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Who What Now posted:I hope V and her family have a happy ending. That's what rich calls "devillainification" in SoD. You've seen them struggle with everything so you're inclined to forgive the murder of thousands. I'd definitely rather redcloak get a happy ending if I had to choose.
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Dec 1, 2019 00:26
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Why shouldn't V find happiness, why should V be doomed to suffer forever? V isn't a villain.
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Dec 1, 2019 00:35
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They did cast a spell called Familicide.
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Dec 1, 2019 00:47
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PMush Perfect posted:They did cast a spell called Familicide. Roy has had pretty much the only understandable response to that. Specifically, "I can't even comprehend how to judge that, so I'm just gonna stick to character sheets and initiative order."
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Dec 1, 2019 00:51
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I forget, is Roy also the only one in the Order who’s in the loop with regards to Familicide?
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Dec 1, 2019 01:08
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Raenir Salazar posted:Why shouldn't V find happiness, why should V be doomed to suffer forever? We literally see an entire town full of people that V personally murdered because she was angry at someone they were distantly related to. V isn't a villain but V is a very bad person. It's especially important to note that despite what V was told that was entirely on V. The spirits had no power to influence his alignment. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Dec 1, 2019 |
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Dec 1, 2019 01:16
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BOJACK: Diane, please, I need this. I'm a bad guy and the world needs to know. DIANE: There's no such thing as "bad guys" or "good guys." We're all just... guys, who do good stuff sometimes and bad stuff sometimes. And all we can do is try to do less bad stuff and more good stuff, but you're never going to be good. Because you're not bad. So, you need to stop using that as an excuse.
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Dec 1, 2019 02:11
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:The last strip in the book will be posted Monday. Bets on what it'll be? 10 gp says Xykon discovering the final gate. I'm thinking something to do with Gobbotopia, or maybe Tiamat. The curveballs in this book have been really good, and I'll be disappointed if we don't get some kind of out-of-nowhere twist at the end of this one. Who What Now posted:I hope V and her family have a happy ending. Unlikely. Remember that the Oracle's unfinished prophecy implied that V is going to die in a way that can somehow be convolutedly tied to an action taken by Belkar.
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Dec 1, 2019 02:14
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ImpAtom posted:We literally see an entire town full of people that V personally murdered because she was angry at someone they were distantly related to. V isn't a villain but V is a very bad person. Okay well, as shown by V's reaction in the Sand Gate, V didn't quite realize the extent of what V was doing. Knock out some Black Dragons? Sure okay.
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Dec 1, 2019 02:18
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To be fair, can you blame V for not taking a moment to consider if dragons were bumping it in bed with mortals before they got their ultimate revenge on the dragon who had started the whole mess?
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Dec 1, 2019 02:25
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Regalingualius posted:I forget, is Roy also the only one in the Order who’s in the loop with regards to Familicide? Probably. V was shown discussing it with Roy and it hasn't come up since.
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Dec 1, 2019 02:33
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Some Guy TT posted:Unlikely. Remember that the Oracle's unfinished prophecy implied that V is going to die in a way that can somehow be convolutedly tied to an action taken by Belkar. They're a 16th level wizard. Death ain't poo poo to them.
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Dec 1, 2019 02:34
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Some Guy TT posted:Unlikely. Remember that the Oracle's unfinished prophecy implied that V is going to die in a way that can somehow be convolutedly tied to an action taken by Belkar.
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Dec 1, 2019 03:02
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V had no idea that the Draketooths were making whoopie with dragons, so she thought the familicide spell would kill only dragons. And, in D&D's narrow alignment system, all black dragons are evil, so she thought she was only killing a bunch of evil dudes. EDIT: V is totally a chick EDIT PART DEUX: Although Rich will probably never tell us. I'm envisioning that in the very last episode ever, V goes into the woods to pee, and Belkar tails her, but then the strip ends. Gynovore fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Dec 1, 2019 |
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Dec 1, 2019 03:32
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According to Gary Gygax V's actions were both Lawful and Good.
