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

[Lacuna Caster]

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.

Again, the point being suggested was that the hobgoblins were a decisive factor in the destruction of Azure City. No-one is suggesting that the epic Lich and his associates weren't a major asset to their side.

[Sanctaphrax]

I do think there's a moral there, but it's not that they should've attacked the hobgoblins pre-emptively. It's that the whole "that's tomorrow's problem" attitude Shojo took at the end was a really bad one.

Bit of diplomacy, or a bit of espionage, might've gone a long way. Especially since goblin generations are so short; social change happens faster when the population's turnover is faster.

[Friv]

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.

This is a bit of a quibble - but even there, Hinjo is taking time to draw attention to the undead that are in the army, especially the ghouls. Those undead exist largely because Xykon is a spontaneous-casting necromancer and can raise huge numbers of undead troops on a consistent basis.

[hamishspence]

Fortifications make a big difference. I think the rule of thumb for sieges that I've read was:

"you need to outnumber opponent 3-1 just to have a reasonable chance of winning"

[Cizak]

"This character is a misogynist. That must mean he represents a group that is often lied about as being misogynists... instead of... actually representing... a misogynist."

[Lissou]

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.

I would be able to recognize a stereotypes in cases where something is a common stereotype. If you told me "people will soon marry dogs" and asked what that person is bigoted about, I would have two guesses and the group would probably be one of the two. However in your case, I just don't see the group you're talking about. Not even as one of two or three big groups. The fact is, wanting to marry dogs isn't actually a common thing, whether in the group stereotyped or in other groups. Being a misogynist is so common that most people in this thread still have no idea which group it's talking about, and even people who have been directly told like me still can't see it.
I don't think you're a misogynist, and I'm not saying people have never called you or people like you misogynistic. But I still don't see the ettin as being meant to represent you. And if the ettin was merely stinky, I wouldn't think he's meant to be a French person. It would take him having a French accent or something. And even then, I probably wouldn't think he's meant to represent all French people. In your case, there is a the misogyny, and... what else? That's the question I'm asking here, and no, I'm not saying "you're only seeing yourself in this because you're actually a misogynist". I am actually asking, what is the "French accent" in this scene? What are the clues, other that than one word that yes, I can absolutely believe the Giant put here to leave no doubt that the ettin is a bad guy. But again, misogyny is so incredibly common that I need more than that to think of a specific group, and it seems like most of the thread does too.

People aren't saying "I know which group you mean and they do hate women". They are unable to figure out what group you mean we're told hates women, except women-haters in the first place. Again, that doesn't mean your group has never been called that, just that it's not unique in that fashion. For instance, I don't have children. I've been called selfish for that on so many occasions that if I ever need to defend my decision not to have children, I expect the first argument to be that I'm selfish. But if I see someone portrayed as selfish, I don't think they're representing people without children, because that's just too vague and too common.

So if you can't explain the details of how you know here, could you PM me the details? I actually do want to know. I'm not trying to silence you, I'm trying to understand you. As it is, I can't help but feel like if the Giant is reading this whole thing, he also has no clue what group is being talked about.

[Kish]

I'm pretty close to saying I know which group he means and they do hate women, because as far as I can tell the group he's offended on behalf of--is misogynists. But whether the right ettin head stands in for Kinder, Gentler Misogynists or not, there's no logic to repeating over and over that a negative view of misogynists is a lie; if there was logic tireless repetition as a substitute for logic would not be necessary.

[SaintRidley]

I'm pretty close to saying I know which group he means and they do hate women, because as far as I can tell the group he's offended on behalf of--is misogynists. But whether the right ettin head stands in for Kinder, Gentler Misogynists or not, there's no logic to repeating over and over that a negative view of misogynists is a lie; if there was logic tireless repetition as a substitute for logic would not be necessary.

Yup. If he was saying "tarring us all with the misogynist brush is a lie! #notallwhatevers" that would be one thing.*

This is "tarring misogynists with the 'that's bad brush' is a lie." Which is frankly and objectively wrong and stupid.

*It would not be a terribly convincing thing, since #notallwhatevers is just another formulation of Right Head's strategy.

[Lissou]

It's not misogynists, which is why I asked what characteristics make the group recognizable in the ettin, because I have no idea.

