Eugene, Roy & Football (SOD spoiler!)

[woweedd]

Again, I'm in broad agreement that leading a 22-year-old-5-year-old into situations of deadly peril within monster-infested dungeons and wilderness areas was a very morally questionable thing to do... if we were taking the proceedings seriously. But taking the proceedings seriously would imply that rescuing Elan entailed such a high degree of risk that Roy was reasonably entitled to make a call to move on.

In practice, the idea that Roy was abandoning Elan to some grisly fate of death or enslavement is pretty undermined by Elan being... completely fine and dandy until Haley shows up, and the general looney-toons logic of the ensuing battle. It's assigning a moral gravity to the proceedings that just isn't sustained by the tone of the narrative, and there's only around a 50-strip gap between here and Elan recklessly endangering scores of hapless goblinoids and his teammates, which, if not explicitly done out of malice, would be hard to otherwise explain.

To be honest, the main impression I get, given the way that Roy treats NPCs as interchangeable cyphers and later sticks up for Belkar, is less that the commander has an obligation to his men and more that the PCs are a special and protected class of person with expectations of mutual loyalty but immune to broader standards of accountability for their actions. (Which is, in practice, exactly what happens at D&D gaming tables for entirely metagame reasons, and I'm not crazy about that.)

I am aware that the Deva takes the incident seriously later on, but.... that is what I am arguing is kinda wonky. To the extent that Roy was mildly at fault here, he made up for it pretty quickly and has done enough to put up with Elan's general... Elan-ness... that I think it's mostly a nonissue (aside, perhaps, from the general undertone of emotional abuse in their relationship.) And we shouldn't automatically think things just because the text tells us to.

I mean, Elan isn't mentally deficient, just sorta sheltered, naive, and a bit dim. He's not meant to have an actual mental illness.

[Kish]

Huh, I actually thought Roy got off way too easy on everything else. I can't be the only one who didn't buy "turns out the gifts would have been destroyed" as a response to "you impersonated a king and took gifts meant for him", or "I don't remember that one" to "you dangled someone out a window".

You're not.

I'd add that whatever someone makes of his assessment that attacking the bandits would be suicide (which was based on what, exactly?), continuing on into the forest to find the starmetal alone was certainly not safer; if he was really, suddenly, concerned about his hide he should have turned around, gone back to the small town, and become a farmer.

[Ruck]

Ian in a heartbeat. He at least likes his kid, which is more than I can say for Eugene.

Even well-intentioned people can screw it up in a hundred different ways.

And if it was simply good natured ribbing that would be fine. But it isn’t, it’s a genuine expression of a father’s contempt for his son.

This is the crux of the issue. Eugene isn't a well-intentioned screw-up. He actively shows Roy contempt and disdain even as a child. He doesn't care about his son or his interests, and makes sure to let him know, whenever he can, that he finds him and them beneath him. This is a pattern that recurs basically every time Roy and Eugene interact.

What we know thou, is that Roy finally did a step (even if he didn't know) to fix his relationship with his father when he didn't throw insults back at his father, and that there is a possibility that once the story is done and Roy does get his reward, we could get a non biased view of Eugene acts of good. (maybe he does ask the devas about him?). then I'll just wait to see what the author has prepared for us once that build-up moment finally comes.

The first part says more about Roy than Eugene. In general, this makes a good segue to another point I wanted to make about whether Eugene is Lawful Good.

What good have we actually seen Eugene do? Here's the large majority of his characterization:

• Went on a quest of vengeance for his former master until he got bored with it
• Apparently was a good husband until he got bored with it
• Hugely egotistical (brags about his awards and magazine covers; edits his own Wikipedia entry)
• Apparently has no heroic stories of his to brag about (compare to Horace); all his stories are about winning awards for his illusions
• Believes wizardry, the thing he is good at and interested in, is the only important thing in the world and everything else is a waste of time
• Neglectful father to his sons; dotes on his daughter largely because she also pursues wizardry
• Killed his two-year-old son with an experiment out of inattentiveness
• Tells his son that having a family was a waste of time
• Treats everyone we see him interact with, mostly (but not exclusively) his son, with disdain and contempt
• Kidnapped a deva to hijack a summoning
• set a warning to Roy about one of his team members dealing with fiends on fire; praised said team member for doing so
• Suggested genocide as a solution to a personal problem, only backing down when he realized it would mean consigning an entire race to Hel

From my point of view, of anyone in the comic, Eugene has by far the most in common, in temperament and character, with Vaarsuvius. And knowing Vaarsuvius is by nature True Neutral, I'd be very surprised to hear that Eugene was actually Lawful Good because he was secretly living a selfless life of heroism that contradicts everything we saw of him on panel, and that for some reason none of the Greenhilts ever talked about it. And I think it would be bad writing if it went that way.

