Kickstarter Discussion Thread - How the Paladin Got His Scar (SPOILERS!)

[Kish]

I don't think there's anything veiled about the plot invective against certain behavior: Those who want war are wrong, those who do not are right. I'm actually quite surprised (though not displeased) that no one has yet shown up on this thread protesting but goblinoids are bad and Azure City should be wiping them out.

[SaintRidley]

Surely this suggests an interpretation where the plot itself is a veiled invective against such behavior?

As Kish said, it hardly seems veiled. Rather, it's pretty explicitly (one of) the point(s).

[Huitzil]

They did that in the comic. It turned out that what the head was saying was just a smokescreen, as is often the case when one person tries to make excuses for why their actions don't cause pain to the people being hurt by their actions. It's gaslighting, which is an abuse tactic. There's nothing to engage. There's no there there. Because it's all a distraction. The correct solution in such a situation is not to accept what's being said, but to get around it and expose what their intentions really are.

The ettin is evil. He uses tactics common to abusive people in order to distract from the point, which is the harm he causes. His attempts at drawn-out pseudologic are designed to trip people up and make them accept what he's saying, despite the fact that it's all lies designed to allow him to continue bringing pain. He also happens, when pushed, to resort to an insult rooted in misogyny as a way of showing what he's like without the facade.

If at any point you thought the ettin's pseudologic was compelling, you're gullible. If you sympathize with him, you should take this as an occasion to reconsider why - because there is no universe in which this ettin, from his first lines, is even remotely representative of anything good. And there are people in this world who do this - and they are bad people. Calling bad people bad by making evil characters who mirror their traits is not a bad thing. Completely looney tunes thinking to come to the conclusion that it is.

"The lies we tell about you justify lying about you. We don't have to listen to you asking us to stop lying about you, because the lies we tell about you say you should not be listened to. The only reason you can have to be upset about us lying about you is if the lies are true. The telling of this lie is so much more important than the truth that we refuse to even acknowledge the people saying it is a lie, and act as if they believe it is the truth."

All is lost. Have you forgotten all is lost? Because then observing anything at all in the world will remind you that all is lost.

[SaintRidley]

Have you considered that what you see as lies are actually not lies? You seem really hung up on this idea that pointing out bad behavior is somehow the bad thing.

Edit - I suppose this was just a way of rephrasing what I had already said. I know enough about what kind of person you are from your responses to know that I don't want to continue conversing with you now or in the future.

[Sanctaphrax]

Is that word that bad? Mind you, English is not my L1, so I'm asking just how bad it is. You can't ask anyone to be too civil when they have a head just been cut, right?

How bad the word is really depends on who you ask.

But if the remaining ettin head's earlier comments had been honest, it would've thanked her for cutting off the other head.

For context, see, for instance, this post, or Rich's comments in this thread. There are many more posts in similar vein.

There has been a definite and deliberate change in the frequency and context of such gendered insults over the lifetime of the strip.

Huh. Well, maybe I'm wrong then. Maybe the ettin actually is intended to be a misogynist.

I'm still not convinced by Huitzil's take on who the ettin's meant to represent, though.

Yeah, and Miko used it to restore the inn-keeper for the loss of his property and cover expenses for the Order. Or should she perhaps have taken the opportunity to lecture the leader of a foreign nation on long-term social policy? What was the optimal course there, exactly?

From a Lawful perspective, the optimal course was the one she took. Which is what Rich was saying.

Yes I do.
But this is not that comic. This is a comic where the brute head beats other people up so he can loot them. He is representing no recognizable minority except "brutes and thugs". The only thing that he does and the other one claims to not want, is violence.
The intellectual head is NOT in an argument with his brother, but with everyone else, to obfuscate his own actions. The intellectual head claims to have no intentions to hurt others, but he still fully cooperates with the other half of the body, and he enjoys the loot, food, shelter and other benefit after battles won. This makes him nothing but a hypocrite.

Yet, the ettin was just one single entity with the brute mindset. The intellectual head was nothing but an act, ultimately.

So, please finally tell us where you see the lies and dishonesty in that scene.

Pretty sure he's saying that the intellectual head is intended as a stand-in for certain unpopular people, probably Gamergaters or MRAs. So having the intellectual head revealed to be a murderous hypocrite is a bit like saying GGers and MRAs are murderous hypocrites. Which he considers dishonest.

This, of course, ties into his worldview where humanity is a vicious species driven primarily by a desire to harm the unpopular, life is not worth tolerating, and death is the only escape.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

"The lies we tell about you justify lying about you. We don't have to listen to you asking us to stop lying about you, because the lies we tell about you say you should not be listened to. The only reason you can have to be upset about us lying about you is if the lies are true. The telling of this lie is so much more important than the truth that we refuse to even acknowledge the people saying it is a lie, and act as if they believe it is the truth."

