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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Warren Dew
To the extent that the black dragons are evil, it is quite different, since newborn human babies are not evil.
And what made the spell "indiscriminate"? Oh yes, the fact that it didn't discriminate between evil aligned targets and nonevil targets. This just collapses back to the spell being evil because it killed good and neutral targets.
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Originally Posted by
The Giant
It's ridiculous to think that any given six-year-old may have committed a horrible act worthy of being executed unless the text says otherwise <snip> No author should have to take the time to say, "This little girl ISN'T evil, folks!" in order for the reader to understand that. It should be assumed that no first graders are irredeemably Evil unless the text tells you they are.
(Snipped to avoid mild SOD spoilers). While Giant was talking about a goblin child here, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the same logic applies to baby black dragons.
Even if Familicide killed only Evil creatures, and V knew it killed only Evil creatures, I would still consider the act Evil, because 1. The motivation was Evil - revenge vs. justice or self-defense and 2. Being Evil doesn't necessarily merit summary execution. The majority of Evil black dragons might be so because they routinely steal cattle and gold and the like without actually being mass murderers, etc. There's a difference between just being Evil and being Unredeemably Evil to the point where summary execution is justified. You don't execute people for being Evil; you mete out an appropriate punishment based off of the actions they have done. If you don't know the actions, just the alignment, then executing them is an evil act.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Doug Lampert
Not actually relevant. As far as we know V is level 15 with at least 18 int.
V needs to gain 6 levels to gain epic spellcasting, and gets a minimum of 6 skill points per level. That's a total of 36 skill points, 6 to keep knowledge arcana maxed, 6 to keep concentration maxed, 24 to have the required 24 ranks in knowledge religion.
You need to keep Spellcraft maxed too if you want to CAST any of those Epic spells.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
zimmerwald1915
It's a perfectly fine paraphrase.
Indeed, this is one of those arguments where the aim is more to convince readers who haven't made up their minds about things than to convince one's counterpart of to change their position. And that is worthwhile. Viewing familicide as something other than a vile, vile act, for example, used to be much more common than it is now. Observing that V is "constantly benched" used to be rather controversial; now it is taken as axiomatic enough that people make threads based on that premise.
Ouch.
I remember that a few years ago, on the forum for discussing a book series, there was a hot topic about moral justification (not banned three!) of one character's actions. By the time I started reading it, its thread number was well over 20. I came there with a well thought-out opinion that the character was guilty. By the time I finished reading and joined in the discussion, I was a passionate advocate. So yeah... I know what effect a good discussion can have on innocent readers.
But right now, I'm really interested just in hearing everyone's opinions. For example, I feel that I do not agree with Reddish Mage, but his posts are extremely interesting to read as they have good points and really force me to think.
I think I'll finally post my opinion on resurrecting all Familicide victims.
No, it would be wrong.
Sometimes the right decision is just not to interfere with the situation. Let it go its natural way. There are lots of black dragons most of which are Evil, you can kill them all; do not interfere, it's not your right and not your responsibility. There are lots of dead black dragons some of which are Neutral or maybe even Good and quite possibly many of which are innocent, and you (hypothetically) can resurrect them all; do not interfere, it's not your right and not your responsibility.
After deciding to cast Familicide V is now responsible for each innocent killed by this spell, they are all hanging on vir conscience. After deciding to resurrect a bunch of equally unknown to him beings ve would be responsible for each innocent killed as the result of this decision, and they would all hang on vir conscience too. This shortcut would do no good; V's real fault is, I think, not so murder itself as judging, or rather failing to judge. It would be just the same with the "undo" button, unless it's an actual undo button in a form of Cosmic Retcon, perhaps some sort of time travel. Resurrecting everyone would not be correcting the mistake, it would be repeating the mistake.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
So I think it may be time to take the V's redemption discussion to a separate thread. It's veered away from the topic of 918 quite a lot by now, and while we're not into "morally justified" territory yet, it's a topic that can stray there quite easily. It's probably best to take it to a separate thread, both to avoid derailing this thread and to ensure that if it does cross a line, the general discussion thread isn't the one that ends up locked for it.
EDIT: Made one here. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=303524
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
NihhusHuotAliro
It's an idiom that I've heard.
Heck, my father's side of the family uses "When the German wishes goodwill to the Czech" as a "That'll never happen" thing; like "When Charlie Brown kicks the football" "When Sisyphus gets his boulder to the top" "when the sun sets in the east" " Na svatého Dyndy" "When there's two thursdays in a week" "When frogs grow hair and the crow flies upside down" "When the crow grows white and the heron grows black" "When grapes grow on willows, pears grow on linden, flowers grow on the palm, and (insert-name-of-person-you-hate) grows on me".