[Lacuna Caster]

Okay, at this point I'm just gonna pray for the mods to come in and do a scrubbin'.

I do think there's a moral there, but it's not that they should've attacked the hobgoblins pre-emptively. It's that the whole "that's tomorrow's problem" attitude Shojo took at the end was a really bad one.

Shojo seemed to have that attitude with most of the problems he was juggling, which is particularly baffling given that he's not exactly a spring chicken.

I'm really not sure what diplomacy or espionage could accomplish, though, aside from possibly rewriting the rules of succession for Supreme Leadership? Even then, "work for me or I will vaporise anyone who disagrees" is a difficult offer to refuse, and Xykon loves making it.

[Lissou]

Shojo seemed to have that attitude with most of the problems he was juggling, which is particularly baffling given that he's not exactly a spring chicken.

I'm really not sure what diplomacy or espionage could accomplish, though, aside from possibly rewriting the rules of succession for Supreme Leadership? Even then, "work for me or I will vaporise anyone who disagrees" is a difficult offer to refuse, and Xykon loves making it.

Well, there may have been ways to work on Azure City's end to make it less weak against hobgoblins. However I'm not sure if that would have worked in the end, considering even that wouldn't have taken Xykon and Redcloak into account.

[Peelee]

Okay, at this point I'm just gonna pray for the mods to come in and do a scrubbin'.

You could always use that nifty Report button for anything you think crossed the line, in addition to prayer.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'm really not sure what diplomacy or espionage could accomplish, though, aside from possibly rewriting the rules of succession for Supreme Leadership? Even then, "work for me or I will vaporise anyone who disagrees" is a difficult offer to refuse, and Xykon loves making it.

Revealing the crimes of the new supreme leader might've helped undermine him.

That aside, the ideal would be to make the hobgoblins friendly enough that they'd rather run from Xykon than work for him. That's probably asking too much, but a bit of diplomacy could at least have blunted the invaders' enthusiasm. The situation in the present day, where the hobgoblins love Redcloak and actively want to do his bidding, seems avoidable.

[Kish]

Undermining the new supreme leader would only have made sense from a perspective of "wait, I take it back, we do want war," which--even if it was morally viable and logically sound--would have been far more easily accomplished by attacking the hobgoblins.

The obvious approach for a good person who didn't want another hot war with the hobgoblins today or tomorrow would have been to try to end the cold war as well and turn the hobgoblins into allies, but while that might have been within Shojo's power, it was far beyond O-Chul's.

[Sanctaphrax]

Bear in mind, the new supreme leader was thinking of blaming the Azurites for poisoning the previous supreme leader. If you don't want war, I think it's best to avoid accepting that kind of blame.

And anyway, morally it's not great to let the priests of evil gods poison their way into supreme executive power. Even if their victims are also bad people.

Chances are removing the new supreme leader would cause a return to the previous state of the hobgoblins. Hostile, but not warring.

[Huitzil]

Yup. If he was saying "tarring us all with the misogynist brush is a lie! #notallwhatevers" that would be one thing.*

This is "tarring misogynists with the 'that's bad brush' is a lie." Which is frankly and objectively wrong and stupid.

*It would not be a terribly convincing thing, since #notallwhatevers is just another formulation of Right Head's strategy.

"This person has repeatedly said calling a certain group -- a group he's literally not allowed to name because that is how important it is to make it clear they are to be excluded from empathy, make it impossible to discuss them -- misogynists is a lie. The only way this makes sense is if he is a misogynist and wants us to not think misogynists are bad, so therefore, he is wrong and stupid."

The lie is so much more important than the truth it obliterates the ability to think. This leap of antilogic would be self-humiliating if it wasn't in service to the lie, because that is how important the lie is. The lie is sacred. The lie annihilates all that oppose it. The lie is invincible, inassailable, and inexhaustible.

When a transgender person says that the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity mini arc made them feel like a joke, it was a good thing to show them empathy and not make such jokes again. But the people who are lied about have negative moral weight, so when we call for empathy, we must always make clear that they are excluded, empathy does not exist for them, all are to hold them in contempt, never listen to what they say, and repeat the important lie. It will never occur to any of you, even now that I point it out, that there might be anything inconsistent. That is how important the lie is. It annihilates anything that might contradict it. It grants negative moral weight to the subjects of the lie. It can never ever ever ever ever ever be defeated because not believing the lie is literally impossible for you to imagine.

