said that. Just making it clear we're on the same page here.

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Also, while it could be argued that his attitudes didn't change between the two books, it's possible that they did change. He may have gotten much worse over time. That could help explain why he didn't fall from Paladinhood at the time of the earlier attack.

[Peelee]

Yep, I got that no one said that. Just making it clear we're on the same page here.

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Also, while it could be argued that his attitudes didn't change between the two books, it's possible that they did change. He may have gotten much worse over time. That could help explain why he didn't fall from Paladinhood at the time of the earlier attack.

Ah, my bad!

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I can totally see him getting worse. Especially with seeing some paladins fall for incomprehensible (to him) reasons, so he takes the wrong lesson - that being, methodology of killing innocents is more important than simply not killing innocents, and the goblins deserve to be killed even more now that they made some paladins fall due to not dying the right way.

[Worldsong]

First of all, all of the information we have received about how the Dark One is really a caring and good god who wants the best for his fellow goblinoids is from his own priests. You can hardly expect them to have an unbiased perspective. Oona the bugbear seems to think the Dark One doesn't care about anyone who isn't green or orange.

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Right-Eye decides to abandon the Dark One's Plan in Start of Darkness, and the new hobgoblin Supreme Leader in How the Paladin Got His Scar is perfectly happy to let the humans alone and build the infrastructure of his city instead.

If The Plan is really the Dark One's goal then he is working for the betterment for the goblinoids even if he isn't always on his best behaviour. Personally I feel like people are too quick to take every gripe againt the Dark One and go "Oh, clearly he's not invested in The Plan at all and doesn't actually care about the goblinoids in the slightest."

Second, we know that The Dark One is a bad guy because he's an evil deity created after his followers slaughtered a million souls in his name in the course of one year, after he had already fought a bloody war of conquest (even if you accept the justification that the goblins were oppressed, he was still attempting to take lands that belonged to other races by force). And no doubt plenty of human, dwarvish, and elvish children were included in the casualty lists for both the war and the massacre that followed his death. Evil and Good are easily-testable qualities in this world, and The Dark One and most of his followers definitely test as Evil. That is a major difference from how things work in the real world.

Okay, this might be my fault due to poor phrasing. When I say that the Dark One isn't the bad guy I mean he isn't the bad guy in this story. While he's definitely Evil I highly doubt that we'll find out that he's at fault for all the bad things in the comic and that getting rid of him magically solves all our problems. The reasoning being that him being the bad guy would undermine the story arc of the oppression of goblinkind. And we know that the oppression of goblinkind is real and that it's going to be addressed because The Giant has said so on a meta-level.

That said yes he was born from his followers going on a rampage, but I'm pretty sure what caused his ascension wasn't the slaughter so much as the sheer devotion his followers showed. Gods feast on things like belief, devotion and supplication. Most likely he could have ascended if they showed their devotion in another way.

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And the reason his followers decided that the best way to show their devotion was through mass slaughter was... because the Dark One had been fighting a war against the oppression of goblinkind (which you call a bloody war of conquest) and was actually trying to get peace talks started when the PC races decided that they'd rather stab him in the back because their alternative was actually acknowledging the point that goblinkind has been fighting against oppression. The mass slaughter was, of course, a horrible thing, and the goblinoids who took part of it were horrible people, but I disagree with the portrayal that his followers did it just because they're evil.

The Sapphire Guard were callous in their deeds, and their then-leader in How the Paladin Got His Scar is shown to be an obnoxious racist, but when they massacred Redcloak's village under a different leader they actually were protecting the world from the cult of an Evil god that intends to threaten all the other gods and the very fabric of existence, and chances are that all the adults in the village really did test as Evil. The statement by the paladins of why they were attacking the village ("the Twelve Gods are telling us that your hearts are evil and that your religious leader here is threatening to destroy the world") was not hyperbole. Every goblin in that village was either already a member of an evil, world-threatening cult or was a potential recruit. The Twelve Gods did not cause any of those paladins to fall that we know of, because despite being needlessly cruel about it in they end they were doing the job the Twelve Gods asked them to do. In fact it could be argued that they were not thorough enough in carrying out their duty, since Redcloak escaped and went on to threaten the other gods and ultimately the world with destruction.