All is lost. Have you forgotten all is lost? Because then observing anything at all in the world will remind you that all is lost.

Archchancellor: That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Senior Wrangler: (desperately) It could be both.
Archchancellor: And that comment is either very perceptive, or very trite.
Senior Wrangler: It could be bo—
Archchancellor: Don't push it, Senior Wrangler.

~Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

[SaintRidley]

I'm still not convinced by Huitzil's take on who the ettin's meant to represent, though.

I don't know. His take might be accurate. His takeaway, that these people and behaviors are unfairly maligned, is the less convincing and more concerning part of the argument.

[Lacuna Caster]

Does a character's personality need to change to make for interesting storytelling? No. Miko fell because she aggressively refused to reconsider her judgements. Tarquin changed from awesome dad to maniacal supervillain to impotent raving lunatic, and the central point is that never compromised on his views.

The vibe I got from Tarquin was that he spent most of his time bending over backwards to try and accommodate his warring offspring (much as Malack goes to some lengths to find a way to avoid killing Durkon.) The only obviously destructive thing he does to Elan came pretty late, when he tried to finish off Roy. He does kill Nale, but I have a really hard time holding that against anyone.

I've already covered Miko in some detail, so I won't reiterate here.

I'm quite fond of The Martian in both film and book form; that has practically no character growth. But I do think that OOTS is at its best when it focuses on character growth.

The Martian works, much as with a Man For All Seasons, because the protagonist is subjected to increasingly harrowing tests of the same set of principles. (In the former case, self-reliance and resourcefulness, in the latter case, faith and legality.)

I will mention that while I'm fond enough of O-Chul- principally for his 'ugly truth' approach to life- I do think the main-strip version is slightly overrated for reasons similar to the Order, in that his most laudable actions are taken under circumstances where his alternatives are very limited. If he gets more fleshed out, well and good.

[Friv]

Pretty sure he's saying that the intellectual head is intended as a stand-in for certain unpopular people, probably Gamergaters or MRAs. So having the intellectual head revealed to be a murderous hypocrite is a bit like saying GGers and MRAs are murderous hypocrites. Which he considers dishonest.

There are two bits in the ettin's speech that harken back to that sort of thing. The big one is when the ettin is chasing the cowardly guard whose name I've forgotten, while the right head explains that ettin attacks are actually very rare. This was a common tactic in certain primarily online movements - walk into a discussion about a terrible thing happening, claim that thing was uncommon, and thus that people should stop talking about it or they will hurt the troll's little snowflake feelings.

It's pretty integral to the whole thing that the right head ettin is not just denying personal responsibility, though. He's actively helping his violent head by running him towards his victim, denying that the violent head's attacks are a big deal, and distracting anyone fighting the violent head while denying their right to defend themselves.

All of these are common tactics by quite a wide array of corrupt organizations, of which MRAs and Gamergate are merely the most recent example. There's a lot of space between "I shouldn't have to justify myself for actions someone else did" and "and also you shouldn't go after them either because they have some similarities to me, stop pointing out how they're hurting you you meanies".

[unbeliever536]

The ettin conversation has been edging towards real world politics for a while now (and I suppose I'm responsible for some of that...). It's an important conversation that should probably continue, but it can't continue here.

[Aedilred]

The ettin conversation has been edging towards real world politics for a while now (and I suppose I'm responsible for some of that...). It's an important conversation that should probably continue, but it can't continue here.

I would hope that so long as we're discussing the comic and not being personally vitriolic, we're ok... To include a scene like that in a story and then refuse to allow discussion of it on the story discussion thread would be rather cheap, and could be construed as outright trolling. But the discussion could probably do with a more narrow focus, it's true.

Of course, it's self-perpetuating to an extent. Because of the no-politics rule people are edging around saying what they think the ettin is getting at, which means that people aren't fully understanding each other, which is leading to more discussion of it as people try to explain themselves better (and get increasingly frustrated at trying to do so within the scope of forum rules). Yay?

[ti'esar]

As opposed to the good misogynists who don't hate women. Like Glasseshead.

Guess what. Misogyny is bad. All the time. Always. Universally. Nobody is hurt by pointing this out, except misogynists. And that pain truly does not matter.

I personally don't know if the ettin was supposed to be a misogynist or not, but... yeah, this.

