#1231 - The Discussion Thread

[faustin]

I know it may sound crazy, or at least a long shot, but could Banjo (and Giggles) have gathered enough belief from Elan and the orcs up to this point to ascend into minor unaligned deities, thus capable of provide the extra quiddity?

[understatement]

I know it may sound crazy, or at least a long shot, but could Banjo (and Giggles) have gathered enough belief from Elan and the orcs up to this point to ascend into minor unaligned deities, thus capable of provide the extra quiddity?

Nope.

And even if they did, they don't have a 17th level divine caster to carry out the legwork.

[Fyraltari]

Nope.

And even if they did, they don't have a 17th level divine caster to carry out the legwork.

Third, they're puppets.
Oh, good! I was really getting worried there for a moment!
Yeah, let's not swing that pendulum too far the other way, chief.

[bunsen_h]

I've long believed that the proper response to "how do I know that rock exists?" is to throw it at the person saying so.

Reality is that which happens regardless of your thoughts / feelings

There's a nice bit in Diane Duane's Spock's World in which a Vulcan is blathering on about the solipsistic nature of existence and the impossibility of knowing if the world outside one's head is real.

"Ah," K's't'lk said, "the old dichotomy problem. Don't you think that one or the other of those 'lives,' physical reality or theoretical unreality, might sometimes be senior to the other? More valid, shall we say?"

"Indeed not," said the Vulcan. "It is a classic error in thinking, particularly, if I may say it, of the human sort. The illusory or internally subjective nature of physical existence is perhaps its more important and revealing characteristic. When one remembers that, on most levels of consideration, one does not exist, such matters as the question before us today assume their proper aaaaaaaiigh!"

The gentleman had been so busy expounding on the illusory nature of matter that he had never noticed K's't'lk come softly down from the stage and walk down the aisle next to which he was standing. As for the rest of it--even a Vulcan will react when a silicon-based life form bites him on the leg.

"Fascinating," K's't'lk said. "For someone whom on most levels of consideration doesn't exist, you scream with great enthusiasm. And I heard you, too. Better have that looked into."

[RowenMorland]

This makes me think that various gods other than Hel have definitely sabotaged Snarl containment via mortals when a world setup has started messing up their mortal worship supply.

[Wraithfighter]

I think that its exceedingly unlikely that The Dark One is anything but, well, what's been described thus far... but if you were going to come up with an alternate theory about what the Dark One might be that isn't "a goblin that managed to ascend to godhood under a new quiddity", I think a far better option would be another powerful force about which we know almost nothing, and all of it coming second (or third) hand:

The Snarl.

While it'd still operate entirely on the "the main evidence is the lack of evidence" factor, which is of course bad, the one time the Snarl's been depicted directly (as in, not through a character talking about it) was... decidedly purple. The Dark One's evil plan directly involves the Snarl, the Dark One apparently didn't need to be told about the Snarl (apparently being finding out about it on its own), it just kinda chilling out behind a massively open rift over Azure City/Gobbotopia while lashing out at Jacinda and her forces almost immediately through a smaller breach, one could argue that a thing created by deific discord might feel some kinship towards beings that were created by the same gods just to be slaughtered...

Still, it'd require discounting a lot of things that Thor's said about the Dark One and the Snarl. Not at all likely, but at least a fair bit more plausible than "he's some sort of long-con by three gods from different pantheons".

[faustin]

Third, they're puppets.
Oh, good! I was really getting worried there for a moment!
Yeah, let's not swing that pendulum too far the other way, chief.

Odin: "Well, I wouldn't mind..."
Thor: "Not again, dad."

[Ochotona]

I think that its exceedingly unlikely that The Dark One is anything but, well, what's been described thus far... but if you were going to come up with an alternate theory about what the Dark One might be that isn't "a goblin that managed to ascend to godhood under a new quiddity", I think a far better option would be another powerful force about which we know almost nothing, and all of it coming second (or third) hand:

The Snarl.