I don't agree with the notion that being Evil is enough reason for a paladin to strike you down. Yes Miko did it but Miko was called out on it (albeit in a somewhat comedic fashion) and The Giant has gone on record to say that Miko had been toeing the line between Lawful Good and just Lawful for a while now: Shojo's murder was just the tipping point.

They had no evidence that the goblins living in that village had done anything deserving of the death penalty. They suspected (or knew) that there was something bad in that village they needed to do something about but every source so far has told me that they were sorely lacking in good intel.

I'm just going to say it plainly: you're not going to convince me that genocide is justified when the best the paladins got was "There's something dangerous in that village, let's wipe it out. Including the children who are running away from us."

The reason being that convincing me that genocide is ever justified is already incredibly difficult because genocide is not supposed to be just another option for dealing with your problems. For me to even consider genocide as justified you need evidence. Concrete, detailed, irrefutable evidence. And THEN you need to prove that genocide is literally the only method to solve the problem. You need to systematically disqualify other potential solutions such as containment, sabotage, precision strikes. And yes that would be difficult and tedious and carry its own problems with it but all of that is justified because it means you're not resorting to genocide. Because genocide is an awful thing you shouldn't be doing. Seriously. I don't get how people keep coming back with "Yes but this instance of genocide was a good idea because..."

If the paladins had performed a precision strike and taken out only the cult leader and immediate priesthood, what would have happened next? Exactly what did happen - some other goblin in the village would have taken up the cloak and then proceed to threaten the world again.

This would be a very good argument if the paladins knew for a fact that this would happen. If they had solid evidence which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that every single goblin in that village was capable and willing of continuing The Plan. They did not. The best they had was that a lot (possibly all) the goblins scanned as Evil. And as I've stated before, scanning as Evil is not justification for execution.

I actually think The Giant has stated somewhere that killing a person just because they're Evil is an Evil act in itself, because you're murdering someone who, for all you know, might have a strong inclination towards evil but who has never actually performed any crime deserving of the death penalty.

Of course I could start arguing whether the death penalty is ever deserved but I'll concede that in a DnD-like setting there are times when somebody just needs to die. Like Xykon.

The massacre of Redcloak's village is by definition a special case because the Dark One's high priest lived there. You can't take it as the way the Sapphire Guard treated all other goblin villages and all other goblins in all other circumstances.

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There is some evidence in How the Paladin Got His Scar that the later incarnation of the Guard found there probably would have treated all other goblin villages the same way, but that is under a different leader than the one who lead the attack on Redcloak's village, and he gets his comeuppance in the course of that story, with all of his paladins being unwilling to follow him anymore once O-Chul demonstrates his racism.

We know on the meta-level that goblinkind has been oppressed throughout the ages.

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We also know that the paladins have come for the last two Bearers.

We know that the paladins are willing to wipe out an entire village on the suspicion that there's something dangerous going on inside that village.

We have an admission from I believe Hinjo that the Sapphire Guard has a rich history of protecting the world (through killing things).

Yes we don't have direct evidence that they treat other goblinoid villages the same but all the evidence we do have strongly hints towards it with little in the way of evidence to the contrary. Especially since the only thing needed for the Sapphire Guard to go in with metaphorical guns blazing is for them to believe there's evil cultists in there doing dangerous things. And given that goblins usually scan as Evil they apparently don't need much convincing.

[Jason]

If The Plan is really the Dark One's goal then he is working for the betterment for the goblinoids even if he isn't always on his best behaviour. Personally I feel like people are too quick to take every gripe againt the Dark One and go "Oh, clearly he's not invested in The Plan at all and doesn't actually care about the goblinoids in the slightest."

At the very least the Dark One is personally motivated to continue receiving goblinoid worship, so he must have at least some interest in their welfare. Still I can't help feeling that when Redcloak finally does understand his god's true attitude towards goblins and Redcloak himself that there will be problems.

Okay, this might be my fault due to poor phrasing. When I say that the Dark One isn't the bad guy I mean he isn't the bad guy in this story. While he's definitely Evil I highly doubt that we'll find out that he's at fault for all the bad things in the comic and that getting rid of him magically solves all our problems.

Point taken. I agree that the Dark One appears at this point to not be the villain of the story.

