Redcloak and his way of thinking

[brian 333]

Redcloak may be deceiving himself, but the fact remains that he is Evil and all of his grievances are only excuses he uses to justify his evil deeds.

This is why Durkon's, "Nae as many as ye," comment angered Redcloak so much. Durkon called him on his b s.

Without the Crimson Mantle he would still be and do Evil, and he would have to concoct other rationalizations to excuse them. One thing is sure: he will always say, "Look what you made me do!"

[danielxcutter]

There's a fairly large leap from "Redcloak is a hypocritical *******" and "literally everything Redcloak stands for is wrong".

[hroþila]

Without the Crimson Mantle he would still be and do Evil, and he would have to concoct other rationalizations to excuse them. One thing is sure: he will always say, "Look what you made me do!"

We have no reason to assume this. Without the Crimson Mantle there's no trauma, no Plan, no sunk cost fallacy. The Crimson Mantle and the way he got it are such a fundamental part of Redcloak's story we simply cannot know what kind of person he'd be otherwise. The few pages of pre-Crimson Mantle Redcloak we saw weren't enough to assume there was a fundamental personality change after he got it, but they don't suggest any Evilness either.

[Kellogg]

I have a feeling you are overlooking the point that Redcloak is not supposed that kind of one-dimensional character.

I didn't say he's one dimensional.
Real tyrants are not one dimensional.

A one dimensional character would not pretend to negotiate in good faith.

But a one dimensional character would Expect a Tyrant to negotiate in good faith.

Frankly, I thought the writer did a very good job of exploring the nature of Redcloak and his ability to play even the gods for fools.

[understatement]

Without the Crimson Mantle he would still be and do Evil, and he would have to concoct other rationalizations to excuse them. One thing is sure: he will always say, "Look what you made me do!"

Can you offer any evidence of this?

[Ionathus]

Yeah any analysis that doesn't take into account that Redcloak is fooling himself first and foremost really misses the mark. None of this is a conscious charade on his part.

Exactly this. The only person Redcloak is "playing for a fool" is Xykon. Thor and Durkon both approached the Redcloak Negotiation expecting to be rejected, but trying to give it their best shot anyway.

If you don't think Redcloak is fooling himself, look back at his recent negotiation with Durkon and the way Minrah calls him out. Lots of "I'm willing -- I mean, the goblinoids are willing" stuff going on to show that he's conflicted and beginning to realize his own hypocrisy, but still sunk deep in the "I'm doing it for my people" delusion.

Without the Crimson Mantle he would still be and do Evil, and he would have to concoct other rationalizations to excuse them. One thing is sure: he will always say, "Look what you made me do!"

Yeah I'm also casting my vote for "without the Crimson Mantle, Redcloak would've been the minor cleric of a relatively insignificant farming village." We can't begin to predict what a non-Plan Redcloak would look like, because the overwhelming trauma he suffered as a child -- and the direct command he got from his god thirty seconds later -- changed literally everything about his life.

[brian 333]

Hd already did enough evil to be ordained as the cleric of an evil deity. It's very obvious that he didn't get there by being a good neighbor and kindly country doctor. Absent the Mantle one can assume his life continues as before: as a devoted follower of an Evil deity of war with no reason to stop being one.

The Mantle did not make him Evil, it just gave him an excuse to blame something other than himself for his choices.

I have never asserted that everything Redcloak stands for is wrong. Redcloak is not the first character to do Evil in the name of Good. It is not his stated cause or goal I question.

[understatement]

Hd already did enough evil to be ordained as the cleric of an evil deity. It's very obvious that he didn't get there by being a good neighbor and kindly country doctor. Absent the Mantle one can assume his life continues as before: as a devoted follower of an Evil deity of war with no reason to stop being one.

The Mantle did not make him Evil, it just gave him an excuse to blame something other than himself for his choices.

