Is TDO an unreliable source?

[Riftwolf]

Forgive me if I don't recall what happened in SoD exactly, but the Dark One gave Redcloak a vision of his origin, and the 'Goblins as XP' story. From memory, this is the *only* source for the GaXP story. Thor didn't mention it to Durkon, even though it'd be kind of important to know for a diplomat going into a negotiation. Now, it's possible Thor didn't think of it, or was ashamed to admit it, or wasn't involved in the GaXP plot (the Northern Gods have their own infighting to level their clerics without the need for a dedicated mook race). But its also possible the Dark One is manipulating Redcloak with the GaXP story, as Redcloak is a speciesist who would buy into a story of not just societal or earthly injustice, but divine.
Thoughts?

[Fyraltari]

Yes it’s possible that the Dark One is lying to Redcloak on a great number of things such as his motives or his plans with the power the Plan is to grant him or even just hiding knowledge of things we aren’t privy to. I would even say that it is likely as the story seems to have take greater pain to ensure that Redcloak and TDO had no direct contact than for any other important Cleric.

However the idea that goblins exist as walking bags of XP for adventurers is so clearly commentary on game design that it would be baffling for it to turn out to be untrue.

[understatement]

Yes and no.

Yes in that there's a very high chance The Dark One has an ulterior motive. Redcloak has led a lot of goblins to his death, but there has been no sort of reprimand or dissuasion from his god. Heck, at the whole Gobbotopia speech the Dark One's message is very clear to his high priest: don't mess up the gate-stealing possibly-world-ending Plan.

No in that I don't think the whole "goblins as XP" was a complete lie, because the message this would send would be
welp, it looks like goblins were actually perfectly fine the whole time and brought their abysmal conditions on themselves!" I don't think the physical XP part matters as much as the racial stigma, anyway. Redcloak doesn't want just better land and ores (which would directly address the XP part), he wants goblins to be recognized as equals among demihuman races.

[dancrilis]

We don't know.

But The Dark One might not know either - he might believe the story and it could still be wrong.

Maybe Goblins thought it before he died and he still does or maybe one of the evil gods lied to him for some reason i.e and maybe didn't want him trusting to many other gods so they could maintain power over him and use him as a bargining chip with there panteons etc.

I am half leaning towards it is a story that The Dark One made up to isolate his worshippers from others and thereby secure himself as well as possible.

[C-Dude]

Maybe the Dark One was actually a PC race (Orc or Half-Orc)? Perhaps he used the goblins as cheap followers to get what he wanted (an army), and his appearance as a purple goblinoid came after his deification (much as how Thor's hair changed color).

That'd be the kind of betrayal to shake Redcloak to his core: the goblins were fodder, even to his god.

EDIT: It might actually even be a betrayal of dimensional flux. In the 2nd dimension, Orcs WERE goblinoid.

[arverst_aegnar]

I think it's unlikely that TDO's take on the situation is either 100% right or 100% wrong, for a number of reasons. What sticks in my craw is the generic use of "the gods" when talking about the source of the problem.

The gods agree on next to nothing. Even all the Goos/Neutral/Evil gods within a single pantheon don't agree on whether or not to destroy the world. If the goblins really were created solely as a source of XP for clerics, i sincerely doubt every single god supported it. I'm not even sure if they all know about it, since Thor said nothing about it to Durkon when prepping him for talking to Redcloak, but i'm also not sure how such a thing would be kept secret so who knows.

[The MunchKING]

I thought the idea might be they agreed they were doing a fantasy D&D theme world this time, and one of the Gods just threw in some demihumans to round out the Monster Manual and no-one else thought about it to hard. They all just kind of agreed it was part of the setting, or at least no more disparate than a bunch of East Asian cultures running around their pseudo-European fantasy world.

[KorvinStarmast]

Is TDO an unreliable source?

I would not buy a used car from him.

[Emanick]

I would not buy a used car from him.

I would. You'd likely have the only car in the multiverse!

At best, you could sell it to Tinkertown for a pretty penny; the gnome engineers there would go nuts over it, however poorly it ran. At worst, hey, it'd be a talking point.