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Dec 1, 2019 03:33
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Gynovore posted:V had no idea that the Draketooths were making whoopie with dragons, so she thought the familicide spell would kill only dragons. And, in D&D's narrow alignment system, all black dragons are evil, so she thought she was only killing a bunch of evil dudes. What's wrong with they/them in the meantime?
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Dec 1, 2019 03:49
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ImpAtom posted:We literally see an entire town full of people that V personally murdered because she was angry at someone they were distantly related to. V isn't a villain but V is a very bad person. The thing is V is clearly not a bad person now. V was a bad person. V is no longer a bad person. This makes it a little more complicated.
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Dec 1, 2019 03:53
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V's gender was retconned twice, IMO. Rich's original intent was probably for V to be male, but after a bunch of readers were confused about V's gender, Rich started to make it ambiguous whether V was male or female as a running joke (partially at those readers' expense, I guess). Then at some point Rich got tired of the running joke and implicitly made V non-binary. At no point was V definitively female in Rich's mind, let alone the text of the comic.
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Dec 1, 2019 04:12
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Silver2195 posted:At no point was V definitively female in Rich's mind, let alone the text of the comic. Same can be said for V being definitively male. I always assumed V was more likely to be a lady (Haley rooming with V is the big thing that sticks in my mind) and that elves in stickland simply don't operate the way humans do.
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Dec 1, 2019 04:27
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Silver2195 posted:V's gender was retconned twice, IMO. Rich's original intent was probably for V to be male, but after a bunch of readers were confused about V's gender, Rich started to make it ambiguous whether V was male or female as a running joke (partially at those readers' expense, I guess). Then at some point Rich got tired of the running joke and implicitly made V non-binary. At no point was V definitively female in Rich's mind, let alone the text of the comic. Actually, I just realized that this interpretation is based on a misrecollection. See this post: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?200999-Elves-and-fridgehorror-in-OotS/page2&p=11094344#post11094344 Somehow I'd misremembered it as the "V-Man" line coming before Rich made the ambiguity a running gag, rather than after - probably because, as Rich admits in the thread, it wasn't very good writing to do it that way.
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Dec 1, 2019 04:38
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How did you only just realize that? I'd made the same assumption you did but I never would have guessed Rich actually explained the timeline directly in a forum thread eight years ago.
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Dec 1, 2019 05:26
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Silver2195 posted:V's gender was retconned twice, IMO. Rich's original intent was probably for V to be male, but after a bunch of readers were confused about V's gender, Rich started to make it ambiguous whether V was male or female as a running joke (partially at those readers' expense, I guess). Then at some point Rich got tired of the running joke and implicitly made V non-binary. At no point was V definitively female in Rich's mind, let alone the text of the comic. Wait, V is canonically non-binary? I must have missed that.
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Dec 1, 2019 05:34
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Nerds: What is V's gender, really? Rich: Explains that he's decided to make it ambiguous. Nerds: But is V a boy or a girl? Rich: Makes it explicit that V doesn't see any kind of special significance in gender. Nerds: sweating But is V a boy or a girl??? Rich: Makes it even clearer that this is not a unique view, and that all elves refer to each other in entirely ungendered terms. Nerds: sopping in sweat like that scene from Airplane and foaming at the mouth BUT IS V A BOY OR A GIRL?!?!
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Dec 1, 2019 05:38
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Gynovore posted:Wait, V is canonically non-binary? I must have missed that. I said "implicitly," not "canonically."
