Wait a minute, why did the ABD care that V killed her son?

[hamishspence]

Well, hang on a second. If apologists for real-life horrific people can nonetheless point to documented instances of them being nice to pets or family members, then this actually contradicts Rich's assertion that you can't "go home and turn your Evil Switch to the off position". Now, I don't know if this assertion "leads to the worst crimes", but it does seem to be the intended point of Tarquin's arc.

The point of Tarquin's arc is that while he can be superficially nice - when it comes to the crunch, he treats even "loved ones" evilly.

[Goblin_Priest]

Don't the Drizz't books end up with more and more good "exception" drow constantly showing up? I remember seeing some of my RP friends joking about that before.

I've read a bunch of those books when I was young, and I don't remember more than 1, or maybe 2 other good drows. And those good drows might very well have been neutral. Been ages, though, and I think they kept pumping out books well after I stopped reading them.

It did create a cliché that many players then wanted to copy, for various reasons, though.

[Razade]

I don’t know if this has already been discussed before or if it hasn’t, but I am curious as to why the black dragon cared so much about her son?

When ordinarily most black dragons do not give a damn about their offspring’s wellbeing or survival. Why did she go out of her way to track down Vaarsuvius and come up with that whole revenge plot?

Black Dragons are highly intellegent, sapient beings. Them caring about their offspring isn't really a stretch is it? Even if you don't accept that. You already solved it. "Most Black Dragons". This one wasn't most.


If even that's not enough, it's how the story went.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I’m not entirely a fan of the normalisation of evil that Rich does - cf real life horrific people whose apologists show them being nice to their pets or own family
What she planned to do to Vs kids shows she was evil

Yes, so was what V did to her. Do you have any proof that the dragon was this evil before she lost her only son, leaving her alone in the world with no hope for the future?

As far as I can tell, she was perfectly neutral until she was pushed past breaking point.

Grey Wolf

[Vinyadan]

The message of those stories is just wonderful, isn't it?
„Dear children, don't act like children or you'll be killed and/or maimed horribly.”
Lessons every kid should learn.

I think that the exaggeration was recognizable as a joke back then, but that's just me.

[zimmerwald1915]

As far as I can tell, she was perfectly neutral until she was pushed past breaking point.

Grey Wolf

She was only ever seen on-panel being Evil, and while keeping to yourself is a Neutral act, anyone can do it, including Evil people. Might as well say that every character is Neutral until they appear and do things, which strikes me as just as absurd as a simultaneously alive and dead cat.

What's more reasonable is to project a character's first-seen actions bearing on alignment back into the past.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

She was only ever seen on-panel being Evil, and while keeping to yourself is a Neutral act, anyone can do it, including Evil people. Might as well say that every character is Neutral until they appear and do things, which strikes me as just as absurd as a simultaneously alive and dead cat.

What's more reasonable is to project a character's first-seen actions bearing on alignment back into the past.

Even more reasonable? To not assume she is lying about how her life went before her kid was killed. A life where she was open minded about cross chromatic relations, visits with friends and family etc does not scream evil. She wasn't away from the cave burning villages for the lols, she was visiting family.

So, again: in absence of proof, I don't see a reason to assume she was evil before she lost everything that made her life worth living.

Grey Wolf

[hroþila]

You're assuming a significant alignment shift for which there is no proof either. Personally, I find it hard to believe that someone who carefully planned her revenge the way she did for weeks before executing it in cold blood wasn't Evil all along. And I see no conflict between this interpretation and accepting what she said about her previous life as the truth.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

You're assuming a significant alignment shift for which there is no proof either. Personally, I find it hard to believe that someone who carefully planned her revenge the way she did for weeks before executing it in cold blood wasn't Evil all along. And I see no conflict between this interpretation and accepting what she said about her previous life as the truth.

You can't be a torturing, mass-murdering rapist and then go home and turn your Evil Switch to the "off" position to spend time with your kids. It doesn't work that way.

GW c

[zimmerwald1915]

Even more reasonable? To not assume she is lying about how her life went before her kid was killed.

Never did. I said as much - that her acts that we know of were Neutral. However, one can easily be Evil and not commit Evil acts for a while, out of laziness, or prudence, or for other reasons. This dragon had already lost her mate to adventurers, and could have laid low for that reason.

One can even be open-minded about the value of other peoples and be Evil. It is LE specifically that is called out as being prejudicial, and in any event other things, for example, eagerness to employ disproportionate force in vengeance, can outweigh tolerance. Hilgya, for instance, is open to the value of human culture, but is to my mind unambiguously Evil.