[bravelove]

Spoiler: Start Of Darkness

Show

I think its worth mentioning that the dark one was assassinated at peace talks, as this was such a huge event in goblin history it really would surprise me if that detail is fake, and if that detail is true that does imply that the dark one was fighting for something and if that holds true the thought that he was fighting for better living conditions makes sense, for which he was assassinated for. The Dark One has no reason to be lying about whats wanting best for goblin kind at least, I could see him fudging details yes, but the very core of 'martyr who fought and died to give his people a better life' I feel is important and really can't be a fabrication due to just how it'd be impossible to really fake that. Which means he is telling the truth on at least some fronts, even if what he thinks is true may not be correct.
So I'd say he's not unreliable, just bitter and biased most likely which is clouding his judgement somewhat. For instance the insistence that every person at the peace talk hired the assassin sounds like a bitter biased response, but even though thats probably not completely true even if he thinks it is, there was still an assassin, and that still matters a lot. It''s not unreliable, it just needs to be thought through, like you should with information from any source.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

"Is TDO an unreliable source?"

I don't know. I'll form an opinion once we hear from TDO. But so far in the comic, we have hear-say at best. Heck, the closest thing to a direct line from TDO was still conveyed via both crayon and the mouth of someone with an agenda. Crayons in particular have so far conveyed "this is what the person telling the story believes to be true, but it is not reliable", and I don't see why goblin religion foundational mythology would be any different from Azurite secret order foundational mythology.

Grey Wolf

[tomandtish]

I think it's unlikely that TDO's take on the situation is either 100% right or 100% wrong, for a number of reasons. What sticks in my craw is the generic use of "the gods" when talking about the source of the problem.

The gods agree on next to nothing. Even all the Goos/Neutral/Evil gods within a single pantheon don't agree on whether or not to destroy the world. If the goblins really were created solely as a source of XP for clerics, i sincerely doubt every single god supported it. I'm not even sure if they all know about it, since Thor said nothing about it to Durkon when prepping him for talking to Redcloak, but i'm also not sure how such a thing would be kept secret so who knows.

Actually, it's not that they don't agree on destroying the world to stop the threat. Even those gods voting NO seem pretty clear that it's more about giving the mortals one more chance to clean up the mess first, since they think they'll still have time to deal with it if the mortals fail.

It's really only a debate on how much of a time cushion they want to leave. Like me and my wife...

"It takes an hour to get there normally so we should leave an hour 15 or an hour 20 before we have to be there".

"It takes an hour to get there so we leave 5 minutes early".

[Morty]

"Is TDO an unreliable source?"

I don't know. I'll form an opinion once we hear from TDO. But so far in the comic, we have hear-say at best. Heck, the closest thing to a direct line from TDO was still conveyed via both crayon and the mouth of someone with an agenda. Crayons in particular have so far conveyed "this is what the person telling the story believes to be true, but it is not reliable", and I don't see why goblin religion foundational mythology would be any different from Azurite secret order foundational mythology.

Grey Wolf

Yes, everything we know about TDO comes from either Redcloak or Thor. Neither of which is impartial or entirely trustworthy on the topic.

That being said, I agree it's unlikely for this plot to be resolved with "this was all a lie, goblins are just evil and it's all their fault", due to the Giant's strongly-worded opinions on the subject.

[Metastachydium]

Yes, everything we know about TDO comes from either Redcloak or Thor. Neither of which is impartial or entirely trustworthy on the topic.

That being said, I agree it's unlikely for this plot to be resolved with "this was all a lie, goblins are just evil and it's all their fault", due to the Giant's strongly-worded opinions on the subject.

Also, I can't quite see how the cosmic-level problems could be solved without the Dark One with his purple quiddity and Redcloak with his 9th level purple spells if the Giant is not to resort on some massively lame, well, deus ex machina (however unfortunate the term might be with all the gods already involved).

[Mastikator]

To be honest I've yet to see any reason to believe The Dark One is any more or less trustworthy than any other deity. Do we have any reason to believe Thor is pulling the wool over Durkon's eyes? I don't see why we should apply a different standard.