Neutral Clerics can worship Evil gods (especially if the Dark One is the only god available to goblins), so no, it's not "very obvious." That's not evidence. That's...it's not even extrapolation, since it's not based off anything seen on-panel.

I mean, who else would the goblins worship?

[brian 333]

They could worship Loki.

The dwarves have Dvalin and they are not obligated to worship him.

Thd idea that goblins have no other choice is patently false.

[Kellogg]

I've only gone through the archives once, but, I haven't seen anything that tells me Redcloak is fooling himself.

I read the character as basically a politician.

He'll do anything, say anything to achieve his goals, even when those goals are amorphously changing.

He seems to me to have nothing to believe in. Even his professed loyalty to the Dark One only appears to be an excuse to angle more power for himself. He talks a good game about his caring for Goblins, but he curses and hates them and when the chips are down, he'll let Xyklon do what he wants to them.

(I think I'm spelling that wrong. I always think of him as Xyklon-B. I kind of guess that's where the name comes from.)

Anyway, what you folks seem to think of as Redcloak fooling himself, I'm thinking of as him simply getting caught by his own lies and changing his story. Politicians do that all the time. (Anyone read "Shoe" with Senator Belfry?)

I don't recall having seen a strip where we hear his actual private thoughts, only ones where he's talking to others, which (I recall) is mostly lies. So, like all politicians, I don't judge him by his words, but by his actions.

His actions tell me his only second thoughts are about how to maneuver Xyklon into doing what Redcloak wants.

[Saint-Just]

I've only gone through the archives once, but, I haven't seen anything that tells me Redcloak is fooling himself.

I read the character as basically a politician.

He'll do anything, say anything to achieve his goals, even when those goals are amorphously changing.

He seems to me to have nothing to believe in. Even his professed loyalty to the Dark One only appears to be an excuse to angle more power for himself. He talks a good game about his caring for Goblins, but he curses and hates them and when the chips are down, he'll let Xyklon do what he wants to them.

(I think I'm spelling that wrong. I always think of him as Xyklon-B. I kind of guess that's where the name comes from.)

Anyway, what you folks seem to think of as Redcloak fooling himself, I'm thinking of as him simply getting caught by his own lies and changing his story. Politicians do that all the time. (Anyone read "Shoe" with Senator Belfry?)

I don't recall having seen a strip where we hear his actual private thoughts, only ones where he's talking to others, which (I recall) is mostly lies. So, like all politicians, I don't judge him by his words, but by his actions.

His actions tell me his only second thoughts are about how to maneuver Xyklon into doing what Redcloak wants.

First: the lich is Xykon and the poison is spelled with Z. There is no intentional parallels, because in the SoD
we see the origin of the name:

Spoiler

Show

A certain wheelchair-bound bald-headed man whose name sounds suspiciously like Xavier (but not Xavier, obviously) tries to recruit the young sorcerer. Young sorcerer doesn't take the offer but likes the name so much he mangles it further into Xykon and takes it for himself

Second: if Redcloak cared about power for himself (for whatever purposes) there were easier ways to dispose of the Xykon in the Gobbotopia and rule the relatively safe location with the population (or at least what passes for full citizens) fanatically devoted to him. Instead he is going to the Frozen North and doing annoying seemingly endless gruntwork. If you think he does that to get more power then you'd need to say how it will get him more power. Do you think that it's actually possible to do the ritual the way Xykon thinks - to control the Gate yourself instead of passing control to his god? Or what?

Finally: there is a lot more information in the Start of Darkness book, and it was confirmed by the Word of Giant to be factual, not a self-serving Redcloak tale (like some have supposed).

[hroþila]

Hd already did enough evil to be ordained as the cleric of an evil deity. It's very obvious that he didn't get there by being a good neighbor and kindly country doctor.

This is weird to me because while SoD didn't give us a lot of info about pre-Crimson Mantle Redcloak, what we did get could easily be summarized as "being a good neighbor".