[King of Nowhere]

I don't think there's anything veiled about the plot invective against certain behavior: Those who want war are wrong, those who do not are right. I'm actually quite surprised (though not displeased) that no one has yet shown up on this thread protesting but goblinoids are bad and Azure City should be wiping them out.

which is way of an oversimplification actually. people don't want war per se, but they feel like they have no option. generally it starts because people from side A consider immoral that people from side B do something, and want them to stop. and people from side B consider that a violation of their independence and feel threatened. And the whole thing escalates.
say for example the paladins, instead of being there based on ridiculously thin evidence, were there because the goblins were practicing slavery. they would not want to fight the goblins, but merely persuade them, peacefully if possible, to give up on slavery. and goblins have nothing against the paladins, really, but they always practiced slavery, it is codified in their society, and don't want to give up on it. they are even willing to avoid riding their neighboors, if that can keep them at peace, but freeing their current slaves or their children is a no-no. So the paladins may start threatening that if the goblins won't give up on slavery they may be forced to do so for the greater good, and the goblin may resent that imperialistic attitude of wanting to control internal policy of another nation and start an arms race...
while slavery is certainly despicable, is it bad enough to justify starting a war over it? and is slavery (especially one of the softer forms like the roman way where slaves were often freed after some decades of service) really that much worse than indentured work under a feudal system? rarely it is clear-cut. not that it matters much, when realpolitik applies the answer is generally "if it is convenient to wage this war, then yes, it is justified, otherwise we'll just send strongly worded letters"

I have to say, there are generally two kinds of heroes: the very good heroes, like o-chul here, who can always do good stuff and when put in a difficult moral situation will find a way to solve it without doing anything bad. and the "dark and edgy" heroes who don't really care and will gladly backstab brainwashed mooks and punch-clock villains if it gets the job done. I've never seen sonething in between: a genuinely good hero who really cares about minimizing collateral damage who find himself in a situation where he has to do something deeply immoral, and can't find a way out.
To be clearer with an example, if the hero has captured a mook and desperately needs information, the good hero will manage to trick or bribe the mook; he may threaten torture, but he never, ever has to actually apply it. See for example o-chul with the two goblins, they decide to talk spontaneously out of fear they may be tortured. And the dark hero will just start torturing the mook; I'm not familiar with it, but I'm told jack bauer is a textbook example.
Well, I would like to have explored what happens if the good hero cannot just trick a confession and he has to actually torture the mook, or give up. will he regretfully torture the mook saying "eh, I tried all I could to avoid it, but the job needs to be done"? Will he not torture the mook, knowing that failure to get this information will result in lives being lost? will he torture the mook and then, at the end of it all, seek a tribunal and ask to be judged? how much bad stuff can the good hero do while still being the good hero, and how much the specific circumstances impact the answer? there's a lot of potential for character exploration by putting a hero in a situation where there are no clear moral ways out and not giving him some easy way out.

[Kish]

The scenario you propose has a hidden assumption that makes no sense: that torture somehow magically compels truthfulness. Logically, the "mook" would simply lie, or--in a case such as the one nominally under discussion where it's not even about information--quickly agree to take the "hero" to the Supreme Leader and actually lead him into an ambush.

...And actually, the comic did address the scenario you want, just not with an answer you're recognizing as an answer because it contradicts that hidden assumption: Guides who were there only because of fear proved crucially unreliable the first time they saw a chance to escape, and O-Chul recognized that it had been a mistake to think compelling cooperation with threats would work to begin with.

Beyond that, you seem to want Rich to have written a different story than he did. There are people who are willing to fight because they feel they have no choice; they're treated sympathetically. There are people who actually want war, and they're treated unsympathetically. If you think the latter just don't exist in real life...well, I can think of so many things I could say to that, and none of them can I say without violating the no-politics rule, so here we are.

[Sanctaphrax]

The ettin conversation has been edging towards real world politics for a while now (and I suppose I'm responsible for some of that...). It's an important conversation that should probably continue, but it can't continue here.

Alright, then. I'll drop that line.

which is way of an oversimplification actually. people don't want war per se, but they feel like they have no option. generally it starts because people from side A consider immoral that people from side B do something, and want them to stop. and people from side B consider that a violation of their independence and feel threatened. And the whole thing escalates.

No. Few wars work that way. Only one I can think of right now that did was the American Civil War.

Historically, I'm pretty sure the most common reasons for wars are "we want your land/stuff, and we'll kill you to get it" and "this region isn't big enough for the two of us".

Well, I would like to have explored what happens if the good hero cannot just trick a confession and he has to actually torture the mook, or give up. will he regretfully torture the mook saying "eh, I tried all I could to avoid it, but the job needs to be done"? Will he not torture the mook, knowing that failure to get this information will result in lives being lost? will he torture the mook and then, at the end of it all, seek a tribunal and ask to be judged? how much bad stuff can the good hero do while still being the good hero, and how much the specific circumstances impact the answer? there's a lot of potential for character exploration by putting a hero in a situation where there are no clear moral ways out and not giving him some easy way out.