Edit- I don't really see a big conflict here. Redcloak claims he wants equality, he wants goblins to be more than just monsters, he wants decent conditions to thrive without relying on stealing and without other races genociding goblins constantly.
Thor claims that The Dark One's cooperation is the only thing that can actually save the world, like actually save it. If they undo the world then they're doomed to keep doing it forever, that's a bad outcome. To get The Dark One to cooperate they have to come to some mutually beneficial compromise: The Dark One gets to be the goblin deity who has their back, the goblins has a dignified existence finally. The other gods get to finally solve the problem of the Snarl.

[dancrilis]

I don't see why we should apply a different standard.

Generally trusting good people to be good and evil people to be evil is reasonable.

In this case good can be displayed via honesty and evil can be displayed via deception.

Having said that I am dubious about Thor.
Panel 4 here refers to him as deceitful and untrustworthy (from the prespective of someone who is better at Knowledge Religion checks then Durkon), but I am willing to give Thor a pass on that (for now).

But the one that kindof stood out to me was panel 9 he just looks so bored about the eternal reward of his worshippers and apathetic about the fact that they exist to power his house.

[Metastachydium]

Having said that I am dubious about Thor.
Panel 4 here refers to him as deceitful and untrustworthy (from the prespective of someone who is better at Knowledge Religion checks then Durkon), but I am willing to give Thor a pass on that (for now).

Well, it came from the high priest (in all but name) of a goddess who has a grudge against Thor because of her wager with Loki (which Thor seems not to have understood all that well when it was made), so I think you made the right call there with giving him a pass.
The weird thing about Thor, as I see it, would be that although by the time the Order set sail towards the Western Continent he should have realized Durkon is the most important cleric in existence that he has, he never really tried to contact or help him in any way before his death (despite the fact that he was free to explain to him any stuff about the Gates he saw fit because Durkon already knew that they exist, as well as their purpose). Heck, he let let the Linears threaten the very life of this key asset of his, because soaking his feet seemed to be a higher priority – and that wasn't some early strip, we are talking about a scene from BRitF.

[factotum]

He's an Evil god (so he has no particular reason to tell the truth), plus he wasn't even there when the current world was created and thus any information he has about what the Gods were doing back then is second-hand at best...how could he be anything *other* than an unreliable source?

[Fyraltari]

Generally trusting good people to be good and evil people to be evil is reasonable.

In this case good can be displayed via honesty and evil can be displayed via deception.

Having said that I am dubious about Thor.
Panel 4 here refers to him as deceitful and untrustworthy (from the prespective of someone who is better at Knowledge Religion checks then Durkon), but I am willing to give Thor a pass on that (for now).

But the one that kindof stood out to me was panel 9 he just looks so bored about the eternal reward of his worshippers and apathetic about the fact that they exist to power his house.

The low priest of Hel thinks that because his first memory ever is Durkon being kicked out. Every time he heard about Thor being good and kind he’d have been thinking of that particular memory and conclude that the church of Thor and Thor itself are deceitful.

The afterlife panel is a joke contrasting the dwarf’s intense devotion to Thor all of her life and her casual attitude to him once they live together playing cards. His expression is annoyance at asking him for chips she can reach herself. Also, I’m curious what reaction would you want him to have to something that’s as natural to him as breathing? Eternal wonder?

As to why Thor seems more trustworthy than the Dark One there are (in my opinion) three reasons: real world parallels, narrative function and characterization.

The Dark One plans to take control of a fantastical version of a nuke to make demands,to this end he uses a middle-man that he recruited wen he was a teenager after a traumatic event. He is the leader of a terrorist movement. These are rarely open and honest.

Thor’s narrative role is that of an adjuvant, an ally to the protagonists : he gave them important information, gave Durkon his upgraded weapon and helped them against Hel. In tv-tropes lingo he is a Big Good.
The Dark One is an antagonist, more precisely he is the one who enables and motivates one of the primary antagonists (Redcloak) and got the Evil Plan (tm) rolling. In Tv-tropes lingo he is the Greater Scope Villain.
The readership is naturally more inclined to trust one of these characters.

