What does the Crimson Mantle’s aging block do?

[Fyraltari]

Why do you have that impression? If it's because of what Right-Eye said, it should be pointed out it's not like Right-Eye is an expert on how the Crimson Mantle actually functions.

He is however an expert on how Redcloak actually functions having known him his entire life and all.

People mature and change because the passing of time forces them to. Right-Eye gave up on the plan because he wanted a family and realized he couldn’t do both. Redcloak being eternally young looses all reminders that his body would give him of the limited time he has. He won’t change until forced to by something he cannot ignore, like the ending of SoD.

Redcloak doesn’t want to change, very few people do as changing is hard and often painful but unlike real people and (most OOTS people) he can (mostly) afford not to.

[Peelee]

He is however an expert on how Redcloak actually functions having known him his entire life and all.

People mature and change because the passing of time forces them to. Right-Eye gave up on the plan because he wanted a family and realized he couldn’t do both. Redcloak being eternally young looses all reminders that his body would give him of the limited time he has. He won’t change until forced to by something he cannot ignore, like the ending of SoD.

Redcloak doesn’t want to change, very few people do as changing is hard and often painful but unlike real people and (most OOTS people) he can (mostly) afford not to.

Except all the other times Redcloak changed.

[Fyraltari]

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

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Except all the other times Redcloak changed.

He does not change within SoD.

[Peelee]

He does not change within SoD.

Yeah, I started to write a lot more and then truncated it severely.

[CriticalFailure]

He is however an expert on how Redcloak actually functions having known him his entire life and all.

People mature and change because the passing of time forces them to. Right-Eye gave up on the plan because he wanted a family and realized he couldn’t do both. Redcloak being eternally young looses all reminders that his body would give him of the limited time he has. He won’t change until forced to by something he cannot ignore, like the ending of SoD.

Redcloak doesn’t want to change, very few people do as changing is hard and often painful but unlike real people and (most OOTS people) he can (mostly) afford not to.

I think he’s right about Redcloak not maturing and not gaining the perspective you get by aging, but idk if he’s that much of an expert on how Redcloak actually functions. I think it was obvious to him his brother hadn’t matured in the years they’d been apart, but when it comes to other topics he maybe has less insight.

For one thing, that conversation was the first time he realized that Redcloak has the sunk cost fallacy thing due to his hang-ups with taking responsibility for the plan, apparently.

Spoiler

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additionally the fact that he never mentioned what he was planning to do to Xykon until the last minute, and the understandable but strategically poorly-conceived choice to push Redcloak away after being drafted by Xykon, as shown when he calls Redcloak “Xykon’s pet goblin.”

I say this was strategically a poor choice because Right-Eye saw Redcloak change his mind when he was shown what he was missing out on and presented a viable alternative. While it completely makes sense for Right-Eye to no longer want anything to do with Redcloak after what happened, in order to get him on board with striking against Xykon when the time was right I think he needed to get him to be able to see an alternative to pursuing the plan, and further isolating him worked directly against that.

Redcloak also repeatedly demonstrates a better understanding of Xykon than Right-Eye and if he had told his brother sooner it would’ve pre-empted the excuses about what Xykon would do and he could’ve taken advantage of Redcloak’s better understanding of Xykon to improve his plan.

Basically I think strategically things would’ve worked out better if he’d either brought Redcloak in on things earlier or not told him about it at all and just done it.

[Fyraltari]

I think he’s right about Redcloak not maturing and not gaining the perspective you get by aging, but idk if he’s that much of an expert on how Redcloak actually functions. I think it was obvious to him his brother hadn’t matured in the years they’d been apart, but when it comes to other topics he maybe has less insight.

For one thing, that conversation was the first time he realized that Redcloak has the sunk cost fallacy thing due to his hang-ups with taking responsibility for the plan, apparently.

So?

Spoiler

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additionally the fact that he never mentioned what he was planning to do to Xykon until the last minute, and the understandable but strategically poorly-conceived choice to push Redcloak away after being drafted by Xykon, as shown when he calls Redcloak “Xykon’s pet goblin.”

I say this was strategically a poor choice because Right-Eye saw Redcloak change his mind when he was shown what he was missing out on and presented a viable alternative. While it completely makes sense for Right-Eye to no longer want anything to do with Redcloak after what happened, in order to get him on board with striking against Xykon when the time was right I think he needed to get him to be able to see an alternative to pursuing the plan, and further isolating him worked directly against that.

Redcloak also repeatedly demonstrates a better understanding of Xykon than Right-Eye and if he had told his brother sooner it would’ve pre-empted the excuses about what Xykon would do and he could’ve taken advantage of Redcloak’s better understanding of Xykon to improve his plan.