He won't torture the mook, because not only is torture immoral, it doesn't work very well. There actually is an easy answer to the situation you propose.

If you want a real moral quandary, I suggest starting with a plague or famine. Quarantine is an inherently morally dubious concept, but it's often necessary. And there's no morally pure way to distribute food when there just isn't enough of it.

[Aedilred]

<snip>

Yeah, I think this is worth considering. The situation as presented in the story was actually rather straightforward in some respects, and contrived in such a way as to make Gin-Jun clearly in the wrong despite being a paladin. The inherent problems with such a premise were dealt with by making him so impervious to reason that he became a villain by default. So although it was difficult to accomplish for O-Chul, and his life was in danger, there wasn't that much of a moral quandary (beyond "is this a hill I'm prepared to die on?") for him.

Let's say the paladins' assumptions are justified, and the Crimson Mantle actually is in the encampment, with the hobbos prepared to defend it. They're denying it's there but this time Gin-Jun actually has some evidence rather than guessing and assumption. That's not much of a tweak to the scenario we see - but that would be a situation to give someone with a clear moral code something to chew over: while the Sapphire Guard's methods might come in for censure (as in SoD), to stand in their way would be to aid and abet the (presumed) destruction of the world. O-Chul might not know that, but we would.

I suppose it might be worth pointing out that in the long term O-Chul's actions here did result in the destruction of Azure City. The years of peace and prosperity resulting from the coup he enabled and agreement he brokered allowed the hobgoblins to develop from an irritation to an existential threat, and all it took was a change of leadership for them to turn on Azure City and conquer it.

I've never seen sonething in between: a genuinely good hero who really cares about minimizing collateral damage who find himself in a situation where he has to do something deeply immoral, and can't find a way out.
To be clearer with an example, if the hero has captured a mook and desperately needs information, the good hero will manage to trick or bribe the mook; he may threaten torture, but he never, ever has to actually apply it. See for example o-chul with the two goblins, they decide to talk spontaneously out of fear they may be tortured. And the dark hero will just start torturing the mook; I'm not familiar with it, but I'm told jack bauer is a textbook example.
Well, I would like to have explored what happens if the good hero cannot just trick a confession and he has to actually torture the mook, or give up. will he regretfully torture the mook saying "eh, I tried all I could to avoid it, but the job needs to be done"? Will he not torture the mook, knowing that failure to get this information will result in lives being lost? will he torture the mook and then, at the end of it all, seek a tribunal and ask to be judged? how much bad stuff can the good hero do while still being the good hero, and how much the specific circumstances impact the answer? there's a lot of potential for character exploration by putting a hero in a situation where there are no clear moral ways out and not giving him some easy way out.

I think 24 is the go-to example. Jack is constantly put in (again, often contrived) situations where he has to decide whether the ends justify the means - and usually, he decides that they do. He doesn't enjoy torturing baddies, but he will if it's necessary to stop the central plot. They did go a bit overboard with this in places, though, and infamously led to Kiefer Sutherland having to be drafted in to give anti-torture lectures to military personnel.

In a less extreme fashion, Doctor Who does this occasionally, though I think it's more common in the classic series. (In NuWho he is often put in what seem to be such positions, but usually manages to weasel out of them somehow). Particularly memorable for me at least was Warriors of the Deep, which was hilariously badly-produced, but more to the point, in order to save the lives of one group of innocents the Doctor has to kill a bunch of other people, because they're too stubborn to be reasoned with. There's no last-minute DEM, and the final shot of the serial is him looking distraught and wailing "there should have been another way!"

[King of Nowhere]

The scenario you propose has a hidden assumption that makes no sense: that torture somehow magically compels truthfulness. Logically, the "mook" would simply lie, or--in a case such as the one nominally under discussion where it's not even about information--quickly agree to take the "hero" to the Supreme Leader and actually lead him into an ambush.

...And actually, the comic did address the scenario you want, just not with an answer you're recognizing as an answer because it contradicts that hidden assumption: Guides who were there only because of fear proved crucially unreliable the first time they saw a chance to escape, and O-Chul recognized that it had been a mistake to think compelling cooperation with threats would work to begin with.