[woweedd]

This is the crux of the issue. Eugene isn't a well-intentioned screw-up. He actively shows Roy contempt and disdain even as a child. He doesn't care about his son or his interests, and makes sure to let him know, whenever he can, that he finds him and them beneath him. This is a pattern that recurs basically every time Roy and Eugene interact.



The first part says more about Roy than Eugene. In general, this makes a good segue to another point I wanted to make about whether Eugene is Lawful Good.

What good have we actually seen Eugene do? Here's the large majority of his characterization:

• Went on a quest of vengeance for his former master until he got bored with it
• Apparently was a good husband until he got bored with it
• Hugely egotistical (brags about his awards and magazine covers; edits his own Wikipedia entry)
• Apparently has no heroic stories of his to brag about (compare to Horace); all his stories are about winning awards for his illusions
• Believes wizardry, the thing he is good at and interested in, is the only important thing in the world and everything else is a waste of time
• Neglectful father to his sons; dotes on his daughter largely because she also pursues wizardry
• Killed his two-year-old son with an experiment out of inattentiveness
• Tells his son that having a family was a waste of time
• Treats everyone we see him interact with, mostly (but not exclusively) his son, with disdain and contempt
• Kidnapped a deva to hijack a summoning
• set a warning to Roy about one of his team members dealing with fiends on fire; praised said team member for doing so
• Suggested genocide as a solution to a personal problem, only backing down when he realized it would mean consigning an entire race to Hel

From my point of view, of anyone in the comic, Eugene has by far the most in common, in temperament and character, with Vaarsuvius. And knowing Vaarsuvius is by nature True Neutral, I'd be very surprised to hear that Eugene was actually Lawful Good because he was secretly living a selfless life of heroism that contradicts everything we saw of him on panel, and that for some reason none of the Greenhilts ever talked about it. And I think it would be bad writing if it went that way.

I don't doubt Eugene was a Lawful Good person before death. Not a nice person, but then, neither was Miko, even Pre-Fall. I think about 20 years of being stuck on a cloud have driven him a little crazy. If he were re-evulated, he'd probably be solidly True Neutral. But all indication is that, before he had Roy, he was a decent husband and a fairly dedicated researcher. Fatherhood improves some pepole. For him, it did the opposite. And, even then, he does seem to have liked Julia, in his own selfish way.

[Peelee]

I don't doubt Eugene was a Lawful Good person before death. Not a nice person, but then, neither was Miko, even Pre-Fall.

I don't doubt that either of them pinged LG. I do doubt that either of them would have passed the evaluation.

[woweedd]

I don't doubt that either of them pinged LG. I do doubt that either of them would have passed the evaluation.

I'm not entirely sure how that works, to be fair.

[Ruck]

I don't doubt Eugene was a Lawful Good person before death. Not a nice person, but then, neither was Miko, even Pre-Fall. I think about 20 years of being stuck on a cloud have driven him a little crazy. If he were re-evulated, he'd probably be solidly True Neutral. But all indication is that, before he had Roy, he was a decent husband and a fairly dedicated researcher. Fatherhood improves some pepole. For him, it did the opposite. And, even then, he does seem to have liked Julia, in his own selfish way.

Being good takes more than caring a little about your family and a lot about your job. Where are his acts of altruism? Where does he "battle the forces of evil without expecting compensation"?

(also, speaking of Julia, she's also True Neutral. Funny that a supposed Lawful Good character is most similar in temperament and character to two True Neutral characters, and also has no visible record of a Lawful Good life for we the reader to rely on.)

[Peelee]

I'm not entirely sure how that works, to be fair.