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Dec 1, 2019 06:52
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PMush Perfect posted:Nerds: What is V's gender, really? v is a girl b3cause only girls bother with this gay gender poo poo.... qed
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Dec 1, 2019 07:06
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Some Guy TT posted:Unlikely. Remember that the Oracle's unfinished prophecy implied that V is going to die in a way that can somehow be convolutedly tied to an action taken by Belkar. Belkar's question for the prophecy was a poorly thought out string of "will I get to kill X or Y or Z?" The Oracle answered "yes" which logically means that at least one of those things will come true, and Belkar had no way of knowing which one. The fact that he ultimately killed the Oracle completely fulfilled the vaguely worded prophecy, so it provides no more specific insight into the future. Clarste fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Dec 1, 2019 |
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Dec 1, 2019 07:21
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Clarste posted:Belkar's question for the prophecy was a poorly thought out string of "will I get to kill X or Y or Z?" The Oracle answered "yes" which logically means that at least one of those things will come true, and Belkar had no way of knowing which one. The fact that he ultimately killed the Oracle completely fulfilled the vaguely worded prophecy, so it provides no more specific insight into the future. Also he indirectly caused the death of Roy by giving him that jumping ring ImpAtom posted:We literally see an entire town full of people that V personally murdered because she was angry at someone they were distantly related to. V isn't a villain but V is a very bad person. Nonsense. First of all, V didn't murder those people, it was involuntary manslaughter. It was not the intent of V to cause such a thing. Second, while V is fully responsible for what happened, (which by the way, happened when s/he was severely sleep deprived, and half-mad by grief and guilt, and under extreme duress due to a dragon threatening their family, all ameliorating circumstances)s/he has chosen to fully own up to this horrible act, and to do what s/he can to make amends and pay penance for the consequences that arose from their lack of judgement. A bad person would just rationalize it or blame someone else or justify their actions somehow. V hosed up, acknowledges they hosed up and is trying to do better. That makes V a good person in my book.
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Dec 1, 2019 08:39
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On the other hand, though... V had every opportunity to just kill the dragon threatening their family and leaving it at that. Instead, even with the dark influences and stress of the whole situation, they very deliberately decided to be go that extra step with an act of extraordinary cruelty that killed tons of people whose only “crime” was being related in any way to the one dragon. V may have come to realize the sheer scope of the atrocity, and is absolutely going to spend the rest of their life regretting it, but that’s still a bunch of irreparable harm that they caused to the world unless they start making serious attempts to bring back everyone that got killed by their own moment of weakness and cruelty. In other words, I wouldn’t fault a DM for declaring that they’re basically permalocked into an Evil alignment for the rest of the campaign barring a miracle.
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Dec 1, 2019 09:10
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McCloud posted:Nonsense. First of all, V didn't murder those people, it was involuntary manslaughter. It was not the intent of V to cause such a thing. Yes, it was. It was explicitly V's intention. V literally brought the dragon back to the life after she'd already already been killed to make sure she knew that everyone who shared her bloodline was dead now. The fact that V didn't intend to kill *those specific people* doesn't change the fact that V intended to kill them and did.
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Dec 1, 2019 09:13
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In the 3.5 Monster Manual, Black Dragons are always Chaotic Evil. That's exactly what it says, "Always Chaotic Evil". So, from a strictly D&D point of view, V did a Good thing. (And if I seem excessively nerdy, remember that in that very arc Rich referred to the Monster Manual).
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Dec 1, 2019 09:30
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Clarste posted:Belkar's question for the prophecy was a poorly thought out string of "will I get to kill X or Y or Z?" The Oracle answered "yes" which logically means that at least one of those things will come true, and Belkar had no way of knowing which one. The fact that he ultimately killed the Oracle completely fulfilled the vaguely worded prophecy, so it provides no more specific insight into the future. I was referring to this strip- http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0567.html We don't know what the complicated logic was going to be for V's death, since Belkar interrupted the Oracle before she could finish. Although I only just noticed that the wording here is pretty cagey. Being trapped in the afterlife could just mean that Belkar caused V to make the deal with the Fiends and/or create the circumstances that would cause them to activate it. I'm still expecting V to not get a happy ending in any case, since whatever her moral culpability now that she realizes what was going on, Familicide was still an unforgivably evil act.
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Dec 1, 2019 09:39
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blizzardvizard posted:v is a girl b3cause only girls bother with this gay gender poo poo.... qed I don't know if this is facetious or what but it kind of sucks!