The reasoning being that him being the bad guy would undermine the story arc of the oppression of goblinkind. And we know that the oppression of goblinkind is real and that it's going to be addressed because The Giant has said so on a meta-level.

I'm curious as to where and how he said goblins really have been oppressed, as I either missed it or have forgotten where I read it.

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And the reason his followers decided that the best way to show their devotion was through mass slaughter was... because the Dark One had been fighting a war against the oppression of goblinkind (which you call a bloody war of conquest) and was actually trying to get peace talks started when the PC races decided that they'd rather stab him in the back because their alternative was actually acknowledging the point that goblinkind has been fighting against oppression. The mass slaughter was, of course, a horrible thing, and the goblinoids who took part of it were horrible people, but I disagree with the portrayal that his followers did it just because they're evil.

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What went down with the Dark One's death during peace negotiations is, again, the Dark One's perspective, as told by his High Priest. We don't know if that is really how it happened.

I don't agree with the notion that being Evil is enough reason for a paladin to strike you down. Yes Miko did it but Miko was called out on it (albeit in a somewhat comedic fashion) and The Giant has gone on record to say that Miko had been toeing the line between Lawful Good and just Lawful for a while now: Shojo's murder was just the tipping point.

I agree, just being evil is not enough to warrant your immediate death. But being evil while living in the same village as an evil high priest who is planning to threaten the world might make your death a little more justifiable.

The reason being that convincing me that genocide is ever justified is already incredibly difficult because genocide is not supposed to be just another option for dealing with your problems. For me to even consider genocide as justified you need evidence. Concrete, detailed, irrefutable evidence. And THEN you need to prove that genocide is literally the only method to solve the problem. You need to systematically disqualify other potential solutions such as containment, sabotage, precision strikes. And yes that would be difficult and tedious and carry its own problems with it but all of that is justified because it means you're not resorting to genocide. Because genocide is an awful thing you shouldn't be doing. Seriously. I don't get how people keep coming back with "Yes but this instance of genocide was a good idea because..."

Well again, this is a world where evil alignment is easily verifiable. That makes a big difference from our own world.

I actually think The Giant has stated somewhere that killing a person just because they're Evil is an Evil act in itself, because you're murdering someone who, for all you know, might have a strong inclination towards evil but who has never actually performed any crime deserving of the death penalty.

I can accept that general idea. So what do we make of the fact that at least one of the paladins who participated (and probably many of the other survivors) did not fall? That would seem to mean that the Twelve Gods at least did not see everyone involved in the attack as guilty of evil acts worthy of removal of paladin status.

[Worldsong]

At the very least the Dark One is personally motivated to continue receiving goblinoid worship, so he must have at least some interest in their welfare. Still I can't help feeling that when Redcloak finally does understand his god's true attitude towards goblins and Redcloak himself that there will be problems.

That's definitely possible but I'm still doubtful that the revelation will be that the Dark One is purely in this for himself. Because yes he ascended on the deaths of millions but he also ascended on the belief of countless goblinoids who supported his crusade against oppression.

I'm curious as to where and how he said goblins really have been oppressed, as I either missed it or have forgotten where I read it.

Usually we combine these two comments which come from the same thread and reply to the same person.

Two, D&D is a world of black and white morality, in most cases. Even the concept of shades of grey was codified in neutrality, really an idea that's just as simple and straightforward (albeit annoyingly hard to actually implement) as good and evil. Trying to apply your real world morals to it (often resulting i the self-inflicted discomfort you're feeling) is like trying to determine the morality of a lion eating a gazelle; they're just not compatible.

The primary purpose of Redcloak's characterization is to specifically prove that this point is completely and utterly wrong. That D&D cannot and should not begin and end at black-and-white, and indeed already doesn't, if everyone would just learn to look at things a little more complexly.

Obviously, I still have work to do on that point.

Further, your definition of "what the comic is about" is also wrong. You seem to think it should be about me regurgitating an accurate portrayal of how the game should ideally be played. Nothing could be further from my mind. The comic is criticizing not how the game is intended to be played, but how the game is actually played and has been for 35+ years. And how it is actually played 9 times out of 10 is that goblins are slaughtered because they are goblins, and the book says that goblins are Evil so it's OK. If you've never played in a game with people like that, then congratulations! You've had an exceptionally lucky D&D career, and that whole portion of the comic's subtext is Not For You. But there are plenty of people who maybe have never given it a second thought. Just because you've already learned some of the lessons of a work of fiction does not mean that there's no point to including them.