Eh, we've gotten zero in-text information to indicate the snarl is sentient, or that it would have the capabilities to run a con.

On the other hand, we've been repeated told that Loki is a liar and a cheat, and then shown a backstory in 1143 in which key information is being filtered solely through Loki. We're told "recruit the purple quidddity" was Loki's idea. We're shown Loki, Tiamat, and Rat apparently cooperating to defend TDO, without any real commentary or explanation as to why all three are present. And then we're given a bunch of details about how little contact TDO has with any gods outside of Loki & Tiamat.

That strikes me as a fair amount of in-text evidence to suggest something is hinky with TDO, and that Loki at al. is involved in the hinkiness. Rich is a careful storyteller; the details he includes usually are significant.

Edit: also, this comment from Rich in response to a question about TDO's alignment in his last Q&A is suggestive:

"Further, I should point out that Redcloak says a lot of things, some of which are true and some are not. Some are things he believes to be true but definitely aren’t, and others are things he knows are false but that he desperately wants to be true. This includes things you might reasonably expect him to be an uncontested expert on, such as his own reasons for doing something, and of course it also applies to almost everything we know about the Dark One."

[Ruck]

We have Redcloak's tale of the Dark One from Start of Darkness. We have Jirix's account of meeting the Dark One. We have Thor's account of meeting the Dark One. We have Redcloak still receiving spells from the Dark One. I don't see how all of this would work if the Dark One wasn't real.

[Ochotona]

We have Redcloak's tale of the Dark One from Start of Darkness. We have Jirix's account of meeting the Dark One. We have Thor's account of meeting the Dark One. We have Redcloak still receiving spells from the Dark One. I don't see how all of this would work if the Dark One wasn't real.

Jirix's report back from the afterlife is the strongest problematic fact for the "TDO is a con" theory, imo.

Thor's and Redcloak's beliefs are easily explainable as being victims of illusions/deceptions from Loki et al. TDO clerics are explainable as actually getting spells from Loki/Tiamat/Rat.

[Fyraltari]

Something is definitely up with The Dark One, but I'm 100% confident he actually exists in-comic. A few months ago I was entertaining the idea that he was running some sort of con with Loki, Tiamat and Rat, but after reading Loki's rant at Thor, I don't think it's likely anymore.

[Ochotona]

Something is definitely up with The Dark One, but I'm 100% confident he actually exists in-comic. A few months ago I was entertaining the idea that he was running some sort of con with Loki, Tiamat and Rat, but after reading Loki's rant at Thor, I don't think it's likely anymore.

What's your take on why Tiamat and Rat are shown as present along with Loki when Thor attacks TDO, in Thor's illustrations in strip #1143? Even if you think TDO exists, that seems like a weird unexplained detail that at a minimum suggests some further scheme.

[Ruck]

"Evil gods defending the ascension of another Evil god from a Good god" doesn't seem like it needs much of a conspiracy to be plausible.

[Necris Omega]

Do they really need to change Redcloak's mind insofar as his outlook, goals, plans, or ideals? In this case, they don't need his conversion, just his cooperation.

Coerce him into helping save the world and then worry about changing his mind, if that's so important.

Besides, if he can get over his inferiority complex long enough to realize that his god already has Snarl-based leverage over the gods, gates be damned, not to mention leverage that doesn't come with explicit risk of unified retaliation for TDO and Goblinkind as a whole...? If his pragmatism can win out over his pride and overbearing lust for revenge (and to his credit, it has before), he could still be convinced.



... but, it makes it a lot easier to convince him either way when he doesn't have an epic level superlich backing him up. Really, other than the obvious risks of having to fight/kill Xykon, which was always the plan anyways, there's no reason from any diplomacy angle why he shouldn't be removed.

Warhammer Diplomacy - It might not change minds, but it sure can open them.

[understatement]

"Evil gods defending the ascension of another Evil god from a Good god" doesn't seem like it needs much of a conspiracy to be plausible.