I come from a very idiom-loving family.
To bad the pirates don't know idioms... Except for Bucky of course.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
The MunchKING
You need to keep Spellcraft maxed too if you want to CAST any of those Epic spells.
(A) As I point out, unless V's level up gains at 12 and 16 do NOT go to Int then V can also max out spellcraft.
(B) Maxed out spellcraft is not required. As an epic character you can get epic items, including competence items giving more than +30 to a skill. In any case, epic magic isn't about HAVING a high spellcraft bonus at all, it's about munchkin tricks like making ice assassins or simulacrums of yourself and having them assist you or finding ways to survive taking massive damage. An ideal epic spell has a spellcraft DC of ZERO, that lets you research it real easily.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Doug Lampert
(A) As I point out, unless V's level up gains at 12 and 16 do NOT go to Int then V can also max out spellcraft.
(B) Maxed out spellcraft is not required. As an epic character you can get epic items, including competence items giving more than +30 to a skill. In any case, epic magic isn't about HAVING a high spellcraft bonus at all, it's about munchkin tricks like making ice assassins or simulacrums of yourself and having them assist you or finding ways to survive taking massive damage. An ideal epic spell has a spellcraft DC of ZERO, that lets you research it real easily.
I thought it specifically said that sacrificed damage couldn't be redirected or reduced in anyway, and if you died, NOTHING would be able to stop you from coming back minus 2 levels.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Warren Dew
To the extent that the black dragons are evil, it is quite different, since newborn human babies are not evil.
And what made the spell "indiscriminate"? Oh yes, the fact that it didn't discriminate between evil aligned targets and nonevil targets. This just collapses back to the spell being evil because it killed good and neutral targets.
No, it is not different. Because the alignments of the target is irrelevant to the morality of the act.
And the "indiscriminate" part of the spell that makes it evil also has nothing whatsoever to do with the alignments if the target.
The alignments of the targets simply have no important impact on the question of familicide's evilness.
It would have still been just as evil even of everything killed by it had been evil, and only evil.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Reddish Mage
As far as sentience goes...no, just no. Cthulhu, invading aliens, personifications of our fears, fiends, and inhabitants of the far realms are all sentient and yet you seem to be suggesting that anything less than total blindness to those differences with each individual monster is unacceptable.
Magical and firebreathing are not cosmetic if you mean "of or relating to outward appearance." There's nothing outward about those traits.
What I said in my previous post is that in discussion of reverse familicide we can talk about several other subjects prior, some ("actionability of knowledge of creature tendencies,") tangentially related. That particular point, which I raise only to point out a differences in view exists and that opinions on such are cited during familicide discussions, is not specific to dragons, or issues surrounding spells of mass destruction/resurrection. I omitted points in the PHB and the giant there that I do not think settle this particular matter, but deserve mention.
Yet, in attempting to seperate out the discussion and note the differences, one point of view i mentioned appears again with its own champions. That no knowledge of any sort of creature category is relevant in dealing with sentient creatures.
I believe that is an extreme point of view, that apparently requires good/neutral/non-lawful creatures to waste their surprise round to retain their alignment everytime they encounter a new individual horror from the great beyond, and to treat a vampire or succubus's request for a date the same way you would treat the girl/boy next door. it appears to be willful ignorance in attempting to impose the entirety of an outlook meant for 21st century humans with minor differences, to interact with each other on an equitable basis and applying it to "War of the Worlds" I think it can be a lousy way to run a game session, and a good way to get a perfectly "good" character killed quickly.
Your examples actually illustrate a major weakness about fictional portrayals of these kinds of creatures. All of them actually fail a critical test of true sentience. Their portrayal as otherwise sentient creates a paradox which those narratives gloss over. That paradox amounts to the narrative taking the easy way out of the raising of the moral dilemma that in real life SHOULD be raised about killing them. Cthulhu being a singular entity makes it irrelevant to the argument I was making. The others are simply variations of the same "they're always evil we can kill them all without thinking twice and call it good" dynamic that is so problematic regarding the Black Dragons here.
Possessing the free will to choose between good and evil is a FUNDAMENTAL property of sentience. If you say a species is always evil (or indeed always good) then you are actually saying that species is of truly sentient. There is no way around this paradox, and that is just another reason why the "always evil" appellation is so problematic and needs to be expunged from fiction.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Amphiox
No, it is not different. Because the alignments of the target is irrelevant to the morality of the act.
So if Haley had killed Celia instead of Crystal, you would have had no problem with that?
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Amphiox
No, it is not different. Because the alignments of the target is irrelevant to the morality of the act.
Thanks, apparently this isn't as clear cut as I had imagined.
