OOTS #1114 - The Discussion Thread

[hroþila]

I think it's implied that Ivan's clan could have prevented the divorce if they had wanted to, and that the only reason they didn't is because their marital links with Hilgya's clan wouldn't get them no money no more. If that's correct, bankrupting her own clan does look like a perfectly legitimate and proportionate strategy. It's even a pretty mild one for whoever was directly responsible for her forced marriage. I still think she's Evil, but I don't think this particular action was.

As for whose clan hall was going to go down in flames, I agree it's the Firehelms'. Hilgya was "avenging for two", and she had no feud with Ivan's clan - killing them wouldn't be revenge, it would just have been an expedient way to get out of the marriage.

edit: Anyway, I LOL'ed at Ivan in this strip. Classic Ivan.

[Sienar]

Man... this friggin game....

Man... this friggin forum....

Did some Google searching and this shows up:

"The Jellomancer"

I can't link yet, but apparently Demonic_Spoon put some extensive thinking into using the amulet.

Nuggets like these are why I end up spending way too much time reading posts here.

[The_Weirdo]

I think it's implied that Ivan's clan could have prevented the divorce if they had wanted to, and that the only reason they didn't is because their marital links with Hilgya's clan wouldn't get them no money no more. If that's correct, bankrupting her own clan does look like a perfectly legitimate and proportionate strategy. It's even a pretty mild one for whoever was directly responsible for her forced marriage. I still think she's Evil, but I don't think this particular action was.

As for whose clan hall was going to go down in flames, I agree it's the Firehelms'. Hilgya was "avenging for two", and she had no feud with Ivan's clan - killing them wouldn't be revenge, it would just have been an expedient way to get out of the marriage.

edit: Anyway, I LOL'ed at Ivan in this strip. Classic Ivan.

Or at the very least made it more inconvenient for her to obtain it (bearing in mind that, given who her two lawyers were, preventing is more likely here)... Regardless, she also did it for revenge - she did speak of avenging for two - and destitution is worse than death because you have to live with it.

Now, while I, personally, fully condone her revenge (maybe except for being too mild), I also cannot help but notice that people are still calling Hilgya Evil FOR it (not your case) and going "oh, what about the innocents", even though the first innocents in this situation were... Hilgya and Ivan.

[Peelee]

The innocents can take it up with the rest of the clan. Hilgya had to buy her freedom.

Nope. The innocents are being oppressed by Hilgya, which means FPS the world, IIRC. You didn't seem too concerned with how far back said oppression originally stemmed from before, so surely there's no reason to start now.

[The_Weirdo]

Nope. The innocents are being oppressed by Hilgya, which means FPS the world, IIRC. You didn't seem too concerned with how far back said oppression originally stemmed from before, so surely there's no reason to start now.

Fair enough. But, still, the clans started it...

Annnnd, more to the point, the innocents would have to know...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

As for whose clan hall was going to go down in flames, I agree it's the Firehelms'. Hilgya was "avenging for two", and she had no feud with Ivan's clan - killing them wouldn't be revenge, it would just have been an expedient way to get out of the marriage.

They were presumably as responsible for the forced marriage as her own clan - at least in Hilgya's biased view of things, if not in actual reality - and therefore she had plenty of reason to want to revenge herself on them too. My argument about talking about their clan hall rather than our clan hall remains.

Grey Wolf

[Kish]

Errr... no, I've read it again, and I'm fairly certain that when she says "my first idea of setting their clan hall on fire", the "their" in that sentence refers to "Ivan's clan" (subject two sentences prior), not her clan, who she does not refer to as "them" but "my" (brother/family/clan/etc.)

Grey Wolf

If she considered burning one clan and then bankrupted a different one, that makes her look less rational, to me anyway, but then, I would hope no one would argue that Hilgya is terribly rational.

[Jasdoif]

I think it's implied that Ivan's clan could have prevented the divorce if they had wanted to, and that the only reason they didn't is because their marital links with Hilgya's clan wouldn't get them no money no more. If that's correct, bankrupting her own clan does look like a perfectly legitimate and proportionate strategy. It's even a pretty mild one for whoever was directly responsible for her forced marriage.

I would also note that unless she spent an overwhelming majority of her winnings on legal fees, she could have the means to secure homes for relatives of her choosing (like those who didn't/couldn't have had a hand in arranging the marriage to Ivan). Maybe even the entire clan, if for whatever reason she saw fit to; she was a midlevel adventurer who just hit a 70:1 win, non-magical expenses aren't likely to be a huge problem for her.