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Dec 1, 2019 09:42
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McCloud posted:Nonsense. First of all, V didn't murder those people, it was involuntary manslaughter. It was not the intent of V to cause such a thing. No. Involuntary manslaughter is when you do something reckless and negligent, but don't intend to kill someone. E.G. a drunk driver hitting a pedestrian. V might be able to make a case for voluntary manslaughter, where someone is provoked to murder by another's actions (the dragon's threats against his family). But that only counts for the dragon. The preemptive murder of the dragon's entire family, and all those creatures entire families is so far beyond reasonable that any claim to manslaughter (voluntary or otherwise) is completely void.
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Dec 1, 2019 10:19
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Regalingualius posted:V may have come to realize the sheer scope of the atrocity, and is absolutely going to spend the rest of their life regretting it, but that’s still a bunch of irreparable harm that they caused to the world unless they start making serious attempts to bring back everyone that got killed by their own moment of weakness and cruelty. (Spoilers for Planescape: Torment) Finally we know the origin story of The Nameless One. Rhaka fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Dec 1, 2019 |
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Dec 1, 2019 11:17
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Gynovore posted:In the 3.5 Monster Manual, Black Dragons are always Chaotic Evil. That's exactly what it says, "Always Chaotic Evil". So, from a strictly D&D point of view, V did a Good thing. That is rather the point of V's arc and a number of other alignment issues altogether; you can get away with a lot of poo poo if you stick to the letter of the law, but the kind of person who thinks they're inundated from having to make moral judgments will sooner or later have the poo poo hit the fan. V's full realization of the enormity of their crime isn't when it has a tangible effect on their quest and led to hundreds of dead humanoid bystanders, but when V starts to consider that not every dragon they killed had to be evil, even if the monster manual said otherwise. The Draketeeth could be rationalized away as an unforeseen consequence, but the dragons themselves cannot. Similarly, Miko was always a Bad Paladin, but she stuck to the letter of D&D law and was, from a technical point of view, a very good paladin, right until her own surety that she could do no wrong let her to slay an unarmed man to whom she had sworn fealty. And also, (spoilers for every prequel book which features paladins): The paladin from Roy's original adventuring gang is technically lawful good, even if he's objectively not a good person, who says he'd murder Durkon in his sleep if it didn't cause him to Fall, and objects to doing a quest for a group of non-evil orcs because killing them would be faster and technically a good action because they're orcs. If he wasn't a one-off joke character, he'd definitely be featured getting his comeuppance in a later strip. Likewise, the Sapphire Guard that slaughtered Redcloak's entire village and dashed goblin babies against rocks were still technically lawful good, but being that kind of paladin also meant they were the kind whose commander could easily be goaded into striking an unarmed non-goblin opponent and made to Fall that way. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Dec 1, 2019 |
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Dec 1, 2019 11:40
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Likewise, the Sapphire Guard that slaughtered Redcloak's entire village and dashed goblin babies against rocks were still technically lawful good Psalm 137:9
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Dec 1, 2019 12:34
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Archyduchess posted:I don't know if this is facetious or what but it kind of sucks! Sorry, I was being facetious, I assure you I'm a gay man with some gender identity questions myself fwiw
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Dec 1, 2019 12:49
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The fiends say they "have a good shot" at getting V's soul after familicide. They'd probably be the experts on V's long term fate. Sounds like V can be redeemed to me.
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Dec 1, 2019 15:55
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Gynovore posted:In the 3.5 Monster Manual, Black Dragons are always Chaotic Evil. That's exactly what it says, "Always Chaotic Evil". So, from a strictly D&D point of view, V did a Good thing. So they define what they mean by 'Always' earlier in the book and it means about 80% of them are Chaotic evil with the rest mostly concentrated around either chaotic or evil. But it doesn't mean literally all of them are.
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Dec 1, 2019 16:05
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Some Guy TT posted:I was referring to this strip- The whole point of that strip was that the Oracle was making up bullshit in order to prove the prophecy had already come true and therefore that Belkar wouldn't need to kill the Oracle to fulfill it. Which wouldn't even make any sense if the prophecy required required him to kill all of them somehow.
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Dec 1, 2019 16:26
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