And then you act like it's some bizarre, dismissible personal quirk of mine to think that all is lost and that people are motivated by punishing the unpopular? Are you capable of observation? It literally just happened! Just now! It never ever stops happening!

[B. Dandelion]

Well, I loved it. I wasn't expecting anything less, but it still delivered. It was entertaining, it was thoughtful, it was hopeful -- you know, as much as I like SOD, in our current world environment I'm not sure my spirit could take another soul-crushingly depressing ending like that one. This ending was slightly melancholy but still overall uplifting. Things are often dark lately, I like for OOTS to be a beacon of light that things can work out if people work hard at doing the right thing. Thank you, Giant. I feel like I needed that.

[Fey]

It's not misogynists, which is why I asked what characteristics make the group recognizable in the ettin, because I have no idea.

You might understand what he's referring to if you check this link. I don't care to quote the post it leads to, but it makes much more clear what he's talking about and what the "group he's not allowed to name" is.

[SavageWombat]

You know, it is kind of unfair to the ettin. He didn't choose to be attached to a head that was violent and uncivilized. He was born that way.

Maybe the polite head could have chosen to apologize for, or ameliorate, the angry head, but that would be an awful lot to ask of anyone.

Now, of course, if the polite head could have decided NOT to be attached to the angry head, or painlessly separated himself from it and walked away - that would be a more damning situation, don't you think?

[Domino Quartz]

Huitzil, why is it that you are so certain that the ettin is a reference to this group? That's something I would really like to know. It didn't even occur to me that it could be a reference to any group in particular when I first read it, and I'm still having difficulty with that now.

[ref]

Concede, don't feed.

[factotum]

Bear in mind, the new supreme leader was thinking of blaming the Azurites for poisoning the previous supreme leader. If you don't want war, I think it's best to avoid accepting that kind of blame.

But we know that didn't actually lead to war--the new Supreme Leader was true to his word and no hobgoblin army attacked Azure City for 12 years after the events here. It wasn't until the leader was replaced by Redcloak that the war started.

[Huitzil]

Huitzil, why is it that you are so certain that the ettin is a reference to this group? That's something I would really like to know. It didn't even occur to me that it could be a reference to any group in particular when I first read it, and I'm still having difficulty with that now.

"They are connected to people who are bad and do evil, support them doing this, pretend not to notice or be involved, ask that people engage with them honestly while allowing their evil counterparts to be evil because any time they ask to be treated like people it's just a way to allow them to hurt women, and when pressed at all they reveal they just do what they do out of desire to hurt women" is exactly and specifically the Sacred Lie that is told about this group. I was able to predict "Oh, I bet this ettin head is going to be revealed to hate women for no reason" before it happened because it mapped so closely to the Sacred Lie. Every time a member of one of these groups says "stop lying about me" or "why can't you treat me like I am a person who is alive", they are dismissed and made a figure of contempt, because of exactly this thing here, exactly this thing. Because the lie "every time they claim not to be doing wrong things, it's just a cover to allow them to do wrong things. The wrongdoers and the people asking to be treated like human beings are the same entity, and you should feel contempt for them and never extend empathy to them and never ever stop telling lies about them, because when they object that telling lies about how they hurt people is wrong, they are just trying to get away with hurting people." This is the lie that is told. But the lie is so important you can't even entertain the idea of noticing it as a hypothetical.

[SavageWombat]

I'm sure the right ettin head feels like a persecuted victim too.

[ti'esar]

But we know that didn't actually lead to war--the new Supreme Leader was true to his word and no hobgoblin army attacked Azure City for 12 years after the events here. It wasn't until the leader was replaced by Redcloak that the war started.

I think the point was that the Supreme Leader (and Shojo) didn't really try to build the foundation for a lasting peace between the hobgoblins and Azure City that could have withstood some more warlike leader such as Redcloak rising to power.

Though honestly that's a bit reductive.

[Douglas]

The Mod Radiant: All right, that's enough, I'm stopping this before it becomes open flaming.