We're probably not going to see any aftermath (or relative lack thereof) unless Hilgya's family becomes more important to the story in their own right, though.

[The_Weirdo]

They were presumably as responsible for the forced marriage as her own clan - at least in Hilgya's biased view of things, if not in actual reality - and therefore she had plenty of reason to want to revenge herself on them too. My argument about talking about their clan hall rather than our clan hall remains.

Grey Wolf

Why wouldn't they be??? That Hilgya seems to have decided not to attack Ivan's clan is an act of mercy on her part, really, or even an act of "screw-this-I-don't-wanna-deal-with-it", but, even assuming Hilgya is a Book of Vile Darkness character, why wouldn't the other clan be exactly as responsible???

[Jasder]

It's not completely clear whether the 'their clan hall' refers to her family or her husband's. Either is possible, because Hilgya might well not think of her family's clan hall as her's. Either way, it's also unclear how violent an act this would have been. How many people live in the clan hall? The entire clan, however large that is? Or is the hall just a meeting place, with maybe a few members? Is it where the head of the clan lives? I don't think these are known from the comic.

The point is, I don't think Hilgya's actions or her potential actions were totally unreasonable. They're not good, but I don't see them as evil either. Not cartoonishly evil, and not realistic evil either. She's blase about it, but that's not a sign of evil anymore than it is a sign of good. She's not gleeful and she's not regretful, she's neutral about it, because she's neutral.

That's how I see it anyway.

[The_Weirdo]

It's not completely clear whether the 'their clan hall' refers to her family or her husband's. Either is possible, because Hilgya might well not think of her family's clan hall as her's. Either way, it's also unclear how violent an act this would have been. How many people live in the clan hall? The entire clan, however large that is? Or is the hall just a meeting place, with maybe a few members? Is it where the head of the clan lives? I don't think these are known from the comic.

The point is, I don't think Hilgya's actions or her potential actions were totally unreasonable. They're not good, but I don't see them as evil either. Not cartoonishly evil, and not realistic evil either. She's blase about it, but that's not a sign of evil anymore than it is a sign of good. She's not gleeful and she's not regretful, she's neutral about it, because she's neutral.

That's how I see it anyway.

Well, to be sure, if you consider murdering an innocent and plan on it and then speak calmly about it, that would usually show you as Evil.

The key word here being innocent. Hilgya has every reason to hate the clans with a passion and anyone that's not a Vulcan would be fairly indiscriminate about whom among the clans they hated, so it's not exactly a big deal for her to talk so calmly about it and it might show quite a bit of restraint on her part that she didn't go through with it.

[Nymrod]

There are liquids that can be breathed. Given how they eat they might not mind creatures breathing them; eating inside and out!

There is an entry on how it is done in the relevant book, I think it's small enough that I can legally reproduce it without issue.

"The amulet activates a force sphere whenever the wearer comes in contact with an ooze. Then, with some effort, the rider nudges the sphere to the center of the cube and rides safely inside. It takes 1 minute to fully mount or dismount a gelatinous cube; once inside, a cube rider can't be dislodged by any normal means."
"Gelatinous cubes are air-permeable, so breathing is never an issue. However, carrying a rider disorients a cube's ability to find prey by scent - everything smells like food when an organic creature occupies its center. Denied their sense of smell, occupied cubes sense prey solely through vibration.
Although cubes are nonintelligent [sic] they can be directed. "Steering" a gelatinous cube is an odd art. Taking advantage of the cube's impaired senses, a rider creates vibrations within its mass by banging on the force sphere"

So essentially they sit inside a bubble of force which fully protects them from acid or paralysis, they can breathe fine, and to direct the cube they just bang the force field around to fool the poor ooze into thinking it sensed food in that direction.

[zimmerwald1915]

Destituting the people that forced her to marry at crossbow point to get free from it. That's not Good or Evil, it's something anyone would do in her place, and it does not speak to her alignment in any way.

There's an argument to be made that a Good person would have submitted to the marriage under certain circumstances, given that Good "makes personal sacrifices to help others." I'd venture a guess that most Good people would not, however, have done so in this situation, where the family seemingly had little to lose from not marrying off their daughter.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

If she considered burning one clan and then bankrupted a different one, that makes her look less rational, to me anyway, but then, I would hope no one would argue that Hilgya is terribly rational.

Well, she didn't need to bankrupt both families to have leverage for divorce: one would do. It seems her angles of approach were abusing her brother's gambling problem or arson of Ivan's clan. Maybe her own clan's hall is made out of stone instead of fallen enemies' bodies (i.e. trees) and thus arson wasn't an option there?