Beyond that, you seem to want Rich to have written a different story than he did. There are people who are willing to fight because they feel they have no choice; they're treated sympathetically. There are people who actually want war, and they're treated unsympathetically. If you think the latter just don't exist in real life...well, I can think of so many things I could say to that, and none of them can I say without violating the no-politics rule, so here we are.

that was an example that may or may not have been fully appropriate. The general principle stands: I would like to see genuinely good heroes having to struggle with moral issues without having an easy way out. Actually the example used by aedilred work better. There are similar themes in the works of brandon sanderson, like elend having to manage an empire while trying to be good, or dalinar trying to persuade the other highprinces to unite rather than beating them down. Even those stories were pretty much on the idealistic side, though.
And I'm not saying that I wanted rich to have written a different story. It was just a general consideration on storytelling: I know many stories that are way on the idealistic or cynical side of the fence, very few that try to stay in the middle.

As opposed to the good misogynists who don't hate women. Like Glasseshead.

Guess what. Misogyny is bad. All the time. Always. Universally. Nobody is hurt by pointing this out, except misogynists. And that pain truly does not matter.

Well, I think I'm seeing the point of (don't remember his name) after this. Yeah, we can all agree that misoginy is bad, but that doesn't make all misoginists bad people, because people are more complex than that, and even good people have flaws. Someone may be a good and caring person despite being dismissive and resentful towards women; just like roy can be good despite getting really annoyed at people, just like haley can be good despite stealing sometimes, just like o-chul can still be good despite being so fricking perfect that he triggers feelings of inadequacy in everybody he meets :) . I can imagine a racist person believing he belongs to a superior race, and deciding to go open a school in one of the less fortunate countries because he wants to "elevate" the "inferior races". this guy would be a good person in my book, despite his prejudice, and especially because his prejudice pushed him to do soemthing good rather than something bad. I'm using an example with racism because it's the best that comes to my mind.

And so trying to pass the message that a misoginyst is a completely bad person that has no redeeming qualities, and whatever redeeming quality he may have is actually a fake he uses to hide his true nature in a social context, is as prejudiced, close-minded and bigotic... well, as misoginy.

That said, I believe that reading the ettin scene as "there are people who pretend to be good to hide their true nature; misoginists are all like that and they cannot have good qualities" is a very, very big stretch.

[Friv]

I suppose it might be worth pointing out that in the long term O-Chul's actions here did result in the destruction of Azure City. The years of peace and prosperity resulting from the coup he enabled and agreement he brokered allowed the hobgoblins to develop from an irritation to an existential threat, and all it took was a change of leadership for them to turn on Azure City and conquer it.

I dunno. Without the support of an epic-level lich and his very high-level cleric wielding a godly artifact, the hobgoblins couldn't haven taken Azure City, and if the feuding nobles had devoted their resources to the city's defense instead of taking advantage to try assassinations and power plays, Azure City might still have stood. The hobgoblins were certainly a valuable weapon to Xykon, but I'm not convinced that he couldn't have found a different way to destroy Azure City with a bit more time and research. An assault of thousands of undead bolstered by zombie dragons and ghosts boiling out of the sewers would have been pretty devastating, too, and Redcloak was already poised to consider Azure City a primary target.

Meanwhile, an all-out war with the hobgoblins in that moment would have shattered them, but it would also have shattered Azure City's farms and outlying lands just as a major potential adversary was growing on their border, and probably devastated the Sapphire Guard. If O-Chul hadn't prevented the war, there might not have been an Azure City when Xykon finally arrived.

[Kish]

Also, the Realm of the Dragon might well have swept in and conquered what was left of both the hobgoblins and Azure City after the war ended. So...saying that a war then was the best approach is thoroughly speculative even from a purely tactical perspective which ignores morality entirely (a.k.a., somewhere O-Chul will not stand ever).

[Onyavar]

Huh. Well, maybe I'm wrong then. Maybe the ettin actually is intended to be a misogynist.

Yes, he is, but that is not the main point. The ettin is also a misanthropist, he hates ALL humans, not exclusively women. He's a bad person all around, only hurting others, taking their stuff, gorging on it and justifying his actions with "how-do-you-know-I-did-that-can-yu-prove-it" sophistry.

I'm still not convinced by Huitzil's take on who the ettin's meant to represent, though.

That's because he has no clue. He probably hasn't even read the comic, as he keeps repeating the same sentence, instead of a meaningful response. And since Huitzil still won't tell us who he thinks the ettin represents...

"The lies we tell about you justify lying about you. We don't have to listen to you asking us to stop lying about you, because the lies we tell about you say you should not be listened to. The only reason you can have to be upset about us lying about you is if the lies are true. The telling of this lie is so much more important than the truth that we refuse to even acknowledge the people saying it is a lie, and act as if they believe it is the truth."

All is lost. Have you forgotten all is lost? Because then observing anything at all in the world will remind you that all is lost.

You keep and keep requoting yourself, dude. Noodling the same sentence over and over doesn't make it true: Nobody's lying here. Rich is not lying, the ettin is not lying, Rich is not lying about the ettin, O-Chul, Zhou Bo and Kapoor aren't lying, or anything. You have proven that you have no idea what was going on in the comic, even. But are ready to critize the author for that. I'm done replying to you.