Now, if you want to rail on me because the first time Redcloak walked on screen, I didn't know everything I would later write in Start of Darkness, go right ahead. It would be a grossly unfair criticism being that it's common knowledge that I started this comic strip with no idea that it was going to last more than a dozen strips, but at least it would be an accurate one instead of one built entirely on one's own personal biases about the D&D game and how I'm not reading your mind so that I might live up to them.

Oh, and I will continue to veer back and forth from obeying D&D conventions to ignoring them when and as I see fit, so if that's going to bug you, you should probably stop reading now. Because I simply do not care about the level of consistency that you seem to find important.

Sorry, I missed this in my earlier post:

the inapplicability as satire (again I have to wonder why anyone gives a crap about whether it's fair to depict monsters are evil in fantasy games),

I CARE. I care, and every goddamn person in the world should care, because it's objectification of a sentient being. It doesn't matter that the sentient being in question is a fictional species, it's saying that it's OK for people who look funny to be labeled as Evil by default, because hey, like 60% of them do Evil things sometimes! That is racism. It is a short hop to real-world racism once we decide it is acceptable to make blanket negative statements about entire races of people.

Our fiction reflects who we are as a civilization, and it disgusts me that so many people think it's acceptable to label creatures with only cosmetic differences from us as inherently Evil. I may like the alignment system overall, but that is its ugliest implication, and one that I think needs to be eliminated from the game. I will ALWAYS write against that idea until it has been eradicated from the lexicon of fantasy literature. If they called me up and asked me to help them work on 5th Edition, I would stamp it out from the very game itself. It is abhorrent to me in every way.

So, complaining that I am failing to uphold it is the best compliment you could give me.

Honestly I've been considering putting this in my signature so I can pull it up every time someone suggests that maybe Redcloak's cause is false or wrong. The good news is that thanks to some helpful souls I can now quote from locked threads.

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What went down with the Dark One's death during peace negotiations is, again, the Dark One's perspective, as told by his High Priest. We don't know if that is really how it happened.

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The moment we get strong evidence that the Dark One has been twisting the story to make himself a lot more sympathetic than he actually is I'll change my tune. The reason why I'm pushing back so hard currently is because I'm strongly pro-equality and feel like people are quick to undermine the storyline about goblinoids being oppressed when they seek arguments why Redcloak and the Dark One are actually just villains to be removed from the game.

I agree, just being evil is not enough to warrant your immediate death. But being evil while living in the same village as an evil high priest who is planning to threaten the world might make your death a little more justifiable.

Well again, this is a world where evil alignment is easily verifiable. That makes a big difference from our own world.

I can accept that general idea. So what do we make of the fact that at least one of the paladins who participated (and probably many of the other survivors) did not fall? That would seem to mean that the Twelve Gods at least did not see everyone involved in the attack as guilty of evil acts worthy of removal of paladin status.

I still feel like being killed because you're Evil-aligned and live inside the same village as an evil high priest is not enough justification.

Also there can be several explanations for why the paladins didn't fall which can be stacked on top of each other.

The first one is that committing Evil acts does not immediately bump you out of Good territory. You can make mistakes and still recover from them. The ones that did fall were probably similar to Miko that they were already close to the edge and then jumped over the edge.

There's also the possibility that not all paladins had the same priority list. Some of them might have gone after innocent goblins who were just running away while others focused on those goblins who tried to fight back or struggle in some capacity. Which still wouldn't be very Good given that those goblins were fighting back against what was essentially an unprovoked ambush but it's probably easier to fly under the radar if you can claim that the goblin you killed was waving a weapon at you.

On top of that the Twelve Gods are deadly afraid of the Snarl and are probably willing to play loose and fast with the rules if it means ensuring that there's absolutely zero chance of the Snarl ever breaking free. As long as the Sapphire Guard is acting to stop the Snarl they could probably get away with things which the gods would otherwise frown upon.