Basically I think strategically things would’ve worked out better if he’d either brought Redcloak in on things earlier or not told him about it at all and just done it.

You need to close your spoiler tags.
Right-Eye did not isolate himself from Redcloak, Red isolated himself from the other goblins, that is why he calls him Xykon's pet goblin.

"Now this is a surprise. Xykon's pet goblin is slumming down here with the rest of us."

[CriticalFailure]

My point with both of those things is that he overlooked things he could’ve done to get his brother to do what he wanted, and he might not have if he understood him better.

[martianmister]

Wouldn't that equally apply to Xykon, and say that he's also being stuck in teenager mode, despite getting to what looks like venerable age? If anything, that should go to show that such a mentality is completely decoupled from aging.

In hindsight, "stuck in teenager mode" describes Xykon better than Redcloak.

[Rrmcklin]

My point with both of those things is that he overlooked things he could’ve done to get his brother to do what he wanted, and he might not have if he understood him better.

What things did Right-Eye overlook that could have changed Redcloak? That's a very big claim that very much flies in the face of the entire point of the story, so I'm going to need some specifics.

[CriticalFailure]

I was more arguing that I think he could probably have manipulated Redcloak into it based on him being able to convince him to give it up and stay before Xykon showed back up. Just speculation.

[Kish]

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

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I think if he had understood his brother better--or, more properly, had understood before he got suddenly Disintegrated that his brother was dead and Redcloak, Xykon's lackey, was the entity he needed to worry about now--he would either have conducted his attack on Xykon without giving Redcloak warning, or have struck at Redcloak first.

[CriticalFailure]

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

Show

I think if he had understood his brother better--or, more properly, had understood before he got suddenly Disintegrated that his brother was dead and Redcloak, Xykon's lackey, was the entity he needed to worry about now--he would either have conducted his attack on Xykon without giving Redcloak warning, or have struck at Redcloak first.

Yeah I agree with that, I think that would have been his best bet.

Spoiler

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I'm not trying to defend Redcloak's actions in some way by saying I think it would've been possible for Right-Eye to manipulate him into going along with what he wants, if that's how people are interpreting it. I just think that based on Right-Eye eventually convincing him to settle down in his village he likely could've also gotten him to go along with what he wanted if he managed to press his brother's buttons in just the right way. Then again, maybe at that point they were too close to getting a gate for it to be a possibility. After killing Right-Eye I think there's no way Redcloak will give up trying to execute the plan obviously.

I think this is mostly just an example of how being willing to sacrifice or not enjoying being evil doesn't actually make someone less evil. Redcloak is normal compared to villains like Xykon in that he is not a sadist for whom murder is a fun hobby, he really did love his family, and if he wasn't bearer of the mantle it's not clear that he would be getting up to much evil. The fact that he doesn't enjoy doing evil things like murdering his brother and does them to fulfill his responsibilities as high priest and complete what he has taken on as his god-given purpose in life rather than from selfishness doesn't make those things less evil, it just makes his it even more of a senseless waste than it already was.

[JBiddles]

Redcloak can still gain experience and perspective, and have character growth. He can still mature in that sense. But I like the idea that in purely physiological terms, his brain is still a teenage brain and his body is still a teenage body. He has a grown man's experience and wisdom, but a young man's impetuousness and resentment. There is no difference between brain and body (yes, OK, souls exist in OotS, but most non-undead humans still run on wetware: see e.g. Redcloak pointing out that Paladins losing the ability to fear is something unnatural and in violation of biological instinct, Elan's brain damage, and if you really insist on direct in-comic proof, this comic has Qarr directly referencing the influence on behaviour of 100%-mundane good-old-fashioned chemical hormones on behaviour).

Redcloak has the hormone profile of a much younger, angrier man.

[CriticalFailure]

Redcloak can still gain experience and perspective, and have character growth. He can still mature in that sense. But I like the idea that in purely physiological terms, his brain is still a teenage brain and his body is still a teenage body. He has a grown man's experience and wisdom, but a young man's impetuousness and resentment. There is no difference between brain and body (yes, OK, souls exist in OotS, but most non-undead humans still run on wetware: see e.g. Redcloak pointing out that Paladins losing the ability to fear is something unnatural and in violation of biological instinct, Elan's brain damage, and if you really insist on direct in-comic proof, this comic has Qarr directly referencing the influence on behaviour of 100%-mundane good-old-fashioned chemical hormones on behaviour).

Redcloak has the hormone profile of a much younger, angrier man.

That’s a good point, I had forgotten about those mentions.

Overall I think I find this line of thinking more persuasive. It’s not like teenagers can’t learn and don’t learn from experience. He can change and grow in some ways due to experience (and does do that in the story). There are also some things that are due to physically growing older that don’t change, and when it comes to experience as his brother pointed out he lacks the experience of growing older and facing mortality and so doesn’t gain the perspective that brings.