And in that same comic, it's even stated Loki purposefully goes to defend the Dark One because he recognizes the importance of the quiddity.

[arimareiji]

I think it's more about defeating Team Evil, removing Redcloak's leverage, and then offering good terms as proof that they were being honest all along and that they want to negotiate in good faith. Redcloak himself said the talk was only taking place because he was winning, and that he had no reason to make a deal when he was (in his estimation) so close to victory. Defeat him, make the victory he envisioned impossible, and he has much less of a reason to turn the offer down.

Yes. That's the kind of leverage needed to get Redcloak off of top dead center.

For some reason I'm reminded of how furious Haley was about Celia "betraying her principles all over the friggin' place"^*. Whether or not either Haley or Redcloak is right to think that way, it's normal to think "You don't back down and negotiate when you're winning".

* - Tangential rant: Even if Celia is right about having found a better solution than finishing off their attackers, her implication that there's a parallel has always irritated me.

• When Haley says it, she's taking responsibility for her own principles and saying they differ from Celia's. Celia neither bears a cost nor has to violate her own principles.
• When Celia says it, she strong-armed Haley into a deal that makes Haley bear a heavy cost to stay in line with Celia's principles. She also hid that cost from Haley until after she's accepted, because she knows she's trying to force Haley to violate her own principles.

---

Nope.

And even if they did, they don't have a 17th level divine caster to carry out the legwork.

Not to mention that if they're sponsored by Odin/Thor, they'd be yellow quiddity. But as Fyraltari quoted, "Third, they're puppets." (^_~)

[Ruck]

For some reason I'm reminded of how furious Haley was about Celia "betraying her principles all over the friggin' place"^*. Whether or not either Haley or Redcloak is right to think that way, it's normal to think "You don't back down and negotiate when you're winning".

* - Tangential rant: Even if Celia is right about having found a better solution than finishing off their attackers, her implication that there's a parallel has always irritated me.

• When Haley says it, she's taking responsibility for her own principles and saying they differ from Celia's. Celia neither bears a cost nor has to violate her own principles.
• When Celia says it, she strong-armed Haley into a deal that makes Haley bear a heavy cost to stay in line with Celia's principles. She also hid that cost from Haley until after she's accepted, because she knows she's trying to force Haley to violate her own principles.

Not to derail this thread too much, but it also bugged me that they were only in that situation because of Celia in the first place. We have multiple instances of her not knowing what humans can do almost as soon as she shows up, she knows she's not an adventurer and doesn't understand this world, and yet she decides to override Haley to bring Roy's body to Greysky City anyway. But then, self-righteous know-it-alls who don't actually know it all always bug me, no matter how Good they are.

[Oddstar]

Too bad that Redcloak, even with Warhammer diplomacy, won't change his mind. He has too much invested in his sinking fallacy to invest in other opinions.

Redcloak may not be able to change his mind. He has been wearing an artifact on his back for the last several decades, and one of the canonical features of artifacts in D&D is that they influence the minds of their bearers in all sorts of ways. If you have read Start of Darkness,

Spoiler: spoilers for Sod.

Show

when Redcloak first puts on the Crimson Mantle, he hears a voice that says "Learn." The voice saying that has inverted colors from the other speech bubbles in the comic. Then Redcloak himself says, with normal speech bubble, that he understands so much now. Then, in speech bubbles that are also color inverted, he says "I need to leave. I need to get as far away from here as possible. The Plan must continue. The Plan must continue." The fact that he said "The Plan must continue" twice, combined with the fact that his speech bubbles had the some unusual coloring as the speech bubble when the Crimson Mantle was talking to him, could mean that the artifact was putting him under a mental compulsion to continue the plan no matter what.