Hilgya might well not think of her family's clan hall as her's.

Again: she thinks of her clan as hers: "by my clan's sudden destitution" (8th panel). No reason to say she thinks of her clan as still hers, but not her clan hall.

Why wouldn't they be??? That Hilgya seems to have decided not to attack Ivan's clan is an act of mercy on her part, really, or even an act of "screw-this-I-don't-wanna-deal-with-it", but, even assuming Hilgya is a Book of Vile Darkness character, why wouldn't the other clan be exactly as responsible???

You believe that genocide is either a proportional response to forced marriage or a valid argumentative approach. I therefore feel that attempting to explain things to you is not going to end well. Please don't bother trying to talk to me again.

Yours,

Grey Wolf

[The_Weirdo]

There's an argument to be made that a Good person would have submitted to the marriage under certain circumstances, given that Good "makes personal sacrifices to help others." I'd venture a guess that most Good people would not, however, have done so in this situation, where the family seemingly had little to lose from not marrying off their daughter.

Yes, but, then, it would be by choice. My point was that the strategy she employed was very much a Neutral one - one that people of every alignment (maybe barring Lawfuls) would use if they wanted out and weren't willing to sacrifice themselves for, well, "little to lose".

[hroþila]

They were presumably as responsible for the forced marriage as her own clan - at least in Hilgya's biased view of things, if not in actual reality - and therefore she had plenty of reason to want to revenge herself on them too. My argument about talking about their clan hall rather than our clan hall remains.

Technically possible, but unlikely IMO. Hilgya did say it was time to "settle things with [her] family once and for all". As for the referent of "their", sure, it can be read that way, but it is inherently ambiguous - personally I read it as referring to the Firehelms, and I see no difficulty in the idea that it's "their" clan hall and not "our" clan hall because she doesn't have anything to do with it personally anymore.

[Emperor Time]

Her poor family, now they might have to live among the trees.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Technically possible, but unlikely IMO. Hilgya did say it was time to "settle things with [her] family once and for all". As for the referent of "their", sure, it can be read that way, but it is inherently ambiguous - personally I read it as referring to the Firehelms, and I see no difficulty in the idea that it's "their" clan hall and not "our" clan hall because she doesn't have anything to do with it personally anymore.

And yet she calls it "my clan", "my brother", "my family". No, sorry, it is very strange that she only decides she is not part of it when it comes to the hall. That doesn't fit.

GW

[Jasder]

But 'their brother' or 'their family' wouldn't make any sense even if she doesn't associate with her family anymore, whereas 'their clan hall' would still work. People who cut off ties with their family might not want to use a term like 'our home' to describe the family home, if they don't see it as their own home. I don't disagree that it could have meant Ivan's clan hall, but I don't think it's clear.

[Fyraltari]

Soo Hilgya camehome after the fiasco of Dorukan. Does that mean she didn't level up during all that time?

Also oblivious Ivan is adorable. Ignorance is bliss.

How are those jockeys not completely dissolved? Or does the racial Constitution bonus help with that? And I had assumed the red-banded horned helm was specific to her being a priest of Loki but apparently it is clanwear.

My headcannon is that the danger of digestion is part of the race. Just like there was a risk of death for Roman chariot-racers.

Why? No reason.
DEATH RACE! YOOOHOO! GET HYPED!

So, like Xykon, RC, Tarquin, Thog, and probably a bunch of others, depending on who you ask. Twirling-mustache level of evil does seem to give bonuses to charm, it seems.

Grey Wolf

Yes. Who would want to read Jonathan Harker anyway?

Hey guys, at first I thought the red bands on Hilgya's armor and helmet had something to do with being a cleric of Loki...

But now I notice that her brothers all wear the same style of armor as well. Hmm.

I think it's their family color. Firehelm remember?
Crossbow dude already bore them.

Like Zimmer, I tend to shrug at the morality here, in the absence of knowledge of exactly who was in her family, which of them were in on the "force her to marry at crossbowpoint" thing, and further details about the family and thus the amount of collateral damage implied by her bankrupting the family. Some weirdo may convince me that Hilgya was in fact horrifically and unambiguously wrong, we'll see.

I would also note that unless she spent an overwhelming majority of her winnings on legal fees, she could have the means to secure homes for relatives of her choosing (like those who didn't/couldn't have had a hand in arranging the marriage to Ivan). Maybe even the entire clan, if for whatever reason she saw fit to; she was a midlevel adventurer who just hit a 70:1 win, non-magical expenses aren't likely to be a huge problem for her.