[Ionathus]

Hd already did enough evil to be ordained as the cleric of an evil deity. It's very obvious that he didn't get there by being a good neighbor and kindly country doctor. Absent the Mantle one can assume his life continues as before: as a devoted follower of an Evil deity of war with no reason to stop being one.

Spoiler: How the Paladin Got His Scar

Show

So what you're saying is:

"It is important to remember simply that hobgoblins are usually Evil, and those who may not be so technically still worship an Evil God -- or defend an Evil social order, or grow food for Evil warriors, or give birth to Evil children. It is enough for us to destroy their Evil society, and let any who survive reflect on the path of wickedness. Never hesitate to punish Evil, or support for Evil, or tolerance for Evil."
Gin-Jun, advocating Goblinoid Genocide

This is weird to me because while SoD didn't give us a lot of info about pre-Crimson Mantle Redcloak, what we did get could easily be summarized as "being a good neighbor".

Absolutely! He had one single page of characterization before The Event, and it was all either "I just want to help the community" or "Mom stop telling me to have children I'm embarrassed." Based off that interaction, I'm not going to predict he'd have turned out a Lawful Good paladin of Sunna, but that's the point -- we can't predict anything about who he'd have been without The Event, because it completely restructured his entire life and worldview.

[ReaderAt2046]

I think one of the key things about Redcloak is that he has a very warped idea of the other (non-TDO) gods and the role they play in Stickworld. For starters, he always seems to talk about "the gods" as if they were a single homogenous group, instead of thirty-odd different entities with their own goals, personalities, and conflicting agendas.

But more importantly, he seems fixated on this idea that there is some kind of "favored race" class that goblins have been excluded from, and that getting this classification will prevent crusades against them or adventurers attacking them, or even other nations trying to conquer them. He seems to believe that other races are attacking goblins only because these homogenous "gods" he believes in have given the OK, rather than because the goblins are Evil, or because the adventurers are Evil, or because of complex sociopolitical factors leading to conflict between different nations.

Which... I really don't think is the case. Think about it: outside of Redcloak's narration and the crayon sequences from SoD (which are both hearsay and involve two unreliable narrators), have we seen any evidence of anti-goblin racism (or for that matter any racism against mortal races) endorsed or supported by the Gods? Not by mortals, but by the Gods themselves? I can't think of any. Or again, have we seen any evidence that there is any meaningful difference between the anti-goblin prejudice we do see from mortals and the numerous other fantastic racisms that pop up across the Stickworld (some humans vs some orcs, some mammals vs some lizardfolk, some metallic vs some chromatic dragons, Laurin's resentment of the elves, etc.)

Which leads back to another problem Redcloak is facing, which is that he doesn't know exactly what he wants himself. He knows he wants equality, but he's never sat down and figured out exactly what that might look like in practice, or how to get from where the goblin race was at the start of the Plan to that hypothetical perfect world. Probably because, again, he believes that the troubles of the goblin race come not from mortal conflicts and errors and evils, but because these homogenous "gods" he believes in have excluded them from this imaginary "favored race" classification. So all he thinks he has to do is blackmail "the gods" into giving the goblins "favored race" status, and that will somehow magically make everything better.

[danielxcutter]

Didn't he get that beamed into his head when he got the Mantle along with the divine half of the Ritual?

Also, even if that's completely false, it's hard to deny that goblinoids have gotten shafted for a very long time; I don't think the comic will end with Redcloak getting off scot-free but I do think there'll be some arrangements made so that it's no longer cosmically acceptable to roflstomp goblinoids in the face just because of their species.

[Kellogg]

Nuts.

A friend of mine just pointed out an OOTS fan wiki that gives Redcloak's full Tragic Backstory.
Sadly, it Looks like he really Does believe all that stuff.