The last book gave a lot of characterization to Thor and it all pointed towards being benevolent, selfless and respectful. He didn’t need Durkon to want to go back to the Prime yet he felt it’d be wrong to order him out of Valhalla, likewise he didn’t need to inform Minrah or answer most of their questions.

Meanwhile the Dark One has received very little characterization but the one he has point towards him being uncaring: his message to Redcloak didn’t include any acknowledgment of all he’d done so far, a couple strips back the lack of communication between him and Red is compared to a negligent parent or spouse and

Spoiler: SoD

Show

Right-Eye called him angry and uncaring. Unlike the Durkon* case, we have nothing to contrast that to, and Right-Eye is framed as being in the right in that conversation so it seems like the Giant wants us to at least consider that TDO isn’t being completely genuine.

[dancrilis]

The afterlife panel is a joke contrasting the dwarf’s intense devotion to Thor all of her life and her casual attitude to him once they live together playing cards. His expression is annoyance at asking him for chips she can reach herself. Also, I’m curious what reaction would you want him to have to something that’s as natural to him as breathing? Eternal wonder?

There was just something about it that felt off - it was the most bored I think we have seen him (not even annoyed I don't think).

Fixed here but:

Spoiler: SoD

Show

Right-Eye called him angry and uncaring. Unlike the Durkon* case, we have nothing to contrast that to, and Right-Eye is framed as being in the right in that conversation so it seems like the Giant wants us to at least consider that TDO isn’t being completely genuine.

You may want to fix your spoiler tags.

[uncool]

Yes, everything we know about TDO comes from either Redcloak or Thor. Neither of which is impartial or entirely trustworthy on the topic.

There's a little we know from Jirix, from strip 704. Nothing specific, but a little about his demeanor (as told by a biased source).

[Fyraltari]

Well, it came from the high priest (in all but name) of a goddess who has a grudge against Thor because of her wager with Loki (which Thor seems not to have understood all that well when it was made), so I think you made the right call there with giving him a pass.
The weird thing about Thor, as I see it, would be that although by the time the Order set sail towards the Western Continent he should have realized Durkon is the most important cleric in existence that he has, he never really tried to contact or help him in any way before his death (despite the fact that he was free to explain to him any stuff about the Gates he saw fit because Durkon already knew that they exist, as well as their purpose). Heck, he let let the Linears threaten the very life of this key asset of his, because soaking his feet seemed to be a higher priority – and that wasn't some early strip, we are talking about a scene from BRitF.

It generally seems that while Clerics can contact gods (who can then decide wether to answer) the reverse isn’t true (probably some dumb Law with a provision for calling a moot) and so Thor couldn’t tell Durkon until he either called him or died. Indeed, Thor believed Odin had engineered Durkon’s death so that Thor could do so.

There was just something about it that felt off - it was the most bored I think we have seen him (not even annoyed I don't think).

Fixed here but:

You may want to fix your spoiler tags.

Thanks.

[Metastachydium]

As to why Thor seems more trustworthy than the Dark One there are (in my opinion) three reasons: real world parallels, narrative function and characterization.

The Dark One (…) uses a middle-man that he recruited wen he was a teenager after a traumatic event.

Disagreed. He did not recruit Recloak, specifically. He just did not dump him once he picked up the Mantle.

He is the leader of a terrorist movement. These are rarely open and honest.

1. Interesting take, and technically true.
2. They can be pretty straightforward if they so choose. Also, Recloak is obviously not necessarily ”open and honest”, since, first of all, he doesn't go around explaining the Plan to anyone who cares to listen. How many levels of obfuscation do you expect to be there?

Thor’s narrative role is that of an adjuvant, an ally to the protagonists : he gave them important information, gave Durkon his upgraded weapon and helped them against Hel. In tv-tropes lingo he is a Big Good. (…)
The last book gave a lot of characterization to Thor and it all pointed towards being benevolent, selfless and respectful. He didn’t need Durkon to want to go back to the Prime yet he felt it’d be wrong to order him out of Valhalla, likewise he didn’t need to inform Minrah or answer most of their questions.