I do not have any certain knowledge of whether or not the Ettin was intended to refer to any particular real world group, but regardless of that, the discussion here is tending to increasingly less veiled references to real world political issues, and that is officially an Inappropriate Topic here per the Forum Rules.

Both sides of this argument, drop the subject, now. Discussion of the Ettin exclusively within the context of the story - how it might relate to the Sapphire Guard's behavior, for example - may continue. Further discussion of possible real world references of it, regardless of which side you're arguing on, will be Infracted and scrubbed.

[B. Dandelion]

Would I be the only one thinking that there might be some kind of foreshadowing in the fact that it is noted at several points that O-Chul, unlike most of his other companions, makes it a point to learn the names of the goblins around him? On the one hand, it's a clever shorthand to show how conscientious O-Chul is. On the other hand... heh.

[Juggling Goth]

Just logged in to say this was the Kickstarter reward I was always most excited about, and I absolutely loved it. I loved the confirmation that O-Chul was, basically, always kind and pragmatic and self-sacrificing, even before he was a paladin. I loved baby Hinjo and baby Miko (I gasped out loud when Miko appeared). I loved the extra context to Redcloak's choices - so he usurped a Supreme Leader who'd made peace with Azurites, so he spent months torturing the guy who reformed the Sapphire Guard so what happened to his village could never happen again. I loved O-Chul and Hinjo's 'welp, that's terrifying' drinking session.

Thanks, Giant!

[Cozzer]

It's kinda sad that I opened this thread not asking myself if the Ettin discussion would have sidetracked the conversation until a mod was forced to intervene, but asking myself when that would happen.

That said, this whole sidestory was great! Don't have much to add, just wanted to join that particular chorus.

[Lacuna Caster]

You could always use that nifty Report button for anything you think crossed the line, in addition to prayer.

I ain't no stinkin' rat!

That aside, the ideal would be to make the hobgoblins friendly enough that they'd rather run from Xykon than work for him. That's probably asking too much, but a bit of diplomacy could at least have blunted the invaders' enthusiasm. The situation in the present day, where the hobgoblins love Redcloak and actively want to do his bidding, seems avoidable.

An-y-way... On a totally tangential note which has nooothing to do with the Ettin, I would like to emphasise that the process of interference in Hobgoblin politics by an external foreign power would be fraught with hazard unless one had a deep understanding of the niceties of local culture and traditional loyalties.

For example, if we had a heterogenous population of these yellow-skinned fangy people- some of whom like Gouda, some of whom like Transparency- and imagined they were living under the heel of, say, a corrupt monarchy, under which they conspicuously failed to revolt despite generations of emperors who were lividly and flagrantly corrupt, then... one could still imagine a scenario where a foreign advisor who happened to be anti-Gouda, if suspected of improper conduct, could have the populace diving for torches and pitchforks with surprising speed. One might even forgive outside observers for concluding that yellow-skinned fangy people must not, on average, have cared about Transparency that much relative to their fondness for Gouda, even if you couldn't necessarily condemn any individual member of that group, or reliably conclude that Gouda was their sole motive. Thus leading to all kinds of hurtful and unnecessary stereotypes of yellow-skinned fangy people. Who mostly like Gouda.

I'm sure we all agree that Gouda is an objectively terrible cheese, and should be stricken from the palettes of all civilised men. (And women.) But I am not certain that intentionally alienating whatever members of this demographic might actually be sympathetic to kitchen reform is an ideal political strategy, so one would hope that Azure City doesn't put up propaganda posters that deliberately play on their citizens' utterly justified distaste for this vile comestible to tar all hobgoblins with the same broad brush. Because frankly, it's not like Azurite nobility has been Exhibit A for Transparency.

It's also difficult to imagine how any individual pro-Transparency member of the yellow-skinned fangy people, however anti-Gouda, can really avoid 'collaborating' with the less gustatorily refined members of their species: the most they can do is argue hard for accountability in government, and point out that Roquefort has both a delicious tang and edible rind. In the meantime, they worship at the same altars, trade goods and services, and all get drafted in times of war- if they go about spiking the Gouda supply, they're likely to be lynched.

Sometimes you have to pick your battles, I guess.