Certain spells or classes can reveal alignment. If, say, Roy pings as Lawful Good with no shenanigans fooling the system, then why bother having a bouncer at Celestia's door? My theory has been that the universe dos quick and dirty spot checks of alignment, which can be wrong, but is close enough for government work. After death, however, you get a much more fine sifter.

[hamishspence]

Being good takes more than caring a little about your family and a lot about your job. Where are his acts of altruism? Where does he "battle the forces of evil without expecting compensation"?

I lean to the view that the reason he got a (incomplete) review at the end of SoD was that he self-identified as LG. And that the review hadn't progressed very far before the Blood Oath came up - had it not come up, Eugene's Deva would have asked him questions like "Where are your acts of altruism?" and "Where did you battle the forces of evil without expecting compensation?"

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I lean to the view that the reason he got a (incomplete) review at the end of SoD was that he self-identified as LG

The issue with this is that The Book explicitly requires the Devas to do a full evaluation regardless of any mitigating circumstances may or may not be in effect. So Roy's dad evaluation had to go through his whole life. They didn't start at the oath and stop.

Grey Wolf

[Ruck]

Certain spells or classes can reveal alignment. If, say, Roy pings as Lawful Good with no shenanigans fooling the system, then why bother having a bouncer at Celestia's door? My theory has been that the universe dos quick and dirty spot checks of alignment, which can be wrong, but is close enough for government work. After death, however, you get a much more fine sifter.

The afterlife has 17 planes, not 9, right? So there's a need for a more fine sifting even in some cases to separate people of the same alignment.

I lean to the view that the reason he got a (incomplete) review at the end of SoD was that he self-identified as LG. And that the review hadn't progressed very far before the Blood Oath came up - had it not come up, Eugene's Deva would have asked him questions like "Where are your acts of altruism?" and "Where did you battle the forces of evil without expecting compensation?"

I mean, I think this is pretty much the only explanation that makes sense.

(Now I'm wondering if a less Lawful afterlife would care about the Blood Oath. Eugene could have been in Neutralia all along!)

I know that's not what it's called. I didn't want to look it up.

[Peelee]

The afterlife has 17 planes, not 9, right? So there's a need for a more fine sifting even in some cases to separate people of the same alignment.

Yep. Even Neutralia.

[Lacuna Caster]

I don't doubt Eugene was a Lawful Good person before death. Not a nice person, but then, neither was Miko, even Pre-Fall. I think about 20 years of being stuck on a cloud have driven him a little crazy. If he were re-evulated, he'd probably be solidly True Neutral. But all indication is that, before he had Roy, he was a decent husband and a fairly dedicated researcher. Fatherhood improves some pepole. For him, it did the opposite. And, even then, he does seem to have liked Julia, in his own selfish way.

The difference is that we have concrete evidence for Miko performing various good deeds (and hints at others), and I would say we've never seen Miko being consciously cruel in terms of her abrasive remarks. We have essentially no evidence for good deeds in Eugene's case, and the author has bent over so hard to make Eugene unlikeable and caustic that it would be incongruous to have some flashback where he, say, gives half his paycheck to orphans with diseases.

I lean to the view that the reason he got a (incomplete) review at the end of SoD was that he self-identified as LG.

Yeah, but this isn't a universe where you can plausibly live in a state of confusion on your own moral standing any more than you can live in a state of confusion about your own body weight. You visit your cleric-GP and ask them to cast Detect Law and Detect Good.

[hamishspence]

The issue with this is that The Book explicitly requires the Devas to do a full evaluation regardless of any mitigating circumstances may or may not be in effect.

The other deva simply said "I can't let you in" once the Oath had come up and the evaluation appeared to stop there. The Oath's not a mitigating circumstance, it's an aggravating circumstance.

this isn't a universe where you can plausibly live in a state of confusion on your own moral standing any more than you can live in a state of confusion about your own body weight. You visit your cleric-GP and ask them to cast Detect Law and Detect Good.

I don't think that's a thing in the OOTS-verse. Most people simply aren't so unsure about themselves that they're prepared to shell out money to ask their local cleric these kind of questions - they simply take their own perception of their alignment as valid and don't spend time trying to verify it.