With the point about being younger and angrier... once again teenager must be the absolute worst age to be stuck at.

[magic9mushroom]

I was looking for clarification in this in 3.5, but can't find it.

But in earlier versions of the game they distinguished between physical age and actual age. So a change on one didn't automatically affect the other.

EX: Monk's timeless body - The monk's physical stats would become immune to age changes at the point the ability was required. But they'd still get the mental bonuses.

EX: A magical attack ages a character two age categories instantly. They suffer the physical penalties but don't get the mental bonuses.

I assume it works the same way in later versions.

The phane does the latter, and that's in 3.5 (well, 3.0, but it was updated). And Timeless Body's still around in 3.5 in the core books.

However, Timeless Body isn't truly immortality, because it doesn't extend lifespan. The things that do extend lifespan do tend to halt the plusses as well as the minuses (the type example being undead).

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

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I think if he had understood his brother better--or, more properly, had understood before he got suddenly Disintegrated that his brother was dead and Redcloak, Xykon's lackey, was the entity he needed to worry about now--he would either have conducted his attack on Xykon without giving Redcloak warning, or have struck at Redcloak first.

I'm pretty sure he'd have acted differently if he had another high-level arcane spellcaster available. For all Right-Eye's (and Xykon's) bluster, Xykon never truly managed to break Redcloak.

[hroþila]

I'm pretty sure he'd have acted differently if he had another high-level arcane spellcaster available. For all Right-Eye's (and Xykon's) bluster, Xykon never truly managed to break Redcloak.

That's not completely true. If Redcloak was honestly looking for a chance to ditch Xykon, he could have tried to win Tsukiko over instead of antagonizing her from the get go (it wouldn't have worked because Tsukiko had, let's say, a special interest in Xykon, but nevertheless), for example. He also has a number of browncloaks in Azure City he could be mentoring to help them reach whatever the required level is.

[Fyraltari]

Aren’t Browncloaks priests of the Dark One ?

Edit: my impression was that the church’s hierarchy went : white < brown < blue < red.

If that’s the case it’s even possible that the Dark One didn’t create the Crimson Mantle but imbued the uniform of his then-current high priest with magical properties.

[B. Dandelion]

Aren’t Browncloaks priests of the Dark One ?

Edit: my impression was that the church’s hierarchy went : white < brown < blue < red.

If that’s the case it’s even possible that the Dark One didn’t create the Crimson Mantle but imbued the uniform of his then-current high priest with magical properties.

Browncloaks like this one appear to be arcane casters, not clerics. Haley calls him a wizard and Dancing Lights is not a cleric spell. Yeah, even though they look identical to clerics and the different color cloak thing indicating different ranks is established. White's on the bottom and red's at the top, so it makes sense that blue (most common cloak worn by hobgoblin clerics) is somewhere in the middle. But I think brown is its own thing. Maybe the wizards even have their own cloak color-ranking thing going on separate from the clerics.

[The Pilgrim]

Regarding the question presented by the OP, I think that the problem is not that the Crimson Mantle by itself makes changes on the Bearer's mind. The problem, pointed by Right-Eye, was how stopping the aging process affects the Character.

In most fantasy works there are comments on how individuals belonging to races with more life expectancy than humans (mostly, Elves) have their behaviour affected by this fact. Most of those comments are intended to explain why they mature slower, and so a 20-years-old Elf is still a child while a 20-years-old human is an adult.

Even in our own reality, there are certain debates about how the increased life expectancy of humans has an effect on the "pace" of our lives, waiting more years to settle and all that.

General speaking, the philosophical position tends to be "the slower you age, the slower you mature". And, in Redcloak's case, he is totally removed from aging, meaning he is put under stasis on his maturity, blocked at the level of maturity of the age at which he donned the Mantle, which was the goblin equivalent to teenager.

So the question raised by the OP is more related to those philosophical questions about the relationship between life expectancy and maturity, rather than to actual "mind-related magic effects" of the Mantle.

[Kish]

For all Right-Eye's (and Xykon's) bluster, Xykon never truly managed to break Redcloak.

You say "For all Right-Eye's (and Xykon's) bluster, Xykon never truly managed to break Redcloak." and I hear, "The theme of Start of Darkness was lost on me." Let's call the whole thing off.

[Jasdoif]

You say "For all Right-Eye's (and Xykon's) bluster, Xykon never truly managed to break Redcloak." and I hear, "The theme of Start of Darkness was lost on me." Let's call the whole thing off.