I'm afraid I've heard and read so many Villain Tragic Backstories that they're... well... stereotyped cliché's.
You can understand a villain with a tragic backstory. It makes them predictable. Some folks would say it adds depth to a character, making them less one dimensional. Understanding an different or alien point of view like that makes an interesting exercise for the reader.

But to me, there's nothing more alien than the guy who doesn't believe in anything, and will happily stab you in the back just for the $5 Bill you have in your wallet.

Like the Paladins:
The Paladins strategies come from their beliefs. If they find that they've got a loosing strategy, they can't change it because they can't change their beliefs.

A Villain who's simply lying can simply change strategy, tactics, even sides if it's to his advantage.

That makes them Far More Dangerous than someone who's acting on a Tragic Backstory.

Anyway, it looks like you folks are right and I was wrong.

Too bad.

But, I was just going on how the character is portrayed online.

[danielxcutter]

It sounds to me you want him to be a one-dimensional villain who's only doing Evil things for power and the lulz. That... couldn't be farther.

[hungrycrow]

It sounds to me you want him to be a one-dimensional villain who's only doing Evil things for power and the lulz. That... couldn't be farther.

Also, don't we already have a one-dimensional villain who only does Evil things for power and the lulz?

[Kellogg]

It sounds to me you want him to be a one-dimensional villain who's only doing Evil things for power and the lulz. That... couldn't be farther.

I came nowhere even close to saying that.

Merely that the Traditional Tragic Backstory Villain has been done to death.
(See Phineas and Ferb's "Dr. Doofenschmirtz" character for example.)
They're understandable, and therefore predictable. That's why you almost never see them get anywhere
outside of fiction.

In the real world, the successful villains are far more flexible. They're not driven by ideology, or a tragic past.
They're thinking, planning human beings, who can react and change to what's going on.
And that makes them Far Far more dangerous an opponent than a driven fanatic.

Fanatics are far less dangerous than the guy who's pulling their strings.

Scott

[danielxcutter]

I’m sorry, I thought D&D was supposed to be a fantasy game.

Also, it’s not too hard to draw parallels between the goblins and real life minorities.

[Ionathus]

Nuts.

A friend of mine just pointed out an OOTS fan wiki that gives Redcloak's full Tragic Backstory.
Sadly, it Looks like he really Does believe all that stuff.

I'm afraid I've heard and read so many Villain Tragic Backstories that they're... well... stereotyped cliché's.
You can understand a villain with a tragic backstory. It makes them predictable. Some folks would say it adds depth to a character, making them less one dimensional. Understanding an different or alien point of view like that makes an interesting exercise for the reader.

I disagree with the notion that tragic villain backstories are automatically cliche. Every villain with a tragic backstory still has a DIFFERENT backstory, and the skill of the telling matters a great deal.

I still suggest you actually READ Start of Darkness -- just getting the story from a wiki synopsis really doesn't do it justice, and of course a pared-down synopsis is going to sound less original!

As others have said, we've already got the "for the Evulz" villain in Xykon, but Redcloak adds another side to the dynamic and enriches Team Evil's interactions. I think that's a story worth telling, even if it checks some boxes that you consider cliche.

[Kellogg]

Think about it this way:
Which is more dangerous/evil?

• The Villain who understands the plight of a persecuted minority because he burns for revenge as a part of his tragic backstory?
• Or, the Villain who understand the plight of a persecuted minority and is so cold blooded that he exploits that to advance his own ambitions for a power that frightens the Gods themselves?

I'm sorry, but to my mind, the latter is a much deeper and less one dimensional character.

It's like when MacBeth realizes that he cares more about power than about Lady MacBeth in the "She should have died hereafter, tomorrow..." soliloquy.

But, to each his own.

As I said, I've only read the online comic.

[understatement]

Think about it this way:
Which is more dangerous/evil?

• The Villain who understands the plight of a persecuted minority because he burns for revenge as a part of his tragic backstory?
• Or, the Villain who understand the plight of a persecuted minority and is so cold blooded that he exploits that to advance his own ambitions for a power that frightens the Gods themselves?

