So, Malack...

[Paseo H]

Please have some respect for the situation I'm in here.

The whole point of the thread is to assert that Malack is absolutely evil. If I engaged such counter arguments evenly, it would be like entertaining the possibility that the base assertion of my thread is wrong.

Which, given that the entire thread exists to deny the straw grasping stubborn types who give a new definition to overthinking, it would be undercutting my own point to humor otherwise.

[King of Nowhere]

If Malack's crimes were, say, listed in a newspaper as an article rather than having the benefit of our omniscient reader perspective, would you say "eh, he probably has his reasons?"

As omniscent (well, not really, we only see what rich decides to show, but anyway) readers, we have much more information that can bring us to formulate a much more accurate opinion on malack's actions than what a newspaper article would report.
So far, I haven't seen any blatantly evil action on his part. he associates with tarquin and he's part of the head of an evil empire, but that is not proof. {SCRUBBED}
malack gives me the impression of just being someone who does his job, whatever that job is. And if tarquin kill some people in the process, it's on his conscience, not malack's. anyway, nergal probably teaches they would have died anyway sooner or later and there's not much point to fight the inevitable. With a verifiable afterlife, they are probably better off anyway than they would be living in such a crappy place as the western continent.

[Raineh Daze]

Please have some respect for the situation I'm in here.

The whole point of the thread is to assert that Malack is absolutely evil. If I engaged such counter arguments evenly, it would be like entertaining the possibility that the base assertion of my thread is wrong.

Which, given that the entire thread exists to deny the straw grasping stubborn types who give a new definition to overthinking, it would be undercutting my own point to humor otherwise.

False Dichotomy, especially because your original phrasing is 'evil or Evil'.

[Mike Havran]

The whole point of the thread is to assert that Malack is absolutely evil. If I engaged such counter arguments evenly, it would be like entertaining the possibility that the base assertion of my thread is wrong.

So the participans of this thread should agree with you that Malack is absolutely evil because...you want it to be that way?

[Raineh Daze]

However, if you want a debate in which those are the only too options, you could try rephrasing it. As an example: "Assuming that Malack is evil and not neutral, is he evil or Evil?"

Open-ended questions are the bane of focused discussion everywhere.

[JackRackham]

I think evil has limits, extremes to which it will not go and relatable reasons for the extremes to which it does go. An evil character can still be horrified by its own and others actions. It has a limited or alternative morality. Evil, on the other hand, has no such limitations and needs no such excuses. Evil is just Evil. It is motivated by malice. It enjoys suffering. Intentions matter. Guilt matters. It's a difference of humanity and capacity for empathy.

My sense is that Malack is evil. There is no clear line, but I think we can all see the distinction between Xykon and every other evil character in this comic.

[Chantelune]

Please have some respect for the situation I'm in here.

The whole point of the thread is to assert that Malack is absolutely evil. If I engaged such counter arguments evenly, it would be like entertaining the possibility that the base assertion of my thread is wrong.

Which, given that the entire thread exists to deny the straw grasping stubborn types who give a new definition to overthinking, it would be undercutting my own point to humor otherwise.

Oh, so you'll ignore the fact that Malack's evilness is in no way known or proved just because you wanted to state that he's evil ? If you can bring some definite proof that he's evil, then fine, but lacking that, the premise of your thread itself is not valid.

And this is no overthinking. The step before discussing the evilness of a character is to determine if he is, in fact, evil at all. So far, we can only guess, no know for sure.

Then again, you don't seem willing to consider the fact that you might be wrong in stating that "Malack is evil, period". And trying to discredit people who disagree by considering their opinion with little respect. Respect that you ask us to provide. Well, respect is earned, not due. Start by respecting other's people opinion, even if you disagree with them.

[SoC175]

Malack is knowingly involved with this evil arrangement, and was perfectly fine with what was presumably an innocent becoming a meal for a red dragon.

Anyone who thinks that this is not evil on its face is grasping at straws.

With that logic there can be no neutrals, as they could only associate with good and then would be good themselves.

[Paseo H]

Oh, so you'll ignore the fact that Malack's evilness is in no way known or proved just because you wanted to state that he's evil ? If you can bring some definite proof that he's evil, then fine, but lacking that, the premise of your thread itself is not valid.