So, again: in absence of proof, I don't see a reason to assume she was evil before she lost everything that made her life worth living.

I think positing a pre-appearance alignment shift is far more of an assumption than positing a mere change in how she expressed her existing alignment.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Never did. I said as much - that her acts that we know of were Neutral. However, one can easily be Evil and not commit Evil acts for a while, out of laziness, or prudence, or for other reasons. This dragon had already lost her mate to adventurers, and could have laid low for that reason.

You can't be a torturing, mass-murdering rapist and then go home and turn your Evil Switch to the "off" position to spend time with your kids. It doesn't work that way.

I don't give a damn in this particular case what you believe, Zim, because we aren't discussing a real person. We are discussing a creation of Rich Burlew, and he doesn't believe that you can, and I quote, "a torturing, mass-murdering rapist and then go home and turn your Evil Switch to the "off" position".

Consequently, I stand by my statement that the ABD wasn't an evil torturer before V pushed her to be one.

Grey Wolf

[hroþila]

GW c

I disagree with that interpretation of the Giant's quote, for reasons that someone else already elaborated on in this thread. Taken that literally, the quote is demonstrably false.

[hamishspence]

It's worth remembering the rest of the quote:

If you are the sort of person that can commit the acts that Tarquin does daily, then that will find its way into every aspect of your existence. It's who you are. This idea that Tarquin was this perfectly rational actor despite being a complete monster at his Day Job is a pipe dream. Tarquin wants you (and Elan) to think that what he does is separate from who he is—that he's a fundamentally decent man who just so happens to murder a bunch of people here and there—because that's how he tricks you into slowly accepting his blatant Evil as a valid life choice that needs to be respected.

[Morty]

I feel like this is all pretty academic. Tarquin and the black dragon are or were evil, but otherwise they were completely different characters with different stories and roles in the narrative. Which honestly one of the problems with alignment when you think about it.

[Peelee]

I think that the exaggeration was recognizable as a joke back then, but that's just me.

Yes, the Germans are quite well-known for their sense of humor.

For reals, though, have you read that book? To its intended audience?

[Kish]

I don't think Rich ever meant anyone to think the ancient black dragon wasn't evil.

Post 636, anyway. (I still remember someone speculating, entirely validly at the time, that Vaarsuvius was going to arrive at a perfectly intact house and find tacked to the door a note that said, "I could have, but I'm better than you.")

I would also say something about her choosing an elaborate revenge scheme and scrolls of the ninth-level spell Soul Bind over getting her son back and one scroll of the ninth-level spell True Resurrection, but Rich indicated a while ago that she couldn't find anyone willing to cast True Resurrection for her, and might actually have been planning to try once she'd taken revenge on Vaarsuvius, so never mind that.

I also don't see how the logic "if she could try to do something that bad, she can't have loved her son" (let me know if you disagree with this paraphrase) doesn't also lead to "Vaarsuvius never loved their children."

(Pointing to Vaarsuvius' trace-deprived and generally emotionally distraught state would hinge on an invalid assumption that the ancient black dragon was not in comparable emotional distress at the time.)

[Lacuna Caster]

The point of Tarquin's arc is that while he can be superficially nice - when it comes to the crunch, he treats even "loved ones" evilly.

I don't give a damn in this particular case what you believe, Zim, because we aren't discussing a real person. We are discussing a creation of Rich Burlew, and he doesn't believe that you can, and I quote, "a torturing, mass-murdering rapist and then go home and turn your Evil Switch to the "off" position".

Well, as I see it, that is rather the problem with Rich's assertion here. It's implied that Tarquin's ability to inflict horrendous atrocities is incompatible with sincere attachment to his friends and family, and then we have this bunch of other characters (Redcloak, the Elder Dragon, Sabine and Tsukiko after a fashion, and even Belkar after development) that it's strongly implied do have genuine pro-social attachments in their life despite going on gleeful murder sprees.

Now, if he was arguing that it's psychologically possible to be this way and Tarquin in particular just wasn't, that would be one thing. But he's making a broader categorical argument that these qualities aren't compatible at all. In which case... why is Redcloak the designated woobie antihero?

[Rodin]

I don't think we can say with any certainty what alignment the ABD was. Game mechanics make it likely she was Evil, per the usual Color Coded For Your Convenience. Without that purely game-oriented distinction, there's little to draw on.

We know almost nothing of the ABD prior to her encounter with Vaarsuvius. And because she didn't survive said encounter, we know nothing afterwards either.

What I'm getting at here is that we're looking at a single page out of the ABD's life. You could do the same thing for Vaarsuvius and simply pull the time they spent as Darth V, which paints the picture of an unrepentant monster who is willing to commit genocide at the drop of a hat.