It is quite possible that the Dark One made the Crimson Mantle to compel its wearer to continue the plan no matter what, perhaps without foreseeing that there might come a time when the Dark One did not want the plan to continue, but rather would prefer to negotiate. Who knows? Perhaps TDO wanted Redcloak to take Durkon's offer, but the Crimson Mantle won't let Redcloak do so. Perhaps Redcloak subconsciously suspects that his god wants him to change course, and so refrains from casting Commune or otherwise engaging in two-way communication with TDO precisely to avoid giving TDO the chance to tell him that. This is all just speculation, though.

[Ruck]

I do think it's possible that maybe Redcloak is so invested in His Plan and justifying the things he's done that Xykon being destroyed breaks him. Like he just takes the cloak off and dies or something like that instead of negotiating TDO's terms to perform the sealing ritual. What I don't think will happen is that it will turn out there was some workaround where Redcloak doesn't need to be involved at all and doesn't get to make any decisions on that front.

[Fyraltari]

My apologies if somebody already talked about this upthread but...

I'm thinking about Odin's line in the sixth panel. It's a reversal of the idiom "when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail" which is about overrelying on a single method to solve issues and how that leds one to try to do thing in utterly inapropriate ways. So is Odin just being kooky or is he actually trying to formulate a complex thought? "When all you have is a nail, every solution starts to look like a hammer" could mean that when faced with a straightforward problem (a nail, a goblin who doesn't want to co-operate) one might consider all possible solutions (negotiations, force) as equally valid when only one is a ctually correct (the metaphorical hammer).

If that reading is correct, then Odin could be trying to tell Durkon and Thor not to follow Roy's plan.

What do you think?

[Quizatzhaderac]

My apologies if somebody already talked about this upthread but...

I'm thinking about Odin's line in the sixth panel. It's a reversal of the idiom "when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail" which is about overrelying on a single method to solve issues and how that leds one to try to do thing in utterly inapropriate ways. So is Odin just being kooky or is he actually trying to formulate a complex thought? "When all you have is a nail, every solution starts to look like a hammer" could mean that when faced with a straightforward problem (a nail, a goblin who doesn't want to co-operate) one might consider all possible solutions (negotiations, force) as equally valid when only one is a ctually correct (the metaphorical hammer).

If that reading is correct, then Odin could be trying to tell Durkon and Thor not to follow Roy's plan.

What do you think?

Definitely maybe.

At first Odin's reasoning in #999 "I see worlds within worlds and yarn winding yarn" sounded like vaguely mystic gibberish, but on further thought there's an extra world within (the rift) and some new yarn that need to be considered.

As for my interpretation, in the original phasing, one is underestimating how different known problems are from each other.

That would make the converse underestimating how different known solutions are from each other. Durkon seems to be somewhat under the impression that there's nothing between "polite discussion" and "might makes right". Redcloak's actions have shown "polite discussion" isn't viable and some level of force is goin to be needed.

But there's still major differences in the remaining options. For example consider the two options 1) Destroy Xykon, capture recloak, offer then free him and ask to return to the negotiation table 2)Destroy Xykon, capture recloak, then threaten to destroy the crimson mantle and kill Redcloak unless he seals this rift.

[Wraithfighter]

My apologies if somebody already talked about this upthread but...

I'm thinking about Odin's line in the sixth panel. It's a reversal of the idiom "when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail" which is about overrelying on a single method to solve issues and how that leds one to try to do thing in utterly inapropriate ways. So is Odin just being kooky or is he actually trying to formulate a complex thought? "When all you have is a nail, every solution starts to look like a hammer" could mean that when faced with a straightforward problem (a nail, a goblin who doesn't want to co-operate) one might consider all possible solutions (negotiations, force) as equally valid when only one is a ctually correct (the metaphorical hammer).

If that reading is correct, then Odin could be trying to tell Durkon and Thor not to follow Roy's plan.

What do you think?

It's an interesting thought. And yeah, I kinda assume that everything Odin says is actually meaning something important, at least when its not transparently silly.

