Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)

[Lacuna Caster]

Intent matters here. Roy doesn't believe that narrative logic controls everything; he believes there's a real chance of Elan being harmed or killed.

The text isn't really clear on this point. Roy pretty much has to believe in 'narrative logic' to think that he can charge in and rescue all his teammates solo when the other 4 combined failed to do the job, so I'm really not clear on why he suddenly acquired this belief in 'good will always triumph' without simultaneously realising that Elan is functionally invulnerable.

Conversely, if we're taking his earlier cynical indifference to Elan's absence as a guide, he also mentions ​that charging in to rescue Elan would be suicidal. (Which, by all appearances, was a surprisingly accurate assessment- they all lose to Sam and only get saved by Pa's rebellion and Durkon accidentally zapping the right tree.) It's not good to abandon a colleague in the face of real and extreme danger, but it's not evil either.

Elan on the other hand, sincerely believes in the narrative. Until he meets Tarquin, he doesn't really consider the possibility that following narrative logic could actually have negative consequences.

He does now, supposedly, but even in the latest strips there's still been no moment of retroactive epiphany regarding those goblin teens.

[hroþila]

Even if Roy fully understood and believed in the force of narrative convention, Roy couldn't simply leave Elan behind and expect narrative convention to clean up the mess for him. "You need, like, a good faith effort at heroism".

[hungrycrow]

The text isn't really clear on this point. Roy pretty much has to believe in 'narrative logic' to think that he can charge in and rescue all his teammates solo when the other 4 combined failed to do the job, so I'm really not clear on why he suddenly acquired this belief in 'good will always triumph' without simultaneously realising that Elan is functionally invulnerable.

Conversely, if we're taking his earlier cynical indifference to Elan's absence as a guide, he also mentions ​that charging in to rescue Elan would be suicidal. (Which, by all appearances, was a surprisingly accurate assessment- they all lose to Sam and only get saved by Pa's rebellion and Durkon accidentally zapping the right tree.) It's not good to abandon a colleague in the face of real and extreme danger, but it's not evil either.

Roy is the type to take huge risks for innocents. Especially since its his team and thus his responsibility.

He does now, supposedly, but even in the latest strips there's still been no moment of retroactive epiphany regarding those goblin teens.

Roy and Durkon started to talk about their treatment of goblins only a few strips ago. Elan hasn't anything to push him to think about that yet.

[Lacuna Caster]

Even if Roy fully understood and believed in the force of narrative convention, Roy couldn't simply leave Elan behind and expect narrative convention to clean up the mess for him. "You need, like, a good faith effort at heroism".

He totally could. If he and the others had made some token effort to find Elan in the bushes, gave up, went on to grab the starmetal and came back to find Elan doing handstands to entertain the bandits, Roy would have made some sarcastic remark about being impossible to get rid of and I doubt anyone in the readership would have complained. Heck, everyone beside could have been wiped out by a meteor strike and the Happy-Go-Lucky Adventures Of Elan The Loveable Bard would have continued.

Roy is the type to take huge risks for innocents. Especially since its his team and thus his responsibility.

Maybe he is the type, but it's not evil to be the type that doesn't, or to make a decision of that nature. Breaking team-level obligations at the level of 'keeping your word' and so forth is Chaotic, not Evil.

Roy and Durkon started to talk about their treatment of goblins only a few strips ago. Elan hasn't anything to push him to think about that yet.

Aside from talking directly about the explosion that nearly killed his teammates and how nobody at the time was concerned about goblin safety, sure.

[hamishspence]

It's not good to abandon a colleague in the face of real and extreme danger, but it's not evil either.

It's enough to disqualify him from Good alignment, from the point of view of the Deva (in the absence of "going back") .

[Dion]

Even if Roy fully understood and believed in the force of narrative convention, Roy couldn't simply leave Elan behind and expect narrative convention to clean up the mess for him. "You need, like, a good faith effort at heroism".

Also, Roy is a fighter. Roy solves problems by hitting them a sword.

Elan is a bard. Elan solves problems by telling stories.

Roy can’t solve problems by telling stories, in the same way he can’t cast spells at his problems or pick locks on his problems or whatever.

He needs to hit problems with a sword.

(I acknowledge that a recurring theme in OotS is that you actually can’t solve most problems by hitting them with whatever your major class feature is. Miko is never going to smite evil through her problems. But it’s still D&D, and Roy is expected to smash first.)

[Lacuna Caster]

It's enough to disqualify him from Good alignment, from the point of view of the Deva (in the absence of "going back") .