Yes. I am particularly wondering wether she has nephews/nieces whose future she ruined.
I hope she provides for any innocent in her family but she might consider "not stopping the wedding" crime enough.

Well, to be sure, if you consider murdering an innocent and plan on it and then speak calmly about it, that would usually show you as Evil.

The key word here being innocent. Hilgya has every reason to hate the clans with a passion and anyone that's not a Vulcan would be fairly indiscriminate about whom among the clans they hated, so it's not exactly a big deal for her to talk so calmly about it and it might show quite a bit of restraint on her part that she didn't go through with it.

I said it before and I'll say it again:
Guilt by association is the worst.

[Kish]

Replace "anyone who's not a Vulcan" with "anyone who is a monster" and you'll be right, Weirdo.

[hroþila]

And yet she calls it "my clan", "my brother", "my family". No, sorry, it is very strange that she only decides she is not part of it when it comes to the hall. That doesn't fit.

GW

You can read it whichever way you fancy and it is ambiguous either way, but don't tell me the reading we're proposing isn't natural because it totally is.

[Fyraltari]

"I also knew that with a child on the way, I knew..." Is that correct? Nobody mentionned it so I'm not sure but the second "I knew" is redundant, isn't it?

[Kish]

Sure, but people don't talk like technical writing manuals. It's not puzzling that Hilgya would say "I knew" a second time.

[Lheticus]

How long have we known that the kid's name is Kudzu? Man, the "Kudzu Plot" jokes I must have missed at the time... :(

[Grey_Wolf_c]

How long have we known that the kid's name is Kudzu?

7 strips. And we're going to glide past the fact, it seems.

GW

[Shining Wrath]

Both "Honor, Tradition, and possibly an undiagnosed brain injury" and "Avenging for two" are pure comedy gold.

I have to wonder how one recruits a jockey for a gelatinous cube race - or outfits one. It seems difficult.

I'm now definitely putting Hilgya down as CN in my head canon. She found sympathy for Ivan, a non-violent path to divorce, and achieved non-lethal revenge on her family for the forced marriage.

I have to admit I missed the padlocks. Where were those shown? Also, it now appears that it may not be dwarven society writ large that compels marriage using crossbows and padlocks, just Hilgya's clan. Although the rest of the society certainly tolerates same, so that's likely a moot point. That's pretty rigid, and definitely argues for the dwarves being LN more than LG. Which may have been part of Loki's goal, as he's definitely up to something.

[drazen]

You can read it whichever way you fancy and it is ambiguous either way, but don't tell me the reading we're proposing isn't natural because it totally is.

Hilgya sure seems to straddle the line between CN and CE. Bankrupting her entire clan seems dishonorable, but it was the only way to get out of the marriage without killing anyone. Also, Loki is dishonorable, so perhaps she was just honoring the god she had chosen to follow. Yet she feels bad about stabbing Elan and hurting Durkon, and even (eventually) realized that Ivan wasn't the one who trapped her in a forced, arranged marriage (though assigning his make-the-best-of-it disposition to an undiagnosed brain injury was a bit over the top in her lack of self awareness -- he could have just been being an honorable husband, while as sad as Durkon on the inside).

I guess she could be evil in the "evil in a self-interested way" sense instead of the "doing it for the evulz" sense, but we just saw the poster boy for "affably evil" with Tarquin. Also, Hilgya joining Loki is more of saying "F.U." to the honor system than actively choosing evil (and Loki has seemed far more chaotic & deceptive, while not really overtly evil, in the strip -- the Cleric of Loki in Greysky City didn't seem like a particularly bad dude either, except maybe for murdering Old Blind Pete, but even he said he had never done that before). Hilgya's evil acts seem to be out of necessity for pursuing a particular cause.

Or just the obvious... Durkon is using LG means to uphold and honor a bad, unfair system, while Hilgya is using CE means to try to overthrow it.

[Purple Pheonix]

Oh, Hilgya. I have family members. I understand.

[Fyraltari]

Sure, but people don't talk like technical writing manuals. It's not puzzling that Hilgya would say "I knew" a second time.

I know. they also stutter, start their sentences again, make conjugation/declination mistakes, etc.

It's just that it's the first I've seen Hilgya do something like that. As opposed to the pirates who sometimes do something similar (panel 4). So I wondered wether this was a mistake or if I was missing something.