I have brought definite proof. But I'm dealing with a fanbase that argued that Belkar is not CE even after Word of God said else, and argued that Miko was anything less than a tyrant in blue, even to the point of accusing anyone who disagreed with her as being pro-criminal.

So I guess in their world, a guy who's perfectly chill with knowingly having an innocent fed to a dragon because he's not useful can be neutral and not evil.

And this is no overthinking.

Have you seen the main comic topic above?

Then again, you don't seem willing to consider the fact that you might be wrong in stating that "Malack is evil, period".

I will accept The Giant's judgment humbly, if he brings new information or outright says so later on. That doesn't mean I'm going to humor people who deny what's right there in their faces.

And trying to discredit people who disagree by considering their opinion with little respect. Respect that you ask us to provide. Well, respect is earned, not due. Start by respecting other's people opinion, even if you disagree with them.

I'm sorry, is it part of your main worldview that Malack is neutral? Have I trod upon your most cherished beliefs by arguing else?

[Chantelune]

I'm sorry, is it part of your main worldview that Malack is neutral? Have I trod upon your most cherished beliefs by arguing else?

If you actually read my post, you would have noticed that I consider that Malack MIGHT be neutral. Same as he MIGHT be evil.

Malack was willing to let the Empress of Blood eat innocents, yes, that was rather evil and uncaring, but that does not prove him evil so far, just make it likely. I wouldn't consider this definite proof. V used familicide, forced a kobold to eat cat poop (which could have killed him for all she knew at the time), forced the same kobold to walks up some stairs knowing it was most certainly heavily trapped to "disarm" them, among other things, and she's still neutral. So sorry if I consider that Malack might have more depth than "he did one fairly evil act, so he's evil".

[Raineh Daze]

I will accept The Giant's judgment humbly, if he brings new information or outright says so later on. That doesn't mean I'm going to humor people who deny what's right there in their faces.

Are you seriously stating that you're going to completely ignore what anyone has to say if they don't agree with your conclusions? {SCRUBBED}

So I guess in their world, a guy who's perfectly chill with knowingly having an innocent fed to a dragon because he's not useful can be neutral and not evil.

A potential innocent. Who looks like a beardless version of someone Malack absolutely despises. He's rather prejudiced in this situation to start with; maybe if it was V or someone that would hold more weight.

[Mike Havran]

I have brought definite proof.

Then you are obviously better than the entire squad around Class and Geekery thread, since they don't have any such "definite proof". Or perhaps ... you haven't either.

But I'm dealing with a fanbase that argued that Belkar is not CE even after Word of God said else, and argued that Miko was anything less than a tyrant in blue, even to the point of accusing anyone who disagreed with her as being pro-criminal.

This is simply an invalid statement. The Giant said nothing definite about Malack's alignment (yet). If he says, I'll be amongst the first to say I was wrong and will stop arguing that he may very well be LN.

So I guess in their world, a guy who's perfectly chill with knowingly having an innocent fed to a dragon because he's not useful can be neutral and not evil.

Malack's willingness to feed "an innocent" proves absolutely nothing. First of all, I doubt he considered "Nale" innocent at all. Here comes a guy who looks exactly like his children's murderer and claims he's actually his lost twin brother separated from Nale long ago. Yeah. How probable is that Tarquin, of all people, would be willing to leave his son behind? But OK, let's give him a benefit of doubt and ask whether he can lead us to "Nale." What did he say? Nale buried under rubble? How convenient. Don't you have some bridge to sell to me as well?

Malack phrasing was his way of saying Checkmate into Nale's face. I suppose he believed that the blondie is not Nale about as much as you believe that Malack is Lawful Neutral.

But yeah, let's even admit (for the sake of argument) that Malack believed the nonsense and was willing to sacrifice an innocent to the dragon. An Evil act. And again, does that mean Malack is evil? No. Non-Evil character can occasionally make Evil acts and still be non-Evil. Take Gannji as an example. He orders Enor to fry Roy for lethal damage because he asked him a question. Evil act, and he hasn't done anything Good yet. And guess what: the Word of Giant says he's True Neutral.

So please, accept the fact that what you view as absolute might not seem so for other people, and that they will express it in the discussion whether you like to see it there or not. And by the way, how is the "stuff" going on?

[white lancer]

Seeing as how Malack thinks it's a common misconception that gods of death and their clerics are necessarily evil, and believes that neutrality suits them better...I'd put my money on him being neutral.