[Lissou]

Even having been told what the group in question is, I still don't see it. I can stretch it to see it as the Ettin representing a misogynistic member of that group, but certainly not a metaphor saying that all members of that group are misogynistic. And I can see it work for tons of other groups too.

Huitzil, you say the problem is that there are lies about your group. However I don't see which part you think is a lie. At no point does the ettin represent the whole group. What he is is what he is, and none of it is a lie. The reason people are baffled is because you identify with him, and then say you; re not like that. It would be like me, a French woman, identifying with a German character, and then being upset that the character is represented as German when I'm obviously not German but French. Well, yes, that's why the character never represented me in the first place. As far as I can tell, the same thing goes here. I still can't tell what you identify with at all. There is nothing sympathetic about him, and if some members of your group are like that, seems to me denouncing them is a good thing so that the rest of your group doesn't have to keep dealing with them.



The talk about character growth got me thinking. There is undeniably character growth for O-Chul in his mentioned backstory. How would that story have worked out, I wonder? Especially if we had thought the Sergeant was O-Chul and only learned later on that he was the kid. He could have gotten his scar in a moment that reminds him that people can change. Of course, it's not the story that we got, and I loved the story we got, but I wonder how that story would have worked. It may have had more of a "Start of Darkness" feel as far as character development goes, but... it would also have been largely unrelated to the story, which isn't necessarily a problem, but it seems that's not what the Giant was going for.

What do you guys think? Would you have enjoyed that story, or would it have been too cliché (as someone said of the backstory)?

[Aedilred]

I dunno. Without the support of an epic-level lich and his very high-level cleric wielding a godly artifact, the hobgoblins couldn't haven taken Azure City, and if the feuding nobles had devoted their resources to the city's defense instead of taking advantage to try assassinations and power plays, Azure City might still have stood.

I was working off comic 413 in which Hinjo and the general seem to consider that the hobbo attack on Azure City, at that point fully defended with the nobles' troops, is a roughly even fight before Xykon and the Undead are taken into account, which suggests that the hobgoblins would have stood a fair chance of destroying Azure City on their own.

And yeah, it's debatable whether Azure City could have afforded a war at the time of the new story either, although their concerns seem to be over farms and outlying settlements rather than the city itself. Losing those would be bad (and would cost civilian lives, which appears to be O-Chul's actual worry over it) but probably not enough to bring down the city, even if they're fighting with the Dragonites too.

[Lacuna Caster]

The scenario you propose has a hidden assumption that makes no sense: that torture somehow magically compels truthfulness. Logically, the "mook" would simply lie, or--in a case such as the one nominally under discussion where it's not even about information--quickly agree to take the "hero" to the Supreme Leader and actually lead him into an ambush.

Torture doesn't compel truthfulness, but the setting does have forms of magic that do, and it's not impossible to cross-reference testimony with other sources of information. I think there are strong long-term policy arguments against the use of torture, in terms of what it does to relations with the populace and your own internal culture, and I think most of the fictional scenarios that justify it are bad and stupid and contrived, but... it's not like double-agents or oracle prophecies don't have their own gotchas.

I think the more interesting moral tradeoff is actually in terms of what you do with the information- one of the major problems with the code-breaking intel from bletchley park was that it couldn't be used too blatantly without tipping off the axis that their codes had been broken... which occasionally required sacrificing thousands of troops in cases where their superiors had information that could have saved them. It's also not uncommon for police investigations to deliberately hold off on low-level busts in the hope of building a case against ringleaders in a criminal organisation... which can involve turning a blind eye to various acts of crime, petty and otherwise.

I suppose it might be worth pointing out that in the long term O-Chul's actions here did result in the destruction of Azure City. The years of peace and prosperity resulting from the coup he enabled and agreement he brokered allowed the hobgoblins to develop from an irritation to an existential threat, and all it took was a change of leadership for them to turn on Azure City and conquer it.

I dunno. Without the support of an epic-level lich and his very high-level cleric wielding a godly artifact, the hobgoblins couldn't haven taken Azure City, and if the feuding nobles had devoted their resources to the city's defense instead of taking advantage to try assassinations and power plays, Azure City might still have stood. The hobgoblins were certainly a valuable weapon to Xykon, but I'm not convinced that he couldn't have found a different way to destroy Azure City with a bit more time and research. An assault of thousands of undead bolstered by zombie dragons and ghosts boiling out of the sewers would have been pretty devastating, too, and Redcloak was already poised to consider Azure City a primary target.