Well, I don't know if I would agree. Does drinking water, or buying things with money, or using violence in self-defence, or any of the dozens of other Neutral actions people take every day disqualify someone as Good? If Roy does this one prominently Chaotic Neutral thing and a dozen other prominently Good and Lawful things at other points in his life, I think that probably averages out as Lawful-Good-aligned.

Elan doesn't have this automatic claim to his concern and affection and Roy is not obligated to kill himself rescuing a supposedly grown adult who knew the risks of adventuring. (And if Elan does not counts as a grown adult who knows the risks, he should not have been on the team to begin with.)

[Peelee]

If you're really going to talk about tonal incongruity between the early and late strip I wouldn't really single this out for particular scrutiny- It's pretty clear that the early Order were terminally irresponsible murderhobos in desperate need of closer supervision, but I don't think the main problem here is Roy attacking the goblins in Dorukan's keep, or even failing to consider diplomacy per se. Even attempting diplomacy requires a cost-benefit weighing of the value of surprise vs. the value of not attacking people who might be persuadable, and the information Roy had at the time was that the goblins in question were bad hombres working for an evil lich and raiding nearby villages for blood and plunder. Not considering diplomacy might not be the most exalted option but it's not evil either.

Applying a coup-de-grace to sleeping enemies or using whatever that tentacles spell was for is a bit more questionable but those are mostly incidental one-page gags and I wouldn't weight them too heavily. The main problem that is still being glossed over in-universe is that Elan activated a self-destruct rune that would expectably lead to a thousand tons of rock being dropped on the heads of any remaining sentient creatures in the dungeon, including the aforementioned helpful goblin teens.

I can agree with all this, yeah.

[hamishspence]

Elan doesn't have this automatic claim to his concern and affection and Roy is not obligated to kill himself rescuing a supposedly grown adult who knew the risks of adventuring.

Not obligated to get himself killed, no. But he is obliged to not quit without even a token effort. Especially when the rest of the party do want to rescue Elan.


According to BoVD, betrayal is normally an Evil act. And abandoning a fellow party member, is pretty unambiguously an act of betrayal.

[hroþila]

Roy only mentioned how dangerous the rescue would be after he had failed to convince the rest of the team by telling them... that Elan was a burden and that they should thank the universe for making him not their problem anymore. I think that matters.

He totally could. If he and the others had made some token effort to find Elan in the bushes, gave up, went on to grab the starmetal and came back to find Elan doing handstands to entertain the bandits, Roy would have made some sarcastic remark about being impossible to get rid of and I doubt anyone in the readership would have complained. Heck, everyone beside could have been wiped out by a meteor strike and the Happy-Go-Lucky Adventures Of Elan The Loveable Bard would have continued.

"You need, like, a good faith effort at heroism" (reprise)

[Precure]

I still don't understand why Roy accept Elan's help for the Starmetal quest if he really saw him as a burden/STD. He didn't even do anything bothersome yet too, other than being a better horse rider than Roy. Was it jealousy after all?

[RatElemental]

I still don't understand why Roy accept Elan's help for the Starmetal quest if he really saw him as a burden/STD. He didn't even do anything bothersome yet too, other than being a better horse rider than Roy. Was it jealousy after all?

At that point in the story Elan had blown up one of the five lynchpins of reality itself, for no reason other than it would be cool. He also nearly got the party killed by convincing them to go along with Nale's plan.

[Lacuna Caster]

"You need, like, a good faith effort at heroism" (reprise)

I don't recall what that is a reference to.

Not obligated to get himself killed, no. But he is obliged to not quit without even a token effort. Especially when the rest of the party do want to rescue Elan.

If the rest of the party want to risk death, that's their own business. Breaking with organisational obligations or peer expectations is chaotic, not evil.

I still don't understand why Roy accept Elan's help for the Starmetal quest if he really saw him as a burden/STD. He didn't even do anything bothersome yet too, other than being a better horse rider than Roy. Was it jealousy after all?

At that point in the story Elan had blown up one of the five lynchpins of reality itself, for no reason other than it would be cool. He also nearly got the party killed by convincing them to go along with Nale's plan.

More generally, the problem here is that Elan is clearly a mental infant, and as such the underlying tonal assumptions about the setting are schizophrenic.

Is this a world of dire peril and sudden death where traps and villains lurk 'round every corner and the survival of your team hinges on effective, disciplined cooperation? Because if that's true... yeah, Elan can be maimed or killed, but Elan is also a deranged idiot manchild who should be told, gently but firmly, that he needs to stay in town for both his own safety and that of others. He should never have been on the team to begin with.