In broader terms, we know that the ABD loved her son, because she told us as much and demonstrated by dropping everything and seeking revenge for a period of months. Other than that, we simply don't know enough about the ABD's personality or actions prior to appearing in the comic to establish anything about her character, much less something as fickle as her alignment. Characters with far more screen time than the ABD have debates raging over what alignment they are and whether said alignment has changed over time.

[Vinyadan]

Well, as I see it, that is rather the problem with Rich's assertion here. It's implied that Tarquin's ability to inflict horrendous atrocities is incompatible with sincere attachment to his friends and family, and then we have this bunch of other characters (Redcloak, the Elder Dragon, Sabine and Tsukiko after a fashion, and even Belkar after development) that it's strongly implied do have genuine pro-social attachments in their life despite going on gleeful murder sprees.

Now, if he was arguing that it's psychologically possible to be this way and Tarquin in particular just wasn't, that would be one thing. But he's making a broader categorical argument that these qualities aren't compatible at all. In which case... why is Redcloak the designated woobie antihero?

I understand that quote in a different way. Alignment-wise, those people stay evil in spite of having a safe-area of people they like and don't want to hurt. Although I am not sure of who that is in Redcloak's case (he made it clear that the plan was more important than resurrecting the elder artisan). Tarquin in particular didn't have such a safe area around his family, because of how his character saw his family as an extension of his story; Malak, however, may have been part of it. His female colleague sees things in a different way about family, but I think that she's still evil.

Yes, the Germans are quite well-known for their sense of humor.

For reals, though, have you read that book? To its intended audience?

Actually, I remember a study in a book by the Goethe Institut saying that Germans will laugh more easily than any other nationality. (I also remember saying that in another form some time ago, and people being -- probably rightfully -- offended).

I have read it, yes, when I was a kid, and I did find it upsetting. But I think that it makes no sense to look at it as we are used to today. We are talking about a time when it was normal to give children stories in which the bad guy was tortured and killed by the good guys. Just think about the tolerance for violence we have in Tom & Jerry. Or this horrific thing:



which becomes funny once you realise it's a parody of the samurai, and probably a manga genre in general.

I think that children back then were aware of certain kinds of "terror" being a part of how stories worked, and simply went along. And it's also possible that the metre used in the poems also made them funny; from this point of view, I am completely tone-deaf, as I think most people have become.

The pictures are generally so out of proportion that they can only be read as comedy, with a few exceptions -- the thing with the scissors in particular.

It's also true that old women in Europe had a tradition of telling stories to keep children entertained and that fear is entertaining, so it's possible that certain stories are deliberately scary. But, in the end, the objective was passing a message. There aren't many better way to pass the concept of "don't play with fire or you'll burn yourself" than showing a child actually burning and turning into a pile of ash, with her cats wearing mourning ribbons around their tails and dousing the ashes with their tears.

Also, remember clowns. Nowadays, clowns have been taken over in pop culture by horror. It didn't use to be that way.

[Fyraltari]

why is Redcloak the designated woobie antihero?

I issed that memeo, I thought Redcloak was the tragic villain.

[Kish]

In which case... why is Redcloak the designated woobie antihero?

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

Show

Because your snide slogan ignores the fact that what Rich has actually written with Redcloak is as much an illustration of what he said as Tarquin is. In exactly the same way, even: You are my family member whom I love, and when you don't do what I want you to do, I demonstrate this by murdering you.

[AvatarVecna]

There's one barkeep in the Forgotten Realms that's a retired high-level adventurer, one of the secret rulers of the city and using being a barkeep as cover. People took that and made it a meme. Forgotten Realms is a bog-standard D&D setting, just with a lot of legacy characters and even more wizard and mage fanboyism than usual.

So I know it's not necessarily canon to every edition or every setting, but the 3.5 DMG has rules for randomly generating settlements...and in those books, while they can work with any setting, FR is the default assumed. So while those rules aren't necessarily canon to other editions/settings, they are at least indicative of how WotC feels about demographics in Faerun. A randomly generated thorp/hamlet has a ~13%/~25% chance of having a lvl 10+ commoner around, and a ~5% chance of having a ranger and druid of level 8+. A randomly generated metropolis (population 25000+) will have 64 NPCs of lvl 13+ across the core classes, which can include lvl 18 clerics and druids, level 20 fighters and rogues, and lvl 28 commoners.