In Utterly Dwarfed, yes, but whatever we've seen up to that point clashes with that image, big time. That's what I've brought an example for from Blood Runs. Is Thor this carefree, irresponsible, apathetic guy, who seems to be somewhat benevolent at times (if childish and fairly dumb) that keeps popping up as late as in Blood Runs, or the knowledgeable Reasonable Authority Figure from Dwarfed? Is he both, with creepy mood swings (and why would we trust such an unstable character)? Is he one of these, and just putting on an act whenever he acts contrary to what he really is, and would this be a good sign? Is he neither, manipulating everyone? What's the deal here, really?

The Dark One is an antagonist, more precisely he is the one who enables and motivates one of the primary antagonists (Redcloak) and got the Evil Plan (tm) rolling. In Tv-tropes lingo he is the Greater Scope Villain.
The readership is naturally more inclined to trust one of these characters.

Good for the readership. As if authors never played with expectations.

Meanwhile the Dark One has received very little characterization but the one he has point towards him being uncaring: his message to Redcloak didn’t include any acknowledgment of all heÂ’d done so far, a couple strips back the lack of communication between him and Red is compared to a negligent parent or spouse and

Spoiler: SoD

Show

Right-Eye called him angry and uncaring. Unlike the Durkon* case, we have nothing to contrast that to, and Right-Eye is framed as being in the right in that conversation so it seems like the Giant wants us to at least consider that TDO isn’t being completely genuine.

It generally seems that while Clerics can contact gods (who can then decide wether to answer) the reverse isnÂ’t true (probably some dumb Law with a provision for calling a moot) and so Thor couldnÂ’t tell Durkon until he either called him or died. Indeed, Thor believed Odin had engineered DurkonÂ’s death so that Thor could do so.

Mhm. So Big Purple, the only god who basically went the extra mile to tell all his high priests much everything he could possibly know at the point when he created the Mantle is negligent for not calling Redcloak every other night to chat (what's he supposed to tell him, really, besides ”carry on, you're doing fine” which Redcloak could infer anyway from being granted spells?), while we should pity poor Thor, whose hands are tied, so he absolutely has to sabotage Durkon's attempt at defending Elan and himself (mind you, he's Thor's single most important cleric at this point). I see.
Further, Redcloak and Jirix are biased and probably wrong, while

Spoiler: SoD, of course

Show

Right-Eye, who works from even less than those two certainly figured it out much better. Right-Eye is right about the Plan, inasmuch as he foretells accurately that it will get messy if Redcloak stays on board, but we have no reason to believe he's also right about the Dark One's motivations,

because he simply does not have the means to verify his claims.
(As for divine-to-mortal communication, even if such laws exist (and I don't remember any clear on-panel confirmation of that), they can certainly be bypassed. At least two gods have demonsrated an ability to kinda-sorta speak to/through their clerics/followers (I'm talking about Odin's prophecy about Durkon and the dynamic between Tiamat and her Oracle).)

[Grey_Wolf_c]

That being said, I agree it's unlikely for this plot to be resolved with "this was all a lie, goblins are just evil and it's all their fault", due to the Giant's strongly-worded opinions on the subject.

OK, but TDO being the most honest god, the most deceitful ever, or somewhere in the middle has no impact on that. The question is not "how will the story resolve", it is "can we trust what TDO says". And, like I said, it's a strange question to ask when we've never seen TDO say anything.

If the question is instead "were the goblins created to be XP bags for good clerics?", then TDO is definitionally an unreliable source, since he wasn't there when the gods created the goblins.

Grey Wolf

[KorvinStarmast]

What sticks in my craw is the generic use of "the gods" when talking about the source of the problem. The gods agree on next to nothing.

The godsmoot illustrated that nicely.

I would. You'd likely have the only car in the multiverse!

And no gas.

the gnome engineers there would go nuts over it, however poorly it ran.

And they might be able to make some gas, for a suitable fee ... where's Haley when I need her to negotiate a price?

I don't see why goblin religion foundational mythology would be any different from Azurite secret order foundational mythology.

That's a good take on the whole thing, IMO. But the Azurite thing was partly right (the Redcloak is threatening them eventually) and the TDO might be at least partly right, particularly given the gags in the early strips about 'why are we even doing this' ...