Yeah....I mean, I could buy that Redcloak was already broken by that point, but that would just mean Xykon broke him even further (along the same fracture lines, even).

[Rrmcklin]

You say "For all Right-Eye's (and Xykon's) bluster, Xykon never truly managed to break Redcloak." and I hear, "The theme of Start of Darkness was lost on me." Let's call the whole thing off.

I imagine they're counting Redcloak still planning to betray Xykon as not breaking him. Fair enough, though I'd point out that Redcloak had to work to get back to that point, and even now he's still pretty clearly (to me) deluding himself about what his actual situation and the power dynamic truly is.

[dude123nice]

I think that what Right Eye meant was that, due to never aging, Redcloack was never forced to face the prospect of his own mortality, to think of what it was he would be leaving behind, to realise that it is impossible to get the perfect ending and that he should just settle to doing his best in the brief time he has alive (compared to an soul's actual life span, at least). By never aging, Redcloack believes that he has all the time needed to achieve anything he needs to, no matter how impossible it may seem, which is actually a sentiment often held by teenagers before the realities of adult life hit them in the face like a ton of bricks.

[Peelee]

I think that what Right Eye meant was that, due to never aging, Redcloack was never forced to face the prospect of his own mortality, to think of what it was he would be leaving behind, to realise that it is impossible to get the perfect ending and that he should just settle to doing his best in the brief time he has alive (compared to an soul's actual life span, at least). By never aging, Redcloack believes that he has all the time needed to achieve anything he needs to, no matter how impossible it may seem, which is actually a sentiment often held by teenagers before the realities of adult life hit them in the face like a ton of bricks.

I like that reading. And not only because of my brick-smashed face.

[CriticalFailure]

^ That makes sense to me.

As for the whether Redcloak is broken question, what do you qualify as being broken? I think what happened between him and his brother and Xykon certainly messed him up pretty badly and changed him. He seems to still be functional and determined to follow his own goals.

[understatement]

^ That makes sense to me.

As for the whether Redcloak is broken question, what do you qualify as being broken? I think what happened between him and his brother and Xykon certainly messed him up pretty badly and changed him. He seems to still be functional and determined to follow his own goals.

He recuperated.

There's a bit of disjunction between SOD and Redcloak's earlier characterization up to post-Azure City, but I think being in control of thousands of hobgoblins over an official nation-state broadened his perspective considerably. Losing the phylactery makes Xykon open up old wounds -- but I'm guessing that establishing his brother's dream (of a city in peacetime) invoked some sort of change. I mean, look how he crushes the Resistance and straight-up lies (mistruths) to Xykon's skull. That's not the personality of a goblin still stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy of working with X (he possibly still might be stuck in the Plan).

what the f did i just type

[CriticalFailure]

I think he's still stuck in the sunk cost fallacy, and he's keeping it together by telling himself "it'll all be worth it."

Overall he seems to be pretty resilient, but he is also using a massive amount of denial and rationalization to cope with the situation.

[Fyraltari]

He recuperated.

There's a bit of disjunction between SOD and Redcloak's earlier characterization up to post-Azure City, but I think being in control of thousands of hobgoblins over an official nation-state broadened his perspective considerably. Losing the phylactery makes Xykon open up old wounds -- but I'm guessing that establishing his brother's dream (of a city in peacetime) invoked some sort of change. I mean, look how he crushes the Resistance and straight-up lies (mistruths) to Xykon's skull. That's not the personality of a goblin still stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy of working with X (he possibly still might be stuck in the Plan).

what the f did i just type

He's sunk cost fallacy has never been to treat Xykon as a partner, he was deceiving him from day one. is problem is that bruhes aside the countless murder of gobs perpetrated by the lich and that he has lost control of their association. Stealing the phylactery is at best limited damage control.

[Kish]

He's sunk cost fallacy has never been to treat Xykon as a partner, he was deceiving him from day one. is problem is that bruhes aside the countless murder of gobs perpetrated by the lich and that he has lost control of their association. Stealing the phylactery is at best limited damage control.

Indeed. What I believe magic9mushroom and others who have advanced the idea that Redcloak isn't Xykon's slave miss, is that Redcloak asserting "I am in control of Xykon!" even as Xykon merrily slaughters his way through the goblin people Redcloak claims to be acting on the behalf of, isn't a statement of strength or independence, but one of weakness and delusion, and an attitude that Redcloak has had ever since he became Redcloak, with the exception of

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

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the one scene where Xykon ripped off the blindfold, and then promised he would never do so again

.

[martianmister]

Both Redcloak and Xykon claims to be masters of each other.
Both can be wrong or right.
In the end of the day, they both follow the Dark One's plan.
Redcloak knows that, Xykon do not.
In the end of the day, Xykon is the bigger fool.