I'm sorry, but to my mind, the latter is a much deeper and less one dimensional character.

It's like when MacBeth realizes that he cares more about power than about Lady MacBeth in the "She should have died hereafter, tomorrow..." soliloquy.

But, to each his own.

As I said, I've only read the online comic.

These aren't mutually exclusive, and I think you'll find that Redcloak has elements from both (although not exactly fitting either).

[Ionathus]

Think about it this way:
Which is more dangerous/evil?

I don't really care about which one is "more evil". I care about which one is more interesting to read.

Redcloak is interesting to me specifically because his journey down the path of evil was motivated by good intentions and an interesting backstory. The way he manipulates Xykon and Tsukiko, among others, is interesting. The way he interacts with paladins and The Order is interesting.

At the end of the day, your value as a villain isn't just measured in your kilonazis. Belkar learned that the hard way, when his constant murderhobo-ing came back to bite him in the ass. He had to pretend to have character growth -- essentially, he had to learn to be a more interesting character.

If you're only measuring a villain by how EEEEEVIILLLLLL they are, you're missing a lot of the value of a good villain. While I agree your proposed villain who cynically uses a good cause for personal gain would be an interesting story, don't discount the value of a villain who's genuinely trying to forward a cause with flawed and self-deluded means.

Essentially, this story doesn't fit the constraints you're trying to put on it, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it.

[The Pilgrim]

Think about it this way:
Which is more dangerous/evil?

• The Villain who understands the plight of a persecuted minority because he burns for revenge as a part of his tragic backstory?
• Or, the Villain who understand the plight of a persecuted minority and is so cold blooded that he exploits that to advance his own ambitions for a power that frightens the Gods themselves?

Actually the first is far more dangerous. Because the second will stop before destroying the world and killing everyone included himself. Unlike Redcloak.

[KorvinStarmast]

The Crimson Mantle and the way he got it are such a fundamental part of Redcloak's story we simply cannot know what kind of person he'd be otherwise. The few pages of pre-Crimson Mantle Redcloak we saw weren't enough to assume there was a fundamental personality change after he got it, but they don't suggest any Evilness either.

I don't think that Rich did this on purpose, but Redcloak and the Crimson mantle are (in part) an interesting inversion of Frodo and the One Ring.
The One Ring and the Crimson Mantle are both, in D&D terms, artifacts.

The cloak allows a normal being (a goblin) to become very powerful. Redcloak embraces it.
The Ring allows a normal being (a hobbit, a king, whatever Gollum was{hobbit?}) to become more powerful. Frodo, rather than embracing it, wants to destroy it.
Granted, both of these characters got some advice from their wise elders regarding the artifact they had.

Each of these artifacts have world shaking impacts

Anyway, there are also plenty of differences in the two stories, so any comparison is only "well, sorta like that".

This is weird to me because while SoD didn't give us a lot of info about pre-Crimson Mantle Redcloak, what we did get could easily be summarized as "being a good neighbor".

As well as being a young goblin who wanted to make his parents proud by becoming a cleric, which is a bit like how young Durkon is portrayed.

[Saint-Just]

Think about it this way:
Which is more dangerous/evil?

• The Villain who understands the plight of a persecuted minority because he burns for revenge as a part of his tragic backstory?
• Or, the Villain who understand the plight of a persecuted minority and is so cold blooded that he exploits that to advance his own ambitions for a power that frightens the Gods themselves?

I'm sorry, but to my mind, the latter is a much deeper and less one dimensional character.

It's like when MacBeth realizes that he cares more about power than about Lady MacBeth in the "She should have died hereafter, tomorrow..." soliloquy.

But, to each his own.

As I said, I've only read the online comic.