[Jasdoif]

Certain spells or classes can reveal alignment. If, say, Roy pings as Lawful Good with no shenanigans fooling the system, then why bother having a bouncer at Celestia's door? My theory has been that the universe dos quick and dirty spot checks of alignment, which can be wrong, but is close enough for government work. After death, however, you get a much more fine sifter.

I still like my theory.

There are four cosmic forces of alignment: Good, Evil, Law, Chaos. So it would make sense for the corner alignments (LG, CG, LE, CE) to be like premium brands ("Two! Two! Two mints cosmics in one!"), and therefore the corresponding companies afterlives would be pickier about what they put into their processing pool...so to speak. True Neutral, on the other hand, operates more on cost effectiveness and can work with any souls; producing basic soul-stuff in bulk (all animals being True Neutral may or may not be a factor here). The other afterlives fall between the two extremes.

A byzantine agreement between all the afterlife-bearing planes keeps them all working efficiently, and bylaws cover the evaluation process to optimize value-vs-overhead of placement. Probably something like the corner-alignment-afterlives do in-depth interviews since they're demanding on what they accept anyway, the afterlives with Neutral alignment components using detect alignment type spells to assure a soul is Neutral in that regard, and a limit of like four evaluations before a soul is dumped into TN for trying to game the system.

Individual denizens of the plane may have their own ideas of value of still-intact souls; but the overwhelming majority of the time, the afterlives themselves can't cost-justify the resources it'd take to go after a high-level outsider over a few souls.

[Lacuna Caster]

I don't think that's a thing in the OOTS-verse. Most people simply aren't so unsure about themselves that they're prepared to shell out money to ask their local cleric these kind of questions - they simply take their own perception of their alignment as valid and don't spend time trying to verify it.

Mmmm... no? The pressure to make sure you maintained your desired alignment would be significantly more intense than the pressure to, say, get good SAT scores, and people shell out thousands of dollars trying to boost those in reality. The afterlife is where you are likely to spend thousands of years, there are few things it would be more rational to pay attention to.

Leaving aside, of course, that tending to the spiritual needs of their flock is a cleric's literal job-description. Casting DE on the assembled congregation every sunday is the kind of baseline minimum service I would expect.

[woweedd]

Mmmm... no? The pressure to make sure you maintained your desired alignment would be significantly more intense than the pressure to, say, get good SAT scores, and people shell out thousands of dollars trying to boost those in reality. The afterlife is where you are likely to spend thousands of years, there are few things it would be more rational to pay attention to.

Leaving aside, of course, that tending to the spiritual needs of their flock is a cleric's literal job-description. Casting DE on the assembled congregation every sunday is the kind of baseline minimum service I would expect.

Also, we have no word of whether DE detects your ACTUAL Alignment, or merely your professed one. The Gods don't have any special magic ability to detect your "true" alignment. Otherwise, there'd be no point in the whole evaluation process.

[hamishspence]

Casting DE on the assembled congregation every sunday is the kind of baseline minimum service I would expect.

A 1st level cleric charges 10gp for casting a 1st level spell like Detect Evil or Detect Good. Higher-level clerics charge more.

Extremely paranoid anti-evil organisations like the Order of Illumination from Complete Scoundrel - they cast Detect Evil on anyone they want to join, and they cast it regularly on members in case of corruption.

But a "regular village congregation" would not be having their cleric cast Detect Evil on all of them every week.

[woweedd]

A 1st level cleric charges 10gp for casting a 1st level spell like Detect Evil or Detect Good. Higher-level clerics charge more.

Extremely paranoid anti-evil organisations like the Order of Illumination from Complete Scoundrel - they cast Detect Evil on anyone they want to join, and they cast it regularly on members in case of corruption.

But a "regular village congregation" would not be having their cleric cast Detect Evil on all of them every week.

I think Lacuna's idea is that ANY Cleric would od that on their flock, out fo their desire to watch over their flock, which...Putting aside that not EVERY priest is a Cleric, lots of them ARE Evil.

[hamishspence]

In Cliffport, for law enforcement to be casting Detect Evil on anybody is an "illegal search and seizure":

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0363.html

[Peelee]

Leaving aside, of course, that tending to the spiritual needs of their flock is a cleric's literal job-description.

[citation required]

[Keltest]

A 1st level cleric charges 10gp for casting a 1st level spell like Detect Evil or Detect Good. Higher-level clerics charge more.