That strip is the main reason I consider it possible that Malack is neutral, and also the reason why it's not really grasping at straws to argue that point. My guess is that the Giant put that strip in to encourage speculation on the parts of the readers. Whether this strip was intended to answer that speculation is up for debate, but I don't think it gave us a truly definitive answer either way.

Personally, I favor the interpretation that Malack indulging in creating a new 'child' in this strip is an indication of him moving from Neutral to full-fledged Evil. It's entirely possible he's just been Evil all along and was just trying to deceive Durkon before, but we haven't seen much of a predilection for deceit from Malack thus far in the comic.

[Kish]

As I pointed out the last time someone said we haven't seen a predilection for deceit from Malack, every time he speaks he deceives by faking a living creature's speech bubble.

[Raineh Daze]

As I pointed out the last time someone said we haven't seen a predilection for deceit from Malack, every time he speaks he deceives by faking a living creature's speech bubble.

Are we sure that this is actually faking it and not just the difference between using active vampire abilities and not?

[Kish]

Rich talks about him disguising it here.

[Mike Havran]

As I pointed out the last time someone said we haven't seen a predilection for deceit from Malack, every time he speaks he deceives by faking a living creature's speech bubble.

That is possible, but I find it hard to believe that he would be able to maintain his weak-voice-deception even when he's white-hot with anger: like when he shouts at Tarquin or goes harmy on Nale. He might talk that way always when he's not drunk with blood, without any intent on his part (or maybe he uses some item or spell to mask the balloons?).

[Raineh Daze]

Obviously, it was narratively important to hide that Malack was undead, so therefore I decided he only speaks in black speech bubbles when he "vamps out." After all, vampires in fiction have a long history of having traits that only pop out when they feed: their fangs elongate, their eyes turn read, maybe their face gets all demony-looking if you want to go the Buffy the Vampire Slayer route. Changing voice is not outside of that realm.

Nothing there implies it's a conscious choice.

I mean, one explanation for why he's defaulted to 'breathless undead reverb' could be that, you know, there's a halfling in his mouth. That, I imagine, would get in the way of normal speech.

[Kish]

Nothing there implies it's a conscious choice.

...Yes, that's true. You quoted all of the post except the part where Rich talks about him disguising his voice balloon.

[Raineh Daze]

Well, it says disguise/change, so I kind of concluded that speaking using air and everything would result in the raspy one, whilst just using spooky undead reverb would get the normal black speech balloon. Why use that when you don't have to? It's not exactly a conversational voice.

I'm not sure I can understand the whole 'deceit' angle. What it basically seems to amount to is that not saying 'I'm a vampire' in the simplest applicable terms is somehow... wrong. Like everyone you meet has an implicit right to know such things about you.

It's like a combination of expecting someone to present a decades-old criminal charge, medical history, and résumé when you meet them.

[Chantelune]

That Malack does this consciously or not is rather irrelevant. The thing is that him hiding his vampire status is common sense as he lives among mortals. Most would probably frown if they knew. And in a way that may involve torches and pointy bits of woods.

I don't really think that this show a liking to deceit in Malack or that he will lie whenever he get the chance. He might be a rather "honest" person and just hide his nature because he has to.

Actually, Malack mentioned Durkon's "minor deception" in a way that hint at some disapproval. I'd think that if he had such a fondness for deception, he wouldn't mind Durkon lying about his reason for visit.

[Raineh Daze]

Minor addition: he did apologise for his willingness to feed Elan to the Empress when Tarquin confirmed that it wasn't Nale. Previous page also seems to suggest he has a major blind spot about this, since he apparently still hadn't completely twigged that it wasn't Nale.

Does high Wisdom ever help these people?

[Kish]

Then you are obviously better than the entire squad around Class and Geekery thread, since they don't have any such "definite proof".

That's what happens with committees. *ducks*

I'm not sure I can understand the whole 'deceit' angle.

Well, I certainly don't understand how you can argue that speaking in a way that isn't your default so that people don't realize something basic about you is comparable to not "presenting a decades-old criminal charge, medical history, and resume," so there we are.

Whether Malack is justified in being deceptive is a subject change. I only object to arguments that hinge on him showing no sign of deceit. If I have a natural English accent, and I fake an American accent the whole time I'm around Americans because I don't want them to realize I'm English*, I might have a perfectly good reason for not wanting them to realize I'm English* but I'd never try to pretend I wasn't trying to deceive them.

