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2021-08-03, 03:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.Give directly to the extreme poor.
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2021-08-03, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2015
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Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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".
ungelic is us
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2021-08-03, 03:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2020
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- massachusetts
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Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
Roy is the type to take huge risks for innocents. Especially since its his team and thus his responsibility.
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.
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2021-08-03, 03:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.
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.Give directly to the extreme poor.
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2021-08-03, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
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2021-08-03, 04:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2018
Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.)Last edited by Dion; 2021-08-03 at 04:09 PM.
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2021-08-03, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.)Give directly to the extreme poor.
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2021-08-03, 04:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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2021-08-03, 04:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.Last edited by hamishspence; 2021-08-03 at 05:07 PM.
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2021-08-03, 05:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2015
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Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.
"You need, like, a good faith effort at heroism" (reprise)Last edited by hroşila; 2021-08-03 at 05:11 PM.
ungelic is us
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2021-08-03, 09:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
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Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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?
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2021-08-03, 09:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2014
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Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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2021-08-04, 07:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
I don't recall what that is a reference to.
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.
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.Give directly to the extreme poor.
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2021-08-04, 07:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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2021-08-05, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2006
- Location
- The sticks
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Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.
Last edited by Crusher; 2021-08-05 at 03:32 PM.
"You are what you do. Choose again and change." - Miles Vorkosigan
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2021-08-09, 09:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
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- Somewhere in Utah...
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Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.
Last edited by Jason; 2021-08-09 at 09:04 AM.
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2021-08-10, 05:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.
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2021-08-10, 06:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2006
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- New England
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Re: Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)
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.