Extremely paranoid anti-evil organisations like the Order of Illumination from Complete Scoundrel - they cast Detect Evil on anyone they want to join, and they cast it regularly on members in case of corruption.

But a "regular village congregation" would not be having their cleric cast Detect Evil on all of them every week.

Worse. A "regular village congregation" would not have a spellcasting priest in attendance at all. Clerics are not the only priestly class, and your average village priest would not have any spellcasting ability at all.

[woweedd]

In Cliffport, for law enforcement to be casting Detect Evil on anybody is an "illegal search and seizure":

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0363.html

And that brings us to another point, one Miko demonstrates: it's very easy to fool

[Emanick]

I've always assumed that, while Detect X spells reveal your current alignment, the afterlives care about judging your life holistically, not just your alignment at the moment. It is possible for someone to shift alignments to True Neutral from Neutral Good late in life, for instance - but if that person spent most of their life as a Neutral Good person, s/he might still wind up in the NG afterlife.

[hamishspence]

Worse. A "regular village congregation" would not have a spellcasting priest in attendance at all. Clerics are not the only priestly class, and your average village priest would not have any spellcasting ability at all.

I'm guessing the reasoning would be "the random number tables say there are 1d4 clerics in even the smallest towns".

However - maybe the tables don't actually take into account who in town are residents, and who are adventurers who happen to be passing through?

I've always assumed that, while Detect X spells reveal your current alignment, the afterlives care about judging your life holistically, not just your alignment at the moment.

That would fit with Complete Divine.

Which does say that actions toward end of life are weighted more heavily, to be fair.

[Jasdoif]

I'm guessing the reasoning would be "the random number tables say there are 1d4 clerics in even the smallest towns".

That's not true, actually; a randomly generated thorp would have a one-third chance of not having a character capable of detect good/evil/law/chaos. (The highest level of an adept or cleric in such a thorp is 1d6-3, with less than one meaning no one with that class can be found; and 1st-level NPC classes are handled differently and a thorp's max population of 80 is too small to get an adept out of it).

[Peelee]

That's not true, actually; a randomly generated thorp would have a one-third chance of not having a character capable of detect good/evil/law/chaos. (The highest level of an adept or cleric in such a thorp is 1d6-3, with less than one meaning no one with that class can be found; and 1st-level NPC classes are handled differently and a thorp's max population of 80 is too small to get an adept out of it).

"Thorp" will be the main villain's lieutenant in my next game.

[hamishspence]

"Thorp" will be the main villain's lieutenant in my next game.

Would the main villain be Odinp?

[Lacuna Caster]

Also, we have no word of whether DE detects your ACTUAL Alignment, or merely your professed one. The Gods don't have any special magic ability to detect your "true" alignment. Otherwise, there'd be no point in the whole evaluation process.

...Yes, that's my point. The whole evaluation process is somewhat redundant in a universe that automagically tracks your moral and ethical standing in the first place.

I think Lacuna's idea is that ANY Cleric would od that on their flock, out fo their desire to watch over their flock, which...Putting aside that not EVERY priest is a Cleric, lots of them ARE Evil.

Sure, fine. Then you cast Detect Good, or Detect Law, or whatever might be appropriate to ensuring the flock maintain good standing in the eyes of their deity of choice.

A 1st level cleric charges 10gp for casting a 1st level spell like Detect Evil or Detect Good. Higher-level clerics charge more.

Sure. That's why you send around the collection plate. But this is the principle reason why villagers would even bother to support their local clerical population in the first place- they want to make sure they're not going to Hell. (Or whatever their least-favoured afterlife destination might be, though generally Hell would be high on that list.)

And that brings us to another point, one Miko demonstrates: it's very easy to fool

It's not easy to fool- or certainly, if we're assuming that basic clerical magic like DE is rare and expensive to come by, spells like nondetection or powerful alignment-masking artifacts are considerably rarer. In any case, this is irrelevant in the case of people who actively want to verify their own alignments, which is what I brought up in the first place. Why would they try to doctor their own karmic diagnosis? It would defeat the purpose.

[Peelee]

Would the main villain be Odinp?

Ohylaxtrt. Close guess, though.