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Originally Posted by
Warren Dew
So if Haley had killed Celia instead of Crystal, you would have had no problem with that?
Haley killing Crystal without the bonus material explaining certain things is pretty dubious, yes. But it's not OK-ish because Crystal was Evil, but because she very, very clearly communicated that she intends to kill Haley as soon as possible.
Haley killing Celia with no reason would be an Evil act (d'uh).
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Amphiox
Your examples actually illustrate a major weakness about fictional portrayals of these kinds of creatures. All of them actually fail a critical test of true sentience. Their portrayal as otherwise sentient creates a paradox which those narratives gloss over. That paradox amounts to the narrative taking the easy way out of the raising of the moral dilemma that in real life SHOULD be raised about killing them. Cthulhu being a singular entity makes it irrelevant to the argument I was making. The others are simply variations of the same "they're always evil we can kill them all without thinking twice and call it good" dynamic that is so problematic regarding the Black Dragons here.
Possessing the free will to choose between good and evil is a FUNDAMENTAL property of sentience. If you say a species is always evil (or indeed always good) then you are actually saying that species is of truly sentient. There is no way around this paradox, and that is just another reason why the "always evil" appellation is so problematic and needs to be expunged from fiction.
I'm not sure I can make sense of these assertions about sentience but I've started a thread to discuss the literary merits of non-personified intelligences and the long history of literature treating certain intelligent beings as non-persons or categorically as "monsters," "evil," "kill on sight" or what have you.
I don't believe such creatures exist as depicted in the order of the stick (or if they do they were minor one-strip characters and its debatable), and is only related based to certain points brought up in the forums based on analysis the story and so I started another thread for that (The literary merits of Alien Intelligence).
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Reddish Mage
I'm not sure I can make sense of these assertions about sentience but I've started a thread to discuss the literary merits of non-personified intelligences and the long history of literature treating certain intelligent beings as non-persons or categorically as "monsters," "evil," "kill on sight" or what have you.
I don't believe such creatures exist as depicted in the order of the stick (or if they do they were minor one-strip characters and its debatable), and is only related based to certain points brought up in the forums based on analysis the story and so I started another thread for that (The literary merits of Alien Intelligence).
is making threads to discuss things being discussed already a new fad?
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Forikroder
is making threads to discuss things being discussed already a new fad?
Its been requested we move all familicide and black dragon-related discussion away from this thread because the discussion always gets very involved and has gotten quite tangential and far afield to the main topic of this thread (which is #918), if its not inherently tangential.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
Also, it has a tendency to get locked, and no one wants to see that happen to the main discussion thread.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Reddish Mage
Its been requested we move all familicide and black dragon-related discussion away from this thread because the discussion always gets very involved and has gotten quite tangential and far afield to the main topic of this thread (which is #918), if its not inherently tangential.
i disagree to you saying it is off topic, people are faaaaaaar too strict on what is "on topic" and what is "off topic"
the thread started with discussing what happened in 918, some piece of evidence or some discussion about 918 then led to something else, but still connected back to 918 and that kept happening unitl it was about familicide
just because nothing in 918 had anything to do with familicide doesnt mean that talking about familicide is immediately off topic
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
raymundo
But it's not OK-ish because Crystal was Evil, but because she very, very clearly communicated that she intends to kill Haley as soon as possible.
You don't think that Crystal making death threats and Celia not making them has something to do with the differences in their alignment? I do.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Warren Dew
You don't think that Crystal making death threats and Celia not making them has something to do with the differences in their alignment? I do.
I think that Evil people do Evil acts, but that it's the acts they should be punished for, not the alignment. I rather liked Eberron's writeup of it:
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Originally Posted by Eberron
"In a world where characters have access to magic such as detect evil, it's important to keep in mind that evil people are not always killers, criminals, or demon worshippers. They mights be selfish and cruel, always putting their interests above those of others, but they don't necessarily deserve to be attacked by adventurers. The self-centered advocate is lawful evil, for example, and the cruel innkeeper is neutral evil."
You can be selfish and cruel and totally redeemable and/or not particularly dangerous - so killing someone is not automatically okay just because they detect as Evil. Threatening to kill Haley is in most circumstances on the south end of neutral at best, and a Good character would be very unlikely to do so, but it's the act, not the alignment, that resulted in Crystal's death, even assuming that killing her wasn't itself south of neutral (which is its own topic that I'm not touching with a 10-foot pole at the moment because I haven't read the bonus material).
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Warren Dew
You don't think that Crystal making death threats and Celia not making them has something to do with the differences in their alignment? I do.
Belkars evil, where has he given haley death threats?