There's been some contention on this point, but while Xykon & RC alone could probably have taken Azure City with a little thought and preparation, we don't actually see them do that- Xykon solos the throne room and gets nixxed by Soon, so that the hobgoblins and RC were basically tackling the city by themselves. It's also not unknown for pre-emptive strikes against lower-tech adversaries to go either way, setting aside how compatible that is with the paladin code, so while it's possible that fewer hobgoblins would make the difference between victory and defeat, but there are too many variables in the equation to be sure of anything. (More broadly, one can argue that Redcloak might not bear the mantle and Xykon might not exist if not for the crusades.)

From what I can gather, I'm not inclined to blame O-Chul for long-term contingent events it would be difficult to predict.

[factotum]

I think what it comes down to is casualties. With Xykon, Redcloak and arguably Miko helping out, the hobgoblins lost around 10,000 troops to take the city defended by 10,000 soldiers, Sapphire Guard, and the Order. Without Team Evil it's entirely possible they would still have taken the city, but would have lost a considerably larger proportion of their strength doing so--maybe to the extent that they wouldn't in turn have been able to keep the city safe from counterattack.

[Huitzil]

Even having been told what the group in question is, I still don't see it. I can stretch it to see it as the Ettin representing a misogynistic member of that group, but certainly not a metaphor saying that all members of that group are misogynistic. And I can see it work for tons of other groups too.

Huitzil, you say the problem is that there are lies about your group. However I don't see which part you think is a lie. At no point does the ettin represent the whole group. What he is is what he is, and none of it is a lie. The reason people are baffled is because you identify with him, and then say you; re not like that. It would be like me, a French woman, identifying with a German character, and then being upset that the character is represented as German when I'm obviously not German but French. Well, yes, that's why the character never represented me in the first place. As far as I can tell, the same thing goes here. I still can't tell what you identify with at all. There is nothing sympathetic about him, and if some members of your group are like that, seems to me denouncing them is a good thing so that the rest of your group doesn't have to keep dealing with them.

The Lie That Is More Important Than Truth is "these people are misogynists and hate women, and should be excluded from empathy. They have no perception or feelings beyond their desire to harm women and everything they say should be discarded; they should be punished for being perceptible. Every time they protest that they do not do harmful acts it is a lie meant to enable their evil compatriots to do harmful acts." This is a lie. It is not true. It is a lie.

The portrayal of the ettin maps perfectly with one hundred percent accuracy to The Lie That Is More Important Than The Truth. I have noticed this trait, and have acted like a person who noticed that. Your defenses are just the standard defenses of The Lie That Is More Important Than The Truth. "You are not permitted to notice us telling this lie. If you notice it, it MUST mean the lie is true about you, and you should be shamed and punished. The telling of the lie justifies the telling of the lie. We do not have to listen to you asking us to stop lying about you, because the lie we tell tells us we don't have to listen to you."

"If you're a French person who isn't a pretentious beret-wearing jerk who never bathes and hates everyone from outside France, then obviously the comic isn't about YOU, and if you identify with that at all it must mean you ARE a pretentious beret-wearing jerk who never bathes and hates everyone from outside France, and you should take a long, hard look at yourself."

"If you'e a gay marriage advocate who doesn't want to marry their dog, then obviously the comic isn't about YOU, and if you identify with that at all it must mean you DO want to marry your dog, and you should take a long, hard look at yourself."

"If you're a woman who doesn't use her womanhood as an excuse to be a conniving, backstabbing liar, then obviously this comic isn't about YOU, and if you identify with that at all it must mean you DO use your womanhood as an excuse to be a conniving, backstabbing liar, and you should take a long, hard look at yourself."

"If you're a liberal who doesn't want Muslims to destroy Western civilization, then obviously this comic isn't about YOU, and if you identify with that at all it must mean you DO want Muslims to destroy Western civilization, and you should take a long, hard look at yourself."

You would be able to recognize "Hey, this is a popular lie used to demonize people and exclude them from empathy, this person is reacting to the repetition of that lie" in any of those other cases, but not here. Because you resist those lies, and you don't want to exclude those people from empathy. But here, because this lie is so much more important than the truth, you're just incapable of recognizing the same thing.

[Peelee]

The Lie That Is More Important Than Truth is "these people are misogynists and hate women, and should be excluded from empathy. They have no perception or feelings beyond their desire to harm women and everything they say should be discarded; they should be punished for being perceptible. Every time they protest that they do not do harmful acts it is a lie meant to enable their evil compatriots to do harmful acts." This is a lie. It is not true. It is a lie.

Who the hell are "these people?" Because I'm not seeing it.