I personally read that as an attempt to comfort Durkon for going back to hammer-time as the plan. To me, it was more "if you're only faced with problems that can be properly solved in the same way, then your solutions are going to end up all looking the same". Flexibility and the self-knowledge to avoid becoming over reliant on a single way of doing things is all well and good, but if the correct answer to the problems you run into keeps being "hit it with a hammer", then don't feel bad about hitting them with that hammer.

But yeah, your version is also possible, and worth thinking about. That's the trouble with talking about mystical metaphors and concepts: Sometimes things get a biiit unclear in the analogies :).

[Ronnoc]

A world where hitting people in the head changes their mind huh? I guess it's not surprising the gods tried a Shonen anime world at one point.

[EmperorSarda]

Spoiler: SoD

Show

That's the thing though. Redcloak didn't murder his brother just for the Plan. He killed his brother to save Xykon (to enact the Plan). If Xykon is killed for good and Redcloak has to move on with the Plan without him, then there is no justification for not helping Right-Eye kill him 20 years ago. If Xykon dies without the Plan being fullfilled then Redclaok will have to be confronted with the pointlessness of the sacrifices he's made so far. Along with the dark One rebuking him, I feel like this is the only situation where Redcloak could shake off his sunk cost fallacy

I don't think Redcloak has that level of introspection though. Even if Xykon perishes, he will most likely just look for another sorcerer. He's going to do what he can to further the plan.

Minrah called him out for it. Redcloak is fighting for future goblins, not current goblins. He has no reason to help when he is going to look for every escape or every other method to enact the plan.

Also. Redcloak anticipated Xykon wanting to hold onto his phylactery. Meaning he probably anticipated the potential for Xykon's body being destroyed again.

Hobgoblins make better arcane casters than goblins. Why wouldn't Redcloak send out teams of adventurers with the sole cleric religious mandate to build up their arcane casters?

[hungrycrow]

I don't think Redcloak has that level of introspection though. Even if Xykon perishes, he will most likely just look for another sorcerer. He's going to do what he can to further the plan.

Minrah called him out for it. Redcloak is fighting for future goblins, not current goblins. He has no reason to help when he is going to look for every escape or every other method to enact the plan.

Also. Redcloak anticipated Xykon wanting to hold onto his phylactery. Meaning he probably anticipated the potential for Xykon's body being destroyed again.

Hobgoblins make better arcane casters than goblins. Why wouldn't Redcloak send out teams of adventurers with the sole cleric religious mandate to build up their arcane casters?

If Redcloak could find another arcane caster, he'd have to admit that he didn't have to work with Xykon this whole time and all the goblins he sacrificed to keep the relationship going died in vain. Maybe he could work through that but it'd be pretty emotionally devastating to grapple with.

[mjasghar]

The nail quote might be a reference to Redcloak’s POV.
That is, as goblins are usually oppressed and forced to take what they’re given, the tendency is to see any offer as being a forced treaty. So redcloak isn’t seeing it as here’s an opening offer he is seeing it as ‘here’s the offer take it or die’.

[danielxcutter]

The nail quote might be a reference to Redcloak’s POV.
That is, as goblins are usually oppressed and forced to take what they’re given, the tendency is to see any offer as being a forced treaty. So redcloak isn’t seeing it as here’s an opening offer he is seeing it as ‘here’s the offer take it or die’.

...Huh that makes sense.

[Peelee]

Given this strip, I no longer have any reason to suspect this was not a successful Commune in Stickworld (and, given Durkon's and Redcloak's commiserating with each other, I theorize that Commune is rarely successful for whatever reason).

[danielxcutter]

Well gods getting calls from their clerics seems to be their purview entirely; whether they decide to send it to an automatic response system or spend 10 minutes chatting is up to them.

[Squire Doodad]

Given this strip, I no longer have any reason to suspect this was not a successful Commune in Stickworld (and, given Durkon's and Redcloak's commiserating with each other, I theorize that Commune is rarely successful for whatever reason).

I'd like to imagine that Thor is just picking up a call while Hel has had three Communes since the world was created, so she decided to put some effort into it.