*Disclaimer: I am not actually English.

[Raineh Daze]

I'm not seeing the evidence that it isn't his default. It isn't the booming undead voice o' doom but what's to say that is the default?

Looking at it this way: if you have two clear, distinct ways to speak, and either of them could be argued to be your 'real' voice (magical vs biological, presumably, in this case), then what possible reasoning could there be for using the method of speech that will automatically cause you no end of trouble? Not advertising a fact isn't the same as hiding it.

[Paseo H]

Now, what would it take for you people to believe he's evil?

[Corneel]

I thought that this thread was about arguing whether Malack was evil or Evil? Can the neutralites take their argument to those many threads were the evilness of Malack is not a basic assumption of the thread?

For my part I think that Malack is a good example of what I might call "callous" evil. Malack is not especially cruel or malevolent, he just doesn't care whether his action or inaction causes suffering or not. And if it causes suffering of the innocent well, tant pis, fudge the innocent, they're useless anyway. And everyone has to die anyways, no?

[white lancer]

I figured someone would say the whole concealing that he's a vampire thing, but I honestly think that's different. Mostly because, as others have said, Malack would be putting himself into danger if he allowed everyone around him to know he was a vampire, whereas he was in no danger from Durkon if he had simply avoided the alignment talk altogether. Besides which, I think Rich's post is somewhat ambiguous as to whether it's a conscious decision on Malack's part to disguise his voice.

Personally, I do think Malack is most likely Lawful Evil. However, I think there's room to doubt, and I would actually prefer it if he did turn out to be Lawful Neutral (or LN making the transition into Evil).

[The_Tentacle]

Definite Proof.

And/or Word of God.

Personally, I think he's lawful neutral. I don't have proof and I hardly have evidence beyond the strip already mentioned, but yeah. If he were evil (or Evil), he wouldn't really care about "minor deceptions," would he?

Mentioned somewhere else in the forum, someone said that in the part about feeding him to the Empress of Blood "Malack had the choice of letting Nale walk free (if Elan actually was Nale) versus being no closer to finding Nale (if Elan was telling the truth)."*

*Not completely verbatim.

[Kish]

If he were evil (or Evil), he wouldn't really care about "minor deceptions," would he?

No part of the evil alignment's description says, "No evil character cares about lies, be they his/hers or someone else's." Nor does that fit the evil characters I can think of in fiction (you would have a better case if you suggested that an evil character should be in a frothing rage that Durkon dared to lie to him). (Still not a good case; "evil" in no way means "obligated to act like a villain in a simplistic cartoon.")

:Gul Dukat: If there's one thing I can't abide, it's betrayal.

[Incom]

To paraphrase myself from the 870 thread:

Two questions for everyone here.

1. Which of Malack's actions are inconsistent with a LN character?
2. Which of Malack's actions are inconsistent with a LE character?

I don't think you'll find very many of either. Malack allows a lot of evil to happen around him without interfering -- but that's not really out of character for LN (consider for a second the definition of neutral); Malack made easy friends with a LG cleric -- but that's not impossible for a LE character (see Tarquin and Elan; though they have the advantage of being family, they're also even farther apart on the alignment chart). Malack vamp'd (/is currently attempting to vamp) Belkar without his permission, but would Belkar really turn that sort of thing down if given the choice--especially given he's already Evil? And Malack has shown that he's willing to postpone a grudge for the sake of a greater goal, which is a common good trait--but the goal in this case isn't particularly noble.

As I see it Malack could go either way. I personally find LN Malack more interesting than LE Malack, but my opinion on that isn't wholly relevant.

Really, the only actively evil thing I've seen Malack do is vamping Belkar, and that isn't as much because of the consent thing (though that's still evil) so much as it is because he's making someone CE even stronger.

Thinking it over, I wouldn't be altogether surprised if Malack was LN-with-evil-tendencies before and fell to LE-with-morally-neutral-tendencies in 870. (That's also an option.)

--------------------------------

As for the current discussion about deception: nobody's pointed out that Malack's vampirism being well known would not only make him look like a hypocrite (to people who see undeath as a perversion of death) but would also make him a target? Lying to stay alive is not evil.