Also, there were perceptions and feelings besides desire to harm women; there was also desire to harm O-Chul, which I can't help but notice is not a woman. Kind of undercuts your diatribe there.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The Lie That Is More Important Than Truth is "these people are misogynists and hate women, and should be excluded from empathy. They have no perception or feelings beyond their desire to harm women and everything they say should be discarded; they should be punished for being perceptible. Every time they protest that they do not do harmful acts it is a lie meant to enable their evil compatriots to do harmful acts." This is a lie. It is not true. It is a lie.

Nope. The message is "people who complain that they are not to blame for the actions of other members of their group, with which they agree in everything and which they assist underhandedly (even if the publicly denounce them), are to blame for aiding and abetting them".

So, think American History X: there are two groups of racist: the skinheads who go about attacking black people, and the nicely-dressed, rich old white men who fund them, pass laws to protect them, and yet publicly "denounce them", while of course doing nothing to stop them, and coming up with excuses (such as the ettin's "I just happen to want to walk in the same direction with my half of the body") when they are caught helping them.

You can map the Ettin's actions to every such duality of groups, one which tacitly supports while publicly denouncing the other. Racist, homophobes, transphobes, xenophobes, mysoginists, etc. You cannot simply declare that this duality is "a Lie" and expect the rest of us to just take you at your word. No amount of pretentious capitalization will change the fact that such groups are well documented, and are actively operating today, as they have been since the Roman patricians attempted to shut the plebeians out of the censor office (and I'm sure they existed even before that).

For the record, I do believe that any member of a group who can be described as hating a different societal group just because they are different and worse off than they themselves are - whether that be women, foreigners, LGBT, or whatever other arbitrary division - do NOT deserve empathy but, contra what you claim, I can accept that they do have other perceptions and feelings. They are just irrelevant, so long as they continue to hurt others for no other reason than their ability to do so and the belief that they are somehow better than those other groups.

Grey Wolf

[Lacuna Caster]

Look, dudes- Huitzil needs to be able to say exactly what affronted group he claims membership of before any usefully specific claims or counter-claims can be presented, and there's no way to have to that conversation without the thread being locked. Take it outside.

I think what it comes down to is casualties. With Xykon, Redcloak and arguably Miko helping out, the hobgoblins lost around 10,000 troops to take the city defended by 10,000 soldiers, Sapphire Guard, and the Order. Without Team Evil it's entirely possible they would still have taken the city, but would have lost a considerably larger proportion of their strength doing so--maybe to the extent that they wouldn't in turn have been able to keep the city safe from counterattack.

The contention from Aedilred was that O-Chul might have caused the defeat of Azure City by allowing the hobgoblins to grow as an unchecked power over the next twelve years, not that Team Evil couldn't have swung the battle.

[Doran]

...sweet Thor... too many words...

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.

Spoiler: Final journey into the Ettenmoor

Show

Huitizil, if I'm understanding correctly, the above quote + the right ettin head (REH) saying bitch is revealed to be a jerk is your issue. So that,

1. Straight from Rich, a character saying bitch in OOTS is likely to mean they are misogynist or as a villian identifier.
2. REH uses sophistry and hyprocrisy
3. REH is an misogynist for saying bitch
4. Groups you identity with use or are stereotyped to use sophistry and hyprocrisy
5. Groups you identitity as a part of use, or look like they use sophistry or hypocrisy, so Rich is saying these groups are misogynist, using the ettin encounter

You appear to be performing a Miko here with your plus 20 jumping to conclusions - you seem to have been looking for evidence to support your conclusion "Rich will use his comic to attack groups I am a part of by tarring them with the word misogynist".

You have clear evidence for 1) and 2) above, but 3-5 are a lot more shaky, because they are all based on a single word. What if, Rich just wanted a clear villian/antagonist signifier for the REH in that panel - because even a good man might mourn his headmate in the heat of the manner, and defaulted to a villain signifier as mentioned in his quote. Thus the point isn't the REH is a misogynist, but that he is a villian. Poor writing possibly, but they are in the middle of combat.

As for 3-5, if you take that one panel, you might also say those groups are stereotyped as having two heads, lurking near cliffs, and welding huge clubs.

EDIT:...sweet Thor... too many words...

[Gray Mage]

The contention from Aedilred was that O-Chul might have caused the defeat of Azure City by allowing the hobgoblins to grow as an unchecked power over the next twelve years, not that Team Evil couldn't have swung the battle.

Eh, I personally think that without Team Evil Azure City would have a massive advantage. Firstly the beacons would be intact so they could have prepared more and called in reinforcements. Secondly no Redcloak means no breach so the hobgoblins would need to keep trying to climb the walls. The paladins might have joined the battle. And while that is no guarantee of a win it'd certainly be a vastly different fight.