Alternatively, is this some kind of inflatable bouncy-castle universe where the NPCs are window-dressing and no serious harm can really come to the PCs, regardless of how inept and reckless their comedy hijinks might be? Because that's the only universe where Roy can justify bringing Elan on a mission, or charging to the rescue. If so, why is Roy meant to be suddenly and deeply concerned when a superficial peril supposedly presents itself?

The story is blinking between those two assumptions in a completely ad-hoc and unprincipled manner like a lamp bulb on the fritz. I'm not buying it. If we're supposed to be taking Roy's earlier decision-making as indicative of character, then his decision to bring Elan on the team can only be explained by knowing Elan is invincible.

[hamishspence]

Breaking with organisational obligations or peer expectations is chaotic, not evil.

But betrayal is, at least normally, Evil, a tool of LE villains and CE villains alike.

[Crusher]

But betrayal is, at least normally, Evil, a tool of LE villains and CE villains alike.

Yeah... I think it comes down seriously to the potential consequences of breaking with those obligations/expectations. Eugene failing to come to Roy's soccer game even though his family expected him to was arguably Chaotic, but hardly an Evil act, because the family disappointment and psychological distress instilled in his son are pretty low on the kilonazi scale. If Eugene told his family he'd come home to save them from attacking ogres, but didn't, things *might* turn out totally fine for the family. But the expected consequences are pretty severe, raising it to the level of "betrayal" rather than "moderate disappointment", and thus likely making it an Evil action.

[Jason]

I think you could make an argument that "neglectful parenting," even the low level "missed the ball game" variety does enough harm to one's children over time that it could be considered evil. Especially if it's never balanced out with instances of good parenting.

[Mechalich]

Is this a world of dire peril and sudden death where traps and villains lurk 'round every corner and the survival of your team hinges on effective, disciplined cooperation? Because if that's true... yeah, Elan can be maimed or killed, but Elan is also a deranged idiot manchild who should be told, gently but firmly, that he needs to stay in town for both his own safety and that of others. He should never have been on the team to begin with.

Alternatively, is this some kind of inflatable bouncy-castle universe where the NPCs are window-dressing and no serious harm can really come to the PCs, regardless of how inept and reckless their comedy hijinks might be? Because that's the only universe where Roy can justify bringing Elan on a mission, or charging to the rescue. If so, why is Roy meant to be suddenly and deeply concerned when a superficial peril supposedly presents itself?

The story is blinking between those two assumptions in a completely ad-hoc and unprincipled manner like a lamp bulb on the fritz. I'm not buying it. If we're supposed to be taking Roy's earlier decision-making as indicative of character, then his decision to bring Elan on the team can only be explained by knowing Elan is invincible.

This ties into issues mentioned by myself and others earlier in this thread in that the overall goblin plot only functions in the first, much more serious kind of universe, while becoming simply a bizarre distraction in the second. It's a fundamental issue attached to taking a universe that was initially created to tell a very focused set of jokes - the early strips are hyper-focused on D&D parody - and then trying to retrofit it to present a serious commentary about issues in epic fantasy and the presentation of 'evil' cultures at a much later date.

OOTS has been fighting against the fact that it is a parody of D&D 3.5 edition and has the system rules built into its operations for quite some time, but it cannot escape it's origins, especially given that Xykon has remained the ultimate enemy throughout the story - compare to Tarquin, who isn't tied to all that early stuff and whose whole connected arc works much better as a result.

[pyrefiend]

Is this a world of dire peril and sudden death where traps and villains lurk 'round every corner and the survival of your team hinges on effective, disciplined cooperation? Because if that's true... yeah, Elan can be maimed or killed, but Elan is also a deranged idiot manchild who should be told, gently but firmly, that he needs to stay in town for both his own safety and that of others. He should never have been on the team to begin with.

Alternatively, is this some kind of inflatable bouncy-castle universe where the NPCs are window-dressing and no serious harm can really come to the PCs, regardless of how inept and reckless their comedy hijinks might be? Because that's the only universe where Roy can justify bringing Elan on a mission, or charging to the rescue. If so, why is Roy meant to be suddenly and deeply concerned when a superficial peril supposedly presents itself?

The story is blinking between those two assumptions in a completely ad-hoc and unprincipled manner like a lamp bulb on the fritz. I'm not buying it. If we're supposed to be taking Roy's earlier decision-making as indicative of character, then his decision to bring Elan on the team can only be explained by knowing Elan is invincible.

I don't really disagree with the thrust of this comment, but I think it's not so much that the story swings back and forth but that it tries to find a middle ground between these extremes, and there isn't really a consistent middle ground there. So the attempt works only if you don't look at it too closely. The problem is that some of the more recent stuff, like the goblins plot, is sort of forcing us to look closely.