Crystal was an active and very real immediate threat to Haleys life, while unhonourable, removing that threat is not an evil act eventually Crystal would get lucky
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Warren Dew
You don't think that Crystal making death threats and Celia not making them has something to do with the differences in their alignment? I do.
Me too, and I never implied otherwise. What's your point? Crystal made the death threats, Celia didn't. If Celia made them, Haley would have the same justification, regardless of alignment.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
raymundo
Me too, and I never implied otherwise. What's your point? Crystal made the death threats, Celia didn't. If Celia made them, Haley would have the same justification, regardless of alignment.
Crystal didn't make death threats. Crystal actively attempted to kill Haley during the raid. The scene was cut from online for pacing issues making Haley's motivation less obvious. She knew if left alive Crystal would track her down, but Bozzak might not be willing to spend the money to resurrect her.
Spoiler
Show
Money saving tip: for one meal a day have water instead of soda/tea/beer/whatever. At the end of the month you can buy the book and get all the author's commentary on character's motives and decisions.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Warren Dew
So if Haley had killed Celia instead of Crystal, you would have had no problem with that?
The problem I would have with that would have nothing whatsoever to do with the specific alignments of Celia and Crystal, respectively.
The alignment of the target is irrelevant to the question of the morality of the act.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Forikroder
Belkars evil, where has he given haley death threats?
This is faulty logic. Making threats=Evil does not mean that Evil=making threats.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
zimmerwald1915
Should we condemn the innocent for the sake of punishing the guilty? Particularly when we have no authority to make the judgement as to guilt or innocence or data on which to base it?
I know I am late to this particular party, but in a world with alignment based afterlives, is death really a condemnation? Even for those who die as children? Roy's brother didn't seem to mind being dead, after all. In our lives, where an afterlife is not a certainty, death is among the worst outcome we can imagine, but in this world it seems more of either a reward for a good life or a punishment for a bad one.
The Dragon, on the other hand, did not want to merely kill V's children, thus sending them to an eternal reward, but trap their very souls as to prolong revenge beyond any reasonable scale.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Forikroder
Belkars evil, where has he given haley death threats?
Crystal was an active and very real immediate threat to Haleys life, while unhonourable, removing that threat is not an evil act eventually Crystal would get lucky
Active and real, maybe yes. Immediate, absolutely not. Haley was leaving her territory, and going to an unknown location. Crystal might track her down, but at the least, that takes time, and it may very well be a full defense. Given that Crystal was an active and eager killer, we might argue that Haley was defending third parties since she would have no later chance. But Haley's motives seem personal, and any claim of self defense is defective.
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
David Argall
Active and real, maybe yes. Immediate, absolutely not. Haley was leaving her territory, and going to an unknown location. Crystal might track her down, but at the least, that takes time, and it may very well be a full defense. Given that Crystal was an active and eager killer, we might argue that Haley was defending third parties since she would have no later chance. But Haley's motives seem personal, and any claim of self defense is defective.
give me any proof at all that Crystal doesnt sneak ont the same boat as the OoTS and go for Haleys throat while she sleeps?
Haley had every reason to believe that Crystal follows them to the Desert
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
They didn't get to the western continent by boat though- but by teleportation- to the islands near it- and a boat took them the rest of the way.
And Haley knows they were going to teleport there:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0648.html
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Wolv90
I know I am late to this particular party, but in a world with alignment based afterlives, is death really a condemnation? Even for those who die as children? Roy's brother didn't seem to mind being dead, after all. In our lives, where an afterlife is not a certainty, death is among the worst outcome we can imagine, but in this world it seems more of either a reward for a good life or a punishment for a bad one.
The Dragon, on the other hand, did not want to merely kill V's children, thus sending them to an eternal reward, but trap their very souls as to prolong revenge beyond any reasonable scale.
I am somehow certain that if Rich were to weigh in here with, "Actually, she would have had a change of heart sometime between killing them and casting Soul Bind, and left without actually using the Soul Bind scrolls," not one of the people who defend Familicide would say, "Then she wasn't actually doing anything evil."
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
hamishspence
They didn't get to the western continent by boat though- but by teleportation- to the islands near it- and a boat took them the rest of the way.
And Haley knows they were going to teleport there:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0648.html
your kinda ignoring my point, they had no way to prevent Crystal from following them even if it took her a bit longer then them she would eventually have found them
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Re: OOTS #918 - The Discussion Thread
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Originally Posted by
Forikroder
they had no way to prevent Crystal from following them even if it took her a bit longer then them she would eventually have found them
In which case, once Crystal found them and starting making hostile moves, self-defence becomes a consideration.
But in the context of the strips we see- it isn't- at best it's "preventing a potential future problem".