Generally trusting good people to be good and evil people to be evil is reasonable. In this case good can be displayed via honesty and evil can be displayed via deception.

I'd like to let this stand as is, but wasn't Shojo CG and deceptive (for whatever reasons ...) and isn't Haley all about deception as a rogue? She's not evil.

He's an Evil god (so he has no particular reason to tell the truth), plus he wasn't even there when the current world was created and thus any information he has about what the Gods were doing back then is second-hand at best...how could he be anything *other* than an unreliable source?

Once again, not buying a used car from TDO.

He did not recruit Recloak, specifically. He just did not dump him once he picked up the Mantle.

I raised this point in another thread: Redcloak had the mantle passed to him in an act of desperation (by the previous red cloak). Not quite "I need the best goblin out there to be the leader of my people, here's the red cloak to make it all work better" or whatever.

As to Thor, he has sufficient empathy that he'd like to see the cycle of creation and destruction ended. See panels 1 and two of this strip.

[dancrilis]

I'd like to let this stand as is, but wasn't Shojo CG and deceptive (for whatever reasons ...) and isn't Haley all about deception as a rogue? She's not evil.

True.

But:

In this case good can be displayed via honesty and evil can be displayed via deception.

The key words are 'this case' - Shojo and Haley have no relevance to that.

To take a different case lying* to Durkon about rebel trees is not evil.
*assuming he was lying.

[Metastachydium]

True.

But:

In this case good can be displayed via honesty and evil can be displayed via deception.

The key words are 'this case' - Shojo and Haley have no relevance to that.

To take a different case lying* to Durkon about rebel trees is not evil.
*assuming he was lying.

I'd be more inclined to treat can as the operative word here, in which case the two examples are very much relevant. Shojo and Haley are neither honest, nor evil; likewise, Redcloak could be as honest as it gets, but if he had never to deliberately uttered a flase statement in his life (which is not the case (which is not the point)), he would still be, for all intents and purposes, a cosmic-level terrorist. In other words, his methods would make him evil regardless.

[KorvinStarmast]

The key words are 'this case' -

Cool, makes sense.

[Dragonus45]

TDO is clearly an Evil god, if he really died in life an innocent martyr assassinated on the verge of creating true peace between races I will EAT A HAT and post the video in this thread. Also worth noting is some inconsistency between his situation and the current situation in Gobotopia beginning to build up diplomatic credibility and get at least one nation to acknowledge it after the brutal sacking of the Azurites and the current enslavement and slaughter of its people. When the backstory of TDO is that even when he tried to be peaceful they instead killed him and caused a goblinoid rampage so severe every other race decided they could never allow goblins and their kin to ever build society again. So from GO right there we have some serious aspersions on his honesty and the real situation involving his death.

The goblins as EXP fodder thing becomes a second problem with his honesty. I think it was probably true back when they squabbled a metaphor for dissolving game groups into existence and then couldn't get a world to last more then a few years before it fell apart, and I would bet that for the most part everything was similarly one dimensional and rushed as well. From there I think that the gods likely left that idea behind long ago when they started being more out there with their ideas, LASER SNAIL!, only to creep back in when they went for their self aware stick figure parody in the form of sheer neglect. Less that the gods put them in for the sake of being slaughtered then that they put them in as an afterthought because D&D worlds need goblins and orcs and whatnot as a general rule but then didn't really think to do much with them. Things get most fuzzy between and TDO's ascension because we know almost nothing about where their souls went, who they worshiped, what level of civilization they were at? There are a lot of blanks, and a lot of potential for them to be even greater victims of TDO then they are to the negligence of the gods.

[Psyren]

"GaXP origin/reason for goblin creation is true" and "The Dark One's cause is unjust" don't have to be mutually exclusive. The goblins got a raw deal, but they demonstrably have souls (see Jirix) and the Dark One's plan is endangering theirs as much as everyone else's. Given that only he and Redcloak know the full details of it (and Tsukiko I guess, wherever she ended up), all the other goblins were essentially signed up for it without understanding it, and even the two of them are missing critical pieces of the puzzle.