In contexts strongly resembling RL I'd vote for "lust for power" villain as more likely to win. There are two caveats: first, more likely to win doesn't mean more dangerous; as others have noted above "driven by the plight" villain may choose the option where everybody loses where many others will back down. Second - in contexts sufficiently different from RL honest zealot may be more powerful: being empowered by the strength of belief or by the gods who seek out zealots comes to mind first, but there are enough examples where manipulation is prevented by other means, e.g. even limited mind-reading/emotion sense/truth-detection can prevent manipulators but not suicidal zealots from rising to leadership

Question of who is more evil I find meaningless; not because all evil is created equal but because there are so many things unspecified that either type may come ahead in one particular situation.

Finally: I find the lust for power sufficiently less complex motivation, you can even see it from the length of description: saying "lust for power" encompasses the first one, for the honest zealot you need to at least specify whose cause he is championing and why, and that's already longer (unless you are like Kronar from the Oglaf). However motivation is only part of the character, and actual character with either may end up more complex. Maybe you've seen too many shallowly written zealots and mostly well-characterized "looking out for the number one" guys. That's not something improbable. However I fail to see how lust for power is inherently better motivation (for the villain) than unlimited devotion to a cause.

[quinron]

It sounds to me you want him to be a one-dimensional villain who's only doing Evil things for power and the lulz. That... couldn't be farther.

You've been making a lot of arguments in this thread and poking at a lot of other people's arguments. I don't have a problem with that, nor do I have a problem with you holding whatever views of the story you hold. But I think I - and I think a lot of other folks here - could find the answer to one question enlightening: you've admitted that Redcloak is self-identifiably Evil, but do you think Redcloak is, generally speaking, a good person?

[danielxcutter]

You've been making a lot of arguments in this thread and poking at a lot of other people's arguments. I don't have a problem with that, nor do I have a problem with you holding whatever views of the story you hold. But I think I - and I think a lot of other folks here - could find the answer to one question enlightening: you've admitted that Redcloak is self-identifiably Evil, but do you think Redcloak is, generally speaking, a good person?

Oh *bleep* no, he's not. Maybe in other circumstances he could have been a good person, if a bunch of paladins hadn't stomped over any chance of that out, but he's pulled too many Evil things for me to quite say that now.

I think the best way to put it is that he's a symptom of a disease, rather than the cause of it - and the disease is called "goblins have gotten the short stick for ages". You can't leave the symptoms to run amok, but it'll just keep happening if you don't fix the root cause.

[Ionathus]

I don't think that Rich did this on purpose, but Redcloak and the Crimson mantle are (in part) an interesting inversion of Frodo and the One Ring.
The One Ring and the Crimson Mantle are both, in D&D terms, artifacts.

To extend the comparison: they both ruined their Bearers' lives.

You've been making a lot of arguments in this thread and poking at a lot of other people's arguments. I don't have a problem with that, nor do I have a problem with you holding whatever views of the story you hold. But I think I - and I think a lot of other folks here - could find the answer to one question enlightening: you've admitted that Redcloak is self-identifiably Evil, but do you think Redcloak is, generally speaking, a good person?

I'm not danielxcutter, but have taken many of their same viewpoints. I'd say "No."

I think Redcloak started out with good intentions, and possibly was even a "good" person in the beginning of his quest -- we simply can't know. But wherever his heart was before, the events of SoD definitely pushed him over the precipice. By the end of that story, he is most certainly not "a good person." His recent rejection of Durkon's offer further solidifies that.

That said, I don't truly believe he's crossed any Moral Event Horizons yet. His actions in both SoD and the online comic are appalling, but they haven't turned my stomach like the sadistic behavior of Xykon or Tarquin. It does still feel like Redcloak's got some shred of decency within him, however buried and twisted it may be under his delusions and cutthroat behavior. If he didn't have that, he'd have rejected the negotiations with Durkon outright. The fact that he struggled with the offer makes me think he's not a completely lost cause yet.

It's a long, long shot, to be sure. But then, where's the fun in an easy redemption?