And while the Twelve Gods want their servants to be virtuous they also want to actually have direct servants following their orders. Maybe more paladins would have fallen if the Twelve Gods hadn't decided that making them all fall would harm the Sapphire Guard's capability of acting against Evil and the Snarl too much.

The previous book has shown us (and Roy) that the gods aren't even remotely infallible: they act according to their own concerns, can keep secrets from each other and mortals, and the Good-aligned gods can make decisions which makes someone like Roy wonder about the morality. The Sapphire Guard gets their power from the Twelve Gods so while there's probably rules that prevent giving power to someone who is blatantly not Lawful Good they can prioritize their own goals over judging whether a paladin who hasn't quite left the Lawful Good territory actually deserves their support.

[Jason]

Thank you for the nice quotes from the Giant. They basically say that we the readers shouldn't consider characters attacking goblins to be justified just because they are attacking goblins and goblins are generally evil in the game system, which is an attitude I completely agree with. I have always supported having my players avoid killing "evil" races who weren't actually doing anything evil or attacking them at that moment in the games I have run over the years, and have awarded the same XP for defeating a threat by talking to it rather than killing it.
But what those quotes don't say is "goblins and hobgoblins in Stickworld really did get a raw deal from the gods as Redcloak believes, and really have been unfairly oppressed by the PC races throughout their history," which is what I was asking for.

[Worldsong]

Thank you for the nice quotes from the Giant. They basically say that we the readers shouldn't consider characters attacking goblins to be justified just because they are attacking goblins and goblins are generally evil in the game system, which is an attitude I completely agree with. I have always supported having my players avoid killing "evil" races who weren't actually doing anything evil or attacking them at that moment in the games I have run over the years, and have awarded the same XP for defeating a threat by talking to it rather than killing it.
But what those quotes don't say is "goblins and hobgoblins in Stickworld really did get a raw deal from the gods as Redcloak believes, and really have been unfairly oppressed by the PC races throughout their history," which is what I was asking for.

They're in my signature now so I don't have to keep searching for them.

And yes they don't explicitly state that, however I think that combined they paint a pretty clear picture: for The Giant the Order of the Stick is in part about how creatures like goblins get treated like monsters and how that's bad.

Now I can't think of any quote from The Giant which 100% states that goblins routinely have gotten their **** kicked in from the dawn of time for no reason. However I do personally feel like these two quotes combined hint towards it strongly enough that I can stick with the idea until The Giant himself proves otherwise.

It is possible that we get a massive twist and everything is different but I find that very, very unlikely.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

thanks to some helpful souls I can now quote from locked threads.

I say! I've never been so offended in my life! Helpful? And souled? Me? How dare you!
Sorry, I'm feeling silly today. Didn't get enough sleep.
GW

[Worldsong]

I say! I've never been so offended in my life! Helpful? And souled? Me? How dare you!
Sorry, I'm feeling silly today. Didn't get enough sleep.
GW

Search your feelings. You know it to be true!
That's fine, silly is good from time to time.

[Jason]

They're in my signature now so I don't have to keep searching for them.

And yes they don't explicitly state that, however I think that combined they paint a pretty clear picture: for The Giant the Order of the Stick is in part about how creatures like goblins get treated like monsters and how that's bad.

Now I can't think of any quote from The Giant which 100% states that goblins routinely have gotten their **** kicked in from the dawn of time for no reason. However I do personally feel like these two quotes combined hint towards it strongly enough that I can stick with the idea until The Giant himself proves otherwise.

It is possible that we get a massive twist and everything is different but I find that very, very unlikely.

That basic message has already been demonstrated several times in the comic. I think it would remain intact if it turned out that goblins have in fact always been treated as equal by the gods, that the Dark One originally started a bloody war of conquest because he simply wanted to take the PC races' stuff, and that he concocted the whole "my entire race was created to be XP fodder" lie merely to justify taking what he wanted.

Also notice the way Redcloak presents the idea: in order to prevent another Snarl the gods agreed to limit their powers of interference outside their own territories to their clerics and then realized after a while that the clerics needed easy encounters to gain XP and so created the goblinoids. This works fine if Stickworld was the second world created and the gods found out an unexpected limitation to the new "clerics only" rules and then had to correct it. But we know now that literally millions of earlier worlds were created. Have the gods really used the same solution of "create sentient races as disposable XP fodder for our clerics" every time?