[Morty]

So I know it's not necessarily canon to every edition or every setting, but the 3.5 DMG has rules for randomly generating settlements...and in those books, while they can work with any setting, FR is the default assumed. So while those rules aren't necessarily canon to other editions/settings, they are at least indicative of how WotC feels about demographics in Faerun. A randomly generated thorp/hamlet has a ~13%/~25% chance of having a lvl 10+ commoner around, and a ~5% chance of having a ranger and druid of level 8+. A randomly generated metropolis (population 25000+) will have 64 NPCs of lvl 13+ across the core classes, which can include lvl 18 clerics and druids, level 20 fighters and rogues, and lvl 28 commoners.

D&D's perennial inability to reconcile its presented setting with the power of the people that inhabit it - and deal with the power of high-level PCs in general - is a topic for another discussion.

[Kish]

The 3.5 core books assume Oerth (Greyhawk) as the default.

Level 28 characters in any metropolis, hm. Seriously disappointing.

[woweedd]

The 3.5 core books assume Oerth (Greyhawk) as the default.

Level 28 characters in any metropolis, hm. Seriously disappointing.

Level 28 COMMONERS. Now, granted, D&D’s assumes default setting can get a tad ridiculous. We are talking a world where your average level 1 Commoner, with his 1d6 hit dice, can get cold stabbed in the face, and have even odds of walking it off, any major metropolis contains at least one person able to literally raise the dead, and there are entire ecological niches devoted to “screwing over adventurers” and/or “bored wizards thought it’d be funny”.

[Themrys]

I'd say there's plenty of animals that would flee when a predator they can't fend off threatens their offspring, but they still care and they'll often be quite distressed afterwards. Regardless, the ABD didn't flee or anything, so the only thing we know is that her caring was presented not only as normal, but as something that should have been obvious.

Indeed. The dragon not caring that V killed her son would only make sense if her species was known for laying their eggs wherever and then leaving them.

Even with the species of sea turtles who lay their eggs on land and then leave you could argue that they do care, as they dig a hole to hide their eggs in and all.

And of course, mommy dragon is an intelligent creature capable of human speech, therefore, she logically as per the Giant's rules for his universe, can feel the same range of emotions as humans can. (At this point in the narrative, we can tell he doesn't go with the "always evil" thing, and especially doesn't write evil people as incapable of loving their children)

There's men who sleep around and don't care what becomes of any potential offspring, sure.

But because humans are intelligent enough to understand how babies are made, there's women who would never donate eggs because they don't want their own children to be raised by someone else.

Even if the disappointment mommy dragon would have experienced over one of her eggs being destroyed would have been equivalent to that of a human getting her period despite having tried for a baby, she can still deeply care about her already hatched son.

@Grey Wolf: Mass-murdering, torturing rapists are evil towards their own species. Especially rapists tend to hate women. Which doesn't bode well for a happy family life with a wife.

I don't know exactly what constitutes "evil" in D&D world, but assuming that black dragons just eat adventurers like cats eat mice, that would be evil enough to justify their reputation among other sentient species and still not render them incapable of loving their offspring.

[Kish]

We are talking a world where your average level 1 Commoner, with his 1d6 hit dice,

1d4 .

[woweedd]

1d4 .

True. Still, if a Goblin Commoner were to stab them, they could have even odds of living.

[Prinygod]

I understand that quote in a different way. Alignment-wise, those people stay evil in spite of having a safe-area of people they like and don't want to hurt. Although I am not sure of who that is in Redcloak's case (he made it clear that the plan was more important than resurrecting the elder artisan). Tarquin in particular didn't have such a safe area around his family, because of how his character saw his family as an extension of his story; Malak, however, may have been part of it. His female colleague sees things in a different way about family, but I think that she's still evil.

Maybe I am remembering the context wrong, but at the time there was criticism that Tarquin killing nale was out of character, as previously established. Gaint's comment was in response to that criticism. That if you thought Tarquin was "decent", that was just a facade. I feel like there might have been speculation that the Giant was concerned that Tarquin was well-liked by the community, more than he expected from a brutal dictator. And thus he "changed" Tarquin as a response.

[woweedd]

Maybe I am remembering the context wrong, but at the time there was criticism that Tarquin killing nale was out of character, as previously established. Gaint's comment was in response to that criticism. That if you thought Tarquin was "decent", that was just a facade. I feel like there might have been speculation that the Giant was concerned that Tarquin was like by the community more than he expected, and he "changed" Tarquin as a response.

Very much not true. Everything about Tarquin, from his possevie jelsolusuly to his profound sense of entitlement towards other people’s rights and property, to his petty raging screams “sociopathic narracist”. Such people do not make good parents.